Daybreak.

"That rake up near the rafters,Why leave it there so long?The handle of the best of ashIs smooth and straight and strong.And mother, will you tell meWhy did my father frown,When to make hay in summer-timeI climbed to take it down?She looked up to her husband's eyes,While her own with light did fill,'You'll shortly know the reason why,'Said Rory of the Hill."

The love-songs, that are sung by thecolleensat the soft dewy dawn, as they sit beside the sleek cows just arisen from beneath the hedge, the nimble finger streaming the white milk into the foaming pail, while the lark's song melts down from that speck beneath the cloud, and the blackbird and thrush warble with ecstasy in the hedge, the morning light shining across the dewy green fields; or at

"Eve's pensive air,"

when the shadows are growing long, although the tops of the swelling uplands are bright, and the crows are winging home, and the swallows darting in the still air; or, in the winter evenings, when the candles are lighted in the kitchen, and busy fingers draw the woof, while the foot beats time to the whirring wheel, are very numerous, and generally of a higher order of merit than the patriotic songs. The pulses of the heart are freer and its utterance dearer in human love than in love of country. The beauties in which the Irish girls excel all others—the blooming cheeks, and brilliant eyes, and wealth of flowing hair, are the main objects of compliment, and are often transformed into personifications of endearment.Colleen, the universal term for young maidens, seems but a corruption ofcoolleen, which means a head of curls or abundant tresses. Grey and blue eyes are especially objects of endearment, and even in the ancient Irish poems,green-eyed is not unfrequently used, which is not so unnatural as the English reader may suppose, the Irish word expressing the indefinable tint of some lighter blue eyes, being untranslatable into English. [Footnote 18]

[Footnote 18: "Sweet emerald eyes."—Massinger. "How is that young and green-eyed Gaditana?" Longfellow'sSpanish Student.]

Although the modern love-songs are inferior to those in the Irish language, for the reason that has been mentioned, that English is not yet the language of the Irish heart, they often possess a simple power, and, though seldom sustained throughout, a touch of nature's genius, which the highest poet cannot reach with all his art. How exquisite is the following:

"As Katty and I were discoursing,She smiled upon me now and then,Her apron string she kept foulding,And twisting all round her ring."

Bits of poetry can be picked out of almost every love-ballad, as witness the following:

"My love is fairer than the lilies that do grow,She has a voice that's clearer than any winds that blow.""With mild eyes like the dawn.""One pleasant evening, when pinks and daisiesClosed in their bosoms one drop of dew.""His hair shines gold revived by the sun,And he takes his denomination from thedrien don.""I wish I were a linnet, how I would sing and fly.I wish I were a corn-crake, I'd sing till morning clear—I'd sit and sing to Molly, for once I held her dear.""'Twas on a bright morning in summer,That I first heard his voice speaking low,As he said to the colleen beside me,Who's that pretty girl milking her cow?""The hands of my love are more sunny and softThan the snowy sea foam.""My love will not come nigh me,Nor hear the moan I make;Neither would she pity me,Though my poor heart should break."

There is not one, however, that would bear quoting entire, and none that comes anywhere near the flowers of the ancient Irish love-songs which are some of the finest in the world. The principal theme and delight of the ballad-singers are romantic episodes, where a rich young nobleman courts a farmer's daughter in disguise, and, after marriage, reveals himself, his lineage, and his possessions to his bride; or where a noble lady falls in love with a tight young serving-boy. Such a ballad will be as great a favorite among thecolleensas the novels of romantic love are said to be among milliners' apprentices. One thing is especially noticeable among the love-ballads, and that is the total absence not only of licentiousness, but even of coarseness. The Irish peasant-girls at home are the most virtuous of their class in the world, owing to the influence of the confessional, the strong feeling of family pride, and the custom of universal and early marriage. Not but there are unfortunates who have made a "slip;" and when the ballad relates of such a tragedy, it shows of how deep effect is the scorn of the parish, and how wretched the fate of the unfortunate and her base-born offspring. The "lamentations" or confessions of condemned criminals are highly popular. Premeditated murder is rare among the Irish peasantry, in comparison with the records of ruffianism among the English laboring classes, and the interest excited by the event is deeper, and extends to a larger space of local influence. These lamentations are the rhymed confessions of the criminals, giving an account of the circumstances of the tragedy, sometimes in the third person, and sometimes in the first, always concluding with a regret at the disgrace which the criminal has brought on his relations, and imploring mercy for his soul.They are of unequal merit, and, as a whole, not equal to the love-songs. Once in a while, there is a touch of untaught pathos; but being without exception the production of the hackneyed writers, they are as little worth preservation as the "lives" of eminent murderers which supply their places among us.

