"I don't know where they will take us, or if we shall ever see one another again," persisted the child; "but, oh, mother before we part, tell me how I can make you love me?"
"If there is a drop of brandy anywhere about, bring it and I'll love you dearly, indeed I will, little Mary; I ain't at all well, Mary, and a drop of brandy is good for sickness; get some, that's a dear; I'm very fond of you, Mary!"
"Mother, I cannot; but, if you will never ask for it again, I will. Oh, I will die for you; I hav'n't anything but my life to give—nor that," she added, with a sudden thought, "for it belongs to God; I have nothing."
Mrs. Fuller had fallen asleep, and heard nothing of this. So Mary turned away sorrowful, but not altogether hopeless. Those who trust in God never are.
Not here—not here with our lovely dead—Oh, give one spot of sacred earth!Where the grass may wave, above her head,And the sweet, wild flowers have holy birth.
Oh, grant our prayer—our solemn prayer—A lonely grave—and fresh, green sod—There is earth around us everywhere;And the mother earth belongs to God.
A long heavy boat lay at the Bellevue wharf. In the bow sat half a dozen paupers, who started up now and then to range the coffins that came in wheelbarrow loads from a little brick building near the wharf.
A name was marked rudely in chalk upon the lid of each coffin, and this was all that those who brought them knew or cared about the senseless forms they carried. Out from that brick house, and along the wharf, they were trundled amid a swarm of loungers, who helped eagerly to lower them into the boat.
It was the harvest time of death at Bellevue, and those pine coffins were garnered by tens and twenties each day. That morning the weight of twenty-four human forms, all breathing souls fifteen hours before, sunk that stout boat to the water's edge.
When the last coffin came alone upon the handbarrow, Crofts accompanied it, followed by two little girls. With his own hands he helped to lower that coffin into the boat, and those paupers who could read saw Jane Chester's name chalked upon the lid. As Crofts settled his burden gently down across an empty seat, a faint odor of flowers stole through the crevices, and when the rude sail cloth was flung carelessly over the rest, he laid a strip of clean, coarse linen over this coffin, then clambering across to the man who sat with the helm in his hand, he imparted some directions to him in a low voice.
"What, up to Randall's Island! Take those two children in the boat there and back to the nurseries! It can't be done, I tell you," said the man, sulkily. "I won't do it without the Superintendent's order, nor then either, if I can help myself."
"Oh, let us go with her—pray take us!" cried Mary Fuller, who was anxiously watching the man, while Isabel bent over the wharf, her hands hanging down, and her eyes full of helpless woe.
The pauper captain neither heeded the pleading cry of Mary Fuller, or the more touching look of the orphan—and to all the humane arguments of Crofts he turned a deaf ear. At length Crofts found a means of persuasion more potent than tears or words. He took from his pocket four twists of coarse tobacco, which the captain received with a grin. Hiding the treasure under his seat, he cast a sharp glance over the pile of coffins to assure himself that the transfer had not been observed by the men in the bow.
"Holloa, there, stop crying and jump in if you want to go!" cried the man, addressing the children; "make room in the bow, will you—we have got to leave these children at the nurseries as we come back."
Crofts lifted the little girls into the boat, sat them gently down in the shadow of Mrs. Chester's coffin, and went back to the hospital.
"Give way, all hands!" cried the captain, seizing the helm. "Pull a strong oar, boys, or the tide will turn agin us!"
Half a dozen oars splashed into the water as this command was given.The boat moved slowly from the wharf, and wheeling through a narrowinlet, shot heavily out with its freight of death, into the EastRiver.
Oh, what a change was there, from the dull and murky gloom of Bellevue! Down upon the broad expanse of waters came the morning sunshine. Rosy and golden it fell upon the waves, as they tossed and rolled and dimpled to the soft spring breeze. Here a current of liquid gold went eddying in and out, like the trail of a comet; there, lay the smooth, calm surface, rosy with the young light, or blackened by the shadow of an overhanging bank. Behind them lay New York city, Brooklyn, and Williamsburg, the tall masts and steeples rising through a sea of hazy gold, and belted with the silvery flash of the river. The banks, on either side, were clothed with soft, vivid green, broken with dog-wood trees in full flower, and maples in the first sweet crimson of their foliage. The fragrance from these banks swept down upon the water and trembled through the air.
All this seemed like the very atmosphere of paradise to those little girls, after their dreary sojourn in the pestilential gloom of Bellevue. They could not realize that the mother, the benefactress, whose smile had been so sweet only a few days before, was really and truly gone. She was there close by; their little hands could touch her coffin; the scent of flowers stealing through its chinks, constantly reminded them of the mournful truth; but, with everything so bright and lovely around, they could not believe in the reality. The motion of the boat—the melodious dip of the oars in the water—these things were new and strange. There was nothing like death in it all save the heap of coffins, and from them they shrank shuddering and appalled.
As the boat crept by Hurl Gate, a fearful change came over them. The glorious beauty of nature conflicting with the gloom of death; the frightful jokes of the crew; the boiling waters, leaping up only a few yards off, in long glittering flashes, like banners of silver, torn and weltering in the breeze; the sky bending over them deeply blue, and flooded with pleasant sunshine; the ribald criticisms of those coarse men, and the death-heap under which the sluggish boat toiled through the waters—all these sharp contrasts were enough to have unsettled the nerves of strong manhood. To those children, worn out and heartbroken, it brought strange and fearful excitement. Their hands were interlinked; a thrill of keen magnetic sympathy shot through their frames. They looked at the bright water leaping and flashing so near. A wild temptation came over them, to spring from the shadow of that death-heap into the sparkling flood. This thrilling desire assailed them both at once—their hands clung closer—their eyes, a moment before so heavy and sad, gleamed with intense meaning. They crept close to the side of the boat.
"We are alone—we are all alone in the wide, wide world," said Isabel, in a low voice that thrilled through and through the heart that listened.
Isabel leaned over the boat; she was gazing wistfully into the water.
"One spring, Mary, and we both have a home."
The child stood up, her foot was on the edge of the boat, her face was turned toward Hurl Gate.
Mary Fuller started, as if from a wild dream, and flung her arms around the half frenzied child, standing there upon the threshold of a great crime.
"Isabel, oh, Isabel! can we leaveherhere, all alone?"
The child turned her head, her foot was slowly withdrawn, and her eyes sank to her mother's coffin. She fell into Mary's arms, and burst into a wild passion of tears. Filled with the same terrible feelings, Mary Fuller could scarcely restrain the wild sobs that broke to her lips. She clung close to Isabel, and, cowering down in the boat, afraid to trust themselves with another sight of the rushing waters that had so tempted them, the little creatures remained motionless till they reached Randall's Island.
