Zoë, or the Quadroon's Triumph
Author: Elizabeth D. Livermore
Date: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

ZOË

OR

THE QUADROON'S TRIUMPH

A TALE FOR THE TIMES.

BY
MRS. ELIZABETH D. LIVERMORE.

"God has hid away the human soul in the black man's skin and his darker person, that in finding it, we may re-discover our alienated and forgotten nature; and rejoice more over the one that was lost, than the ninety and nine who went not astray."—BELLOWS.

CINCINNATI:
TRUMAN AND SPOFFORD.
1855.

————

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1855, by

MRS. E. D. LIVERMORE,

In the District Court of the United States for the Southern District of Ohio.

————

————

E. MORGAN & SONS,
STEREOTYPERS.

————

CONTENTS

————

VOLUME I

- PREFACE.

- CHAPTER I.—THE SACRIFICE.

- CHAP. II.—THE VOYAGE.

- CHAP. III.—NEW SCENES AND ASSOCIATIONS.

- CHAP. IV.—QUESTIONINGS.

- CHAP. V.—CHILDREN AT HOME.

- CHAP. VI.—THE TEACHER AND TAUGHT.

- CHAP. VII.—BEREAVEMENT.

- CHAP. VIII.—LADY VERSUS LAW.

- CHAP. IX.—COLOR CAN FEEL.

- CHAP. X.—ANGLO-SAXONS DO NOT KNOW EVERYTHING.

- CHAP. XI.—THE CLOUD HANGS LOW.

- CHAP. XII.—FRESH BREEZES FROM THE WEST.

- CHAP. XIII.—A NEW PREACHER IN THE FIELD.

- CHAP. XIV.—SPIRIT-SISTER.

- CHAP. XV.—PIC-NIC—THE WANDERING JEW REAPPEARS.

- CHAPTER XVI.—CASTLE BUILDING ON THE PRAIRIES.

- CHAP. XVII.—CHIT-CHAT.

- CHAP. XVIII.—SPIRITUALISM.

- CHAP. XIX.—MAGNETISM.

- CHAP. XX.—THE PARLEY.

- CHAP. XXI.—STEEL IN THE ORE.

- CHAP. XXII.—FIRE IN THE FLINT.

- CHAP. XXIII.—THE DEDICATION.

————

VOLUME II

- CHAPTER I.—SANTA CRUZ.

- CHAP. II.—EMANCIPATION.

- CHAP. III.—THE RETROSPECT.

- CHAP. IV.—ZOË'S GREETING TO THE TROPICS.

- CHAP. V.—MINGLING OF THE OLD AND THE NEW.

- CHAP. VI.—YOUNG AMERICA EXPATIATES.

- CHAP. VII.—ZOË OPENS HER MISSION.

- CHAP. VIII.—YOUNG AMERICA IS HERETICAL ON ART.

- CHAP. IX.—THE QUEENS OF THE QUEEN CITY.

- CHAP. X.—DIAMOND CUT DIAMOND.

- CHAP. XI.—THE SHIPWRECK.

- CHAP. XII.—"BOOKS IN BROOKS."

- CHAP. XIII.—MRS. PUMPKIN'S TRACT FOR THE TIMES.

- CHAP. XIV.—THE QUARREL AND ITS DENOUEMENT.

- CHAP. XV.—YOUNG AMERICA MAKES A DECLARATION, NOT OF INDEPENDENCE.

- CHAP. XVI.—THE WAR-HORSE EAGLE.

- CHAP. XVII.—HOME, WITH ITS SHADOWS.

- CHAP. XVIII.—THE WORMWOOD AND THE GALL.

- CHAP. XIX.—THE HURRICANE.

- CHAP. XX.—LIGHT AFTER DARKNESS.

- CHAP. XXI.—A VOICE FROM AMAZONA.

- CHAP. XXII.—THE CHURCH RECUSANT.

- CHAP. XXIII.—LETTERS AND REMINISCENCES.

- CHAP. XXIV.—THE CLOSING TRIUMPH.

VOLUME I

"And the slave, where'er he cowers, feels the soul within him climb
To the awful verge of manhood, as the energy sublime
Of a century bursts full-blossomed, on the thorny stem of time."—LOWELL.

————

PREFACE

SLAVERY, with its manifold evils and wrongs, is becoming more and more the theme of the statesman, the divine, the poet, and the writer of fiction. It matters little in forming its estimate, whether there has or has not been exaggeration in describing the details of its workings, as it concerns either the master or his bondsman. It is sufficient to know, that it originated in and is sustained under, a very low estimate of the value of man as man, and that the exalted Christian idea of the brotherhood of the race can be but dimly discerned by any one, who is willing for one moment, to own a human being. It follows, therefore, that in a system where contempt for humanity unites with irresponsible power, the most vivid imagination may fail to delineate truly all its horrors.

As the material globe which we inhabit, was originally spoken into a rude and imperfect being, its thorough completion being left to humanity, that, by becoming co-workers with God, we might be brought more and more into union with Him and his wonderful designs, so does Society expand and perfect itself by little and little, in unison with it. We may lament over its dull perception of truth, its slow growth towards perfect maturity, and the worldly and weak in faith, will be ready to despair of its eventual freedom from bondage to evil. Not so does our Maker, who knows the abundant resources of his creation, and the fitting time when each material shall best adapt itself to its highest and most appropriate use.

When the waste places of the earth have been subdued by the energy and force of the stronger races, and the rude powers of nature are trained to do their bidding, when by the aid of machinery, men are set comparatively free from the harder drudgery of life, then, to those who, by fidelity in duty have earned the high and glad privilege, there comes the play-time of their being, when the higher faculties which adorn and beautify life, will be in the ascendant. Then come up to the surface of society, those who have been regarded as inferior elements in its construction, even those little ones in Christ's kingdom, in whom the feminine, the graceful and tender, the imaginative and artistic qualities are largely mingled. Then, woman will be freed from the chains which enthrall her, and will step forth as she is, the subtle, spiritual genius, to impel to high deeds the

"lord of creation." Then the African, child of the sunshine, in whom is wrapped up what we, in our country, have as yet vainly looked for—poetry, music, high art, and the full reflection of God's love as revealed through our Saviour, will take his true and blissful position.

The worldly and selfish will, for a time, scoff and disbelieve this, as they laugh at the struggles of woman to reach her high destiny; but the unwelcome truth will be, at last, forced upon them, that they have been acting out the fable of the drayman towards Pegasus, on a fearful and monstrous scale.

It is time that the world should know of the glorious appointment which God has in store for these his children upon whom his hand for the ages has been most heavily laid; for, from the laboratory of every imaginable calamity and woe, the fitting alembic through the action of his divine chemistry for his choicest productions, there shall spring up and bloom the loveliest, the most celestial, the most sky-scented flower of humanity, which the world has yet seen. On them will devolve the supremacy of the ages, and it will be their joyful destiny to evolve light out of darkness, to wind up the horologe of the present, and set it to the musical dance of the hours of the approaching Future. And to one whose soul's eye has become couched to discern this high lot of the feminine element, all apology seems futile for offering to the public the following Tale; for, as the winds of Heaven scatter the leaves of the trees when they are ripened for the fall, so, through a strong conviction, do the thoughts drop from the pen, and they are scattered wherever they find a soil fitted to vitalize them. And with faith in the welcome which words expressed from a full and glowing heart will receive, do I offer it to all generous and truth-loving Americans, whatever may be their nativity or race.

E. D. L.
CINCINNATI, Nov. 25, 1855.

ZOË:

OR, THE QUADROON'S TRIUMPH.

————

CHAPTER I.

"No manna falls around me from on high;
Barely from off the desert of my life
I gather patience and severe content.

* * * * * *

A mighty purpose rises large and slow,
From out the fluctuations of my soul.
As ghost-like, from the dim and tumbling sea,
Starts the completed moon."

ALEXANDER SMITH.

THE story of Zoë Carlan, a young colored girl, of the little Danish island of Santa Cruz, is a pathetic illustration of the false position into which a refined and educated nature may be thrown, by the fierce prejudices of caste and color.

Her father, George Carlan, was a native of the island, and originally a slave. His ancestry on the father's side for two generations had been whites, so that with his light complexion, he combined much of the energy and restiveness under despotic rule of the Anglo-Saxon race.

Slavery under the Danes had some mild and alleviating features. Schools were supported by government, in which the rudiments of knowledge were taught the slaves, with a view to their eventual freedom, and provisions were made, by which it could be purchased by those who would employ the requisite exertion.

George so diligently used these means, that at the age of twenty-eight, he stepped forth under the clear vault of Heaven, a free man. He could but imperfectly read and write and cast accounts; and he reasoned thus with himself. "Here I am, with none to rule over me but my God and my King. Independence and influence I will have, but how to gain them is the question. I am too old to educate myself; but rich I may become, and rich I will be. I will take my stand beside the haughty whites, and whatever consideration and power may be mine through wealth, I will attain."

Through his industry and perseverance, he had become a successful merchant; and at the time when this story commences, he was living in the enjoyment of not only the comforts, but many of the luxuries of life. On attaining his freedom, he married a young colored woman, of much gentleness and native refinement of character, and one child, the little Zoë, was given them, to be the light of their home, and the object of all his aspiring hopes and desires.

But the free blacks and colored people (for that distinction is very carefully made in the islands), though experiencing much favor from the Danish government, and sometimes even preferred to the proud and discontented white colonists, when indulgences are to be awarded, have no position in society. In the first place, the latter are, for the most part, the children of illicit connections, and where is the community where the odium of such sin falls not upon the weaker party and her innocent offspring? Then the people of color are a continual source of contention and trouble; they are restless, discontented, aspiring. For every step they advance higher than the full black, they cast behind them a glance of indifference or of scorn, while they are ever looking upward and striving to plant their feet side by side with the whites, if not in advance of them. This is met with unflinching opposition by the dominant race. In all spheres within their control, they omit not to give the most scathing demonstrations of their contempt. In social life they seldom meet, of course. It is, however, the custom for the Danish governor-general to hold levees, from time to time; and to these the chief mulattoes are invited as well as the whites. Gladly would the latter excuse themselves from the honor of attendance, knowing the odious companionship to which they will be subjected, but it is well understood that an invitation is equivalent to a command, and policy, perchance safety, forbids a refusal. There is by no means a very cordial feeling between many of them and their rulers. The population is a mixed one. Many of the old and more wealthy families are of English descent. Their religion is only tolerated, the Lutheran being that of the State. Almost all offices are held by Danish officials, often unscrupulous and grasping, and the Creoles are made to feel in numberless ways, that they are but step-children to the mother-country, and that their interests are ever second to her own. Then, more than all other causes of jealousy, is the slackening of their control over the blacks, by the measures of the home-government. They see in it their humiliation and ruin; and as prudence forbids a very open expression of their outraged feelings to their rulers, they display a temper all the more bitter towards the immediate cause of them.

In this scene of unrest, ambitious striving, and corroding sentiment the little Zoë was born and lived until her seventh year. It was then that her father felt that the time had come to carry into execution the idea which, from the first moment that his eye rested on the face of his infant child, had been as fixed as if the fates had commanded it. This was, to send her from the island to be educated. It was a common custom of the white Creoles to do so; but few, who had the means, were willing to confine their children to the very slender advantages for culture, which the island afforded, and though the temporary exile was fraught with much peril and heart-sickness, it was submitted to as a painful necessity. For through most of the forming period of their children's minds, they were given over to the care of teachers too distant from them to exercise much superintendence, while the intercourse by letter even was too infrequent to retain a very strong hold over their affections and characters. To this fact may be attributed very much of the feeling of exile which the Creole carries about with him to his grave. Seldom is the island spoken of as a home, but that endeared appellation is given to Denmark, Germany, England, the United States; and this use of language is imitated by those who have never stepped beyond its boundaries.

George had often spoken of his intention of sending Zoë to Denmark, but the distant idea of it always distressed his wife so much that he delayed the final announcement of it as long as possible. She had but little of his proud, ambitious spirit or intellectual thirst, but lived chiefly in her affections. She was but a child in mind, and while her heart could lavish its love upon her husband and child—while she could wander with them through her favorite haunts and breathe in the luxurious sensations imparted by the delicious climate and gorgeous nature around her—she was happy and contented.

One evening, as they were seated in the verandah of their dwelling, which overlooked the Caribbean sea, the refreshing trade-wind gently waving the leaves of the tamarind tree, and the delicate odor of the star-jasmine wafted to them on its breath from the abundant blossoms over their heads, George was aroused from the abstraction into which he had fallen by a laugh from his wife.

"See, George," she said, "how oddly Zoë's goat looks with that wreath of flowers which she has tied about its face! Is she not like some old, withered belle trying to look young and pretty?" and Nanny, as if aware of her ridiculous appearance, suddenly flung herself away from the child, turning her a somerset, as she did so, down the slope.

"Yes," said her father, but not joining in the mirth; and then more to himself than to his wife, he added: "Zoë is very fond of the animal. It shall go with her on the voyage; it will serve to divert her, and besides will furnish her with milk."

"What voyage? what do you mean?" said Sophia, seizing his arm and gazing eagerly into his face.

"Now, Sophia, be calm and listen to me," said he, "you know what my desire and purpose is, and I want you to look at the matter as I do."

"I cannot. O George! I know you have spoken of sending her away, but I never believed you would have the courage, when the time came, or," she added, in a lower tone, "that you would be so cruel to me."

"Heaven knows what it costs me," throwing his arm tenderly around her, "even more on your account than my own; but do you wish her to grow up like Mahala and Jenny—your brother's daughters—ignorant and impure, with no higher wish than to be the mistress of some white coxcomb? No, I would see her die first."

"But she will not: am I like them? You saved me from that fate, dearest, and will not your own child, with you to instruct her, with my eye ever upon her, be even happier and more worthy of her father than I am?"

"I teach her," said he, bitterly, "who, (thanks to my slavery for that) know nothing myself!"

"But you do know a great deal," said she, brightening a little, and casting a proud glance at his handsome face; "I have not told you what I heard the American merchant say to Captain Sturd, yesterday, while I was standing in your counting-room at the store."

"Well, what was it, dear?" said George, willing to divert her a moment from her grief.

"He said that there was not a more gentlemanly fellow, nor a better business man on the island than yourself, nor one that he liked to deal with so well."

"I dare say," said George; "but I know just what such compliments are worth, coming from a white man, and I value them accordingly. But what has that to do with Zoë's going away, if not this, that if I have risen above my people in any respect, so much the more must I see to it, that my child does not grow up good for nothing but a slave's degraded life, though she may not literally be one? No, Sophia, life is too dark, too hard for me with my ignorance and sense of humiliation, not to wish for our darling a better fate. She shall be educated as a lady, and who knows," said he, his eye gleaming, "but the tables may be turned a little before she comes back, and people be seated a little more according to their deserts?"

"It frightens me to see you so ambitious, George. Why not be contented and happy in us, as we are in you, and let the world go on as it will?"

"Well, love, I will. You and Zoë are my life. Will you not, with me, make a sacrifice for her best good, and prove to me your love by being happy with me alone for a few years? Were we not happy together the three years before her birth? and shall we be less so now? You are not like me if your love has weakened with time. Has it, Sophia?" and he drew her toward him.

These words, and the sad and tender tone in which they were spoken, by one not very demonstrative in his feelings, quite subdued her. She leaned upon his shoulder and wept, but softly and without bitterness. "Her husband's love—the good of her child," these were the open Sesame to her heart's most guarded treasure, when against the claims of intellect or ambition she would have turned a tiger's resistance.

O man, thou hast no lore in woman's nature, it matters not of what clime or color, for it is one and the same in this, if thou hast not learned the very point of the rock which is to be smitten for its waters to gush forth for you. "Her husband's love! The good of her child!"

————

CHAPTER II.

"And a little child shall lead them."

ISAIAH.

ALL was now busy preparation with them for the little girl's departure. Captain Heiliger was to return to Denmark in a month, in the good ship Skager-rack, and his wife, who had been spending the winter in Santa Cruz, very willingly consented to take charge of her. The Captain had many business transactions with Mr. Carlan, and great good-will had grown up between them, and he was very glad of an opportunity of reciprocating some favors which he had conferred upon him in the way of trade.

Many were the tears shed by Sophia as she diligently stitched upon Zoë's wardrobe, but George saw that she struggled hard to be reconciled to the separation, and he redoubled his affectionate efforts for her happiness. As for Zoë, childlike, one hour she cried at the thought of leaving her parents and going alone among strangers, and the next, was impatient for the day to come when she should sail upon the great ocean, and see all the wonders of the country far away, of which her friend the captain, often gave her glimpses in his narrations of northern life and scenes. It came at last all too soon for Sophia, and no less for George, whose sterner nature was first put in action by his own firm resolves, and by the necessity of conquering his wife's opposition to the plan; but, these victories won, the strong man betrayed the tender heart underneath all this bravery, and, at the last, turned to his wife for the courage and support which had come to her through patience, submission, and disinterested love.

Once on board ship, the first agony of tears over, the busy preparations for sailing going on, holding Nanny, the pet goat, by the brightest ribbon her mother could find in Fredericstadt, Zoë stood, interested and quiet, if not happy. She reserved her next burst of sorrow for bedtime, that fearful hour, when, if there is a grief in a child's heart, it surges up and breaks over all the bounds within which deference for others, or passing sports or occupations had temporarily confined it. Sleep, blessed friend, comes at last, to relieve the inconsolable one, and no less the impotent, unhappy sympathizer, who ranges the heavens and earth and the waters beneath for some antidote in the shape of story, suggestion, or joke, to allay the tempest. When all hope is failing, and the hands are folded in mute despair, lo, more welcome than the friendly sail or life-boat in a storm at sea, is caught the first glimmer of relief in the drooping eyelid, and soon the occasional sob is all that tells of the dark clouds which had so shut in over the "Heaven of its infancy."

Zoë found no lack of employment or of friends on board. A child on ship is a god-send, for in no other so small a compass, do you get so much variety and freshness combined to break the tedium and monotony of a voyage. She was soon at home in every part of it; knew the exact latitude and longitude of the kitchen, pantry, cowhouse, hencoop, and especially did she make minute investigation into Nanny's quarters, to see that all was right with her favorite.

She became an apt pupil in learning the terms in use among the sailors, and larboard and starboard, main-sail and top-sail, stem and stern, were soon familiar lore to her. For the child is your true democrat. The world is all before her, free from the conventionalisms, which build such high walls between her elders, and love and companionship go where natural affinity leads. Greater than a sovereign, too, does this Heaven-directed freedom make her, for all hearts become willing subjects to love, and there is no smack of worldly policy or thrift in the service which such love wins.

Sophia would have been frightened enough to have seen her child threading her way through what would seem to her, very dangerous places, now running up and down the steep gangway, now leaning over the railing, now mounting up into the binnacle, and anon, down in the engine-room, with the sooty Vulcan himself. But apart from the self-reliance and sureness of foot gained by being suffered to depend somewhat on herself, "there were angels in charge over her" wherever she went. At one time, it was a lonely papa, who as he took the little hand to help her up a step, did it all the more tenderly for thinking of his own cherubs far, far away. At another, it was an invalid lady, who in saving her from a fall, sighed that before the weary weeks should bear her to her own blue-eyed darlings, she might be sleeping beneath the waves. And again, it was an honest tar, who "sooner than see harm come to such a trim, pretty little craft, shiver his timbers—he would be blown himself, he would." And nothing of interest in sea, sky, or ship, was thought to have fulfilled "its order of entertainment," until she had enjoyed her share of it. The cry was, "Zoë, see this whale spouting in the distance;" or, "Zoë, look at this troop of horses galloping through the sea," and surely it took two or three good glances with her bright eyes to see that they were only porpoises, jumping and floundering through the waters. Then the silvery flying-fish, with its brief spasmodic soarings into the blue ether, engaged her attention and sympathy too, when it was told her that it was impelled out of its natural element for the moment only, to escape the jaws of some pursuing monster. But her greatest delight was to lean over the guards at evening, and watch the phosphorescent light upon the waves, which the ship parted in its course. Its silvery sheen, now brightening, now fading, and flowing about the keel like grains of molten sunlight, had a fascination for the child which she did not willingly forego. Undaunted by warnings of dampness and chilly evening winds, she would beg that she might be permitted to look "just for one hour," and if she could not persuade my lady to come from the cabin and share with her the sight and her fur cloak together, why, she was just as happy and comfortable too, under a corner of Tom's pea-jacket at the forecastle.

Zoë was neither a very beautiful nor a vivacious child, but she was interesting from her gentleness and grace, and thoughtfulness for others. She was too diffident and shrinking to show fondness excepting to the long-known, but she had many unobtrusive little ways of testifying gratitude and affection. She had that delicate touch in smoothing a sick one's pillow, that instinctive knowledge when any little service is wanted, which made her like a ministering spirit to the languid and sea-sick, and when she found that her goat's milk was considered a luxury, the largest share of it was sure to be transferred to where it was most wanted.

She was of the grade of quadroons, and her features were pure and intellectual in their contour. One skillful in such criticism could see that there was a mingling of the African in her physique, but nevertheless she was a fair and agreeable-looking child. Her hair was black, wavy, and abundant, her eyes soft and dark, her face oval and delicate in its form; but over it there was that mysterious pensiveness quite common to her caste, and visible even in the face of the full African; a peculiarity which may be explained by those who imagine he is insensible to the evils of his condition, and would fain delude themselves that he is joyous and happy under its hardships. Does the difference of expression arise from the greater fragility of constitution said to be inherent in the mixed race, or is it a prophecy or a fulfillment of the bitter struggle of the spirit which in all of them is to be wrought out by groans and tears, but in the full black may be somewhat relieved by a naturally happier temperament?

The favor in which she was held on board was not stinted on account of her race. The few passengers were Germans, Swedes, and Danes, and it is well known they are comparatively free from our aversion to the African. When living with them in the islands as a Pariah race, they are not proof against the influences which slavery always engenders in the irreligious and sensual, and in consequence learn to regard them with a degree of contempt, which would be entirely unfelt were the black elevated to his rightful condition; but the individuals who go, from time to time, to Europe to be educated, are petted, and a vail of fancy and romance thrown around them which raises them rather above the common level in the esteem of their fellows.

With the quick wit and freemasonry of childhood, Zoë soon learned who her best friends were, and especially with Carl, the man at the wheel, did she establish an intimacy, for, besides a kind smile and a merry or pleasant greeting as she approached him, she found he had a rich storehouse of tales to narrate. Though somewhat broken and disjointed by his duties at his post, she could gather from them rich store for her world of day-dreams. Carl was perfectly at home in elf-land, for he told her he was a "Sunday child," which gave him great privileges with the little people dwelling there, and the elves of light and the elves of darkness he knew like a book; for to all Sunday children they were visible. Often in herding his cows in Denmark, just at evening had he seen the good little white elves playing hide-and-go-seek among the leaves of the trees over his head, or dancing in the elf-dans; that is, the brightest and greenest spots in the meadows. But with the little black elves, who lived underground and under houses, he had to put on his best manners or there would be trouble enough, ay, and his good wife, too, must see to it, that her house was kept cleanly and neat or she would have plenty of tricks played upon her. Her butter would fail to come, or the cows would hold up their milk, or more vexatious than all, when she tried to spin her linen thread, it would snap as if the fire had touched it. But if everything was in good order, they were sure to reward her. Sometimes in the morning she would find her nice cream-cheese all ready pressed without her having to put a hand to it, or her clothes would be all washed and laid out on the dewy grass, or the table all laid for supper, if she stepped out to gossip a little with a neighbor.

But he had to be very careful not to let his cattle graze where the elf-people have been, for they have one bad habit—they spit—and if the cows should graze there they would die, unless his wife had been prudent enough to raise some John's-wort, saved on that saint's day, and it was near at hand.

However, he had learned that when he went to the pasture, if he would but say, "Thou little Troll, may I graze my cows on thy hill?" no harm ever came to them, not even if the great blue cattle of the elves came out to feed with them, for they only wanted a little deference from others to be civil in return.

But better than all, did she like to hear about the Hill people who were not elves, neither were they human, but half between; although when they appear, they are like handsome men and women. As their name denotes, they live in the caves and hills, and he had often put his ear to the ground and heard their music. It was very sweet and lively, but if any one was so cruel as to breathe a word of doubt about their ever going to heaven, the singing would cease, and there would be such weeping and lamentation as to quite break his heart to hear it; for through all time they carry about with them a longing, but faint hope of salvation.

"O Carl!" Zoë would say, "God will let them go to heaven, won't he? What have they done, that he should not?"

"I don't know, I hope so; but don't cry about it, little maiden, or I can tell you no more about them."

She hastily wiped away her tears and begged for another story.

So he went on: "One evening, just at twilight, I was sitting in my door-way with my old wife, resting after my day's work, when I heard the sound of my neighbor Johan's fiddle. Now Johan was a rare fiddler, but somewhat given to mischief, and he had often said that he knew how to play the elf-king's tune, and that he meant to try it some day. 'Johan,' said I, 'thou hadst better not, for thou wilt rue it if thou dost.' But sure enough, when I heard his fiddle that night, I knew that he had acted upon his threat. Down the road he came, playing as if he were the elf-king himself, and with him a crowd of men and women and little children, all dancing as if they were mad; for when that tune is played, all who hear it must dance whether they will or not. Up jumped my poor old wife, who had not taken a step for many a day; and such antics as she cut up were a sight to behold. But no need for me to laugh at her, for though I had much rather have gone to bed than to join the whirligig, I could not be let off, but was forced to join the crazy crowd. And that was not the worst of it, for out came my wife's spinning-wheel and up jumped my plow, and then the tables and chairs set to flying, so that it seemed as if the world was turning topsy-turvy altogether. 'Play the tune backward, you evil carl!' I shouted to Johan, but the good-for-nothing fellow had forgotten it; for if he could do that, he could then stop playing. So we whirled and capered until the breath was nearly gone from us, and Johan himself was as red in the face as his jacket, when I bethought me to take my knife and go behind him and cut the strings of his fiddle. If I had not done this, or if Johan had not bethought him how to play the tune backward, we should have danced till this time. And that was the last, I think, of Johan's trying to play the elf-king's tune."

"Carl, was that a really true story, or did you make believe it so?" said Zoë.

Carl hemmed and cocked his eye, and said, "there were a great many more wonderful things than that in the world," and gave the wheel a vigorous turn, singing, as he did so, a snatch of a Danish ballad.

So Zoë had no lack of entertainment to her liking, and her appetite was insatiable. Her favorite hour for the feast was just at evening, when the captain would permit her to lead Nanny out for an airing, and after running a race with her up and down the deck, she would take her stand near her friend, her arm thrown around her goat's neck, her eyes upturned to Carl, while Nanny, meantime seeming pleased to serve as her support, chewed her cud— the two making as pretty a contrast as need be seen of contented animalism and earnest mind.

Carl had to draw pretty largely on his invention to satisfy her cravings, for, although his stock of the legends and superstitions of his country was ample, such an extravagant draught might have exhausted even that. But he was seldom at a loss, for, although to look at his rough, weather-beaten, stolid face, one would as soon expect to find a white lily growing out of a cabbage, or ottar of rose exhaling from a rough oak knot, as fancy or imagination in him, yet he had both.

These northern nations of Europe, Germans, Danes, Swedes, etc., are a queer people—a strange blending of sour-krout and nightingales' tongues, lager-beer and nectar, mercury and lead, soot and sunbeam, or any other combination of the most incongruous elements which might be suggested to the imaginative.

Here is Carl's story of the Enchanted Lady, or the little Flying Fish:

"One evening at twilight, as I was standing at the helm, the new moon just over my right shoulder—where I like to have it—with no voice about me but the washing of the waves, as the ship parted them in its course—for the passengers, with their noisy gabble, had gone into the saloon—I heard a splash in a tub of water near me. This tub Jack had brought and set in an out of-the-way place, to be ready for him to holystone the deck with, bright and early in the morning. Well, as I was saying, I heard something splash into it, and I looked and saw that it was a beautiful little silvery flying-fish. Thought I to myself, you have made a lucky hit that time, my little heartie, for if you had landed on the dry deck, if you had not broken your head, you would have been rather out of breath by this time, for this is thinner air than you like. I gave but little heed to it, but let it stay, knowing that the poor little thing would, at least, be out of the way of its enemy, the dolphin, though it was rather snug quarters for one that was used to having the sea to range in. By-and-by it was Tom's time to take the helm, and I turned into my berth to get a bit of sleep, and did not come up again till six bells sounded in the morning.

"As I stood tending the wheel with one hand, and rubbing my eyes with the other—for one needs a little sunlight to wake up easy—I thought I heard some one call my name. It was not like a common voice, speaking low, but the tiniest little grasshopper one, calling as loud as it could. Thinks I to myself, I must be in dream-land, for who ever called 'Carl' like that, in the wide-awake world. So I scratched my head hard, and pinched my arm, and tossed up my cap in the air, to be sure that I was up and dressed, but seeing nobody I went to my post. A second call, and this time, a splash in the tub, and then I remembered the flying-fish. I thought I must be mistaken about the voice, but said to myself, 'the little thing is discontented, and no wonder; I'll e'en put it into the sea again.'

"As I was taking it in my hand, it cried out: 'Let me stay, Carl, I want to talk with you a bit.'

" 'That's it, is it?' said I. 'Who ever heard of a flying-fish spinning a yarn? But what shall I do; I can't leave the wheel, for where do you think the ship would drift? and my old ears are too thick to hear your little fairy speech at this distance? However, I'll pull the tub nearer the helm. There, now: what on earth are you? And what can I do for you?'

"The little flying-fish squeaked out: 'I am an enchanted lady, and my name is Skada. I am the wife of the great giant, Krymer, who lives in Jotunheim, away up toward the north-pole among the eternal snows and icebergs. He is very grim and imperious, and with him I led a hard and slavish life. I was the daughter of King Olaf, and was haughty and proud. I was handsome and witty, and liked to be seen and heard—and who had a better right, being a king's daughter? I could not abide to stay at home and nurse the children, and cook my greedy lord's fifty fishes, and three reindeer, and five turtles, and one white bear, which he consumed every day at dinner. I thought myself as great as he, being a princess, and with as good a right to share in his rule over the dwarfs, who were his subjects. And this I told him; but all the answer I got from him was, 'Can you lift my hammer and throw it like that?' and away it flew and took off the whole top of the mountain Utgardelok, which fell plump into the sea, throwing so much water into the air that it rained for five days. I had to confess that I could not; and what was the use when the ground was so moist already with the melting snow that nothing would grow, and I told him so. 'Can you shout as long and as loud as I can?' And with that he raised such a hideous yell, that the trees all fell flat, and my poor little flowers, that I was trying to nurse into life and beauty by gently blowing upon them with my warm breath, all shrunk back into the earth, thinking that the safest place for them. 'No,' I said, 'and the less noise the better, for then something would be done, or at least, there would be less destruction.'

" 'Have you courage to go through Utgard, and contend with Loke and his three evil children, Fenris, the wolf, Jormungandur, the great serpent, and Hela, the queen of death?'

" 'No, and why should I? If I keep clear of them, they will never trouble me. Let them have their dark kingdom to themselves.'

" 'Then you are not fit to rule,' said Krymer, which did not convince me, being no reason at all. So one day I took the scepter, and was brandishing it about when Krymer came in. He was as angry as the north-wind in a tempest.

and without waiting a moment for his wrath to cool, turned me into a flying-fish and threw me into the sea, where I am compelled to live for a score of years.' "

"What a cross, cruel, ill-tempered husband," said Zoë; "but did not she tell you what she saw down deep in the sea?"

"O yes, you may be sure she did, I thought she would never be done talking of the mountains higher than any on the land; of the green meadows which lie at their base; of the waving forests; of the huge ferns a thousand feet long, with their brilliant foliage of crimson and purple, and the beautiful pink and green turf, and sea-weeds and lichens, which they overshadow. And she told of the vast monsters—the whale, the huge kraken, the sea-serpent, and countless hosts of smaller tribes, who dart and gambol, or pursue their prey a mile below the surface of the sea; of the myriads upon myriads of salmon and mackerel and herring, which migrate from one side of the world to the other, disturbing the current of the mighty ocean itself. But more beautiful was what she told of the wonderful working of the little coral insects, who patiently pursue their labor from year to year, forming their delicate and frost-like sprays, blooming at their summits with insect life, which become the basis of great continents and islands in the midst of the waters.

"But many a sad sight too, was beneath the briny waves; noble ships, with their untold treasures of gold and silver, and rich merchandise, and what was sadder still, beautiful women and children clasped in each other's arms, and strong men with the marks of the death-wrestle still upon their faces."

"Please tell me no more about that," said the child, heaving a deep sigh, "but what became of the little lady flying-fish?"

"Well, after she had spun her yarn, and a pretty long one it was, she said that it was time for her to go back again, for she was afraid if Jack should see her when he came to clean the deck, that he would seize and cook her for his breakfast. So she begged me to give her a lift over the side of the ship."

" 'I will, my heartie,' said I, 'but in return for making the night so short with your pretty talk, I want to give you a word of advice.'

" 'O yes, by all means,' said the fish, fluttering her fin a little, by way of a courtesy, 'what is it?'

" 'When the time comes for you to go back to the old giant, don't seize the scepter again, for it is an ugly, heavy, old thing, and you will stagger under it, and it would be a sorry sight if it should trip you up before your subjects and throw you flat upon the ground. But if you are indeed a princess and no sham, your rank will shine out, though you are dressed in cat skins instead of sable, and you will share the rule, for the dwarfs know who is who, and you will get rid of the trouble of the heavy scepter. Let the giant keep it if he wants a plaything, you are not a baby. Will you heed what I say?'

" 'Ay, ay, and thank you. I can take a hint and act upon it too. It is stupid old Krymer, whose skull is so thick, that he thinks that it is only a leaf falling when Thor's thunderbolt comes down upon it.'

" 'Tut, tut,' said I, 'little lady, be a little less free with your liege lord, when you speak about him.'

" 'Never fear, I shall remember what you say; I only want to make his ear burn once like fire with my sharp words, for turning me into a flying-fish, and then I will ever after be as mild as a May morning, and docile as a dove.'

"The little fish spread its gauzy fins, laughing as it did so, at its own merry speech, which sounded like tiny silver bells, until it darted out of sight under the water."

"Thank you, Carl, that is the funniest story you have told me yet, all but that about the mothers and their poor little babies;" and Zoë's eager glance was dimmed as it turned upon her own world of dreams, and she was lost for the time being to the one about her.

Thus the time sped on, and even a long voyage comes to an end at last; and there was hurry and bustle on board ship again as the city of Copenhagen loomed up in the distance.

To Zoë, accustomed as she was to the perennial verdure of her own sunny isle and to the low style of architecture which its exposure to hurricanes rendered necessary, the sight of the brown earth, the leafless trees (for it was now March), the high buildings and tall steeples, was a great subject of amusement. She knelt upon her berth to look out of her port-hole, as it was too cold to stay on deck, while Koma, the servant of Mrs. Heiliger, packed her trunk and dressed her in readiness to go to the city. When she was arrayed to the girl's mind, Zoë took her hand to go and bid that poor invalid good-by, as the lady would immediately take a carriage to ride ten miles to her residence in the country; her mother's heart yearning to embrace her children, from whom she had been separated for six months.

She kissed the child and told her she had been a good little girl and had given her no trouble, but on the contrary, had been a great comfort to her in many little ways, and said if she was unhappy in her school or wanted any aid, she must let her know it, and that in the summer (if she were living, and she sighed) she should come out and spend her vacation with her own little girls, Adelgunda and Freya.

Zoë, impelled out of her accustomed timidity and reserve, flung her arms around her neck begging her, as she did so, to take her with her.

"Not now, my child, you know your father's wish was that you should be taken directly to Miss Ingemann's, and it will be easier for you to be left among strangers now than if you first went home with us. You will go cheerfully, dear, will you not?"

She hesitated for a moment, then nodded her head by way of assent, and ran to get Nanny.

That grave individual now had its beauty set off by the addition to its wardrobe of an old sack of her own, the sleeves projecting each side like budding wings. She had insisted that she must suffer from the cold, as they came into higher latitudes, and in this she was probably right, as the Santa Cruzian goats have scarcely a sufficient modicum of hair, it would seem, for home use much less for colder regions. Nature is not negligent in adapting her children's supplies to their needs, yet she has for so many ages accustomed herself to do her work in her own quiet, moderate way, that she is hardly up to our fast times, when steam transports us from the extreme heat of one climate to the no less extreme cold of another before she has time to get her manufacturing apparatus in order to suit the conflicting demands upon her.

Zoë was leading Nanny across the deck when she met Rolf, one of the ship's apprentices, a lad of seventeen, who, as boys are very apt to do, expressed the interest which he really felt in her by teazing her on every possible occasion. He found an especial charm in this entertainment, as Zoë was inclined to take very literally all his jokes and absurdities.

She was, moreover, rather irritable, and when thus fretted, would disown all friendship with him, then and forevermore, at least two or three times a day only to return soon to be better friends than ever.

"What are you going to do with your goat, Zoë?" said he.

"I am going to take her to Miss Ingemann's with me," said the child.

"Going to school is she? hey! I doubt if with all the old lady's teaching she gets her beyond ba-a-a-a!" imitating her bleating to perfection.

"She is not going to school," said she indignantly; "she is going to play with me and give me milk."

"There is no room for goats up there, you silly child, unless you can make a crib for her in your bandbox," said Rolf.

She was going to retort again, but for the first time it flashed into her mind that he might be right, and that she should have to give her up. She looked anxiously at him and said:

"What must I do with her, then?"

"O! throw her overboard; let her go to Loke's (the devil's) kingdom. She is one of his people anyway, you know."

"You naughty, wicked boy!" said Zoë, stamping her foot. "It is no such thing. She is a great deal better than you are;" and with that she quickened her pace to reach the captain, whom she saw in advance of her. She asked him, with a very downcast look, if she should have to leave Nanny behind with that ugly old Rolf, who would throw her into the sea to live with Loke.

"O no! my little girl," said the kind-hearted captain, "she shall have no such dreadful fate as that. How should you like to have me carry her to my country place, where my little girls will take good care of her, until you come in the summer to visit them?"

Zoë was delighted, and on those terms was reconciled to parting with her pet, with whom, however, she took most sentimental leave, murmuring over her every imaginable term of endearment and promise of everlasting remembrance; and then went back to triumph over Rolf for Nanny's happy fortune. He soon found means to appease her wrath, and, although two or three times in as many minutes, he nearly provoked it again by his quips and cranks at her expense; yet, at the last, they exchanged keepsakes, and wished that they could both go back to Santa Cruz together.

Over Carl's rough shoulders she threw the ribbon with which she had adorned Nanny in her gala hours, and told him to wear it when he went to Valhalla; and if he were ever so old and gray she should know him by that, and she would come and sit by him to listen to his stories. Good Carl!

————

CHAPTER III.

"Most musical—most melancholy."—MILTON.

THE boarding-school into which Zoë was now admitted, was kept by a lady who had gained great reputation as a teacher of young girls. She was of noble descent, but inheriting from her parents more of rank than of wealth, and scorning dependence, she had resorted to education as a means of support, and had gained an honorable reputation thereby. Tall and stately in her mien, with the clear blue eyes, blonde hair, and light complexion of her country-women, with decision, high thought and power of command in every lineament of her face, and movement of her figure, Miss Ingemann might have been taken for a Volkyria, and, indeed, her pupils could not have held in higher veneration her character and acquirements had she shown them, in legible handwriting, her certificate from Odin, that she had been of his court.

She received the little girl kindly and listened attentively to all the directions which Mr. Carlan had intrusted to the captain, as well as to his own fatherly injunction that she should have careful attention, and after his departure, seeing her look tearful and forlorn, she directed an assistant to take her to her room, to the companion who was to share it with her.

This was Hildegund, or Hilda Strophel, as she was called, the daughter of a Danish gentleman, who two years before possessed a large plantation in Santa Cruz.

He married a Creole lady of English descent, and for a time lived in great state and splendor in the island. His lands were very productive—sugar, the principal article of export, brought him large profits, and he spent his immense income in the rude magnificence, once so common among the planters—in dinners, wines, horses, equipage, rich plate, and last, but not least, in gambling. His house, large, airy, and commodious, was open to his friends, scores of whom he would welcome to his hospitality for days and weeks together, at which time his halls would echo to the sounds of music and revelry, until the night waned into early dawn. But this was not sufficient for his ambitious and pleasure-seeking wife. She was beautiful and proud, and would fain be presented at court. She, therefore, sought and easily gained her husband's consent to spend a year at Denmark. Here the gayeties and excitement of high life completely engrossed her, and when the time appointed for their return arrived, she urged delay. The idea of going back to little, contracted, quiet Santa Cruz and its limited range of social life, was dreadful to her. She pleaded one reason, and then another, to induce her husband to remain. First, her health needed the bracing air of the north, and afterwards the children must be educated; and how could she leave the darlings among strangers? although no scruples of that kind prevented her banishing them to the mercy and to the exclusive care of servants for days and weeks together. In vain did her husband insist that his affairs required his oversight, and that he should be a ruined man, if they pursued their present course much longer: she could not be made to believe it, and so long as the money for her expenditure was forthcoming, she drove care to the winds. Her stronger will and greater force of character overruled his prudence and apprehensions of evil, and so they swept on in their wild career. This false and reckless state of things could not, of course, last forever. His manager was a crafty and rapacious man, who had an eye only to his own interests. He bribed the attorney left in charge of Mr. Strophel's business, to further his plans; so while they sent fair accounts of the great profits the estate was yielding, and money enough to blind him to the true state of things, they were exhausting the land, wearing out the negroes by cruel usage and lack of care, and in fine, feathering their own nests with the riches of the poor, simple bird who had given himself up as their prey. So one fine winter's eve, when my lady was all appareled to wait upon her Majesty, news came that he was bankrupt. What to do now was the question? Return they must, to gather up the fragments of his once splendid fortune, but how were they to live? It happened that he had influential friends at court, through whose efforts he obtained a lucrative office, just left vacant in the island, and in a week they were on their way to Santa Cruz, with many a bitter regret on the part of Mrs. Strophel, that her gay and brilliant life was comparatively at an end.

The little Hilda had just entered her sixth year, and her they left with Miss Ingemann, until her school education should be completed. She was a bright, gay little sprite, and her rosy, dimpled face and laughing blue eye reflected every emotion of her changeful spirits, so that

Miss Ingemann, when particularly gracious and condescending, would designate her as Mademoiselle Aprilis.

When Zoë entered the room, she was giving her doll, nearly as large as herself, a lesson in waltzing, scolding her in the tone and phrase caught from her dancing-master, for her imperfect attention: "Toe out, toe out. Doesn't she mean to take the steps right? Does she wish to go into the black-hole?"

At her first glance at Zoë, she stopped short, and stood in speechless amazement. She was but two when she left her birthplace, and had no recollection of the blacks or colored people, her nurse dying soon after her arrival, and although they were occasionally seen in Copenhagen, she had never happened to meet one. Zoë was no darker than many a white Creole, and she was entirely free from the most peculiar and repulsive African indications; but there was a marked difference between her countenance and that of the other girls, which struck and interested Hilda, and although thrown off her guard by surprise, she felt that, compared with the rather common-place and inexpressive features of many of them, the little stranger certainly had the advantage.

Zoë's heavy eyelids lifted, and her face brightened, as she looked at the human sunbeam before her, and after gazing straight into each other's faces for a full minute, much to the amusement of Miss Holberg, they exchanged smiles, an omen of their future friendship, and then Hilda ran off to find some of her schoolmates.

"O! if we haven't got the funniest, little dark elves now," said she, as she danced into the general sitting-room of the pupils, where a dozen or more were collected; "the new scholar, whom Miss Holberg told us was to come from away off in the West Indies. Her hair is as black as jet, and all wavy; her skin is dreadfully tanned and her eyes are so mournful. I wonder if she is not one of the little Hillfolk, who never expect to go to Heaven.

But she has a beautiful sweet smile. I know I shall like her; I feel already that we shall soon say thou to each other; I am so glad she is going to room with me."

"O yes, Mademoiselle Aprilis, and how long will it be before you quarrel, as you did with Rinda, and have to be separated?" said Elize; "I should advise you to be a little less hasty in getting up your romantic friendships."

"Well, I cannot help it, if Rinda will fly off the handle like an old jackknife that is loose in the rivets, at every word that is spoken to her. I am ready to love her again, when she is not so cross and fretful."

"Who would not get out of patience with you, you little bumble-bee, buzzing about one's face and ears all the time, and such an everlasting talker too? She said she could not study, nor read, nor sew, nor do anything, you tormented her so."