The narrative ballads tell of every event of interest to Irish ears, from Aspromonte to the glorious steeplechase at Namore; the burning of an emigrant ship, to a ploughing-match at Pilltown, the same language being used for the one as the other. During the late war in this country, every great battle was duly sung by the Irish minstrels. The sympathies of the peasantry were usually with the majority of their kindred in the North, but not universally so. Thus does a bard give an account of the battle of New Orleans, which would astonish General Butler:

"To see the streets that evening,the heart would rend with pain.The human blood in rivers ran,like any flood or stream.Men's heads blown off their bodies,most dismal for to see;And wounded men did loudly cryin pain and agony.The Federals they did advance,and broke in through the town.They trampled dead and woundedthat lay upon the ground.The wounded called for mercy,but none they did receive—"

The eulogies of person or place, some patron or his residence, are innumerable, and ineffably absurd. Some years ago, an idle young lawyer at Cork happened to be visiting Blarney Castle, when one of these wandering minstrels came to the gate, and asked to dedicate a verse to "Lady Jeffers that owns this station." The request was granted, and the laughter of the guests, as the bard recited his "composition," may be imagined. The occurrence and the style of verse were common enough, but an idle banter incited the gay youth into a burlesque imitation. The result was the famous "Groves of Blarney," that has been sung and whistled all over the world. Those who have not seen the originals might imagine the "Groves of Blarney" to be an outrageous caricature. But it is not so. It hardly equals and cannot surpass some of the native flowers of blunder. The original is still sold in the streets of Cork, and some extracts, in conclusion, will show how much Dick Milliken was indebted to his unwitting model:

"There are fine walks in those pleasant gardens,And spots most charming in shady bowers.The gladiator, who is bold and daring,Each night and morning to watch the flowers."There are fine horses and stall-fed oxen,A den for foxes to play and hide,Fine mares for breeding, with foreign sheep,With snowy fleeces at Castle Hyde."The buck and doe, the fox and eagle,Do skip and play at the river side.The trout and salmon are always sportingIn the clear streams of Castle Hyde."

"O jewel in the lotos: amen!"

A wide, slow whitening of the east, a silent stealing away of shadows, a growing radiance before which the skies receded into ineffable heights of pale blue and gleaming silver, and a March day came blowing in with locks of gold, and kindling glances, and girdle of gold, and golden sandals over the horizon.

Louis Granger, standing in the open window of his chamber, laughed as he looked in the face of the morning, and stretched out his hands and cried, "Backsheesh, O Howadji!"

Not many streets distant, another pair of eyes looked into the brightening east, but saw no gladness there. Margaret Hamilton remembered that it was her twenty-fifth birthday, and that she had cried herself to sleep the night before, thinking of it. But she would not remember former birthdays, celebrated by father, mother, and sisters, before they had died, one after one, and left her alone and aghast before the world. This, and some other memories still more recent, she put out of sight; and, since they would not stay without force, she held them out of sight. One who has to do this is haunted.

The woman looked haunted. Her eyes were unnaturally bright and alert, and shadows had settled beneath them; her cheeks were worn thin; her mouth compressed itself in closing. At twenty-five she looked thirty-five.

And yet Miss Hamilton was meant for a beauty—one of the brilliant kind, with clear gray eyes, and a creamy pallor contrasting with profuse black hair. The beautiful head was well set; something vivid and spirited in the whole air of it. Her height was only medium, but she had the carriage of a Jane de Montford, and there were not wanting those who would have described her as tall.

While she looked gloomily out, a song she had heard somewhere floated up in her mind:

"The years they come, and the years they go,Like winds that blow from sea to sea;From dark to dark they come and go,All in the dew-fall and the rain."

It was like a dreary bitter wind sobbing about the chimneys when the storm is rising. She turned hastily from the window, and began counting the hideous phantoms of bouquets on the cheap wall-paper, thinking that they might be the lost souls of flowers that had been wicked in life; roses that had tempted, and lilies that had lied. The room, she found, was sixteen bouquets long, and fourteen and a half wide.

When her eyes began to ache with this employment, she took up a book, and, opening it at random, read:

"A still small voice said unto me,'Thou art so full of misery,Were it not better not to be?'"

Was everything possessed to torment her? She dropped the book, and looked about in search of distraction. In the window opposite her stood her little easel with a partly finished cabinet photograph on it a man's face, with bushy whiskers, round eyes, an insignificant nose, the expression full of a weak fierceness superficially fell and determined, as though a lamb should try to look like a lion.One eye was sharply finished; and, as Margaret glanced at the picture, this stared at her in so grotesque and threatening a manner that she burst into a nervous laugh.