All this passed before the stolid crew, and they did not know it, but joked and jeered each other in the midst of death, as if their horrid duties had been a pastime. These men were so used to the King of Terrors, that his aspect had ceased to disturb them.
They landed on Randall's Island, a lovely spot at all seasons, but now teaming with luxuriant beauty. The apple orchards were all in blossom. The cherry and pear trees, white as if a snow-storm had drifted over them. The oak groves were robed with delicate foliage, and a carpet of young grass lay everywhere around. Again the contrast between nature and that death-freight was more than painful.
Two or three men came down to the landing with wheelbarrows, and the boat was disencumbered of its gloomy load. The little girls sat down upon the shore, watching each load as it was trundled away. At length, the men brought the coffin in which their hearts rested, and laid it across a hand barrow. They arose silently, and followed it hand and hand.
They turned into an orchard; the blossoming apple boughs drooped over the coffin as it passed under them. A host of birds made the fragrant air tremble with their songs. The single wheel of the hand-barrow crushed hundreds of wild flowers down in the tender grass. Once more it seemed like a dream to those young hearts. Surely, surely it could not be her grave they were approaching through all this labyrinth of blossoms!
All at once they came into an open space. The world of flowers was left behind. Thickets and broken hillocks were on the right and left. A sweep of green sward fell gently down to the water; here the turf was torn up and mangled, and long deep ridges of fresh soil swept downward toward the shore. Some were heaped high with fresh mould and around them all the young grass lay trampled and dead. There was one deep trench open half the way down, into which a man leaped, while the others handed down the coffins ranged on either side the trench. With their hands clinging together, the children crept close to the brink of the abyss and looked down. One low cry and, in pale silence, they recoiled back to the coffin and sunk down by it, like twin flowers broken at the stem.
An old man rose up from the trench, casting down his spade and dashing the soil from his hands, rejoicing that his task was over for that day; but his eyes fell upon the mournful group we have described.
"What, another yet!" he muttered, with sullen discontent, as he moved forward. The little girls heard his approach and crept closer to the coffin.
"Not there! oh, do not put her there!" cried Isabel, lifting her ashen face to the man.
The pauper-sexton shook his head.
"This is always the way," he muttered, "when the friends are allowed to come here, we are sure of trouble!"
"Is there no other place? oh, do not put her with all them!"
So pleaded Mary, rising to her feet, and taking hold of the old man's garments.
"In all this island is there no room where one person can be buried alone?"
"If you have a dollar to pay for the trouble—yes," answered the old man, softened by her distress.
"A dollar!"
The child turned away in utter despondency. Where on the wide earth was she to find a dollar? Isabel looked at her with mournful solicitude. A dollar! she would have given her young life for that little sum of money; but, alas! even her life would not procure so much.
The old man stood gazing upon those little pale faces, the one so beautiful, the other vivid and wild with intense feeling. His heart was touched, and going back to the trench he took up his spade.
"Come and point out the place where you would like to have her buried, and I will do the work for nothing," he said; "as likely as not my little grandchildren will some day be crying over me for want of a dollar."
The old man seemed like an angel to those little girls. They could not speak from fullness of gratitude, but followed the grave digger back towards the orchard. Here the earth was broken, and rendered uneven by some fifty or sixty hillocks; some marked by a single pine board, others without even this frail memorial by which the death-couch might be traced.
On the outskirts of this humble burial-place they found a fragment of rock, half buried in the rich turf, and overrun with wild flowers, mingled with fresh young moss. An apple-tree sheltered this spot, and a honeysuckle-vine had taken root in a cleft of the rock, around which its young tendrils lay, covered with budding foliage.
The little girls pointed out this spot, and the old man kindly sent them away, before he sunk his spade in the turf.
When his task was done he came toward them, wiping the drops from his forehead. The sexton was poor, but out of the feeble strength left to his old age, he had given something to alleviate distress greater than his own. A consciousness of this made his voice peculiarly gentle, as he called a man from the trench to aid in the humble funeral of Jane Chester.
Again that coffin was borne beneath the sweeping boughs of the orchard, and lowered into its solitary grave, amid the sweet breath of their restless blossoms. The two children followed it with meek and tearful gratitude. The horrors of the tomb seemed nothing to them now, that the beloved form was secure of a quiet resting-place. The dread of seeing her cast into that trench had swallowed up all minor feelings. It seemed like leaving her there in a holy sleep, when the old man led them from the grave. They knew that it was a sleep from which their grief could never arouse her, but still they went away, greatly comforted.
The last boat was ready to put off when these children reached the shore. They sat down close together, without much apparent emotion. Their energies were completely prostrated; they had lost, almost, the power to suffer or to weep.
"We were ordered to leave you at the nurseries. Do you wish to go there?" inquired the captain.
Isabel looked at him vacantly, and Mary answered,
"We do not know."
"Would you not rather go back to the city, or to Bellevue?" persisted the man, determined to force them into conversation; but still the child answered,
"We do not know."
This mild and passive sorrow was more touching than their worst agony had been. They seemed like two wounded birds bleeding to death without a struggle.
Oh, faith, how beautiful thou art!Like some pure, snowy-breasted dove,Nested within that gentle heart,Ye filled its softest pulse with love.
Just where the banks of the East River are the most broken and picturesque on the New York shore, and the sunny slopes of Long Island are most verdant in their Arcadian beauty, the river opens its bright waters, and Blackwell's Island rises, green and beautiful, from its azure bosom. Years ago, when this gem of the East River was a private estate, with only one dwelling-house to break its entire seclusion, it must have seemed like a mile's length of paradise dropped into the water. Then, its hollows were fragrant with wild roses, haunted by blackbirds and thrushes. Its shores were hedged in by the snow-white dogwood, wild cherry and maple trees, laced together with native grape-vines and scarlet creepers, that, even a year or two back, hung along its shores, like torn banners left upon a battle-field. Blackwell's Island had other inhabitants than the singing birds and the sweet wild blossoms, when the orphans first landed there. Then its extremities were burdened to the very water's edge, with edifices of massive stone, where human crime and human misery were crowded together in masses appalling to reflect upon.
On one end of the island, naturally so quiet and beautiful, rose the rugged walls of the Penitentiary, flanked by outhouses, hospitals and offices, every stone of which was eloquent of human degradation. Here, a thousand wretched men, bowed with misery and branded with crime, were crowded together. All the day long, herds of these degraded beings might be seen in their coarse and faded uniform, burrowing in the earth, blasting and shaping the rocks that were to form new prison-walls, and filling the sweet air with groans and curses, which once thrilled only to the songs of summer-birds.
