"You will try to think it best," repeated the gentleman, and the smile that trembled across his lips was beautiful; "if she goes, my little girl, you shall go with her!"
"Me!" said Mary, lifting up her meek eyes to his face. "Oh, sir, don't make fun of me. Nobody would ever think of making a pet ofme!"
"No, not a pet, that is not the word, but, if God prospers us, we will make a good and noble woman of you!" said the gentleman, with generous energy.
"Oh, don't, don't—if you are not in earnest—don't say this!" said the child, almost panting for breath.
"I am in earnest, heaven forbid that I should trifle with you for a moment. If we take the other child you go also. Now, sit down and tell me about yourself."
Mary obeyed with a swelling heart. She told him simply that they were both orphans—that no one on earth could claim them; but with the first few words her voice broke. So the gentleman arose, sought Isabel and led her back to the elm tree, then he took the lady aside and conversed with her long and earnestly. The little girls watched her countenance in breathless suspense. It was dissatisfied,—angry, but she had the will of a strong mind to contend against, and Judge Sharp was resolute.
"As the legal guardian of your son, chosen by the Court and yourself, I have the power to sanction this adoption, and, to own the truth, gave my consent to it before Fred went to College; I doubt if we could have got him off without that!"
"Fred never could find a medium; he is always in extremes. The idea of adopting an ugly little thing like that, and he a mere lad yet! I declare it's too ridiculous; but he need not expect me to take charge of her. There is a medium in all things, Judge, and that is beyond endurance."
"That is all considered; I will see that Mary has a home and proper protection."
"Very well, I wash my hands of the whole affair; poor dear Mr. Farnham was very anxious about this pretty little Isabel. I don't choose to ask why, Judge, I hope I've got pride enough not to stoop so low as that; but, as I was saying, he made a point of it, and you see how resolute I am to perform my duty. It's hard, but I've had to endure a great deal, indeed I have."
"I did hope—in fact, I had reason," said the Judge, "to believe thatMr. Farnham would have provided for that child by will."
Mrs. Farnham colored violently.
"Then you had a reason. He said something to you about it, perhaps?"
"Yes, he certainly did; but then his death at last was so sudden. I don't remember when anything has shocked me so much."
Mrs. Farnham lifted her handkerchief to her eyes; there was something very pathetic in the action, and the deep black border which was intended to impress the Judge with a sense of her combined martyrdom and widowhood.
"Well madam," said that gentleman, heartily weary of her airs, "I hope Fred has your consent to adopt this child. Remember the expense will be nothing compared to the great wealth which he inherits. My word for it, the young fellow will find much worse methods of spending his money if you thwart his generous impulses."
"I have nothing to say. It is my destiny to make sacrifices; of course, if my son chooses to incumber himself with a miserable thing like that, he need not ask his mother. Why should he, she is nobody now."
"Then you consent," said the Judge, impatiently, for he saw the anxious looks of the little girls and pitied their suspense.
Mrs. Farnham removed the handkerchief with its sable border from her eyes, and shook her head disconsolately.
"Yes, I consent. What else can I do—a poor heart-broken widow is of no account anywhere."
The Judge turned away rather abruptly.
"Well, now that it is settled let us go; the poor children are suffering a martyrdom of suspense. The Commissioner is on the other side; we can settle the whole thing at once."
"I fancy he'll wonder a little at your taste. But I wash my hands of it—this is your affair. I submit, that is a woman's destiny, especially a widow's."
Judge Sharp advanced toward the children.
"Say to your matron that we may call for you at any minute, and shall hope to find you ready. Tell her that you are both adopted!"
"Together, oh, Mary! we are going away, and together!" cried Isabel, casting herself into the arms of her friend. Mary answered nothing, her heart was too full.
Oh, give me a home on the mountains high,Where the wind sweeps wild and free,Where the pine-tops wave 'gainst a crimson sky,—Oh, a mountain home for me!
A travelling carriage, drawn by four grey horses, toiled up an ascent of the mountains some twenty miles back of Catskill. It was a warm day in September, and though the load which those fine animals drew was by no means a heavy one, they had been ascending the mountains for more than two hours, and now their sleek coats were dripping with sweat, and drops of foam fell like snow-flakes along the dusty road as they passed upward. This carriage contained Judge Sharp, the two orphans, and Mrs. Farnham, looking very slender, very fair, but faded, and with a sort of restless self-complacency in her countenance, which seemed ever on the alert to make itself recognized by those about her.
The gentleman had been reading, or rather holding a book before his face, but it would seem rather as an excuse for not keeping up the incessant talk, for conversation it could not be called, which the lady had kept in constant flow all the morning, than from any particular desire to read.
True, he did now and then glance at the book, but much oftener his fine deep eyes were looking out of the carriage window and wandering over the broad expanse of scenery that began to unfold beneath them, as the carriage mounted higher and higher up the mountains. Sometimes, when he appeared most intent on the volume, those eyes were glancing over it towards a little wan face opposite, that began to blush and half smile whenever the thoughtful but kindly look of those eyes fell upon it.
The carriage at last reached a platform on the spur of a mountain ridge where the road made a bold curve, commanding one of the finest views, perhaps—nay, we will not have perhaps, but certainly, in the civilized world.
You should have seen that little pale face then, how it sparkled and glowed with intelligence, nay, with something more than intelligence. The deep, grey eyes lighted up like lamps suddenly kindled, the wide but shapely mouth broke into a smile that spread and brightened over every feature of her face. She started forward, grasped the window-frame, and looked out with an expression of such eager joy that the judge who was gazing upon her, glanced down at his book with a well-pleased smile. "I thought so—I was sure of it. She feels all the grandeur, all the beauty," he said to himself, inly, but to all appearance intent on his book. "Now let us see how the others take it."
"Isabel, Isabel, look out—look look," whispered the excited child, turning with that sort of wild earnestness peculiar to persons of vivid imaginations, when once set on fire with some beautiful thing that God has created. "Look out, Isabel, I do believe that the sky you see yonder is heaven."
"Heaven!" cried Isabel, starting forward and struggling to reach the door, "Heaven! oh, Mary, it makes me think of mamma"—
Mary fell back in her chair, frightened by the effect of her enthusiasm.
"There is nothing, I can see nothing but hills, corn, lots, and sky," said the beautiful child, drawing back and looking at Mary with her great, reproachful eyes half full of tears.
"Oh, Isabel, I did not mean that, not the real heaven, where your—where our mother is, where they all are—but it was so beautiful over yonder, the sky and all, I could not help saying what I did."