"I must turn your face to the wall, Cyclops, till I can give you another eye," she said, suiting the action to the word.

A pile of unfinished photographs lay on a table near. She looked them over with an expression of weariness. "O the eyes, and noses, and mouths! Why will people so misuse the sunbeams? And this insane woman who refuses to be toned down with India ink, but will have colors to all the curls, and frizzles, and bows and ends, and countless fly-away things she has on her! She looks now more like an accident than a woman. When the colors are put in, she will be a calamity. Only one face among them pleases me—this pretty dear."

Selecting the picture of a lovely child, Margaret looked at it with admiring eyes. "So sweet! I wish I had her here this moment with her eyes, and her curls, and her mouth."

A sigh broke through the faint smile. There seemed to be a thorn under everything she touched. Laying the picture down, she busied herself in her room, opened drawers and closets and set them in order; gathered the few souvenirs yet remaining to her—letters, photographs, locks of hair—and piled them all into the grate. One folded paper she did not open, but held an instant in fingers that trembled as they clung; then, moaning faintly, threw it on to the pyre. Inside that paper were two locks of hair—both silver-threaded—twined as the two lives had been; her father's and her mother's.

The touch of a match, and the smoke of her sacrifice curled up into the morning sky.

Then again she came to a stand-still, and looked about for something to do.

"I cannot work," she said. "My hand is not steady enough, and my eyes are dim. What was it that Beethoven wrote to his friend? 'At times cheerful, then again sorrowful; waiting to see if fate will listen to us.' Suppose I should drop everything, since I am so nerveless, and wait to see what fate will do."

Here again the enemy stood, The picture of waiting that came up before her mind was that of Judge Pyncheon in theHouse of the Seven Gables, sitting and staring blankly as the hours went by—a sight to shriek out at when at length he was found. With a swift pencil this woman's imagination painted a companion picture: the door of her room opening after days of silence; a curious, frightened face looking in; somebody sitting there cold and patient, with half-open eyes, and not a word of welcome or questioning for the intruder.

A clock outside struck ten. Margaret rose languidly and dressed for a walk, after pausing to rest. Raising her arms to arrange her hair and bonnet, she felt so faint that for a moment she was obliged to lean forward on her dressing-table.

At length she was ready, only one duty left unperformed. Miss Hamilton had not said her prayers that morning, and had not even thought of saying them, or of reproaching herself for the omission—a scandalous omission, truly, for the granddaughter of the Rev. Doctor John Hamilton, and daughter of that excellent but somewhat diluted deacon, John Hamilton, his son. But to pray was to remember; and beside, God had forgotten her, she thought.

Miss Hamilton was not a Catholic, To her, Christ died eighteen centuries ago, and went to heaven, and stayed there, only looking and listening down in some vague and far-away manner that was easier to doubt than to believe. The church into which, at every dawn of day, the Beloved descends with shining pierced feet and hands; with the lips that spoke, and the eyes that saw, and the locks through which had sifted the winds of Olivet and the dews of Gethsemane; with the heart of infinite love and pity, yes, and the soul of infinite power—this church she knew not. To her it was an abomination. The temples where pain hangs crowned with a dolorous majesty, and where the path of sorrows is also the path of delights, her footsteps had never sought. To her they were temples of idolatry. Therefore, when troubles came upon her, though she faced them intrepidly, it was only with a human courage. What wonder if at last it proved that pain was stronger than she?

With her hand on the latch of the door she paused, then turned back into her chamber again. The society face she had assumed dropped off; a sigh went shivering over her lips, and with it a half-articulated thought, silly and womanish, "If I had some one to come in here, put an arm around me—I'm so tired!—and say, 'Take courage, dear!' I could bear up yet longer. I could endure to the end, perhaps."

A silly thought, but pitiful, being so vain.

Miss Hamilton was not by nature one of those who, as Sir Thomas Browne says, looked asquint upon the face of truth. But she had not dared to fully realize her circumstances, lest all courage should die out of her heart. Now you could see that she put aside the last self-delusion, and boldly looked her life in the face. It was Medusa.

One of the bravest of soldiers has said that in his first battle he would have been a coward if he had dared. Imagine the eyes of such a fighter, a foe within and a foe without, and but his own right arm and dauntless will between the two!

Such eyes had this woman. Of her whole form, only those eyes seemed to live. But for them she might have been Margaret Hamilton's statue.

At length she moved; and going slowly out, held on to the railing in descending the stairs. Out doors, and down Washington street, then, taking that direction involuntarily. It was near noon when she found herself in a crowd on Park street, hastening through it, without caring to inquire what the cause of the gathering was. Coming out presently in front of the state house, and seeing that there was space yet on the steps, she went up them, and took her stand near a gentleman whom she had long known by sight and repute. Mr. Louis Granger also recognized her, and made room, quietly placing himself between her and the crowd. Miss Hamilton scarcely noticed the movement. She was used to being attended to.