The idea of being a bumble-bee struck Hilda as so comical, that she laughed loud and long, and forthwith began to act in the character of that demonstrative insect, flying about the room with her arms extended, with a buzz equal to that of twenty of her tribe, giving this girl's cheek a tap, and that one's nose a pull, and pinching a third by way of a sting, and poking her fingers through still another's hair, until there was a general uproar and indignation meeting, when fortunately the door opened for some one to enter, and she whizzed past in a bee-line towards her own room, to see the new comer.

She found Miss Holberg engaged in unpacking and arranging Zoë's clothes, while giving an occasional direction to her about keeping them in order, she, in the meantime, sitting passive and silent on a stool, watching her and nodding assent from time to time to her suggestions.

"And Zoë," she said, as Hilda bounced in, "you will keep your closet and drawers very neat, dear, for it is a very good habit to grow up with, and besides, with so many little girls to see to, it would give us great trouble if you did not."

"Zoë! is that her name?" said Hilda to herself, "what did her mother call her so for? It is not half as pretty as Gunhilda or Thora."

Here was a sphere for my little ladyship. She was a real Anglo-Saxon in character and mind, as well as in descent; energetic, expressive in action as well as in word; inventive, decided and managing. She was soon deep in the business of the hour, loading herself with Zoë's frocks, until she looked like a moving mass of drapery, when her laughing face and voice would peep out and resound from between the folds; or, finding odd corners and shelves for shoes and the various knick-knacks of femininehood; or passing judgment upon the child's wardrobe; or laying down the law to Miss Holberg herself, bustling about and talking all the time, and altogether as busy as "a hen with one chick."

"O, I like this! I wish there were clothes to unpack and put away all the time; it is a great deal better than to sit still and study or sew; and is not this little nook a good place for the parasol? it is so nicely out of the way. But what are these gauzy things? I guess her mother thought it was as hot out here as in Santa Cruz. I may as well fold them up and put them in the very bottom of her trunk, for she will never use them till she goes back. And, Miss Holberg, don't you put those stockings there, for it is my own especial corner, and I can't spare it; here is a place—lay them there, please."

Every now and then, too, she would look over to Zoë and smile upon her in a very protecting way, and when she came near her in her revolutions around the room, she would give her a hug; but though its spirit evidently pleased the child, she winced under the act.

At length all was neatly arranged, the last package paper picked up and put away for incendiary use, and the trunk moved into the most out-of-the-way corner; and what more could Hilda do to show her good-will to the stranger? She thought of a box of sugar-plums, which she had treasured up for her next feast, when Freja and Adelgunda came in with their dolls to play visiting with her. She ran and opened it and poured out the larger half and held them out to Zoë, saying:

"Here, you may have them."

"No, I thank you," said Zoë.

"O, but you may! I have got a plenty besides. I don't wish for them at all."

"Neither do I, thank you, I don't care for sugar-plums."

"But you shall have them, I had rather you would than not," and suiting the action to the word, she put her hand up to press them into her mouth.

Miss Holberg, who through all these scenes had had her eye upon the children and was forming her own opinion upon them, now spoke out:

"Hilda, my child, what are you doing? Come directly to me."

She stood before her.

"Look straight into my eyes and listen to what I say."

She obeyed.

"You know, Hilda, that I have told you before, that you are too managing—too commanding in your disposition. I see plainly that if you do not put a check upon yourself, you will ride directly over this passive, gentle little being with your rough, abrupt ways. Do you not see that she is different from you? (a very decided nod of assent from Hilda). Then do not force her to like just what you do. Let her work and enjoy herself in her own way. You do not wish to be a tyrant do you? (laying a contemptuous emphasis upon the word) and make Zoë miserable and cause her to dislike and fear you?"

Hilda had a noble, generous, candid nature, and when a truth was plainly presented to her, never flinched from its avowal, even though it told against herself. She looked very serious, and said:

"No, ma'am."

"Will you remember what I have said?"

"Yes, ma'am."

This timely rebuke, earnestly uttered, ever after acted as a restraint upon Hilda, and as a defense for Zoë; for, excepting in occasional fits of exuberant spirits, when the former, like a whirlwind, would sweep clear away all obstacles to her dominion, making one grand hurly-burly, the latter, bending low until the blast went by; it required her only to say, "Hilda, dear, you remember what Miss Holberg said? Let me enjoy myself my own way," and she would pretty soon desist from her attempt to rule.

It would be well for Anglo-Saxondom throughout the world, if some wise school-marm could thus put an extinguisher upon her propensity to force her government, creeds, customs and tastes upon nations and people who do not like them, or who are not yet prepared for them.

The two little girls were now left alone.

"Do you think you shall like here?" said Hilda, whose tongue was seldom still.

"I don't know," said Zoë. "Everything is so strange, and it seems so close," looking around at the shut doors and glazed windows.

"Close! why, are you too warm?" said she, opening the door. "I thought you came from a country where there was no winter and that we never should be able to keep a fire large enough for you?"

"Yes, it is very warm, but the doors are always open, and we have no glass in the windows, and there is a breeze all the time; it seems as if I could not breathe here, all shut up," and she drew a long breath as she walked towards the window.

"What strange trees! Ours have beautiful, shining green leaves on them, and flowers, too," said she.

"So have ours in the summer. As soon as the warm days in spring come back, they burst out in no time, and it is just like walking from one world into another—the change is so great and quick."

"O, that must be beautiful!" said Zoë, brightening up.

"Yes," Hilda went on, elated that she could make her look more cheerful; "and then we have such splendid times! Miss Ingemann takes us into the country, and we climb the hills and ford the brooks, and see the peasant women make their butter and cheese, and play with the calves, and eat our dinner out of doors, and, and—"

"Do you ever see the little elves that Carl told me about on board ship, and the Hillpeople, and hear their sweet music?"

"No—o," said Hilda, disappointed that she could not go on in her triumphal march, "but I think I shall next summer, I shall look for them. They are very little, you know, and I don't care very much about them, I like to gather strawberries better."

Zoë turned to the window again. "Where does all this cotton come from?" said she, looking up at the large snowflakes, which were falling thick and fast.

"Cotton!" said Hilda, clapping her hands—"good, good! Why it is snow, ha, ha, ha!"

"What is snow?"

"Why, it is rain that freezes away up in the sky and comes down in this way."

Zoë looked up disconsolate, and thought, that if the rain froze so up near the sun, what should she do down on the cold bare earth; and she shivered, and sat down on the stool by the fire, shrugging up her shoulders, and leaning her hands on her knees, and looking quite the picture of desolation, while Hilda danced the Schottische around the room.

"Come, let's dance and play a bit," said she, holding out her hands to her.

Zoë hesitated.

"I won't plague you; I'll remember what Miss Holberg said."

"I wasn't thinking of that," said Zoë; "but mamma told me to write to her when I got to Copenhagen, and I ought to do that first, for the captain said, that a ship would go back soon."

"So I would," said Hilda, "and I'll help;" but the image of Miss Holberg coming up, she said, "should you not like to have me draw up this small table for you near the fire?"

"Thank you," said Zoë, and went to get her little writing-desk, which her father had given her and furnished with all needful materials.

"You are little to know how to write," said Hilda, as Zoë spread her paper and took her pen.

"I can't write like men and women, but I can print a little, and mamma said she could puzzle it out, if it was not written well, for she loved me so much;" and she brushed away a tear and began:

"DEAR MAMMA:—

"I am going to write you a letter."

"O, don't crowd your words so," said Hilda; "if you do, your mother will never be able to read them in the world—I mean, I would not if I were you," she added in a very deprecating way.

Zoë began again, and this time the letters were separated twice as far as they needed to be. Hilda was about to exclaim against this mode, but recollecting Miss Holberg's injunction, she pinched her fingers hard and bit her lips, and thinking she should be more out of temptation to do something besides watching her neighbor, she seized a book, and seated herself by the fire, and was soon absorbed in Hans Christian Andersen's story of the Ugly Duck, which he had given her the day before.

ZOË'S LETTER.

"MY DEAR MAMMA:—

"I am going to write you a letter. Do you miss me any? I had a good voyage, and Carl told me a great many funny stories. Does papa miss me any? Nanny is gone into the country to live at the captain's house with his two little girls. I like Miss Holberg—that is one of the teachers; she is very kind to me. I shall go and see Nanny in the summer; the captain said so. There is a very merry little girl in the room with me; her name is Hilda; I think she tries not to manage me, as Miss Holberg called it. She told me about the leaves coming all out on the trees in the spring. It is very cold here, and the air has a great many snows in it; that is, rain frozen up in the sky and coming down like feathers.

"FROM YOUR OWN ZOË.

"Ever so much love to papa and you."

Seeing Zoë closing her desk, Hilda got up and went to her.

"What a pretty little desk you have got! I wish I had one like it."

"You may use mine whenever you want to," said Zoë.

"You are a dear, good little girl," said Hilda, "and I know I shall like you. We will say thou to each other, will we not?"

"What does that mean?"

"O, when people love very much, they say thou, when they speak to each other, instead of you."

Here Zoë's timidity and self-distrust came up, and she said, "I am afraid you will not like me so well as you think you will, and if you left off saying it, I should feel so bad; I had rather wait a little."

"What an odd little thing," thought Hilda; "sure enough, she is different from me. I think as Miss Holberg said, I may as well let her do things her own way, and we will see what comes next."

Hilda's curiosity coming into play was a great saving to her fingers and lips, for she never afterwards had to bite or pinch them so hard in order to keep them in their proper places.

————

CHAPTER IV.

"Thou little child! yet glorious in the might
Of heaven-born freedom on thy being's height!
Why, with such earnest pains, dost thou provoke
The years to bring the inevitable yoke,
Thus blindly with thy blessedness at strife?
Full soon thy soul shall have her earthly freight,
And custom lie upon thee with a weight,
Heavy as frost, and deep almost as life."—WORDSWORTH

ZOË soon became tolerably wonted to her new home. Shrinking and timid as she was, her first introduction into a school of forty girls was painful and awkward. Some stared and nudged their next neighbors to look at her; some smiled upon her as if to re-assure her; some said and did their prettiest things to draw forth her admiration; while the older ones either were, or affected to be too much absorbed in, their occupations to observe her at all.

Hilda would very gladly have shown her off in school-room, parlor, and kitchen, had it not been for Miss

Holberg—either visible as she busied herself with the pupils, or invisible in the shape of her earnest rebuke, seconded by the shy manners of Zoë herself, which pleaded to be left in quietness and obscurity. Her childish lessons were easily learned, and she obtained her share of the little prizes awarded by Miss Ingemann to the best scholar in the different studies. In no way did she seem very unlike the other children either in study or play or in the little household occupations which her teacher, true northern woman as she was, required each in their turn to share; only that she seemed of a more indolent temperament than the Danish girls. This prompted her to retire from their active sports sooner than the others, and disinclined her to long and steady occupation; in fact, as was the plain speech of the school, she was rather "lazy."

"Come," Hilda would say to her, "put on your furs and hood and let's go skating. See how bright the sun shines and what good sport the girls have! Ha! ha! there goes one down and another on the top of her! But what is that?"

"It is Rinda," said Zoë; "she said she was going to be the Snow Queen, that Mr. Andersen told us about. You see she has dug her a palace in that great drift—look at the icicles which she has hung from her curls, and she has got a snow-baby in her arms! U-g-h! It makes me shiver to see her," and she left the window and crouched down by the fire.

Hilda screamed with delight as she saw the Queen, with the light snow stuck to her lips and a long icicle for a scepter in her hand, run round to kiss her subjects, who shrunk from her cold embrace and chilly sway.

"Come, come, there's rare fun there. I'll be the reindeer and upset her throne with my branching horns, and you, with your black eyes and dark skin, may be the little robber-maiden with the warm muff to warm our hands for us. That will suit you, won't it?"

"Y-e-s," said Zoë, and not liking to disappoint her play-mates, she suffered herself to be dragged out to the Snow Queen's palace, from which, however, she soon stole away half-frozen to build one in her own way, of feathery tamarind boughs and waving palm leaves, with a tropical sun glistening through the shining leaves, and the blue and violet sea stretched out before her, while loving faces and gentle words filled up the scene and made its fitting music.

"I wonder," said she to herself, "if our Father in Heaven, who mamma says, is our best friend and knows what is good for us, told my papa to send me away off to this cold country, where everything is so strange to me. There is the sun; it shines bright enough, but it does not warm me much, and how naked the world looks here! Hilda says, that it is prettier in the summer, and she tells me the truth about things, I know, so I believe her. I am sure I shall be glad to walk into the new summer-world, when it comes. Doesn't God love the white people as well as he does us, that he gives them snow and ice and such cold weather? But what a good warm fire this is! How it crackles and blazes! I must move my seat back, for it is too warm. O, now I know, God gives them plenty of wood, so as to make a sun for themselves when his grows cold. Isn't he kind to think of it? and Hilda likes snow and says she has the best fun in winter. So I suppose, it is all right; I must take my furs off too. How soft they are! O yes! and God gives them too, as well as the great wood-fires—I mean the animals they grow on. Yes, they seem well taken care of; but I can't help wondering whether he meant that I should come; but I've got to stay here now, so I may as well be contented," and she drew a long sigh.

"Have you got your lesson in geography?" said Hilda, as Zoë sat listless, one morning, with her books in her lap.

"Yes," said Zoë, "I've learned the words, but I don't understand nor care about parallels of latitude and longitude, and exactly the spot where people live. If I only like them, and they have a pleasant country for a home, why then I'm very glad."

"But don't you wish to know whether they are north or south of you, or which way the points of compass are?"

"No, I don't. I like to learn, whether they live in a warm or cold country, and what they have to eat and drink, and what kind of people they are, and such as that; but I don't understand why it is that Miss Ingemann said she could not be contented in a place till she knew just where the east was. If the sun will only rise warm and burst the little buds which Miss Holberg showed me were wrapped up so nicely, and the pretty flowers will bloom, and I can feel as if I could walk about without shrugging up my shoulders so because I am so chilled; it is all of the points of the compass I care about."

"What a droll little thing you are," said Hilda. "But we must learn about these things if we don't like them. Miss Ingemann says that all little girls ought to. Come, it is school time and she has gone in;" and hand in hand these children, so opposite, and yet already so assimilated as to be chosen companions to each other, entered her presence.

This lady, in many respects, was admirably adapted to her part as a trainer of young minds. In the first place, her character was high-toned and truthful, in an eminent degree. Nothing mean, unjust, or indelicate could stand the test of her clear eye, or indignant protest. She was not merely ordinarily truthful in speech, but in thought, in manner, in her judgment of people and passing events, did she strive after and attain to a wonderful degree of integrity. As the crown of her high qualities she was sincerely religious. Her faith was not worn externally as a holiday garb; as it were, but entered into the warp and woof of her being, and was the secret spring which regulated her intellect, her affections, and her life. Common-sensible and earnest, she sought to fit her pupils for the duties and enjoyments of the world they lived in, by developing their powers in just proportion, rather than by encouraging any idiosyncrasy of mind or character. Her mode of culture and personal influence was happy and beautiful upon most of the minds in her charge. Under her genial and affectionate care Hilda had budded and was blooming like a rose. They were greatly alike naturally, courageous, high-spirited, with minds in which the understanding predominated, direct in speech and decisive in action. Clear in her reasoning, exact in her knowledge and conscientious in her investigations after the truth; with her imagination under due restraint, the mind of Miss Ingemann was like a grand and spacious storehouse, free from whatever was unseemly, with various generous-sized parcels, all neatly arranged and ready for instant use, while a clear, steady light pervaded the scene. So that though one might at first ask, what more could be wished for in an educator of youth? the answer might be—scarcely anything in intention, yet time must test her ability to deal with a nature so opposite in its tendencies to her own as that of the little Anglo-African.

————

CHAPTER V.

"In the clear heaven of her delightful eye,
An angel guard of loves and graces lie;
Around her knees domestic duties meet,
And fireside pleasures gambol at her feet."

MONTGOMERY.

"JOY, joy," said Hilda, bursting into their common room one morning, "it is holiday you know, to-day, and Mrs. Körner has sent to know if you and I may go to her house this afternoon and play with her little boys. O, I like her so much, and Mr. Körner is the best and the funniest man that ever was. All the children call him the kind gentleman. Aren't you glad?"

"Yes," said Zoë, to whom the idea of some change was grateful; "but I am afraid to go to see strangers."

"O, you need not be. They won't be strangers to you five minutes. Everybody is at home at Mrs. Körner's—Miss Holberg says so."

Accordingly they were neatly arrayed, and after a short walk, were admitted into a plain, but cheerful-looking mansion, and conducted up-stairs to the nursery—a good-sized room, comfortably furnished, and ornamented with engravings such as would interest children, with here and there marks upon the tables, sofas, and chairs, made by the collision of toy carriages and horses, and the various implements of a children's play-shop.

They were greeted kindly by a bright, handsome, happy-looking woman, with Carl, the youngest hope in her arms, by Frederick, a black-eyed boy, of Hilda's age, and Emile, a little stammerer of three.

"Come, Hilda, let's play at draughts," said Fred, in the summary way in which youngsters go into subjects, leaving complimentary greetings very much to their elders. "You may have the white men and I will have the black, and we will play the giving-away game."

"Well," said she; "and what shall Zoë do?" who was standing timidly by.

"Please give me my playthings, mamma," said Emile, in a mode of speech guiltless of many letters, especially consonants, familiarly known as baby-talk.

"O, yes," said Mrs. Körner, "and this little girl may help you set up your town and build castles with the blocks. Will you, dear?"

Zoë liked nothing better than this amusement, which gave scope to her fancy; and she and the gentle but merry little Emile were soon good friends.

"Make me a castle as big as that, please," said he, stretching out his arms to their full width.

"I don't know how; but I will try to make my papa's house that is away over the great sea," said she, at which promise he was pleased, watching her progress and handing her the blocks as she built it upon pillars, connected by arches, with a veranda all around and steps to ascend it.

"Build it higher," said he, as he saw her putting the roof over the single story.

"I must not," said she; "the hurricane, that's a high wind that comes sometimes, will blow it over."

"You must put a chimney to it," said Fred, whose attention was drawn away from his game by their talk.

"No," said Zoë, "we don't have chimneys."

"How can you cook your dinners?" said Fred, who was fond of creature comforts. "Don't you eat anything but oranges and pine-apples?"

"Yes," said she, "but the kitchen is a little house outside."

"That's queer; how should you like, mother, to have to go out-doors to another house to make your puddings and tarts for dessert?"

"Very well," said Mrs. Körner, "if I lived in a warm country, because it would keep the heat from the house."

At this Hilda, who had become impatient at the interruption of the game, said, "Come, it is your turn to move."

Fred was moderate in his movements, and remained with his eyes still fixed upon the house-building, whereupon Hilda gave the board a push against him to attract his attention, but with such force, that he burst out crying, and said, he would play no more.

Hilda, partly provoked and partly sorry, tried to make the matter fair to Mrs. Körner, by saying, "she did not mean to hurt him."

"Stop, stop crying, Fred," said Mrs. Körner, and then added, with a brightening manner, "Who wants to go into the yard, and see my little white rabbits?"

There was a general rush for the door, Fred's last tear being hastily dashed away, and Zoë even following with alacrity, to see the household pets.

After due admiration of the timid, long-eared, pink-eyed specimens of living natural history, and seeing them in repose, eating, jumping, in every attitude possible to rabbit capacity, Mrs. Körner, Zoë, and Emile returned to the house, leaving Hilda and Fred to romp in the yard for a while.

But the spirit of management which slept in Hilda, under Miss Holberg's eye and was kept in abeyance with the gentle, non-resistant Zoë, became rampant, with the vigorous, strong-willed, self-indulgent boy Fred, and when he tried to force her to play in his way, she only pulled him the harder towards the fulfillment of her plans, until he, quite out of patience at her presuming to have a decided preference of her own, and not only that, but insisting upon it that her will should be his, gave her frock a twitch, making a bad rent in it.

Hilda's bottle of tears was very near her eyes, and if anything went wrong, out came the cork, and to one more self-restrained, there seemed a great waste of feeling; but this time, she was sure there was sufficient cause, not only for crying, but for chastisement of the wicked Fred, so she inflicted a hearty slap upon that young gentleman's shoulder. He was never above weeping and lamentation when occasion offered, so that there was presented to Mrs. Körner, the next moment, the spectacle of two mutually injured and enraged young humans, with flashing eyes and burning cheeks, and four great rivers running down from as many eyes.

"What is the matter?" said that lady, with the manner of one ready to listen to complaints, and award due justice, and by no means thrown off her balance, as if it were the first belligerent case upon her docket, and she were to give her maiden charge.

"He pulled me first," said Hilda.

"She struck me, and real hard too," sobbed the little lord of creation.

"My little Hilda," said Mrs. Körner, "you know I have three rough, strong boys who have no little sister to make them gentle, and I want you and Zoë to help me to do so, will you not?"

Hilda paused a moment, as if a new idea had dawned upon her, but her wrongs came up again, and she cried, "He pulled me first!"

"She had no business to strike me," murmured Fred.

"Go into the bath-room and wash your tears away, and you will feel better," said his mother; "your papa will be at home soon, and I want him to see happy faces."

This was the "expulsive power of a new affection" to them, and with the cold water it banished every trace of ill-temper, so that five minutes after, they were playing as if their life's sea had never been ruffled.

The door-bell rang, and the shout went up, "There's papa;" and a glad "Hurra," was heard from a manly voice in the hall, and quick steps upon the stairs soon brought a brave beaming face to their view.

The baby clapped hands; Fred climbed up his father's perpendicular with a little help, till he crowed from his seat on his shoulder. Emile looked at Fred, and tried to do and say just what he did. Hilda jumped up and down and pulled him at every point by turns, while the little Carl looked and stretched out his arms towards him, his straining eye, eager even to painfulness, pleading for notice, as if here was his "kingdom come," and he must rush into it.

"How are you, my dear?" said he, shaking hands with his wife. Zoë sat smiling placidly upon this noisy greeting, and hoped the kind gentleman would speak to her by-and-by.

"And who is this?" said he, disrobing himself gently of the children and stooping towards her.

"It's Zoë," said Fred, "and see, she has built a house, such as they have in Santa Cruz where she lives."

"How do you do, my little dear?" said he, putting on his spectacles, for he was near-sighted; "and how do you like Copenhagen?"

"I like some things very well; but it is cold, and there are no flowers, and I am afraid I shan't get all my lessons well to say to Miss Ingemann."

"Yes," said he, "but it will be warm soon, and then we will take you to ride in the country, and Fred shall hold the reins and Emile the whip, and we will cover you all over with flowers; won't we, Carl?" said he, tossing him up and down and handing him to his mother: "and as for the lesson, you must say to it—you old hard lesson, do you jump right into my head and there do you stick, and if you ever get out, I'll, I'll pound you in," and he squared at an open book on the table near, and brought down his clenched fist hard upon it.

The children gazed admiringly at his valor, and all laughed at his threatened assault, when the tea-bell rang and Mrs. Körner directed Fred to lead Hilda, and Emile Zoë; while she followed, arm-in-arm with her husband, to the dining-room below stairs.

The next morning Zoë was awakened by the entrance of Hilda into the room attired in cloak and hood, as if returning from a walk.

"Where have you been?" said she.

"To Mr. Körner's, to carry back the dice of the backgammon board, which I found in my pocket. I was afraid Mrs. Körner would hunt for them, as she did once before after we had played. Did we not have a good visit?"

"Yes," said Zoë; "I like them all, and I do not feel one bit afraid of them; they are so kind and Emile is a little darling."

"I like to frolic with Mr. Körner," said Hilda, "he lets me do anything to him I want to."

"But I think he had rather you would be gentle though he is so lively; for he looked tired when he sat down, as if he had worked hard all day."

"I did hear him say to Mrs. Körner softly when I was pulling him hardest: 'What a little catamount she is!' " said Hilda, "but he was in fun, I guess; for don't you think, when I went there this morning, I ran directly to the breakfast-room where they were at the table, and as soon as he saw me he took up the newspaper and read:

" 'Found fighting in Mr. Körner's yard by the police, Frederick Körner and Hilda Strophel. They were taken to the watch-house and kept during the night, and this morning carried to Court; where their mortified parents and teacher plead for their release, which, after paying five dollars and costs, was granted them.'

"I was so frightened that I snatched the paper out of his hand to read it myself, and there was not a word of it there. O! I never know when Mr. Körner is serious or when he makes-believe—he is so droll.

"But do get up, Zoë, how lazy you are! The breakfast-bell will ring in ten minutes, and I am afraid Miss Ingemann will scold you if you are not ready."

————

CHAPTER VI.

"O'er wayward childhood wouldst thou hold firm rule,
And sun thee in the light of happy faces;
Love, Hope, and Patience—these must be thy graces,
And in thine own heart let them first keep school."—COLERIDGE.

MISS INGEMANN had a few clear and true principles by which to judge of human nature and character. She was fond of its study and proud of her shrewdness in its interpretation, and seemed to consider it a legitimate gymnasium in which to exercise and sharpen her intellect. Her skill and knowledge stood her in good stead with most of her pupils. Such a development in one of them went for so much and must be encouraged or repressed, as the case might be. Such an expression indicated this or that tendency and must be dealt with accordingly. With the frank, open Danish girls, who could bear any amount of direct scrutiny into their natures—for so much in harmony was hers with their own that they appreciated her kindly motive and dearly loved her—her plain, abrupt method answered very well; but with Zoë it was different. Her first feeling when led into the stately presence of Miss Ingemann, was admiration. Left for the first time without some one familiar to her to lean upon, she longed for the love of the beautiful white lady, whose blue eye shone so brightly upon the little girls around her and who all seemed to live in the light of her kindly smile. But when she fixed her clear, intellectual gaze upon her as if to read the soul within, that world where from infancy she had been wont to retire and revel in silent delight, not without misgivings of a failure in truth and duty in so doing, she shrank timid and frightened within herself.

Like the tamarind leaf of her own clime, which closes at the rude touch of one who would read its hidden mystery, so when most yearning for sympathy and companionship she involuntarily shrank from her teacher's direct manner and intellectual attempt at her analysis, though she knew she was disposed to be her kind friend. To Miss Ingemann she was at first an enigma, but as days and weeks went by, and she developed nothing remarkable, she set her down as a gentle, well-disposed little girl, with but little energy and less frankness; with no decided tastes of any kind; wanting in earnestness of character, and governed more by a love of approbation than by anything else. She had no complaint to make of her; she performed her tasks well, but the lack was too general a one for her to reach—a moderate capacity and no real enthusiasm for anything. It needed no words for Zoë to read this sentence as she advanced in years; every sense and nerve revealed it to her and she assented to it all. And yet there was within her the eternal questioning and unrest of a dissatisfied, imprisoned soul. Her face, pensive and mild in its expression, was a poor index to the want of harmony between her inward and outward life, and it wore, in its almost unvarying calmness, the natural defense of a reserved and keenly-sensitive spirit, which would hide from every eye its struggles and griefs.

As the two children grew apace, it was interesting to note the broad contrast in their persons, manners, characters, and minds, and, at the same time, the beautiful harmony between them. Like the soprano and contralto in music; like light and shade in a picture; like pathos and humor in fiction; like tender sentiment and triumphant expression in poetry; like joy and plaintive sadness in life, did they blend and divide in its daily anthem, till one became necessary to the full contentment of the other, and there was evident on each the indirect influence of a companionship salutary to both.

Hilda, the elder by a whole year, was the taller and fuller in figure, with the clear red and white which the keen breath and tempered ray of a northern wind and sun paints, and not for a brief day only, upon the cheeks of her fair ones; with blonde hair, so light and silky that the faintest breeze would set it afloat, and with a blue eye that would kindle and brighten, throwing a flood of light over her whole face, like the sun rising from the ocean depths and spreading his radiance over sky, earth, and water. Her step was quick and elastic, and when suffered to act out her impulses, her modes of locomotion were a bound and a spring, dancing a few steps forward, turning around as in a waltz, swaying back and forward à la schottische with an ordinary step or two in advance, to be continued by a movement of original composition. Her mind was as active and as versatile in its operations as her body. At one time she would be absorbed with her doll, dressing and undressing it; washing or altering its wardrobe; teaching it her own various exercises; telling it over and over the rules of the school, with additions à la Hilda, and especially enforcing them by occasional punishments, so that the school-girls, who all had reaped the benefit of Miss Holberg's rebuke for her spirit of management, had great amusement in seeing how the safety-valve was let off in the direction of poor dolly, who, as they suggestively said, had "to take it," since they were somewhat relieved. When once settled down to her studies, her acquisitions were rapid and correct, provided she understood them perfectly; but she took few things on trust, nor believed much in any subtle, hidden meanings, but if everything seemed clear and reasonable, she easily mastered it. In character and feelings she was like an April day, as her nickname denoted. For story-reading she had an insatiable appetite, preferring the true, but swallowing fairy and goblin tales, too, though with some wry faces, and much demurring at their hard digestion. Strong-willed and decided, only to a firm, wise mind and cheerful spirit would she submit, and then only through much struggle with herself, which would often vent itself in loud weeping and complaining at her supposed wrongs; or, when desperate and under the eye of one in whom she stood in awe, only in inarticulate ejaculations to herself. But when most severely punished, and subdued to quietness, her teacher would begin to relent and question herself if she had not been too hard with her and thus crushed the tender young spirit, who now, passive and serious, was gazing apparently at vacancy, she would start up and say: "O, look, Miss Ingemann, at that funny old man formed by the coals in the fireplace! What a great pack he has got on his back, and how be turns his long nose up!" She would then, forgetting her dreadful injuries, throw her arms around her neck, and exclaim upon her beauty and her own love for her, overwhelming her with kisses till she had to cry for quarter and beat a retreat to her own apartment.

She was her teacher's pride and joy, as she developed beautifully in mind and person, under her fostering care, and she looked forward to a brilliant and happy future for her favorite.

Miss Ingemann's birth, mind, manners, and character being of such elevated stamp, she sustained a high position in the society of Copenhagen. Her pupils were from among its best and noblest citizens, and her companionship was sought by the enlightened and titled of the land. To Hans Christian Andersen, she had been a friend and early patron, and to him her doors were ever open in hospitable welcome. And from the children of her school he always met a glad and noisy reception. Hilda would run to him with outstretched arms and beg for a feast from his "nice cupboard full of stories," and no fond mother was ever more generous in giving food to her children, than he in their distribution. Simple they were, yet full of poetic life; quaint and humorous, yet shedding sensibility and sympathy for the poor and struggling from every point; and what gave them their deepest interest was not their genius merely, for that was but the instrument by which he poured forth to the people, each one of whom was a dear brother or sister, the vailed experience of a tried, but disciplined, true and devoted life. He would sing to them too, most sweetly, and Zoë loved him better even for his music than for his tales. His dramatic power was at their service also, in a way which they best liked, for his childlike character and love for their young spirits made him deem nothing unseemly, which would furnish them a pure amusement and a happy hour. The girls would collect their dolls, old, young, middle-aged, handsome, ugly and odd, and he would marshal them into a dramatic corps, imagine some play which would hit off their several characteristics, and lead them through it with such nature and spirit, as to entrance not only the children, but older spectators. Hilda's doll in particular, which rejoiced in the full age of a century, being an heirloom in her family, was made to play a conspicuous part. Tall and rigid in her figure, wearing on her brow the scars of many a life-battle, with a firm pursed up mouth, which, if she could open it, would only berate the degeneracy of the times; a square, practical nose, with an iron-colored tip, the effect of many a snubbing from her young duenna; black, staring eyes, which never looked within, but forever spied out and speared the world's surface faults; chin and cheeks expressive of entire self-satisfaction, two fixed spots of red upon the latter, as if defying old Time, and saying, "put me down if you dare," with no line of beauty but in the eyebrows, and they were such a thread, that they gave but an iota of character to her face. She was dressed in the fashion of the olden time, with here and there a scrap of modern finery stuck on her by Hilda, and her flying hair and crumpled cap gave evidence that her ungrateful descendant (for she called her granny,) was getting tired of her, and thinking that it was almost time for her to be out of the way. This image, Hans Christian made full use of, especially with reference to Hilda, whom he understood like a book, and so criticised and belabored her through her ancestor as to make her almost afraid of her, and she would say to Zoë, after his departure, "I am going to lock up my old doll in the closet, and she shan't come out for a whole week. I wish Mr. Andersen would not make her so cross, for I shall certainly hate her, and as she was my great-great great-grandmother's, and mamma told me to be careful of her, I don't want either to burn her or cut her up, or throw her into the street for the naughty boys to laugh at. Isn't it too bad?"

By fastidious critics among his countrymen, with whom his simplicity and purity of mind and beautiful genius went for but little when weighed against his awkward figure and manners and proneness to egotism, he was said to "carry his heart on a waiter;" but Miss Holberg thought that he might reveal himself still more to his friends, and yet retain within much more wealth of thought and feeling than his uncharitable judges had in their whole stock in warehouse or trade.

The great and good Thorwaldsen, to whom Art revealed herself bright, lovely, chaste, severe and sanctified as she is, whose countrymen have it not to reproach themselves with that they were blind to his worth, was also an honored guest at the mansion, and to him Zoë bowed lowly and reverently in her secret heart. To Hilda and herself, unlike yet loving as they were, he always gave attention. He called them his "Night and Morning." For the one, jocund and wide-awake, soaring on rapid pinion through the empyrean, scattering roses on her way, and lighted by the flambeau of joy, he had a merry greeting or a playful jest; but for the other, who with folded wing and half-closed eye, drifted slowly wherever the breeze might waft her, with her young thoughts and feelings asleep and pressed closely to her breast, and attended by the grim and ominous bird of night, screeching anon of evil to come, his tenderness gushed forth. His gentle tones and soft hand pressed caressingly upon her head, were a healing to the pain which she felt, but knew not enough of herself to reveal, and a hope to the sadness which moaned within her, but which she was too much a stranger to happiness to note.

"Come down into the drawing-room," said Hilda to Zoë, one evening just at twilight: "the great sculptor and Mr. Andersen are both there, and Miss Ingemann and Miss Holberg have walked out. Mr. Andersen has promised to tell me a story, and Mr. Thorwaldsen asks if his little Night has drawn so dark a shadow over her as not to be visible. Come with me and I will chase it away as we enter his presence, so that he may catch a glimpse of you."

They entered the room, Hilda in advance, when just as she approached him, she stepped aside, and, in mock-heroic, school-girl style, with a wave of the hand towards her friend, repeated:

"Lo, evening flieth upon the steps of day,"

and then went to the window where Hans Christian was standing. Zoë stood by her honored friend, for, at the mature age of nine she thought herself too old to sit upon his knee as formerly, and besides he was very infirm. Hilda begged for a story from Hans Christian.

"Which of my tales do you like best?" said he.

"The seven stories of the Snow Queen," said she; "but Zoë reads the Ugly Duck most, and says she thinks she is like it."

"Only that I never expect to become a swan," said Zoë.

"We went yesterday," said Hilda to Thorwaldsen, "to see your works of art, sir, in the different public buildings.

and the last place was the cathedral, where are the Saviour and the twelve apostles."

"And which do you like best of all of them?" asked Thorwaldsen.

"O, my namesake, Morning, and next the Three Graces. Those are beautiful." And she imitated the attitude of one of them, lifting Mr. Andersen's hand to have him personate another.

"No, no, you cannot make a grace of me, that is very certain; but you must balance my homely mouth against my stories which you say you like; my one sided nose you must set against my little dramas; and as for my forehead, why my music need not be very much ashamed of it, though it retreats a little as if it did not care for it as much as my little friends do. But where are you leading me?" said he, as Hilda pulled him along towards the door.

"To see my new doll, which is sitting in the armchair in the hall. I got tired with the scoldings of old granny, and have put her away. This new one cannot pucker up her pretty mouth to scold, if she tried, or if you do your best to make her."

"It will depend on yourself," said he, "whether she talks to please you. I can make her give you a hard lesson if you are not good, even if she were as beautiful as the new moon."

Zoë was left alone with Thorwaldsen. "And which do you like best of what you saw yesterday, my little Night?" said he, tenderly laying his hand on her shoulder.

For the first time since she left her mother's side was she won to complete confidence, by the serious but mild eye and deep inspiring voice of the artist.

"The Christ," she said; "and I dreamed last night that I saw him passing by, with a covering upon his head suited to the drapery he wore, and there seemed to be written all over him: 'Venite ad me omnes,'—'come unto me all.' I rose to follow him, but I remembered that he could read my thoughts, and I dared not go."

"But, my child, you have no thoughts which you fear to hide from him, have you?" said he mildly but solemnly.

"I am afraid so. I make-believe a world within myself, and I fear it is like telling an untruth. I always say when I have asked Hilda not to talk, because I am going to think, 'now this is making-believe, or supposing so and so,' but yet I do not feel quite right about it. I hope it is not wrong, sir?"

"Not if you do your little duties in the outer world, and love real people better than your ideal ones," said he.

"Ah, that is the trouble. They are not so pretty or so good as they are in my mind-world, where everybody does what is beautiful and right, and that frets me, and worse than this, I am not the same myself in Miss Ingemann's school that I am in my thought home, and that vexes me more than anything; and if I do not speak cross, I feel so, and am often very unhappy, and the minister says that only good and blessed people are in heaven, and I am neither; so I fear I shall never go there."

" 'Come to me all,' the Christ says, Zoë, which means that we must be and do and think and feel as he would if he now lived and worked among us. Remember this, my child; obey his commands. Take, as it were, hold of his hand when you pray to the great Father, and the right and true will be plain, and happiness will come to you through following these when you seek it not."

She still looked dissatisfied. "But what is right? Is it always doing what we dislike to do? And is it wicked to do what we most like, what makes us happy?"

"Tell me what you like to do and I can answer you better."

"Nothing which Hilda and the other girls do. I soon get tired of play; I do not like my lessons, nor my sewing and knitting, nor any other work. I feel afraid of people too much to wish to visit them. Even the poor, which Hilda likes to work for and to teach many little things, trouble me so much with their dirty houses and clothes and stare at me so that I cannot go to them any more."

"But this is what you do not like. Now tell me what makes you happy."

Zoë looked down and struggled hard with her natural reserve, then gazed a moment into Thorwaldsen's eyes and answered:

"To make-believe myself the great, good, kind queen of the whole world, and to think of all that I will do to make its people happy and gain their love. This is all I like to do, and O! it is so foolish," and she burst into tears.

Thorwaldsen paused. He remembered the dreams of his youth and how God had enabled him to fulfill them, and he reverenced those of this timid and aspiring yet humble child.

"Zoë," said he, "when a boy of your age, I too dreamed of being the greatest sculptor of my country, and raising the world to a higher and purer taste for Art. God has enabled me to do so, and for it I daily bless his holy name. But to be great and to do good, we must not merely dream but labor and suffer and wait patiently upon his will. Daily must you take up your cross, and in his own good time you shall wear the crown which he sees to be fitting for you."

"But how take up the cross?" said she, "never, never to dream but do everything I do not like—is that the way? O! life would be so hard! Did our Father in heaven intend it should be so?"

Children ask puzzling questions, and even Thorwaldsen knew not how to answer her directly.

"My child, I cannot say, but this is sure; obey your conscience, read your Bible, let the Christ be your pattern and guide through life, pray to the good God to be your friend. Learn as much as you can of the works of his beautiful world, and be not anxious for anything else—all will be right with you. Will you do this?"

"I will try, sir," she said, and as the ladies entered the room, she turned to leave it but with a firmer step and brighter eye than ever before, for her life at that moment was invested with an aim, which she was never to lose sight of wherever it might lead her.

"Be gentle and forbearing with this little girl," said he to Miss Ingemann, for she had before alluded to her dullness of apprehension and want of interest in her studies; "for time and patience may reveal some hidden power of mind and character which may surprise and delight you. Hers is no common spirit, I can assure you."

The next day Miss Ingemann sharpened her mental gaze as she studied Zoë from her elevated post of observation, till her victim writhed as if her teacher's eye were a cold steel point probing her flesh, and when she could not escape her keen metaphysical scrutiny, she instinctively threw out a darkening cloud in the shape of an unaccountable impulse or eccentricity. That lady became doubly certain that she was right in her judgment of her, only that she had given her credit for more gentleness than she deserved, and she wondered how so clear and true a mind as Thorwaldsen's could suffer a fancy to mislead him. O! when will it be seen that for no jugglery, nor even at the rap of the clearest understanding will that sacred thing, the human soul, reveal itself, but as deep answereth only unto deep, so to the spiritually enlightened, sympathetic and pure, to the little child in Christ's kingdom alone will it give forth its most subtle odor and its sweetest music.

"A vail is lifted—can she slight
The scene that opens now?"

————

CHAPTER VII.

"He hath awakened from the dream of life."

TOMBSTONE.

"MR. KÖRNER tells me that Thorwaldsen is very sick," said Miss Ingemann, as she seated herself at the dinner table the next day. "The physician has been with him all the morning, and speaks doubtfully of his recovery."

"I thought he seemed ill and languid last evening," said Miss Holberg, "and as he bade us good-by, I was startled by his wan look and tottering step; I feared he was not long for this world, but could not bear to dwell upon the thought."

Zoë quietly dropped her knife and fork, and her dinner remained untasted. It attracted but little notice, for her appetite was not an eager one, and her teacher would sometimes say, "that if she would even eat with the relish of the other girls, she should have more hope of her, for it might serve as a clue to other capacities, if she had any distinctive ones, but with such a dead level of a nature as hers, what could she do?"

After dinner, the child retired to her room, and seated herself by the window which commanded a view of the artistes house. Hour after hour, she sat with book in hand, but not once read, and watched the signs of his ebbing life. She saw one physician after another hurry up the steps with anxious mien; the little child checked by its nurse in running noisily before the door; the servant with open handkerchief wipe away his tears as he quieted the restless, growling dog who strove to go to his master's room, and the friend who came out for a brief moment to stand with folded arms and serious thoughtful face against a pillar, and then rouse himself and step hastily back as if he would not lose a single breath of the dying Christian artist; and over the whole scene, there was that mysterious, sad quietness, unexplained by reason, but real to the feelings, such as one is sensible of on entering a vacant room, and knows that a friend is gone from the house by the still air of the chairs and tables. By-and-by there were other movements. The two physicians last called in, came out together talking of the case, each one having his own thought of its treatment, and well satisfied that he was called in too late to save his life. Then the family medical man with slow, thoughtful step, and face with no remorse of aspect, but mournful, as if "Would God I could have died for thee, my best friend and benefactor!" were written in every line. At last the window was raised, the shutter drawn and she knew that the form of the dead was composed decently to his last rest, and that the spirit of him who had given a hope to her life, had ascended.

Hilda ran into the room. "Why, what is the matter, Zoë, you look so sick?"

"Thorwaldsen is dead."

"Why, no, he is not. Miss Ingemann sent in at three o'clock, and he was a little better then, and they had hope of his life."

"He is dead," said Zoë. Hilda gazed wonderingly at her for a moment, and then broke into a loud cry. "O! he must not be dead; I cannot have him die; the good Thorwaldsen, who is always so kind, and I love him so much; O dear! what shall I do," and she ran weeping into the school-girls' sitting-room. "Thorwaldsen is dead," she exclaimed, between her sobs.

"Who told you so?" said half a dozen voices at once.

"Zoë."

"O, the little raven! It is no such thing. I'll engage she has not been out of her room this afternoon, and strange as she is, I do not believe she has second sight,' " said Rinda.

"He is though!" said Hilda, wiping her eyes, for the slur upon her friend was fast diverting her grief from her loss. "He is, for when Zoë says a thing is certain, it always is. He is dead," and she again wept aloud.

The day of his funeral came, and he was to be honored in his burial as no subject of any realm had been before. The king in deep mourning, was to receive the body at the entrance of the church, and the crown prince, as President of the Academy of Fine Arts, at the head of its members, followed by the royal princes, and the principal officers of state were to walk after the hearse. Troops, processions of the different guilds, and orders of citizens were to form the train of this national ceremony.

Miss Ingemann's school was to attend her to the church, habited in white, with a scarf of black crossing the shoulder and hanging down the side. One is not curious to know how much the preparation for this pageant alleviated their sorrow. It is sufficient, that from the oldest to the youngest, there were love and veneration for the departed, and the sad sense of loss was really felt according to each one's character and capacity.

Zoë watched the preparations, and with Miss Holberg's help arranged her wardrobe, but with a strange feeling of unreality, as if it were not for herself. The idea of doing something to honor her friend, were it but sewing a straight seam in her most skillful manner, was grateful to her, and her imagination pictured a thrilling adoration, a deep and manifest woe, as a necessary accompaniment, and a lasting inspiration derived from the recital of his greatness, and goodness.