Isabel drew back to her seat half petulant, half sorrowful; she was not really child enough to think that Mary could have spoken of heaven as a place actually within view; still it was not wonderful that the thought had for a moment flashed across her brain. Heaven itself could not have seemed more strange to those children than the magnificent mountain scenery through which they were passing. Born in the city, they were thrown for the first time among the most beautiful scenery that man ever dreamed of, with all their wild, young ideas afloat. Is it wonderful, then, that an imaginative child like Mary should have cried out the name of heaven in her admiration, or that Isabel, so lately made an orphan, should have sent forth the cry of mother, mother, from the depths of her poor little heart when she heard the heaven mentioned, where she believed her mother was still longing for her child?
She sat down cowering close in a corner of the seat, and in order to conceal her tears turned her face to the cushions.
"Sit up," the lady interposed, "my beauty, sit up; don't you see how your pretty marabouts are being crushed against the side of the carriage? Nonsense, child, what can you be crying about?"
"My mother, oh, she made me think of my mother. I thought—it seemed as if she must be there."
The lady frowned and looked toward the Judge with a pettish movement of the head.
"Be quiet, child, I am your mother, now; remember that, I am your mother."
Isabel looked up and gazed through her tears at the pale, characterless face, bent in weak displeasure upon her.
"I am your mother," repeated the lady, in a tone that she intended to be impressive, but it was only snappish; "your benefactress, your more than mamma; forget that you ever had any but me."
"I can't, oh, dear, I never can," cried the child, bursting into a passion of tears, and casting her face back upon the cushion.
Mrs. Farnham seized the child by the shoulder, and placed her, with a slight shake, upright.
"Stop crying; I never could endure crying children," she said. "See how you have crushed the pretty Leghorn, you ungrateful thing! Better be thanking heaven that I took you from that miserable poor-house, than fly in the face of Providence in this manner, crushing Leghorn flats and marabout feathers that cost me mints of money, as if they were city property."
"She did not mean to spoil the feathers, ma'am, it was all my fault," said Mary Fuller; "Isabel loved her poor mother so much."
"And am not I her mother? Can't you children let the poor woman rest in her pine coffin at Potter's Field, without tormenting me with all this sobbing and crying? Remember my little lady, it is not too late yet; a few more scenes like this and it will be an easy matter to send you back where I took you from. Then, perhaps, you will find it worth while to cry after your new mother a little."
The two little girls looked at each other through their tears. Perhaps at the moment they thought of the Infants' Hospital, where Mrs. Farnham had found them, with something of regret. The contrast of a carriage cushioned with velvet and four superb horses, had not impressed them as it might have done older persons. Shut up with strangers, while their hearts were full of regret, they had not found the change for which they were expected to be grateful, quite so happy as she fancied.
Up to the hour we mention they had kept their places demurely, and in silence, drawing their little feet up close to the seats, fearful of being found in the way, and stealing their hands together now and then with a silent clasp, which spoke a world of feeling to the noble man who sat regarding them over his book.
He had watched the scene we have described in silence, and with a sort of philosophical thoughtfulness, using it as a means of studying the souls of those two little girls. When Mrs. Farnham ceased speaking and turned to him for concurrence in her mode of drawing out the affections and settling the preliminaries of a life-time for that little soul, he only answered by leaning from the window and calling out.
"Ralph, draw up and let the horses have a rest under the shadow of this high rock. Come, children, get out, and let's take a look around us; your little limbs will be all the better for a good run among the underbrush."
Suiting the action to his words, Judge Sharp sprang from the carriage, took Isabel in his arms, set her carefully down, then more gently, and with a touch of tenderness, drew Mary Fuller forward, and folded her little form to his bosom.
"We will leave you to rest in the carriage, Mrs. Farnham," he said, with off-hand politeness, as if studying that lady's comfort more than anything on earth. "We will see what wild flowers can be found among the rocks. Take care of yourself; that's right, Ralph, let the horses wet their mouths at this little brook—not too much though, it is a warm day. Now, Isabel, let's see which will climb this rock first—you, or little Mary and I."
Isabel's eyes brightened through her tears. There was something in the cordial goodness of Judge Sharp that no grief could have resisted.
"Please, sir," said Mary, struggling faintly in the arms of her noble friend—"please, sir, I can walk very well."
"And I can carry you very well—why not? Come, now for a climb."
And away strode the great-hearted man, holding her up that she might gaze on the scenery over his shoulder.
Isabel followed close, helping herself up the steep rocks, now by catching hold of a spice-bush and shaking off all its ripe golden blossoms; now drawing down the loops of a grape-vine and swinging forward on it, encouraged in each new effort by the hearty commendations of her new friend.
At last they reached the summit of a detached ridge of rocks that rose like a fortification back of the highway. Judge Sharp sat down upon a shelf cushioned like an easy-chair with the greenest moss and placed the children at his feet.
A true lover of nature himself, he did not speak, or insist upon forcing exclamations of delight from the children who shared the glorious view with him. But he looked now and then into Mary Fuller's face, and was satisfied with all that he saw there.
He turned and glanced also into the beautiful eyes of little Isabel. They were wandering dreamily from object to object, searching, as it were, along the misty horizon for some sign of her dead mother. It was her heart rather than her intellect that wandered over that magnificent scenery for something to dwell upon.
"Are you sure, sir?" said Mary Fuller, timidly, looking up; "are you quite sure that this is the same world that Isabel and I were in yesterday?"
"Why not? Doesn't it seem like the same?"
"No," answered Mary, kindling up and looking eagerly around; "it is a thousand times larger, so vast, so grand, so—. Pray help me out, I wish to say so much and can't. Something chokes me here when I try to say how beautiful all this seems."
Mary folded her hands over her bosom, and began to waver to and fro on the moss seat, struck with a pang of that exquisite pleasure which so closely approaches pain when we fully appreciate the beautiful.
"You like this?" said the Judge, watching her face more than the landscape, that had been familiar to him when almost a wilderness.
"I should like to stay here for ever. It seems as if every one that we have loved so much, is resting near the sky away off yonder falling close down upon the mountains."
"It is a noble view," said the Judge, standing up, and pointing to the right. "Have you ever learned anything of geography, children?"
"A little," they both answered, glancing at each other as if ashamed of confessing so much knowledge.
"Then you have heard of the Green Mountains yonder; they are like thunder-clouds under the horizon?"
The children shaded their eyes, and looked searchingly at what seemed to them a dark embankment of clouds, and then Mary turned, holding her breath almost with awe, and gathered in with one long glance the broad horizon, sweeping its circle of a hundred miles from right to left, closed by the mountain spur on which they stood.