This gentleman was what might be called fine-looking, and was thoroughly gentlemanly in appearance. He was cast in a large mould, both form and features, had careless hazel eyes that saw everything, and rather a lounging way with him. Indeed, he owned himself a little lazy, and used laughingly to assert his belief that inertia is a property of mind as well as of matter. It took a good deal to start him; but once started, it took still more to stop him. His age might be anywhere from thirty to forty, the few silver threads in his fine dark hair counting for nothing. You perceived that they had no business whatever there.He was not a man who would catch the eye in a crowd; but, once your attention was directed toward him, you felt attracted. The charm of his face depended chiefly on expression; and those who pleased him called Mr. Granger beautiful.

He stood now looking attentively at the lady beside him, finding himself interested in her. Her eyes, that were fixed on the advancing procession, appeared to see no more than if they had been jewels, and her mouth was shut as if it would never open again. The pale temples were hollow, the delicate nostrils were slightly pinched, the teeth seemed to be set hard. He studied her keenly, secure in her perfect abstraction, and marked even the frail hand that clinched, not clasped, the iron railing. Mr. Granger could read as much in a hand as Washington could; and this hand, dazzlingly fair, full-veined, pink-palmed, transparent, dewy, with heart-shaped finger-tips that looked as though some finer perception were reaching out through the flesh, was to him an epitome of the woman's character.

It was the 17th of March, and the procession in honor of St. Patrick an unusually fine one. It flowed past like a river of color and music, with many a silken rustling of the flag of their adoption, but everywhere and above all the beautiful green and gold of that most beautiful banner in the world—a banner which speaks not of dominion, but of song and sunshine and the green earth. While other nations, higher-headed, had taken the sun, the star, the crescent, the eagle, or the lion for an emblem, or, with truer loftiness, had raised the cross as their ensign, this people, with a sweetness and humility all the more touching that it was unconscious, bent to search in the grasses, and smilingly and trustfully held up a shamrock as their symbol. Those had no need to inscribe the cross upon their escutcheon who, in the face of the world, bore it in their faithful hearts, and upon their bowed and lacerated shoulders.

A pathetic spectacle—a countless procession of exiles; yet, happily for them, the generous land that gave them a home grew no dark willows to rust their harp-strings.

The music was, of course, chiefly Irish airs; but one band in passing struck up "Sweet Home."

Margaret started at the sound, and looked about for escape. She could not listen to that. Happening to glance upward, she saw a company of ladies and gentlemen in the balcony over the portico. Governor A—— was there, leaning on the railing and looking over. He caught her glance, and beckoned. Margaret immediately obeyed the summons, getting herself in hand all the way, and came out on the balcony with another face than that she had worn below. She had put on a smile; some good fairy had added a faint blush, and Miss Hamilton was presentable. The governor met her with a hearty smile and clasp of the hand. "I am glad to see you," he said. "Will you stand here, or take that seat Mr. Sinclair is offering you?"

"Yes, sir," he exclaimed, as Margaret turned away, continuing his conversation with a gentleman beside him, "the English treatment of the Irish is a clear case of cussedness."

"Our good chief magistrate is slightly idiomatic at times," remarked a lady near by.

A poetess stood in the midst of a group of gentlemen, who looked at her, while she looked at the procession. "It is Arethusa, that bright stream," she said with soft eagerness, "Pursued and threatened at home, it has crept through shadowy ways, and leaped to light in a new land."

Margaret approached Mr. Sinclair, who sat apart, and who made room for her beside him.

Even now she noticed the splendid beauty of this man in whom every physical attraction was perfected. Mr. Maurice Sinclair might have posed for a Jupiter; but an artist would scarcely have taken him for a model of the prince of the apostles. He was superbly made, with a haughty, self-conscious beauty; his full, bold eyes were of a light neutral tint impossible to describe, so transparent were they, so dazzling their lustre; and his face was delicately smooth and nobly-featured. One could scarcely regret that the long moustache curling away from his mouth, then drooping below his chin, and the thick hair pushed back from his forehead, were of silvery whiteness. It did not seem to be decay, but perfection. Mr. Sinclair used to say that his head had blossomed.

He smiled as Miss Hamilton stepped slowly toward him, the smile of a man entirely pleased with himself.

"Own now," he said, "that you are wishing to be Irish for the nonce, that you might feel the full effervescence of the occasion."

She shook her head listlessly.