She was too young and inexperienced to know that human power is so limited in this life that though profound sentiment may first suggest the ceremonial, yet when we are doing the most to honor outwardly the departed, thus spreading our feelings over a large surface, we are for the time dismayed at their comparative shallowness. It is well that it is so, for to give beauty and richness to life there must be symbol and ceremony, and the various expressions of deep poetic sentiment; and let the mind be sufficiently engrossed by them to have them fitting and beautiful, though at the time they may seem to detract from the ethereal essence of feeling. But when the duty is done and every untoward and vexatious circumstance is softened to the memory or haply fades away from it entirely, then rises the Phœnix of holy and beautiful poetry from the ashes of what may seem to the mistaken a too material and meaningless rite. "For thus it becometh us to fulfill all righteousness," and to him who simply and reverently obeys without questioning the dictates of nature and religion, the great alchemist will in time reveal the reward.

Zoë sat by herself and mourned silently for her loss. Too young to reason much, constitutionally sentimental, early thrown into circumstances which favored reserve, not understood by her teacher, she was fast growing morbid and unnatural by a one-sided development. Like the passion-flower torn up by the roots and planted against a wall of ice, the tendrils of her soul spread hither and thither striving instinctively to reach some support. With the elements of a self-sacrificing, aspiring life prematurely developing, of a nervous and anxious temperament, she had found relief and hope through confiding in Thorwaldsen, and at night she scarcely slept for the joyful visions which visited her. The great artist was her friend. He, too, had dreamed like herself, and to him she would go to slake her yearning to be loved and feel that she could look straight into his eye without being repelled by a wondering, critical stare. Now her hope was cut off. With this painful experience adding a long term to her life, she was again thrust back upon herself, and her feelings at first stunned, now gushed forth in uncontrollable weeping.

"How foolish I am!" she said to herself; "as if a little girl of nine has a right to be so sorry because this great man, whom all Denmark and the world worship, has died. He never said much to me and I less to him, and Miss Ingemann always seemed afraid lest I should trouble him when I stood by his knee. I would not have her know that I was crying so for him for the world. I will wash my eyes that she may not see my tears. But! was not his soft hand upon my head like this cold bath to my eyelids? I never, never shall feel it again!" and she burst forth afresh. "But I must control myself, as Miss Ingemann calls it. I will go to the window and look out and think of something else. There sits a poor tired man in the street, and two little children are giving him something, and he stretches out his hand and pats their heads. It looks like Thorwaldsen's Christ blessing little children.

O, I never shall hear him tell me again of the Christ and make me feel as if I could be like him! What, what shall I do! I am afraid the feeling which made me so happy will leave me;" and she clasped her hands and looked up as in earnest entreaty. "But hush! some one is coming. No, the step has passed by; but I must get ready to go to the funeral. How the crowds begin to pour along! how eager they are to get a place where they can see the parade well! This is their way of being sorry, I suppose. But can I walk in the long procession, with the bright sun shining into my face so that people can see me, if I cannot help crying? And how can I help it when everybody has lost a friend, and I the most of all! And they will say: 'The great and good Thorwaldsen is dead!' And the organ will play so mournfully, and that I cannot bear up under. I shall certainly groan and cry aloud. O no! I cannot go to the funeral. I must stay by myself. I must, I must;" and she threw herself upon the bed and hid her face in the pillow to still her sobs.

Miss Holberg came into the room—"Come, my dear, I will help you to dress before I make my own toilet."

"I cannot go to the funeral."

"Not go to our friend's funeral!" But seeing the child's swollen eyes, she guessed the cause, and she knew her well enough to speak gently, but not to go to the deepest springs of her nature to console her. "Yes, dear, I see. We all loved Thorwaldsen, and feel very sad to lose him; but we must submit to God's will and do our best to honor his memory. You wish to do that, do you not?"

"O Miss Holberg! let me stay at home; please, please, do! I feel as if I should drop down in the street. Do ask Miss Ingemann to let me!"

She really looked so sick and miserable and her step tottered so, that knowing she was not strong, she feared she would not sustain the fatigue, and therefore, went to Miss Ingemann and reported her state.

She was disappointed to have her arrangements disturbed, for the brunette and blonde were to form a pretty contrast in the procession, and really sorry that the child should have one of those troublesome headaches so malapropos; but she was too busy to see her personally, and directing that some simple remedies should be given her pupil, she accompanied the others to the church.

So Zoë lost the opportunity of regulating her sensibilities, diseased by solitude, and her idiosyncrasies of temperament, by the healthy influence of contact with other minds and right participation in a becoming pageant; but she sat alone exaggerating the grief of the audience, and the desolation caused by their loss, till a morbid impression was fixed in her mind by an event which might otherwise have been presented to her under such inspiring aspects. For this born peasant, but nature's noble, from humble poverty and a frigid clime had worked his way upward to a post which kings looked up to, and had drawn from his calm but burning soul, images of beauty, sanctity and power, which the world has caught glimpses of enough to honor, but which are to inspire and lead the human soul far in the distant future.

And now, that the drapery of mortality had fallen from him, he stands revealed as two great lives, one upon earth so vailed as not to startle, but to allure to excellence; the other, "where no eye hath seen, nor ear heard, nor heart conceived"—the glory which shall be revealed to the lovers and doers of the good!

Poor Zoë! her young heart was only too alive to the power and beauty of the first life; and what a light is quenched, when a great and pure nature bids adieu to it! But to balance this premature sensibility, there were needed a deeper and more inspiring mode of consolation, a clearer insight into the other, than her teacher gave her, and she suffered accordingly.

————

CHAPTER VIII.

"The law's delay."

SHAKSPEARE.

"MOTHER, here is Mr. Ernest's gardener, with your plants which he promised you. Shall I ask him to carry them into the yard?" said Fred Körner, one bright morning early in the month of May.

"Yes, my boy, and say, I thank Mr. Ernest, for his kindness."

As soon as that bright notable lady had finished her household arrangements for the morning above stairs, dusting here and there a bureau or table in her bedroom, smoothing a wrinkle left in the counterpane, picking up the threads from the carpet, she went into the parlor. Before one could count twenty, there was a general overturn of the furniture; sofas were wheeled from one corner to the other; the great chairs had an easy hob-nobbing squint given to each other, as they were stationed at opposite angles; and she mentally resolved, that on the first leisure day she would pull up those set-looking bookcases by the roots, and let them know that they were not to stand still all their lives in this age of progress. They should change sides like the politicians all over the world.

Here was little Denmark all in a fuss and fury about Schleswig Holstein, her husband's birthplace. She hoped it would have its own way for his sake, and had she not read the American newspapers, which Mrs. Stephenson, the minister's wife from that country, had lent her?

She had borrowed them at first to improve her knowledge of the idioms of the English language, but there was such life and fun and information in those New York papers, especially in one called the Tribune, that she must read them weekly.

"No, no, her bookcases should not be old fogies, they should march with the times; and if some day she could catch her brother-in-law, the Lutheran minister, whose church she attended, and who doted even on the odor of an old book—no, she believed on the whole it was a new one—would not they have a good time in making a thorough revolution among them? And those old pamphlets, they should make a bonfire unless the parson wanted them, which he no doubt would. What a saint his wife must be to suffer so much old lumber about! Poor victim," she thought, "on the whole she would not offer them to him, but for her sake put them into the fire at once."

After giving the last touch and turn to the ornaments about the room, to make them look as unlike to themselves as possible, she went into her little yard.

It would not be called a large territory by a countryman, but for the city, it was not to be despised by any means, and with the contributions of her different friends, especially Mr. Ernest's, and what the seed-store afforded, and the hot-house plants from Mr. Hoffman that he had just brought her, which would give the last touch to its glory, she already saw in her fancy quite a little greenery around her.

"Yes, her house, with its surroundings, should be a real home to her in the best sense, and it should be a resting-place to the soul of her beloved when he returned each night from his labors, and her children should have sweet and lovely associations through its beauty with their childhood; and how easy it would be, through the springing grass and blooming flowers, to lead their thoughts and affections to the good Giver of all this enjoyment!

"And then it would be an oasis for the eye of the traveler upon the dusty highway; and would she not have flowers, not only to brighten and fill her own rooms with incense, but for her friends also—those dear ones who had received her with open arms when she came a young stranger from the country, with her simple ways, to meet what she feared were the stiff conventionalisms of a city?" But she felt them not, for love and kind deeds had ever attended her—so she thought as she untied the string which bound them together.

"A pear tree! what a thrifty one! you shall climb against that tall fence, and make the most of yourself. Four grape-vines! you will be good enough to cover that out-building as soon as it pleases you. Eight currant bushes! my favorite fruit. Won't I have fresh individual ones for tea instead of those conglomerates from the market? Six rose bushes! please to arrange yourselves according to your color and capacity, whether as climbers or staid conservatives. And ivy! that is a radical, even if you place it against a dead wall, more so for that, my old, young favorite! cling there if you please. Honeysuckle! you angel, shedding your fragrance most when the damps of life fall upon you, cover my lattice—the sooner the better! Here is one that looks like a mere walking-stick; but nevertheless, it shall have its place. Who knows but that it is cousin, far removed, to Aaron's rod, and that it may bud more marvelously than any of the others? Now for my hoe and trowel!

"But where is that precious husband of mine? He said he would stay from the office and help me; that he would only step out for a moment while I was arranging things in-doors.

"I dare say I shall not see him until dinner time—perhaps not before night. O dear! I wonder if it was intended that husbands should live in dull, dirty notaries' offices and dingy, dark wholesale stores four-fifths of their lives! They must be a deal better than I am, if their souls don't get soiled and rusty with such base contact all the time.

"But business must be attended to! Business! what does it all amount to? Stirring up a grand hurry-scurry, each one striving to get up in the world and thrust his neighbor below, putting everything upside down, wrong side up and out of the way generally, till Providence in the form of a crash, throws everything into pi, and gives men an opportunity to begin anew in a better way! But do they! that is the thing! At any rate they have the chance, and the worse for them if they do not. I don't mean that my dear husband is one of those cackling biddies in male attire, who go scratching about with their heads towards the ground, as if it was their mission to pick up the fattest worm in the earth, and what they cannot eat, to hide away to putrefy, so that other hungry hens can't get it—and the next thing you know of them, they are waking up the babies and disturbing the neighborhood by their noisy cackle—and when you go to see what the matter is, there is only one little egg after all. And then with the best luck, only a wee little chicken comes out of it, and ten to one the silly fool scratches its eye out digging for another worm.

"But how my thoughts run! O, my husband I was thinking of! No, no, he is honest, generous, and whole-souled; but he has got into the whirl, so away he spins from morning to night.

"O dear! again I say! He will certainly go blind with that pain in his eyes, or crazy with those headaches; and then what will the money he is heaping up for his wife and children—for I know that it is for us he works—be worth to us! If I don't make him turn over a new leaf I am not so great a woman as he thinks I am.

"But I hear the bell ring! never mind, Mahomet won't go to the mountain this time, the mountain shall come to him! Louise! whoever it is, send them out here.

"Mr. Stärke! your most obedient! And to what fortunate combination of events may I attribute this early call? Why, the sun is up yet, and is not eclipsed either. You can see to work! For mercy sake don't lose a minute! You will feel poverty-stricken to-morrow if you do."

"Good morning, Mrs. Körner," bowing, "how facetious you are! The key of the safe was forgotten, and all the papers needed for our present work are in it. I will thank you for it."

"And can't Mr. Körner do anything until you return?"

"Nothing of consequence; he desired me to call as I had an errand this way, and the clerk was not at hand."

"Good! no better time than the present then to commence my reform. No! I shall not give you the key, my friend, and more than that, you are going to stay yourself and help me; what say you?"

"I should be most happy, Mrs. Körner, at any other time, but really, our business is very imperative and I cannot be spared."

"So is mine, and I can't spare you either. Please take this hoe and dig a place for the root of this pear tree."

"But, my dear Mrs. Körner, our clients are waiting and they have already pressed us to hasten their cause, and—and—I must confess that I am a little selfish about it too, for you know, I have just been chosen junior partner and I am very desirous of fulfilling my part of the duties of the office."

"You cannot do it better than by aiding your partner's wife, and I will prove it to you in religious and poetical form—which is a deal better than your dry legalities—before you leave.

"Please take the hoe! Is Mr. Stärke impolite to a lady? What portents are there in the heavens to correspond with such an anomaly? (looking all over the sky). Take it, please, I will answer for you to the court, judge, and jury, and lead you away from them with flying colors.

"There, thank you! I knew you would aid a distressed—not damsel exactly, but something fully as good and quite as forlorn—a deserted wife; who spends the honeymoon, gives life to and trains up her babies in the fear and love of the Lord, or mayhap in terror of his black majesty, works out life's problem, whether it be dark or joyful, prepares for heaven or haply sinks into the other state, wears away with disease dies and is buried with what? the devoted love of her husband, to be sure, which proves itself by his digging his own grave prematurely in nervously searching for a paltry treasure that any ill-wind may blow away! And, in the meantime, makes an evening call to play with the children, spends a weary night to get up half-refreshed in the morning, breakfasts in haste, dines, if at all, in a trice, and sups upon the vanity and vexation of spirit of the whole day.

"There, is not that a true picture of married life at the present day? I mean of the best and happiest marriages—of those who are called well to do in the world in every way?"

"There is some truth in it, I confess, but what would you have? It seems to be the order of society, and pardon me, but you look pretty happy under the administration."

"So I am; who would not be with my glorious husband? but don't you think I could be happier in a truer and higher style? I should like to have the trial, I know, and I intend to have it too.

"There! you have planted that nicely. Now for the grape-vines! O! I see you will be tolerably educated under my supervision, before you marry. I will give you a lesson from time to time, and then for the wedding-cake; I will make it for you according to my mother's receipt. It is the best that ever was."

"O! that event is a long way in the future. I must make the fortune first, which you seem to despise so much this morning."

"No, you will do no such thing! You will marry before you are a thousand dollars richer. What is the use of a fortune to begin life with, when you have a head and two hands and health into the bargain?"

"I should feel that it was very selfish to inflict poverty and self-sacrifice upon a delicate, high-bred young lady, and really, you would not wish me to be satisfied with any other."

"If you mean refined and well-bred, I say no; but do not ask our rosy Danish girls to grow sickly, sentimental, and learned, like that pale American young lady opposite. She looks like an Anemone, beautiful, it is true, and of celestial birth apparently, but as if she would bloom only a month in the spring and then be laid low. Mrs. Stephenson says that many of the young girls in her country are like her fair cousin. They live in furnace-heated rooms in winter and go out but little, but study, read, attend to music, poetize, and dream of a higher life than the present affords them, till they are sick, nervous, and if they do not become insane they sink into an early grave, or, heaven save us! mount the rostrum or pulpit; or what is a little better, flood the country with their mental effusions in print!

"No, no! marry a sensible, healthy little damsel, contented with this sublunary state for the present, who likes nothing so well as to begin at the lower round of the ladder with you, so that you may have the satisfaction of climbing to the top together.

"But stop, if you please! Don't plant that honeysuckle in that north corner, where the sun never shines, and close by that stiff-looking snow-ball that is too pure and cold ever to blush, but here in this sunny spot, that it may be supported by this trellis without being shaded too much. And now, as you are too good ever to be angry, I am going to give you a fact or two, which your blunder forces upon me.

"If the young men of the present day, especially of the learned professions, would be a little less proper, and a little more chivalrous, a little less worthy in the hum-drum sense, and a little more enthusiastic in their love for the dear Lord and their fair young neighbors, to say the least, a little less politic and sort of make-believe in their sieges upon hearts—like the English army before Sevastopol, but march up more in the 'deliver, or (not you, but I,) die' style of olden time, I can tell you, women would not require you to wear yourselves out in getting a fortune for them, but they could not withstand you at all. Fortunes without poetry and love are quite indispensable, but with them they are esteemed a convenience, or otherwise as you happen or not to have them."

"All that is very fine, but—"

"There is no tender spot in you for it to sink into, you mean. O, the degeneracy of the men of the present! Well, we shall see.

"Come, my roses, you shall bloom and console me for the superabundance of Lombardy poplars all about this blessed city. They give it such a stiff, prosy look, and turn their branches upwards as if the sweet heavens needed their shade instead of us poor mortal women. But you need not think I speak from a sense of my own wrongs. My husband was, is, and ever will be, 'le preux chevalier, sans peur, sans reproche', excepting that he works too hard for me.

"Here, my beautiful white rose! friend of my childhood! stand there, at the right of the George the Fourth; royalty and simplicity side by side. That is well, and my Superbe shall climb this wall, and be the back-ground of both."

"You seem at no loss where to put your plants, but it is take aim, and down with you!"

"Of course, that is a part of my inspiration, you see; it requires nothing else.

"Now, they are all set but this Ampelopsis, which my friend, Mr. Weiss, saint as he is, brought me yesterday, and I am so little acquainted with it, that I do not know what site it wants to make it contented. I will wait until Mr. Körner comes."

"I thought your inspiration was sufficient? Excuse me, but it seems to have failed already."

"Now, is not that a mistake worthy of a man of a clear understanding, who depends upon a chain of reasoning, ratiocination as he calls it—what a hard word—to sustain himself and the universe. This mistake of yours, proves it is insufficient. If you would but condescend to make use of the brighter lamps which God gives us, as we women are thankful to do, you would be a great deal better, and more interesting than you now are, with your dry logic and masses of facts; and you would not make that remark, pardon me, so wanting in psychological insight, as our metaphysical friend, Gottfried, would call it. For, have you not learned yet, what it is to be a prophet?"

"I must plead some doubt upon the subject."

"Why, it is the simplest thing in the world, when it is once learned, my sister, 'Lisbet' told me, who knows a scrap of almost everything. It is to profit by everything in nature, God's Word, by men, women, and children, and all they say and do—indeed everything in this great universe, in which our Father has placed us. Now, if you can tell what on this earth is a greater inspiration to me than your honored partner, I wish you to do so.

"What! does the learned notary look puzzled? I dare say now, that he has always pictured to himself a seer staring up into vacancy, with a pen in his hand, and a scroll on the table beside him, waiting for some angel, or, mayhap evil one, to blow the divinity out of that vulgar-looking trumpet that may be seen sticking out of some clouds near, instead of learning about the lilies of the field and the fowls of the air, as our Saviour did. This comes not from your Bible, you may be sure of that; you men are too proud and unenlightened in these days—excuse me, to read that much; but from always pulling upon that old, broken chain that you call ra-ti-oc-i-na-tion! no wonder that you tumble over so often, with your nicely-laid plans. You deserve to, for trusting so much to such an antiquated, second-rate affair, good in its place, but not to be made so much of as you wise men of Gotham do."

"Thank you for the idea, I am not quite sure of its correctness, however."

"You will try if it fits into your old chain, will you, before you adopt it? Well, it does, and it does not, but it is true notwithstanding.

"Now we will give one survey of our labor, and then I will release you from your thraldom. Yes, it will do, and when I get a few shrubs from Mrs. Farrel's, which I had almost forgotten she had promised me, it will be as full as I wish it. Strange that that lady should have such a kind and friendly face and heart with such a thunder-cloud of a creed! I think she must get her faith, after all, more from the New Testament and her pretty garden, than she does from that hobgoblin from the middle ages, that stalks about and takes up so much room in these days! But here is Mr. Körner."

"Well," said he, as he greeted them with beaming face, "if there isn't the truant! Mr. Stärke, what account can you give of yourself?"

"I have none, sir; I rely on the interposition of Mrs. Körner; I refer you to her."

"Why, what! he has only been acting up to the mission of your sex, to do the rough work of the world, while I was the subtle, moving spirit of the scene. The plants must be set, and he has done it very well. I thank him."

"Ah, Lina! Isn't she great! And here are my boys, the very best in Copenhagen! Aren't you glad to see your old man, Emile? Yes, you are. But where is Fred?"

"Here he is coming across the street from Mr. Stephenson's."

"What is the matter with my boy?" seeing him swallowing with great effort some grief. "What has young America done to you now, my dear?"

"He 'walked into my young affections,' as he said; but I call it a pretty hard blow that he gave me." And the lad ran off to stifle his sobs.

Just then Mrs. Stephenson crossed the street.

"What has my boy done to yours, Mrs. Körner? I am very sorry that he should behave so, but he is really quite unmanageable."

"O, nothing of consequence; it was a childish quarrel between Fred and him."

"I left him crying, because, as he said, he had hit Fred."

"Well, the millennium must be at hand, if the striker cries for the deed and the stricken controls himself. Won't you walk in?"

"No, thank you, our dinner is ready."

"So is ours; come, Mr. Körner!"

"Come, come, Mr. Stärke," said her husband, "walk in; we have got a swell dinner, as Andrew Jackson over the way would say."

"No; I had a little rather he would not; Eliza is cleaning house and I have not a repast worthy of our friend today. You understand me, Mr. Stärke?"

"O, certainly, certainly; and I am very glad to have you speak so plainly. Good morning!"

"There is a man who would not disgrace a judgeship any day, though the wig would surmount rather young shoulders to be sure," said Mrs. Körner.

"Yes, he has knowledge and stability enough for one, and as for his principles and opinions, why you know our sister 'Lisbet' says he is ninety years old, as it regards them."

"I don't want him to be judge," said Fred, "for then I am afraid he will not play with me any more, nor draw pictures for us."

"Never fear that, dear," said his mother; "if Mr. Stärke is a little too old in his judgment of men and their doings in this world, he is simple, loving, and thoughtful for my children's happiness, and for that he wins me, and no judge's seat or wig will spoil him in these points. And remember, Fred, if you would be as good a lawyer and writer as he is, and at the same time not grow too sober and careworn as your years increase, you must be careful to do everything in its season, as he did, for when a boy in your uncle's school, he got his lessons well and learned to draw; in College he was always faithfully at his post, and now it is easy for him to work at perplexing law cases all the day, and in the evening come and talk and entertain me and my friends, or play with you."

————

CHAPTER IX.

"They have the sensitiveness of the mimosa, and find their affections withering up where the blast of scrutiny blows too roughly upon them."—SWALLOW BARN.

"MY birthday! I am sixteen years of age! That is pretty old, I but I feel just like a little girl yet. Hilda is a year older, to-be-sure, but she is a good deal larger than I, and she appears already like Miss Grünberg and Trener, who dress gayly and carry their heads so straight as if they were afraid of nobody. I wonder if I ever can do so! It looks pretty in them. Let me try. (She walks to the mirror and imitates them.) No; it is only make-believe with me, so it looks silly. Mrs. Stephenson used to say I looked like a Quaker. What does that mean? A person with a sober, plain face like me, I guess. I am afraid of her and of almost everybody else but Hilda, and I never like to go anywhere without her; she is always so kind and talks to people, so it is no matter if I do not. O this hard lesson! I must study it. (Looks on the book for a few moments and then gazes on vacancy.) I will try to see my mamma with my mind's eye. It is so very, very long since I left her: how does she look! I wonder if she is dark like me or white like Miss Ingemann; if she is pretty like Hilda or plain like Rinda. I can't remember, but this I always can call to mind, that she would smile very kindly and call me 'dear,' and make a little cooing noise like a dove when I had been good, and that her forehead would have wrinkles in it when I was naughty, and I would be so sorry to see them coming one, two, three after the other, and then I would say I would be good and they would all smooth away again. O! how I wish I could see her and that she would again put me into my little bed at night, (for I don't want to be anything but a child still,) and hear me say 'Our Father,' for I am weary, weary of longing, longing for something and it must be for my dear, dear, faraway mother: and my papa, too, I remember him, tall and dark and very thoughtful. And he would sit under the veranda and look out upon the blue sea—for that is before me now—and talk to himself and shake his head a little as his lips moved. And he would gaze at me so earnestly and sadly—and he liked to have me lively and active—energetic and decided he called it. I am afraid I never shall be; but here is Hilda."

"Have you got your lesson in algebra, Zoë dear?" said she, for she was very much afraid of her falling under the teacher's reproof in this study which she much disliked. The rudiments of arithmetic she easily mastered, but algebra and geometry were like an unknown tongue to her, and to attempt to make her comprehend or solve their problems was like dashing water upon a steel surface, which evaporated without one drop being absorbed.

"No," said she, "and I can't. I don't know what Miss Ingemann sets me at this for! She might just as well pour water upon that stove expecting it to soak in. It will only crack it and raise a great steam, just as my head is nearly split by this puzzling sum, and there is a thick blur over my eyes, I have looked at it so long."

"Let me help you," said Hilda, who was quick at figures.

"O no! thank you. That would be untrue, for she said I must do it myself, but I can't and there is an end of the matter. I was not made to study algebra. I know enough of arithmetic to count the money when I go shopping and to pay my laundress, and that is all that I shall want."

"But what if your father should leave an estate for you to settle?"

"I could take care of it without knowing about a plus b and c minus d."

"But you must at least know about simple and compound interest."

"No, for I am going to lend my money just as I do my books to you when you want them, or my prettiest ribbon to Freya when she goes visiting, or my seed bracelet to Adelgunda when she wants to make 'a sensation,' as she says. I don't tell you that you must put a new cover on every book you borrow, or that Rinda must pin another piece of ribbon to the one I lend her to pay for its use, or that Freya must hang a gold charm to my bracelet every time she wears it. I should be ashamed to be so mean and selfish. That is not the way they did in those days I like to read about eighteen hundred years ago, nor will it be so in the good time I can't help thinking will come by-and-by."

"I guess that you will have plenty of people to borrow your money. Why, they will tease it all away if they know you don't ask interest."

"Don't you think I can say 'No!' if I think they don't deserve it. I should ask 'our Father' when one asked me for it whom I did not know about, if I should lend to him, and I should try and learn about him or her, and whether it would be right and useful to them to have it; and if I made up my mind that it would, I would lend it till they could pay it again—just the sum that I lent them and no more. But if I thought that it would do more harm than good, I would say, 'No, you must not have it;' and as I should feel sorry to disappoint them, I should look and say so, and perhaps that would do a little toward making them better, and as soon as God was willing I would let them have it, and I don't think he would make me wait till they were perfect seeing that none of the rest of us are, not even Miss Ingemann."

"O Zoë, darling!" said Hilda, throwing her arms about her, "I wish that you would try to do just as our teacher wishes you to do, so that she may love you dearly as she does me. She is so kind to me, and I am so fond of her that my only trouble is that you don't seem to understand each other, so she gets angry with you and you look so sad, or if you do laugh and frolic, it seems like froth and foam on the surface of the deep moving sea, and it makes me feel worse than to have you sit quiet, as you do so much of the time. I try to explain matters to both of you and make it appear that you neither of you are in the wrong, but both mean the very best; but it is of no use, and it makes me very unhappy." And she kissed her and began to arrange her curls while she hummed a little tune.

"No, Hilda! it is of no use," said Zoë seriously; "Miss Ingemann does not like anything about me. I am not clever, like you and the other girls, about my lessons. I get them by rote, she says, and to-be-sure I do, all but my natural theology and grammar and rhetoric and my Bible lesson. I like them, and when Miss Ingemann wishes to show me off she does right to question me in those studies."

"But there are other matters that you trouble her about; your hair is not always arranged neatly to suit her, and your shoes are sometimes down at the heel and your hose are too much darned, and then you sometimes lay your sewing implements and books about, and as she is very particular and nice it tries her; and it is not all for that either, but she really wishes you to grow up a tidy, sensible, intelligent, and elegant young lady."

"Yes, Hilda, I know it, and you need not think that I don't thank her for it in my heart, though I don't kiss her and tell her so as much as you do. But I know this too, for though I am a little dark-girl, I can see through a cloud when the moon shines through it, as well as Miss Ingemann or any other bright person. She wants me to be sensible in just her way, and intelligent in just her way, and elegant in just her way; and if I am not, she won't own that I am at all. Now that is not what God intends, else He would have made me more like her. She does not like my curly hair, and when she wants to show that she is particularly kind, she takes both her hands and tries to smooth it and she says, 'Zoë, my dear, put on your bonnet and may-be your complexion will improve;' or, 'Zoë, you see how straight Adelgunda sits, I wish you not to lounge so;' or, 'Zoë, look! Freya has knit this pair of stockings in two weeks, you must be industrious like her;' or, 'Hilda has an excellent mind, she is so quick in her algebra;' and then looks at me as much as to say, 'you have not!' "

"Why how you talk, child! what an imagination you have!"

"It is not imagination, it is plain fact; and though Miss Ingemann is very good and knows almost everything in books and all about the great people who have lived since the flood, and is 'au fait,' as she is always saying, 'to the conventionalisms of society,' there is one of 'our Father's' little girls about five feet high, that she knows precious little about, and it is a pity since she pretends to teach her."

"Aren't you funny?" said Hilda, laughing.

"It may be fun to you, but it is anything else to me; when my mind is in such a hurly-burly state and I only know that I must be made for something, but I don't know what, and if Miss Ingemann would go the right way to puzzle me out and then tell me, I should be much more thankful to her than I am while she distresses herself about whether I am dark, or white as a piece of chalk with two strawberries stuck on it, or my hair flax-colored and as lank and straight as a tallow candle, or black and curly as my own, or whether I bend a little before the cold north wind always blowing upon me, or take it all as firm and erect as if I were a piece of Thor's ramrod set down here on the earth. Leave these things to 'our Father' who made me, and teach me something of more importance, I say."

"Good," said Hilda, "I like to see you so, because your face has some spirit in it. But you can't deny but your habits of study and behavior are of some importance."

"O yes! But what if I do set my thimble by my plate while I dine; she need not look and speak as if I had smashed Moses' two tables of stone with all the commandments upon them; or, if Freya does knit like a steam engine, the globe is not kept together by it, as I know of; or, if you can reckon a million, that does not redeem all the souls in the world, does it, my own best Hilda?"

"O no, indeed, I hope not. Save me from any such awful responsibility. I am afraid my own will fly away into space some day I am such a giddy thing; but do, Zoë, wear clean white skirts, and nice fine hose all the time, to please Miss Ingemann and me, too, dear! won't you?"

"Now that is just like Miss Ingemann; and you, too, Hilda dear! you say so to save me from disgrace with her; but she has always had money enough all her life, and, besides, only associates with a few elegant, tasteful people as fortunate as herself, so she does not seem to think but that everybody may dress as well as she does. Now my father is not rich, and he has many poor relatives whom he helps in their living, and it is very expensive keeping me here, and though he is generous, yet I know he wants me to be economical, so I am, and—I wish Miss Ingemann would turn her sublime gaze to the stars, and not look at my stockings."

"But at any rate, as she says, there is water enough in the river and your skirts might be clean."

"How, without great expense in this filthy, smoky city, I should like to know? Look at the piles of dirt in the street, and see that great chimney belching out a column of black smoke. I wonder if it is the evil deeds of the proprietor, ascending to the bar of heaven to be judged in that form! And don't we bury ourselves before our time every walk we take. To be really and thoroughly decent as I like to be, for I am as nice in my taste as Miss Ingemann, it would take all my allowance money for my washing, and I can't spare it, when I must have new clothes once in a while; and that is just the way she judges and teaches me. No, Hilda! I had a teacher once, and in five minutes he pointed out to me the way to walk through life, and to me it seems so simple and plain that I wonder when I attempt to keep in it that all good people do not bid me God speed! and take hold of my hand and help me onwards, instead of making me turn aside into their by-paths. I do not say that they are by-paths to them, but when I try them to see if they were made for me, I feel so wretched and away from home and the sunlight of God's favor, that I shrink into myself and begin again my ceaseless questioning."

(A voice calls Hilda.)

"Dear Zoë! I must go. You are better, O! so much better than I am, and I love you dearly! I only say these things to you because it frets me not to have Miss Ingemann see you as I do, and if some little things were altered in you I think she would."

"No, Hilda! I am not as good as you. It is so easy for you to do just what you were made for, that I admire and look up to you all the time, and you are so kind to let me lean upon you, and you cover up my failings so beautifully when we go abroad together! But I am nothing but one cluster of interrogation points, always longing to do my duty but not knowing how, throwing the past behind in disgust, having no life and interest in the present, and yet what am I fit for in the future of such a world as this? But go, dear!"

(Zoë alone.)

" 'Obey your conscience; read your Bible; let the Christ be your pattern and guide; take, as it were, hold of his hand when you pray to the Father to aid you; learn of the works of his beautiful world; love him for his goodness, and all mankind, because he loves them; and be not anxious for anything else.' Yes, these were his words. And have I fulfilled them? To the letter I have tried to be faithful, but something is wanting. I reap no reward of self-satisfaction. They speak of the approving conscience. I know it not. My life is one great feeling of deficiency, my soul nothing but an altar of sighing and supplication. Whither shall I turn for light? The Bible—even Jesus—have not their full power over my crude and ignorant mind, and when I pray, O! that the heavens would divide but a hair's breadth that I might be sure that God hears me! I try to follow strictly the precepts of Jesus in my thoughts and my conduct, but it seems to unfit me for what they call the best society in which I visit with my teacher, and they do and say what seems to me so contrary to his spirit that I am ever weary and sad. Yet I can say nothing, for I am but a little girl and know not how to argue, only to feel, and then, worse than all, this unrest and dissatisfaction with myself weakens my words when I would dissent from my companions. O! my mother! my far-away mother! would that I could be folded in thy arms while I say 'Our Father!' and then, perhaps, He would answer to her call and mine. For is it not a cruel thing to tear the young bird from its warm nest, or the tender lamb from the sheepfold, to wander in the snow-mountains alone? and how can it be that a little girl could find the right way through the cold, hard world, to the warm, sunlighted heaven above, without her mother to guide her?"

(She sings in a low tone—)

"O, my mamma, my mamma, my mamma!
Where are you now, I wonder?
Sitting under the tamarind tree, looking over the deep blue sea,
After your own little daughter?

Here she sits, mamma! doubting and sad, mamma!
Over the hard lessons given her;
White lady knows her not, so, of course, she loves her not—
O, the poor, lone little dark-girl!

When will come the time, mamma? Our Father's good time, mamma?
So longed for by both of us so wearily;
When together under the tamarind tree, looking over the deep blue sea,
We see the star in the East rise so brightly.

We will follow its guiding light through all the dark night,
Hoping for sunlight in the morning;
O, show me the way, how I may the best pray
For the bright, glorious sunlight in the morning."

————

CHAPTER X.

"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy."—SHAKSPEARE.

MISS INGEMANN'S heart was a benevolent one, and her character high-toned, and whenever a child was placed under her care, she felt the responsibility involved in the trust reposed in her. Not less did this feeling influence her, than heretofore, when the little, dark-browed West-Indian was left to her management and fostering nurture. To us, Americans, slaveholders, or abettors, excusers or tolerators of slavery, who are buried ten thousand fathoms deep under the prejudices, conventionalisms, false, unnatural and wicked feelings superinduced upon the soul by the existence among us of this great sin against God, and foul wrong against his humanity, it seems almost impossible, that Zoë should not from the first, have been looked upon by both teacher and pupils with distrust and aversion, when she came to claim as an equal a share in the privileges of this "home of education." But it was not so; on the contrary, she was instituted immediately as both the lion and the pet of the school. But her nature was a shrinking one, and she recoiled from the pedestal upon which, not only Hilda, but all her schoolmates, at first strove to place her. And who that knows anything of the world of children, no less than that of men and women, is not aware that, for immediate success in life, one must not only accept willingly all the honors it proffers, but claim even a little more as its just due, in order to keep a position fairly equal to its deserts, in an age when might makes right, and among a people, admirers of coarse, rough, obvious power. For our modern material civilization has but little insight into the value, beauty and latent power of a soul, true to its natural instincts, refined and strengthened by growing up into a perception of, and sympathy with God's revelation through the ages, while it is kept tender and pure, and at the same time, is glorified in intellect, affections, character and imagination, by a walk and communion with the Infinite, through Nature, no less than the spirit, principles, precepts, hopes and promises of his Holy Son, our Lord and Master, the beginning of a new spiritual creation, and the Leader through time and eternity of all who put their trust in him! So that the child was soon as readily dropped as she desired to be, into quietness and retirement. It followed, as a natural consequence, that she ceased also to be the favorite, except with a very few; for there are not many so true, loyal and self-sustained that they do not require that their judgment of men and things should be reflected from the smiles and respect or haply worship of others, in order to insure them that they are not making fools of themselves in their opinions or choice of friends and associates.

But other causes operated with Miss Ingemann, to place her in unhappy relations with Zoë, to lead her into mistake, perplexity and discouragement, and at length into injustice and mutual injury to each other's characters and lives.

In the first place, she was an Anglo-Saxon, with the physical courage, energy, self-reliance and practical power of that predominant race. She believed in its "manifest destiny," which by the majority is supposed to involve a superiority to the rest of the world, and as a natural inference, its final rule over the different nations.

Zoë belonged to a different division of the human family. Her strongest characteristics were a fiery temperament, imagination, strong affections and religious aspiration. With these were combined a nervous organization of the most delicate cast, warning her at every point, of her want of sympathy and adaptedness in physical, mental and spiritual constitution to the sphere into which she had been transported. By a strong natural instinct, acting upon her like a fate, she unfolded herself only so far as she could find a response to her utterances, either in action or words. As the spider, who, sociably inclined, approaches the domestic circle, and puts out one antenna after another to attest its welcome, when lo! a start, or a scream, (if haply it is not crushed altogether by a rude and daring foot,) warns it to use its mysterious instinct by feigning death, until it can scramble away discomfited, and then it compensates itself by ascending on its self-woven wing to a height above the scene of its trial, where it spins itself a world according to the beautiful laws with which its Creator has inspired it; so Zoë, finding in her teacher's staid, bare practical world no home for her glowing fancies, unworldly fashions and aims, and enkindled hopes, sat like a stone, in the midst of the noisy life and glittering but chilly brightness about her, and as soon as she might, buried herself in her chamber to call about her the spirits of a clearer ether and intenser being.

In the second place, Miss Ingemann was of noble birth and dated back from a long line of titled ancestors. She believed in privileged orders, and though intending to be strictly just in her estimate of her pupils, this idea made the scale waver a little against those who were not, of which Zoë was one. Then she had the true Anglo-Saxon mode of estimating power, as before indicated, in an age of action and invention; its obvious, clear, striking manifestations she appreciated, and where this was exhibited in full blaze, no prejudice in favor of rank or title prevented her for a moment from owning and bowing down to its sway. So to the charms of simple goodness as exhibited in ways familiar to her, she was fully alive, and was absolute in her requisitions of its first importance in her friends, associates, and pupils. But enslaved by conventionalism, ever fearful of overstepping the bounds of female propriety, as laid down by society; gifted with but little imagination or passion, she frowned upon all manifestations of character which indicated a rebellion against existing opinions and customs.

With no broad sweep of sympathies which would make her one with every tribe, nation, and kingdom under heaven; ay, and lift her to companionship with the realms above, and carry her in pity and hope into the under-world beneath, but confining her familiar intercourse very much to a choice clique of the wise and good, ignorant from actual witness of the obstacles, disadvantages, and dreadful temptations through which the multitudes struggle upwards to the light, or which haply prevent their ascent, she was often stern and intolerant in her judgment of the imperfect and erring, or else ignored them altogether.

Not by such narrow rules did he who knew what was in man gain such insight into his depths, and it may be doubted whether with the aid of miracle itself, this nature would have unfolded itself to his gaze, had he separated himself from the people by virtue of his royal descent and sought only the companionship of Simon the Pharisee, and such as he, or even of Mary, Martha, and Lazarus.

But the great, over-mastering cause of her failure in educating Zoë, was the falsities of her creed; for these she was but partially accountable, for it was the result of the spirit of her age, which was compounded in part of Christian ideas, it is true, but with a large infusion of the errors of the past, the crude speculations and skepticisms of the present mingled with the worldliness, licentiousness, and hypocrisy, ever the attendants of a decline of faith in the simple but sublime truths of God, written upon the human soul in its purity, revealed through his messengers and daily hung out to the gaze of the world in his wonderful works. Strange, strange that these verities should be forsaken or be held but feebly, to cling to a soiled, misshapen, parchment credendum, scribbled all over with characters written in blood, partly by the Pagans of the anti-Christian world, in part by the half-enlightened, self-conceited philosophers of the times of, and after the Apostles, with the continual accretion with which mistaken men, loving their own blind opinions and fancies better than the truth, have covered over or deformed their majestic beauty.

Had Zoë's mind and character been like Hilda's, for instance, ready to be moulded according to her own fixed notions of culture, all obstructions to a happy development of her nature, at least to a certain extent, would have been spared her. For so much greater than any creed is the human soul that in quiet, unexcited times when the falsehoods of society, like lions and tigers asleep, scare not mankind into unnatural attitudes and induce them to build around themselves ugly walls of defense, and force not the guardians of society to utter hideous shrieks and magnify the danger at hand, thereby frightening it into deformity, it may grow beautifully under the genial light of God's sunshine and grace, though it may not reach the height, breadth, and depth of expansion that it would under the most favorable circumstances. But the Anglo-African was a new specimen, a lusus naturæ of humanity, and her teacher knew not what to make of her. Her sense of responsibility nullified all feeling of curiosity, all desire for entertainment in the exhibition of a nature so different from her own, and her love of sway and fixed ideas of the culture suited to all human beings alike kept her on the alert to check any of her eccentric demonstrations. Her want of success in calling forth her powers at first bewildered, next discouraged, then disgusted her, and year after year she treated her with increasing coldness and dignity. These different feelings she expressed to her friends and associates, with a few of whom Zoë was a favorite and who saw in her more than appeared to Miss Ingemann's prejudiced eye. These took up her defense warmly, and by injudicious comments in favor of one and against the other, enlarged the breach between them. Then came to her mind the false philosophy which she had somewhere read of, that the Africans were a race cursed by God in early times for the unnatural scoffing of a son at his patriarch father. Next, clustered around it the infidel notions that its degradation was insurmountable; that God intended it for the lowest rank among his people, and mercifully denied it the Caucasian powers; and as these opinions were warmly combated by the majority of her acquaintances, resentment was awakened which recoiled on her pupil and darkened her to her mental vision more and more, till she became utterly incapacitated from judging her in any point correctly. This result Zoë, with her almost supernatural perceptions, felt in its full force, and it threw her more and more back upon her vivid imagination and burning sentiments. It remains to be seen what was the natural effect of this concentration upon herself.

Not that she knew distinctly of these speculations, for they were not repeated to her by any one, and if she had ever had a clear consciousness of her distinction of race before she left home, which is doubtful, it had faded from her mind as her soliloquizing about her mother has indicated. Her differences of person from the other girls she attributed to a West-India climate, as also her love for the hot summer sun and aversion to the winter's snow and cold. She knew only too well that Miss Ingemann disliked her, and that she was hurt and offended that she could not make her what she wished, yet she was sensible of no willful opposition to her desires and efforts. She studied hard the lessons given her, and seldom dissented from her wishes ostensibly. But there was the perpetual cry of resistance of her nature within to many of the tasks imposed upon her which would not be appeased. She would rush from her abstract studies into the open air of the garden, which surrounded the house, and clasp the trees with her arms as if they were conscious, sympathizing friends who would rescue her from her thraldom. She would throw herself upon the ground by the flower-beds, and brood over the lilies and violets, for she seldom gathered them, and say, "O, my beautiful angels! they need not say that ye are without life like me, for I feel it in every breath of your fragrance. Ye tell me in that, that ye are sorry for my woe, for Ah, my sweet flowers! ye know well that they are not kind to the little dark-girl as to you; for here in God's beautiful sunshine ye may ever dwell, and be wet by his dew, and sprinkled by his showers and bloom, O, so beautifully in the light of his smile, while I am chained to dark, bewildering words, and mystic crooked characters in the prison-house of my soul's bondage with the fear of frowns and sneers, if I do not love them and make them my own. But O! lily, queen of my heart! they speak not to me as thou dost, when I ask them whence, why am I and what does our Father wish me to do. Thy voice even is not clear to me yet in answer to my ceaseless request; but it may be that when I have more and better studied his holy Word, my mind will be pure and still enough to hear distinctly your revealings. So bloom on, my lily and violet, and when your leaves fall and mingle with the dust, and your breaths ascend to heaven to take to themselves more glorious and lovely representations of God's beauty and love, O, then plead with Him when ye are blooming at the foot of his great white throne, to tell me more plainly when, where and how I am to do his holy will! Farewell, my flowers, until I have wrought out my tasks, and then I will come again and seek my reward in the odor of your incense, and the radiance of your sheen."

In going in she met Miss Ingemann: "Miss Zoë," said she, "these are school hours, you are aware?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"You know the rule, it is not necessary to repeat it to you?"

"Yes, ma'am."

The lady walks up the steps with great dignity, while Zoë goes to the schoolroom and takes her Algebra.

"It may be breaking the rules to the letter to go and talk to the flowers between nine and twelve in the forenoon, but at any rate my head is clearer and courage greater than before I went out, so my lessons will not suffer by it. Come here, you dingy Arab of an arithmetic; I wonder if your old grandfather far removed, who made you, and who is, I hope, in heaven, is not sorry that he left you behind him, to puzzle and fret so many little girls. I wonder if Jesus studied algebra! I doubt it. Then I don't know why I should. But come along, I say; we have got other masters now-a-days. But you don't get me to go astray from him, in what I know he did or did not."