At the other extremity of the island stood the Insane Asylum, a beautiful pile, towering over a scene of misery that should fill the heart with awe. There is, perhaps, no spot of its size, throughout the length and breadth of our land, where every variety of human suffering is so closely condensed as it has been for years on this island. The moment your foot touches the shore you feel oppressed with feelings that seem inexplicable. Pity, horror, and a painful blending of both, crowd upon the heart with every breath you draw. Nothing but the air seems free; nothing but the blue sky above seems pure, as you walk from one scene of distress to another. You feel the more oppressed because human effort seems so powerless to alleviate the misery you witness; for who can minister to a mind diseased? What can take away the deformity and sting of guilt? Where lies the power to lift poverty from the degradation that the haughty and evil spirit of man has flung around it? The very heart grows faint as it beats in this wilderness of woe, and finds no fitting answer to questions like these.
But at the time these events happened there was one remnant of beautiful nature left on Blackwell's Island—one spot where the flowers were permitted to bloom in the pure breath of heaven—where the trees were yet rooted to the earth, and filled as of old, with the music of summer birds. On the very centre of the island stood an old mansion house, the residence of its proprietor before the paradise became city property. It was a rambling old building, with wings of unequal length shaded with magnificent willows, and surrounded by shrubbery, and pretty lawns, interspersed with fine old trees. Terraces beautifully lifted from the water's edge; and gravel walks, bordered with the thickest and heaviest box-myrtle, with here and there a grape arbor spanning them with its leafy arch, sloped with picturesque beauty to the river which washed both sides of the island. A neglected and rude old place it was, but perhaps the more lovely for that. Neglect only seemed to give richer luxuriance to every thing around; the hedges and rose-thickets were tangled together. Great snow-ball trees, trumpet vines and honeysuckles seemed to shoot out more rigorously from want of pruning, and the trees had become majestic with age.
From the broad hall you might see the river on either hand, gleaming through the spreading branches. Now and then a snow-white sail glided by, and at sunset the water seemed heaving up waves of gold wherever your eye turned.
This was the Children's Hospital. In the low chambers, and the fine old fashioned rooms, from two hundred and fifty to three hundred children lay upon their little cots, in all stages of suffering to which infancy is subject. It was a painful scene—those helpless little creatures, orphaned, or worse than orphaned, in the morning of life, wearing such looks of pain, and yet so patient. God help them!
It was a touching sight to watch the brightening of those little faces, whenever the good matron passed into the wards ministering to their comfort—poor things—by a kind look and soothing word, where medicine might often less avail. Strange manifestations of character might be witnessed among those little creatures—fortitude that might shame a warrior—patience the most saintlike; and again—but why dwell upon the evil that sometimes exhibits itself fullgrown, in the heart of an infant?
If cries of bitter passion sometimes arose from those little couches they came, alas! from hearts that had never learned that unrestrained passion was a sin. If fierce words were wrung from those infant lips, it was that anger, not kindness had been showered on them from the cradle. To some of these little creatures oaths had been familiar as caresses are to the infancy of others. Such was their household language.
To this place, so beautiful in itself, so full of painful associations, Isabel Chester was brought in less than a week after her mother's burial. Since that day she had drooped like a broken lily. The terrible grief to which her delicate nature had bent and swayed like a reed; the sudden change from a home of quiet and tranquil love, to the most bitter solitude known to the human heart—that of a crowd—had completely prostrated the orphan. A slow fever preyed upon her; she could not speak without feeling the hot tears gush from her eyes.
In this state she came under the observation of the Children's physician, and, touched with compassion, he took her to the Infant Hospital. Mary went also, for she too, was ailing, and the doctor saw that it would be cruelty to part them. At the hospital these helpless creatures had better food and more comfort than could be allowed them among the seven or eight hundred healthy children with which the nurseries on the Long Island shore were crowded. For days and weeks Isabel lay prostrate on her little cot. She had no settled disease. The child only seemed quietly fading away.
Mary Fuller never left her bed-side. She, too, was broken down with grief, and her wearied frame had lost all its power of endurance; but though the hand which held Isabel's drink trembled with weakness, the little creature never complained, nor ever acknowledged that she was ill enough to be in bed. Patient and sweet-tempered as an angel, she watched by the child of those who had done so much for her. The love and gratitude of her whole being seemed centered in that pale, but still lovely orphan.
At length all this patient love had its reward. Isabel was well enough to walk in the grounds, and with their feeble arms around each other, these children might be seen from morning till night, wandering along the shore, or sitting quietly beneath the grape-arbors that overlooked the water. To the other children they were always gentle and kind, but they had no companions, and they clung together with the deep trust and holy love of sisters. They had no future—those hopeless children. Chester had left no relatives that his child ever heard of, and his gentle wife had been an orphan. Mary Fuller possessed only her wretched, wretched mother.
But their gentleness, and Isabel's singular beauty, were sure to win them friends. The Physician and the matron began to love the little girls, and after a time they became the pets of the establishment. While the locks of the other children were cut close to the head, Isabel still possessed her long and flowing tresses. Day by day her exquisite beauty deepened into health again, and the pensive cast which grief had given to her features rendered them ideal as they were lovely.
But as Isabel grew better, Mary Fuller seemed to sink and droop in all her being. She was often found amid the shrubbery, weeping bitterly, and alone. Toward nightfall, and at early morning, she might have been detected stealing softly up the Hospital stairs, and away to a dim corner of the garret, with a handful of berries or a fragment of cake which the matron had given her during the day. Sometimes her voice, low and sweet, as if in tearful entreaties, floated along the garret, and then might have been heard another voice, sometimes rude, sometimes querulous, but very feeble, answering her with sharp reprimands. After this the child would come down in tears and steal away, as we have described, to weep alone.
Thus they entered upon sweet June, literally a month of roses at the Infant's-Hospital. The pale little invalids grew better that month, and were gathered beneath the huge old trees with their nurses, forgetting their pain in the sweet breath of the flowers; but that month, though the butterflies were numerous, and humming-birds came and went through the thickets like flashes from a rainbow, Mary Fuller was seldom abroad with the rest. More and more of her time was spent in the low, dim garret; but when she did come forth, those who observed her saw a new and tranquil light upon her face. She was sometimes seen to smile, as if a pleasant thought possessed her mind. Just before this, Mary had asked permission to carry away a little Bible from the matron's table. It was not brought back, but the matron only smiled, and never inquired the reason. She had learned to love and trust Mary Fuller.