Mr. Sinclair perceived that she needed to be amused. "See the governor wave his handkerchief!" he said. "That man has been born twice, once into Massachusetts, and the second time into all creation."

She glanced at the object of his remarks, noting anew his short, rotund figure, his round head with all its crow's-nest of black ringlets, his prompt, earnest face that could be so kind. "There isn't a drop of mean blood in his veins," she said. "He is one of those rare men in whom feeling and principle go hand in hand."

Mr. Sinclair gave his shoulders a just perceptible shrug. "Do you know all the people here?" he asked, observing that Margaret looked searchingly over the company. "Let me play Helen on the walls of Troy, and point out the notables whom you do not know. That antique-cameo-faced gentleman whom you are looking at now is the Rev. Mr. Southard. He is misnamed of course. He should be called after something boreal, Does not he make you shiver? He lives with my cousin, whom I saw you standing beside down there. Louis likes him, or pretends to. Mr. Southard is not so much a modern minister, as a theological reminiscence. He belongs among the crop-heads; I have somewhere heard that he was a wild lad, and is now doing penance. It is likely. One doesn't bar a sheep-fold as one does a prison. He appears to be a little off guard now, for a breath seems to have forgotten predestination. When he looks like that, I am always reminded of something pagan, He'd be horrified, of course, if he knew it. Mark that Olympian look of painless melancholy, and the blue, motionless eye. What a cold, marble face he has! Being too polished to retain heat, he remains unmoved in the midst of enthusiasm. That's philosophy, isn't it? He is one of those who fancy that ceasing to be human, they become superhuman. They mistake the prefix, that's all. But Mr. Southard bristles with virtues. I must own that I never knew a man so forgiving toward other people's enemies."

"I know Mr. Southard well by reputation," Margaret interrupted rather warmly. "He is human, of course, and so, fallible; but every mountain in his soul is a Sinai!"

"Oh! he has his good points," Mr. Sinclair admitted tranquilly. "I have known him to be surprised into a glorious laugh, for which, to be sure, he probably beat himself afterward; and he has a temper that peeps out now and then in a delightfully human fashion. I have detected in him, too, a carnal weakness for French chocolate, and a taste for pictures, even the pictures of the Babylonians. Once I saw him stand five minutes before a faded old painting of Cimabue's; I believe it was a virgin standing between two little boys who leaned to kiss each other, a hand of hers on either head, I don't condemn the manin toto. I like his faults; but I detest his virtues!

"That stout, consequential person, with his chin in his cravat, who as Suckling says of Sir Toby Mathews, is always whispering nothing into somebody's ear, is Mr. ex-councilman Smith. He was thrown to the surface at the time of the Know-Nothing ebullition, and when that was over, was skinned off with the rest of 'em. He considers himself a statesman, and looks forward with prophetic goggle eyes to the time when his party shall be again in the ascendant. He comes here to nurse his wrath, and I haven't a doubt that he feels as though this procession were marching down his throat. He used to be to a joiner, then a house-builder, then he got to be a house-owner. Twenty years ago, my aunt Betsey, who lives in the country, paid him two dollars to build a trellis for her grape-vine, and he did it so well that she gave him his dinner after the family had got through. Now he has a mansion near hers that dwarfs her cottage to a bird-cage. His place is really fine, grounds worth looking at, and a stone house with bronze lions at the door. I don't know what he has lions there for, unless to indicate that Snug the joiner lives within. I'm not afraid of 'em. You've never heard of him here; but out there he is tremendous. 'Imposteur à la Mecque, et prophète à Médine.'

"Still there are people even here who blow about him. Psaphon's birds, of course, fed on Smith's oats, He hates me because he thinks that I laugh at him; but I don't doubt that it soothes his soul to know that the roses on his carpets are twice as large as those on mine, and that he has ten pictures to my one. The first thing you see when the vestibule door opens is a row of portraits, ten of 'em, Smith and his wife, and eight children. Ames painted 'em, and he must have had the nightmare regularly till they were done. They are larger than life, and their eyes move. I am positive that they move. I guess there are little strings behind the canvas. There they hang and stare at you, till you wish they were hanged by the necks. The first time I went there, I shook my fist at 'em behind Smith's back, and he caught me at it. I couldn't help it. The spectacle is enough to excite any man's worst feelings. The parlor walls are covered with landscapes painted from a cow's point of view, strong in grass and clover, with pleasant drinking-places, and large trees to stand under when the sun gets high. I never see such trees and water in nature, but I dare say the cows do. My wife and I dined there once. The eight children sat in two detachments and ate Black Hamburg grapes, skins and all; and the peaches were brought in polished like apples. My wife got into such a giggle that she nearly strangled. I see, you sharp-eyed Bedouin, you want to remind me that I have eaten of this man's salt. True, but he made it as bitter as any that Dante ever tasted.