Where distance levelled small inequalities of surface, and made great ones indistinct and cloudy, the whole aspect of the scenery took an air of high cultivation and abundant richness. Thousands and thousands of farms, cut up and colored with their ripened crops, lay before them—golden rye stubbles; hills white with buckwheat and rich with snowy blossoms; meadows, orchards, and groves of primeval timber, all brightened those luxuriant valleys and plains that open upon the Hudson. Deep into New York State, and far, far away among the mountains of New England the eye ranged, charmed and satisfied with a fullness of beauty.
Mary saw it, and all the deep feelings as fervent, but less understood in the child than in the woman, swelled and grew rich in her bosom. Not a tint of those luxuriously colored hills ever left her memory—not a shadow upon the distant mountains ever died from her brain. It is such memories, vivid as painting, and burnt upon the mind like enamel, from childhood to maturity, that feed and invigorate the soul of genius.
Enoch Sharp had been a man of enterprise. Action had ever followed quick upon his thought. Placed by accident in certain avenues of life, he had exerted strong energies, and a will firm as it was kindly, in doing all things thoroughly that he undertook; in no circumstances would he have been an ordinary man. Had destiny placed his field of action among scientific or military men, he would have proven himself first among the foremost; as it was, much of the talent that would have distinguished him there, grew and throve upon those domestic affections which were to him the poetry of life.
Thrown into constant communion with nature in her most noble aspects, he became her devotee, and was more learned in all the beautiful things which God has created, than many a celebrated savant who studies with his brain only.
True to the unearthed poetry lying in rich veins throughout his whole nature, Enoch Sharp sat keenly regarding the effect this grand panorama of scenery produced on the two children.
He looked on Isabel in her bright, half-restless beauty, with a smile of affectionate forbearance. There was everything in her face to love, but it had to answer to the glow and enthusiasm of his own nature.
But it was far otherwise with little Mary. His own deep grey eye kindled as it perused her sharp features, lighted up, as it were, with some inward flame. His heart warmed toward the little creature, and without uttering a word he stooped down and patted her head in silent approbation.
The child had given him pleasure, for there is nothing more annoying to the true lover of nature than want of sympathy, when the heart is in a glow of fervent admiration; alive with a feeling which is so near akin to religion itself, that we sometimes doubt where the dividing line exists which separates love of God from love of the beautiful objects He has created.
Thus it was that Mary with her plain face and small person found her way to the great, warm heart of Enoch Sharp; and as he sat upon the rock a faint struggle arose in his bosom regarding her destination.
An impulse to take her into his own house and cultivate the latent talent so visible in every gesture and look, took possession of him, but his natural strong sense prevailed over this impulse. Many reasons which we will not pause to mention here, arose in contest with his heart, and he muttered thoughtfully,
"Neither men nor women become what they were intended to be by carpeting their progress with velvet; real strength is tested by difficulties. Still I must keep an eye upon the girl."
Isabel soon became weary of gazing on the landscape. Impatient of the stillness, she arose softly and moved to a ledge close by, under which a wild gooseberry bush drooped beneath a harvest of thorny fruit.
"That is right," said Enoch Sharp, starting up; "let me break off a handful of the branches, they will make peace with Mrs. Farnham for leaving her in the carriage so long."
Directly a heap of thorny branches purple with fruit lay at Isabel's feet, and Enoch Sharp was clambering up the rocks after some tufts of tall blue flowers that shed an azure tinge down one of the clefts; then a cluster of brake leaves mottled with brown spots tempted him on, while Mary Fuller stood eagerly watching his progress.
"Oh, see, see how beautiful—do look, Isabel, if he could only get up so high?"
She broke off with an exclamation of delight. Enoch Sharp had glanced downward at the sound of her voice, and directed by the eager look which accompanied it, made a spring higher up the rock.
A mountain ash, perfectly red with great clusters of berries, shot out from a little hollow between two ledges, and overhung the place where Mr. Sharp had found foothold. As if its own wealth of berries were not enough, a bitter-sweet vine had sprung up in the same hollow, and coiling itself around the tree, deluged it with a shower of golden clusters that mingled upon the same branch with the bright red fruit of the ash.
"Oh, was there ever on earth anything so beautiful?" cried Mary, disentangling the delicate ends of the vines flung down by her benefactor. "Oh, look, Isabel, look!"
She held up a natural wreath, to which three or four clusters hung like drops of burnt gold.
"Only see!"
With this exclamation she wove a handful of the blue autumn flowers in with the berries and long slender leaves.
"Let me put it around your hat, Isabel. Oh, Mr. Sharp, may I wind this around Isabel's hat; it is so pretty, I'm sure Mrs. Farnham will not mind?"
"Put it anywhere you like," cried the kind man, holding on to a branch of the bitter-sweet, and swinging himself downward till the ash bent almost double. It rushed back to its place, casting off a shower of loose berries and leaves that rattled around the girls in red and golden rain. Directly Mr. Sharp was by them once more, gathering up a handful of gooseberry branches, bitter-sweet and ash, admiring Mary's wreath at the same time.
"Come, now for a scramble down the hill," he cried. "Here, let me go first, for we may all expect a precious blessing, and I fancy my shoulders are the broadest."
The children looked at each other and the smiles left their lips. The "blessing," with which he so carelessly threatened them was enough to quench all their gay spirits, and they crept on after their benefactor with clouded faces.
"See, Mrs. Farnham, see what a world of beautiful things we have found for you up the mountain," cried Mr. Sharp, throwing two or three branches through the carriage window. "The little folks have discovered wonders among the bush—don't you think so?"
Mrs. Farnham drew back and gathered her ample skirts nervously about her.
"What on earth have the creatures brought? Bitter-sweet, gooseberries, with thorns like darning needles! Why, Mr. Sharp, what can you mean by bringing such things here to stain the cushions with?"
"Oh, never mind the cushions," answered the gentleman, lifting Isabel up with a toss, and landing her on the front seat, while Mary stood trembling by his side, with her eyes fixed ruefully on the wreath which surrounded the crown of her companion's Leghorn flat.
"Oh, what will become of us when she sees that?" thought the child in dismay.
But she was allowed no time to ask unpleasant questions, even of herself, for Enoch Sharp took her in his arms and set her carefully down opposite Mrs. Farnham, whose glance had just taken in the unlucky wreath.
"My goodness, if the little wretches have not destroyed that love of a hat with their trash! Oh, dear, put a beggar on horseback and only see how he will ride! Mr. Sharp, I did hope that the child could appreciate an article of millinery like that; but you see how it is, no just medium can be expected with this pauper taste; a long course of refinement is, I fear necessary to a just comprehension of the beautiful. Only think! two of Jarvis' most expensive marabouts crushed into nothingness by a good-for-nothing heap of, I don't know what, tangled about them! Really, it is enough to discourage one from ever doing a benevolent act again."