There was a clergyman stationed at Blackwell's Island, to whose spiritual charge was given from four to seven hundred persons at the Penitentiary, four or five hundred of the insane, and nearly a thousand children, at the nursery and its hospital. The welfare of all these souls was entrusted to this meek Christian, and most faithfully has he performed the solemn duties of his office from that day to this. Always busy in behalf of the unhappy creatures, who, amid all their degradation, loved and respected him, always cheerful, always ready with his gentle word and consoling advice, he made this holy mission with the helpless and the prisoner the one great business of his life.
This good clergyman had a family to support on his miserable salary of three hundred dollars a year, voted him by a Common Council that spent ten thousand carousing in their tea-room. Had any one of those city fathers ever been up so early, they might often have seen this good man at daybreak toiling on foot to the city, or perchance miles away to some country town, in search of a service place for some repentant prisoner, or to carry a message from a sick child to its friends. In his gentle humility the good man never complained, never said that the pay awarded to his labors by the Common Council of our most wealthy city, was too little for his wants. You saw it in his garments. You might have read it in his meek sigh, when some object of compassion presented unusual claims to his charity; but in his speech and deportment he seemed ever grateful for the little that was given him. This true-hearted Christian remains upon his post to this day. If a single hundred dollars has been added to his yearly means of support, it was through the intercession of others, and from no discontent expressed by himself. Surely the reward of such men must be hereafter, or in the heaven of their own souls.
It was pleasant to see the eyes of those little children brighten, when the good clergyman entered the hospital. They were fatherless, and he was better than a father to them. They were sick, and he comforted them, even as our Lord comforted little children when they were brought to Him. His hand touched their pale foreheads caressingly; his mild voice sunk into their little hearts like dew upon a bruised flower. His very tread upon the stairs was a blessing to them; when they heard it, all unconsciously the little creatures would smile upon their pillows, and murmur over fragments of the Lord's Prayer, for with its holy language, his own lips had rendered most of them familiar.
To this brave Christian little Isabel and her friend had become greatly attached. He sat with them in the grape arbors; he helped them arrange bouquets for the sick children, and while they were busy at their sweet task, he, in his gentle way, would lead their thoughts from the flowers to the God who gives them to beautify the earth. At such times he would go quietly away, leaving the children happier and better, but without the slightest consciousness that they had been receiving religious instruction.
This was the man to whom Mary Fuller appealed one night, as he paused to speak with her in the garden-path that leads along the water.
"Oh! sir, I have been waiting for you here; I thought you would come this way," cried the child, placing her little hand in his, "I have something to tell you—something that makes me happy as a bird?"
"You look happy, my child, and you look good, too," said the clergyman, shaking her hand with a smile. "Come, now, tell me what it is."
"It is a long story, and one that would make you cry if you knew all.You are not in a hurry sir?"
"No, no! I am never in a hurry, my dear little girl, so if you have much to say come in here, and I will listen an hour if you like."
There was an old summer-house on the bank, dilapidated, and threatening to tumble over the declivity with the first rough wind. The clergyman led his little friend into this open building, and sat down upon the only entire seat that it contained.
The child sat by his side awhile, thoughtful and evidently striving to arrange her ideas.
"Do you remember, sir, a long time ago, when we first came here, you asked me about my father and mother? I told you that my father was dead, but I did not say much of my mother. Sir, she was a prisoner then, and I did not like to mention it; that perhaps was wrong, but I couldn't help being ashamed."
"There was nothing wrong in that feeling," answered the clergyman, gently.
"I am glad you think so," replied the child, "for now I am sure you will not want me to tell you all that has ever happened—how she took to drink when I was a little, little girl. She was not used to it, and I don't know how she was led away—for my poor father never talked of these things to me, but they killed him, sir—it broke his heart at last. One day—I was only seven years old then, but I remember it, oh! how well—she had been drinking, oh, she was dreadful always at those times. I don't know what I did, but I believe that I was only in her way as she crossed the floor—all that I can remember is, that she struck at me with her hand and foot. It seemed as if she had crushed me to the floor. The breath left my body—I was the same as dead for a long, long time."
"Poor child," murmured the clergyman, gazing upon the little creature with a look of profound compassion.
"When I came to myself, people thought I would never be good for anything again, and, sometimes, I thought so too, for after that I almost stopped growing, and all that was bright about me died away. I believe, after that, she hated me, sir."
Mary paused a moment, and went on.
"But my father, oh, he loved me better and better; he only wanted to live for my sake, he told me so many a time. My poor father was a good man, sir; as good as you are, as good as Mr. Chester was; but he was so unhappy that God was very kind not to let him live only for my sake. But, oh, sir, I was all alone when he went. I need not tell you how we lived. We were poor. You never, in your life, saw any persons so poor as we were, after father died. She would not work, and when I did not have enough to eat I couldn't do much. Oh, sir, it was a miserable life; now when I have told you so much, you will not want me to say any more about it than I can help."
"Say only what you wish, my child; I will listen."
"One night—she had been drinking night and day, for a week—two or three women had been in, and while they drank I sat in a corner longing for them to go. They quarreled; my mother struck one of the women, and while they were swearing dreadfully, a policeman came in. It was Mr. Chester—that was the first time I ever saw him. I have told you about him, and how his child, poor, beautiful Isabel, came here with me; but I did not tell you that the nurse at Bellevue was my own mother. The doctors found out that she had been drinking, and sent her away after that night. A few weeks ago she came up here to work for the children. Nobody knew that she was my mother, but, oh! sir, she looked very ill, and I said to myself when she passed me without a word, only with black looks—I said, she is ill, I will take care of her; I will go to her at night with nice things that the matron gives me to eat—I will do without them myself, and, perhaps, this will make her love me.
"I went up into the garret the first night, but she drove me away. I would not give up, but went again. She was very ill that night—living among that fever so long had poisoned all the pure breath she had left. She was crying when I went up to the bed; I knelt down by the bed and began to cry, too. She did not send me away. She did not strike me, though I thought it was for that when she lifted her hand, but she laid the hand on my head. Indeed she did, sir, and then I felt she might be my mother yet!"
The child paused; the big tears that welled up from her heart were choking her.
"I went to see her very often after that, for she was growing worse. I carried her nice things, and tried every way to make her love me. She was not always kind, but I didn't mind a little crossness now and then, for great hopes were in my heart. My father loved his wife, and I thought of him, and what a joy it would be if I, the poor thing he wanted to live for, could do something toward making her good enough to see him once more when she dies.