"That sober, middle-aged man in a complete suit of pepper and salt, hair and all, is Mr. Ames, the member from N——, Polliwog Ames they call him, from his great speech. Is it possible you have never heard of it? It was the speech of the session. Some one had introduced a bill asking an appropriation of ten thousand dollars toward building a new museum of natural history. There was a little palaver on the subject, then Ames got up. All winter nothing had been heard from him but the scriptural yea and nay; so, of course, every one was attentive, 'Gentle-men,' he said, 'while thousands of men, women, and children, in the city, and tens of thousands in the commonwealth, are hungry to-day, and will be hungry to-morrow, and are and will be too poor to buy food; while paupers are crowding our almshouses, and beggars are swarming in our streets; while all this poverty is staring us in the face, and putting to us the problem, how are we to be fed and clothed and sheltered, and kept from crime, and taught to read and to pray? it would seem to me, gentlemen, an unnecessary not to say reprehensible act, to appropriate ten thousand dollars of the public money, in order that some long-nosed professor might be enabled to show us how polliwogs wiggle their tails.' Having said this, Mr. Ames shut his mouth, and sat down covered with glory."

Margaret's only comment was to look earnestly at this man who had remembered the poor.

They were silent a little while; then Mr. Sinclair spoke again, in a lower voice. "I am going to Europe in a few weeks."

She had nothing to say to this. His going would make no difference with her.

"You know, and everybody knows," he went on hastily, "that my wife and I have not for years lived very happily together. I think that few blame me. I would not wish all the blame to be thrown on her, either. The fact is, we never were suited to each other, and every day we grew more antagonistic. We had a little sensible talk last week, and finally agreed to separate. She will remain here, and I, as I said, shall go to Europe for an indefinite time, perhaps for ever."

At any other time Margaret might have felt herself embarassed by such a confidence. As it was, she hardly knew what reply to make; but, since he waited, managed to say that if people could not live peacefully together, she supposed it was best they should separate.

He spoke again abruptly.

"Margaret, you cannot, if you would, hide your misery from me. You are fitted to appreciate all that is beautiful in nature and art, yet are bound and cramped by the necessity of constant labor for your daily bread. You suffer, too, what to the refined is the worst sting of poverty, the being associated with, often in the power of, vulgar and ill-natured people, who despise you because you are not rich, and hate you because, being poor, you yet will not and cannot be like themselves. I know that there are those who take delight in mortifying you, in misinterpreting your every act and word, and in prejudicing against you persons who otherwise might be your friends. What a wretched, double life you live; petted by notable people on one hand, and insulted by inferiors on the other! How long is it to last? You must be aware that you are slipping out of the notice of your early friends. You cannot accept their invitations, because you have not time, and moreover, are not suitably dressed. By and by they will cease to invite you. Do you look forward to marriage? Every day your chances are lessening.You are growing old before your time. I cannot see that you have anything to look forward to but a life of ill-paid toil, a gradual dropping out of the place that you were born and educated to fill, a loss of courage and self-respect, a lowering of the tastes, and at last, a sinking to the level of what you must despise. If you should be taken ill now, what would become of you?"

"I should probably go to the charity-ward of the public hospital," Miss Hamilton replied coldly.

"What do you hope for?" he asked.

"I hope for nothing," she answered. "I know all that you tell me, and far more."

Mr. Sinclair's eyes brightened. "What good are your fine friends to you? You would never ask them to help you, I know; but if you could bring yourself to that, would you not feel a bitter difference? It is not mean to shrink from asking favors, when they are for ourselves. Walter Savage Landor was neither mean nor a fool; yet he makes one of his best characters say that the highest price we can pay for a favor is to ask for it, and everybody who has tried knows that. You would sink at once from a friend to a dependent. Now your friends ask no questions, and you tell them no lies. If they give the subject a thought, they fancy you in some quiet, retired, and highly genteel apartment, if rather near the eaves, then so for a pure northern light, leisurely and elegantly painting photographs, for which you receive the highest prices, and thanks to boot. They don't see an upstartly assistant criticising your work, or a stingy employer taking off part of the price for some imaginary flaw. And if they did, they would only tell you that such annoyances are trivial, that you must rise above them. I've heard that kind of talk. But those who go down to battle with the pigmies know how tormenting their bites are. The worst of it is, too, that you cannot long maintain the dignity and purity of your own character in this petty strife, It isn't in the nature of things, I don't care what may be said to the contrary by parlor ascetics and philosophers. They have no right to dogmatize on the necessary influence of circumstances in which they have never been placed. Moreover, constant labor is lowering to the mind, and any work is degrading to the person who can do a higher kind of work. It may be saving to him whose leisure would be employed in frivolity and license; but that person is already base. The time you spend in studying how to make one dollar do the work of five makes a lower being of you. I can see this in you, Margaret. Your manners and conversation are not what they were. You have no time to read, or think, or look at pictures, or hear lectures, or listen to music—none. You have only time for work, and, the work finished, are too weary for anything but sleep; perhaps too weary for that even, How long do you expect to keep up with such a life dragging at you?"