————

CHAPTER XI.

"Spirits are not finely touched,
But to fine issues; nor nature never lends
The smallest scruple of her excellence,
But like a thrifty goddess she determines,
Herself the glory of a creditor,
Both thanks and use."—SHAKSPEARE.

"ZOË! there is the music teacher, dear; have you practised your lesson enough to be familiar with it, for you know how cross he is when we are at fault?" said Hilda, who partly from her love to her friend and dread of her incurring censure, and in part, from her inherent spirit of management, which, train it as she would, still floated on the surface of her character, though the principle upon which it rested, had had its roots dislodged, kept an eye upon her friend's doings.

"After a fashion; though tum-ti-tum, diddle-de-dee, don't, you well know, belong to me, so I give it but little welcome, seeing that I shall drive it from my soul's door as soon as I can. I make my courtesy to it, and do it the honors to please Miss Ingemann, but such a little shallow, chattering blonde and I have not much in common. Come, Miss, perch on my little finger, and

So we will go
To the realms below,
Where is sound without sense
To be bought for pence;
and she balanced her music sheet on its tip, and thus walked out of the room,

(Hilda alone.)

"The funny, mournful, foolish, wise little thing; yes, thing! for I really do not know what else to call my precious, provoking, fascinating, fantastic, but dear, dear friend. I wonder what fairy left such a little elfish, yet cherub changeling in this naughty, prosy world. She is so different from us all in her way, speech, looks and everything. Sometimes she is so weird, that I am afraid of her; and then again, no angel from the skies could look or talk more beautifully. One would think, to hear her speak of Jesus, that she had lived when he did, and he had been her schoolmate as I am, and that walking to and fro, they had led each other by the hand, and spoken in the most serious, but familiar way of their love for God and their fellow-men, and of the great and good deeds they would do for them. And then again, she so revolts against her life here and her lessons and work—not in word ever to Miss Ingemann, but by her listlessness and indifference that I am out of patience and in fear for her. For our teacher dislikes her, that is evident; and Zoë knows it, and that makes her more and more like a stone, when in her presence. Miss Ingemann never sees her as I do, sometimes full of fire and fancy, sometimes, O, so tender and loving to me, and then again, so mournful and sad, and next hour so angelic and devout, that I look upwards to see if Heaven is not opening to receive her. And yet, I well know, that she tells me but very few of her feelings of any kind, for I am so unlike her, I could not understand them, but I know her better than any one, for I sometimes catch sentences of her soliloquies, and they make me wonder and tremble for her too. What more can I do for her than I do? I try to explain, and explain matters between her and our teacher, but it is of no use. Miss Ingemann will persist in seeing only her surface-mind and character, which do not suit her. And Zoë is under a spell, I verily believe, for I can think of nothing but a dead wall when she is in her presence, which, of course, is rather an incumbrance in a house full of bright, lively people. O me! I could be so happy, if the world did not go so badly with poor Zoë! My heart is as light as a feather, when I have not her lying upon it with her griefs and wrongs. Why can't people be happy, I wonder? I see no reason for discontent.

"Trall la la la, la la, la la,
Merrily dance we O:
Cast care to the winds,
For sighing and sins
Come not to my world, no, no:
Trail la la la, la la, la la la," etc.

And she waltzed out of the room.

Zoë practised her quadrille in the presence of her master, a common-place mind, who played with great execution the music of the reputed masters of song, whose deeper spirit was nevertheless beyond his ken. He was constantly dissatisfied that his pupil did not finger her piano with more agility and force, but could appreciate but very feebly the occasional bursts of melody which in the simplest manner would gush from her at times, when the clouds would momentarily roll away from her spirit, revealing the glory behind. Still less was he pleased when, with disgust in her soul at the present hour, which encircled her in its folds of servile propriety, with glimpses of a future far in the distance, dazzling to her vision by its splendor and beatification, but shaded for the most part to her prophetic eye by she knew not what big mountains of difficulty, tipped with sunlight, or valleys thousands of feet deep, into which, however, the glory of heaven shone, except into one dark mass of vapor inscrutable to her gaze, she gave vent to all that was in her in language and tone appropriate to her feelings much more than to poetic rules. She was sure never to do this when he was by, but this day he lingered in the hall for some trifling purpose, and heard her outpourings:

"Good-by t'ye, master! Are ye?
Yea, of my finger-tips alone,
Nay not of those, for here I wash ye,
My digits, and here is all your own.

(She dips her hands into a glass of water, and then pours it with force out of the window towards his usual path of egress.)

"Avaunt, ye vulgar, shallow skeptic,
Ye blind-eyed, deaf and dumb pretender,
Ye haughty, surface, weakling critic,
I'm weary, weary of your power!

"My soul's a sheet of paper, is it?
Made of old shreds and paltry tatters,
Ground in a mill of man's invention,
Soaked of its individual colors;

"Battered and squeezed, and shaped and rolled,
Cut into a fair, square, proper sheet,
Ye deem it now all fit for use,
To stain with silly, ugly traces!

(She rubs her hand rapidly across her forehead.)

"But ye mistake me, teacher mine!
Thus I efface your weak impressions,
My surface brain alone is touched,
My heart eschews your vain instructions."

(She sits in reverie a few moments, and then adds:)

"Would ye know who my Master is! pure as the morning,
Brilliant as the day-star, and tender as the gloaming,
True as is the Word of God, wise without measurement,
Holy as the angels are! with Him I made a sacrament;

"Ere my soul to this earth from yon heaven descended,
When walking with Him in its fields of perennial green,
With the sunlit sky o'erhead all bright with gold and azure,
And its glory slightly vailed by clouds of silvery sheen;

"He told in simple words the pure truth of his commandments,
Unvailed of all invention, false glare and grim denouncings,
Their true spirit he revealed to me beneath all wordy seemings,
And set my heart on fire with the love of their perfection.

"I saw him face to face, their glorious embodiment.
Perfect love and truth and beauty all radiant in him shone,
As I gazed entranced and wondering, half fearful and amazed
He smiled upon me then, and laid his hand upon my head.

"I remember no words, for my being was in its infancy,
But his smile is in my heart as it fell upon me then;
His hand upon my head has shaped my brow to reverence.
His voice within my soul has never ceased to echo.

"O, glorious elder brother! for such you seem to me,
Impatient and doubting I turn my heart to thee;
Intercede before our Father, whose beloved Son thou art,
That He may aid me to know and do faithfully my part.

"In this life, so cold and dreary, where heaven's light but dimly shines,
Heaven's love that comes through men is so little of it mine;
O, when will the day come so longed for by me,
When with my dearest mother sitting under the tamarind tree,

"We can talk of thy perfection? a ray to us from God,
All love and mercy art thou, without the cruel rod.
We will pray to Him through thee, He will listen to our cries,
And on the wings of faith and hope to Him we'll ever rise."

(She sits again in a reverie, then her feelings changing, she bursts out:)

"If I were lively I would play something better than that tinkling thing, thus:

"What a funny world is this,
Right or wrong, hit or miss,
Sad or lively, silly or wise,
The little dark-girl sits outside!

"What is the reason, I'd like to know,
Study or sing, frolic or sew,
Please myself or try to please my guide,
The little dark-girl is always wrong-side?

"White people are mighty knowing,
Awfully smart, and dreadfully boasting,
Strong as Thor, proud as Loken,
Of course the dark-girl stays underside.

"May-be the time will come, when folks feel,
When they SEE, and when they kneel
To thank the great Father for curing their pride,
THEN the little dark-girl will sit upside."

(Pausing a moment, she bursts into tears and moans out.)

"But I care not for that, my heart wails, O no!
For this is no balm to relieve my woe!
Mamma, my mamma! stretch the arms of your soul,
And within them your lone little daughter enfold;
For she wanders in spirit all o'er the wide earth,
Sick at heart for her studies, disgusted with mirth,
And longing, and thirsting, like flowers for the dew,
To know what our Father would have her to do.
O pray for her, mother! as you look o'er the blue sea,
And the waters a blessing may waft over to me."

While thus reveling in her own fancies, making the piano obedient to the impulses which prompted her enthusiastic soul, outraged, as she felt it to be, in its forced expression no less than its stinted aspirations; at one moment making it speak in grinding, explosive, and indignant tones, then joining her voice to it in strains full, rich, and harmonious, while she gave vent to her religious yearnings, followed by a song, the accompaniment to which was full of sparkling, even rollicking humor, and that by another still of most mournful and thrilling melody, Miss Ingemann entered the room. She had just listened to the piqued music-master's complaint of her reference to himself, which he partly heard, and while nearing the door the outburst of fun and frolic fell upon her ear; but called away for a moment, she lost the pathos which ended her outpourings, which might, perhaps, have touched her. She was dignified and indignant.

"Miss Zoë," she said, "you hinder your progress very much by indulging in such outbursts. I hope you will not again. I regret to hear from your teacher that you seem to have come to a pause in the acquisition of this delightful and most ladylike accomplishment. I advise you to put a check upon your crude, disrespectful (and here she erected her head while her lip expressed the scorn she felt at what she deemed low taste), and I must say, vulgar fancies, and be more obedient in spirit as well as letter to the dictation of your teachers."

Zoë was hushed, both soul and body, by this cold and unsympathizing reproof.

"Yes," she said, as the lady went out and closed the door, "it is all true. I am to-be-sure very stupid not to find more than I do in these great performances, and very lazy, I suppose, ever to miss a note in my lesson. It is strange when Miss Ingemann, who is so high-toned and learned, and who is incapable of pretense, goes into ecstasies when she hears Beethoven and Wagner and Hayden and Mozart, that I cannot. It is because I do not appreciate them of course, and besides I am very discontented and wicked. Not but what they move me. O yes! yes indeed, they are pure and high, intellectual and aspiring, and I bless them for many an hour of forgetfulness of myself and for carrying me up to the stars' clear light, to the Great Spirit above, and into the world of nature all around me, (spreading her hands and raising her eyes in ecstasy. She pauses and leans her forehead on both hands, then raises it with an altered expression). But you can't cheat this dark child anyway, though I am like the ace of spades, somewhat faded out. It is all good enough for white people, but why won't they allow that I can be different and crave something which I have never heard. (She rises). Was I not born in the burning tropics, where the sun shines all the year with fervor as well as light, and down deep in my soul there is a thirst which no water of earth has yet slaked, and in my brain is a flame which perpetually burns, writhing like a serpent after the stream that would quench it; and in my heart, O my poor heart! a loud cry rending me for the love that would lull it to sleep as the mother hushes her infant upon her breast, and through my whole being is the perpetual hungering and agonizing after God! God! Who? what am I, and what wouldst thou have me to do? O! show me the way of thy appointing!

"But I must go. Let me breathe the air of the outer-world, and would that it were not impregnated with the dust and smoke which somehow seem to envelop my friends when they would do me the most good! Heigh-ho! This is the world and the other is the country, as Hilda says when she is particularly serious, and I believe it; but I have a feeling that I never shall go there; for if I am as faulty as Miss Ingemann thinks me, I don't deserve to, and somehow I shrink from ever being in that part where such stiff, dignified, cold people as she and some of her friends are. I am afraid of them here and I must be more so when my soul is laid bare and they see what a discontented, fretful creature I am. I don't feel half so afraid of our Father as I am of them, but he says if we don't love our brother, which means everybody, we don't love Him; so I don't know about the future; I am puzzled and very anxious—O, dear! I'll try and not think about it."

Thus unhappy and dissatisfied with herself and her outward relations, she rushed eagerly within, where in her dream-world there was no self-contention or reproach from others. The ruling qualities of her mind, being misunderstood and thus left without guidance by those older and more judicious than herself, ran to waste, and overleaping their just boundaries, and rioting unlicensed, weakened and injured her other powers and hindered their healthy and happy action. Such mistakes in education, will continually occur, until human nature is seen and felt to be the great and sacred thing it is; and while on the one hand, all human means and appliances are brought to bear upon its development; on the other, a large margin of freedom is left that it may work naturally and easily in its Heaven-appointed sphere, directed and guided by the subtle influences of his spirit no less than by his written Scripture and his indicated will, as daily seen and heard in the events and experiences of life, in the suggestions of our friends, both the older and the younger, the history of the past and the present, as well as in the changing phenomena of nature, every one of which is a sign proceeding directly from the Infinite mind.

————

CHAPTER XII.

BENEDICK. "What, my dear lady Disdain, are you yet living?"

SHAKSPEARE.

ONE bright morning, Mrs. Körner walked into the study of Mr. Liebenhoff, her brother-in-law, the Lutheran minister, where she found him preparing his next Sunday's sermon. Her sister, also, with portfolio in hand, was scribbling at a rapid rate, while several sheets of copy were piled up before her.

"What a long letter you are writing, Lisbet! Who is to be favored with such an elaborate epistle?"

"No less a personage than the public, Lina, if it will receive it. I have been intending to tell you that I was turning authoress, but really secrets are such troublesome things to keep, that I did not like to burden you with mine."

"Why have any great privacy about it?" said Mr. Liebenhoff. "I'm tired of secrets; there is sure to be falsehood growing out of them. They are confided to two or three or more, intimate friends, and from them they are sure to spread, and then comes the questioning and cross-questioning inflicted upon such simple-minded individuals as I am for instance, by one and another of your sex, and it is more than I can stand under; and I am determined to have nothing to do with them any more. My dear, do be frank, and put your own name to your book."

The two ladies looked at each other and smiled, for they were reminded of some precious little confidences of their own, which they had shared with him, under promises of his everlasting silence, but failing to make him feel their importance and awful magnitude as viewed by themselves, he had repeatedly shocked and discomfited them, by bringing them into conversation at exactly the most unpropitious time, as mere matters of course. They were never able to convince him that these denouements were of the least consequence, excepting as it hurt and sometimes offended them, but as he was very sensitive to their reproofs, he had got to have a nervous dread of anything which squinted in the least towards secrecy; therefore his remark.

"Perhaps I shall; I have not quite made up my mind upon the subject, but at least, until I have nearly completed it, I prefer that my friends should not know it, for quietness is so necessary to the free and propitious working of my mind, that I do not wish it broken in upon by the curiosity or observations of any one."

"I am very glad you are writing and I doubt not that you will be successful. What is the title of your Tale, for that I suppose it is?" said her sister.

"Yes, and I shall call it 'The Way.' It is to deal with an interesting question of the day, the subject of tyranny; and as you know it is a law of my nature and development to view everything in the light of Religion, it will take its principal tone from that. To the young at least, I hope it will be acceptable, and I shall try to make it as entertaining to them as I can. You shall see extracts from it when you are at leisure, if you would like to."

"Thank you, very gladly; but this morning I have run in for a moment, to invite you both to tea. Mrs. Pendleton, the newly-arrived American minister's wife, with her two young lady friends, Miss Hale and Miss Ingalls, are going to be with us, and I want you to come and talk English with them. They know nothing of Danish or German, and only have an imperfect smattering of French.

What is the reason I wonder, that they come so poorly furnished with the necessary requisition to a comfortable life among us? It is well that you, thanks to your facility in acquiring languages, and that I through my intimacy with Mrs. Stephenson, and my acquaintance with Mr. Phillips, can communicate with them in their mother tongue, as it is all in all to them. Will you come?"

"Certainly, we shall be most happy to do so; shall we not, dear?" turning to her husband.

"O yes, thank you, Lina. Who else is going to be with you?" said he.

"O, Miss Dahl and Miss Holberg, and the usual set you know, and Miss Ingemann, I suppose, though I must say that I am rather out of conceit with her, for I really think she treats poor Zoë Carlan very shabbily, who is a great favorite of mine. I can see that her own character is deteriorating in consequence of her prejudice against her. She is not so successful in her education as with her other pupils, so she dislikes her. I used to think her a model of a high-toned lady, but I have seen her unjust and unladylike in spirit, and even in manner towards the poor child, which has lowered her in my opinion very much."

"I must know Zoë better. I feel more and more interested in her every time I meet her. She has been so retiring, and I have so many demands upon my time, that I have neglected to get into familiar relations with her; but I see she does not look happy. I will send for her to-morrow, and try and win her affections and confidence," said Mrs. Liebenhoff.

"Do, dear," said her husband, "I know she will suit you. She has great delicacy of organization it seems to me, and needs some kind, strong friend to lean upon. She keeps aloof from me very much, and I know her better through Hilda, than in any other way. She is her oracle, and has I think, a favorable effect upon my Undine. I hope she will breathe a more quiet, reflective soul into that wild water-sprite. Do you think, I was walking in the glen yesterday, and I heard a tinkling laugh, and who should have waded into the middle of the brook but she; and there she was dashing water all over herself, without the slightest regard to drenching her garments, and when she saw me, instead of running to hide herself and her dripping habiliments, she filled the shell which she held in her hand with water, and threw it towards me. She is as innocent as a child of five years old, instead of being a young lady past seventeen, but she certainly needs a good deal of taming."

"She is Miss Ingemann's pet, and presumes more upon her indulgence than any of the other pupils," said Mrs. Körner; "and she is a most enticing creature, I don't wonder she is fond of her."

"She will make smashing work among the beaux, when she comes out into life, but really she ought to have more check put upon her manners," said Mr. Liebenhoff.

The evening came, and with it Mrs. Körner's guests, Mr. and Mrs. Pendleton, Miss Ingalls, and Miss Hale, all fair specimens of American citizens, who dwell in, and hold a prominent position in New England villages of the highest class.

Mrs. Liebenhoff was the first comer.

"Lina, what sort of people are these Americans? Are they Goths and Vandals, dressed up in magnified French style, without the tact which would tell them when and where not to load on their finery; with great pretensions and many vulgar short comings, or—"

"O no, not so, I will assure you. You will like them because you are accustomed to mingle with all sorts of people, and appreciate nature and spirit. Besides, they have real cultivation. Perhaps they are not as classic and mellow, if I may use the word, as those born and bred in an old country, where every baby that comes into the world has impressed upon its soul enough of the history of its past, to save it from the sharp angles, which inevitably stick out more or less from the characters and minds of the inhabitants of a new land, where the first thing the wee things have to do when they can walk and look about them, is to fell a forest, build a log hut, settle its religious forms, laws, literature and art. What can you expect but that they should be prematurely shrewd and knowing, and forceful, and lack a little some of the graces of life? You will enjoy them, for you resemble them. Somehow you have found out the secret of being mighty universal in your sympathies, Lisbet. I have been ready to think at times that you lagged behind in your private ones, but only let the time of need come, and I find that your heart is in the right place."

The guests entered and were soon made to feel at home, by Mrs. Körner's cordial, bright manner and abounding hospitality.

"Have you got settled at housekeeping, Mrs. Pendleton?" said she.

"Yes, pretty well. Of course I have not gathered about me all the comforts of my own home. That I should not expect so soon."

"No, my friend, and don't look at all for that consummation," said Theresa Ingalls. "Cooks like Sally and waiters like Richard, ready to run to the ends of the earth for you five times a day, and concoct all imaginable delicacies at your artistic suggestion, do not grow on every bush, much less here in this Lilliput," said she aside to her friend, as Mrs. Körner ran to lift up her youngest who had fallen upon his face.

"Don't, Theresa, get into hot water with these Danes the first thing, by your criticisms. Do smooth over matters a little, and what you can't, with truth, why, let it go and say nothing," said Jenny Hale, laughing a little, but at the same time looking somewhat anxious for the next remark Theresa would make.

"Why, what now! Is that so very awful! Well, (drawing down her mouth) will that do?"

Mr. Pendleton and Mr. Körner entered. Mrs. Liebenhoff drew her chair near the former—a thoughtful looking man, quite a contrast in person to his brilliant wife, rather absent in manner, but when roused from his own thoughts, his face lighted up with sympathy and interest, and he bore in a very quiet but just and sensible way his part in the conversation.

"I have been reading Emerson's Essays to-day," said she; "do you know your distinguished countryman?"

"Not much, personally; but we all know of him of course. He has lectured for us and we always like to hear him."

"He has much insight into life, I think; is a true interpreter of nature from his point of view, and is a pure, high-toned moralist. You have great reason to be congratulated for the possession of such a mind in your new country."

"Yes; I don't understand all he writes, but I think he is more practical as he grows older, or at any rate his mind adapts itself to the wants of the times very well. When we incline to run too much into the vein of a material philosophy, he is what we call transcendental; he sits apart and utters his oracles which seem nonsense to some, and infidelity to others, and the distilled truth of the gods to the initiated. When we grow corrupt in our councils and high moral truths need to be sounded abroad, then he is found at his post, and no one is listened to by the more advanced portion of our people with greater interest than himself. I sometimes think he may be a specimen, or rather an indication of a higher order of beings, which may in future exist among us, but I don't know."

"The fault which I find with him is," said she, "that from being so much imbued with classic lore, he is Grecian in the working of his intellect, and the expression of his feelings, more than Hebrew or rather Christian, which is synonymous with universal. Taking that point of departure more than the New Testament, or at least keeping it in sight too much, not seeing with sufficient clearness that the principles of all literature, science, art, and life culminated in Jesus, that he is the central sun from which is to radiate light, heat and inspiration by which the past is to be truly and satisfactorily read, the present interpreted and guided, and the future gazed into with clearness of vision and brightness of hope, he loses the proper perspective of truth and speaks of the Vedas, Zoroaster, Confucius, and Socrates too much as if they were on a level with our glorified Master and his concentrated, complete, and unadulterated truth."

"Yes, I think so. He is in a condition of reaction from Calvinistic superstition, which, perhaps you do not know, stalks about in its grimmest and most unnatural guise in my country, and one of its saddest effects is the warping of our most free and truth-loving minds too far in the direction of a cold rationalism. But Emerson is essentially Christian after all. The Puritan parson was born in him, and he can't help looking like one, and his mind is so fair and his judgment so calm that if a higher truth were presented to him with clearness and simplicity, he would accept it gladly."

"Yes, and I would have him utter with manly, fervent, inspiring tones his convictions of the sublime verities of the Christian faith, and his eternal obligation to its inspired Revealer; for it is by going back to first principles, by ever renewing our first love, by confessing from time to time our first faith in our Adorable Leader by word, act, symbol, and ceremony as well as life, that we keep him in sight in our way through the world, or can hope to be united to him in our triumphal march through the eternal ages."

Mrs. Liebenhoff and Mr. Pendleton were sitting aside during this conversation, and as it paused they heard Mrs.

Körner say, "Well, it is of no use waiting longer for the gentlemen, I will have tea brought in. Young ladies, I was mindful in giving my invitation to you of your proper accompaniments, but they are delinquent, you perceive, which I am sorry to say is not unfrequently the case in these faltering times. Our knights are getting to be rather unreliable in social life; the claims of business, and if the truth must be told, the coarser pleasures which exclude us, are so peremptory."

"It is what we are used to," said Theresa, "in New England. In the first place, our beaux are not to be depended upon very much; and in the second place, there are next to none left to us poor widowed maidens, for they emigrate to California or the western States, as soon as we begin to have some hopes of them, and the few that remain wrap themselves up in selfish old bachelorhood, which is more hopeless, you know, than all the rest."

"I am surprised," said Mrs. Liebenhoff; "I supposed that young people in pairs, twin souls, as the cant of the day is, designated for each other by heaven from birth, were the natural products of your virgin soil, and that you were free from the wicked, unnatural conventionalisms which divide such or haply prevent their coming together at all in our country."

"You are greatly mistaken, madam, if you think we are thus unsophisticated," said Miss Hale; "we are getting to be apt imitators of Europeans in this regard. Our young gents and ladies, too, are very old in the ways of the world, I can assure you."

"Should you like a rapid sketch of our young American gentleman of the present day?" said Theresa.

"Nothing better," said Mrs. Körner; "pray give us one."

"Well, in the first place, we have a few who correspond to the heroes of which we read in romance, the Knights

Templars, Crusaders, 'les preux chevaliers' of past times, high-toned, enthusiastic, religious, who go to work in a very sensible, earnest way to do their duty in every respect, and some of my friends are lucky enough to have drawn such into their nets; but they are rare specimens, and (sighing) this individual, for one, has but little hope left of such success, lay as many snares as she will. Running into this class and still unlike it—one hardly knows where the one ends and the other begins, and yet there is a great difference—are the Worthies."

"The what?" said Mrs. Liebenhoff.

"The provokingly worthy class, who are more trying than any other; for you cannot help it, and they really deserve scolding at, and yet they are just good enough to give one compunctious visitings for saying a word against them. They rise early in the morning, say their prayers, I have not the least doubt, eat a temperate breakfast, go to their business like clock-work, never make a mistake in life or manners, can be trusted with untold treasures in any shape or form, are very agreeable, gentlemanly, intelligent companions when they vouchsafe their presence in our midst, but dear me! any machines could be made to do as much, you know. What they want is life, moral enthusiasm, and what is to our purpose especially—devotion to us. You understand?"

"That is what I complain of in some of my gentlemen friends," said Mrs. Körner.

"Do they take young ladies to ride and skulk out of town through the back streets, lest they should be suspected of some tender designs upon them before they are sure of success?" said Jenny, "and hover round them, weighing every look and word to see if it will do to risk an offer; and when impatient at such timidity, and disgusted at such want of valor, our faces express the feeling that cannot but be roused—'well, if you are so cool and calculating as all that, a fig for such love. I can live without you,' why, forsooth, they scramble away like frightened sheep, and we see them no more; but go on, Theresa."

"In the third place, there are 'the young elect, who have got beyond ritual,' who are too far advanced to value the Bible much, too enlightened for the church, (having supped that orange, as one of their number profanely said,) but cry aloud and spare not in literary clubs, anti-slavery, odd-fellow, free discussion and temperance societies, are the special champions and abettors of the emancipated ladies; and in short, thrust a finger into every reform pie that the public concoct. Are you tired?"

"O no, go on," said two or three voices.

"The fourth class are what I call the Kilkenny cats, an animal which eats itself up you know, all but a slender extremity. These are the refined, introverted sort, devoured by their own selfish sentiments, who might, if they were not foolish and criminal too—excuse me, ladies—gild our hard-working life with a beautiful radiance. But no, Narcissus-like, they fall in love with themselves, and their conversation is interlarded accordingly with every egotistical letter of the alphabet. These worship in the woods, poetize in a weakly way, have interesting fits of absent-mindedness, affect a few high-strung authors and fewer friends, paint pictures sans soul, sans life, sans fitness for anything but a chimney board, are musical in a slender, hypercritical style, fall in love in a dilettante way, with some different fair one every summer's vacation, and, in short, with talents and acquirements which they use just enough to make you regret that they have any to cover thus with a bushel, are nobody, nowhere, and nothing at all. O! deliver me from such hangers-on upon the skirts of our modern society, who will sit by with microscope in hand, while the faithful are wearing themselves out with labor and undue responsibility, making their infinitesimal and impertinent criticisms upon results the fruit of almost superhuman efforts, sighing and tears, crucifiers of their Lord in kid gloves and patent leather boots; first, by denying him practically, by their paltry lives; secondly, by depreciating his greatness and perfect excellence in their crude speculations; thirdly, by lazily feasting upon the bounties of Providence, without working with their might for the coming of his glorified kingdom; and fourthly, by standing aloof from, if not throwing a heavy additional weight upon the shoulders of his ministers, who would welcome even the lifting of their little finger to cheer on the building up anew of his church on the earth! Verily, the times are out of joint, when such are the caressed, admired and gazed-up to as the geniuses and seers of this nineteenth century. Again, I say, deliver me from their deadening companionship."

"Bravo!" said Mrs. Liebenhoff; "are there any more specimens? Give them to us, please."

"Yes, there is young America par excellence, Sam, as we call him now-a-days, often rude, extravagant, ostentatious, impulsive, but generous, bold, energetic, chivalrous, romantic, very faulty, sometimes very wicked, but with great capabilities. I intend to marry one of these, if I can't get one of the very best of the first class, and indeed, I think I prefer them any way, they are so spontaneous. But dear me, as I have not been brought up in the woods, and don't intend to build my hut there and abide, what a wearisome working and smoothing over of, and taming of his greenness and bearishness—and what is worse often, of his heathenism there must be before he is presentable in civilized life! O, pity us poor damsels, ye matrons, who have anchored in the haven of happy wifehood! I really wish I was married, so as to have the state, condition, or whatever you please to call it, together with mankind generally, and each one in particular, entirely off my mind. I am sick of the whole genus."

Here she was interrupted by a laugh from Mr. Körner.

"A most effectual way of getting rid of them, surely. I will try and assist you in this laudable attempt to ignore our sex. You must be married certainly, confound the beaux! What do they mean by letting you come off over the waters without securing you; I am ashamed of them. Well, we have some here that I will introduce you to."

"My dear sir, I hope you will not think that I left only dry eyes and composed hearts, when I withdrew the light of my countenance from my country. I would not tell tales for the world, but, ahe-m—There comes Mrs. Pendleton to the rescue of the young men. I saw her looking over here, while I was talking with Mrs. Liebenhoff, and I knew that she was getting ready for an onslaught upon me."

At that moment Miss Ingemann and other ladies entered the room, and after the introduction, Mrs. Pendleton crossed over to where Theresa was sitting.

"Now, ladies, I beg you not to believe everything which this satirical young friend of mine has said about our American gentlemen. I know a great many of them well."

"Excuse me for interrupting you," said Miss Hale, "but Mrs. Pendleton is not a disinterested umpire between us, for, as you perceive, she is so fascinating as to withdraw the attentions which should be rightly ours (being in most need of them) to herself. She has nothing to complain of, while we are set aside just enough to make us cool and impartial judges. I would not insinuate any conscious treachery, but she and her house and garden have such a hospitable, taking way with them as quite to eclipse any humble pretensions of our own."

"Now is not that ungrateful," said Mrs. Pendleton, "when my aims and efforts in placing myself, my house, and last, but by no means least, my studious husband and quiet-loving daughter at your disposal so much, is just to advance your interests and happiness. Shame on you!

And now I will tell the whole truth as a proper retribution for such thanklessness."

"May I be resigned," said Theresa, casting up her eyes, "for I know well that there is no mercy to be expected from you, when your war-horse snuffs the battle from afar."

"Now," said Mrs. Pendleton, "for all moral, religious, selfishly sentimental delinquencies, and I own that they have a plenty, I am not going to offer any excuse, for if people have the New Testament, with its faultless precepts and perfect example, that is sufficient; there is no reason that they should be shipwrecked upon these sands. But so far as their want of gallantry and devotion to the sex is concerned, there is some excuse, on account of their short-comings in character and mistakes of education. The fault of the present day, with our best women, is, that the intellect is cultivated unduly at the expense of the health, practical ability, and tenderness, grace and beauty of character. In short, we have sharpened understandings, instead of beautiful, loving souls; acute critics in place of sweet Charities, striving with their soft mantles to cover the deformities they cannot remove; eager, squinting speculatists, instead of the strong-eyed Faiths, who pierce the heavens and become inspired at the visions that dawn on them as they gaze; fierce satirists, and confident denunciators and not the bright, beaming, inspiring Hopes, that ever smile and point upwards, through the thickest gloom and discouragements. Now, you young ladies, must be less like the heathen goddesses, somewhat faded and passé and more like the Celestials of our Master's spiritual dispensation before your age of triumph begins. You must quaff the elixir of life from the well which he opens for every one who desires it, and then you will not be growing old at twenty, complaining that the illusions of life are vanishing, leaving nothing but a void; that the bloom is rubbed off from the peach, and that life is exhausted of its sweetness and exhilaration, but it will never cease to be full, rich and harmonious and will irradiate your whole inward and outward being, and then you will have no lack of adorers."

"Mrs. Pendleton, that is all very fine; but I ask you the plain question, if we are not now too good for any young gentlemen—of our village, for instance? Don't ask us to get any farther in advance of them. They would lose sight of us altogether."

"No, not if you advance in the right way, rising into the ether like Beatrice, but ever casting a gentle, holy, winning glance behind. Her influence drew her lover upward, higher and ever higher, and so should yours. As it is, I grant you excite admiration at a distance; but, dear me! you have so much more the spirit of carping and ridicule than of love and forbearance, and generous appreciation of the inner spirit of humanity, when divested of some of the ornaments of life, that the men are afraid of you, and no wonder! I am, too. I am always on the look out for some prick of your stiletto-intellect, sharpened by everlasting reading and study of modern literature, and German philosophy and mathematics, to the exclusion of nature and your Bible, for the young men do not alone neglect it."

"Well, Jenny, I suppose we must reform them. Have you any spare hair-cloth for vests for us, Mrs. Pendleton, or peas to fill our shoes with? If you have, please leave them at my door to-night when you retire, for I shall commence my humiliation forthwith. That floating, alluring Beatrice quite takes my fancy. I shall practice ascension from this time forward—that is, after a few turns with the hair-cloth and peas," said Theresa.

Miss Ingemann sat by while this conversation was going on in pretty loud, animated tones, as is a common custom with the excitable American women, and thought it was rather free talk, especially for young ladies. Mrs. Pendleton's loud tones, with her occasional resounding laugh, at length quite disgusted her, and when in a very audible whisper the latter lady asked Mrs. Körner, with a little mischief in the expression of her face, if she (Miss Ingemann) was not a countess, it was altogether too much for her dignity to bear with its usual imperturbableness, and her lip wore a very scornful expression.

Afterward, Theresa was speaking with great affection of her mother and of her father's lively interest in life and its events, though advanced in years.

"Why did they not accompany you?" said Mrs. Körner.

"My mother is too precious goods to be toted away here," said she, "and the last time I went to Niagara with my honored papa, he bothered me so by anxiously watching me, while I stood at the end of the cars to look out upon the scenery, that I told him I should leave him at home the next journey I took; so I was as good as my word, you see."

This was altogether too much for Miss Ingemann, who rose to go, excusing herself in a cold, lady-like way to Mrs. Körner for retiring so early, and only bowed very stiffly to the strangers as she left the room.

Theresa saw that her doom was sealed with at least one member of good society in Copenhagen, and turned to Mrs. Liebenhoff. That lady sat very quietly, making her observations. Feeling nervous at first, as Miss Ingemann began to manifest displeasure, she made one or two attempts to mediate between their understandings, but concluded on the whole, it was of no use, so resigned herself to the enjoyment of the scene.

"Have I done or said anything so very shocking?" said Theresa.

"O no, certainly not! I enjoy it and hope for a better acquaintance. I like to see individuality and spirit. I will suggest to you, however, that as you are a stranger, and of course wish to conciliate good-will and the favorable opinion of those whom you are to dwell among for a time, that without losing these, a delicate sympathy and tact will suggest when you encroach too much on our favorite modes of speech and action. But you will acquire that by experience. We can all learn of each other, you know."

"Thank you! You are a woman of good sense, and I hope you will let me come and see you."

"Most certainly," said she; "do so often. The parsonage has open doors for all, and especially for those after my own heart, as I see you are, with some comparatively trifling reservations. I want my husband to know you all."

"Where is Mr. Liebenhoff all this time, Lisbet? I hoped he would come with you."

"O, at the church! the failing, tottering, gasping church! There is another adjourned meeting to-night to talk over whether the old one shall be repaired or a new one built; and he has gone to say a few encouraging words upon the latter plan."

"Do the gentlemen have adjourned meetings in Denmark as well as in America? How provokingly alike people are all over Christendom! I did hope that three thousand miles would transport me to some rarities in character and manners, but it is very much the same old story I see, with the exception of a few unimportant exteriors. O for a little novelty in this humdrum lower sphere!" said Theresa.

"Yes," said Mrs. Liebenhoff, "adjourned meetings, in which people dole over the difficulty of a little self-sacrifice and discourage each other into doing nothing and being less, if possible, in our Lord's kingdom. They seem to be thought the legitimate substitutes for Christian interest, a prompt submission to the requisitions of our glorious faith, and zeal in advancing it among men, so they meet again and again to tell each other how little they will give for his cause, and adjourn to withdraw mayhap their intended pittance, because forsooth another gives less than he ought or than he supposed he would for the same object."

"Yes, that is the way. What is to be done in such a state of things?" said Mrs. Pendleton.

"What each one thinks right, my dear madam," said Mrs. Liebenhoff; "I know what I am going to do."

When all equipped to go home, and while making their prolonged adieux to Mrs. Körner, who the strangers said seemed to them like an old friend, they met Mr. Liebenhoff upon the steps. He exchanged a few words with the company, and then taking his wife's arm within his, walked homewards with her.

————

CHAPTER XIII.

"Is Saul also among the prophets?"

HEBREW PROVERB.

"WHAT sort of a meeting did you have?" said Mrs. Liebenhoff, as they entered their dwelling.

"A pretty discouraging one! Out of a multitude to whom notices were sent, only a handful were present, and the conclusion is, that it is impossible to build."

"I see no reason why; surely it is not for want of means, prosperous and abundantly rich as they are. They have no good excuse, but their backwardness to engage in the work is simply a want of interest in their religious faith, and a low style of character, which is the natural consequence."

"Of course," said he, "but how to rouse them to a higher life is the question? O, if men would not look upon everything which they do for Christianity, which has done so much and would do everything for them if they would receive it in its fullness, in the light of a hard sacrifice, as a charity which they may or may not bestow; but as they make their homes graceful and beautiful for their comfort, the satisfaction of their tastes and the repose of their hearts, so should they with joy and thanksgiving, as if from a glad necessity of their nature lay the foundation stones of their temple of worship, which shall be to them the home of their souls, the altar from which shall arise their purest hopes, desires, and aspirations, and where

Heaven shall pour upon them its richest treasures of forgiveness, consolation and love."

"Yes," said Mrs. Liebenhoff, "but that is a point far beyond them as yet; not but that there are many, many excellent persons in our parish, and I love them for what they are, and still more for what I see lying wrapped up within them unused. But they are as yet in the beggarly elements of a material philosophy and life, quick to discern the coarser characteristics of intellectual power, ready to sympathize with the subordinate wants of the moral and physical man, and that to be sure, is a good deal, showing an awakening mind, and some sense of obligation, but of the higher spiritual functions of the soul, its close communion with the Infinite, its development into a complete, beautiful and harmonious whole, through obedience to the laws of its being, as taught by the Christ, resulting in the glad liberty, strength of will and all-conquering might of its varied powers, they seem as yet not cognizant. And to one, who step by step has toiled up the way to this Pisgah height of contemplation and glad experience as you have, their life seems narrow and groping, and the very air is heavy and dim with the lack of this celestial electricity."

"But how shall I inspire them with this higher life? I am getting discouraged, and really feel that I am not fitted to be their pastor, Lisbet."

"And are you impatient for the world's idol, success?"

"Not vulgar success; but why may I not see that I am doing something, and not week after week, be weighed down with this feeling of responsibility, uncheered by tokens that my prayers, labors and unceasing thought for them are not like water spilled upon the ground!"

"O, thou of little faith! but such feelings come from a constitutional deficiency of what is a large element of my nature, hope, never dying, but ever springing, triumphant Hope, and it whispers to me now, that disjointed, freezing, unfaithful, unsympathizing as a society, the members (each one of whom individually, is a kind, good friend to us,) are, that when the new and inspiring word is spoken to them, they will be all the more ready for their lack of present organization and order to combine into a living body of—not pure, individual Christians merely, but into the true, free, and glorious embodiment through his appointed church, of the universal and heaven-inspired spirit of our Lord."

"You are enthusiastic, my wife!"

"Less so than you are blamably faithless, at this moment. But cheer up; don't think of the ugly, falling ruin of a church. And let the people go to perdition, I say, where they seem to tend so evidently."

"My dear, don't be wicked."

"I am not wicked. I don't wish them there, but if you like it better, I will state the matter as a plain fact. They are already there. Such deadness is perdition; the very dreariest of the mansions of the under-world, in which people grope in darkness, and wander about dead to all the higher and more inspiring attributes of their being, while at the same time, they hug themselves with self-satisfaction for their cool wisdom and acute intellectualism which saves them from the quivering sensibilities, the flights of an imagination which abides not in their harsh, frigid councils, and the awakened hopes which are ever on the wing, soaring higher and higher towards the Infinite Good."

"Yes, and to bring them into this state," said he, "they must do something for themselves; and the first and simplest and most obvious thing is for them to unite to build a church. A common interest in this most worthy and necessary object may be an entering wedge to a higher and better communion between them. But somehow I have not leadership enough to marshal them into working order."

"I am glad you have not, for harsh guardianship, coarse generalship we have had enough of in Christendom. Let us, at this late day, come to the full knowledge of the higher spirit of oar Lord, whose kingdom is one of liberty of action and equal responsibility for all, in proportion to each one's powers, opportunities and means, and that the pastor is but the teacher, inspirer, and guide of his flock, pointing to the living pastures of perennial truth, the sunny paradise of affection and high and pure sympathy; or perchance, the brave, disinterested and faithful shepherd who shall venture into the wilderness after the lost ones and bring them forth redeemed and penitent, for others of the fold to rejoice over with him, and protect and bless them so that they will not desire to wander from it again. Ministers now-a-days seem to feel that the salvation of every soul in their parish depends upon them though there are so many other means of enlightenment and guidance. While it is so, you may be sure the people will drag upon them with their full weight, it is so much easier in idea to be carried into heaven like a babe in one's bosom than to struggle upwards into it, step by step, like a true disciple of Jesus. Unfold your arms then, let them hang downwards their full length that they bear up no such lazy souls, and wear no robe, as friend Geiser would say, to which the unfaithful may cling and thus be smuggled into the courts above; for if they can show no title but such selfish dependence upon their wasting, yet faithful, untiring friend, they will surely be banished thence by their judge and yours."

"Well, I hope all will come right; I feel that if I could be the instrument of rousing them—not a few of the rich and mature in years and experience merely, but each and all, young men and maidens, the poor and the struggling to do this holy work, as an expression of their faith in, and love for God and their Saviour, that I should be satisfied to withdraw and leave them to the councils of one who could better express for them their wants and aspirations."

"Heaven knows who it would be or whether they have any. But yes, they cannot be devoid of them as I know they are real men and women, and not phantoms, most certainly they are too prone to earth for that, and they seem outwardly to possess all the characteristics of human beings. Yes—O yes, certainly they must be human, for, as I before said, they are our dear kind friends in private life; but now I have it, they are under the spell of some wicked genius, who, the moment that the great words—God, Christ, Religion, the Soul, the Bible, are uttered as to a society, are changed into 'spirits of the vasty deep,' whose senses are so deadened by the element in which they are condemned to live that they hear not, and therefore come not up, as a matter of course, when the sweet music of your heavenly piety vibrates upon the air. They need the thunder, and lightning, and earthquake, those coarser ministers of God's dispensation to men to reach them in their low estate. They are the stern law, and let it rule them if they would have it, for not even the refreshing rain which follows the war of the elements, which is like wisdom to men's minds, can they recognize, much, much less the celestial dew, which is his love, distilled in this most gentle and ethereal form. Such is the utterance of Christian truth by you in your most natural and legitimate way, for to this elevation have your faith and obedience lifted you. Had you stopped short in the first, the Xantippe plane, you would be called great; for in this is the world chiefly, and that of course is mighty in its eyes which expresses themselves in a slightly ideal form, but if ever you were in that, it was in the pre-existent state if there was one, but not in this. You have climbed up through the second period, and the benign spirit of Wisdom has become one with you, and men see her not because she stalks not about nor cries in the streets. But hand in hand with Love, the heavenly pair modestly wait upon you and point you ever to 'the well undefiled' of crystal Truth, and you draw from it and dispense to those who are so many fathoms below you, that so few of its drops penetrate to their souls that they are not impressed."

"What a rhapsody! but I shall not dispute you. What husband loves not to be praised and idealized by his wife! You are my parish, my church, my—"

"Thank you for nothing. I'll be neither, I've long been jealous of both, and now you shall set them aside and admire and be at leisure, and make love to me in a more individual manner, and not as a necessary part of this provoking, stupid parish. Do you know that all this heart-ache and these disappointed hopes come from your false, unnatural notion of living for humanity and not for me?"

"My dear Lisbet, what do you mean? Are you turning tempter to warp me from the high duty to which I early dedicated my life? God first, and humanity next, has always been my motto. Then come other claims; the me must have the next share, else how could I accomplish the first, and then my own loved wife, and have I been remiss towards you, dearest?"