"Sir, may I ask you one question? If you want a thing very much, and think and pray for it—does not God, sometimes, bring it all about when you least expect anything of the kind? It seemed to me as if He had done it when my mother complained of being so lonesome up there in the Hospital garret, and wished that she had something to read. She was a great reader, sir, once. I went down stairs, trembling like a leaf, and got the matron's Bible. She did not say a word against it, and I read to her a long time. After that she would ask me to read, and every day as she grew weaker and weaker, I could see that she was growing better, too.
"At last I asked her if she would let me bring you up to see her, but she was vexed at the idea of a clergyman. Once or twice after that I mentioned it, but she still answered no. Last night, as I was saying my prayers by her bed, she began to cry softly, and then, sir, she rose up and kissed me on the forehead. Then I asked her again, and she said you might come—only she made me promise to tell you everything about her first. But for that I would not talk of my poor mother's faults, though it is only to you."
The child ceased speaking—she looked earnestly into the clergyman's face.
"You will not go home till you have seen her?" she said.
"No, my child, I only trust that my poor efforts may be blessed as yours have been," and the clergyman went into the Hospital, leading Mary by the hand. It was an hour before he left the building, and when he turned to shake hands with the little girl, you could see by the expression of his face that it had been an important and heart-rending hour to them all; over and over again did that good man's feet tread those worn stairs, and each time his face looked more thankful than it had done before. One evening he remained much longer than usual. Little Mary had been in the garret since morning, and here, about nine o'clock, the physician was called for the fourth time that day. He was absent but a few minutes.
"You had better go up," he said to the matron, who met him in the hall, "that poor woman is gone."
Mary Fuller turned her head as the matron came into that dimly-lighted garret. Tears stood on her cheek, but her eyes were radiant with holy light.
"Oh, madam, she was my mother! She kissed me! with her last breath she kissed me!"
"She died," said the clergyman, in his low mild voice, "she died with her arms round this little girl, calm and peaceful as a child."
"Go," said the matron, gently sending Mary to the stairs, "go, my child, to-morrow you shall see her again."
The child went down, not to weep as they supposed, for there was a higher and more holy feeling than grief in her young heart. She had found her mother.
The past, sometimes, comes dimly back,Stealing like shadows on the brain;We see the ruins on its track,And feel the dead flowers bloom again.
Since the day of Chester's death, a great change had fallen upon the Mayor. He went to his office as usual, and performed its duties with habitual exactitude, but he never entered the Aldermen's tea-room again. When his political friends called upon him to accomplish any unfinished business, such as giving out contracts long before they were advertised by law—selling city property for a song to confederates, who were certain to allow a portion of the profits to flow back into greedy official pockets—or empowering some favorite to negotiate worthless real estate, and more worthless goods, for which the ever-enduring people were compelled to pay fabulous prices—for in all these things, directly or indirectly, he had been engaged—Farnham resolutely refused to enter into these transactions more.
He felt in the depths of his heart, that the demoralizing influences consequent upon those half-secret, half-audacious speculations had led him to the brink—nay, had actually plunged him into a great crime.
Again and again he had reconsidered the events of Chester's trial and death, following so closely on each other, with a hope of finding something that might remove the terrible responsibility from his conscience. But his stubborn and acute reason would not be convinced by the sophistry that had so often deceived the public. He had no power to blind his own conscience, and that told him, more and more loudly every hour, that his cruel acts had murdered a blameless fellow creature, directly almost as if the deed had been accomplished by a blow.
Yes, Joseph had uttered the right word—it was murder.
True there was no earthly tribunal to reach his impalpable crime, for the law recognizes only physical violence by which death is accomplished. But there is a just God, before whose high court, sooner or later, will be arraigned the bloodless murderer, whose dagger has been words—low whispers, and assassin machinations—or perchance neglect, and the sweeping back of warm affections on a true heart.
There the all-seeing One, who judges the thought as well as the act will make no distinction between life drained drop by drop from the soul, and that sent forth at a blow with the red hand.
These startling truths fastened themselves at last upon his conviction, breaking through his worldliness and all the hard accumulations which a life of underground politics had heaped upon a nature capable of great good.
It was not without a struggle that the Mayor had yielded himself to this true self-knowledge. But in vain he argued that he had not anticipated this fearful result, from proceedings that after all were only intended as the means of removing an obnoxious person from his path. In vain he reasoned with himself, "I did not wish the man's death, nor use means to bring it about." The fault lay in his own sensitive nature. But his reason answered back, neither does the man who commits murder in his hour of intoxication, mean to become inebriated or to take a human life when he lifts the first cup to his lip; yet even the law, that which takes hold only of actual things, deems this man guilty as if his soul had not been brutalized and made blind before the blow.
There might have been other influences besides poor Chester's death, that aided to accomplish this transfiguration of character; for as Farnham bent beneath the pressure of this truth, other impressions, perhaps not less potent because unrecognized, stole in upon him; angels sometimes come softly and fill a newly aroused soul with love, as the night sheds its dew on the green leaves of an oak, after the storm has passed by.
What was there in the appearance of Joseph to soften the self-upbraiding of this stern man? The boy's words had been, perhaps, the most severe reproof that he had ever met; but they called forth no bitterness. Instead of this arose an attraction so powerful that he could not resist it. Thus he had followed the lad to his own door, and afterwards would turn in the street and gaze on any boy of his size with a yearning desire to see him again.
But the gentle lad was at home, studying his father's beautiful art, and seldom went into the street. His life had always been so secluded that this one event was a great epoch, to which his mind was constantly going back. A spirit of loneliness came upon him after the little girls left the house, and at sunset he might sometimes be found almost in tears, homesick for a sight of them. A beautiful sympathy had sprung up between him and Mary Fuller that filled him with vague uneasiness.
Sometimes, too, he would think of the Mayor, so stern and cold to others, but so full of gentleness to him, and with the warm gratitude of youth he could not help looking forward to the time when he might visit Fred again, and thus see the man who had filled him with so much of terror unseen, and with such strange happiness after.
Once or twice he spoke of this in a timid way, but his father checked him almost with harshness, and with the reserve of a sensitive nature, he buried this strange feeling in his bosom till it became almost a want, which after a time was gratified.
One night, when he had spent the whole day in attempting to copy one of his father's pictures, while the old artist sat by, giving him such help as lay in his power, an unaccountable desire seized upon the lad, and he arose almost with tears in his eyes.
"Father," he said, with great earnestness. "Father I cannot hold the brush, my hand grows unsteady; please let me go and see Frederick; it seems to me as if some one there wanted me very much!"
"If Frederick wanted to see us, he would come here, I should think!" answered the father.
"I believe—I almost think that his father is sick," said Joseph.
"And how did you know this?" asked Mr. Esmond, rather sharply, for he seemed jealous of his son's interest in the Mayor's family.
