LX.

"O sanctissima,O piissima,Dulcis virgo Maria,Mater amata,Intemerata,Ora, ora, pro nobis!"

The Doctor would have been shocked had he heard the words tripping from the tongue of Adèle; yet, for her, they had no meaning save as expressive of a deep yearning for motherly guidance and motherly affection.

Mrs. Elderkin, with her kindly instinct, had seen the perplexity of Adèle, and had said to her one day, "Ady, my dear, is the thought not grateful to you that you will meet your mother once more, and be clasped in her arms?"

"If I could,—if I could!" said Adèle, with a burst of tears.

"But you will, my child, you will. The Doctor has shown us the letters of your father. Nothing can be clearer. Even now she must be longing to greet you."

"Why does she not come, then?"—with a tone that was almost taunting.

"But, Adèle, my dear, there may be reasons of which you do not know or which you could not understand."

"I could,—I do!" said Adèle, with spirit mastering her grief. "'T is not my mother, my true mother; she is in the graveyard; I know it!"

"My dear child, do not decide hastily. We love you; we all love you. You know that. And whatever may happen, you shall have a home with us. I will be a mother to you, Adèle."

The girl kissed her good hostess, and the words lingered on her ear long after nightfall. Why not her mother? What parent could be more kind? What home more grateful? And should she bring dishonor to it then? Could she be less sensitive to that thought than her father had already shown himself? She perceives, indeed, that within a short time, and since the later communications from her father, the manner of those who had looked most suspiciously upon her has changed. But they do not know the secret of that broidered kerchief,—the secret of that terrible death-clasp, which she never, never can forget. She will be true to her own sense of honor; she will be true, too, to her own faith,—the faith in which she has been reared,—whatevermay be the persuasions of that new relative beyond the seas whom she so dreads to meet.

Indeed, it is with dreary anticipations that she forecasts now her return to thatbelle Francewhich has so long borne olive-branches along its shores for welcome; she foresees struggle, change, hypocrisies, may be,—who can tell?—and she begins to count the weeks of her stay amid the quiet of Ashfield in the same spirit in which youngsters score off the remaining days of the long vacation. Adèle finds herself gathering, and pressing within the leaves of some cherished book, little sprays of dead bloom that shall be, in the dim and mysterious future, mementoes of the walks, the frolics, the joys that have belonged to this staid New England home. From the very parsonage door she has brought away a sprig of a rampant sweet-brier that has grown there this many a year, and its delicate leaflets are among her chiefest treasures.

More eagerly than ever she listens to the kindly voices that greet her and speak cheer to her in the home of the Elderkins,—voices which she feels bitterly will soon be heard no more by her. Even the delicate and always respectful attentions of Phil have an added, though a painful charm, since they are so soon to have an end. She knows that she will remember him always, though his tenderest words can waken no hopes of a brighter future for her. She even takes him partially into her confidence, and, strolling with him down the street one day, she decoys him to the churchyard gate, where she points out to him the stone she had placed over the grave that was so sacred to her.

"Phil," said she, "you have always been full of kindness for me. When I am gone, have a care of that stone and grave, please, Phil. My best friend lies there."

"I don't think you know your best friends," stammered Phil.

"I know you are one," said Adèle, calmly, "and that I can trust you to do what I ask about this grave. Can I, Phil?"

"You know you can, Adèle; but I don't like this talk of your going, as if you were never to be among us again. Do you think you can be happiest yonder with strangers, Adèle?"

"It's not—where I can be happiest, Phil; I don't ask myself that question; I fear I never can";—and her lips trembled as she said it.

"You can,—you ought," burst out Phil, fired at sight of her emotion, and would have gone on bravely and gallantly, may be, with the passion that was surging in him, if a look of hers and a warning finger had not stayed him.

"We'll talk no more of this, Phil"; and her lips were as firm as iron now.

Both of them serious and silent for a while; until at length Adèle, in quite her old manner, says: "Of course, Phil, father may bring me to America again some day; and if so, I shall certainly beg for a little visit in Ashfield. It would be very ungrateful in me not to remember the pleasant times I've had here."

But Phil cannot so deftly change the color of his talk; his chattiness has all gone from him. Nor does it revive on reaching home. Good Mrs. Elderkin says, "What makes you so crusty, Phil?"

Maverick arrives, as he had promised to do, some time in early July; comes up from the city without announcing himself in advance; and, leaving the old coach, which still makes its periodical trips from the river, a mile out from the town, strolls along the highway. He remembers well the old outline of the hills; and the straggling hedge-rows, the scattered granite boulders, the whistling of a quail from a near fence in the meadow, all recall the old scenes which he knew in boyhood. At a solitary house by the wayside a flaxen-haired youngster is blowingoff soap-bubbles into the air,—with obstreperous glee whenever one rises above the house-tops,—while the mother, with arms akimbo, looks admiringly from the open window. It was the home to which the feet of Adèle had latterly so often wandered.

Maverick is anxious for a word with the Doctor before his interview with Adèle even. He does not know her present home; but he is sure he can recall the old parsonage, in whose exterior, indeed, there have been no changes for years. The shade of the embowering elms is grateful as he strolls on into the main street of the town. It is early afternoon, and there are few passers-by. Here and there a blind is coyly turned, and a sly glance cast upon the stranger. A trio of school-boys look wonderingly at his foreign air and dress. A few loiterers upon the tavern steps—instructed, doubtless, by the stage-driver, who has duly delivered his portmanteau—remark upon him as he passes.

And now at last he sees the old porch,—the diamond lights in the door. Twenty and more years ago, and he had lounged there, as the pretty Rachel drove up in the parson's chaise. The same rose-brier is nodding its untrimmed boughs by the door. From the open window above he catches a glimpse of a hard, thin face, with spectacles on nose, that scans him curiously. The Doctor's hat and cane are upon the table at the foot of the stairs within. He taps with his knuckles upon the study-door,—and again the two college mates are met together. At sight of the visitor, whom he recognizes at a glance, the heart of the old man is stirred by a little of the old youthful feeling.

"Maverick!" and he greets him with open hand.

"Johns, God bless you!"

The parson was white-haired, and was feeble to a degree that shocked Maverick; while the latter was still erect and prim, and, with his gray hair carefully brushed to conceal his growing baldness, appeared in excellent preservation. His coquettings for sixty years with the world, the flesh, and the Devil had not yet reduced hisphisiqueto that degree of weakness which the multiplied spiritual wrestlings had entailed upon the good Doctor. The minister recognized this with a look rather of pity than of envy, and may possibly have bethought himself of that Dives who "in his lifetime received good things," but "now is tormented."

Yet he ventured upon no warning; there is, indeed, a certain assured manner about the man of the world who has passed middle age, which a country parson, however good or earnest he may be, would no more attempt to pierce than he would attempt a thrust of his pen through ice.