"Now you doubtless expect, after my rhapsody as you call it upon you and your preaching, that I shall most dutifully answer, 'O no, my liege lord and anointed husband! I am only too thankful for the droppings from the sanctuary of your divided heart. Shiver it into as many fragments as your swollen sense of responsibility sees fit; I receive the smallest iota of it with the most gentle and satisfied submission.' But no! I say again, I subscribe to no such falsehood of creed or unfaithfulness of life. You are quite in the wrong about this matter. My instincts have always rebelled against my position in your life's category of interests, and now my whole nature is up in arms to contend against it. I have spelled it all out and now I am going to give you a sermon from these words of your brother divine slightly paraphrased; 'God has hid away the human soul in a woman's form that in finding it we may rediscover our alienated and forgotten nature and rejoice over the one that was lost more than the ninety and nine who went not astray.' "

"What do you mean, my love?"

"Only that you are a tyrant and a hypocrite and a—no wonder you stare, my archangel, who, all the women protest, is the most beautiful, the most amiable, the most agreeable, the most saintly, in short the most immaculate of all mankind on this floating globe, and that I am the most fortunate, the most blessed, the most ought-to-be-thankful little woman, who is all but drowned in the ocean of her husband's perfection! Pshaw! did they not serve old Aristides right, whom all fools surnamed 'The Just?' I wish I had been at Athens to throw in my shell of ostracism with that single wise man who had got tired of hearing him perpetually praised. He had doubtless been to his wife and asked her how he was at home, and she had told him some truths about him. Banish him, I say, and that crabbed old Socrates, parading round with his impudent questions and prosy old saws. Xantippe knew how much they were worth, and she scolded him as he deserved. I wish she had boxed his ears when she was about it, hard enough for the tingling to come down the ages through every husband's ears, seeing that most of us are restrained by the idea that it is not ladylike to perform the deed, from doing that same thing. Give him the hemlock, I say—the hard, quizzing, conceited, tyrannical husband, who wickedly married for the very worst reason that he could. O thou, so called god, Esculapius! to whom the weak, mistaken, short-sighted man sacrificed a cock after all his pretended advance before the age, why could ye not have gone to the rescue of that much injured and scandalized Xantippe—wife of his I will not again insult her by calling her—and given her of your skill to mingle with her libation some potion to soften his hard understanding for a true idea of her to penetrate, that through his, thus enlightened mind, there might flow into his heart a pittance at least of the love which was her right, but which his philosophico, coldly moralistico, anything but tenderly spiritualistico nature denied her! O Xantippe! most injured, most to-be compassionated woman! here I erect a statue to perpetuate your wrongs, and thy delinquent husband shall kneel for thy pardon for his injustice and tyranny towards thee, and as thou wert a woman, and in that word dwells the very soul of forgiveness, when thou seest him thus humiliated and repentant, thou wilt raise him even to a higher level than thyself, that then, without injury to thy delicate sense of right and truth, thou mayst revere, as thy nature ever craves to do, him who when humble and tender, and not until then, becomes truly exalted! And so endeth the first head of my sermon; the moral of which is, that as your wife is a part of humanity, and God said when you married her that you should forsake father and mother and cleave unto her, saying nothing about parish and church, as you see; next to your own culture and salvation are you to devote yourself to her happiness and welfare, and in this way only can you twain become truly and emphatically one, and thereby be in harmony with God and his beautiful universe."

"Well, my dear, what am I to do? kneel for forgiveness or—"

"Wait, until I have finished my sermon. Pretty well too, for a minister, to speak in meeting! But I must ask you, however, if that is not well done? Now that is what the people would call great. Why can you not preach so to them? I am sure they deserve it enough."

"I will exchange with you the next Sunday, and you may add a little different collar and wristbands, as we preachers say to an old sermon, and give it to them hot and strong."

"Well then, I must go on to the secondly, and by way of rehearsal, will imagine myself in church. And seeing that I wandered from my subject, ('an uncommon event for a woman;' said Mr. Liebenhoff,) on account of the imperfect education which tyrant man awards to her, thereby condemning her to lamentable scatter-wittedness, I will again return to the forcible text: 'God has hidden away the human soul in a woman's form, etc.' And, my brethren, as she, the least sinful portion of society, through your generous regard for her moral and spiritual welfare, and especially that she might become a meet, obedient and adoring subject of her lord and master, has by means of books, pictures, conversation and the ministration of the word applied especially to her, as also by the laws and institutions of our country been happily reduced to a very submissive condition; I will address my discourse entirely to you, hoping that you will be equally docile in the reception of this great truth, as she has been in listening to the homilies daily afforded her by your disinterested sex."

"You are getting personal, my dear! They will tell you, as they did me, that you will break up the society."

"The same answer is not yet worn out, 'let it break up then, if it is made of so flimsy materials.'

"And, first, I need not dwell upon this basis of all religions, the great and sacred idea of a Supreme, Intelligent and Parental Spirit, except to remind you that as of old it was reiterated again and again, that it dwelt not in idols made of wood and stone, in either the human or animal form, so neither does it any more, when converted into banks, warehouses, or any of the forms into which business is transacted or money made, nor even in any great man, whether Pope, Emperor, Noble, or Genius. Therefore I will pass on to the next clause.

"Secondly, Hidden, etc. A very significant word, my hearers, informing you of what you have not sufficiently considered, that a woman may possess more than what you with your pre-occupied attention and narrow judgment of her duty and destiny had thought possible or necessary, and therefore indicating that she was created for some wider and higher purpose than simply to be the minister to your pleasure or honor, or even comfort and solace under your heavy labors and responsibilities in the great cause of doing good. For, my brethren of the priestly order! of whom I see some among you, did it never occur to you that while you are dispensing the bread of life to multitudes of souls outside of your homes, and being the sympathizers, guides, and chief laborers of society in matters pertaining to their moral and religious welfare, indeed their willing drudges and servants of all work, from the chosen one of expounding to them the Holy Word and leading them onward to the celestial gate, to every imaginable secular errand which they may impose upon you; did it never occur to you, I say, that while spreading your sympathies over creation, and calling upon her likewise to keep even pace with yourself, that her Innermost in the meantime either remained unawakened and sterile, or else became preternaturally excited without being justly responded to by you who have all humanity to cater for? She therefore goes moaning and shrieking through life till her intense and bitter cry for the natural and necessary food of her being has caused even the angels, who dwell in the nearer presence of God, to stand aghast at her cry."

"A pungent discourse! Spare me, I beg," said Mr. Liebenhoff.

"O don't take it to yourself! Pass it to your fellow-hearers as is the usual custom.

"Thirdly; 'The human soul in a woman's form.' My brethren, we feel no disposition to deny you the possession of intellectual strength; that element which is sometimes called talent, that power of fixing the attention upon truth, of holding it up as if it were a crystal before the mind's eye; viewing it on every side deliberately and patiently, until you have drawn from it all its possible deductions.

Nor do I deny you the practical power of subduing to your dominion all the ruder forces of nature and making them subservient to the well-being of man. But to the feminine soul, my hearers, must be awarded par eminence, the possession of genius, that divine inspiration, which enables her at a glance to pierce to the very heart of the truths which, by diligence and hard labor, ye slowly attain unto; and though from time to time, this faculty may show itself in full blaze in your sex, it is because that they are invested in a larger degree than is common with the feminine element. But the woman's soul, when nurtured by holy love, nourished by truth, led and imbosomed by nature, made strong and faithful and tender by obedience to the Christ, and ever bathed and invigorated, and inspired by communion with the Infinite, stands forth with no peer, call me not profane, but I repeat, with no peer, as the most glorious and beautiful representative of God in the world; for through her plastic, docile, and confiding nature, He is able to reveal, if not with more clearness, yet with more graceful and winning beauty, than through the more self-sufficient and unyielding man, his designs in the development of the races. And when, as the mother of infant humanity, she moves among you, mild, tender, and gracious, do justice to your better nature and give her your tenderest veneration; for even the angels clasp their hands and gaze reverently upon her and say: See how, under her loving care, the bud of immortality will bloom sweetly and fairly until it is garnered with us into the paradise of our God!"

"Any more, my dear? for I am sorry to say that I grow sleepy."

"You always do when you don't preach yourself, and some say that you are a little drowsy then, you know; so you must bear with my first imperfect effort. Courage! I have got fully half through, I do believe.

"Fourthly; 'That in finding it we may re-discover our alienated and forgotten nature.' Upon this head it is necessary to say but few words; for it is very evident that man cannot lose sight of the divine in one large portion of creation, and that so important a part as its better half, and blasphemously imagine that he is to appropriate its precious wealth to his trifling or injurious tastes, or at best to his selfish consolation, encouragement, and use, without fearful deterioration and loss. For all God's children rise or remain in limbo, or fall together through the mysterious sympathy which binds them in unity; and when one suffers physically, intellectually, or spiritually, all creation groans and agonizes with it. Therefore, my brethren, listen to this, my asseveration, ponder it and let it sink deep into your hearts, and thenceforward have a radical, perceptible, and most potent influence over your principles, sentiments, characters, institutions and laws, that woman has an individual, independent, and responsible soul, subject only to the God who created it, worthy of the highest, broadest, and most delicate culture which may be brought from every part of the universe, to aid in its perfect and harmonious development. And by means of this essential and heaven-ordered work you will arrive, my poor, ignorant, and purblind brethren, at this very evident and joy-inspiring truth, written upon your own natures it is true, and repeatedly revealed more distinctly all through the six thousand years of the world's existence, but which, lacking the clear glance of her genius, and still more, her obedient will, you are yet in doubt of, or practically, at least, deny altogether that you also are the possessors of the same great gift which I here announce in the loudest tones awarded to me, that man as well as woman has an immortal soul.

"Fifthly; 'And rejoice more over it than over the ninety and nine,' etc. Yes, my brethren, when this glad truth is once and forever established, then will the world begin to stride with long steps in the march of advancement. For see you not its grand significance and tendency, the sublime value it will give to every human being, and the fearful consequences of marring, in any way, either by sin or oppression, or wrong of any kind, this great handiwork of God, and the necessity and privilege of aiding in educating and training this child of the ages, this heir of eternity? In this glad work let the male and female soul enter with joy and thanksgiving; let the feminine part of the Gospel be henceforward acknowledged, and great will be their mutual reward."

"Pretty good for a first attempt! You will improve if you practice."

"O! I have a great deal more to say upon the same theme, but the people would vote me a visionary and fanatic at once, so I spare myself and them. Here endeth the first lesson!"

————

CHAPTER XIV.

"O friend! my bosom said,
Through thee the sky is arched,
Through thee the rose is red,
All things, through thee, take nobler form,
And look beyond the earth,
And is the mill-round of our fate,
A sun-path in thy worth."—EMERSON.

"MY own Zoë, how neatly you are dressed and how sweetly you look," said Hilda one afternoon, as she entered their apartment just as the former had completed her toilet; "are you going out?"

"Yes, to my dear Mrs. Liebenhoff's; she told me to come and see her whenever I liked to, and that I might run up directly into her room, and if she were gone out I might make myself at home among her books and medallions and pictures until she returned; and I know she meant every word she said, for I can tell

"The true soul very well.
Without book or bell."

"And it makes you happy, don't it, love? Well, I am glad you have found another mate to rest your sad eyes upon once in a while; for mine, I well know, are such dancing, twinkling orbs that yours don't get from them much of the repose they plead for. I shall not be at all jealous of the quiet parsoness. She will be a nice little cushion for you to lean against; but when you want life, enthusiasm, and love of the strong order you will come back to me."

"You don't know Mrs. Liebenhoff, Hilda, for—"

"Bless me! don't fire up in that way for a trifle, for I give you fair warning, my Titania, that be duped as you may, you shall not lead me to believe there is a beauty or a heroine of romance in that ordinary little face and figure. Fall in love with her as much as you please and rhapsodize her high qualities, I see nothing in her but a nice little minister's wife, very quiet under the heavenly influence of my dearly beloved friend, her husband, who is a great deal too handsome and interesting and learned and everything else for her mediocre passivity. (She takes both her hands and lifts Zoë's face towards her own.) I see I have swept you into the indignant mood and objective case, to be governed by none of my analysis of her style, type, sentiment, or covering. But, my precious pet of a brunette with the sweeping, silken eyelashes, and the raven-winged hair, how pretty and fresh she looks!" and she stooped and kissed her forehead.

"Yes, I am trying to save my soul by what seems a prime article of Miss Ingemann's creed—a clean white skirt every other day, faultless gloves, and gossamer hose. It is rather a hard way of climbing up into the third heaven of her affections; I have very little faith that I shall succeed, for so far it is scrambling up two steps to fall plump down twenty, as I did to-day."

"Why how?" said Hilda, looking anxious. "I thought you were getting rapidly into her good graces for the last fortnight. Do tell me what has happened."

"Well, my best Hilda, after your remarks about my dress and habits, I determined to make an effort to be very orderly and proper, and as papa about that time sent me some money, I purchased some necessary articles of apparel so as to be as new all over as that figure in the shop-window up town, who every morning as she turns by clockwork, seems to say with a smirk, 'See how handsome I am, please to copy me and look as stiff and unhuman as I do.' "

"That you intend for me, because my dress stands out so full to-day, but this hair-cloth will yield in time. I don't want to look like a Grecian statue, you know, which is pretty in a book, or in a gallery of the fine arts, but not in life, it has such a draggled appearance."

"I know, I have made no complaint. The greatest inconvenience of it is, that one has to circumnavigate the globe to get around you, which seems a waste of time and steps you know, when one goes for a glass of water or a pocket handkerchief; but that is not to the purpose. To return—

"I could not afford to have so much washing done, so I thought I would do some of it myself before the family rose in the morning, and I asked Annette, the cook, if she would be so kind as to allow me to do so. She is very good you know, and she told me that as I was not strong, that she would do it for me; but I could not consent to that, because she has to work so hard. So I told her we would change, if she pleased; I would make her breakfast cakes and she might be my laundress."

"And those nice muffins, and fritters, and other goodies were yours then? I wondered that Annette's genius should flower all at once in the culinary line, for she is wanting in skill usually. But how did you learn, pray?"

"It requires nothing but common sense, care, patience, and a cookbook to make good cakes, and if one has a delicate sense of taste and smell, it is all in one's favor.

"Affairs went on very smoothly for some time; I had a nice, funny hour with Annette in the kitchen-yard with the fresh morning air blowing upon me, and her to crack jokes with, and to pet me as nobody does, in this cold north world but you, Hilda, and I shone out like the sun in my freshness and cleanliness as you so often tell me now-a-days."

"And have you smoothed down your hair with the sadiron, my roly-poly, or what has come over your ebony locks to quell them to such becoming obedience? They really look like smooth and dutiful Christians, and not like Pagan fury-emblems, darting at one from every point, as they used to do."

"Don't you see this tamarind seed band, which my own devoted, loving, ever-thoughtful mamma, daughter of the sun and southern cross, sister of the trade-winds, and wife of the earthquake of the tropics sent me by the last ship? That is the Delilah which has subdued them to such docility, my friend, nothing else would have had such power."

"Save me from its magical influence," said Hilda, throwing up her hands and starting back with affected terror; "you were such a witch before, that I had thoughts of getting Mr. Liebenhoff to bring his Bible and prayer-book and attempt to lay you. But now, I am afraid you are beyond the power of them all."

"The Bible! that is my wand, my horoscope, my talisman as you ought to know by this time," said Zoë, taking a small copy of a Testament from her pocket and pressing it to her breast, and looking upwards. "Lay me, do you say? it rather carries me to the heaven of heavens, where I ever, ever thirst to be dwelling." And she remained rapt for a moment.

Hilda looked on with a mingled expression of awe, anxiety and fun. The latter prevailing, she touched Zoë's chin with her fan, saying, "Please to descend to the history of batter-cakes and clean hose, for you left them both in limbo, and it is but common justice to release them."

"Well, as I was saying, matters went on very well until yesterday morning, when I discovered by Miss Ingemann's conversation in an adjoining room, that she had learned from Annette all about our bargain. She was not angry, but on the contrary, I caught enough of her conversation, (for I was taking my music lesson, and had to be a listener against my will,) to know that she thought she had found out what I was fit for, and that it was a pity to spoil a good cook by laboring so hard to teach me the studies and accomplishments of a lady, and that she was going to encourage my becoming an adept in the business, by permitting me to spend more than my usual two hours a week in household occupations. Then at dinner, (you were away and did not hear it,) she smiled upon me most graciously, and praised in an undue manner, some tarts which I had made; and the tea-cake last evening, and in short made me feel so all over like a little pastry-cook and nothing else, that I was angry, mortified and overwhelmed with confusion."

"You should not be so sensitive, child! Miss Ingemann meant to be kind to you then, why could you not love her for it instead of feeling so badly about it?"

"It is the last time she will be kind, I think, even in that way," said Zoë; "for this morning as I wished my white Josey to be clean to wear this afternoon, I went into the kitchen again, and while Annette was doing it up, I made a 'Charlotte Russe' for dessert, and thinking over my mortification, I forgot some of the ingredients, and not having my wits about me, I had no skill, and such a mess as I prepared was a sorry sight to behold. Miss Ingemann ordered it away from the dining-room before the family assembled and cast a glance at me, as much as to say, 'You spiteful creature! you did this purposely,' and I verily believe she thinks I did, in revenge for her praising me, for she saw that I was not pleased when she did so."

"O no, darling! she can't be so unreasonable. But do let her praise you, Zoë, even for such things. I like the article so well that I shall never quarrel with it, not even with downright flattery if it is laid on ever so thick. I flourish under it like a green bay tree, you see. To-be-sure, if it were not for my adorable saint, Zoë, to whom I ever kneel and look up to, as my patroness and example, I know I should be spoiled, but with her image ever in my heart to shield me from evil, I gather in the good gifts of this wicked world and make the most of them."

"O Hilda! I wish I were good for anything for your sake, but I am not; and if I ever for a brief hour forget it, such praises and such cutting rebukes, as Miss Ingemann gives me, bring the sad truth back in full force and utterly discourage me. O! what am I fit for in such a world as this, where everybody seems strong and happy and at home but me?" and she leaned her head dejectedly on her hand.

"Come, my willow, let me tie upon your topmost bough this rosebud of a hat, which will brighten up your drooping pensiveness a little. There, puff! (fanning her with force and at the same time blowing upon her), away, flutter into the arms of your paragon friend, the Liebenhoff feminine. You are welcome to her if you leave me my 'Aladdin,' my 'Correggio,' my spiritual 'Frithiof Saga,' 'the Minister of the children of the Holy Supper,' the Liebenhoff masculine. I wonder you do not fall down before him; he really looks so much like the Christ that hangs there before us."

"Hilda!" said Zoë.

"My dear, don't suppose I confound the conception of some, I have no doubt, very human artist with our Saviour himself. It is not wicked to speak so of his work, especially if I do it with a very sorrowful face, is it? my apostle, (drawing down her features). Good-by, I will come at twilight and walk home with you."

"I don't like to hear such trifling reference to anything connected with our Lord; but good-by, I will wait for you."

(Hilda alone.)

"The shadows deepen around her when I had flattered myself they were clearing away a little. What is to be done now? I am tired of being a 'medium' between heaven in the shape of Zoë, and the world in Miss Ingemann and people in general. Our dear Lord must see something more of good in me than I have ever been able to discover, to give this precious little soul so much into my keeping so far as to shield her from utter misery on the world's side, or on the other to prevent her dissolving into the heavenly sphere before her time. But as she grows older she is too much for me in both directions. I am not ready yet to be transfigured and find myself behind the vail at merry seventeen. I want to enjoy myself in a lively, human, coquettish way with flesh-and-blood belles and beaux, so when I find that she is carrying me into too rare an atmosphere for such sinners to follow, I lift up the valve for the gas to escape, and down my balloon falls. Then on the other side, I am so tried by our teacher's prejudices and the girls' mean notions of Zoë, caught from her, that I don't know but my temper will be spoiled, and that would be a pity, seeing I am such an angel. Heigh-ho! I know well that I was made to be as joyous as a butterfly all the day long, and if the wicked world chooses to spoil the handiwork of my Maker, by making me sad and anxious by their treatment of Zoë, why they must take the awful consequences, that is all. But one gleam of light there is in the direction of the minister; for I rely more on his wise and kind friendship than on anything his wife may do. So I desire to be thankful for so much."

When Mrs. Liebenhoff returned from her walk in a distant part of the city, she found Zoë reclining on her couch looking very intently upon the face of a Sybil, which hung on the opposite wall. She presented so perfect a picture of luxurious, dreamy, passionate orientalism, redeemed from its sensuous character by the pure Madonna-like expression which was natural to it, that she paused in the doorway to gaze upon her. Finding that she was utterly absorbed by her own reverie, which might outlast her capacity of standing, fatigued as she was, she advanced and stood over her.

"And can you really find it in your heart to pardon me for walking into your air-castle and shivering it into atoms as I have done! It was a beautiful structure, was it not? And now that it is demolished, how very bare and uninteresting the world and all of us who remain on its site look! Come, my little architect, lay aside all your moonbeam implements, and gossamer frame-work and spider's-web materials generally, and let us have a good, sensible chat together," said she.

"Pardon me for my freedom in lounging thus. I fear I exceed the bounds of your kindness," said Zoë, rising and smoothing the pillow.

Mrs. Liebenhoff tenderly bade her welcome. "O no, no, dear," said she, "the couch is not damaged at all by such indulgence, nor by making it the scone of your subtle masonry; for twenty castles, no heavier than the one you were constructing, would not injure it at all by their pressure; but are you quite sure that your innermost retains its integrity as well after this intoxicating occupation?"

"I don't know—I fear not; but I am ashamed to say that I am good for nothing besides. I am different from every body else, and—and—the fact is, I don't like the world as it is—I never did, and I don't think I ever shall—so I just build and live in one of my own. If I were made like you, my dear madam, and could do everything in its season, and be contented and happy all the time, I should be so glad, for I really do not know what is to become of me in this practical world. You know that I am of Oriental descent, for I have lately discovered that fact, and I have a right to be dreamy."

"Zoë, it is not because I am so unlike, but that I see in you the reflected image, as it were, of my youthful self, that my deepest heart yearns towards you as it does. I seldom speak of my interior life, for it has ever been so hidden with God and his Christ, that it answers not to the call of any feeble or faltering sympathy; but for you, my darling, who are approaching that perilous period, 'the parting of the ways,' which divides childhood from womanhood, I am impelled to reveal to you some of its story, hoping that it may serve as a kindly hint to you."

"O, thank you, dear Mrs. Liebenhoff; how favored I am!"

"I, too, am an Oriental," said she, "in temperament and mental tendency, and formerly I marveled, that with the breath of the Sirocco wind sweeping through my soul, with every pore of my nature thirsting like the banyan tree for the dewy moisture and copious showers of sympathy, affection and intimate companionship, I should be planted in the snowy north, where the pulse beats to an even tenor, and a preponderance of physical life saves from the intensity of existence within. But as I grow older and interpret more clearly that wonderful human nature with which God has invested us, and glance with steadier vision into the life within life, soul within soul, of this great universe of his planning, and my being like that same plant of multitudinous unity from its center spreads out indefinitely and roots itself in the common soil, only to spring up again and again to absorb the all-enlightening sun's rays, and drink in the fertilizing offerings of the clouds, I seem to myself no longer peculiar and solitary, but as one most emphatically with the great company of my sex all over the world. The chief distinction is, that through God and the mysterious ways of his Providence, there has been burned into my soul a deeper impression of its wrongs, a wider knowledge of its character and its wants, and a higher sense of its aspirations, than is awarded to all. And as these would but consume me by their excess, and burst my very being asunder by the cry which they bring up from its depths, did I not utter what is in me, it seems an intimation that I should do so in the ways which seem truest and best to me, though I yield with the deed the most precious privilege of my life. For to the shrinking soul of the true woman, publicity is ever most painful, and nothing can compensate her for making merchandise of her thoughts which have been a highway only between herself and the Infinite, but a purpose which is paramount to a merely selfish advantage and enjoyment, though these may be the greatest and purest of which we are capable."

"And are you going to write a book, dear Mrs. Liebenhoff?"

"Yes, and I cannot but hope that it may be an aid to you, Zoë, in the discipline of your mind, which, in its chief characteristics, seems so much like my own."

"O I know it will; but in the meantime, please tell me more about yourself, just to me, a little simple girl you know, who likes her own secrets kept too well to betray any of yours;" and she nestled close beside her as she said this.

"Now I am not going to begin as the biographers do, 'I was born in such a place,' etc., but shall rather take you for the subject of my story, and I shall point the moral," said she, throwing her arm around her.

"I am so disappointed," said Zoë, "for it can't be entertaining with such a foolish, uninteresting heroine, with no beauty even to recommend her. Please skip the story and give me the moral."

"What an uncommon young woman, to prefer prosy moral to a pretty story! I have great hopes that it will be interesting with such an original subject to deal with. Here it is. 'Far, far away, away from over the great ocean, there once came to this land a little sun-browned Ethiopian, with the touch of the same artist hand upon the waves of her hair, and with teeth, of which, the elephant, kneeling to her mamma before her birth-day, begged her to carve some for the Zoë which soon was to be. For, by that name, which means life, said she, shall my darling be called, for, from the life of our Father in Heaven, its father on earth, my life and the life of the universe, shall she be fitly created. And so one bright morning there was joy in the household, for Zoë had descended from the Heaven on high, and to their eyes the ray of light which was its car, justly provided, still rested above it. O, sweet were the visions of the blessed young mother! O, tender the glance of the dark, thoughtful father! And gentle her dreams of the lisping companion, who should fly o'er the sea-beach with feet like birds' pinions, and gather with her the bright shells of the tropics. But big were the hopes of the strong, manly father, that she should honor his name by her beauty of character, and the lore which could only be gathered afar.

" 'And so one strange morning, when the rain deluged the household, though a star in the East shone brightly above, which the father interpreted to be Zoë, returning in her lovely young womanhood, she set sail for the land of her exile and discipline, which was to give her the glory which was to gladden their souls.

" 'Our Zoë, weird-being, grows apace, with two magnified eyes, one which looks backward and homeward, straining to catch glimpses of the emerald isle of the blue Caribbean, with its perennial life and deep-dyed vegetation, of its quivering sun, love-smitten with its beauty, and wedded for aye, to this Saint of the Cross.

" 'But more eagerly than all, does she pine for the arms of her own loved mamma, to inclose her with tenderness and for the lullaby song of her father at even, to hush her to rest.

" 'The other glance is upward to the heaven of heavens for its light, which but dimly is granted to her impatient expectations and feverish cry.

" 'But Zoë, my darling, drop your eyelids and strain not your orbs to pierce the blue vault for the—'Thus saith your God,' to be written upon it, nor listen for the audible summons to the work of your life, and still your heart-yearnings for the dear ones at home.

" 'But what shall supply to the fancy-fraught mind the food of her being, the aim of her life, and inspiration to labor. Simply the duty which lieth the nearest, and every good word spoken by all who surround you, no less than the Scriptures and prayer to the Highest, for he has made you, my own, with more than two eyes—with a being wondrously varied, and to glorify him by its flower like development is your first obligation.

" 'Yet be not too selfish in acquiring the knowledge which is to open like a key, this beautiful nature, for we are bound to each other by a mystical chain, and to preserve it in its lustre and smoothness, we must ever be brightening it by some fresh object of sympathy, and what can be better than to study and express to each other by deed more than word, the beauty and excellence of the dealings and works of our God?' "

"Thank you for the lesson, and for my birth history which I knew not before. I will write it to mamma in my next letter, it may be new even to her. And now for the moral!"

"O Zoë, if you would only remember and heed it, how glad I should be, but I see in your eye, that your imagination more than your reason and sense of danger are affected by my Tale! Nevertheless, you shall have it, and though you are too much preoccupied by your gaze backwards and forwards and into the realm of fancy into which you have grown, to regard it, yet like the seed sown by the wayside, it may some time spring up and give new life to your being.

"For this is its essential truth, that woman needs strength as well as beauty, and tenderness, and aspiration. For lacking this, she is like the ship in full sail upon the wide and fearful sea without a helm to direct or ballast to steady her motion. Like the eagle soaring to the gates of heaven with an eye that can gaze without blinking upon the centre of Infinity itself, and yet without the sure-guiding foot and the weight acquired by the mingling with the earthy and commonplace, she will turn over and over with absurd gyrations in the atmosphere, causing the groundlings by turns to wonder and adore, only to laugh and deride all the more when, draggled and torn, her wings lie soiled in the dust and her clairvoyant eye is dim in bewilderment or death. And this saving force, this power over the imagination and fancy, those beautiful but perilous pinions of the soul, can be gained only by patient toil, watchful care, and self-crucifixion. Give up the reins to them and you are lost, perhaps for aye. Keep them in check, bring up the conscience, the reason, the power of labor, the sense of awe and love of the Infinite and of humanity into harmonious correspondence, and no eye of earth is strong and clear enough to see into the future glory, even of your terrestrial being, while Vestal and Sybil, prophetess and seeress were but meagre types in the ancient times of the celestial glory of womanhood, thus exalted by the complete action of Christian truth and the self-discipline it enjoins. The genius of her tender, imaginative, sensitive soul requires the sweep of all the choicest of creation to nurture it, and when these come at her bidding through daily exertion in gathering the wealth of the past and present, contemplation and glad conformity to all the higher laws of our Creator, like the flower which blooms into loveliness and fragrance by a higher will than its own, like the coral which builds its worlds by a law superior to itself, though through its obedience it is permitted to bloom in instinctive and conscious life at its summit, so does she go gladly on in the way of his appointment, and Poetry, Painting, Music, and Sculpture, ay, and even Philosophy and the orator's gift become but playthings in her power."

"O glorious!" said Zoë; "how can I be all this? It is the ideal of my life, the more than wildest hope of my brightest day-dream."

"Not simply by dreaming and aspiring, nor even by purifying your nature at the perennial fount of truth, nor even by the prayer of your most saintly hours, but by hard labor, by dutiful performance of every duty which is nearest you, through every season of your life."

"The great Thorwaldsen told me as much when I was a little girl. I have never forgotten it, but it seems as if I were disobeying one law of my nature while obeying another, to do all the duties which Miss Ingemann imposes upon me, so I get puzzled."

"What do you mean, Zoë?" said Mrs. Liebenhoff. "I know that your teacher is of a rather stern nature, but I had always supposed her a woman of high principle."

"O yes, she is most truthful and conscientious. We have grown up under her care with a hatred of everything false and unworthy; but she is very rigid in her decrees towards every one alike. For instance, she thinks mathematics a prime discipline of the mind, and we all have to take such awful doses of it. To Hilda it comes natural to calculate, and she says it has done her giddy head-piece, as the dear girl calls it, a deal of good; but I have no talent for it, my head aches, my heart is discouraged, and I become utterly frantic over my hard problems, and Miss Ingemann I verily believe thinks I am non compos, and I can't but think treats me accordingly. Did you like to study Algebra, ma'am?"

"No, my dear; it would be a sight to see the regiment of artillery, cavalry, and dragoons who could conquer the citadel of my tower of intellect and hang upon its bruised and battered walls, as I am sure they would be, a banner with a problem in Quadratic Equations well solved, for a symbol of victory. No, no, judge my mens by its capacity for algebra, and I am minus altogether."

"That is really encouraging. I wish Miss Ingemann knew it. We should get on much better together if that study was permitted to go by the board, for I am a dreadful trial to her in this respect, and she to me no less, to tell the truth. I dream of her some nights as a guide-board to heaven, with puzzling sums all over her, which I am to work out truly or lose my chance of salvation."

"I will speak to Miss Ingemann," said Mrs. Liebenhoff; "or rather, I will request my sister, Mrs. Körner to do so, who is a favorite with her. I have never got into her good graces, not being prononcée enough for her taste, I believe. A few words of suggestion from her, will perhaps influence her to change your studies a little. She knows that Lina has always loved you."

"Thank you," said Zoë, looking rather doubtful however about the result of this interference.

"Do you like history, Zoë?" continued Mrs. Liebenhoff.

"I like to pick plums out of it, here and there, in the shape of the rare characters of men and women and striking events, but I hate accounts of wars and battles which make so much of the history of the past, and in fact, I think there is a great deal too much said about very stupid, uninteresting, and very wicked people, whom I think our Lord would have put quite in the back-ground in his estimation had he known them," she answered.

"Yes, the chief thing which interests me in history, is what is called its philosophy—the showing as it were, the thread of God's Providence running through all time, with the light of his loving care resting over and working with the affairs of men, ever bringing good out of evil, and causing all changes and revolutions, no less than the more slow and silent weaving of the warp and woof of events together, to tend slowly but surely to the accomplishment of his benevolent and harmonious plan in creation. If a historian aims at this as a chief end of his labor, and especially if he recognizes in Christianity the great moral and spiritual power which is to solve all the difficult problems of humanity, so far as they can be solved in life, and to bring light out of darkness, I am placed in sympathy with him at once; but if he merely piles up masses of facts without recognizing these truths, I may find his book a useful granary to gather needful materials from, but the man interests me but slightly, and I have not full trust in his work."

"Have you any more moral to my story for my edification?" said Zoë, looking up archly at Mrs. Liebenhoff. "Please give me the whole of it."

"I think you need it, for you are not converted yet to my unpalatable doctrine, so I repeat: repress your imagination until your other powers are strong in proportion to the elevation and extent of its flight; for, Zoë, we women need to throw out every anchor that we have, to save us from drifting into the whirlpools that would swallow us, or upon the strands where we should bleach out our lives, like the ghost-flower, and only in dying reflect the faintest rays of the descending sun. For no Gospel is truer than that she may be born in that securest of retreats, a home in middle life in a rural district, under a father's eye apostolic and yet fitted by his sagacity and purity to guide her, with a mother (how can one speak worthily of her transcendent worth?) gentle, pure, and loving—in the highest sense simple, far-sighted, and wise, in the very centre of a circle of brothers and sisters most kind, disinterested, and affectionate, with but few incidents to vary life's serene monotony, making but one pilgrimage into the high world of conventionalism, affluence, and comparative luxury, and that one relieved, ay immortalized to her mind and character forever, by contact with exalted excellence, dignity, high intelligence, and beauty—with a marriage of affection, in which the most generous freedom allowed her is only equaled by the joy with which every fresh development of her powers is received; childless, it is true, but this scarcely regarded as a want by one to whom quiet in the inner life and the opportunity of unoccupied companionship in all his pursuits with the beloved one, is so indispensable; with friends and objects of interest sufficient to employ, enrich, and beautify her life above the common lot; and yet, Zoë, and yet so much greater is the soul than its accidents, so exacting has God made it, in at least the feminine form, that, while it falls short of one good of its own being, and from its out-look sees the majority of its sex, wandering bereft and forlorn, miserable by their exposure and ruined by their fall into sin, shame, and delusion that, Niobe-like, at one time she is turned into stone and anon the shrieks of the Pythoness and the wailings of the prophets express for her all too feebly her sense of her woe, until she sees that, under God, she is to be an instrument of their relief and uprising, when there rushes through her being such a full tide of bliss as is known only to the elected of God. O Zoë, trust not to the uncertain, deceitful imagination, but labor, strive, pray for the strength which is needed even more for the perils of its seasons of joy than of its sorrows."

"And you never dream, madam, though from what you say, I know it is your nature to do so?"

"Listen to my teaching and ask not for my practice, that is your part, dear. It is hard to expect me to do both, and you neither," said she, laughing.

"Ah," said Zoë, "and you are one of the false preachers who cry aloud and point for the people to go up the stony hill-path, while they turn aside into the opposite flowery one. O fie!"

"I will at least say this in justification of myself, my little accuser, that through the whole year I do my best to act up to my own rule, while spreading my life over the thousand objects of care and interest which come within the sphere of a woman's life whose husband lives for the public weal, and I take only now and then a flight into the beloved, fancy-world, though through all its toiling hours and busy scenes come up visions of this same couch at this luxurious time, when our few, fervid days of summer give me a fitting excuse to shut the light out to the point of mystery, and I lounge and revel in dream-land for a brief time, as it is the thirst of my nature to do. And you need not think that I have not my reward; for the little grub which lieth patiently at the base of the earth-pyramid, working out in silence, amid scorn and a sense of degradation, but with patience and trust, the appointment of its Maker, is rewarded at last with its beautiful butterfly being. Slowly and tremblingly she creeps up over one green leaf and orange flower to another, until at last she reaches the summit of the shaft, when gladly she opens her purple and starry wings to the light, and what is so bright and so gladsome as she? For it is with no vain presumption that I say it, that after a childhood weighed down by unnatural mental anxiety and premature care, followed by a stormy and perilous youth, at times nearly shipwrecked among the floods, then scorched by central fires, and anon withered and seared by the sterility of the arid deserts of life, through all of which I strove to be faithful and true, I am now, not rewarded, Heaven forgive me if I ever, for a moment, conceived the idea of such ingratitude, but inconceivably, immeasurably, unmeritedly blessed with childhood, youth, and middle life in one, and through his abundant aid who endowed me, I have the control of every faculty of the nature he has given me."

"There comes Hilda!" said Zoë.

"Good evening, madam," said she, as she entered. "Pardon me if I interrupt you. The servant directed me to your room."

"Welcome to my sanctum; you are already familiar to my husband's, I believe."

"Yes, madam, I have that privilege. Is Mr. Liebenhoff at home?"

"Yes, and here he is; come to give an account of himself, I ween, for disobeying me. I ordered him to be quiet as he is not very well; and here he dares to return to me with the dust upon his feet of every street in the city, to say nothing of what he gathers in the hovels he visits. I shake off mine," said she, stamping as she stood before him, "as a testimony against such undutifulness, and give him a boxing into the bargain."

"That I can at least defend myself against," said he. "But I will try and not be too savage towards the wife, lest I should alarm and disgust these young marriageables with the holy bonds."

"Marriageables! Heaven forbid for these eight or nine years at least," said she. "Spare them as long as possible from miserable servitude like mine. See my chains and be pitiful towards me, ye tender young hearts," said she, catching up a wreath of flowers and holding it up with mock despair in her face, and then, quick as thought, throwing it over her husband's neck and leading him along by it.

The girls laughed, and then said that as twilight was deepening they must return home. After affectionate adieux and repeated invitations to come again, they departed.

"How funny Mrs. Liebenhoff is," said Hilda. "She is so different from what I thought her. O I shall like to visit her. Let's go next week again."

"Yes, we will," said Zoë. "But I like her for other reasons than her fun." And she became silent and thoughtful, and heeded but little the continual chatter of her friend as they walked homewards.

————

CHAPTER XV.

The Jew of whom I spake is old—so old
He seems to have outlived a world's decay.

* * * * * * *

Some say that this is he whom the great prophet,
Jesus, the Son of Joseph, for his mockery
Mocked with the curse of immortality.
Some feign that he is Enoch; others dream
He was pre-Adamite, and has survived
Cycles of generation and of ruin."

SHELLEY.

"WE are to have a pic-nic to-morrow in the woods at Elfdale, my husband; will you accompany us?" said Mrs. Liebenhoff, as they sat together in the window of their library one evening, "we wish to give our American friends a breath of the delicious odor of our pine-woods, and a glimpse of our country life at this halcyon season. You will go, dear, will you not?"

"I cannot, I am sorry to say; I have much to do about this church matter you know; our vacation comes soon, and I wish to have all settled before that time. Go you and enjoy yourself, and my play shall be by-and-by."

"And after that moving discourse of mine, you can find it in your heart to tell me all this without a blush! I see you are just like other sinners of the common clay of the world. You agree that the preaching is all very good, and you mean to repent and be converted—O yes, certainly, nothing else, but not until you have committed the very last sin, which seemeth good to the perverse nature within you. Pray heaven, it may not then be too late to turn from the evil of your ways," and she looked upon his pale face with solicitude.

"What a crooked stick of a husband she has got, has she not? I wonder how she happened to take him to lean upon; does she not repent of her bargain, the little wife?"

"Too little crooked is the difficulty for this naughty world; I thought I had proved that to your satisfaction in my memorable sermon. Why, I do believe you have forgotten it! How discouraging to be a preacher! But, as I was saying, if you walk through life so erect, like a tall white pine tree, you will blow over, or break off, or be torn up by the roots in some unlucky gale or other."

"You are not a willow precisely; your sap has too much exhilarating gas in it for that, for though you may droop once in a while, before I can get across the room to comfort you, ten to one, you have played some trick upon me, and are ready to meet my condolence with a laugh in my face."

"It is all out of sheer compassion, I assure you. You have so many 'live vidders,' as Sam Waller calls them, and forlorn elderly maidens to console, and tempted, endangered young girls to keep out of harm's way, and young men's haram-scarum ways to straighten, and old men's bitternesses to sweeten, and the wounded, bruised, and out-of-sorts generally to heal and set right; to say nothing of being chief purveyor for the community at large in their worldly affairs, that I long ago made up my mind to resign all claim upon you."

"Who brought home that nice market-basket, this morning, full of the delicacies of the season, to say nothing of a pretty bouquet of flowers and a Cape of Good Hope shell into the bargain? How unhappy I am to have such an ungrateful wife!"

"O, of course you must eat something under all these inflictions, else you might fail of strength, and flowers and shells, and pictures, and such things, I am going to live upon in the future; I don't believe in eating, we think too much of creature comforts. Thank you, my dear husband, for everything of beauty you give me, and they are not a few; each leaf, petal, and full-blown flower, and tint of the shell is suggestive to me and nourishes my higher life. And as for pictures, they are my quartos and folios now-a-days."

"I am afraid you will grow willowy upon such ethereal food. Pray put this doubtful nutriment, for the corpus at least, between good, substantial slices of bread and butter, by way of sandwiches, you know; I really cannot spare you yet."

"Well, anything to please you; but don't be alarmed about losing me, I am going to be like the yew tree, that grows and grows until it seems to be past living, and you are on the point of cutting it down as a dead incumbrance, when lo! it makes a crook and out it shoots again all as fresh and new as ever, and thus it does indefinitely. Don't you see some new sprouts in my pericranium now?"

"Yes truly, but that is nothing new. You have been growing younger ever since our marriage. I must tighten the reins and disturb your happiness a little, or I shall have upon my hands 'the child-wife' which Dickens writes about. But it is bed-time, especially if you go into the country to-morrow."

"Yes, tighten the reins, please do; I want more opportunity of curvetting and prancing than you give me. Wouldn't I show my paces?"

The next morning, bright and early, the little lady was up, spreading bread with butter for sandwiches, cutting cake, and collecting from her storehouse the various dainties which northern women make a great point of accumulating for special occasions, if not for daily use. To see the generous provision she was making, one would incline to dissent from her assertion that she was going to eschew creature comforts; and her husband, as he passed her on his way out, hinted as much, adding that the source of the new shoots of the yew tree was no longer a mystery.

"A truce to your insinuations," said she; "Zoë Carlan is my especial charge to-day, and I am going to try to add some pabulum to her physique, or she will go off some day in cloud and vapor. She is the most dreamy little thing ever inclosed by mortality. I thought in my zeal I could make her common-sensible and contented with life in one or two interviews; but no such thing. I believe I have so far had exactly the contrary effect upon her, and that is not the worst of it either, for she carries me back to my foolish youth so completely by her great weird-like eyes, looking over, as they do, into 'Borrooboola-gha' continually, that ten to one, I shall find myself there with her, careering over the desert upon my Arabian steed with Abdallah by my side, telling me of his feats with his forty thieves, and whispering of our evening rest on the oasis by the side of the fountain, under the cocoa-nut palm-tree and—"

"Whist! the little wife, what is she talking about?" said he, stooping towards her and raising her laughing face to his.

"O just giving you a hint that I am a part of your parish that needs looking after a little as well as the rest. Good-by," said she, tying on her bonnet, and taking her basket on her arm. "I told Zoë I would call for her on my way to the public conveyance. If we don't return before midnight you may know that we have dissolved into thin air, and to-morrow morning when you visit your favorite Calacanthus you will find me there before you, in the shape of a heavy dew. Until then, adieu."

Arrived at the carriage-station, they found Mrs. Körner and her children, Miss Dahl and Miss Meldan, friends of hers, the two American young ladies, Miss Holberg and Mrs. Castonio, a favorite friend of Mrs. Liebenhoff, who, with Zoë, Hilda, and herself, including baskets of every shape and size, bursting with refreshments, filled to somewhat more than the point of comfort the well-sized vehicle.

Just as they were leaving the city, Mr. Körner's bright face appeared at the window.

"Here you all are I perceive. Success to you! Good-by, darling," said he to the youngest, who, with outstretched arms, was petitioning for his attention.

"You will come, dear, will you not towards evening?" said his wife.

"If I can; but don't expect me too confidently, I have so much to do. Fare ye well," said he, kissing his hand to them as they drove away.

"Widows indeed, if not widows in name two-thirds and a half of the time!" said Mrs. Körner. "I have got a plan for making a general conflagration of the notaries' offices in the city. Will you each turn out with your torch on the occasion, my friends? The signal shall be: 'Down with business; up with reasonable and religious good works.' "

"You are fortunate if you have no religionists who put a technical meaning to that term," said Jenny Hale, "and cover with opprobrium, as they do in my country, the sect to which I belong, for believing in their importance."