"I don't know it—but it seemed to me all day yesterday and to-day, that something was the matter."
"And if there is, your mother's child—my child should not trouble himself about it!"
Joseph looked at his father in astonishment. These sharp words were so unlike his usual kindliness, that the lad was bewildered.
"I—I thought you liked Fred so much," he said, at last.
"But it is not Fred—it is his father you are thinking of, unnatural child that you are!"
"Father—oh, father!"
"There—there," said the old man, more gently. "I did not mean it. Go, my son if you wish, I will not stop you, but do not give much love to any one but your father, he has had so little, so very little on earth. Don't let this man get your heart away from me."
"Away from you, my own, own father?" said Joseph, grieved, and deeply hurt.
"Well—well, all this is foolish talk—but I am getting very childish. It ages one so to live alone, Joseph, you would not believe it, but I am a younger man by five years than the Mayor."
"The Mayor has grown very old since I first saw him father, you would be astonished!"
"Then you have seen him more than once?"
"Yes; he comes to Mrs. Peters, now, almost every day, and sometimes I see him."
"In this house—in this house!" exclaimed the artist, "to-morrow we will move—to-night, if another room can be got!"
As the old man spoke, a hesitating knock was heard at the door. Joseph and his father looked at each other wistfully; at length the boy stepped forward and turned the latch.
Mr. Farnham stood on the threshold. The artist drew his tall form up, and remained immovable, with his dark eyes fixed sternly on the Mayor's.
Joseph paused irresolute, with the last dying gold of sunset falling on his head, from a neighboring window.
The artist glanced from him to the Mayor, and a look of sudden pain swept across his face. It was a strange, jealous pang to strike a man of his age.
"Go," said the Mayor gently to the lad; "go, and leave us alone, I wish to speak with your father."
Joseph looked at his father questioningly.
"Go!" said the old man, in a voice so husky that he could only force himself to utter that single word.
Joseph went out, and those two old men—for the Mayor looked very old that night—sat down in the dim chamber, and talked together for the first time in their lives.
Joseph shut himself in the dark hall, and found a seat upon the stairs, filled with vague wonder; for his keen imagination seized upon this event, and his affectionate nature turned lovingly to the old men, whose voices came through the ill-fitting door in indistinct murmurs.
It must have been an hour when the door opened, and Joseph saw the Mayor and his father standing just within the room. The light from a tallow candle fell upon them from behind, striking their side faces with singular effect. Both were pale, but the cheek of the Mayor, on which the light lay strongest, glistened with moisture. Could it be that this was the trace of tears?—and, if so, what power had that humble artist, to make a man weep who had not been known to shed tears since his boyhood!
The artist too had a look of tender sadness on his face, as if all his deeper feelings had been moved.
The two old men—we call them old, but events rather than time had left hoary marks upon them—the two old men held each other by the hand; Joseph arose and drew back, that the Mayor might pass, but when he went by without a word, the boy was seized with a pang of disappointment, and followed him.
"Mayor," he said, "please won't you say good-bye to me, I have wanted to see you so much all day?"
The Mayor turned his face; the light from a street-lamp shone upon it, as he stood in the lower entrance. Surely there had been tears on that stern face.
"Yes," answered Mr. Farnham, looking into those deep earnest eyes, "I will bid you good-bye."
"Mr. Farnham," said Joseph, "won't you stay a little?"
The Mayor stepped back into the hall, but wavered in his walk, and supported himself by the lad. Joseph could feel that the hands which were laid on his shoulders trembled.
"Are you sick?" questioned the lad, with his forehead up lifted in reverential tenderness.
"Sick—no! I think it is not sickness, but, but"—
"Have I or father done anything to hurt you, sir?"
"Hurt me!—no, no—but Joseph you said once that I had murdered Mr.Chester, did you believe it?"
Joseph's head drooped forward. His eyes were suffused with sadness, he could not answer.
"Did you think so, Joseph?" repeated the Mayor, in a voice of strange solicitude.
"I thought so then, but now I am sure you could not have intended to do it."
"No!" answered the Mayor, impressively. "I did not intend it; when you think of me hereafter you will remember this—and remember too, my child, that when a man takes the first step toward an unjust act, he loses a great portion of his power to control the second—great crime grows out of small errors, my boy, remember that, and I charge you, repeat it to my son, when he has need of such warning."
"I will repeat it to him, as you wish me to, sir!"
"And now farewell."
Joseph felt a kiss quiver upon his forehead, like the touch of a spirit that had taken flight. He looked around, the Mayor was gone.
"Farewell—why did not he say good-bye—or good-night, Joseph? Farewell! that is a very solemn word. I wish he had not said farewell!"
Now do I drop my heavy load of woe,As some wet mantle saturate with rain,And rise as a soft spirit that doth glowIn rays of light beyond the realm of pain.
The Mayor walked home very slowly, for remorse, while softening into penitence, had sapped the foundations of his life; and he had grown a feeble old man in so short a time, that those who look upon God as an avenger, rather than a chastiser, might have supposed that old age had fallen as a judgment upon him. But the All-wise one knows best how to redeem the souls he has created, and that weary man as he walked home in the darkness, was a thousand times more worthy of respect, than he had ever been in his whole lifetime before.
There was a private room in the lower story of his house, in which Mr. Farnham had usually received his constituents and persons who came to his residence on private business. It had been little used of late, for the routine of his old life was broken up, and when he went to this apartment, it was usually to be secure of the solitude which daily became more necessary to his habits of self-communion. That night he found company in the drawing-room. Mrs. Farnham had guests from the South; other friends were invited to meet them, and the lower portion of the house was in a blaze of magnificence. This scene was so at variance with his state of feelings, that the Mayor recoiled from its glitter, as the sick man shrinks from a noonday sun.
His wife, who was standing in the centre of a group near the door, resplendent with jewels and brocade, saw him pass through the hall, and playfully shaking her fan called after him.
Either he did not hear, or he did not heed her, and with the usual obstinacy of a silly woman, she called to her son and bade him go bring his father back.
Frederick went and found Mr. Farnham in his private room, looking cold and weary. The greatest retribution that had fallen upon this man for his evil act had been the effect it had produced upon his own son. Frederick had known and loved Chester. With his energy and quickness of character, it was impossible that he should not have gathered all the facts regarding his trial and death. The very silence which he maintained on the subject was a proof of this. His manner too had changed so completely that it was a constant reproach to the suffering man. There had always existed a certain reserve between the father and son, but now it amounted almost to coldness. Perhaps this repulsion had driven the unhappy man to seek sympathy in the child of another, for it became a weary trial to seek his home day after day, and find all affection chilled there.