Their conversation, after the first greetings, naturally centres upon Adèle. Maverick is relieved to find that she knows, even now, the worst; but he is grievously pained to learn that she is still in doubt, by reason of that strange episode which had grown out of the presence and death of Madame Arles,—an episode which, even now, he is at a loss to explain.

"She will be unwilling to return with me then," said Maverick, in a troubled manner.

"No," said the Doctor, "she expects that. You will find in her, Maverick, a beautiful respect for your authority; and, I think, a still higher respect for the truth."

So it was with disturbed and conflicting feelings that Maverick made his way to the present home of Adèle.

The windows and doors of the Elderkin mansion were all open upon that July day. Adèle had seen him, even as he entered the little gate, and, recognizing him on the instant, had rushed down to meet him in the hall.

"Papa! papa!" and she had buried her face upon his bosom.

"Adèle, darling! you are glad to welcome me then?"

"Delighted, papa."

And Maverick kissed, again and again, that fair face of which he was so proud.

We recoil from the attempt to transcribethe glowing intimacy of their first talk.

After a time, Maverick says, "You will be glad to return with me,—glad to embrace again your mother?"

"My own, true mother?" said Adèle, the blood running now swift over cheek and brow.

"Your own, Adèle,—your own! As God is true!"

Adèle grows calm,—an unwonted calmness. "Tell me how she looks, papa," said she.

"Your figure, Adèle; not so tall, perhaps, but slight like you; and her hair,—you have her hair, darling (and he kissed it). Your eye too, for color, with a slight, hardly noticeable cast in it." And as Adèle turned an inquiring glance upon him, he exclaimed: "You have that too, my darling, as you look at me now."

Adèle, still calm, says: "I know it, papa; I have seen her. Do not deceive me. She died in these arms, papa!"—and with that her calmness is gone. She can only weep upon his shoulder.

"But, Adèle, child, this cannot be; do not trust to so wild a fancy. You surely believe me, darling!"

Had she argued the matter, he would have been better satisfied. She did not, however. Her old tranquillity came again.

"I will go with you, papa, cheerfully," said she.

It was only too evident to Maverick that there was a cause of distrust between them. Under all of Adèle's earnest demonstrations of affection, which were intensely grateful to him, there was still a certain apparent reserve of confidence, as if some great inward leaning of her heart found no support in him or his. This touched him to the quick. The Doctor—had he unfolded the matter to him fully—would have called it, may be, the sting of retribution. Nor was Maverick at all certain that the shadowy doubt which seemed to rest upon the mind of Adèle with respect to the identity of her mother was the sole cause of this secret reserve of confidence. It might be, he thought, that her affections were otherwise engaged, and that the change to which she assented with so little fervor would be at the cost of other ties to which he was a stranger.

On this score he consulted with the Doctor. As regarded Reuben, there could be no doubt. Whatever tie may have existed there was long since broken. With respect to Phil Elderkin the parson was not so certain. Maverick had been attracted by his fine, frank manner, and was not blind to his capital business capacities and prospects. If the happiness of Adèle were in question, he could entertain the affair. He even ventured to approach the topic—coyly as he could—in a talk with Adèle; and she, as the first glimmer of his meaning dawned upon her, says, "Don't whisper it, papa. It can never be."

And so Maverick—not a little disconcerted at the thought that he cannot now, as once, fathom all the depths of his child's sensibilities—sets himself resolutely to the work of preparation for departure. Hisaffairesmay keep him a month, and involve a visit to one or two of the principal cities; then, ho forla belle France! Adèle certainly lends a cheerful assent. He cannot doubt—with those repeated kisses on his cheek and brow—her earnest filial affection; and if her sentiment slips beyond his control, or parries all his keenness of vision, what else has a father, verging upon sixty, to expect in a daughter, tenderly affectionate as she may be? Maverick's philosophy taught him to "take the world as it is." Only one serious apprehension of disquietude oppressed him; the doubts and vagaries of Adèle would clear themselves under the embrace of Julie; but in respect to the harmony of their religious beliefs he had grave doubts. There had grown upon Adèle, since he had last seen her, a womanly dignity, which even a mother must respect; and into that dignity—into the woof and warp of it—were inwrought all her religious sympathies.Was his home yonder, across the seas, to become the scene of struggles about creeds? It certainly was not the sort of domestic picture he had foreshadowed to himself at twenty-five. But at sixty a man blows bubbles no longer—except that of his own conceit. The heart of Maverick was not dead in him; a kiss of Adèle wakened a thrilling, delicious sensation there, of which he had forgotten his capability. He followed her graceful step and figure with an eye that looked beyond and haunted the past—vainly, vainly! Her "Papa!"—sweetly uttered—stirred sensibilities in him that amazed himself, and seemed like the phantoms of dreams he dreamed long ago.

But in the midst of Maverick's preparations for departure a letter came to hand from Mrs. Maverick, which complicated once more the situation.

The mother has read the letter of her child,—the letter in which appeal had been made to the father in behalf of the "unworthy" one whom the daughter believed to be sleeping in her grave. The tenderness of the appeal smote the poor woman to the heart. It bound her to the child she scarce had seen by bonds into which her whole moral being was knitted anew. But we must give the letter entire, as offering explanations which can in no way be better set forth. The very language kindles the ardor of Adèle. Her own old speech again, with the French echo of her childhood in every line.

"Mon cher Monsieur,"—in this way she begins; for her religious severities, if not her years, have curbed any disposition to explosive tenderness,—"I have received the letter of our child, which was addressed to you. I cannot tell you the feelings with which I have read it. I long to clasp her to my heart. And she appeals to you, for me,—the dear child! Yes, you have well done in telling her that I was unworthy (méchante). It is true,—unworthy in forgetting duty,—unworthy in loving too well. O Monsieur! if I could live over again that life,—that dear young life among the olive orchards! But the good Christ (thank Him!) leads back the repentant wanderers into the fold of His Church.

'Laus tibi, Christe!'

"And the poor child believes that I am in my grave! May be that were better for her and better for me. But no, I shall clasp her to my heart once more,—she, the poor babe! But I forget myself; it is a woman's letter I have been reading. What earnestness! what maturity! what dignity! what tenderness! And will she be as tender to the living as to the erring one whom she believes dead? My heart stops when I ask myself. Yes, I know she will. The Blessed Virgin whispers me that she will, and I fly to greet her! A month, two months, three months, four months?—It is an age.

"Monsieur! I cannot wait. I must take ship—sail—wings (if I could find them), and go to meet my child. Until I do there is a tempest in my brain—heart—everywhere. You are surprised, Monsieur, but there is another reason why I should go to this land where Adèle has lived. Do you wish to know it? Listen, then, Monsieur!

"Do you know who this poor sufferer was whom our child had learned so to love, who died in her arms, who sleeps in the graveyard there, and of whom Adèle thinks as of a mother? I have inquired, I have searched high and low, I have fathomed all. Ah, my poor, good sister Marie! Only Marie! You have never known her. In those other days at dear Arles she was too good for you to know her. Yet even then she was a guardian angel,—a guardian too late.Mea culpa! Mea culpa!