Miss Hamilton lifted between her finger and thumb a fold of the dress she wore. "All the time I could spare from my painting in the last three weeks has been devoted to the task of making this dress out of an old one," she said. "It was a difficult problem; but I solved it. I was always fond of the mathematics. Of course, during those three weeks my universe revolved around a black bombazine centre. O sir! I know better than you can tell me, how degrading such labor is. God in the beginning imposed it as a curse; and a curse it is!"

There was again a momentary pause, during which Mr. Sinclair's merciless eyes searched the cold face beside him.Margaret did not observe that all the company had gone, that the procession had disappeared, the crowd melted away. She had sat there and listened like one in a dream, too dull and weary to be angry, or to wonder that such words should be addressed to her, and such bold assertions made, where her most intimate friends had never ventured a hint even.

When Mr. Sinclair spoke again, his voice was soft and earnest. "Have you any friend so dear and trusty, that his frown would make your heart ache yet more? In all the world, do you know one to whom your actions are of moment, who thinks of you anxiously and tenderly, for whose sake you would walk in a straight path, though it might be full of thorns? Is there one?"

"There is not one," she said.

"Come with me, then!" he exclaimed. "Think of Italy, and what that name means, of the east, of all the lands that live in song and in story. Drop for ever from your hands the necessity for toil, and let your heart and mind take holiday. 'Not one,' you said; but, Maud, you mistook, I thought of you all the time, and got your troubles by heart. Leave this miserable, cramping life of yours, and come with me where we shall be as free from criticism as if we were disembodied spirits. Forget this paltry Boston, with its wriggling streets and narrow breaths. Fancy now that the breeze in our faces blows off the blue Mediterranean, the little dome above us rises and swells to St. Peter's, that last flutter of a banner over the hill is the argent ground with golden keys. Or Victor Immanuel has got Rome for his own, and there floats the red, white, and green of Italy. How you would color and brighten like a rose under such sunshine! Come with me, Margaret, come!

She looked at him with troubled, uncomprehending eyes, groping for the meaning under the flowery speech. His glance dazzled her.

"It is like a fairy-tale," she said. "How can it come true? I am poor, yet you bid me travel as only the rich can. How am I to go with you? who else is going?"

He smiled. "O silly Margaret! since there is no other way, and since in all the world there is no one to care for or to question you, come with me alone."

Then Margaret Hamilton knew that her cup of bitterness had lacked one poisoned drop. She got up from the seat, shrinking away, feeling as though she lessened physically.

But when she reached the door, Mr. Sinclair was there before her.

"At least, forgive me!" she heard him say.

"Let me go!" she exclaimed, without looking up.

"Remember my tenderness and pity for you," he urged.

"You have none!" she said. "Let me go."

"And you are not indifferent to me," he continued.

She lifted her face at that, and looked at him with eyes that were bright, gray, and angry as an eagle's.

"Maurice Sinclair," she said haughtily, "I thank you for one thing. Weary, and miserable, and lonely as I have been, I could not have been certain, without this test, that such a temptation would not make me hesitate. But now I know that temptation comes from within, not from without, and that infamy attracts only the infamous. I care for you, you think? My admiration and my friendships are free; but I am not a woman to tear my hands on other people's hedges. Let me tell you, sir, that I must honor a man before I can feel any affection for him.I must know that, though being human he might stumble, his proper stature is upright. If I cared for you, I could not stand here and scorn you, as I do; I should pray you to be true to your noble self, to give me back my trust in you. I should forgive you; but my forgiveness would be coals of fire on your head. If I could love a man well enough to sin for him, I should love him too well for that. Oh! it was manly, and tender, and generous of you, was it not? I had lost all but self-respect, and you would have taken that from me. But, sir, I have wings which you can never entangle!"

"You have nowhere to turn," he said.

She stood one instant as though his words were indeed true, then threw her hands upward, "I turn to God! I turn to God!" she cried out.

When she looked at him again, Mr. Sinclair stepped aside and let her pass.

But the strength that passion gives is brief, and when Margaret reached the street, she was trembling with weakness. Where to go? Not home; oh! not to that gloomy place! She walked across the Common, and thence to the Public Gardens, every step a weariness.