That night Farnham's heart was softened toward the whole world, and most of all did he yearn for the old look of confidence from the now constantly averted eyes of his son. Just as these feelings were strongest in his bosom, Frederick entered the room where he sat. The Mayor looked up wistfully.
"My mother wishes me to call you, sir; she has company in the drawing room." The cold respectfulness of his manner fell like snow upon the Mayor.
"I cannot come, Frederick; tell your mother that I am not well enough for company," he said, so mournfully that the warm heart of the lad was touched.
"Are you really ill, father?" he said.
The Mayor could not answer. It was the first time that his son had called him father since Chester's burial.
The boy was struck by his silence.
"Tell me—speak to me father, are you ill?"
The Mayor held out his hands.
"Frederick!"
It was enough—the boy fell upon his knees and kissed those trembling hands.
"Father, forgive me, I had no right to make myself your judge."
"God bless you, my boy, and remember this night you have made your father very happy."
After Frederick left him, Mr. Farnham began to write. His strength had returned, and his whole energies of soul and body were concentrated in the work he was doing. After he had written an hour, pausing now and then in deep thought, there lay before him a legal document, carefully drawn up, which he read twice. Then he arose and rang the bell; a servant came, and he directed her to go to the drawing-room and tell two gentlemen who were his guests at the time, that he wished to see them. The gentlemen came up flushed and laughing. Champagne had freely circulated below, and they were in splendid spirits.
"I will only detain you a moment," said the Mayor, "but here is a document which requires witnesses. Will you sign it?"
The gentlemen laughed gaily.
The Mayor laid his finger on the signature. Again the gentlemen laughed.
"What is it, a marriage contract, or your last will and testament?" said one, delighted with his own wit.
"It is my last will and testament," answered the Mayor, quietly.
Again the men laughed; they did not believe him.
"Well, well, give us hold here, at any rate, we know it's all right, so here goes!"
They signed their names and went out laughing. The next morning they started South without seeing their host, and with a confused sense of what they had signed over night.
But with all these sources of agitation the Mayor was breaking down. He went up to his bed-room after signing the will, greatly exhausted. His wife passed through the room an hour after, and saw the document on the table. It was late, and she resolved to read it over at leisure in the morning before her husband was up; so dropping it quietly into her pocket she went up stairs.
Three days after the city was in mourning. The public building and military banners were all draped with black. It was the first time in years that a Mayor of New York had died in office, and the people were lavish of funereal honors to Farnham's memory.
A ring—a ring of roses,Laps full of posies;Awake—awake!Now come and makeA ring—a ring of roses.
The month of June had littered its path with roses, and now came July, with its crimson berries, its ruddier blossoms, and its profuse foliage. On the Fourth of this luxurious month some gleams and glimpses of the great National Jubilee are sure to reach even the prisoners and the poor on Blackwell's Island. The sick children at the Hospital had a share of enjoyment; presents of toys, cake and fruit were liberally distributed. The grounds produced an abundance of flowers, and it was marvellous how these little creatures managed to amuse themselves. The matron, the nurses, and many of the little patients, were busy as so many bees that morning, before the sun had changed his first rose-tints to the shower of vivid gold with which he soon boldly deluged the water. Among the first and the busiest were Mary Fuller and Isabel. They sat beneath a great elm tree back of the Hospital, with a heap of flowers between them, out of which they twined a world of bouquets, fairy garlands, and pretty crowns. Half-a-dozen little girls, lame, or among the convalescent sick, volunteered to gather the flowers, and some of the larger boys were up among the branches of the elm tree, garlanding them with ropes of the coarser blossoms. The birds were in full force that morning, as became the little republican rovers, absolutely rioting among the leaves, and pouring forth their music with a wildabandonthat made the foliage thrill again.
"Now, now the sun will be up in no time. Run, Isabel, with the flowers—here they are, a whole apron full—I will be tying up more while you leave these!" said Mary Fuller, heaping Isabel's apron with the pretty bouquets she had been preparing; "don't leave a pillow without them!"
Isabel gathered up her apron and ran into the house. Up the stairs she went with a fairy footstep, and glided into the wards. Stealing softly from one little cot to another, she left upon each pillow her pretty tribute, where the sick child was sure to see it the moment its languid eyes were unclosed. When her store was exhausted she ran down for more.
"Did any of them wake up? Did they see the flowers?" inquired Mary, eagerly.
"Some were awake—they hadn't slept all night, poor things—but the flowers made them smile," was the cheerful reply. "Come, fill my apron again, and give me those large ones, with the white lilies, for the mantel-pieces. Won't the doctor be astonished when he goes up? They're better than medicine, I can tell him."
Again Isabel's apron was heaped full, and again she glided, in all her bright, young beauty, through the sick wards. When she came down, an earthern pitcher, crowded with great white lilies, honeysuckles and sweetbriar, stood on the windows or mantel-pieces of every room. There was not a pillow without its pretty garland, or bouquet of buds, tied with the spray of some fragrant shrub. She had made the atmosphere of those sick wards redolent with fragrance.
"Now for the boys' hats!" said Mary, "here are plenty of soldier's feathers."
The boys cast down their straw-hats from the tree, shouting for her to make soldiers of them, each one clamoring for a red plume.
But the red hollyhocks did not quite hold out, so, perforce some of the slender plumes were of yellow, some of snow-white—for you never saw such hollyhocks as grew in the Hospital-gardens—and Mary had all variety of tints around her, even to some of a deep maroon.
When each straw hat had its plume, the little girls fell to ornamenting three or four large paper kites, and then they began forming garlands for their own heads. Mary twined a beautiful wreath of white clematis around the dark tresses of Isabel's hair.
"Nothing but white," she said with a gentle sigh, "for that is almost mourning."
The others arrayed themselves according to their own fancy, and when the sun rose high it kindled up a happy and picturesque group beneath that old elm tree.
A company of boys, with a red silk handkerchief streaming over them for a banner, their hollyhock plumes rising jauntily in the sunshine, the tallest mounting an epaulette of red, yellow, and purple flowers, marched out with gallant parade from the shelter of the old tree. Tin trumpets, an old milk pail, and various similar instruments, made the air ring again as this warlike band sallied forth.
A score of little pale creatures watched them from the Hospital stoop and the upper windows. Some of the boys were lame; some were blind; while others bore evidence of recent disease; but if they looked in these things like a company of volunteers returning from Mexico, it only gave them a more warlike appearance, and of this they were very ambitious.