"I know it can be only Marie; I know it can be only she, who sleeps under the sod in Ash——(ce nom m'échappe).

"Listen again: in those early, bitter charming days, when you, Monsieur, knew the hillsides and the drives about our dear old town of Arles, poor Marie was away; had she been there, I had never listened, as I did listen, to the words you whispered in my ear. Only when it was too late, she came. Poor, good Marie! how she pleaded with me! How her tender, good face spoke reproaches to me! If I was the pride of our household, she was the angel. She it was, who, knowing the worst, said, 'Julie, this must end!' She it was who labored day and night to set me free from the wicked web that bound me. I reproached her, the poor, good Marie, in saying that she was the plainer, that she had no beauty, that she was devoured with envy. But the Blessed Virgin was working ever by her side. Whatever doubts you may have entertained of me, Monsieur,—she created them; whatever suspicions tortured you,—she fed them, but always with the holiest of motives. And when shame came, as it did come, the poor Marie would have screened me,—would have carried the odium herself. Good Marie! the angels have her in keeping!

"Listen again, Monsieur! When that story, that false story, of the death of my poor child, came to light in the journals, who but Marie should come to me—deceived herself as I was deceived—and say, 'Julie, dear one, God has taken the child in mercy; there is no stigma can rest upon you in the eyes of the world. Live now as the Blessed Magdalen lived when Christ had befriended her.' And by her strength I was made strong; the Blessed Virgin be thanked!

"Finally, it came to her knowledge one day,—the dear Marie!—that the rumor of the death was untrue,—that the babe was living,—that the poor child had been sent over the seas to your home, Monsieur. Well, I was far away in the East. Does Marie tell me? No, the dear one! She writes me, that she is going 'over seas,'—tired ofla belle France,—she who loved it so dearly! And she went,—to watch, to pray, to console. And I, the mother!—Mon Dieu, Monsieur, the words fail me. No wonder our child loved her; no wonder she seems a mother to her!

"Listen yet again, Monsieur. My poor sister died yonder, in that heretical land,—may be without absolution.

'Ave Martha margaritaIn corona Jesu sita,Tam in morte quam in vitaSis nobis propitia!'

I must go, if it be only to find her grave, and to secure her burial in some consecrated spot. She waits for me,—her ghost, her spirit,—I must go; the holy water must be sprinkled; the priestly rites be said. Marie, poor Marie, I will not fail you.

"Monsieur, I must go!—not alone to greet our child, but to do justice to my sainted sister! Listen well! All that has been devotional in my poor life centres here! I must go,—I must do what I may to hallow my poor sister's grave. Adèle will not give up her welcome surely, if I am moved by such religious purpose. She, too, must join me in anAve Mariaover that resting-place of the departed.

"I shall send this letter by the overland and British mail, that it may come to you very swiftly. It will come to you while you are with the poor child,—our Adèle. Greet her for me as warmly as you can. Tell her I shall hope, God willing, to bring her into the bosom of his Holy Church Catholic. I shall try and love her, though she remain a heretic; but this will not be.

"If I can enough curb myself, I shall wait for your answer, Monsieur; but it is necessary that I go yonder. Look for me; kiss our child for me. And if you ever prayed, Monsieur, I should say, pray for

"Votre amie,"Julie."

"Votre amie,

"Julie."

The letter is of the nature of a revelation to Adèle; her doubts respecting Madame Arles vanish on the instant. The truth, as set forth in her mother'slanguage, blazes upon her mind like a flame. She loves the grave none the less, but the mother by far the more. She, too, wishes to greet her amid the scenes which she has known so long. Nor is Maverick himself averse to this new disposition of affairs, if indeed he possessed any power (which he somewhat doubts) of readjusting it. Seeing the kindly intentions toward Adèle, and the tolerant feeling (to say the least) with which Mrs. Maverick will be met by these friends of the daughter, he trusts that the mother's interviews with the Doctor, and a knowledge of the kindly influences under which Adèle has grown up, may lessen the danger of a religious altercation between mother and child, which has been his great bugbear in view of their future association.

A man of the world, like Maverick, naturally takes this common-sense view of religious differences; why not compound matters, he thinks; and he hints as much quietly to the parson. The old gentleman's spirit is stirred to its depths by the intimation; like all earnest zealots, he recognizes one only unswerving rule of faith, and that the faith in which he has been reared. They who hold conflicting doctrines must yield,—yield absolutely,—or there is no safety for them. In his eye there was but one strait gate to the Celestial City, and that any wearing the furbelows of Rome should ever enter thereat could only come of God's exceeding mercy; for himself, it must always be a duty to cry aloud to such to strip themselves clean of their mummery, and do works "meet for repentance."

Adèle, after her first period of exultation over the recent news is passed, relapses—perhaps by reason of its excess—into something of her old vague doubt and apprehension of coming evil. The truth—if it be truth—is so strange!—so mysteriously strange that she shall indeed clasp her mother to her heart; the grave yonder is so real! and that fearful embrace in death so present to her! Or it may be an anticipation of the fearful spiritual estrangement that must ensue, and of which she seems to find confirmation in the earnest talk and gloomy forebodings of the Doctor.

Maverick effects a diversion by proposing a jaunt of travel, in which Rose shall be their companion. Adèle accepts the scheme with delight,—a delight, after all, which lies as much in the thought of watching the eager enjoyment of Rose as in any pleasant distractions of her own. The pleasure of Maverick is by no means so great as in that trip of a few years back. Then he had for companion an enthusiastic girl, to whom life was fresh, and all the clouds that seemed to rest upon it so shadowy, that each morning sun lifting among the mountains dispersed them utterly.

Now, Adèle showed the thoughtfulness of a woman,—her enthusiasms held in check by a more calm estimate of the life that opened before her,—her sportiveness overborne by a soberness, which, if it gave dignity, gave also a womanly gravity. Yet she did not lack filial devotion; she admired still that easy world-manner of his which had once called out her enthusiastic regard, but now queried in her secret heart if its acquisition had not involved cost of purity of conscience. She loved him too,—yes, she loved him; and her evening and morning kiss and embrace were reminders to him of a joy he might have won, but had not,—of a home peace that might have been his, but whose image now only lifted above his horizon like some splendid mirage crowded with floating fairy shapes, and like the mirage melted presently into idle vapor.

It was a novel experience for Maverick to find himself (as he did time and again upon this summer trip in New England) sandwiched, of a Sunday, between his two blooming companions and some sober-sided deacon, in the pew of a country meeting-house. How his friend Papiol would have stared! And the suggestion, coming to him with the buzz of a summer fly through the open windows, did not add to his devotionalsentiment. Yet Maverick would follow gravely the scramble of the singers through the appointed hymn with a sober self-denial, counting the self-denial a virtue. We all make memoranda of the small religious virtues when the large ones are missing.