"I must stay out in the sunshine," she thought, taking a seat under the great linden-tree that stands open to the west. "Darkness, and chilly, shadowed places are terrible. Oh! what next?"

Though she had called on God, she yet believed not in him, poor Margaret! Hers had been the instinctive outcry of one driven to desperation; and when the impulse subsided, then darkness fell again.

Sitting there, she drew from her pocket a little folded paper, opened it in an absent way, and dreamily examined the delicate white powder it contained. More than once, when life had pressed too heavily, the enchanter hidden under this delusive form had came to her aid, had loosened the tense cords that bound her forehead, unclasping them with a touch as light and tender as love's own, had charmed away the pain from flesh and spirit. She recollected now anew its sinuous and subtile ways. First, a deep and gradually settling quietude of mind and body, all disturbing influences stealing away so noiselessly that their going was imperceptible, a prickling in the arms, a languor in the throat and at the roots of the tongue, a sweet fainting of the breath, an entire and perfect peace. Then a slowly rising perception of pleasures already in possession yet unnoticed before.

How delightful the mere involuntary act of breathing! How airily intoxicating the full, soft rush of blood through the arteries, swinging noisily like a dance to a song, never lost, in whatever labyrinthine windings it might wander. How the universe opened like a folded bud, like myriad buds that bloom in light and color and perfume! The air and the sunshine became miracles; common things slipped off their disguise, and revealed undreamed-of glories. All this in silence. And presently the silence would be found rhythmic like a tune.

She went no farther. The point at which all these downy influences became twined into a cord as potent as the fabulous Gleipnir, and tightened about both body and soul with its soft, implacable coils—that her thought glanced away from.

She carefully shook the shining powder into a little heap in the paper. There was ten times as much as she had ever taken at once; but then she had ten times greater need of rest and forgetfulness. Her head felt giddy, as if a wheel were going within it.Catching at that thought of a wheel, her confused memory called up strange eastern scenes, a temple in a gorge among rocky mountains; outside, the dash of a torrent foaming over its rough bed between the palms; not far away, the jungle, where the tiger springs with a golden flash through the shadows; within, hideous carved idols with vestments of cloth of gold, and silver bowls set before them, the noiseless entering of a gliding lama, the bowed form and hand outstretched to twirl the praying-wheel, whereon is wound in million-fold repetition the one desire of his soul, "Um mani panee, houm!" O jewel in the lotos! Rest and forgetfulness! So her thought kept murmuring with weary persistency.

As she raised the morphine to her lips, some one touched her arm.

"Madam!" said a man's voice just behind her shoulder.

She started and half turned. "Well, sir!"

"What have you there?" he asked, without removing his hand.

She shook herself loose from him. "Will you go on, sir? you are insolent!"

"I cannot go while you have such a face, and while that paper is in your hand," Louis Granger said firmly; and reaching, took the morphine from her.

Her glance slid away from his face, and became fixed.

"O child! what would you do?" he exclaimed.

She did not appear to hear him. She was swaying in her seat, and her breath came sobbingly.

Mr. Granger called a carriage that was passing, and led her to it. She made no resistance, and did not object, scarcely noticed, indeed, when he seated himself opposite her.

"Walk your horses till I find out where the lady wants to go," he said to the driver.

When, after a few minutes of sickening half-consciousness, Margaret began to realize who and where she was, and looked at Mr. Granger, she met his eyes full of tears.

"I have no claim on your confidence," he said, "but I desire to serve you; and if you can trust me, I assure you that you will never have reason to regret it."

Margaret dropped her face into her hands, and all the pride died out of her heart.

"I was starving," she said. "I have not tasted food for twenty-four hours; and for a week I have eaten nothing but dry bread."

Mr. Granger leaned quickly and took her hand in a strong grasp, as we take the hands of the dying, to give them strength to die.

"I worked day and night," she sobbed; "and I only got enough to make me decent, and pay for my room. I have done all I could; but I was losing the strength to do. I have been starving so for more than a year, growing worse every day. I wasn't responsible for trying to take the morphine. My head is so light and my heart is so heavy, that everything seems strange, and I don't quite know what is right and what is wrong."

Mr. Granger's sympathy was painfully excited. He was not only shocked and hurt for this woman, but he felt that in some way he was to blame when such things could be. He had also that uneasiness which we all experience when reminded how deceitful is the fair surface of life, and what tragedies may be going on about us, under our very eyes, yet unseen and unsuspected by us. "What if my own little girl should come to this!" he thought.

"What was Mr. Sinclair saying to you up there?" he asked abruptly.

She told him without hesitation.

Back to Index Next