"What do they believe in?" said Miss Dahl, "bad ones? Then their cry would be—Down with Odin; up with Loken?"

"I must do them the justice to say," said Jenny, "that they would not own to that watchword, but that is really the practical effect upon our countrymen. Loken is let loose in every direction, as every morning newspaper shows in black and white, and I attribute his rampancy to the dominant church and self-styled evangelists keeping him before the people so continually in their sermons, putting him too nearly on an equality with 'our Father in heaven,' horrible to say! and especially insisting upon it that we are all his subjects—that we are made so that we must obey him whether or no, unless a miracle is wrought upon us to prevent it—and that our more than probable destiny through eternity is to burn up forever, without consuming, in the bottomless pit. Now, if that would not have the effect to exalt his pride, his expectations, and increase his power over us, if his black majesty really does exist, at the same time that it tended to make us powerless against his arts, I leave it to the true, simple-minded, sensible and devout, to determine."

"Come," said Theresa, "I put my veto upon this doctrinal talk; I have too much of it at home; I am tired of the very sound of anything that smacks in the least of Calvinistic dogmas. It is blasphemy in the worst sense, their Druidical belief. 'Belay that,' as the sailor said to Father Taylor, in his chapel, when he was dealing it out in a somewhat mild form on a Sunday, 'give us something about Napoleon Bonaparte,' or anything else as opposite as possible."

After a pleasant drive of five miles, the party arrived at the wood where they were to encamp for the day. It was composed principally of pines, hemlocks, and firs, although beeches, oaks, and other forest trees were intermingled, forming a full and grateful shade from the fervid heat of the sun. For his summer's reign in this northern latitude, though short, is powerful, and all the more yielded to by the inhabitants from being so distinct from the nature of his sway at other seasons of the year.

There they met a party of their country friends, and after the first friendly greetings, the chief object seemed to be for each one to make herself or himself as comfortable and happy as possible. Mr. and Mrs. Pendleton soon arrived in a britzska.

"What a lovely spot!" said she, as she alighted. "These fragrant pines, and this assembled group, with their costumes fitted for the occasion, remind me so much of home, only with this important difference, I did not, as is my custom there, get up at four o'clock in the morning to prepare for it."

"Veterans in the service of society always get their reward if they wait long enough," said Jenny Hale. "Please make the most of this respite from your long campaign in the warfare between chicken-salad and chopsticks, your flowers and the Floras, to say nothing of ice-cream and screamers in the shape of all the children in the neighborhood."

"O horrible!" said Theresa. "Save us from such detestable puns, I beseech you."

"Bad enough to be good, are they not? But you should kindly encourage my first attempt. I will seat myself by Miss Dahl. She will have a fellow-feeling for me. She must have made a beginning sometime though she shows such facility now in this species of wit."

"What a beautiful piece of embroidery that is you are working!" said Mrs. Liebenhoff to Miss Meldan.

"Yes, it is a traveling-bag for a young friend, who is to be married soon; I am willing, so far, to weave a thread into the destiny of the fair creature's future. Farther than in some such way, I shrink from going."

"Then you don't believe in match-making any more than I do," said Mrs. Liebenhoff.

"No indeed, I have seen too much trouble from such sources to attempt so dangerous an enterprise. Let each couple pair themselves, I say."

"No one but the Highest is equal to it in my opinion. He who has tempered each of his children according to his own sense of beauty and fitness, alone knows the adaptation of one to the other," said Mrs. Liebenhoff.

"Then you believe that matches are made in heaven?" said Theresa.

"All true marriages are," said she. "All might be in the best sense if we would have it so, but there is great infidelity on this point as well as everything else connected with our highest life."

"How is a body to know?" said Theresa, "if her marriage is ordained? I desire light upon this subject, for I have a feeling that I am fated to be dreadfully taken in, in this awful business. The very thought of it makes me frantic. What is your rule for knowing? Do you find it written in the Bible, chapter and verse? or are you impressed, as the spiritualists say? Do tell me, for pity sake."

"I have no rule for any one but myself. Mine worked well for me, but it might not for you; so you don't get it with all your urgency. That is my own secret, but you cannot convince me that my marriage was not ordained above. There are quite too many rules of life in the world and too little of acting up to the highest spirit of our nature and God's requisition. The great thing is to reach an elevated plane of thought and feeling, and then most of the perplexities of life would be solved. But where is Zoë?"

"Wandering off alone," said Hilda; "shall I follow and make her return?"

"No," said Mrs. Liebenhoff, "I will walk with her a few minutes."

She found her standing perfectly still, looking at a large spider's web, which was woven from branch to branch on the dead limb of a tree above her head.

She started on seeing Mrs. Liebenhoff, but was reassured on finding it to be no other than her friend.

"What strange creatures insects are!" said she. "They seem to me a sort of revelators, if I may so speak, of our fortunes, and in consequence, impress me with a kind of awe."

"And what does 'Mrs. Hairy-leg spinner' deign to announce to you of your experience or destiny? That you are to be very industrious and practical; that you are to build your own house, and keep the larder well provided?"

"O no; but, that as she sits solitary and despised in the centre of her world, so am I alone and peculiar in the sphere in which I am thrown; and yet God alone knows if we are not equally with others living truly according to his will."

"I think, dear, if the spider could speak, she would tell you that you informed her of that fact quite as much as she you. However I am not quite free from superstition, as it would be called, about a thousand such things. I have not made up my mind about them, and perhaps never shall in this world at least; for, in a universe of infinity, how can finite beings expect to know everything? Much must necessarily be indefinite, and here comes in our glad privilege of trust, faith in God and his Providence, which is much better than going to spiders to have your fortune told. And, Zoë my love, pray combat this idea which I see is fixing itself in your mind that you are peculiar. It is pernicious every way. You will, through it, grow morbid, unnatural, and unhappy. I don't like peculiar people, they are so self-conscious and disagreeable. Come, let us return to the company."

"I dislike to, they stare at me so; I look so different from them one would think I was an ourang-outang, to see them gaze upon me. It is as much as I can do to prevent playing some odd trick or other when their eyes are all upon me. And I must tell you that one sunny day, just at the opening of spring, Hilda and I walked to the outskirts of the city, and while she ran aside for some purpose, I sat down on a stone to wait for her. A group of children gathered around me, and there they stood with staring eyes and open mouths. I had just eaten an orange and had cut the rind round into strips. I put one of them to my eye for a quizzing-glass and grinned at them with all my might. You would have laughed to see them run. 'It is the queen of the dark Elves,' said they, 'run, run, or she will carry us into her kingdom under ground, where we never shall see our mothers again!' I thought Hilda would have died laughing, when she returned just in time to witness the fun. She actually rolled upon the ground, and she had her best pelisse on too."

"Well, we are never satisfied in this life," said Mrs. Liebenhoff. "It would be a great convenience to me to have a more distinct character than I have to my face; then I should not, so often as I do, have the trouble of telling my name. To my butcher, my baker, my grocer, and the shopman, I repeat it over and over again, when I direct packages to be sent to me. Latterly, I have formed the habit of saying, when I enter the presence of persons that I have not seen for the last six weeks, 'Mrs. Liebenhoff, ladies, how are you?' and to gentlemen, who have sat at my board and received, with the utmost graciousness, everything in the way of hospitality I can grant them, when they meet me abroad, a bare portrait, without the setting of my house, and to my cordial greeting, answer, with an indifferent look, 'You have the advantage of me, madam: I don't recognize you,' I simply say, 'O, ay; I suppose so,' and pass on."

"I should have known you, after my first introduction, if I had met you in Timbuctoo," said Zoë.

"I have no doubt of it dear, simply because you have another style of measurement than the superficial one in vogue. But here is a new arrival."

"Do you know all these people?" said Zoë.

"Yes, more or less, enough to bow to them, though some of them would not say the same of me for reasons aforesaid. That full-faced gentleman is Mr. Calthrop. I have called at his house when riding into the country with mutual friends; I just bowed to him and he looked wonderingly at me, as much as to say, 'Who is that common-looking woman? She could not have bowed to me.' However, that is his affair, not mine. It was proper that I should be civil to one whose hospitality I had received."

"Who is that sweet-looking woman near him, talking with animation to Miss Meldan?"

"It is his wife, simple, artistic, and loving. They rise each morning after a twelve years' marriage to a prolonged honeymoon, and as they wander, hand in hand, around their beautiful grounds, they drink in with appreciating eyes the beauties of shrub, tree, cloud, sunlight and shadow, and thank the good Giver of their varied blessings, with pious and grateful hearts. If they are in fault, it is that blessed with wealth, culture and health, they feel too little their obligation to return in the direction of their fellow-men the benefits which flow to them from God. She says she feels nearer to Him through communing with nature than through humanity. It may be so; we need to bathe our spirits in the silence, solemnity, and loveliness of its beautiful scenes; yet it should be but at intervals, only to return more fresh and enthusiastic, to labor for the world's good; for only in proportion as we do our full part towards its renewal and advancement, are we saved when in our retirement from an aimless dilettantism, or a selfish, or perverted life. In the very Eden in which we have thought to ensconce ourselves away from all the defilements of life, shoots out the serpent-head of evil, and alas! his trail winds itself gradually through its holiest works, showing that humanity in ourselves, no less than in our kind, is greater than nature, and only as we grasp the idea of the height and depth of its vastness, and are inspired to labor for its full manifestation by removing from it the crust of selfishness and wrong, and every species of narrowness, can we have a just feeling of self-satisfaction and be saved from our most dangerous enemies, our unoccupied selves."

"And who is the tall gentleman with the full brow, talking with Mrs. Petersen?"

"It is Mr. Keutsch, an influential man at court."

"I observed he looked as if he expected you would greet him farther than by a passing bow. Do you not know him?"

"Yes, he has been at our house, but I shall not trust to his memory to recollect me. My bow was for his speaking manly and courageous words for the independence of Schleswig Holstein, which so few of our noblemen dare to do; I honor him for that."

"Who is that gentleman walking with Miss Carden?"

"It is Mr. Henshom. Don't they enjoy dissecting the last new literature and philosophy together? and they do it in pretty good style too, only that they are too minute in their criticisms to suit me. My scissors, which I use in that line, are not over-sharp, for I have an instinctive fear of damaging the interior spirit of life and its simple expression by cutting and hacking right and left, as some do. When I find that to suit me, I am rather blunt in my perception of inferior faults. Many a young Miss in her teens has overthrown and ridden right over me, when mounted upon her exegetical pony and running a tilt against the religion, learning, science, and art of the past and present times, besides crowning one author with immortelles and completely extinguishing another in the same breath. I sometimes amble along with my moderately-paced nag for a brief moment or two, until I see what a fearful campaign it is going to be, when I turn aside quietly into the first green wood near, which offers a slight but refreshing illusion to the senses, and then I let the poor, mortified animal browse a little before I return home to shut her up in the stable until the good God relieves us from the sharp perils of these dangerous times, where nothing is sacred enough to escape being picked to pieces by our critics."

"Do they visit you?"

"O yes, Miss Carden is my friend, earnest, intelligent, and religious. She only needs to see more clearly that the study of books is not the sole enlightenment of life, but that when one has accumulated such stores of knowledge as she has, and acquired her discipline of mind, that if there is a different sphere from any which she has yet occupied, open for her, it is the very one most assuredly which her soul needs, in which to bring up its flagging, more passive power, so to speak, and lay to its proper level the watchful, critical, exacting intellect.

"As for the gentleman, we know each other—no we don't—and yes we do again. Not so well, however, as if he were not born in the last century, and I quite far along in the present."

"O you jest, madam!"

"No, he is nearly a hundred, that is in his opinions, which are conservative to the point of the admiration of all staid old nobles and dowagers, who look very suspiciously upon any quickstep in the march of progress. Still I am undecided again. What has come over me as well as himself? He has been speculating theologically and philosophically, and his ancient basis is a little shaken. I see it in his face, his manner, and his curt style of answering the most simple and innocent questions, as much as to say, 'You are going to look me through, are you? You don't seize upon my secrets.' I wonder if when he goes to his home far away, he will sit down by his beloved mother and say, 'you taught me to be good when I was a little boy, and the same instructions, hallowed as they are by every thought and memory of you, dearest mother, stand me in good stead in my manhood; but as my mind grows, there are opening upon me vistas through which I look, half fearful and half joyful and dimly discern, as I think, higher truths than have been familiar to me of yore, in the distance—and now, my best friend, tremble not for your son, if with prayer, with the Scripture, and your counsels to guide me, I venture into what may seem to you dangerous paths; for, through Christ, I trust to be guided safely to the light and seize, through a high conviction, upon these glorious verities, and bear them as trophies of my soul's warfare with intellectual blindness and error to your feet, my mother; when together we will bless God for that great good of our being, a pure, unadulterated conception of Christianity.' In this enterprise may heaven speed you, my old, middle-aged, young friend."

"How bright and well Mrs. Petersen looks to-day! I wish she liked me; I think I should love her so much," said Zoë.

"You must speak to her frankly and cordially when you meet her, my dear. You do not often see her, and then you are so shy that she has no opportunity of knowing you, occupied as she is with her children and many other objects of interest. But her brightness and willing sacrifices for the pleasure of her friends, are not the true gauge by which to measure her physical vigor or her soul's equanimity, for she has had a great sorrow and has heavy cares; and though, to the superficial eye, she may seem to pass through them unscathed, yet there are abysses in our nature which, young as you are, Zoë, you are fast learning, may be stirred to their deepest and blackest extreme, and yet convey no echo of the hoarse and fearful roar, which rises and swells and subsides in the hearing only of the Infinite, revealing to mortals the tumult below only by the brighter rainbow hung over the spray of its floods. What matters it if no human sympathy can pour oil upon the troubled waters to smooth them to peacefulness, if through their commotion comes all the more gratefully the still small voice of God, our Father, whispering of rest and reward in that world where 'there is no more sea?' But here is Miss Holberg."

"I come to share your bank with you if you will allow your tête-à-tête to be broken in upon, Mrs. Liebenhoff."

"O certainly, with all pleasure. Is it not a pretty tableau opposite—the ladies with their fanciful costume, and the children with their heads wreathed with leaves, dancing on the green?"

"To say nothing of the grave relief to the butterfly scene which the gentlemen present," said Miss Holberg.

"Yes, but I am falling mightily in love with women in these days. They seem beautiful to me in every way, and I have many, many questionings with myself about their position in society as it is."

"Unfortunate for me to come upon you in this particular mood of yours, as it is of one of the other sex I wished to speak to you. I hear you are taking lessons, in one of the oriental tongues, of a Hungarian Jew. Does he speak the German language correctly, think you? We wish for a teacher in our school."

"Yes, so far as my ear informs me, he does; besides, his character inspires me with so much confidence that I do not think he would attempt what he cannot do very well; and it has been his chief medium of intercourse with his countrymen since childhood."

"Is he married?"

"No, he has lived too busy and turbulent a life for such quiet happiness. From his student life, he entered heart and soul into the Hungarian revolution, from which he has borne away some honorable scars."

"Does he know Kossuth?"

"Yes; he is his intimate friend and profound admirer. He says, rising as he does so, and with emphatic tone, that he is the noblest being on the face of the earth. He journeyed at an inclement season, over a long and tedious way, to apprise him of the traitorous designs of Görgei, gathered from his own observation, and begged him, for the sake of Hungary, to concentrate the power of the kingdom more in himself. But Kossuth, true to his Christian and republican principles, refused to appropriate to his own person a dignity and rule which, to his high ideal, was inconsistent with strict justice to his compatriots."

"And so Hungary fell! I think he had better have been a little more commonplace and sensible, and done what most generals would not have hesitated to do in his place."

"So Mr. Seüll thinks under the circumstances. But I do not; and the world will yet see that, as there is a Supreme Arbiter above, such unflinching devotion to a high sentiment, though apparently it may result in disaster at the time, will bring about in the end a higher good than any that could be gained by a most conscientious departure from it."

"Well, we shall see. There is not much evidence of it as yet; but to return—how old is the gentleman? for unmarried and young, are a combination that would shock Miss Ingemann in a German teacher of young ladies."

"O anywhere between five and five thousand! the latter age I am inclined to think. He must have sojourned with Abraham, though I am sorry to say he is not quite his equal in faith; he is twin brother to Joseph, as he shows in various ways. Moses and he were special friends, though he would have had too much self-possession to have broken the two tables in a passion. Pity he had not intrusted them to him in coming down from the Mount. He was prime minister of David, and privy counselor to Solomon; but in the reign of Hezekiah he broke out in a new place as Isaiah, and I will just add that he says that he did not exactly describe our Saviour in his fifty-third chapter. That had special reference to the Jews in their captivity; but this he knew through his prophetic foresight that something very great and good was to happen to the world, and that it came in Christ and his religion."

"What form did he assume next?"

"That of Jeremiah, and uttered his memorable Lamentations over Jerusalem. Next he was in gilded captivity with Daniel, till, for his disobedience to the wicked commands of the king, he was thrown into the den of lions; but being master of the magnetic art he put them to sleep, and was taken out the next morning unscathed, to be made more of at court than ever."

"What next?"

"He was John the Baptist, and prepared the way for the coming of our Saviour; which mission accomplished, he magnanimously confessed the superiority of the Messiah to himself, and was, you know, put to death by Herod for his moral boldness in reproving him for his sin. Soon after this he appeared again on the earth in the form of a little Jewish boy. He was early left an orphan and subjected to the cruel guardianship of a miserly Pharisaical grandfather; was educated first for a rabbi, and was deep-dyed in the superstitions of the Talmud, but broke loose from the bondage only to fall in the course of ages into the no less Gentile superstition of Calvinism, through which 'wild woods' he groped his way to the light partly by the aid of German theology and philosophy, but much more through the pure truth of the New Testament, till after all his peregrinations and transformations he stands forth to the world as John the Baptist again, but of the more spiritualized and glorified dispensation of our Lord. In short, my friend, he is the Wandering Jew par excellence, not the vulgar, stale idea of one so much written about, who scoffed at our Saviour on his way to the cross and was condemned to an everlasting life on earth as his punishment, but the true, sublime, all-suffering, all-sympathizing, all-conquering, and at last purified and Christianized Israelite, who is to bring the millions of his countrymen wherever they may be scattered and peeled and ground to the dust into the light, joy, peace, and full satisfaction of Christ's kingdom. I doubt whether his eye is yet opened to the view of his glorious destiny; but I know it, and rejoice that it is so. Do you not think I am fortunate in the choice of my teacher?"

"Perhaps you can bear up under such a marvelous history and experience, but I fear that he would set the girls crazy, especially Zoë here. He would just suit her fancy, but I should fear for her sanity under his administration."

"O do engage him, Miss Holberg! I know I should learn of him faster than ever before. Try me, please," said Zoë.

"I think you had better," said Mrs. Liebenhoff. "I have noticed that he has a very father-Abrahamic way with young girls, and a distinguishing characteristic of his is moral-force, and power of inspiring his pupils with the same, which, with his fidelity, and last, but not least, his very natural and true method of instruction in the languages, insure him great success."

"I will tell Miss Ingemann, and she must do as she pleases; but I must say I have some misgivings with regard to some foolish little heads," said she, pressing Zoë's to her face affectionately.

"Come," said Mrs. Castonio, running towards them, "you have given me no opportunity of chatting with you to-day, and now we are going to partake of our refreshments."

"Take a turn through this little grove with me first,"

said Mrs. Liebenhoff; and arm in arm they threaded their way through the fragrant pine wood.

"I have something to tell you in return for your confidence. I, too, am writing a book as well as yourself," said she.

"O, I am so glad," said Mrs. Castonio; "now we are more than ever sisters, having a like interest to occupy us. Do you love to write?"

"Yes, it is a great pleasure as well as relief; but the publication is the worst of it. Awful, is it not, to see fragments of one's most precious self, flying hither and thither, and gossiped over and laughed at and picked to pieces by the self-styled wise?"

"Yes; but one always has the hope of doing good and conferring pleasure, and that compensates for such annoyances."

"Yes, certainly; and I have made up my mind to put the finishing touch to the salvation of mankind by my Tale; that and the Bible are to be the books henceforward. None of my friends seem to believe it; they speak of it like any other common work, Göethe's, Schiller's, Oelenschlager's, etc. Only to think of such presumption! But never mind, that makes no difference. We shall see what we shall see;" and they laughed at her ambitious designs upon immortality.

There was much merriment over the multiform repast, especially the Gammel cheese made among the mountains. Mrs. Pendleton liked it, and resolved to carry some home on her return; while Theresa said it was hateful, from the strong taste of the yellow flower of which the cows ate abundantly, in the season of its manufacture, and which imparted its flavor to the milk; and as for carrying it home, she should not permit it to go on board ship, lest some Nipon, or Loken, or the king of the dark Elves, or some other one of their heathen deities or sprites, should smuggle himself into it and sink them all in the deep.

At the beautiful hour of twilight they turned their faces homewards, with many expressions of thanks and goodwill to those who had contributed to their enjoyment by their assiduous attentions, and as the shades deepened, they sank into the silence and thoughtfulness which so well befits this holiest season of the day, the dividing line between busy labor and anxious care, and the rest and hush of quiet, holy evening.

————

CHAPTER XVI.

"The mathematics and the metaphysics,
Fall to them as you find your stomach serves you.
No profit grows where no pleasure is ta'en.
In brief, study, Sir, what you most affect."—SHAKSPEARE.

A few days after the event of the pic-nic, a group of the pupils of Miss Ingemann's school were together in one of the recitation rooms, from which their new German teacher had just departed, leaving them at leisure for the rest of the afternoon.

"Have we not caught a Tartar now?" said Adelgunda Heiliger, who was given somewhat to indolence. "We shall have to tread the exact line with him I see, or there is no knowing what will come to pass. Dearee-me, where is my book? It frightens me to think how I shall have to study to come up to his high ideas of what can be done."

"Yes," said Freya, "and the cool way in which he says, 'you will read so far for the next lesson, and in six more you will have finished this; and in three months you will be able to do so and so,' is quite admirable for simple maidens to behold, it actually takes away my breath to think what a race in learning we are to run, to say nothing of my neck's aching at gazing upwards at such a mountainous height of superiority. A Tartar! say you, why he is Hercules himself, only instead of a club he wields the vocabularies of all the languages which scattered the people at the tower of Babel."

"Nonsense,' said Rinda. 'The idea of trying to make a hero of nothing but a despised Jew. I wonder that Miss Ingemann should employ such a person. I do not think my papa will wish me to take lessons of him. He is very particular about my associates in every respect."

"A despised Jew!" said Zoë; "how strange to speak so contemptuously of that nation of which the most perfect being that ever walked the earth—our adorable Lord—was one, to say nothing of lawgivers, prophets, and apostles, who gave glory to the race! I don't understand it."

"Did not the Jews crucify Jesus, and don't they deserve all the contempt and punishment that can be heaped upon them?" rejoined Rinda, in a coarse and angry tone.

"Our Saviour said, 'Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do,' before he died, and even while suffering the death-agony; and it is not being much like him for men to harbor revenge and heap obloquy upon them eighteen hundred years after they committed the deed," said Zoë.

"Jew, or Christian, or Hottentot, I care not," said Hilda, "he is a splendid fellow. His forehead, eyes, and mouth are quite faultless. His nose, to be sure, might be chiseled a little more like Apollo's and not suffer in appearance."

"That is the remnant of the Jews' stiff-neckedness. It comes out in this shape, you may depend upon it," said Zoë. "Cosmopolitan as Mrs. Liebenhoff says he is in his sympathies, attainments, and power of adaptation to different circumstances, he can't surmount the strange prepossession the race have for that peculiar nose. For the rest, I have seen many pictures of the Christ, with a much lower ideal of the high-toned and spiritual than a copy of his face, when illuminated by its best expression, would present."

"You put me out of patience, talking in this style. You will be falling in love with him next, Hilda Strophel," said Rinda Brandt.

"I look like marrying Father Abraham and the patriarchs downwards, don't I? said she, dancing around the room with great glee. "No, I am going to wed a North American Indian and live on a bluff, such as I read of at Mrs. Pendleton's, overlooking the prairies, with the sparkling rivers running through them like silvery threads; with lakes gleaming like diamonds in the desert; with oak openings here and there on their borders; and the rank prairie grass waving, and thousands of gold and crimson flowers shining in the sunlight, through which sweep the herds of the terrible buffalo, and anon troops of mustangs make the welkin ring with the sound of their galloping hoofs, and their neighings and snortings."

"I suspect you are too 'loud a thinker,' dear Hilda, to suit precisely the young brave by your side," said Zoë. "I should fall into his own mood more naturally. As we sat dreaming and gazing at the shadows of the passing clouds, or the flocks of wild pigeons, or the herds of deer, or mayhap were startled by the young Chippewa warrior flying across the plain on his way to fight with the Sioux, he would utter in bass the guttural ugh, and I in softer tenor would echo a—ugh, and then sink into silence and reverie again; and when 'the chambers of our imagery' were filled to overflowing, we would speak out of our hearts, one after the other."

"Yes," said Hilda, "he would say to you, 'O Zoë, life, with the drooping eye and raven feathered hair! I have stolen you from the bondage in which you were inclosed, to dwell with me upon the wilderness prairie; and when I have, with my eagle eye marked the young bison for prey and dragged him as conqueror at my saddle-bow to my wigwam, then, my life, you shall have your right, and cook for your brave the tender flesh which is to strengthen him for the conflict again.' "

"And I will answer," said Zoë, " 'Yes, my brave 'Eagle Plume,' joyfully will I share with you the toils of your way, and I will open the tender young corn from its sheath, and its sweet kernel shall delight and nourish your soul. And when together we have cared for the field and the wigwam, will we mount—you, your noblest wild horse; and I, my fleetest of mules, and the wind shall sigh after us as we leave it in the rear; and the hours shall speed to their swiftest the coursers of the sun, and yet lag behind; and the tempest shall in vain follow after us with its fury, for we will outspeed them all. And when we reach the bluff, I will descend from my daughter of the wild ass and mustang, who shall graze by my side, and I will weave with the quills of the porcupine, the beautiful moccasin, while you scour the forest and prairie again for our winter's supply. And when, weary and drooping, you return to me, with no trophies it may be, to lay at my feet, then sweeter than the music of the birds of the forest, tenderer than the hush of the evening twilight, shall my voice be in soothing you to rest; or again more inspiring than the breeze from the north, telling you to test your fortunes again.' "

"Ay, ay," said Hilda: "I could do all that as well as you. Give me the Indian, and you take the Jew. I think you are the very one foreordained for our teacher."

"He would not think so," said Zoë, "for he would have to hang his harp upon the willow again and sprinkle ashes upon his head anew, and wail for Zoë as well as Zion. No, no, I never shall marry."

"What absurdities are you dealing out?" said Rinda. "I should think you were both moonstruck. I declare I will tell Miss Ingemann if you don't hush."

"Come," said Hilda, "let us go to Mrs. Liebenhoff's. You know she wished us to do so before the arrival of her friends from Iceland, and this is the last opportunity we shall have. You go first, Zoë, please, while I finish practising my music lesson, and then I will follow you. I know you will be glad of a tête-à-tête with her."

Zoë hastened to the parsonage.

"Please to walk into 'my ladies' chamber,' " said Mrs. Liebenhoff from the window, as she ascended the steps and entered the room. "How are you, dear? you look pale."

"I am not very well: we are pressing on with our studies very fast, as we have entered upon the last half of the term, and I am tired of them—that is all. Miss Ingemann would think it laziness and want of interest if I complained, so I say nothing."

"Did Mrs. Körner speak to Miss Ingemann with regard to changing the study of algebra for some other more congenial to the character of your mind?"

"No, ma'am, I requested her not to. The fact is, my pride has been aroused of late by finding that my teacher was making up her mind that my fit destiny was to be a cook, as she found accidentally that I had some native skill in that way, which, added to a little care and patience, made me successful in preparing a few trifles for breakfast and dessert, and I was determined to show her that I could do something in the line of her mathematical exactness; so that algebra, geometry and I go into a pitched battle every day."

"Which is the victor?"

"O the Chaldean and Arabian of course; how could it be otherwise, seeing that I never was made to fight with a parcel of ciphers and circles and triangles! Let them be conquered by those who need them; I do not. I feel that my warfare—if I have any—is to be a moral one, with the evils of the world, and, therefore, I must furnish myself with moral weapons." And her face began to assume the rapt and contemplative expression common to it in repose—"but (rousing herself,) I was determined to show Miss Ingemann that I could do something besides cook," said she, contemptuously.

"The culinary art is by no means to be despised," said Mrs. Liebenhoff, "for on that depends very much our soundness of body, and through that, our health of mind. Besides, in middle life at least, and I will say in every station, no one can be a lady—and that in my view, comprehends very much, even a high Christian character, with its troop of sister virtues; a culture in every direction, commensurate with our opportunities; and manners, the natural expression of a mind thus enlightened and a soul thus enriched;—I repeat, no one can be a lady who has not the self-possession and grace which a command of the general principles, if not of all the particularities of her menage gives her. Without this power, the exigencies of life may haply drag her down from a queenly height of elegance, delicacy, artistic taste, and a soft and fascinating amiability, to the frantic perplexity of a weakling who has lost her household gods; to the coarse scolding of a shrew; to the unseemly capacity of a drudge, too ignorant to fill the unwonted station without complete absorption in this necessary but second-rate department of life; or to the querulous complainings of a grown up baby, whose wedded life, opening as it did with flowers, music, and poetry, may, through her own or her parents' neglect, end in dingy ugliness, vice, or insanity. No, Zoë, despise no useful capacity, my child, however humble."

"But one does not wish to be praised for such things," said she.

"I don't object," said Mrs. Liebenhoff, "though I crave the privilege of modifying the kind compliments of my friends, for when they tell me, as they sometimes do, 'you make the best cake and pastry in the city;' then I say to myself, 'behold your reward for struggling with your dreamy and indolent temperament, which would have led you to lie hour after hour, with your head resting upon your hand, looking at a Sybil.' "

"Ay, ay," said Zoë.

"Longing to be one, and yet squandering the time and neglecting the means which would give you more than her mysterious power. Depend upon it, a common-sensible, practical, Christian woman, in the best and highest sense, is a great deal better and a more agreeable personage than any such one-sided peculiarity."

"There you are again."

"I am as bad as Miss Ingemann, am I not?"

"O no, no, ma'am. I always feel when with her—here is a person entirely exempt from the frailties and sins of humanity, and of course she can have no sympathy with poor, weak, guilty me. Let me hide myself from her faultlessness and intolerance of wrong. And so I do as much as I can. But with you I feel encouraged and inspired, and if

I had been very, very naughty I could lay my forehead upon your shoulder and tell you all that I had done, and that as you forgave me when I was contrite and sad, so also would I hope for mercy from our Father in heaven;" and her head drooped and her voice sank into the lowest whisper of pensiveness.

"Come, my little penitent, we will wait till you sin more than I know of before I become your father confessor. You shall be shriven, however, when that time arrives, I will warrant, so don't be despairing. Let us go into the garden."

They sat down under the shade of a tree in the little inclosure and resumed their talk.

"Don't you think it is very hard to get used to the world as it is? I really am afraid I never shall."

"Yes," said Mrs. Liebenhoff, "and more than that, I never intend to. My struggle has always been to preserve my principles and sentiments intact without bigotry or vainglory; to lead a true and natural life in a very artificial state of society, and in the midst of mean and false customs, where a low standard of life and manners is set up; to walk with a pure and affectionate spirit among my fellows, with my eye fixed with unfaltering gaze upon the banner in the skies, upon which is inscribed, 'Liberty, Holiness, Love!' But it is a weary way of traveling through life. One has too little company on the road, and I thirst more and more for the sense of companionship in my highest thoughts, plans, and aspirations. I am tired of but half uttering what swells my heart almost to bursting, so I am going to make a bold stroke and try and bring the world up to my stand-point. Presumptuous am I not?"

"The world will think so; but you are blessed in the sympathy of Mr. Liebenhoff."

"O yes, and until lately I have left to him, through his preaching, to which I have ever listened with a more entire satisfaction than to that of any other man, to express for me my deep sense of the need of our race for the Christian religion, and his conversation in social life, varied as it is by the expression of the most cheerful yet fervent piety, learning, and wide information expressed with an accurate judgment and delicate taste, enlivened by humor and sweetened by love, has more than compensated for my own shortcomings in this respect. But blest with his society and guidance for twenty years, naturally contemplative and retiring, it cannot be but that by snatches in my busy life, I have seized upon scraps of the intellectual wealth which is floating all around me. And while occupied with a thousand familiar cares, there has been good time for it to be assimilated into my own being, and through the broad sympathies which a docile and appreciating reception of Christ's teachings gives to us, all the past and present seems gathered to a loving embrace in my soul, and the future, through the power of our faith, is, O! so glorious to me, Zoë, that I pant for the time when the good God shall vouchsafe to reveal it more clearly to men, for then would they never cease to adore and be led by him."

"Therefore you write? O, I long to read your book! I know it will be what I most need to read."

"Well, I still trust that not only you, but many another will read it, notwithstanding the dampers thrown over my hopes from time to time by prudent friends. Ay, that to my sex of every class and condition, I may be able to express something of their wants, and satisfy as far as an individual may, their vague, yearning aspirations. For to the woman soul, with its ideality, its delicate perception of truth and beauty, its fervor of temperament, its religious reverence and trust, its glance of genius and its artistic insight, there is needed another and a tenderer expression of interest, a closer sympathy with her peculiar trials, and wiser suggestions than men can give. They need all this from one who has, either through sympathy, imagination or reality 'trod the wine-press' of her life's trials alone, and through

God has worked her way to the light, peace, and trust, of believing in, loving, and adoring Him, in closer and more constant and familiar communion than seems common in this cold, intellectual age. One friend tells me, on reading what I have already written, that it will be suited only to the more refined and cultured classes, that the majority will throw it aside for the flashy tale of passion and intrigue. But I do not believe it, for I have an instinctive dread of cliques, which is strengthened every year by every principle and high conviction. I was born among the people, I have ever lived and been familiar with and loved them. I know them, I trust them. I see between the poorest, coarsest, and most uneducated, and the most favored only the differences which circumstances create, and often I long to fly from the gilded surroundings of the one to the lowly hovel of the other, for the comfort, suggestion, and hope which I find not in satin and gold, or in her who puts her trust in their superficial splendor. So that in my heart of hearts, I have an earnest that even the most ignorant, degraded, and wretched will be brought into sympathy with me through my pen, and will find in its flow some solace, support, and strength to relieve them from their woe. And if it can, like Ithuriel's spear, touch the great heart of struggling, suffering, aspiring humanity, crushed and bleeding as it lies under the hoof of the spoiler, and it shall start up, it may be, in its ugly nakedness at its thrill, O! then will I plead that, like maniac of old, through the spirit of Christ which it is my life's aim to paint, it may become clothed in the garments of virtue and holiness, and conscious of its restoration to its right mind evermore sit at his feet. And if the lowly and fainting ones find in my tale some nutriment, enjoyment, and inspiration, then am I sure of an audience with the stronger and happier, for life is ever in an ascending series. The germ of its best products lies deep in the common mould. Gradually the little seed swells, and enlarges, and bursts its envelope. It spreads its roots and sinks its foundation down towards the world's centre. It shoots upwards and expands its leaflets to the sunlight. Every element of nature and the direct smile of the Almighty watch over it and contribute to its growth. Slowly but surely, it is elaborated, expanded, and beautified, until trunk, branch, leaf, bud, and flower attest to his wonder-working hand in creation, and his goodness in spreading it so fairly for 'the healing of the nations.' In like manner, as God rears high its structure and transfuses its sap into the rude bark-covering as into every delicate vein of its flower-petal, so will I utter the best that is in me, either of mirth, of sadness, or high contemplation, and send it lovingly forth to the great multitudes all over the world, nor be impatient and distrustful if it makes its way slowly among them; for this I know, that even 'a cup of cold water' tendered in the spirit of our faith, refreshes and purifies, and thus yields its reward; then how much more the very spirit of one's best life's experience, hopes, and aspirations poured out of a burning soul?"

"Mr. Liebenhoff encourages you, I know."

"O yes, I never fail of sympathy from him; yet very wisely, as he thinks, he puts a check upon what he regards as excited hopes, for fear perhaps that I should grow elated and proud; and another friend thinks I need the discouragement of some 'hardhearted man of business' to moderate my expectations, so he very properly gives me his plain opinion. But how little do we know of each other here. Afraid of my being proud! Why, I have eaten little else than humble pie all my life, so that I am one great slice of humility! But in this condition of lowliness, Zoë, I have learned to see clearly that God is to be glorified and man exalted by ministering as we may, to the best good of mankind, and when we have been led by one path or another to the altar of self-consecration, and experienced the blessed fruition which flows from it; you may as soon look to see Orion smiling with vanity expressed in his twinkling orbs, or the moon covering her face through a weak self-consciousness, or the sun striding through the heavens with a step of haughty pride, as vainglory in such a one. For when we are led into full communion with Him, then reposes the soul upon the will of the Most High, without care for its destiny, whether it be to be blighted like an untimely flower, to bask like the ephemeron in the sun for a day, or like the sturdy oak to stand firm against the varied fortunes of centuries. For to know that we are in his hands is sufficient. I have but little anxiety for my story, but I know it will go."

"I trust it will not be like many books that I attempt to read. It seems to me that their authors have a great many crude ideas, which they think much of and very recklessly express. Another person dislikes them, and gets angry, and sends forth another book in a very unchristian spirit to oppose the first, when ten to one, his own ideas are not any truer; and so it goes," said Zoë.

"Yes, criticism, criticism is the spirit of the age. We have got beyond our soundings upon some most important points, and need to plant our feet firmly by the side of Jesus upon the shore of the great ocean of truth, and take our reckoning anew, and then we shall live in and give out the positive, and not forever deal in negations."

"It puzzles me to hear the philosophers and theologians talk about what they call the essential doctrines of religion. I don't find them in the precepts of Jesus, and they seem to me very contrary to nature," said Zoë again.

"So they do to me, and most injurious also, as turning men's attention aside from the pure, and holy, and benevolent life of the author of our faith, and subverting his faultless rules which are to be our guide. And to one who, when young, acknowledged the authority of these, and has ever found that they enabled one, as Jesus said they would, to be like the house founded 'upon the rock,' upon which the storms of time might beat in vain, the discussion upon these knotty points seems like the talk of the demons in Pandemonium, of whom the English poet writes, when they reasoned

"Of providence, foreknowledge, will, and fate,
Fixed fate, free-will, foreknowledge absolute.
And found no end, in wandering mazes lost;
Of good and evil much they argued then,
Of happiness and final misery,
Passion and apathy, and glory and shame,
Vain wisdom all, and false philosophy."

"One evening last week, there was a long conversation between our German friend, Professor Henschall, and Mr. Lias. Mr. Liebenhoff, who has but little interest in the subject, chimed in, however, with his modifications, and Mr. Pendleton described to us the extreme ground which the prevailing sects in his country took upon these vexed questions. I sat and listened to the account of these abortions of the mind until the air about me seemed to become blue and imbued with a sulphurous smell. Flames of fire enveloped the forms of our friends, their tongues were like fiery serpents, and their eyes gleamed like coals from the furnace of the bottomless pit, in which their thoughts seemed determined to dwell. I fancied my garments were becoming scorched, and I trembled lest they would draw me into this terrible vortex. I rushed out and never was the sweet air of heaven or the bright stars on high so welcome to me. 'O beautiful universe!' said I, 'ye elder scriptures of God! roll on in your majesty and loveliness, and may our ears be opened to listen to your daily and nightly revelation, for the written Word has become darkened and deadened to the eyes of mankind. They read in it the gloomy and horrible doctrines of their own perverted minds. They see in thee, O Father, but the stern tyrant, the inflexible, cruel, and unjust judge of their own hardened natures, and thy all-abounding care to thy children in sending them prophets, apostles, and above all, thy well-beloved Son to teach us of Thee, and thy infinite love, and how we can become like Thee, they convert it into a terrible scheme which steals thy abounding salvation from all but a few. O horrible doctrines! O unfortunate world! O wretched, bewildered, and orphaned mankind, wandering through space, (if we believe their words to be true,) demons by birth, nurtured in corruption and sin, and destined to eternal damnation! O my soul, come not into their counsels again!"

"But these are considered the great men of the age, are they not?"

"O yes, strong thinkers they are called; too strong altogether in their love of one particular figure of the New Testament, in which fire and brimstone are prominent. To us Orientals, Zoë, it seems very stupid in these mighty Anglo-Saxons to make their creeds out of our favorite tropes and metaphors, which are so abundantly scattered through the Bible. That comes of making metaphysics all in all in the exaggerated culture of the understanding, which is the order of the day. They will have to come round to our ground and acknowledge that the soul is something more than a sharp iron spike, christened intellect, to pry into things with. They have made a pretty mess of creation with their narrow way of dealing with it, and with human nature, that emanation from the Divinity. Anything is invaluable to them that shines, if it is nothing but a piece of old carbon, brightened up by staying under ground a few centuries. No matter what a theory is, if it is only brilliant and ingenious. Is it to be wondered at that the deep, crystal well of truth undefiled, hides itself from their shallow inquiries? And yet the most subtle results of the mind are like a dead mass of matter without it."

"But there are a great many seekers after, and teachers of truth in these days, I should think," said Zoë. "Our new master speaks of the benefit he has derived from the study of the German philosophers and theologians of the present day."

"O yes, if people will get into the 'wild woods' of dark speculation and skepticism through their dullness, disobedience, pride and self-conceit in this late day of our Lord's kingdom, it is well that there are moral Hercules to venture in and drag them out by the head and shoulders, all bruised and battered, and slay the hydra-headed monster in whose grasp they are struggling. Yet in a family, that is not considered the best child who, like a fool, is always running into mischief through rebellion; nor he the most agreeable member of it, who does nothing but drag him out of it and sour his temper, may-be, by continued castigation; on the contrary, that one is best, who buds and flowers gracefully, as God intended it should, through the pure counsels and example of loving and enlightened parents, who, through his docile obedience, are at liberty to leave behind the beggarly elements of our religion and go on to higher and still higher attainments in it. So in society, it seems to me that our Father loves and approves more of those of his children who receive, with a meek and docile temper, his instructions to them through his Christ, his greatest, truest, and purest messenger, comprised principally in his sermon on the Mount and his parables, believing implicitly in the good which he says will result from them, than those who stick in the crude thoughts of the heathen, who lived before his time, or who overlay the mind with the corruptions which crept into his church after it. For the Beatitudes are the nutriment which Jesus elaborated from all that was choicest and loveliest of the fruits and flowers in the moral and spiritual universe of which we are a part, and them he places before the ages, and by his life of benevolence and love, pleads with us to grow up into their sublime, and tender, and holy disposition, and live everlastingly. And where in them do we find the so-called 'essential doctrines of Christianity?' The spirit with which he walked among men, from childhood to manhood, which shone out in his obedience to his parents; in his zeal in the search after knowledge and light; his true sense of the use, which he was to make of his mighty powers; his humility, his affection, his patriotism, which embraced the widest philanthropy; and his philanthropy which inclosed as its nucleus the most heart-melting patriotism, when he foresaw his country's doom; his submission to his inevitable fate, and his martyr-death, crowned, as it was, with the clustered virtues of filial love, confiding friendship, forgiveness of enemies, disinterested regard for the penitent, resignation and trust—this spirit, I say, is the more than nectar, of which that of the gods was but a feeble type, which, by drinking of it fully and freely, will make us sublime and godlike as himself. And where in it do we find the assumption, the bigotry, the narrow policy, the corrupt yielding to the sins of the times, the miserable fear and distrust of God, the low ambition, hypocrisy, deception, cruelty, and fraud of multitudes, in the so-called churches of Christendom? The eye of the world is not couched to see all this; but I have a living proof of the truth of my sermon, which I fear has wearied you, in my beloved husband; and here is a letter from that same. Thank you, Carl," said she, as she received it from the hands of the lad who brought it. "I have not told you, Zoë, that he is absent for a few days. Run around the garden, or anywhere you please about the premises, while I read it."

————

CHAPTER XVII.

"Not like to like, but like in difference;
Yet in the long years liker must they grow;
The man be more of woman, she of man:
He gain in sweetness and in moral height,
Nor lose the wrestling thews that throw the world;
She mental breadth, nor fail in childward care;
More as the double-natured poet each;
Till at the last she set herself to man,
Like perfect music unto noble words"—TENNYSON.

HILDA practiced her music, a difficult piece from Wagner, and then set off in her usual bright mood to meet Zoë at Mrs. Liebenhoff's.

"I shall have a merry time I know. I am so surprised to find the little parsoness so full of fun. We laughed and chatted together on our way home from the pic-nic in the public conveyance, and I mean to have a second edition of the frolic."