Upon the return to Ashfield there is found a new letter from Madam Maverick. She can restrain herself no longer. Under the advices of her brother, she will, with her maid, take the first safe ship leaving Marseilles for New York. She longs to bring Adèle with herself, by special consecration, under the guardianship of the Holy Virgin.

The Doctor is greatly grieved in view of the speedy departure of Adèle, and tenfold grieved when Maverick lays before him the letter of the mother, and he sees the fiery zeal which the poor child must confront.

Over and over in those last interviews he seeks to fortify her faith; he warns her against the delusions, the falsities, the idolatries of Rome; he warns her to distrust a religion of creeds, of human authority, of traditions. Christ, the Bible,—these are the true monitors; and "Mind, Adaly," says he, "hold fast always to the Doctrine of the Westminster Divines. That is sound,—that is sound!"

Reuben went with a light heart upon his voyage. The tender memories of Ashfield were mostly lived down. (Had the letter of Adèle ever reached him, it might have been far different.) Rose, Phil, the Tourtelots, the Tew partners (still worrying through a green old age), the meeting-house, even the Doctor himself and Adèle, seemed to belong to a sphere whose interests were widely separate from his own, and in which he should appear henceforth only as a casual spectator. The fascinations of his brilliant business successes had a firm grip upon him. He indulges himself, indeed, from time to time, with the fancy that some day, far off now, he will return to the scenes of his boyhood, and astonish some of the old landholders by buying them out at a fabulous price, and by erecting a "castle" of his own, to be enlivened by the fairy graces of some sylph not yet fairly determined upon. Surely not Rose, who would hardly be equal to the grandeur of his proposed establishment, if she were not already engrossed by that "noodle" (his thought expressing itself thus wrathfully) of an assistant minister. Adèle,—and the name has something in it that electrifies, in spite of himself,—Adèle, if she ever overcomes her qualms of conscience, will yield to the tender persuasions of Phil. "Good luck to him!"—and he says this, too, with a kind of wrathful glee.

Still, he builds his cloud castles; some one must needs inhabit them. Some paragon of refinement and of beauty will one day appear, for whose tripping feet his wealth will lay down a path of pearls and gold. The lonely, star-lit nights at sea encourage such phantasms; and the break of the waves upon the bow, with their myriad of phosphorescent sparkles, cheats and illumines the fancy. We will not follow him throughout his voyage. On a balmy morning of July he wakes with the great cliff of Gibraltar frowning on him. After this come light, baffling winds, and for a week he looks southward upon the mysterious, violet lift of the Barbary shores, and pushes slowly eastward into the blue expanse of the Mediterranean. In the Sicilian ports he is abundantly successful. He has ample time to cross over to Naples, to ascend Vesuvius, and to explore Herculaneum and Pompeii. But he does not forget the other side of the beautiful bay, Baiæ and Pozzuoli. He takes, indeed, a healthful pleasure in writing to the Doctor a description of this latter, and of his walk in the vicinity of the great seaport where St. Paul must have landed from his ship of the Castor and Pollux, on his way from Syracuse. But he does not tell the Doctor that, on the same evening, he attended an opera atthe San Carlo in Naples, of which the ballet, if nothing else, would have called down the good man's anathema.

An American of twenty-five, placed for the first time upon the sunny pavements of Naples, takes a new lease of life,—at least of its imaginative part. The beautiful blue stretch of sea, the lava streets, the buried towns and cities, the baths and ruins of Baiæ, the burning mountain, piling its smoke and fire into the serene sky, the memories of Tiberius, of Cicero, of Virgil,—all these enchant him. And beside these are the things of to-day,—the luscious melons, the oranges, the figs, the war-ships lying on the bay, the bloody miracle of St. Januarius, the Lazzaroni upon the church steps, the processions of friars, and always the window of his chamber, looking one way upon blue Capri, and the other upon smouldering Vesuvius.

At Naples Reuben hears from the captain of the Meteor—in which good ship he has made his voyage, and counts upon making his return—that the vessel can take up half her cargo at a better freight by touching at Marseilles. Whereupon Reuben orders him to go thither, promising to join him at that port in a fortnight. A fortnight only for Rome, for Florence, for Pisa, for the City of Palaces, and then the marvellous Cornice road along the shores of the sea. Terracina brought back to him the story of Mr. Alderman Popkins and the Principessa, and the bandits; after this came the heights of Albano and Soracte, and there, at last, the Tiber, the pyramid tomb, the great church dome, the stone pines of the Janiculan hill,—Rome itself. Reuben was not strong or curious in his classics; the galleries and the churches took a deeper hold upon him than the Forum and the ruins. He wandered for hours together under the arches of St. Peter's. He wished he might have led the Doctor along its pavement into the very presence of the mysteries of the Scarlet Woman of Babylon. He wished Miss Almira, with her saffron ribbons, might be there, sniffing at her little vial of salts, and may be singing treble. The very meeting-house upon the green, that was so held in reverence, with its belfry and spire atop, would hardly make a scaffolding from which to brush the cobwebs from the frieze below the vaulting of this grandest of temples. Oddly enough, he fancies Deacon Tourtelot, in his snuff-colored surtout, pacing down the nave with him, and saying,—as he would be like to say,—"Must ha' been a smart man that built it; but I guess they don't have better preachin', as a gineral thing, than the old Doctor gives us on Fast-Days or in 'protracted' meetin's."

Such queer humors and droll comparisons flash into the mind of Reuben, even under all his sense of awe,—a swift, disorderly mingling of the themes and offices which kindled his first sense of religious awe under a home atmosphere with the wondrous forms and splendor which kindle a new awe now. The great dome enwalling with glittering mosaics a heaven of its own, and blazing with figured saints, and the golden distich, "Thou art Peter,—to thee will I give the keys of the kingdom of heaven,"—all this seems too grand to be untrue. Are not the keys verily here? Can falsehood build up so august a lie? A couple of friars shuffle past him, and go to their prayers at some near altar; he does not even smile at their shaven pates and their dowdy, coarse gowns of serge. Low music from some far-away chapel comes floating under the panelled vaultings, and loses itself under the great dome, with a sound so gentle, so full of entreaty, that it seems to him the dove on the high altar might have made it with a cooing and a flutter of her white wings. A mother and two daughters, in black, glide past him, and drop upon their knees before some saintly shrine, and murmur their thanksgivings, or their entreaty. And he, with no aim of worship, yet somehow shocked out of his unbelief by the very material influences around him.

Reuben's old wranglings and struggles with doubt had ended—where somany are apt to end, when the world is sunny and success weaves its silken meshes for the disport of self—in a quiet disbelief that angered him no longer, because he had given over all fight with it. But the great dome, flaming with its letters,Ædificabo meam Ecclesiam, shining there for ages, kindled the fight anew. And strange as it may seem, and perplexing as it was to the Doctor (when he received Reuben's story of it), he came out from his first visit to the great Romish temple with his religious nature more deeply stirred than it had been for years.