Judge Sharp strove to look decorously concerned, but spite of himself a quiet smile would tremble at the corners of the mouth, as he looked at the two marabout feathers flattened and crushed beneath the impromptu wreath.
"Whose work is it? Which of you twisted that thing over those feathers?" cried the lady angrily.
Isabel looked at Mary, but did not speak.
"It was me; I did it," said Mary, meekly. "The berries were so pretty, we never saw any before. Please, ma'am, look again, and see if the blue flowers there against the yellow don't look beautiful."
"Beautiful, indeed! What should you know of beauty, I wonder?" was the scornful answer, for Mrs. Farnham was by no means pleased that Mary had been forced into her company even for a single day's travel. "What on earth possesses a child like you, brought up, no matter where, to speak of this or that thing as pretty? What beautiful thing can you ever have seen?"
"I have seen the sky, ma'am, when it was full of bright stars. God lets poor people as well as rich ones look on the sky, you know; and isn't that beautiful?"
"Indeed! You think so, then?" said the lady.
"And we have seen many, many beautiful things besides that, haven't we, Isabel? One night, when it had been raining, in the winter—I remember it, oh, how well—while the great trees were dripping wet, out came the moon and stars bright, with a sharp frost, and then all the branches were hung with ice, in the moonshine, glittering and bending low toward the ground, just as if the starlight had all settled on the limbs and was loading them down with brightness. Oh, ma'am, I wish you could have seen it. I remember the ground was all one glare of ice; but I didn't mind that."
"I'm afraid your ward will find his protege rather forward, Judge," said the lady, as Mary Fuller drew back, blushing at her own eager description.
"I really don't know," answered the gentleman; "she seems to have made pretty good use of the few privileges awarded to her, and, really, there is some philosophy in it. When one finds nothing but God's sky unmonopolized, it is something for a child to make so much of that. She has a pretty knack of sorting flowers, too, as you may see by the fashion in which that is twisted. After all, madam, let us each make the most of our favorites. Yours is pretty enough, in all conscience Fred's will give satisfaction where she goes, I dare say."
Judge Sharp was becoming rather weary of his companion again, and so leaned out of the window, as was his usual habit, amusing himself by searching for the first red leaves among the maple foliage, and watching the shadows as they fell softly down the hemlock hollows.
Like the patter of rain in a damp heavy day,Or the voice of a brook when its waters are low,That murmurs and murmurs and murmurs away—Was the sound of her words in their meaningless flow.
After a while, finding that Mrs. Farnham was still talking at the children, and dealing him a sharp sentence or two over their shoulders, for preferring the scenery to her conversation, the Judge quietly drew in his head, and gathering up a quantity of the flowers, arranged a pretty bouquet for each of the little girls, who received them with shy satisfaction.
Then with more effort at arrangement, he completed a third bouquet, and laid it on Mrs. Farnham's lap with affected diffidence, that went directly to that very weak portion of the lady's system, which she dignified with the name of heart.
Enoch Sharp smiled at the effect of his adroit attention, while the lady, appeased into a state of gentle self-complacency, rewarded him with beaming smiles and a fresh avalanche of those soft frothy words, which she solemnly believed were conversation. From time to time she refreshed herself with the perfume of his mountain flowers, descanted on their beauties with sentimental warmth, and murmured snatches of poetry over them, very soft, very sentimental, and particularly annoying to a man filled in all the depths of his soul with an honest love of nature.
"I wish my ward could have seen the old place before he went to college," observed the Judge, adroitly seizing upon a pause in this cataract of words, and making a desperate effort to change the subject. "He will find Harvard rather dull, I fear, at first."
The Judge was unfortunate. His choice of subject reminded Mrs. Farnham of an old grievance, and that day she was ambitious to establish herself a character for martyrdom.
"Yes," she answered, "I'm sure he will, but Fred would go. I knew they'd make a Unitarian of him or something of that sort, and the way I pleaded would have touched a heart of stone, I'm sure.
"'It was in your father's family,' said I, 'to lean towards what they called liberal views, but I, your mother, Fred, I am firm on the other side, orthodox, settled like a rock in that particular—though it has been said that in other things, the affections for instance—I'm more like a dove.'"
Here Mrs. Farnham settled the folds of her travelling dress with both hands, as if the dove had taken a fancy to smooth its plumage.
"Well, as I was saying to Fred, sir, 'go to Yale, don't think of Harvard, but go to Yale. There you will get a granite foundation for your religion—everything solid and sound there—go to Yale, my son.'
"It was in this way I reasoned, sir, but Fred has a good deal of his father in him, stubborn, Judge—stubborn as a—a mule, if you will excuse me mentioning that animal to a gentleman who keeps such horses as you do."
The Judge bowed. The love of a fine horse was one of his characteristics; he rather enjoyed the compliment.
His bow set Mrs. Farnham off again with double power.
"'You won't go to Yale,' said I, 'and you will go to Harvard. Let us strike a medium, Fred, a happy medium is the most pleasant thing in the world—go to Harvard one year, the next to Yale, then, sir, I thought of your church—' and, said I, 'finish off at old Columbia, it'll be a compliment to your guardian.'"
"Thank you," said the Judge, with a demure smile; "thank you for remembering my church so kindly; but what did my ward say to this?"
"Why, sir, would you believe it, he answered in the most disrespectful manner, that he went to college to got an education, and Harvard was good enough for that.
"'But,' said I, 'take my medium and you will try Harvard, and Yale, and old Columbia, too; only think what an introduction it would be into all sorts of the best religious society.'
"Well, sir, what do you think he did but laugh in the most irreverent manner, and ask me if I couldn't point out a Universalist institution that he could finish up at. I declare, Judge, it almost broke my heart."
"Well, well, let us hope it will all turn out right," answered theJudge, consolingly—"look, madam, look, what a lovely hollow that is!"
They were now descending the mountain passes. Broken hills and lovely green valleys rose and sunk along their rapid progress. Never on earth was scenery more varied and lovely. Little emerald hollows shaded with hemlock, overhanging brooklets that came stealing like broken diamond threads down the mountain sides to hide beneath their shadows, were constantly appearing and disappearing along the road.
It was impossible for little Mary to sit still when these heavenly glimpses presented themselves. Her cheeks burned, her eyes kindled; her very limbs trembled with suppressed impatience; but she dared not lean forward, and could only obtain tantalizing glances of the sparkling brooks, and the soft, green mosses that clung around the mountain cliffs where they shot over the road.
They passed through several villages, winding in and out through mountain passes, where the hills were so interlapped that it seemed impossible to guess how the carriage would extricate itself from the green labyrinth.