Full of this intention, she was running towards the house when she caught a glimpse of Mrs. Liebenhoff in the garden. She ran towards her and found her with her husband's open letter in her hand.

"Ah, I have caught you in the very act, have I not? Is it so very charming to have a lover, which one has to meet by stealth and send messages to by craft, and in short to pine after in secret—the fascinating Cicisbeo?"

"What do you mean? what has come over you?" said Mrs. Liebenhoff, looking at her in amazement, really fearing she had lost her wits; but she saw only the water-sprite with her laughing, innocent, happy face, who seemed marvelously unconscious that she was saying anything offensive. She looked at her as if she would penetrate into her very soul, until Hilda was sober, surprised, and seemed as if she were ready to cry.

"Ah, I see," said her friend, "you have been reading some naughty book or other, which has sent your wits and sense of right astray. What is it, dear?"

"Only 'Indiana,' by George Sand."

" 'Indiana!' " said Mrs. Liebenhoff. "Where did you get it? Does Miss Ingemann know what dangerous fiction has superseded her matter-of-fact class books?"

"No, ma'am. Rinda brought it this morning from her home. She says it is one of her elder sister's favorite books, and she lent it to me for an hour or two in which I could very well run through it. Where is the mighty harm, pray?"

"In its leading you to trifle, as you have just done, with the most sacred feelings of womanhood, if in no other way, my dear Hilda. Read this sentence, and then talk to me of a Cicisbeo if you can. (She holds the letter so that she may see it.) 'Together have we borne the trials and quaffed the joys of our youth, each day made happier, and I trust holier by each other; and now that from the height of full middle-life we cast our horoscope anew, whatever may betide, whether sickness or health, prosperity or adversity, we know that we can, by the beautiful experience of the past, ever repose more and more upon each other's truth and affection, which shall be God-ministers to point to the virtues and joys of the heavens above.' "

"But 'Indiana' had an old, cross husband who made her very wretched, and so she accepted a lover. Very wrong I know, but was she not to be pitied and excused, partially? Of course, ma'am, I was only in fun in speaking thus to you."

"O yes, I know, and I agree that Indiana, and such as she, are to be pitied, who, for a loving protector and guide, find in their marriage only a jailer, harsh, coarse, and repulsive. But our fortunes are not altogether in our own hands in this world. Indiana was under God's care and discipline no less than her husband's rule, and only he should have severed the bond between them."

"Then you would bear everything from a cruel, heartless tyrant until God saw fit to take him out of the world?"

"I do not say that. There is a cause which annuls all obligation, because first broken down by the guilty husband; and it is vain to seek to keep united a one-sided bond. It is a contradiction in terms; but whatever betide, the wife is to keep herself true. What do I say! It is only for lawyers and courts to speak thus coldly and juridically of this delicate connection, or of aught that can sever it. To the pure and religious wife it has been formed by 'our Father.' It was He who saw how his child needed to be tempered, and trained, and through what trials or joys she was to weave her wings for the skies. If he judged her strong and good enough to place in her keeping one of his most faulty ones; it was that through holy marriage he too might become meet for his presence. You can decide, Hilda, whether she fulfills her trust when she abandons him for a lover. And what was he, pray, this fascinating Cicisbeo?"

"Why, a vulgar, vicious, disgusting fellow to-be-sure! Yes, yes, I see it was all dreadful, and I am ashamed of myself and of speaking thus to you. Will you forgive me?"

"When through marriage," said she, kissing her, "my Undine has a tender and more thoughtful soul breathed into her gladsome life, she will know better than to ever whisper to herself or her friends of Cicisbeos. But have done with preaching! I have already sermonized Zoë and sent her away for relief. Run and find her, dear."

They now returned and seated themselves side by side on the turf.

"How do you like my new hat, ma'am?" said Hilda, untying it and laying it aside.

"Very much," said she. "I noticed it the first moment you came, and thought it very becoming."

"Then if you are a pious minister's wife, you like pretty things, I see."

"Why not, pray? My eyes are set in my head very much like other people's, and I profess to have as good a taste as my neighbors. I always dress just as pretty as I have the means to, and always intend to."

"So do I," said Zoë. "I wish I could be clad as prettily as the violets and lilies are. God adorns them beautifully, and I do not want to be a blot upon fair creation in my person more than in my mind and character. I have become quite converted in this respect lately."

"That is right," said Mrs. Liebenhoff, "only do not let dress encroach upon higher duties and tastes; and the more the latter take the first rank in our regard, to the well-balanced mind does external ornament seem appropriate and harmonious."

"I am delighted!" said Hilda.

"I am going to dress well even when I am very old," said Mrs. Liebenhoff. "I shall not wear four caps and five shawls about my person, like a certain old lady I heard of the other day. It is more than my share, I should take up too great a proportion of room, besides looking like a formless heap of linsey-woolsey and cotton lace; and if I am a minister's wife, I am not one to 'wear a green ribbon and look very thankful,' not I."

"How old are you, Mrs. Liebenhoff?" said Hilda, with all simplicity.

"What a daring question to ask a lady of my age!" said she. "That is one of the legitimate secrets of a woman past twenty-eight. The idea of my revealing it, indeed! What crooked fairy possesses the little girl this blessed afternoon? But rather than disappoint your curiosity entirely, I will deign to inform you that I have arrived at the 'everlasting now,' which Carlyle tells us of. I am ashamed to have been so long in coming to this desired haven, but here I intend to fast moor my lifeboat and never be drifted away from it. My sister, Katrina, who is a disciple of Spiritualism, says that there is no time in the heavenly sphere, and I see no reason why there should be here, especially to ladies of my mature years. My soul is a great deal younger than when it was born into this murky time-world, because now I really begin to see daylight ahead, which is quite rejuvenating in its effect, I can assure you; so I am just of no age at all."

"Good!" said Hilda, "only alas for the birthday gifts if that era never comes round!"

"O, I get presents, I can assure you, notwithstanding that I live in eternity. Do you see this beautiful opal ring, my husband's last present, given me not to tell of his inconstancy, but that with the changes of life our love will only shine with a more varied lustre? I like jewels, they are so suggestive. My whole pearl, for instance, which the little fish forms to cover up some harassing, injurious, foreign substance, inserted by accident into its shell. What a lesson to me to envelope my troubles with the covering of a beautiful resignation, which will enable me to float through life, injuring no one by my harsh contact, but to give out the gentle radiance of this precious tribute of the sea! My garnets; of slight value in money because plentifully abounding among the common rocks of the hills: all the richer for me, showing that there are bright virtues shining out abundantly from among the rudest of humanity. My more brilliant ones, set with little pearls, mean fervor and purity combined. I know some one by whose face I might place my sparkling bracelet and say: 'What an excellent likeness!' And so I might go on to the end of the catalogue."

"But you say nothing about diamonds," said Hilda; "I really feel that my pet ring is neglected."

"O intensely brilliant and sparkling and transparent, like the great lights of the present age, but with too little depth for me! Give me the pearl which has more soul than it displays to the shallow penetration of the day! 'Sour grapes,' you will say, as I do not happen to have one. I used to try to get up great admiration for the diamond, thinking that it had been elaborating since time was, in the lowest strata of the earth's formation, but when I read that it is found in the sandstone, and of course is the result of less time and cost, I lost my interest in it somewhat. Very splendid it is of course, but I can live without it—and if I were as rich as Crœsus I would not give the foolish thousands for it that some do."

"I met a lady in the street as I came here, who I am sure rouges; her cheeks were so delicately rosy, and I have seen her when she looked very sallow," said Hilda.

"Perhaps she was flushed with heat," said Mrs. Liebenhoff. "I never saw more than one or two in my life whom I suspected of having an artificial color. Did she look as if she were masked?"

"No; I think it made her prettier than without it," said she. "She used rather too much powder. To be artistically put on, it ought not to lie in lines but be suffused, so as to have the face look somewhat like a ripe peach with the down on."

The two other ladies laughed.

"Let me study yours," said the elder, "so that I may adopt your style, as I suppose you have got the right medium, being an artistic judge. Well, I shall take you for my model rather than Miss Lias, who puts so much on her cheeks as to make them stand out in quite bold relief, while her eyes, surrounded as they are, with a dark circle, are cast into so deep a shadow, that they look as if some one had dealt them a heavy blow, forcing them quite backwards.

I wonder if they are receding to look after the lady's brains. At any rate her process of beautifying herself has a stunning effect upon me, I can assure you. O, Hilda! my fresh, fair and frank-hearted! give to the winds all thoughts of the paint, plaster, pomatum, and powder, for which young ladies in these days exchange their delicate natural beauties, only to disfigure and destroy them with these counterfeits. You are pretty enough without them. I take the responsibility of flattering you thus much."

Hilda rushed impulsively to the little fountain near, and dipping her hand in the water, soon washed all traces of the powder from her face.

"Good-by to the first gay deceiver which has had the art to take me in; and I mean it shall be the last," said she.

"I have not told you the news," seating herself, and beginning with fresh zest upon another subject. "Mrs. Gylich's wedding was yesterday. Only think! her husband has been dead but eight months. To be sure she married an intimate friend whom Mr. Gylich loved and confided in. She was truly inconsolable when he died, for they were warmly attached, and she was perfectly devoted to him; but she is very affectionate, and is one of those who always require some one to lean upon, and that is the reason she married so soon, I suppose."

"And could she not wait even one little year," said Mrs. Liebenhoff, "and devote it to honor and cherish his memory, and thus blend anew their separated, yet more than ever united lives; for when the death-vail divides them from earthly vision, who knows but a purer and closer union grows up between them, even while they walk to the common eye so differently ensphered? And shall another presumptuously step between these two souls, who were everything to each other here, ere they adjust themselves as God would have them, to an experience of a higher and more celestial sympathy, growing out of the earthly and lasting for aye? Nothing would make me doubt so much whether this friend were fitted to succeed him in her affections, as his appreciating no better the holiest and tenderest feelings of a woman's nature than to thrust himself thus early between them."

"Zoë," continued Hilda, "says she cannot bear to think of second marriages at all, especially for a woman. She seems to consider it an unpardonable sin in her to contract one. Now there may be cases when it would be very natural and proper in my opinion. For instance, Indiana, who married an old, disagreeable husband, not because she loved him, but because her parents made the marriage for her, I think if he had died, and she and her lover wished to marry very much, they might do so, rather than for her to remain a forlorn widow all her days. Or, I will say, even if her husband were kind and she had loved him ever so much, if he chose to leave her and go to heaven, where, as everybody says he would be a thousand times happier than she can be here, marry again or not, I don't think he would be so selfish as to wish her to remain weeping till old age over his grave, while he, perhaps, was careering through the universe, seeing all the beautiful sights and hearing the delightful music with, perhaps, some fair young lady-angel, who knows? Now confess the truth, Mrs. Liebenhoff, could you not possibly be induced to marry the dear friend, and give the excuse, if you chose, that you were so lonesome, as they all do? Say, please."

"My dear," said Mrs. Liebenhoff, "we will drop the subject where it is. It is one upon which I am accustomed to shun all personal reference. I am satisfied with my present destiny, and I have no wish to make any future reckoning upon this point."

Hilda looked crest-fallen and Zoë disappointed, but after a pause the latter insisted with more confidence than was usual to her: "You said the other day, dear Mrs. Liebenhoff, that you were accustomed to live through many scenes to which we are liable in life, by imagination and sympathy, and that thus you had often prepared yourself for great emergencies. Why not this for our benefit?"

"Well then," said she, with a rapid utterance, "who am I, to say that I would surely do or not do this or that in the future of a world in which God notes 'the sparrow's fall' and numbers the hairs of our heads? I have long since learned that such presumption is rebuked, by having done exactly contrary to what, in my impetuous youth, I avowed I would, and yet at the time, it seemed God's will. It might be the same in such a case. But of this, I may venture to be sure, that I never would link my life with another, divided as it would ever be to me, unless he had a nature broad enough, and a culture elevated enough to share with me each high and holy feeling, awakened by the changing experiences of life. Unless he would say in spirit, if not in words: 'I ask you to cover up for me no precious memory, or crush no natural wish to blend the name, and spirit, and deeds of him on high in meet and loving harmony with our own most consecrated acts. Together will we stand by his grave, and as I see your faithful remembrance of him, I gather fresh surety that you will be true to me, and as you have done your full duty to the deceased, so no shadow shall be cast from his tomb, and no lament come sighing from over it to darken our marriage-day, or blend its discord with the sweet music of our bridal fête.' For when nature, religion, and love combine to weave themselves into a flower-garland and crown the brow of the true woman, there need be no fear that the different spheres of her earthly life will jostle against each other in rude and painful collision, but her heart will be more than broad and generous enough, and her soul too full of melting tenderness for him to fail of finding in its smile the heaven he pines for."

She looked up as she finished and saw Theresa Ingalls standing a few steps from her. She had heard her last remarks.

"A fresh breeze from the west!" said she.

"Welcome! and brush away some of the cobwebs which are sticking about these little girls' brains this afternoon. They really are too much for me with their astonishing surprises and unexpected questionings. I should think you had been dealing with them. At any rate, I will pass them over to the strong-minded young American, for they quite upset my equilibrium," and her face assumed an anxious expression unusual to it.

"You don't pretend to say that you find any man, living or dead, worthy of all that sentiment, do you? I think less of the German and Danish gentlemen, if possible, than I do of ours. Indeed I think I shall be ready to fall quite in love with them in toto when I go back; they seem to me so much more chivalrous and truly wise and refined, and in advance of yours in their judgment of us. To decide by what I have seen of a woman's life in Europe, it seems to be considered that, in general, she fulfills her mission when she cooks, sews, keeps the house, and tends the children; or if there is especial magnanimity and great desire to award her her full rights, she is to have a privilege commensurate with the whole length and breadth of her capacity, viz.: to make herself as pretty and agreeable as possible for his supreme and selfish pleasure, or if he happens to get into trouble (of course she never does) he gives her full liberty to devote her life to his comfort and solace. What wonderful condescension!"

"I know it is very much so among the majority; but the time will come when it will be seen that a woman's clear insight and quick moral sense are to serve as a barometer to warn society against corruption and sin; that her veneration and trust are to be the weather-vanes to keep the proud, speculative intellects of men in the direction of clear and starry skies; her charity and love are to enfold and keep warm the heart of the world, which otherwise would be forever imbittered, estranged, enraged, crusted over with selfishness, or blackened by tyranny and wrong—those dragon's teeth from which horrible seeds spring up the armed demons which ravage the earth—and her artistic genius is to be the element which is to beautify, enrich, and glorify life. This is to be done first through her own ascendency of soul, and then by its natural action within the sphere designed for it by its Maker. In accomplishing this, her legitimate work, she will indeed include in it every proper and needful household duty, but above and beyond these, there will be spheres for her occupancy, which will save her from a weak and degrading dependence upon man, whose love, and protection, and sense of her value to him are not up to the requirements of her nature or the commandments of God. Thus she will become the queen of realms never dreamed of by poets or foretold by seers, where she will reign in the true spirit of all dominion; even in that which giveth glory to the Almighty through her every developed and purified faculty, that he may be all in all. But there is the auspicious queen of night, the evening star; the dew is falling, let us go in."

————

CHAPTER XVIII.

"In climes beyond the solar road,
Where shaggy forms o'er ice-built mountains roam,
The muse has broke the twilight gloom
To cheer the shivering native's dull abode."—GRAY.

"Millions of spiritual creatures walk the earth
Unseen, both when we wake and when we sleep."—MILTON.

THE island of Iceland, of which Mrs. Liebenhoff was a native, was discovered by Naddod, a famous Norwegian pirate, who was driven hither by a tempest about the year A. D. 860. Just before this period, Harold, the Fairhaired, had extended his dominion over all the petty kingdoms of Norway, and deprived the inhabitants of that liberty and independence which they had previously enjoyed. The consequence was that multitudes of their best and bravest emigrated to the various islands in the neighborhood, but to none so much as to the more distant and larger one of Iceland. Here they hoped to be in security from the rule of the oppressor; nor were their hopes disappointed.*

[*For these facts, see Henderson's Iceland.]

In little more than half a century the Icelanders formed themselves into a regular republic on principles of the most perfect liberty, making a wise distribution of the different powers of government, enacting laws admirably adapted to the peculiar circumstances of the nation, and by their natural genius and love of liberty combined their interests and energies in support of a political system, at once calculated to protect the rights of individuals, and inspire the community at large with sentiments of exalted patriotism.

For four hundred years they maintained for the most part this state of freedom, and when, at the end of that time, they became tributary to Norway, and afterwards were connected with Denmark, they were still permitted to retain the spirit and the government of a free people.

The remote ancestor of Mrs. Liebenhoff, who emigrated to Iceland at its first settlement, was head officer of one quarter of the island, which was divided into prefectures or sheriffdoms. He was at the same time, as was required that he should be, a minister of religion, and upon him devolved the care of the temple and preservation of due respect for the rites of worship. His descendants had, with more or less of intermission, occupied the same station, and her father had retained it, with great satisfaction to the community, for a period of nearly half a century up to the time of his death, which occurred a few years before. Thus born and nurtured among a free and religious people, she grew up breathing insensibly their best spirit, and in a home where narrow means contended daily with wide opportunities for the judicious and benevolent use of large ones, in which the dispositions and habitudes of both her parents harmonized much more with the dispensation of what is commonly thought sufficient by the more affluent, than with their own small yearly pittance, it followed that the most rigid economy in deed, though seldom alluded to by word, was the order of the household. To meet the various exigencies of such a life and preserve an honorable independence from pecuniary embarrassments, the children, a goodly number, were inured to hardy toil and a careless freedom from reliance on any of the luxuries, which by many in the same station of life were considered indispensable.

Living in a rural district, she shared the employments, the sports, and the means of culture of the country people, and in a severe climate where the greater part of the year the inhabitants are confined within doors, she grew up studious and contemplative. It is well known that the advancement of the Icelanders in science and literature has been of no inferior character. At a period when the darkest gloom was spread over the horizon of Europe, they were cultivating the arts of poetry and history, and laying up stores of knowledge which were not merely to supply posterity with data respecting the domestic and political affairs of their native country, but were also destined to furnish very ample and satisfactory information on a great multiplicity of important points connected with the history of other nations. To this a wonderful combination of circumstances proved favorable. The Norwegians, who first went over to Iceland, were sprung from some of the most distinguished families in the land of their nativity. They had been accustomed to listen to the traditionary tales of the deeds of other years and had frequented the public assemblies where they saw the value and importance of knowledge. Their mythology and the wonderful scenery of their native land were favorable to the cultivation of poetic genius. The art of writing was for a long time little practiced, and in order to transmit to posterity an accurate knowledge of important events, history assumed the garb of a poetry peculiar, underived, and national in its character.

The fame of the Skalds or poets of Iceland was not confined to their native country. They visited the courts of Denmark, Sweden, and Norway, where they were received with the highest honors; and the Edda, which comprises their most important poetry, and the Sagas their historical compositions, chiefly reliable for their truth, though occasionally wreathed with beautiful fictions, were dealt out to the admiring ears of their entertainers and reaped from them a rich reward.

Thus, though the native of a bleak, barren, and frigid island, scarcely noticeable as the eye runs over the map of the more extensive and prouder countries of Europe, Mrs. Liebenhoff, it may be seen, grew up encircled by no mean environments. Naturally of a poetic and imaginative cast of mind, she found no lack of excitement for these prevailing traits in her quiet and secluded home in the literature of her own country, no less than that of other lands which flowed in from time to time at the call of eager seekers after knowledge among the more cultured of her people.

The natural wonders of the island, too, had a powerful effect upon her training. Here were burning mountains and eternal glaciers, rivers of lava, boiling springs and floating fields of ice, bringing from regions far to the north their intenser cold, and their wild, strange animals, where the sun is too feeble in its rays to dye their furs. Here was displayed also on a grand scale, the Aurora Borealis, those mystic heavenly lights, now flashing out in the horizon, with a more weird-like lustre than the lightning, to disappear and be seen anew, blazing far up in the zenith, extinguishing the north star's steady light, and putting to the blush the fervid planet Mars by their blazing stare into his face, and their eccentric whirligig around him. And when the dogs would howl and moan at the ghost-like music which accompanied their wondrous dance, she too would bend low with her protecting arm about their necks, and feel a suffocating sense of awe and dread, which made her cling to them in strange companionship. For, to the gentle, loving woman-poet, the sublime and the awful are soon wearisome and overpowering, and she longs for the warm sunlight and tender shade, and sweet dews of evening, which may bring to her senses the distillation of flower, fruit, and tree, and hush her spiritual nature to the repose of silent communion, in which she can hear the "still small voice" of God in the holy of holies, which he has fashioned within all outer courts, even in the sanctuary of her own soul. But where in her cold clime, in which summer is but welcomed ere it is flown, where nature seems in chaos, whole regions lying blasted as it were, by the scorching fires of some evil demon, and where centuries must roll on before they put on the garments of loveliness which reflect the benignity and mercy of a God of these attributes, could she find the home of her yearnings? The occasional terrible devastations by volcanoes and shipwrecks, and the various hardships of life in a rude and sterile country kept her sensibilities painfully upon the stretch. Lacking the energetic, demonstrative qualities of the other members of her family, who were ever efficiently employed in deeds of useful benevolence, in which, it is true, she shared, though only in the quiet way suited to her disposition, she all the more sought for refuge amidst gentle scenes, and for a scope for the longings to do good consonant, at the same time, with a generous nature and very retiring habits.

To the Bible she resorted for the glowing home she desired, and the perfect ideal of her youthful aspirations. There she found, not only her way of duty and the path of peace, which comes from the sense of forgiveness, and the hope of eternal life through the knowledge of God and immortality brought by Jesus; but besides all these, the most subtle and satisfying food for her poetic being, the richest storehouse for her gorgeous fancies, and the fullest treasury of feeling with which to feed her craving, impassioned nature. So that it came to pass, that in the usual catechetical exercise of the Sabbath morning, when, dressed in their simple best, the children would gather around their pastor to answer his questions from the Scriptures, with her brief reply to "who was the first man, and where was he placed," there welled up images of living, paridisaical scenes, and of lovely innocence expressed in the perfect form of the first man and woman, which painted themselves all the more enduringly upon her ardent artist-soul that they never were expressed. With Noah, she entered the ark and swept with the floods over the wreck of a drowning world. With Abraham, she sojourned; rejoiced with Sarah, and wept with Hagar over her sense of injury and desolation. With Moses, she led the Israelites through the wilderness towards the promised land, and shared with them their varied fortunes through the ages, as conquerors, as rebels from Jehovah, and captives in a foreign land, as freed from bondage, and as, with mingled feelings, they builded the walls of their temple anew.

And with their history came breathing over her, even during the most chill and dreary Icelandic winter's night, the waving of palm-trees and of the cedars of Lebanon, the gurgling of the fountain, more precious than the gold of Ophir to the weary, dusty pilgrim of the desert, and the savor of manna to her hungry nature. And with each incident of historic life, and every scene of nature from the hallowed East, came blended as of yore the "Thus saith the Lord," to the acts of her present life and her dreams of the future. As she flowered into her full youth out of a many-sided, interior experience, needless to dwell upon, and Jesus, the faint ideal of her childhood, became the fixed pole-star of her maturity, little by little came out in full relief the perfection of his character, in which no quality stood out too prominently, leaving others only indicated, but in which all were in just proportion, making the whole full, round, and harmonious. As one great man after another rose and set in history or in society around her, wielding power for a brief period by some one over-grown development, she clung the more closely to the Leader of the ages, understanding through others' deformities no less than his own transcendent superiority, the reason of their imperfect appreciation of him, and why, by some he was deified, and by others denied. Then came the resolve, which grew stronger and stronger with years, first to live out her own conception of him as revealed to herself, and afterwards through her imagination and culture, to represent it, weaving into her fiction thoughts upon the position, and wants, and destiny of her sex in the civilization of the day; for in the uprising of the feminine element did she foresee the restoration of the world.

Married as she was most happily after the period of her early, stormy youth to a man of an intellect, character, and heart rare in their truthfulness, enlargement, and tenderness, she found in him the guide and example to aid her in her secret life-wish, and deemed herself blessed in a companionship with him through a broad range of her being, though into its intenser life his calm, and clear, and equable soul was never spontaneously led, and of which, therefore, on account of her reserve on points where she was not instinctively met, he had but little cognizance.

Mrs. Liebenhoff and Mrs. Körner were now in the happy reception of a visit from their relatives from Iceland, two sisters and a brother-in-law, with their children. After some playful dispute between the sisters, the parties were finally arranged to the satisfaction of both, and a pretty equal division made of the guests between the two mansions.

Mrs. Hansen, one of the guest-sisters, the next older to Mrs. Liebenhoff, between whom there had ever been a strong affection and sympathy, though in some respects very different, had lately become deeply interested in the subject of Spiritualism. This wide-spread delusion, if such it can be called, had taken its rise in America, but as spontaneous movements among masses of people are almost always simultaneous in different regions, showing the magical sympathy ever existing between the great family of humanity, so in Europe it was beginning to attract much attention. Mrs. Hansen, a woman of a strong, healthy mind and physique, with no predominance of imagination, but with an exact, practical intellect and of a high-toned, deeply religious character, had been led, by curiosity in the first place, to investigate the subject. After a few experiments, too well known to be repeated, to bring herself, as is supposed, into communication with the spiritual world, she had been astonished at the developments made to her inner life and its increased wealth and enjoyment thereby.

As the two sisters were sitting together the day after their arrival, the subject was introduced.

"It surprised me," said Mrs. Liebenhoff, "to hear of your being a subject of this mania, with your sound judgment to keep you right."

"Do not call it a mania," replied Mrs. Hansen; "for it seems to me the only true life, this close intercourse with the spiritual world, which is granted me."

"I do not feel disposed to deny its truth yet, any more than that of many other subjects which come up at the present day. I simply wait for further data and a stronger light thrown on it thereby, before I determine its reality. But this much I must say, that we are very ignorant of the nature of our minds, and still more in the dark upon the subject of Inspiration, the way in which we are influenced by the great Spirit of the universe; and as yet I have seen or heard nothing well authenticated which convinces me that a new mode of communication is opened between us and heaven."

"How can I account then for my power of writing involuntarily of what had never before entered my mind, and of receiving from different spirits, from our brother's for instance, information which I knew not from any other source?"

"Have you never had any false or mistaken information given?"

"Yes, the spirits are candid, and say that of earthly things they have not sure knowledge; so they sometimes mislead, and in one instance I was induced myself to take steps for the recovery of property which I found not in the possession of the person with whom I was told it was."

"Have you always communications from the good who have departed?"

"No; one evening I was conversing with your friend, Helenor, and I was telling her of my high estimate of her character while on earth, and the good I had derived from it, when my arm was sensibly twitched. I turned, and was addressed by a low spirit who rebuked me for flattering thus, saying, it would make her vain. 'And who are you, friend?" I said. He spoke the familiar name of Heinrich, who died soon after our venerable father. He said he had through all these years, been wandering in the lowest sphere, and knew not how to rise. 'Can you not say, God be merciful to me a sinner!' 'That is it, that is it,' said he exultingly—and so much power have these words had upon his state that he has already risen to the third sphere."

"I do not think you gain much by enlarging your society, if he is a specimen of your spirit-acquaintances. We all know the blessed effect of penitence without such a revelation."

"That is an exception to the general rule. But it is impressed upon me, that I must write."

She takes pen and paper, and in an unexcited manner, writes a page and reads it to Mrs. Liebenhoff. At the conclusion, she said, "Now these thoughts are new to me. I never even dreamed of them before. They are not mine, but your friend Nora's."

"And yet, they are in perfect harmony with Katrina Hansen's mind, character, attainments and usual mode of expression. It would require a warping of my judgment to believe these thoughts the product of any one but yourself, guided in the usual mode by the good spirit which is ever about us, helping our infirmities. One may easily be deceived upon this point, until we have much self-knowledge. Our thoughts come to us we know not how, or from whence. To the truth-loving, who has faithfully used all possible means of instruction, whose mind through mental culture, charity and a devout spirit, has been put into communication with nature, humanity and God, all these great ministers stand ready to do her bidding; and when hushed to quiet, earnest labor, they come freighted with their best to wait upon their priestess, to her the fire which burns within her may seem that of a vestal, or an angel spirit, while it is the natural but none the less wonderful result of means which the world in its spiritual deadness designates as common."

"I am disappointed. I looked for sympathy from you, Lisbet."

"And you have it, my beloved sister. Heaven forbid that it should be wanting in any experience of your life, when yours has ever been so full, so generous, and more than appreciating for me. But by keeping my judgment cool and uttering my distinct convictions, we both gain more than by any weak, yielding sympathy."

"O, certainly; and now what theory contrary to mine have you to offer me, for you may be sure of its receiving my full attention. Your remarks just now do not convince me."

"I must commence with a few words upon what I consider the connection of the Supreme Being with our spirits, if it will not tire you."

"No, certainly, I wish to know the result of your own thoughts upon this engrossing subject."

"I feel that the union of our souls with God, is regarded too much as a technical and narrow thing. It is thought that he at one time, inspires more than at another, and that to some persons, he is partial in the bestowal of the great gift of his spiritual influence; arbitrarily endowing them with a clearer insight into the glorious working of his universe, and a closer intimacy with his divine counsels. But this seems unworthy of his greatness, and a reflection upon his goodness. To me, God is the Sun of the moral and spiritual universe. His beneficent light pervades all space, and his parental love is the warmth, life, and fructifying power by which all creatures live, move, and have their being. In nature one object absorbs and another reflects the rays of the natural sun, according to their essence and quality, and nothing on the earth's surface remains unaffected by its radiance, in a greater or less degree, according to its capacity of reception. So with humanity, according to each one's obedience to the laws of his being and the requisitions of the spiritual universe, is he a recipient of God's light in his soul. If that temple for its indwelling is marred by sin, or darkened by ignorance, or contracted by the vail drawn across its portals by bigotry, intolerance, or narrow prejudice, and incrusted by pride, selfishness, vainglory, and Pharisaic self-satisfaction, then but an imperfect enlightenment reaches the spirit enshrined within, and it gives out in consequence but feeble, flickering beams for its own guidance or the world's advantage. But if through our fidelity in using God's abundant means of grace, we, who are made to reflect his image, keep the portals of our souls wide open for the reception of his inspiring spirit, then are we blessed with its full flow, for his measure of its gift is stinted only by our self-inflicted incapacity of receiving it."

"Then you think the inspiration of Jesus differed in degree only, not in kind from that of other beings?"

"That is all. In his pure soul there was no obstruction to the true light as it came from God, and therefore he is the enlightener of the world. No other one has shown a like obedience to the conditions of this inspiration; therefore the mingled light and darkness of men's counsels."

"But what has this to do with communications from spirits? These ideas of yours annul no such possibility."

"No, very true. As on earth we gather suggestions from other minds of the past and present, so there seems to me no impossibility that we may from the spirits beyond the vail. Provided the great fact of spiritual influence is established, and men waken up from their earthliness and vice, the medium of that influence, if it be good, is comparatively of small importance. This however is my own experience. From one cause or another adhering to my spiritual constitution, needless to comment upon, a large part of my being has found hitherto no expression, even with the nearest and dearest. Do not think I complain of this; I simply speak of it as a fact. The capsule which incloses and ripens the seeds which are to perpetuate its life, may be long in maturing, or in finding a fitting soil in which they may germinate; but it bides its time, and finally it opens, and the ripened germs are scattered far and wide, where every element stands ready to perfect its life-work. Thus with me. But in this half isolation, weighed down at times by imperfect fellowship, think you I would seek to slake my longing, even at the fount of an archangel's pity, or a seraph's sympathy? No, no. By the great privilege taught us by our Christian faith; by the sublime power we have of mounting to the Infinite himself, where alone the soul may find its home, its refuge and its inspiration, I am led to desire no lower revelations. When weary of the world's babble, and sick at heart of its folly and blindness, I fly to solitude and God, shall my most sacred moments be broken in upon by some vulgar spirit's interruption? Excuse me, Katrina; but we are accustomed to speak plainly to each other."

"Yes, but if you could be useful to it!"

"If it heed not the greater light which we are accustomed to think floods the higher sphere, I should distrust the timeliness of my interference. But you always were a missionary of good to the unhappy here, and if you have found a new sphere of doing the same work, my sister, I would be the last to throw cold words upon your enterprise."

"How do you account for the strange phenomena connected with this subject which we hear and read of on every side?"

"I cannot explain them. There are some strange manifestations from all accounts, though I have never seen them. But this I know, that there is great ignorance, as I have said, prevalent upon the philosophy of the mind, its natural workings, and its union with God. The imagination, too, has great power over the multitudes; and besides this, it is a subject fruitful of opportunities for fraud and charlatanism, and there has been an abundance of these connected with it. It is interesting to me chiefly from its showing so conclusively that the spiritual nature will vindicate its supremacy, though at first it may do it in strange and awkward fashion. I trust that more light will be thrown upon this interesting subject, and that through this upward movement of humanity, when explained on rational and Christian grounds, the age may take a long stride in the march of true progress. I have a set of subjects which I call the indefinites, I cannot decide upon their truth or falsehood in my present state of knowledge and character. So I patiently wait, leaving my mind open to what truth may be granted to my candid inquiries. This is one of them. I neither believe nor disbelieve the wonderful things I hear, but making great allowance for extravagances in this new theory, I feel that it is to lead to some truth relating to the spiritual connection between all beings of the past and present, and with our Father in heaven, which we have yet not fully understood. And for the rest, I trust in the progress of the human soul, and will not seek to tear open untimely the bud of God's events, but wait for the natural method of the flowering of his truth on earth. For your calm, well-balanced mind I have no fear of fanaticism, but hope that through it some light may be elicited, which may be serviceable to us all."

"It greatly elevates and enriches my life, and I marvel now at the contentment of others, whose thoughts are bound chiefly to the earth; and yet I feel no lack of interest in it, but on the contrary a purer and stronger one."

"I am most happy to hear it; only keep your mind open to new convictions and nothing but good can come from it. But the danger to the masses is that they materialize heaven by low conceptions upon spiritual influence rather than exalt the present. Fanaticism is always dangerous, for it burns the soul with the unholy fire of earthly passion, while the subject thinks himself within the very gates of heaven. Then we do not need new mediums between us and God, so much as to take to heart the teachings of Jesus, which ever point to direct communion with him. The world is prone to idolatry. At one time, it deifies one set of objects and then another; it is so hard for the human mind to soar to the centre of Infinity itself, and yet from thence alone shall we bring home our choicest blessings. Pray heaven this Spiritualism be not the Fetichism of the nineteenth century, but may lead on to a higher development, and to a more natural and universal union with God and his Christ than the world has yet known."

"Here is your manuscript, dear Lisbet," said Mrs. Hansen; "I have kept it concealed as you desired, only showing it to one or two persons in all these years. On looking over it of late, I have felt that you must have written it under spiritual impression. Good morning for an hour! I will call on Lina as I promised her."

(Mrs. Liebenhoff takes the manuscript in her hand.) "Yes, here thou art, poor, yellow, old, young offspring of my heart and brain! Twenty-one years ago I penned thee with big hopes distilling from thy every syllable. To me how much more was involved in every line than met the cold gaze of those who passed thy pages lightly over. But disgust and loathing followed at thy imperfect art-expression, and so thou wast sent into obscurity. (She runs it over.) I had forgotten almost its every incident, and now I see it was but the embodiment of rules I laid down for my life's observance. (She reads.) Pretty well, Lisbet, written as it was more than a score of years ago, and I am not so very, very old even now. Why verily, the doctors of divinity are still groping in the muddy waters of their dark theology, while a simple country girl worked her mind clear of the dross of dogmas, and pierced the very core of Christian truth, and fed upon its marrow! And has not my soul thriven by it? Read the early and the later Tale, and which is the more youthful in tone and spirit, though a greater acquaintance with life, literature, and character gives to the last the varied and dramatic life, which the other so much lacks. What a sermon! The story but a thread to hang grave thoughts upon, but its principles laid down for a life-guide, not less condensed and clear than my maturer life could furnish. I rather beg pardon of the aforesaid doctors that I did not publish it for their benefit; they plunge and wallow still in such dark, muddy pools. I will lay thee tenderly aside, for thou wert the healthful dewdrops exhaling from my soul after the exhausting, gory sweat drawn from it by its life-battle with the powers of evil without and the grim fancies and horrible fears, magnifying the errors of its youth within, conjured up by the so-called Christian, but in fact heathenish theology, whose malaria lurks even in homes whose inmates strive to attain and teach the perfect truth of Jesus. O! come the time when Paganism, with its bonds and terrors, shall be laid low in the dust forever, and Christianity, the mild, clear, joyful genius which can alone lead on the ages to their glorious destination, shall be seen as it truly is, and its rightful sway be given it! Shall I dedicate it to my young class of girls, who gather around me on every Sabbath, and thus give it to the world? Compressed here is the truth I have sought to teach them, and exemplified by the few ideal characters naturally adopted by a young maiden new to society and its checkered life. It may be that to many a young heart working out life's problem, it may hint of the reward awaiting the faithful and patient laborer. But no; I shrink from this effort of my timid, fluttering youth being thrust scornfully by or sneered at by critics, who measure by superficial rule and Gunter. For the work of my maturity, I care not; but thou at least, my firstborn, pale, spring floweret, shalt have a gentle euthanasy, and therefore I, thy mother, consign thee without a sigh to the shadows of oblivion!"

During the visit of the relatives at Copenhagen, the two sisters visited with them the different objects of interest in the city, and among others, for the gratification of the children particularly, the museum. There they met an unfortunate woman, an attendant, and it may be, a part of the show, who called forth their sympathy and interest. Mrs. Liebenhoff, who had a nervous dread of monstrosities, tried to evade her, but hearing her, in conversation with her brother, utter the sentiments of a pure and resigned spirit, she conquered her repugnance and approached her. The woman fixed her eyes upon her and asked if she wished to have her fortune told? Impulsively she answered yes, then hesitated and half refused; but at length crossed the Sybil's hand with the required piece of silver and seated herself beside her. She took a pack of cards and slowly passed them through her hands, reading at the same time the number upon their surface, and as she said, the book of Mrs. Liebenhoff's experience. She suggested to her her prominent traits of character and mind, and also some of the most striking events of her past life, and then looked into the future and told her of its destiny. She did not insist upon the truth of her prophecies; spoke of the art as an entertainment to herself and others, and ended by saying; "If the events of your future life prove my words true, you will remember and think kindly of her who foretold them." So they parted with a mutual friendly interest, Mrs. Liebenhoff to her home and the Sybil to a distant country, from which she said she never should return.

Her friends gathered around her again, for she had not permitted them to be present during the interview.

"Good luck, Lisbet?" said Mr. Hansen.

"O yes, plenty of money, that is good fortune, is it not? and I shall not have to ask my husband for it either," said she.

"Children in flocks, I suppose?"

"O yes, of course; twins and all, more than I can manage."

"What did she tell you, dear?" said Mr. Liebenhoff.

"A wonderful fact! how could she have known it; that my husband tenderly loved me? She must be a conjurer truly to learn that!"

"But, joking aside, did she really startle you by any unexpected revelation?"

"Truly then, she did. Events in my life which I have not thought of for years, she spoke of in the most matter-of-course way. When I asked her how she performed the art, seeing her do nothing but read her cards in a dreamy manner and look with some attention in my face, she touched her head and said, 'It is partly in my brain.'

" 'And you consider the gift as a compensation for your misfortune, do you not?' said I to her.

" 'Yes,' said she, 'it brings me near my kind, and they remember me with tenderness;' then looking again intently in my face, she said, 'You have a lively mind, full of fancies, and you love women.'

" 'Shall I write a book?' said I.

" 'Do you wish to?'

" 'O yes.' She read her cards. 'O yes,' said she, 'you will write three.'

"The poor unfortunate public! thought I. 'Will they be read?' said I, anxiously, 'for I never like to lose my labor.'

" 'I told you,' said she with a tone slightly impatient, 'that you had a lively fancy,' as if that were a sufficient answer, and then began to count the money; five hundred, nine hundred, and so on, until she seemed tired, and then ended with, 'You will have plenty;' and then, but with no leer, she added: 'And you love men too.' She then played with my bracelet as a child would do, looking confidingly into my face from time to time, when I left her to rejoin my friends, she at the same time going out, each looking back to find the other gazing at her until out of sight."

"Is that all?" said Mr. Körner.

"All that I shall tell you now," said she, thoughtfully. "It has given a new phase to my thoughts at any rate. Was it through magnetic sympathy that she possessed herself of floating images which, at some period of my life, have been in my mind? If so, it is wonderful enough; or does God impart to her, through some peculiarity of constitution, the power to read futurity? Verily, 'there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamed of in our philosophy.' "

"She was impressed, no doubt," said Mr. Körner, with a sly glance at Mrs. Hansen. "What is the world of women coming to?"

"Two of them, to say the least, are getting quite off my track," said his wife, with a face of solicitude.

"Lina, my dear, do not be anxious about Katrina, so as to enjoy her visit to us less because she is investigating this subject of Spiritualism. Who of us are calmer than she? If she is mad, it is with a method most serene and self-possessed, and I promise you that I forswear all means to place myself in communication with ghosts, black, white, or gray. No, no, there are enough of stupid, impracticable people on this earth-sphere for my equability of temper, and I find it rather doubtful whether one falls among better ones in the other. So you need not fear me."

"I am told," said Mrs. Hansen, "that the air of your city is so impure that the highest order of them cannot breathe its impurities."

"Heaven defend us from the lower ones, I say! Katrina, that convinces me that I am right in seeking spiritual communion only with the Highest, for then I am sure that aid and inspiration will ever be about me. His parental love and all-surrounding presence are no less in the dense, polluted city, than in the purer breath of the green fields or fragrant forests, provided we keep our souls open to their influence. To him I commend myself rather than to the dainty spirits whose interest for us is graduated by more or less of carbonic acid gas. That is too much like our petty aristocracy, in their decisions of who are good enough for their refined companionship. Save me from such contracted sympathies, say I."

And she left the room, swinging her bonnet with an absorbed expression of face quite usual with her.

————

CHAPTER XIX.

"Nor do I know how long it is,
For I have lain entranced I wis,
A weary woman, scarce alive."

"But vainly thou warrest
For this is alone in
Thy power."—COLERIDGE'S CHRISTABEL.

AN extract from Mrs. Liebenhoff's work, entitled "The Way:"

"Here cometh my Hebrew teacher of the Hebrew tongue," said the pastor's wife of Reykiavik, as she heard his step upon the staircase which led to her husband's study.

"Verily these crooked characters and this inverse style of reading backwards instead of forwards, agreeth not well with the spirit of my 'Tale,' which is onward and still onward, casting no vain, regretful looks behind, but ever pressing for the goal of the New Jerusalem, that city in the heavens, which is to be brought down to earth, and its temple for a universal faith to be rebuilded by a woman. Verily, again I say, there is too much of the dust and odor of the ages past upon the language to assort well with my aspiring contemplations. It does not crush, but for the time being, so confines and thwarts them that their flutterings to be free disturb the order of my soul and make it like the caged lion, tramping to and fro within his narrow prison, more piteous to behold than his most dangerous rampancy is awful. I will tell him that I must relinquish it and only read with him the French language."

He approaches the door which is wide open, and she is standing directly in front of it with her eyes upon him, but at which he nevertheless knocks and stands until he is bidden to enter, when he bows profoundly.

The lady aside: "Truly a most oriental mode of entering the presence of the royal sex! But it is all very well. As women are henceforth to take the lead in life, I am glad that one man's manners are on the whole up to the idea."

"Good morning, ma'am; I come to you in the sublimest possible mood. After my wanderings of ages and the multiform experience of fifty centuries' existence in which I have ever, with a child-like eagerness, clung to some fond dreams of personal happiness, I have resolved to cast them to the winds and live for Truth alone."

"A very sensible and pious resolution, and I rejoice that resignation, that plant, it would seem, of tardy growth in the harsh soil of a man's nature, has at length flowered in yours! With women it fructifies almost spontaneously; the soil, if not so strong, being more mellow and pervious to skyey influences. Nevertheless I congratulate you. Better late than never."

"But lo! a strange phenomenon attended the stern sacrifice! As with a struggle such as divides the soul from our corporeal part, and with a gasp of agony I flung them from me; amazed I saw come trooping towards me the angels of Hope, of Joy, of Peace and Victory, bearing in their hands their different symbols, and attended by cherubs, scattering from golden vases the flowers and perfumes of the heavenly sphere, so that where I looked to travel henceforth in the rugged path of self-renunciation, I found it strewn with roses, and the sweet, heavenly company awaiting to attend me."