Ædificabo meam Ecclesiam.HEhad uttered it. There was then something to build,—something that had been built, at whose shrine millions worshipped trustingly.

Under the sombre vaultings of the great Florentine Cathedral, the impression was not weakened. The austere gloom of it chimed more nearly with his state of unrest. Then there are the galleries, the painted ceilings,—angels, saints, martyrs, holy families,—can art have been leashed through so many ages with a pleasant fiction? Is there not somewhere at bottom an earnest, vital truth, which men must needs cling by if they be healthful and earnest themselves? Even the meretricious adornments of the churches of Genoa afford new evidence of the way in which the heart of a people has lavished itself upon belief; and if belief, why, then, hope.

Upon the Cornice road, with Italy behind him and home before (such home as he knows), he thinks once more of those he has left. Not that he has forgotten them altogether; he has purchased a rich coral necklace in Naples, which will be the very thing for his old friend Rose; and, in Rome, the richest cameos to be found in the Via Condotti he has secured for Adèle; even for Aunt Eliza he has brought away from Florence a bit of thepietra dura, a few olive-leaves upon a black ground. Nor has he forgotten a rich piece of the Genoese velvet for Mrs. Brindlock; and, for his father, an old missal, which, he trusts, dates back far enough to save it from the odium he attaches to the present Church, and to give it an early Christian sanctity. He has counted upon seeing Mr. Maverick at Marseilles, but learns, with surprise, upon his arrival there, that this gentleman had sailed for America some months previously. The ship is making a capital freight, and the captain informs him that application has been made for the only vacant state-room in their little cabin by a lady attended by her maid. Reuben assents cheerfully to this accession of companionship; and, running off for a sight of the ruins at Nismes and Arles, returns only in time to catch the ship upon the day of its departure. As they pass out of harbor, the lady passenger, in deep black, (the face seems half familiar to him,) watches wistfully the receding shores, and, as they run abreast the chapel of Nôtre Dame de la Garde, she devoutly crosses herself and tells her beads.

Reuben is to make the voyage with the mother of Adèle. Both bound to the same quiet township of New England; he, to reach Ashfield once more, there to undergo swiftly a new experience,—an experience that can come to no man but once; she, to be clasped in the arms of Adèle,—a cold embrace and the last!

Brook Farm,Sept. 26, 1841.—A walk this morning along the Needham road. A clear, breezy morning, after nearly a week of cloudy and showery weather. The grass is much more fresh and vivid than it was last month, and trees still retain much of their verdure, though here and there is a shrub or a bough arrayed in scarlet and gold. Along the road, in the midst of a beaten track, I saw mushrooms or toadstools, which had sprung up probably during the night.

The houses in this vicinity are, many of them, quite antique, with long, sloping roofs, commencing at a few feet from the ground, and ending in a lofty peak. Some of them have huge, old elms overshadowing the yard. One may see the family sleigh near the door, it having stood there all through the summer sunshine, and perhaps with weeds sprouting through the crevices of its bottom, the growth of the months since snow departed. Old barns, patched and supported by timbers leaning against the sides, and stained with the excrement of past ages.

In the forenoon, I walked along the edge of the meadow, towards Cow Island. Large trees, almost a wood, principally of pine with the green pasture-glades intermixed, and cattle feeding. They cease grazing when an intruder appears, and look at him with long and wary observation, then bend their heads to the pasture again. Where the firm ground of the pasture ceases, the meadow begins,—loose, spongy, yielding to the tread, sometimes permitting the foot to sink into black mud, or perhaps over ankles in water. Cattle paths, somewhat firmer than the general surface, traverse the dense shrubbery which has overgrown the meadow. This shrubbery consists of small birch, elders, maples, and other trees, with here and there white pines of larger growth. The whole is tangled and wild and thick-set, so that it is necessary to part the nestling stems and branches, and go crashing through. There are creeping plants of various sorts, which clamber up the trees, and some of them have changed color in the slight frosts which already have befallen these low grounds, so that one sees a spiral wreath of scarlet leaves twining up to the top of a green tree, intermingling its bright hues with their verdure, as if all were of one piece. Sometimes, instead of scarlet, the spiral wreath is of a golden yellow.

Within the verge of the meadow, mostly near the firm shore of pasture ground, I found several grape-vines, hung with an abundance of large purple grapes. The vines had caught hold of maples and alders, and climbed to the summit, curling round about and interwreathing their twisted folds in so intimate a manner that it was not easy to tell the parasite from the supporting tree or shrub. Sometimes the same vine had enveloped several shrubs, and caused a strange, tangled confusion, converting all these poor plants to the purpose of its own support, and hindering their growing to their own benefit and convenience. The broad vine-leaves, some of them yellow or yellowish-tinged, were seen apparently glowing on the same stems with the silver-maple leaves, and those of the other shrubs, thus married against their will by the conjugal twine; and the purple clusters of grapes hung down from above and in the midst, so that one might "gather grapes," if not "of thorns," yet of as alien bushes.

One vine had ascended almost to the tip of a large white pine, spreading its leaves, and hanging its purple clustersamong all its boughs,—still climbing and clambering, as if it would not be content till it had crowned the very summit with a wreath of its own foliage and bunches of grapes. I mounted high into the tree and ate the fruit there, while the vine wreathed still higher into the depths above my head. The grapes were sour, being not yet fully ripe. Some of them, however, were sweet and pleasant.

September 27.—A ride to Brighton yesterday morning, it being the day of the weekly Cattle Fair. William Allen and myself went in a wagon, carrying a calf to be sold at the fair. The calf had not had his breakfast, as his mother had preceded him to Brighton, and he kept expressing his hunger and discomfort by loud, sonorous baas, especially when we passed any cattle in the fields or in the road. The cows, grazing within hearing, expressed great interest, and some of them came galloping to the roadside to behold the calf. Little children, also, on their way to school, stopped to laugh and point at poor little Bossie. He was a prettily behaved urchin, and kept thrusting his hairy muzzle between William and myself, apparently wishing to be stroked and patted. It was an ugly thought that his confidence in human nature, and nature in general, was to be so ill-rewarded as by cutting his throat, and selling him in quarters. This, I suppose, has been his fate before now!

It was a beautiful morning, clear as crystal, with an invigorating, but not disagreeable coolness. The general aspect of the country was as green as summer,—greener indeed than mid or latter summer,—and there were occasional interminglings of the brilliant hues of autumn, which made the scenery more beautiful, both visibly and in sentiment. We saw no absolutely mean nor poor-looking abodes along the road. There were warm and comfortable farm-houses, ancient, with the porch, the sloping roof, the antique peak, the clustered chimney, of old times; and modern cottages, smart and tasteful; and villas, with terraces before them, and dense shade, and wooden urns on pillars, and other such tokens of gentility. Pleasant groves of oak and walnut, also, there were, sometimes stretching along valleys, sometimes ascending a hill and clothing it all round, so as to make it a great clump of verdure. Frequently we passed people with cows, oxen, sheep, or pigs for Brighton Fair.