Nothing could be more delicate and vivid than the foliage that clothed the hill-sides, for the primeval growth of hemlocks had been cut away from the hills, and a second crop of luxuriant young trees, beech, oak, and maple, mottled with rich clusters of mountain ash, and the deep green of white pines, covered the whole country.
All at once the coachman drew up his horses on a curve of the highway. The carriage was completely buried in a valley along which wound the river, whose sweet noise they had long heard among the trees.
"Now children, look out," said the Judge, laughing pleasantly; "look out and tell me how we are to get through the hills."
Both the little girls sprang forward and looked abroad breathlessly, like birds at the open door of a cage in which they had been imprisoned. The Judge watched them with smiling satisfaction as they cast puzzled glances from side to side, meeting nothing but shoulders and angles and ridges of the mountains heaving over each other in huge green waves that seemed to be endless, and to crowd close to each other, though many a lovely valley lay between, little dreamed of by the wondering children.
"Well, then, tell me how you expect to get out, little ones?" repeated the Judge.
"Sure enough, how?" repeated Isabel, drawing back, and looking from the Judge to Mrs. Farnham.
But Mary was still gazing abroad. Her eyes wandered from hill to hill, and grew more and more luminous as each new beauty broke upon her. At last she drew back with a deep breath, and the loveliest of human smiles upon her face.
"Indeed, sir, indeed I shouldn't care if we never did get out, the river would be company enough."
"Yes, company enough," replied the Judge, smiling. "But would it feed us when we are hungry?"
"It don't seem as if I ever should be hungry here," replied the child.
"But I am hungry now," replied Enoch Sharp; "and so is Mrs. Farnham,I dare say!"
"No," replied that lady, who prided herself on a delicate appetite, "I never am hungry; dew and flowers, my friends used to say, were intended to support sensitive nerves like mine."
"Very likely," thought Enoch Sharp; "I am certain no human being could support them," but he drowned this ungallant thought in a loud call for Ralph to drive on.
The horses made a leap forward, swept round a huge rock that concealed the highway where it curved suddenly with a bend of the river, and before them lay one of the most beautiful mountain villages you ever beheld. The horses knew their old home. Away they went sweeping up the broad winding sheet between double columns of young maple trees, through which the white houses gleamed tranquilly and dream-like on the eyes of those city children.
High up among the emerald breasted hills,There lay a village, cradled in their green.Surrounded by such loveliness as thrillsThe poetry within us—and the sheenOf a broad river kissed the mountain's footWhere stately hemlocks found primeval root.
Judge Sharp's carriage stopped in front of a noble mansion near the centre of the village. I think it must have been one of the oldest houses in the place. But modern improvements had so transfigured and beautified it, that it bore the aspect of a noble suburban villa, rather than a mountain residence. The roof lifted in a pointed gable, and supported by brackets, shot several feet over the front, resting on a row of tall, slender columns which formed a noble portico along the entire front.
In order to leave the first family homestead ever built in those mountains entire in its simple architecture, this portico shaded the double row of windows first introduced into the dwelling; and the main building remained entire within and without, as it had been left years before by its primitive architect. But modern wings had been united to the old building on the left and in the rear pointed with gables, and so interspersed with chimneys that the whole mass formed a gothic exterior singular and beautiful as it was picturesque.
Noble old trees, maple, elm and ash, shaded the green lawn which fell far back from the house, terminating on one side in a fine fruit orchard bending with ripened peaches and purple plums, and broken up on the south by a flower-garden gorgeous with late summer blossoms, shaded with grape arbors and clumps of mountain ash, all flushed and red with berries.
This noble garden lost itself in the deep green of an apple orchard full of singing birds. The waters of a mountain brook came leaping down from the broken hills beyond, and gleamed through the thick foliage, mingling their sweet perpetual chime with the rising breath of that little wilderness of flowers.
This was the dwelling at which Judge Sharp's carriage stopped. It seemed like a Paradise to the little girls, who longed to get out and enjoy a full view of its beauties from the lawn. But Mrs. Farnham was a guest, for the time; and well disposed to use her privileges, she refused to descend, though hospitably pressed, and seemed to think the few moments required by the Judge to enter his own home, an encroachment on her rights and privileges.
But the Judge cared little for this, and was far more engaged with a venerable old house-dog, toothless, grey and dim-eyed, who arose from his sunny nook upon the grass, and came soberly down to welcome his master, than he was with the lady's discontent.
"Ha, Carlo, always on hand, old fellow," he said, patting the grizzly head of his old favorite, "glad to see me, ha!"
Carlo looked up through his dim eyes and gave a feeble whine, which, in his young days, would have been a deep-mouthed bay of welcome. Then, with grave dignity, he tottered onward by his master's side, escorted him up to the entrance door, and lay down in a sunny spot which broke through the honeysuckle branches on the balcony, satisfied by the soft rush of feet and the glad female voices within, that his master was in good hands.
"I wonder," said Mrs. Farnham, leaning back with an air of ineffable disgust, and talking to no one in particular—"I wonder how the Judge can allow that old brute to prowl after him in that manner, but there is no medium in some people. I'm sure if he were at my house I would have him shot before morning—laying down on the portico indeed!"
"But he seems so glad," said Mary Fuller, struck with a thrill of sympathy for the dog, rendered repulsive to that silly woman by his age, as she was by her homeliness.
"Isn't it the duty of every ugly thing to be still?" replied Mrs. Farnham, casting a look of feeble spite at the child. "But the Judge has a fancy for uncouth pets."
"Perhaps because they feel kindness so much," answered Mary, in a trembling voice.
"Indeed!" drawled the lady; "then I wish he would be kind enough to send us on. This tiresome waiting, when one is worn out and half famished, is too much."
Just then the Judge appeared at the front door cheerful and smiling, and, in the shaded background of the hall, two fair forms were visible, hovering near, as if reluctant to part with him again so soon.
"Not quite out of patience, I hope?" he said, leaning into the carriage, while the ladies of his family came forth with offers of hospitality. But Mrs. Farnham muttered something about fatigue, dust, and the strong desire she had to see her own home—a desire in which the ladies soon heartily, but silently, joined, for it needed only a first sentence to convince them that the interesting widow would make but a sorry acquisition to the neighborhood.
"Then, if you absolutely insist, madam, the next best thing is to proceed," cried Enoch Sharp, and, springing into his seat, he waved an adieu to his family, and the rather reluctant horses proceeded briskly down the street.
The river which we have mentioned, skirted the village with its bright waters; two or three fine manufacturing buildings stood back from its banks, and, having supplied them with its sparkling strength, it swept on wildly as before, curving and deepening between its green or rocky banks with low, pleasant murmurs, like a troop of children let loose from school.
The highway ran along its banks, sometimes divided from the waters by clumps of hoary old hemlocks, that had escaped the axe from their isolation perhaps, and again separated only by thickets of wild blackberries and mountain shrubs.