Then the little girls began to seek their own amusements. They played "hide and seek," "ring, ring a rosy," and a thousand wild and pretty games; for the place was so beautiful, and the day so bright, the little rogues quite forgot that they were in the Poor House, or had ever been sick in the whole course of their lives.
Mary and Isabel were a little pensive at times, but when all the rest seemed so happy, they could not choose but smile with them—and so the Fourth of July wore over.
There was a great tumult and glorious time on Long Island shore that day. The children had a festival of flowers over there also; crowds of people were walking along the banks of the river; and you could see hundreds of gaily-dressed visitors landing every minute from the water, while the children huzzaed, and flung up their hats till you could hear them across the broad river. Still it is to be doubted if there was more real enjoyment among them than our little band of convalescents experienced among the flowery nooks of the old Hospital.
The hour for cakes and fruit to be served under the elm surprised our little warriors down by the river. When the signal was given, they marched along the broad walk, lined on each side with box-myrtle of twenty years' growth. They paraded superbly up the terrace steps—down again—through the grape arbors, and around the end of the Hospital, in gallant array, with colors flying, sixpenny trumpets blowing, and the tin pails doing their best to glorify the occasion.
Our little troop bivouacked under the old elm, amid a storm of fire-crackers, and a shout from the little girls. Here gingerbread and fruit were served, and the girls began their games again. Little Mary Fuller sat upon the grass, singing, while the rest formed a ring, darting, with their garlands and bouquets, like a chain of flowers, through an arch made by the uplifted hands of Isabel Chester and a little lame girl who could not run. Nothing on earth could be more beautiful than Isabel was just then, with the white spray dancing in her hair, a pleasant smile in her dark eyes, and the faintest rose-tint breaking over her cheek.
"She is delicate as a flower, beautiful as a star!"
The speaker was a lady dressed in the deepest possible mourning. The long widow's veil reached to her knees, and was double two-thirds of the way up. Her bombazine dress was so heavily trimmed with broad folds of crape, that you could not judge of the original material; from head to foot she was shrouded in black, till you felt quite gloomy to look on her. She seemed to have measured off her grief in so many yards of crape. Still, as if to show that there was a gleam of hope about her, she wore an immense diamond on the black ribbon at her throat. A large cluster ring that gleamed through the net glove, covering a small and withered hand, with the gem sparkling at her throat, bespoke uncommon wealth; and there was a tone of almost pampered sentimentality in her voice and manner.
"It is indeed a very lovely child," answered the gentleman whom she addressed, gazing with a smile upon Isabel.
"Was ever anything so perfect found in a poorhouse! Oh, if the policeman's daughter proves only half as pretty as she is," the lady exclaimed again.
"Let us inquire something about her," answered the gentleman, gravely, "with all her beauty she may be a common-place child!"
"No—no, I am quite certain she is everything that is charming. If your protege is only half as lovely, I shall be reconciled to the duty Mr. Farnham has so unreasonably—I must say, imposed upon me," persisted the lady.
The gentleman observed gravely that the idea of adopting a child was no trifling matter, and walked on till they surprised the little girls at their play. The chain broke, the girls scattered through the thickets like a flock of frightened birds. The lame girl dropped Isabel's hand and limped away, leaving the beautiful child all alone save Mary Fuller, who had stopped singing and sat quietly on the grass.
"I am afraid we have frightened your little friends away," said the gentleman, addressing the child, with a bland and gentle manner; "we did not intend to do that!"
His voice seemed to startle the children.
Isabel turned to her friend, with a glad smile.
"Oh, Mary, it is he!"
Mary started up from the grass.
"Oh, sir, we are so glad to see you!"
Judge Sharp took her hand—"You must be glad to see this lady, too."
Mary blushed, and looked timidly at the lady.
Mrs. Farnham stepped back, holding up both hands, as if to prevent the child approaching.
"Judge—Judge Sharp, you don't mean to say that this is the child?Little girl, is your name Chester!"
"No," answered Mary, "that is Isabel Chester—I am only Mary Fuller."
Isabel drew close to her friend.
"She's just the same as me—just like my own, own sister, ma'am."
The lady turned to Judge Sharp, and shook her mourning parasol at him.
"Oh, you naughty wicked man, to frighten me so; but is this dear, pretty darling really the policeman's daughter? I won't believe it yet—how providential, isn't it?"
"I thought you would like her," answered the Judge.
"Like her, indeed; won't she be a lovely pet!" answered the lady, much as she would have spoken of a King Charles spaniel; "how brave she is, too; when all the others ran off she remained!"
"Mary stayed, too," said Isabel, gliding one arm around her friend's waist; "besides, I dare say they were not afraid, ma'am, they only felt a little strange to play before people they didn't know, I suppose! They don't mind the doctor or the matrons in the least!"
"But you are not afraid of strangers!" said the lady. "You didn't run away and hide in the bushes when we came up, but stood all alone like a dear love of a little girl."
Isabel glanced at Mary Fuller.
"She was here, ma'am, just as much as I was."
The gentleman turned and looked earnestly at Mary. There was something in her face that pleased him even more than Isabel's beauty. From the first she had been his favorite.
"And what is this little girl to you?" he said, very kindly.
"Oh, she is everything, everything in the wide world to me now!" answered Isabel with tears in her eyes.
"You know, sir, Mr. and Mrs. Chester died," said Mary, with gentle humility. "And now we are left alone together."
"I knew that the poor lady was dead," answered the Judge, feelingly.
Isabel was weeping; she could not reply, but Mary answered in a faltering voice,
"Yes, sir, we are both orphans!"
"And would you not like to go away from here where you will have a new fine home, with pretty clothes and books and birds to amuse yourself with?" said Mrs. Farnham, bending over Isabel and kissing her.
The child did not answer. She only turned very pale, and drew back toward Mary.
"Would you not be pleased with all those pretty things?" said the Judge, who observed that Mary Fuller turned white as death when they spoke of taking Isabel away.
"Ifshecan have them, too. Will you take her, sir? if not I would rather stay here!"
"But we do not wish to adopt more than one little girl," said the lady, hastily. "You have no mother, I will be one to you. In a little time you will forget all about the people here."
"I shall never forget her, ma'am," replied Isabel, firmly, "never."
"Lead the child away and talk with her alone. This little creature seems intelligent, I will gather something of their history from her," said the Judge.
When Mary saw that the gentleman was about to address her, she arose and stood meekly before him, as he leaned against the elm.
"So, you would not like to have the little girl go away and leave you here?"
Mary struggled bravely with herself, her bosom heaved, she could not keep the tears from swelling to her eyes, but she answered truly and from her aching heart.
"If she will be better off. If you will love her as—as I do, as they did, I will try to think it best!"