On arriving at Brighton, we found the village thronged with people, horses, and vehicles. Probably there is no place in New England where the character of an agricultural population may be so well studied. Almost all the farmers within a reasonable distance make it a point, I suppose, to attend Brighton Fair pretty frequently, if not on business, yet as amateurs. Then there are all the cattle-people and butchers who supply the Boston market, and dealers from far and near; and every man who has a cow or a yoke of oxen, whether to sell or buy, goes to Brighton on Monday. There were a thousand or two of cattle in the extensive pens belonging to the tavern-keeper, besides many that were standing about. One could hardly stir a step without running upon the horns of one dilemma or another, in the shape of ox, cow, bull, or ram. The yeomen appeared to be more in their element than I have ever seen them anywhere else, except, indeed, at labor;—more so than at musterings and such gatherings of amusement. And yet this was a sort of festal day, as well as a day of business. Most of the people were of a bulky make, with much bone and muscle, and some good store of fat, as if they had lived on flesh-diet;—with mottled faces too, hard and red, like those of persons who adhered to the old fashion of spirit-drinking. Great, round-paunched country squires were there too, sitting under the porch of the tavern, or waddling about, whip in hand, discussing the points of the cattle. There were also gentlemen-farmers, neatly, trimly, and fashionably dressed, in handsome surtouts and trousers, strapped under their boots. Yeomen,too, in their black or blue Sunday suits, cut by country tailors, and awkwardly worn. Others (like myself) had on the blue, stuff frocks which they wear in the fields, the most comfortable garments that ever were invented. Country loafers were among the throng,—men who looked wistfully at the liquors in the bar, and waited for some friend to invite them to drink,—poor, shabby, out-at-elbowed devils. Also, dandies from the city, corseted and buckramed, who had come to see the humors of Brighton Fair. All these, and other varieties of mankind, either thronged the spacious bar-room of the hotel, drinking, smoking, talking, bargaining, or walked about among the cattle-pens, looking with knowing eyes at the horned people. The owners of the cattle stood near at hand, waiting for offers. There was something indescribable in their aspect, that showed them to be the owners, though they mixed among the crowd. The cattle, brought from a hundred separate farms, or rather from a thousand, seemed to agree very well together, not quarrelling in the least. They almost all had a history, no doubt, if they could but have told it. The cows had each given her milk to support families,—had roamed the pastures, and come home to the barn-yard,—had been looked upon as a sort of member of the domestic circle, and was known by a name, as Brindle or Cherry. The oxen, with their necks bent by the heavy yoke, had toiled in the plough-field and in haying-time for many years, and knew their master's stall as well as the master himself knew his own table. Even the young steers and the little calves had something of domestic sacredness about them; for children had watched their growth, and petted them, and played with them. And here they all were, old and young, gathered from their thousand homes to Brighton Fair; whence the great chance was that they would go to the slaughter-house, and thence be transmitted, in sirloins, joints, and such pieces, to the tables of the Boston folk.

William Allen had come to buy four little pigs to take the places of four who have now grown large at our farm, and are to be fatted and killed within a few weeks. There were several hundreds, in pens appropriated to their use, grunting discordantly, and apparently in no very good humor with their companions or the world at large. Most or many of these pigs had been imported from the State of New York. The drovers set out with a large number, and peddle them along the road till they arrive at Brighton with the remainder. William selected four, and bought them at five cents per pound. These poor little porkers were forthwith seized by the tails, their legs tied, and then thrown into our wagon, where they kept up a continual grunt and squeal till we got home. Two of them were yellowish, or light gold-color, the other two were black and white, speckled; and all four of very piggish aspect and deportment. One of them snapped at William's finger most spitefully, and bit it to the bone.

All the scene of the Fair was very characteristic and peculiar,—cheerful and lively, too, in the bright, warm sun. I must see it again; for it ought to be studied.

September 28.—A picnic party in the woods, yesterday, in honor of little Frank Dana's birthday, he being six years old. I strolled out, after dinner, with Mr. Bradford, and in a lonesome glade we met the apparition of an Indian chief, dressed in appropriate costume of blanket, feathers, and paint, and armed with a musket. Almost at the same time, a young gypsy fortune-teller came from among the trees, and proposed to tell my fortune. While she was doing this, the goddess Diana let fly an arrow, and hit me smartly in the hand. The fortune-teller and goddess were in fine contrast, Diana being a blonde, fair, quiet, with a moderate composure; and the gypsy (O. G.) a bright, vivacious, dark-haired, rich-complexioned damsel,—both of them very pretty, at least pretty enough to make fifteen years enchanting. Accompaniedby these denizens of the wild wood, we went onward, and came to a company of fantastic figures, arranged in a ring for a dance or a game. There was a Swiss girl, an Indian squaw, a negro of the Jim Crow order, one or two foresters, and several people in Christian attire, besides children of all ages. Then followed childish games, in which the grown people took part with mirth enough,—while I, whose nature it is to be a mere spectator both of sport and serious business, lay under the trees and looked on. Meanwhile, Mr. Emerson and Miss Fuller, who arrived an hour or two before, came forth into the little glade where we were assembled. Here followed much talk. The ceremonies of the day concluded with a cold collation of cakes and fruit. All was pleasant enough,—an excellent piece of work,—"would 't were done!" It has left a fantastic impression on my memory, this intermingling of wild and fabulous characters with real and homely ones, in the secluded nook of the woods. I remember them, with the sunlight breaking through overshadowing branches, and they appearing and disappearing confusedly,—perhaps starting out of the earth; as if the everyday laws of Nature were suspended for this particular occasion. There were the children, too, laughing and sporting about, as if they were at home among such strange shapes,—and anon bursting into loud uproar of lamentation, when the rude gambols of the merry archers chanced to overturn them. And apart, with a shrewd, Yankee observation of the scene, stands our friend Orange, a thick-set, sturdy figure, enjoying the fun well enough, yet rather laughing with a perception of its nonsensicalness than at all entering into the spirit of the thing.

This morning I have been helping to gather apples. The principal farm labors at this time are ploughing for winter rye, and breaking up the greensward for next year's crop of potatoes, gathering squashes, and not much else, except such year-round employments as milking. The crop of rye, to be sure, is in process of being thrashed, at odd intervals.

I ought to have mentioned among the diverse and incongruous growths of the picnic party our two Spanish boys from Manilla;—Lucas, with his heavy features and almost mulatto complexion; and José, slighter, with rather a feminine face,—not a gay, girlish one, but grave, reserved, eying you sometimes with an earnest but secret expression, and causing you to question what sort of person he is.