As they proceeded the hills crowded down close to the highway, that ran along the steep banks of the river; here the stream rushed on with fresh impetuosity, and gathering up its waves in a sudden curve of the channel, leaped down the valley in one of the most beautiful waterfalls you ever saw.
"Oh, one minute; do, do stop one minute," cried Mary, as the broad crescent of the fall flashed before her. "Isabel, Isabel, did you ever see any thing like that?"
"Really, Judge, your pet is very forward, and so tiresome," said Mrs. Farnham, gazing down upon the waters with a weak sneer; "one would think she had never seen a mill-dam before."
This sent the poor child back to her corner again. But Mrs. Farnham had struck the Judge on a sensitive point when she sneered at that beautiful crescent-shaped fall, rolling in a sheet of crystal over its native rocks, the sparkling waters all in sunshine; the still basin beneath, green with stilly shadows cast over it from masses of tall trees that crowded around the brink.
"Madam," he said, "that mill-dam made its channel when the hills around had their first foundation. You must not find fault with the workmanship, for God himself made it."
"Indeed, you surprise me," cried the lady, taking out her glass and leaning forward, "I really supposed it must be the result of some of those logging bees that we hear of in these back settlements. I quite long to witness something of the kind; it must be gratifying, Judge, to see your peasantry enjoy themselves on these rustic occasions."
"My peasantry," laughed the Judge, as much ashamed of the angry feelings with which his last speech had been given, as if he had been caught whipping a lap-dog—"my constituents, you mean."
"Oh, yes, of course, I mean anything that you call that sort of people—constituents, is it?"
"My wife and I call that sort of people neighbors."
"Indeed," cried Mrs. Farnham, dropping her glass and leaning back as one who bends beneath a sudden blow; "I thought you were to bemyneighbors."
"If you will permit us," said the Judge, laughing; "but here is your house, and there stands the housekeeper ready to receive you."
Mrs. Farnham brightened, and began to gather up her shawl and embroidered satchel, like one who was becoming weary of her companions.
"This is really very nice," she said, looking up to the huge square building lifted from the road by half a dozen terraces, and crowned with a tall cupola; "depend on it, I shall make it quite a Paradise, Judge. I'm glad it's out of sight of your mill—your waterfall—I hate sounds that never stop."
"How she must hate her own pattering voice," thought the Judge, as he helped the lady in her descent from the carriage.
"And the housekeeper, I thought she was here."
"And so I am, ma'am," answered a slight, little woman, with a freckled complexion, and immense quantities of red hair gathered back of her head in the fangs of a huge comb that had been fashionable twenty-five years before; "been a-waiting at that identical front door full on to an hour, expecting you every minet; but better late than never. You're welcome, ma'am, as scraps to a beggar's basket."
It was laughable—the look of indignant astonishment with which the widow regarded her housekeeper, as in the simple honesty of her heart she uttered this welcome.
"And pray, who engaged you to take charge here? Could no more suitable person be found?"
"Who engaged me, ma'am, me? why I grew up here—never was engaged in my hull life, and never will be till men are more worth having."
"But how came you here as my housekeeper?"
"Well, sort of nat'rally, ma'am, as children take the measles; bein' as I was in the house, I just let 'em call me what they're a mind to; hain't quite got used to the name yet, but it'll soon fit on with practice. Come, now, walk in, and make yourself to home."
All the time Mrs. Farnham had been standing by the carriage, with her shawl and travelling satchel on one arm. She refused to surrender them to Enoch Sharp, and stood swelling with indignation because the housekeeper did not offer to relieve her. She might as well have expected the cupola to descend from its roof, as any of these menial attentions from Salina Bowles, who possessed very original ideas of her duties as a housekeeper.
"Gracious me! I hadn't the least notion that you had children along!" cried the good woman, totally oblivious of Mrs. Farnham's flushed face, and pressing closely up to the carriage.
"But allow me to hope that you will grant permission, now that they have come!" said the widow with an attempt at biting satire, which Salina received in solemn good faith.
"It ain't the custom hereabouts to turn any thing out of doors, ma'am, expected or not; and I calcurlate there'll be room in the house for a young 'un or two if they ain't over noisy. Come, little gal, give a jump, and let's see how spry you are."
Isabel obeyed, and impelled by Miss Bowles' vigorous arm, made a swinging leap out of the carriage.
"Gracious sakes, but she's as hornsome as a pictur, ain't she though?Not your own darter, marm. I calcurlate."
The flush deepened on the widow's face, and she began to bite her nether lip furiously, a sure sign that rage was approaching to white heat with her. For occasionally Mrs. Farnham found it difficult to retain a just medium, when her temper was up.
"Come, child, move on, let us go into the house, if this woman will get out of the way and permit us"—-
"Out of the way, goodness knows I ain't in it by a long chance," cried Salina, waving her hand toward the house; "as for permitting, why the path is open straight to the front door; and the house just as much yours as it is mine, I reckon."
"Is it indeed?" sneered the lady, lifting a fold of her travelling skirt, as she prepared to ascend the first terrace; "we shall decide that to-morrow."
But Salina Bowles sent an admiring glance after them, directed at the beautiful child rather than the lady.
"Well, now, she is a purty critter, ain't she, Judge? them long curls do beat all."
But the Judge was at Mrs. Farnham's side assisting her to mount the terrace. When Salina became aware of this, her glance fell inside the carriage again, and she saw Mary Fuller leaning forward and gazing after Isabel with her eyes full of tears. Instantly a change came over the rough manner of the woman—she remembered her encomiums on Isabel's beauty with a quick sense of shame, and leaning forward reached out both hands.
"Come, little gal, let me lift you out; harnsome is as harnsome does, you know. I hope you ain't tired, nor nothing."
Mary began to weep outright. She tried to smile and force the tears back with her eyelids; but the woman's kind words had unlocked her little grateful heart, and she could only sob out—
"Thank you—thank you very much; but I suppose I'm not to stop here, it's only Isabel."
"And is she your sister?"
"No; but we've been together so long, and now she's gone; and—and"—
"Gone without speaking a word, or saying good bye?—well, I never did!"
Away darted Miss Bowles up the terraces, leaping from step to step like an old greyhound till she seized on Isabel, and giving her a light shake, bore her back in triumph, much to the terror of both children and the astonishment of the widow, who stood regarding them from the upper terrace in impatient wrath; while the Judge softly rubbed his hands and wondered what would come next.
"There now, just act like a Christian, and say good-bye to the little gal that's left behind," cried Salina, hissing out a long breath as she plumped little Isabel down into the carriage. "What's the use of long curls and fine feathers if there's no feeling under them? There, there, have a good kiss and a genuine long cry together; it'll be a refreshment to you both."