Friday, October 1.—I have been looking at our four swine,—not of the last lot, but those in process of fattening. They lie among the clean rye straw in the sty, nestling close together; for they seem to be beasts sensitive to the cold, and this is a clear, bright, crystal morning, with a cool, northwest wind. So there lie these four black swine, as deep among the straw as they can burrow, the very symbols of slothful ease and sensuous comfort. They seem to be actually oppressed and overburdened with comfort. They are quick to notice any one's approach, and utter a low grunt thereupon,—not drawing a breath for that particular purpose, but grunting with their ordinary breath,—at the same time turning an observant, though dull and sluggish, eye upon the visitor. They seem to be involved and buried in their own corporeal substance, and to look dimly forth at the outer world. They breathe not easily, and yet not with difficulty nor discomfort; for the very unreadiness and oppression with which their breath comes appears to make them sensible of the deep sensual satisfaction which they feel. Swill, the remnant of their last meal, remains in the trough, denoting that their food is more abundant than even a hog can demand. Anon, they fall asleep, drawing short and heavy breaths, which heave their huge sides up and down; but at the slightest noise they sluggishly unclose their eyes, and give another gentle grunt. They also grunt among themselves, without any external cause; but merely to expresstheir swinish sympathy. I suppose it is the knowledge that these four grunters are doomed to die within two or three weeks that gives them a sort of awfulness in my conception. It makes me contrast their present gross substance of fleshly life with the nothingness speedily to come. Meantime the four newly-bought pigs are running about the cow-yard, lean, active, shrewd, investigating everything, as their nature is. When I throw an apple among them, they scramble with one another for the prize, and the successful one scampers away to eat it at leisure. They thrust their snouts into the mud, and pick a grain of corn out of the rubbish. Nothing within their sphere do they leave unexamined, grunting all the time with infinite variety of expression. Their language is the most copious of that of any quadruped, and, indeed, there is something deeply and indefinably interesting in the swinish race. They appear the more a mystery the longer one gazes at them. It seems as if there were an important meaning to them, if one could but find it out. One interesting trait in them is their perfect independence of character. They care not for man, and will not adapt themselves to his notions, as other beasts do; but are true to themselves, and act out their hoggish nature.

October 7.—Since Saturday last, (it being now Thursday,) I have been in Boston and Salem, and there has been a violent storm and rain during the whole time. This morning shone as bright as if it meant to make up for all the dismalness of the past days. Our brook, which in the summer was no longer a running stream, but stood in pools along its pebbly course, is now full from one grassy verge to the other, and hurries along with a murmuring rush. It will continue to swell, I suppose, and in the winter and spring it will flood all the broad meadows through which it flows.

I have taken a long walk this forenoon along the Needham road, and across the bridge, thence pursuing a cross-road through the woods, parallel with the river, which I crossed again at Dedham. Most of the road lay through a growth of young oaks principally. They still retain their verdure, though, looking closely in among them, one perceives the broken sunshine falling on a few sere or bright-hued tufts of shrubbery. In low, marshy spots, on the verge of the meadows or along the river-side, there is a much more marked autumnal change. Whole ranges of bushes are there painted with many variegated hues, not of the brightest tint, but of a sober cheerfulness. I suppose this is owing more to the late rains than to the frost; for a heavy rain changes the foliage somewhat at this season. The first marked frost was seen last Saturday morning. Soon after sunrise it lay, white as snow, over all the grass, and on the tops of the fences, and in the yard, on the heap of firewood. On Sunday, I think, there was a fall of snow, which, however, did not lie on the ground a moment.

There is no season when such pleasant and sunny spots may be lighted on, and produce so pleasant an effect on the feelings, as now in October. The sunshine is peculiarly genial; and in sheltered places, as on the side of a bank, or of a barn or house, one becomes acquainted and friendly with the sunshine. It seems to be of a kindly and homely nature. And the green grass, strewn with a few withered leaves, looks the more green and beautiful for them. In summer or spring Nature is farther from one's sympathies.

October 8.—Another gloomy day, lowering with portents of rain close at hand. I have walked up into the pastures this morning, and looked about me a little. The woods present a very diversified appearance just now, with perhaps more varieties of tint than they are destined to wear at a somewhat later period. There are some strong yellow hues, and some deep red; there are innumerable shades ofgreen, some few having the depth of summer; others, partially changed towards yellow, look freshly verdant with the delicate tinge of early summer or of May. Then there is the solemn and dark green of the pines. The effect is, that every tree in the wood and every bush among the shrubbery has a separate existence, since, confusedly intermingled, each wears its peculiar color, instead of being lost in the universal emerald of summer. And yet there is a oneness of effect likewise, when we choose to look at a whole sweep of woodland instead of analyzing its component trees. Scattered over the pasture, which the late rains have kept tolerably green, there are spots or islands of dusky red,—a deep, substantial hue, very well fit to be close to the ground,—while the yellow, and light, fantastic shades of green soar upward to the sky. These red spots are the blueberry and whortleberry bushes. The sweet-fern is changed mostly to russet, but still retains its wild and delightful fragrance when pressed in the hand. Wild China-asters are scattered about, but beginning to wither. A little while ago, mushrooms or toadstools were very numerous along the wood-paths and by the roadsides, especially after rain. Some were of spotless white, some yellow, and some scarlet. They are always mysteries and objects of interest to me, springing as they do so suddenly from no root or seed, and growing one wonders why. I think, too, that some varieties are pretty objects, little fairy tables, centre-tables, standing on one leg. But their growth appears to be checked now, and they are of a brown tint and decayed.

The farm business to-day is to dig potatoes. I worked a little at it. The process is to grasp all the stems of a hill and pull them up. A great many of the potatoes are thus pulled, clinging to the stems and to one another in curious shapes,—long red things, and little round ones, imbedded in the earth which clings to the roots. These being plucked off, the rest of the potatoes are dug out of the hill with a hoe, the tops being flung into a heap for the cow-yard. On my way home I paused to inspect the squash-field. Some of the squashes lay in heaps as they were gathered, presenting much variety of shape and hue,—as golden yellow, like great lumps of gold, dark green, striped and variegated; and some were round, and some lay curling their long necks, nestling, as it were, and seeming as if they had life.

In my walk yesterday forenoon I passed an old house which seemed to be quite deserted. It was a two-story, wooden house, dark and weather-beaten. The front windows, some of them, were shattered and open, and others were boarded up. Trees and shrubbery were growing neglected, so as quite to block up the lower part. There was an aged barn near at hand, so ruinous that it had been necessary to prop it up. There were two old carts, both of which had lost a wheel. Everything was in keeping. At first I supposed that there would be no inhabitants in such a dilapidated place; but, passing on, I looked back, and saw a decrepit and infirm old man at the angle of the house, its fit occupant. The grass, however, was very green and beautiful around this dwelling, and, the sunshine falling brightly on it, the whole effect was cheerful and pleasant. It seemed as if the world was so glad that this desolate old place, where there was never to be any more hope and happiness, could not at all lessen the general effect of joy.