Without another word the house-keeper marched away and ascended the terraces, her freckled face glowing with rude kindness, and the sunbeams glancing around her red hair as we see it around some of the ugly saints, that the old masters stiffened on canvas before Raphael gave ease of movement and freedom of drapery to these heavenly subjects.
"What have you done with the child?" almost shrieked Mrs. Farnham, as the house-keeper drew near with a broad smile on her broader mouth.
"Just put her in her place, that's all," replied Salina; "she was a coming off without bidding t'other little thing good-bye. There she sot with her two eyes as wet as periwinkles, looking—looking after you all so wishful. I couldn't stand it; nobody about these parts could. We ain't wolves and bears, if we were brought up under the hemlocks. 'Little children should love one another,' that's genuine Scripter, or ought to be if it ain't."
"What on earth shall I do with this creature?" cried Mrs. Farnham, half overpowered by the higher and stronger character with which she had to deal. "She almost frightens me!"
"Still she seems to me about right in her ideas, if a little rough in her way of enforcing them. Believe me, madam, Salina Bowles will prove a faithful and true friend."
"Friend! Mr. Sharp, I do not hire my friends!"
The Judge made a slightly impatient movement. He was becoming weary of throwing away ideas on the well-dressed shell of humanity before him.
"You will find the prospect very delightful," he said, casting a glance toward the mountains, at whose feet the river wound brightening in the sunshine, and seeming deeper where the shadows lengthened over it from the hills. "See, the spires and cupolas are just visible at the left; though not close together, we shall be near enough for good neighbors."
The lady looked discontentedly around on the hills, covered with the golden sunset, the river sleeping beneath them, and the distant village rising from masses of foliage, and pencilling its spires against the blue sky, where it fell down in soft, wreathing clouds at the mouth of the valley.
"I dare say it is what you call fine scenery, and all that; but really I cannot see what tempted Mr. Farnham to think of forbidding the sale of this place; and, above all, to make it a condition that I should live here now and then while Fred is in college."
"Your husband started life here, madam," answered the Judge, almost sternly; "and we love the places where our first struggles were made."
"Yes, but then I didn't start life here with him, you know. Poor, dear Mr. Farnham was so much older, and his tastes so different, I sometimes wonder how he managed to win me, so young, so—so—but you comprehend, Judge!"
"He had managed to get a handsome property together before that, I believe," said the Judge, with a demure smile.
"But what is property without taste, and a just idea of style? Mr. Farnham became quite aware of his deficiency in these points when he married me."
"There does seem to have been a deficiency," muttered the Judge, and having appeased himself with this bit of internal malice, he turned an attentive ear to the end of her speech.
"His mother you know, was a commonish sort of person"
Here Salina, who stood upon the broad door-step with the front door open, strode down and confronted Mrs. Farnham. She remained thus with those little grey eyes searching the lady's face, and with her long, bony hand tightly clenched, as if she waited for something else before her wrath would be permitted to reach the fighting point. But Mrs. Farnham remained silent, only muttering over "a very commonish sort of person indeed," and with hound-like reluctance, Salina retreated backward, step by step, to her position at the door.
There was energy and strength in her,A heart to will, with a hand to do;Like the fruit that lies in a chestnut burThat honest soul was fresh and true.
Meantime Mary Fuller and Isabel had remained in the carriage, locked in each others arms, murmuring out their fondness and their grief, with promises of faithful remembrance amid broken sob; and tears, such as they had never shed before, even in their first poverty stricken orphanage.
Something of that deep, unconscious spirit of prophecy, which sometimes haunts the souls of children God-loving like Mary Fuller, whispered her that this separation would be for years. She had reasoned with this presentiment all the way from the Alms House, which had so lately been their home, to this the place of their future residence. In the innocence of her heart she had taxed this feeling as a selfish one, and had covered herself with self-reproach, for having fallen into envy of the brighter destiny which awaited Isabel, in comparison with her own prospects. But the child had done herself injustice, and mistook the holiest intuition of a pure heart for a feeling of which that heart was incapable.
Isabel merely knew that they were to be parted, that the young creature whose care had been that of a mother, whose patience and gentle love had given a home feeling even to the Alms House, would no longer share her room, curl her hair, and arrange her dress with kindly devotion, or in any way soothe her life as she had done.
She did not comprehend, as Mary did, the great evil which this separation would bring upon her moral nature; but her affectionate heart was touched, and the passionate grief that she felt at parting, was more violent by far than the deeper and more solemn feeling that shook Mary's heart to the centre, but made no violent outcry, as lighter grief might have done.
Both Salina and Mary herself had done the child injustice, when they supposed her going heartlessly away from her old companion. Confused by the meeting of Mrs. Farnham and the housekeeper, and puzzled by the strangeness of everything around, she had followed her benefactress, or adopted mother, without a thought that Mary would not join them; and her grief was violent, indeed, when she learned that then and there she must separate from the only creature on earth, that her warm, young heart could entirely love.
The children were locked in each other's arms, weeping, each striving to comfort the other.
"Remember now, Isabel, say your prayers every night, the Lord's Prayer, and after that, Isabel, remember and ask God to bless me and make me, oh! so patient."
"Ah! but it will seem so lonesome all by myself, with no one to kneel by me. Mary, Mary, I wish they had left us together at the hospital, I long to get away from here!"
"No, you mustn't feel that way, Mary, because Mrs. Farnham is very good and very kind, to make you like her own child, and dress you up in all these pretty things."
"They are pretty!" replied Mary, examining her plaid silk dress through many tears, "but somehow I don't seem to feel a bit happier in them."
"But this lady is to be your mother, Isabel."
Poor Isabel burst into a fresh passion of grief. "Oh! Mary, Mary, that is it. You know she isn't in the least like my mother, my own darling, darling mother."
"But she is in heaven," said Mary, in her sweet, deep voice, that always seemed so holy and true. "Now, dear Isabel, you will have two mothers, one here, another beyond the stars. That mother—oh, Isabel, I believe it as I do my own life—that mother comes to you always when you pray."
"Oh! then I will pray so often, Mary," cried the little girl, clasping her hands, "if that will bring her close to me."
Mary looked long and wistfully into that lovely face, with only such admiration as one bereft of all personal attractions can feel for beauty. Isabel clung closer to her, and wept more quietly.
"You will come and see me very often?" she whispered.
"Yes," sobbed Mary, "if they will let me."
"Where are they going to leave you?"
"I don't know, I haven't thought to ask till now."
"I hope it will be near, Mary; and then, you know, we will see each other every day," cried the child, brightening through her tears.
"But I am afraid Mrs. Farnham don't like me well enough. She may not allow it," answered Mary, with a meek smile.
"ButIwill," persisted Isabel, flinging back her head, with an air that brought fresh tears into Mary's eyes.
"Isabel," she said gravely, and striving to suppress her grief, "don't—don't—Mrs. Farnham is your mother now."
"No, she isn't though. She frightens me to death with her kindness. She don't love me a bit, only because my face is so pretty. I wish it wasn't, and then, perhaps, I could go with you."
"No, no, we needn't expect that,Inever did. It's only a wonder they took me at all. I'm Mr. Frederick's child, and you are hers. I'm quite sure if it hadn't been for him and Mr. Sharp, I should have been left in the Poor House all alone. The lady only looked at you from the first."
"I know it, don't you think I heard all she said about my eyes, my curls and my beautiful face, while you stood there with your mouth all of a tremble, and your eyes growing so large and bright under their tears—I knew that it was my pretty face, that was doing it all; and oh! just then, Mary, I hated it so much."
"It is a great thing to have a beautiful face, Isabel, a very great thing. You don't know what it is to see kind people turn away their eyes for fear of hurting your feelings by a look, and to hear rude, bad persons gibing at you. Isabel, dear, you wouldn't like that."
Mary said this in her usual sad, meek way, smiling so patiently as if every word were a tear wrung from her heart.
"Oh! Mary, but you are beautiful to me—nobody on earth looks so sweet and so good in my eyes, or ever will."
The two children embraced each other, and both wept freely as only children can weep. At length, Mary Fuller withdrew herself from Isabel's arms, lingering a moment to press fresh kisses among her curls.
"Now, Isabel, you must go. See, they are looking at us. Mrs. Farnham will be angry."
"Mary, I want to tell you something; I like the red-haired woman, cross as she is, a thousand times better than Mrs. Farnham. If she did shake me, it was for my good, I dare say."
"She was kind, at any rate, to let you come back," said Mary.
"Toletme? Why, Mary, she shook me up as mamma would a pillow, and shot me into the carriage so swift, it took my breath."
Mary smiled faintly, and Isabel began to laugh through her tears, as she scrambled out of the carriage again, Mary followed her with longing eyes. Something of maternal tenderness mingled with her love of that beautiful child; suffering had rendered her strangely precocious, and that prophetic spirit, which might have sprung from a mind too early stimulated, filled her whole being as with the love of a guardian angel.
"Oh, how lovely she is, how bright, how like a bird—if her father could only see her now, poor, poor Isabel! It is so hard for her to be with strange people; but I, who was so long prowling the streets like a little wild beast that everybody ran away from; yes, I ought to be content, and so grateful. But—but, I should like itsomuch if they would only let me come and see her once in a while. It'ssohard, andsolonesome without that."
Thus muttering sadly and sweetly to herself, the child sat with her little face buried in both hands, almost disconsolate.
She was aroused by a vigorous footstep and the cheering voice of Enoch Sharp. He did not appear to notice her tears, but took his seat, waving his hand to the group just turning to enter Mrs. Farnham's dwelling.
"There, there, wave your hand, little one. They're looking this way."
Mary leaned forward. Mrs. Farnham and the housekeeper had entered the hall, but Isabel took off her Leghorn flat and was waving it toward them. The pink ribbons and marabouts fluttered joyously in the air. Mary could not see that those bright hazel eyes were dim with tears, but the position and free wave of the arms were full of buoyant joy. She drew a deep breath, and choked back her tears. It seemed as if she were utterly deserted, then, utterly alone.
While Mary could feel and admire Isabel's beauty, her own lack of it had only been half felt; now her sun was gone, and she, poor moon, grew dreary in the unaided darkness. Up to this time Mary had hardly given a thought to the fate intended for herself. Always meek and lowly in her desires, feeling that any place was good enough for her, she was never selfishly anxious on her own account. Nor did she inquire now. While Enoch Sharp was striving to comfort her by caressing little cares, she only asked,
"Is it far from here that you are taking me sir?"
"No, child, it is not more than a mile—you can run over and see her any time before breakfast, if you like."
Mary did not answer, but her eyes began to sparkle, and bending her head softly down, as a meek child does in prayer, she covered Enoch Sharp's hands with soft, timid kisses, that went to the very core of his noble heart.
"Would you like to know where, and what, your home is to be, little one?" he said, smoothing her hair with one disengaged hand.
"If you please, but I am sure it will be very nice, so near her."
"Do you wish very much to be with her?"
"Indeed I do, and if they could send us word from heaven, I know her father and mother would say it was best."
"But there is no relationship between you," said he, willing to probe her frank soul to the bottom.
"Relationship, sir," answered the child, with the most touching smile that ever lighted human face, "oh, sir, haven't you seen how lovely she is? And I"—
The child paused and spread her little hands open, as much as to say, "and I!couldtwo creatures so opposite be of the same blood?"
"I think you more lovely by half than she is, my child," cried Enoch Sharp, drawing the hand, still warm with her grateful kisses, across his eyes; "good children are never ugly, you know."
The child looked at him wonderingly.
"You have seen a thunder-cloud," he said, answering the look, "how leaden and dismal it is of itself; but let the sun shine strike it and its edges are fringed with rosy gold, its masses turn purple and warm crimson, it breaks apart and rainbows leap from its bosom, bridging the sky with light; do you understand, my child?"
"Oh! yes, sir, I have seen the clouds melt away into rainbows so often."
"Well, it is the sunshine that makes a thing of beauty, where was only a dull black cloud. In the human face, my child, goodness acts like sunshine on the clouds. Be very good, little one, and the best portion of mankind will always think you handsome."
Mary listened very earnestly, but with an irresolute and unconvinced expression. This doctrine of immaterial loveliness she could not readily adopt; and, strange enough, did not quite relish. Her admiration of Isabel's beauty was so intense, that words like these seemed to outrage it.
"Come, come," said the Judge, who had never had an opportunity of conversing much with the child, "you must not cry so bitterly at being parted."
"Sir," said the child, turning her large spiritual eyes upon the Judge, "her father and mother were very, very kind to me, when I had no home, no food—nothing—nothing on earth but the cold streets to live in; remember that!"
"It is important that I should be well informed about you, Mary. Who was your father?"
"My father," cried the child, starting upright, and her eyes flashed out brightly, scattering back their tears, "my father was as good a man as ever breathed; good, good, sir, as you are. He did everything for me, worked for me, taught me himself, nursed me in his own arms, my father—oh, my poor, poor father, he is a bright angel in heaven."
"But your mother—did she act kindly by you?"
"My mother, oh, sir, she is with him—she is surely with my father."
Enoch Sharp turned away his head.