I found a small turtle by the roadside, where he had crept to warm himself in the genial sunshine. He had a sable back, and underneath his shell was yellow, and at the edges bright scarlet. His head, tail, and claws were striped yellow, black, and red. He withdrew himself, as far as he possibly could, into his shell, and absolutely refused to peep out, even when I put him into the water. Finally, I threw him into a deep pool and left him. These mailed gentlemen, from the size of a foot or more down to an inch, werevery numerous in the spring; and now the smaller kind appear again.

Saturday, October 9.—Still dismal weather. Our household, being composed in great measure of children and young people, is generally a cheerful one enough, even in gloomy weather. For a week past we have been especially gladdened with a little seamstress from Boston, about seventeen years old; but of such apetitefigure, that, at first view, one would take her to be hardly in her teens. She is very vivacious and smart, laughing and singing and talking all the time,—talking sensibly; but still, taking the view of matters that a city girl naturally would. If she were larger than she is, and of less pleasing aspect, I think she might be intolerable; but being so small, and with a fair skin, and as healthy as a wildflower, she is really very agreeable; and to look at her face is like being shone upon by a ray of the sun. She never walks, but bounds and dances along, and this motion, in her diminutive person, does not give the idea of violence. It is like a bird, hopping from twig to twig, and chirping merrily all the time. Sometimes she is rather vulgar, but even that works well enough into her character, and accords with it. On continued observation, one discovers that she is not a little girl, but really a little woman, with all the prerogatives and liabilities of a woman. This gives a new aspect to her, while the girlish impression still remains, and is strangely combined with the sense that this frolicsome maiden has the material for the sober bearing of a wife. She romps with the boys, runs races with them in the yard, and up and down the stairs, and is heard scolding laughingly at their rough play. She asks William Allen to place her "on top of that horse," whereupon he puts his large brown hands about her waist, and, swinging her to and fro, lifts her on horseback. William threatens to rivet two horse-shoes round her neck, for having clambered, with the other girls and boys, upon a load of hay, whereby the said load lost its balance and slid off the cart. She strings the seed-berries of roses together, making a scarlet necklace of them, which she fastens about her throat. She gathers flowers of everlasting to wear in her bonnet, arranging them with the skill of a dressmaker. In the evening, she sits singing by the hour, with the musical part of the establishment, often breaking into laughter, whereto she is incited by the tricks of the boys. The last thing one hears of her, she is tripping up stairs to bed, talking lightsomely or warbling; and one meets her in the morning, the very image of bright morn itself, smiling briskly at you, so that one takes her for a promise of cheerfulness through the day. Be it said, with all the rest, that there is a perfect maiden modesty in her deportment. She has just gone away, and the last I saw of her was her vivacious face peeping through the curtain of the cariole, and nodding a gay farewell to the family, who were shouting their adieux at the door. With her other merits, she is an excellent daughter, and supports her mother by the labor of her hands. It would be difficult to conceive beforehand how much can be added to the enjoyment of a household by mere sunniness of temper and liveliness of disposition; for her intellect is very ordinary, and she never says anything worth hearing, or even laughing at, in itself. But she herself is an expression well worth studying.

It was a great truth Shelley uttered when he said that slavery would not be the enormous wrong and evil which it is, if men who had long suffered under it could rise at once to freedom and self-government. We see this fact everywhere proved by races, nations, sexes, long held in bondage, and, when at last set free, displaying for years, perhaps for generations, the vices of cowardice, deceit, and cruelty engendered by slavery. Chains leave ugly scars on the flesh, but deeper scars by far on the soul. Even where the exercise of oppression has stopped short of actual serfdom,—where a race has been merely excluded from some natural rights, and burdened with some unrighteous restrictions,—the same result, in a mitigated degree, may be traced in moral degradation, surviving the injustice itself and almost its very memory. Ages pass away, and "Revenge and Wrong" still "bring forth their kind." The evil is not dead, though they who wrought it have long mouldered in their forgotten graves.

In a very remarkable manner this sad law of our nature applies to the condition of the Irish race. Doubtless the isolated position of Ireland, the small share it has had in the life and movement of our century, has allowed the old wrongs to fester in memory, and the old feelings of rancor to perpetuate themselves, as they could never have done in a country more in the highway of nations. Vendettas personal and political are ever to be found in islands, like Corsica, Sicily, Ireland; or in remote glens and mountains, such as those of Scotland or Greece. Men who live in New York, London, or Paris must be singularly retentive of passion to keep up even their own hatreds, not to speak of the hatreds of their ancestors. But it is alike the bane and blessing of lives spent in retirement and monotony to retain impressions for years, and live in the past almost more vividly than in the tame and uninteresting present. Ireland, at all events, has had nothing to divert her from her old traditions; and there is probably no man, woman, or child of Celtic race living in the country in whose mind a certain "historical element," compounded strangely of truth and falsehood, does not occupy a place such as no analogous impression takes in the thought of an ordinary Englishman or Frenchman. We shall endeavor in this paper to give a little idea of the nature of these Irish traditions and feelings; and if we succeed in doing so, we shall at the same time afford to our readers a clew to some of the supposed mysteries of the recent outbreak of Fenianism. In sober truth, Fenianism is not, to Anglo-Irish observers, a startling apparition, an outburst of insane folly, an epidemic of national hate, but, on the contrary, a most familiar phenomenon, the mere appearance on the surface of what we always knew lay beneath,—an endemic as natural to the soil as the ague and fever which haunt the undrained bogs. Those who understand what Irishmen are alwaysthinkingwill find no difficulty in understanding also what things they occasionallydo.

The real wrongs inflicted by England upon Ireland are probably as bad as ever disgraced the history of a conquest—in itself without excuse. Not to speak of confiscations, and executions often taking the form of murderous raids into suspected districts, there were laws passed one after another, from the time of Edward I. even to the present century, a collection of which would be a sad commentary on the boasted justice of English Parliaments. Irishmen lay under disabilities, political, social, and ecclesiastical, so severe and numerous that it really seems to have been a question what they were expected to doexceptto break some of these arbitrary laws, andso incur some cruel penalty. Down to our own century, and for the avowed purpose of injuring the only flourishing trade of the country (that of linen), the English cotton and woollen manufacturers procured the passing of acts better called destructive than protective; and in sober truth, if England now deplores the low industrial and commercial state of Ireland, she has only to look over her own statute-book, and see if ingenuity could have further gone in the way of discouragement and depression. When we add to these wrongs the bitter drop of the Irish Church Establishment, it is doubtless clear that an able advocate could make out a very telling case for the plaintiff, in that great case of Irelandvs.England on which Europe and America sit as jury.

But it is a singularly inexact notion of the real historical wrongs of his country which an ordinary Irishman treasures in his heart; in fact, he has no idea of the real wrongs at all, but of other and quite imaginary ones. He sets out with the great fallacy that Ireland was at some indefinite epoch (described as "former times") a wealthy, prosperous, and united country, and that every declension from those characteristics is to be laid at the door of English tyranny and jealousy. When Moore wrote,

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