"O yes, that is of course the natural result of yielding up one's blind, selfish will to the guidance of the wiser one of the Supreme. Plod on patiently five centuries longer, and I have no doubt that then this truth will be thoroughly stamped upon man's nature; that God never intended that we should live in an exhausted receiver, but in this living, boundless universe, every part of which will minister to his health, happiness, and highest good, provided we journey through life in parallel lines with his harmonious appointments. Now that you have schooled yourself to submission to all evils which may await you in particular and the universe in general, it may be the most fitting time to announce to you the painful intelligence that I shall for a time deprive you of the felicity of administering to the stupidity of a preoccupied mind. I relinquish the study of Hebrew for the present."

"I cannot listen to your determination for a moment, madam. Allow me to use the privilege, which my position as an instructor gives me, and earnestly insist upon your continuance of the study."

"Your urgency is of no avail, sir. I have sublunary reasons sufficient to determine me, and besides this, I am bidden through a friend by the spirits beyond this time-vail, to keep my mind perfectly passive. I wonder if they think to impress me against my will? I defy them. So I shall relinquish the study."

He fixes his eye upon her and says emphatically: "You will please read these four pages; you will have no difficulty in doing it. Keep your mind passive, and this tongue of Eld, the great medium of God's subtle influence over the ages, shall enrich your life by its possession. And what a mine of wealth does it unfold to the waiting soul! Not through the vulgar, school-boy notion of plenary inspiration, as if each line and word were a magic spell to keep the darkened, timid mind in fetters that it go not astray, leading it into idolatry of ink, parchment, and letter-press, no less gross and still more crushing to human nature than that which deifies the elements, the fruits and flowers, the sun, moon, and planetary bodies, and the ideal of man and woman; but through its spirit, which is in perfect harmony with common sense and reason. As in my passage through the ages I paused in Greece and Rome, and took note of their Deities—Jupiter, Minerva, Mercury, Juno, Bacchus, and Venus—and thus saw these their thoughts expressed to the eye in their almost living, breathing works of Art, though to worship such seemed most unmeet to me, to whom the one true God has been revealed, yet was I glad that to any people it was permitted to reveal in its perfection the wondrous handiwork of God, the human form, the living temple of his image here on earth. And as I gazed upon the Muses, beautiful representations of poetic womanhood, to whom is given in keeping some great Art to teach and to transmit to coming humanity, I rejoiced that such broad glimpses were permitted to these early times of her high mission here below. Surely, thought I, when cometh the brighter light promised to my people, men will see clearly that those earth-gods are but the types, the reflections, the imperfect embodiment of the great idea of a universal Father, all-wise, all-present, joyous, beautiful, and loving. And when the truth of the Messiah shall flower in lovely woman, a tenderer grace shall sit upon her brow than any that adorned these Muses; for endued with the true Christian spirit, home, through her affections and fidelity, shall be her shrine, from which shall arise her worship to the Most High, and the hearts of her husband and children be the Lares to which she will award the tribute of her life's devotion."

"There has been a failure somewhere, for we are not so much in advance of the ancients as we ought to be, and as the whole spirit of Christ's teachings taught us to expect either in religion, morals, intellectual culture, or physical development."

"No, the ascetic element so rife in eastern countries, whose deities are monsters, whose nature is to blast more than to bless, has ever mixed with Judaism. As soon as Christianity left the bosom of its founder, in whom dwelt perfect love of God, invigorated only by a healthful, inspiring awe, it mingled in his imperfect followers' minds with this dark stream flowing from the perturbed, bewildered minds of Jews and Pagans. The Catholic Church, so called, by its penances and cruel, abominable restraint upon much that is innocent and beautiful in human nature, and by its bold assumption, in which glares the spirit of Lucifer, not beams out the encouraging glance of meek, disinterested, freedom-loving, liberty-giving Christ, has perpetuated this degrading principle. And not less grievous and wicked, but more insidious and life-crushing is the same in the prevalent Protestantism of the day, dubbed Calvinism, self-nicknamed Lutheranism, or with the presumptuous title of Orthodoxy, rolling like a sweet morsel its self-assurance under its blistering tongue. For it has by its worse than heathen dogmas darkened our earth's atmosphere, set it awry upon its axis, wheeled it aside from its proper orbit, so that the moon's dark side is turned towards it, the spots upon the sun are so magnified to the world's eye by their false position as almost to conceal its beams, and the planetary system and the stars seem not to shine by their heaven-appointed light, but have the lurid glare of Hell upon their spheres. O! it is awful that this perversion of the great good of life, this connecting, binding link between man and God, Religion, should be the chain and manacle to force him to tremble, and it may be curse, while he grinds out his daily degraded life in the prison-house of his spirit's bondage."

"Yes, bondage it is, as the faces of its willing captives indicate; for they are full of unnatural lines and sad grimaces, as if heaven were to be propitiated by the disfigurement of his most perfect work, 'the human face divine.' I was looking to-day at some representations of the Nine Muses. They were beautiful in their full, harmonious development, and their expression of serenity and joy, as they stood with the emblems of their art in hand, indicating both their mission on the earth, and the delight it gave them to fulfill it. I then turned to a volume on Sacred and Legendary Art, with delineations of the Christian saints, martyrs, priests, and principal nuns of the middle ages. These, almost without exception, had the downcast, anxious, agonized expression of poor victims to the wrath of some avenging deity, and I closed the volume in disgust and sorrow that a religion so full of joy, peace, bright hopes, thrilling memories and glad anticipations should thus be represented by its believers so as to make the unthinking and superficial say: 'See how much better humanity throve under the former than the latter faith!"

"Yes, and I range myself side by side with those whom you call shallow, and say that the idea of religion given by these ascetics, through assuming to be the only recipients of God's truth, is lower, as it is more unnatural than even the excesses of the old idolaters, inasmuch as love, joy, and free abandonment to nature, though it may merge in lust, is better than hatred, persecution, hard-hearted, Pharisaical assumption, the sneer of bigotry, and selfish love of power. If either of these were the only true representations of Divinity on earth, I go back to the ancients."

"Nay; but there is a strength of will, a command over the baser passions, an invigoration of nature attained by those who believe in Christianity, even if mingled with the popular theology, unknown of old. The stern law is necessary to hush the lions and tigers of our souls to due obedience, before the singing birds and flowers which Christianity developes in us, can find a safe, fitting bower and garden to chant and bloom in. The simple majesty of law is sadly smothered by false traditions, it is true; yet for all that, there is more of it still in action to nerve us than the ancients had. Were there no sins and persecution, no bigotry and assumption then? History is not written aright if these were not rampant, even worse than now."

"Look at Sebastopol; read the list of its hecatombs of slain; measure the humanity of Protestant England, who suffers thousands of her best and bravest to die rather than overstep a miserable conventionalism; see Catholic France lying so low within the toils of the spoiler as to suffer its life-blood to be daily drained that its tyrant may, concealed by the smoke and din of the battle, forge her chains more surely; and say, whether the asceticism of the nineteenth century has more of the love of God and humanity in it than the mirth, and free scope given to nature by the Pagan idolatry."

"O, but does not a protest, never heard by the ancients, arise from the universal Christian nations against these horrid butcheries, set on foot by a few selfish despots, whom Providence, for inscrutable reasons, permits to wield powers which they shamefully abuse? And this protest will be heard, for it is the last war ever to be waged again by Christendom."

"Do you believe it?"

"Most sincerely."

"Meantime, I wage my battle against the dark doctrines of the prevalent theologies. Born into this my latest transformation under the Talmud's rigid sway, nurtured, nay half starved, body and soul, by a grandsire, Pharisaical, covetous and cruel, whose dire conformity to false traditions made his whole nature like a pool, stagnant and fetid; my being would have been poisoned had it not been for one backward glimpse, half faded but ever cherished of a most sweet and saintly father, who died before my infant eyes could fix themselves with steady glance upon his reverent face and form. That gleam shed on my pathway from his angel-sphere conducted me to Jesus, in whose perfected truth I saw the flowering of my people's faith, the consummation of the law of Moses, for which that was a preparation and a prophecy, and this the seal of the significance of all its rules, and rites, and ceremonies. So that in early youth the Christ became my ideal of human perfection, and this gradually led me to become his follower. But after groping through a dismal Jewish boyhood, it was by no flowery paths that I have reached what I believe his simple truth. For into the 'wild woods' of the superstitious, popular theology I plunged where there is but a doubtful glimmer of light here and there to tempt the wanderer on his journey. But on and on I waded through thickets of speculations, through briery paths of discouragement and doubt until I found the elevated plain where beautiful Truth stands fully revealed, beckoning me on and on towards the source of its Eternal spring."

"And now, having inflated yourself with this sublime element, balloon-like you are sailing from one nation to another down the ages, dispensing as is needed of this ethereal gas with which you and your car are charged? Does not Father Time get tired of seeing you following his footsteps all these years? He is more lenient to you than to me, or he would scowl at you and say: 'Don't think to defy me, look at the wrinkles upon your face, signs all that my sickle is sharpening to reap you low.' "

"I defy him until I have given to the world proofs of their gross idolatry in worshiping the letter of the Bible in no less than one thousand discrepancies within its pages.

showing how vain it is for men to trust their salvation to anything so shifting as human language."

"You will not be understood. The Priests and Levites will say that you are an infidel and scoff at Revelation."

"Let them say whatever their bigotry and lust for power suggest; if these motives prompt them to reckless denunciation of all utterance which squares not with their pigmy rules. To God I commend my cause, who knows that it is not because I love the Scriptures less but more, that I seek to tear from their simple majesty all lying pretensions, patched upon them by foolish, ignorant men, that they may stand forth as they truly are, the record of a revelation to be studied, judged of, and obeyed with the same reason and common sense wherewith nature, man, the earth and its concerns, and our own characters and actions are weighed."

"I hope the world will be ready to read your book, for it is sadly in need of its truths. It likes the positive, however, better than the negative; for its feelings and imagination are in advance of its reason and religious principles, so it is careless of laying its foundations deep on the rock of truth, but is forever putting new turrets to its apex, and thus it topples over continually."

"Yes, the positive truth is to save the world, but before its basis is thoroughly established, it must see clearly what its enemies have been in the past, and conquer and lay them low in the dust. This is my present work."

"And I take the positive. Can I not, presumptuous woman that I am, lend you a helping hand in your hard drudgery. Supposing I advertise your work in the Tale which I am writing, so that if it should fail of descending far down the vale from its own lack of the life-principle, its memory may still be perpetuated through mine.

(Aside.)

("He frowns, I see, at that. What being in the likeness of man, though he have the wisdom of the ages, ever thought a woman could do anything for him but cook, sew, please and comfort, and amuse him in some humdrum way?)

"For I write for nothing less than immortality. Or do you intend to outlive the world and keep fast hold of your book in your peregrinations, and so secure its life?"

"I know not what may be before me. I live for truth, and take no anxious thought for the future. But in dreams of night, amid the hush of the city's roar and tumult, when my clairvoyant eye is couched by the subtlest element of nature, and under the greenwood tree when time and space are annihilated and I live in the eternal Present, there come to me visions of cool waters in the distant future, bathing my feverish, aching brow—glimmerings of ambrosia fit to nourish the divinities, freed from all corporeal substance, and sweet visions of the peace of God shed upon my weary, suffering heart of eld, yet ever young in its sense of agony and striving with itself and the all-present powers of evil. I will be patient, yet I know that happiness will, in the end, lift her coy face and smile her sweetest even on me."

"I hope so. It would be nuptials worthy of publication: 'Married, the Rev. Everlasting, Restless, Suffering, Wandering, Unbelieving Judæus to Miss Serene, Loving, Quiet, Gospel Felicitas. The blissful pair have taken up their abode in the Valley of Christian Contentment, and the world rejoices at its own relief from his sad aspect and his low mournful cry about our dwellings of the 'old ra-ags, ra-ags!' of Judaism, no less than at their joyful prospects.' "

"Good morning, madam; I will return to-morrow at this same hour and hear you read your lesson."

(The pastor's wife alone.)

"Verily a strange mixture of all the ages is this weird, mysterious man, and for this he interests me. My truant fancy, ever striving to release itself from conventionalism, has full sweep with one whom do age, country, or narrow sect can bind; and yet, with the freedom breathed from a rarer atmosphere than what envelopes other men, he preserves a strict integrity of mind and manners. My husband has his female friends, sweet, gentle, loving souls, who have grown up within our heart of hearts, some of them in the sacred inclosure of our home. We love them both alike; for jealousy! why it is a word not known in our vocabulary, so trustful are we of each other; and when they meet and part from him, it is with a sister's and brother's kiss of welcome and farewell. And they write to him, 'So glad were we to see your dear face again.' But I have had no friend of his sex with whom I could think aloud, and though a broad sweep of my being is met by his, not all is exercised. For his life is full of grave cares and labors, and though with marvelous power he frees himself of the dust and cobwebs of the study when he comes to me; yet soon he hies away to scatter his sympathies and gather an unnatural weight of solicitude from the multitudes, who find no friend so gentle as he to listen to their woes. And so it happens that while the world's anxious, sorrowful ones pour into his ear their tales of bereavement, sickness, or mayhap worldly trials and vexations, and never in vain, my soul goes ranging alone through perilous paths of questioning and denial of what the sages have settled as finalities; and Fancy, its butterfly, now flutters in dangerous proximity to the sun, scorching its gauzy wings, till scared at its dizzy, solitary soarings, it crouches low, dimmed and disconsolate, folding its pinions, and sighing for the dull, dark safety of its imprisoned, grub-life, then spreads them with a bolder, stronger sweep to gather sunlight and fervid heat from upper regions, which even his pure eye has not yet penetrated.

"But this man of the ages has been there before me, and I see that into these regions we can soar in meet companionship.

And now, were I a young, undisciplined girl, and did not love my husband with a strong and true affection, and did not know that he was given me by my Maker who read the temper of his child, and fashioned its fit training and due measure of earthly love, and if I had not long ago given all feelings not intended to be met by earthly friend into his keeping, who, with interest, richly has repaid me, then I might suffer a crude and a foolish sentiment to usurp the place of the true gold of a wife's love and duty. But strong in the might of God's support, my love, and clear perception of the beauty of the right, and direful consequence of wrong, let me, through imagination, gather some truth for the well-being of others less favored than myself. Let me, if I may become the interpreter of my sex and keeping fast hold of the anchor let down from heaven and fastened deep in time, cast a clear and steady gaze into the awful pit, ten thousand fathoms deep, where lie buried the virtue and happiness of frail women, beguiled and led astray by the bewitching cant about twin soulship, psychological completeness of sympathy, sealed marriages and spiritual wifehood, Cicisbeoism, and all other deceitful forms of breaking a commandment written on our hearts, and in God's word by him who made us singly, as well as gave us into each other's keeping in social bonds. And now I will reason, as many an unfortunate must do, before she oversteps the line of duty to herself and God.

"My husband regards me not, or if he does, it is with such cool indifference and rude sense of ownership, that my soul is starved for sympathy or blasted by injustice. Here is his friend, who has leisure, gentle manners and love for my society, and wooes my confidence by his religious aspirations and high-toned thoughts. He seeks my friendship; gradually hints that we have tastes in common not shared with me by my more busy, practical husband, proposes a spiritual union, which shall lift us to the third heaven of purest bliss. Gradually grosser thoughts steal unawares upon me. The laws and customs of society war against the natural love of tender hearts. Was not Jesus lenient to the poor, lost woman, while he rebuked her accusers, no doubt steeped in the same guilt themselves, but, as now, mean, base, and profligate enough to seek to cover their own shame by exposing and scorning hers? But in the Holy One she found a friend; and shall not I in this my life's extremity?

"And so she falls low, lower, lowest in the scale of our humanity. O woman, flower of the earth, if virtuous, fruit ripest for the skies, whom, if wicked, thy keen, wounded sense of the ruin of the angel in thee drives to demoniac madness and fierce desperation! let me unravel for thee, my poor, tempted, deluded sister, the tangled skein of thy troubled, flying, fascinated thoughts, and in few words point to the remedy.

"But what is this strange feeling that steals over me, as if my being were parting asunder? Can it be death, and I in fullest health but now? Or can it be that the weird man has dared to throw over me the subtle influence of magnetism; me who have shunned all drugs of narcotic and alleviating influence, so that my spirit might be free and natural in its workings?—over me, whom mingled disgust, pity, and indignation have long since driven from all haunts in which its daring votaries exhibit to the gaping multitude—some, their power over the individual will, and others, their weak submission to those who wield the powerful element. Let me bethink myself. Yesterday, in the absorption of our lesson, I recall to mind that, for a moment, my robe came in contact with his arm. And could he thus transmit the potent fluid? And in the afternoon my half hour's siesta was so profound that I seemed to have slept through ages. I remember, too, his frequent calls upon my husband; some strange tale to draw him to his dwelling; some cabalistic secrecy attending it; some unwonted questionings of my tale-telling. Has he dared to exercise his magic on me, God's child and nature's protégé, whose principles and whose instincts alone have guided me since the first day they laid me in my mother's arms within this earth-pale, sealing upon my infant brow their baptismal mark, the blazing star? Has he dared to attempt to mingle his being by the mesmeric touch with that of my husband's wife? Does he know how much this means— my husband's wife? Even this. Of all men on the wide earthy he is the only, only one whose love, whose due sense of power and of my right, whose claim upon my affection and obedience have been so justly balanced that I have been allowed a true development, and thus with only him I could have lived in wedlock and not be prostitute. This I learn through the marvelous power of a sympathy with other minds, known only to her, reposing in nature's loving arms, who, while she broods over her as the dove over its young in cooing accents, tells her her secrets, while mother and child bathe in the eternal, benignant smile of 'our great Father.'

"I tread upon your power, thou impotent conjurer! get thee behind me, Satan! you offend me by your pretensions and miserable attempt at despotism! I'll breathe the open air. Come, ye breezes, and blow from the top of Lebanon's mount and cleanse me from the unwelcome gift forced on me by thy country's degenerate son! I tear my robe from off me, and cast it into the purifying waters fathoms deep, that it drown out its sinful participation in the deed. I faint—I die. Come, my husband, and fold your protecting arms about me, and let me sleep against your heart-pulse that it may hold your own away from the Death-angel's grasp, whose chilly breath comes faintly to me through the portal, half-opened by that tampering Jew."

(She sleeps.)

The next day the Pastor's wife, pale yet resolute, awaits the magnetizer's usual visit

(He enters.)

"Good morning, madam. You are surely ill."

"It is the truth. Ask me not the nature of my disease, for I mistake me, or ye know it well. Confess, sir, that you used the mysterious influence, you wield, to magnetize me."

"I did. There are different temperaments so naturally attuned, that by the influence of the subtle magnetic fluid strange harmonies may be awakened, so that two beings become blended into one. In our sentiments, and tastes, and life-experiences, so far as different ages justify, there seemed a wondrous unison, and for a reason which now I will not name, I sought to ascertain the extent of our dual unity. But some resistance has come between us, unaccountable to my weird vision."

"And you dare to confess all this to me, your equal, ay, your superior so far as a teachable spirit which gives clear insight into the laws of life can make me so? You, who have fought for your country's freedom, who plead the captive's cause, and defend the oppressed, can stoop so low, it seems, as to seek to cast your spell over a trusting woman's soul and person, and try to read her secret thoughts by a mean trick of jugglery!"

"I stand condemned; what farther say ye?"

"I grant ye an intellect, critical, inquisitive, and subtle, an artist-eye, and a poetic soul, with learning gathered from the deeps profound of eastern science and western schools of rare and curious knowledge, and an insight into the souls of men with power to wield their sympathies seldom attained; but into that of woman ye have read no farther than the alphabet, and one, who claims the title to be Psyche of her sex, pronounces you a hypocrite, inasmuch as ye in the same hour seek to enlighten and to darken, to free and to enchain, to awaken her to larger views of nature and its Author and to drown her in a sleep imposed by your unlawful tyranny. But I discard your power."

(He rises to leave.)

"Madam, our usual order is reversed. I stand the instructed, and you the teacher are. I acknowledge my mistake."

"I do not decide against your character by a single untoward action. I wait to see if your errors be not the consequence of a defective training, of an early, superstitious faith, the brambles and briers brought from the 'wild woods' of false theologies, sticking even to one who strives for the highest truth; but if ye ever repeat the attempt to subdue my will, to reveal my mind to your too curious scrutiny in this unhallowed way, and above all, to make my pure, noble, and loving husband the puppet of your capricious will in this design, I'll scorn you like an imp of hell. For I would as soon clasp hands with a fiend and turn my face straight towards the under-world, as carelessly to join myself by means of magnetism to one whom I had not, by long and tried companionship, read through and through, who did not use the power invested in him with the same holy sense of responsibility with which the Christ performed his miracles. And know this, O presumptuous man I that for the amusement of a passing hour ye may wield an influence given you to bless with, as a temptation and a curse to some one who, sad and solitary, climbs up a steep and stony way; who in glad innocence may yield a hand to one who seems able to lead her across life's precipices, but who, instead of replying to her confidence, throws her among the lions. Beware, beware of the evil that lurks, as it may seem, in flowers and music, and may, like ravenous beasts, tear your own soul if not another's."

(He moves with sad and repentant aspect towards the door.)

"I leave you. Forgive the injury, forget the lonely wanderer who, from no baseness, but a pure desire for a spiritual friendship hitherto denied him, sought through a means, by God appointed as I deemed, to win the blessing from you. For in starlight visions in the desert, it was revealed to me that, far west of Sinai's heights, I should discover the twin complement of my soul, and this sign of dual unity sealed between us should be the test to guide me to her. This I found in you. Mother, sister, wife are all denied me, and miserable that I am! this more ethereal boon I have now lost by a too eager grasp. Farewell!"

(She rises.)

"Do we understand each other?"

"Ay."

"And do my words seem just and reasonable to you?"

"Even so."

"Then we will give the usual sign of friendship, (clasping hands), and you will be a brother in the same great cause to which my husband and I have pledged ourselves, a safe inmate in our family, a friend to rely upon, not a wizard to guard against."

"I pledge myself."

"And now we know the meaning of a spiritual friendship, which shall liken us to the angels of God in heaven. A common zeal and mutual labor in the great cause of humanity and truth; sanctifying all life's aims, labor, mental culture and beautiful tastes; holding in unbroken unity and awful sacredness, the ties of husband and wife; superadding it may be a third, companionship in open faith avowed and with his full approval, in which each shall draw from the other all that is loveliest and rarest from our souls, while the triennial chain shall never rust in either link, but grow brighter and brighter unto the perfect day, when there is neither marrying nor giving in marriage, but all are as angels of God in heaven."

————

CHAPTER XX.

"Tis to create, and in creating live
A being more intense, that we endow
With form our fancy, gaining as we give
The life we image, ev'n as I do now.

BYRON.

(Mrs. Liebenhoff alone.)

"I hear the voices of Lina and Mr. Körner coming up the yard. I will read this chapter of my Tale to them, and see if they approve it. They give me right cordial encouragement in my work, but tremble a little for my free pen. I fear that this will startle them—Hilda and Zoë, too! and better still, the little three-year-old. You are welcome, friends; be seated, pray. And seeing that my larder is unfurnished with dainties for your refreshment, shall I give you a tit-bit from my romance? or are you not in the mood for it?"

"O yes," said all at once; "pray give it us."

"I like to see your progress; go on, you will be read, never fear," said Mr. Körner.

"When are we to be immortalized, dear Lisbet?" said Mrs. Körner, "for I see your fashion is to serve us up for the benefit of the public."

"Yes, I am acting upon your motto, 'make your friends useful as well as ornamental.' Do you feel damaged thereby?"

"O no! I like myself very well, idealized as I am. But are you sure that every one you dress up in this way will?"

"I have not asked them. They must get used to it. My revelations are nothing to what will be made of them at the day of judgment, when we shall know as we are known. Won't that be a glorious time?"

"Ha, ha! a woman's heaven that, where her curiosity will be fully gratified. But why don't you imagine characters, or take them from a greater distance? Novelists usually do, I believe," said Mr. Körner.

"O you and a few others are good enough for me; only tip you off with a little glory here and there, excepting you, however, who do very well just as you are. But paint people at a distance! What a question? Did you ever know an artist stand a thousand miles off from the subject of his sketch? You think I am a witch, do you, brother mine? Imagine, create characters! What a wicked thought! God only does that. What are you thinking of? I must use for my story what he has made for me, and be very thankful that he allowed me to be born and to live with such interesting people. So you may consider yourself as predestined to shine in this way from all eternity; for I am compelled, by the exacting spirit that strives within my little person to write a book, so here you all are."

"What you just now said reminds me," said Hilda, "of what Miss Ingemann told us yesterday, that women were not creative in the character of their minds, only imitative; that men were the inventors."

"Worthy of Miss Ingemann's farsighted wisdom! Excuse me, Hilda. She is not the only one in these hard times whose cold, steel point of an intellect pierces the eyes of their souls out so that they live and grope about in mental and spiritual blindness. Is not that a paradox? There is a certain volume somewhere, which says 'that men have sought out many inventions,' and don't speak of it as much to their credit either. I agree, they are very inventive. It is enough for the women to imitate, combine, arrange, group, and show off to good advantage, by the gift of their idealism and common-sense, the materials which a good God has strewn abundantly around in life, history, and nature, and in that way they stick to the truth, which is what we were made to live for in this universe. Men want to build a world of their own, and so they set about inventing, and they make poor work of it, seeing they cannot fly out of themselves, or get entirely away from the rule of their Maker, try as hard as they may; but they have contrived thus much, to turn the world topsy-turvy with their abortive attempts at creation. But the women will set it all right in time; let them have free scope."

"But when is this happy revolution to be made? for I suppose you date it from the publication of your book."

"O! of course. That depends upon my publisher. I see he dreads to throw up the reins of government himself, as well as to see them drop from the hands of his fellows, so he delays. If he were not a man of honor he would, I fear, burn my manuscript; but being such, he contents himself with keeping back my proof-sheets, telling me something like this, that my Tale is not of much account. But I will now give you my last chapter."

(She reads it throughout.)

"Lisbet, you frighten me," said Mrs. Körner. "What does this mean? Were you thus insulted by your teacher?" (looking very serious.)

"My dear Lina, you are as literal as I was the other day when you asked me if I had 'Bacon,' and I answered that I had some in brine, when you meant the great English writer! No, surely not, to my knowledge. You still look doubtful; then, for the first time in my life, I swear that he has ever treated me with the respect due from one Christian to another. Why, you make me blush that it can seem possible to you that I should be treated thus. My husband never doubted me in his life. Don't you see my drift? I had to write a chapter upon some of the new notions of the day—magnetism, psychological twinship, etc., etc., and I naturally wished to make it a little thrilling, and I have a foolish fashion born with me, of thinking in petty dramas. So I just wrote down one of them as it bubbled up in my mind, and it frightens, when I thought only of amusing you. For you do not need the moral. I am sorry."

"But really I think you are too hard on Mr. Seüll, an exile, and alone in the world, as he says he is."

"An exile! well, all the better. It gives him an opportunity to make new acquaintances. Alone, aloney, he says, does he? I had hoped there was one man in the world of sensibility and genius who did not fancy himself peculiar, but would take everything in the shape of trial and training as a matter of course, as it comes along—in short, who begins life, expecting nothing, thinking he deserves but little, and then whatever favors come to him he regards as so much clear gain and is thankful accordingly. I hope, at least, he did not berate the world, because, forsooth, it did not appreciate him?"

"His conversation squinted that way once or twice; but he did not enlarge upon the subject."

"Do you think Mr. Seüll is self-conceited?" said Hilda. "Rinda does."

"Not particularly so. All men are, you know. Of course they must be from their self-imposed position, having arranged themselves since time was, on an elevated platform, with the women all below, who are bidden to look up to them as superior, stronger, more creative, independent, worthy to receive due wages for their labor, the favored recipients for all the wine of life, which froths to the full brim."

"While your sex are destined to cook, sew for, and comfort them, that comes next," said Mr. Körner. "Lisbet, you are falling into cant; don't repeat that again."

"No, for you seem to have learned the lesson. But, seriously, I except you almost entirely. And, as for my husband—"

"He is not self-conceited," said Hilda.

"No, not much—a trifle so now and then. But I forbear to check him, for he is so faultless now that he half loses his transcendental labor, preaching to this degenerate age. So don't tell him, Hilda, for he would immediately set about reforming. I don't like perfect people, and I am sure the world is not good enough for such."

"But this Mr. Seüll, Lisbet, I don't quite like his giving you lessons," said Mr. Körner. "A Hungarian, a countryman of Kossuth, your demigod; rather dangerous for my enthusiastic little sister. What does your husband say?"

"My husband! Surely he asked him to teach me Hebrew. Why, he lets me do just what I please, and in return I take every hint from him as an inspiration. The other day, I dared to differ from him upon some verbal matter in my 'Story,' and wrote it according to my taste rather than his; but I lie awake nights about it, and so I have got to hunt it up, for I have forgotten it, it was so trifling, and change it according to his decision. That is what wives do, who have their freedom. Don't hinder Lina, if she ever takes a fancy to be strong-minded and have her rights, for only so will she give you yours."

"As every right brings with it a duty, I have as many now as I can respond to," said Mrs. Körner; "I do not wish for more."

"Mr. Seüll speaks of his critical work to some of our young men, the young elect, as you and Theresa call them, and they make themselves merry about it and his numerous corrections," said Mr. Körner.

"O! I suppose so, of course. No doubt he would come in for a share of their ridicule, as nothing escapes their carping criticism. He has not had time since he came into Anglo-Saxondom to learn to be 'as wise as a serpent,' as I have, with the brilliant but shallow spirits of the time, and keep his generous designs for humanity for those who would deem them not fanatical, but pitched to a tune higher than the contralto voices around us can express; designs which will swell the song of the millennial day, and be the common sentiment of souls made glorious through truth. So much do I distrust the judgment of any clique, who sip daintily here and there at every new rivulet which bursts out from hillside or glen, gathering a few sparkling drops to glitter upon their pericraniums, leaving the great ocean and the mighty rivers where they could learn their own specific gravity, and be humble, and gather from their generous depths to fill their belittled souls, that when they utter their shrewd dicta, I turn instinctively to the opposite pole of thought for the probable sanction of the truth revealed to the docile pupil of the ages. Jesus not only gathered up the knowledge and wisdom of all time to guide him and prepare him to be the Christ, but paused at the rites and symbols of his people—those sure landmarks by which to judge the fidelity of discipleship to the good, the fair, and beautiful—ever the same, standing before us in contrast to the shifting waves of speculation, which make strange inroads into the solid earth-banks. Such has been this Hungarian's coarse, ever breaking the fetters cast about him, deeming of little value the already attained, so that with strong grasp, he reaches after the truth beyond, while sign and ceremony give to his poetic soul the refining grace denied to those who, mole-eyed, see not their great significance. Look on this picture and then on that, and note well that the one will be revealed as the poet-critic, the child-philosopher, the Christian hero and patriot, and inspired divine; while the others, banished from the pinnacle on which an unsanctified imagination has self-exalted them, with penitent, willing hearts must return even as far back as the two tables for the religious strength of character they lack. And then it will seem plain to them, that sinking all petty differences of opinion, it is better, shoulder to shoulder, to do our part, to bear the ark of God along the centuries, than to slink away to fondle and hug to souls, into whom leanness enters more and more, an ism, an ophy, or an ology.

"As for Mr. Seüll, I fear not his displeasure for being made a victim by an illustration, indited with the intent of doing good, for he is Hungarian, which means noble; a Jew, which means acute in reading hidden meanings; a Christian, which makes him universal; and a German, which means gemuthlich—so much that is rare and excellent that it cannot be translated."

"You have a high opinion of him, Lisbet. I have failed to see all this in him," said Lina.

"Yes," said Mr. Körner; "these foreigners one knows but little about. You may as well be careful in trusting them."

"A foreigner, say you, and one of your own countrymen! That is like you Germans, forever talking of dear fatherland and sighing for the reunion of her principalities into one glorious commonwealth, and yet doing nothing to effect it. You do not wish for freedom nor reunion, else you exiles would band together more in the expression of a great central sentiment, even Christian toleration and good-will. Instead of that, you stand far aloof from each other with a microscope in either hand, so that you need not miss a single point of difference between you, gathering all such together to build a high wall of separation, preventing all cordial effort in laboring for Germany."

"What is the use of trying for anything; it would do no good, and only make us miserable, by stirring up useless regrets," said Mr. Körner.

"You have no faith, more than our physician and good friend. It is not every one who, in seeking medical aid can summon Poet, Philosopher, Reformer, and Doctor all in one; and yet, of what use is all this glory, for when my husband is ill, though I know he has beautiful boxes of Idealistic Pills, which I dare say would cure him, so little faith has he in their efficacy, that ten to one, he does not give him salts and senna, or filthy calomel and jalap, pah! So it is, I fear, with his treatment of his country. He gives it the bitter dose of sighs and tears, and keeps the heroic to himself. I see I shall have to take the matter in hand. I daresay I shall do more for your fatherland than either of you, with all your wailing."

"Go on. It may be that you will, I'll not hinder you."

"Who is your illustrator?" said Mr. Körner, turning over a blank-book, in which were specimens of his art. "He seems to have genius."

"That figure of Tyranny," said Zoë, "is very spirited and expressive; how did you find one to suit you so well, in this department of your work?"

"O! in true woman's fashion, Zoë; just as you would have done. In one of my prowling excursions about the city, in which I drop into this picture-shop and that toy-store, looking for suggestions here and there, and everywhere my truancy happens to lead me, I was walking along Dritte-street, and I chanced to look up at the third story of a building, and saw this sign—Lovie, Landscape Painter, General Illustrator, and Designer; Bauerle, Artist. Thinks I to myself, that is just what I want; an Illustrator for my 'Way,' so I began to interpret. Lovie! so far, so good. If a man has moral courage enough to call himself thus in these times, when 'Hatie,' 'Fightie,' 'Slanderie,' 'I am-better-than-youie,' 'Down-with-youie,' are the favorite cognomens, he must be the right one for me. 'General Illus.' etc. Surely if he can touch up the universe in general, with his art, he can my little book: better still—'Designer!' Then he is not a mere copyist with no ideality. Heaven deliver me from such! Another recommendation, 'Bauerle, Artist!' If his partner preserves enough of the scent of the pine woods and green fields when he gets to dry, dusty, legal Dritte-street, so as to remember to call himself the 'Bower,' it is all I need. I'll forthwith mount skyward. So I did, following one staircase after another, until I saw the name repeated on a door at the end of the passage. I knocked and entered, without waiting for it to be opened, not exactly knowing the etiquette of business-houses. One young man sat at a table, writing or drawing, with his hat on. 'That must be the 'le Bower,' ' thought I, 'he keeps it on as a symbol, lest he forget his rural name in these brick walls. The other at his desk, a pale young man with gentle mien, arose to greet me.

" 'Mr. Lovie?' " said I.

" 'That is my name.' "

" 'You illustrate books?' "

" 'I do.' "

" 'Will you mine?' "

" 'I will.' "

" 'And give me lessons in drawing?' "

" 'Even so.' "

" 'Please call at my house to-morrow morning.' "

" 'At eight o'clock?' "

" 'Precisely.' And so with a few more words, showing some ignorance on my part, of technical rules, we separated. The next day he came, with a little fear and suspicion in his aspect. I imagined, as he was bidden to mount the staircase at such unwonted summons, but which were dissipated as he found me no deluding cheat, and he does my work promptly, gladly and with appreciation as a Poet-Artist should, which proves to me that my mode of doing business is a very good one."

"Ha! ha! ha! But, my little sister, that is not quite the thing. Why did you not let your husband make the engagement? It is more proper for him to settle these matters for you."

"No, not while you and all the other strong men in our parish pile most of your religious work on his shoulders, until I see he begins to totter under the cruel load. I am not the one to add to his labors more than is possible, but am going to take care of myself. Three hundred and fifty husbands, wives, and children are too much for one man, even if he were the grand Sultan of the Turks. I vacate the spiritual harem and walk independently henceforth, until a better order of things is established. Besides, Mr. Liebenhoff was out of town just at the moment when my business must be attended to. He was gone, you know, to the yearly Souls' Fair, as your solitary purveyor in religious matters, hoping to get some celestial eye-water and heavenly ear-salve and angelic tonic to waken you up and cure your deafness and arouse your sleepy members altogether, for he is tired of repeating the siege of Sebastopol every Sabbath in his pulpit. I want him to disband the cavalry and artillery and give the infantry into my charge for a little time, and he will soon see what we will do. But he never acts rashly, you know, and believes less in revolution than amelioration; so he is reviewing the regiment, proclaiming freedom and equal rights to foot soldiers as well as officers, and goes on attacking the enemy with new courage. I follow after with my little fife and drum, saying, bravo! sotto voce, and carrying my own knapsack, meantime, except when he insists upon relieving me."

"Good! you will conquer, I think. We are a rude and lazy set of fellows to deal with, sure enough. But it is a minister's work to attend to these matters; we have enough else to do. But in what light are you going to introduce our friend, Mr. Kuhn, to the world in your Tale?"

"I have not made up my mind, whether to leave him to the judgment of his own awakened conscience for prizing it so lightly, or to steal that pretty little horse of his which he drives too fast; for I have a compassionate consideration for his future some thousands of years hence, when the soul-spark in the poor animal, after passing through all inferior metamorphoses, shall bloom into a beautiful young lady in the heaven-sphere. Supposing that he should be sailing along at the rate of a thousand leagues a minute, upon a thunder-cloud edged with tin, which, you know, shines pretty brightly and is so useful to you men that I do not think you can ever do without it; and he should see seated on the point of a rainbow, a bright and radiant sky-nymph, clad in a robe made of the brilliant day-dawn, with a zone around her waist cut from the bow of promise, with diamonds in her hair and on her breast, and arms crystallized from Sirius, such as Hilda loves; and he should say, 'Come, take a sail with me.' Now if the fair nymph were à la she, would not the witty answer be; 'I thank you—no, I have learned better than to consort with you, my one-time master, my equal, may-be, now. I know not but in passing the Yard and Ell you would snap it in two and use it for Bits to guide me, or snatch the comet's tail to switch me with; or, if I paused a moment out of breath, the twinkling of the stars as stirrups you would force to do your bidding; or, at best, in passing by Saturn's rings, whose refreshing waters I pant and ask for to quench my thirst, 'Get up, gee-ho,' would all the answer be.' And would she not serve him rightly by this tart speech, think you? and would he not be sorry? Or, if like Zoë were the nymph, as tones of softest flute she would breathe her reply, while like a mist the sun shines through, she floated by his side. 'Hail, earth-companion on the dusty way; yea, together we will quaff the ether of the New Jerusalem; and while we glorify our good and loving Spirit-Father, shining so gloriously, yet mildly from his Son, and become one with them and this bright universe, and glitter in star and reflect in moon and milky-way, and sing in the music of the spheres, and paint with the never-setting sun, now glowing with hues which earth but faintly dreamed of, and poetize in measures which ever flow 'fast by the throne of God,' whose inspiration lifts us to his own communion not yet conceived of, we will, in trustful harmony, pursue our way with backward, grateful, but pensive glance it may be, at every trial of earth which but prepared us to chant without a discord the song, in which shall mingle no harsh, unloving symphony. Glory to God, forevermore!' "

"I hope you will not idealize any more horses, or I shall lose my usual pleasure on Sunday afternoon."

"Only let me see your favorite one and at least you will not drive it at the rate of ten miles the hour again."

"But really I think you had better leave that out about the 'Wandering Jew.' "

"Impossible! It would be slighting the good gifts of Providence not to make the most of him, for he is the only character I have with a touch of the strange and awful about him. All the rest of you I know like a book, and you are as harmless and matter-of-fact as lambs; but he, with eyes a mile deep, and mystery, and it may-be, mischief back of that, is in some way to help me to a plot; for our friend, Mr. Headrich, and even my sober, truthful husband says a story is not worth much without one. How I am to work it up is not at all clear to me, but it must come through this stranger if at all, so you may as well ask me to stop writing altogether and close my brief life of authorship, as to banish him from the premises. Who knows but he was created on purpose to figure here? I should be no better than an infidel to reject him."

"You are very willful, I see."

"Yes, you must let me have my own way for once, and I shall live the longer for it, especially as I have been at the world's beck all my life in a certain fashion, more than I intend to be in future, I can tell you. So here I go at my own sweet will, and if any of you are sailing in a nice little skiff on some fine summer's day on waters which you have no right to, why look out for breakers when you see me ahead flying through the air on a broomstick."

"My gentle Lisbet!"

"O yes, gentle as old Boreas when let loose."

"My passive little sister can this be you?"

"Yes, passive as the sea in a storm, as the world in a general earthquake, as the sky when a hurricane sweeps over it; very, very, VERY passive, my penetrating brother! But really, there is no need for fear; I will commit no deed with pen and ink, which I am not willing you should repeat towards me. Indeed, if you please, in your first Tale you may have me for the only character, and show me in every possible light, provided you only do it in the loving spirit I do. So you see, I do not break the rule, 'to do as I would be done by.' "

"Are you going to Mrs. Sarran's to-night, dear Lisbet?" said Mrs. Körner.

"Yes, I suppose so."

"Look as pretty as you can, for it will be a beautiful party in all its arrangements, I know; for hers always are."

"I will wear my best apparel, but my pretty looks depend very much upon other people. If you will tell the company to please let me look pretty and they will consent to, I shall be everlastingly obliged to you, for I have been longing to have them allow my beauty to shine out ever since I was born."

"What now, Mrs. Paradoxia?"

"Very plain and easy to understand. Such dull faces as Zoë's and mine, must be lighted up by interesting conversation to show well, and ten to one, there will not be any up to my mark."

"You must make it agreeable yourself. I shall watch you to see if you do your full part towards it."

"I shall try to as much as the prosaic times will allow me. I can talk with interest for a few minutes and be enthusiastic too upon the surface-subjects of the day—pickled nuts, the last new fashion, novel, news, or author, the prettiest belle, the different styles of matrons, magnificent, or discreet and plain—eloquent, artistic, new or coming men, war, pestilence or famine, but I tire of these transitional subjects and want to go on to the real and substantial, such as I indulge in in my day-dreams. Hey, Zoë!"

"Give us a specimen, by way of variety, to-night, to brighten up our circle a little."

"I have not the courage, when at the simple remark I made to you the other day, that when grapes grew almost spontaneously on the hillsides of more southern regions, it was a sign that the people might eat them and drink their juice, you laughed at me and called me fanciful."

"Never mind, talk as you like for all that. Drop the weather and expatiate."

"I want no better subject than the weather, if I can talk about it as I like."

"As how, for instance?"

"Well, supposing that Mr. Tubinger, who owns large wheat fields, comes to me with benevolent intent to play the agreeable, and after three repeated times informing me that the summer is delightfully cool and verdant but too rainy, adapting, as you see, his lordly mind to my capacity,

I should answer: 'Yes, the seasons in their round are in close correspondence with our inner and outer life. Our sins and follies disturb the order of the physical, no less than the moral and spiritual universe. Creation groans till now with the foul and foolish deeds of those who should perfect the work begun by its great Architect. Tempest, storm, and inundation, which sweep with devastating fury, are but expressions of the want of harmony between man and man, and both with nature. Subdue the hurricane and whirlwind in the interior soul, enlighten it upon the great forces, which at God's bidding rule the world as second causes; let each inhabitant of earth perform his part well in conquering its arid plains and deadly swamps to use and beauty, and the world would smile as an Elysium, and Utopia would be no baseless fabric of a dream.' Would he not hem and ha, and think I was a lunatic? So, I say quietly 'yes; but I think we shall have enough to eat and drink.'

"Or, if I felt very cross, saucy and indignant, I should add: 'Too rainy, is it? Is that an advertisement that your crops are spoiled, and therefore, your prices will be heavy for our staff of life? Shame, shame on you, when God, with such abundance, pours from his garners food for the millions of his children, that you should scramble to seize an undue share by your monopolies, and make-believe a dearth in the midst of groaning, bursting plenty! Ye shall not have your selfish will. As there is justice and charity above, ye shall be compelled to deal out your stores, in meet obedience to true commercial laws. Gnash your teeth—your avarice is impotent. Clench your hands—your wickedness hath dealt its own death-blow, for in it, as in a mirror, men will see how awful and unnatural it is to pervert the free, unmerited gifts of Providence to their own mean or selfish purposes, without thought or care for the wants and miseries of others.' "

"Go on, I like it; hurra for Lisbet!" said Mr. Körner.

"O, you are too satirical!" said Lina.

"Not at all. Again, supposing you, my brother, should come to me, seeing me looking ennuyée, and should say brightly, 'What think of the times, little sister?' and exhilarated as I always am by you, I should answer, 'Bright visions beckon from over this dull waste of senseless folly, crudity, narrowness of thought and temporary swoon or captivity of all that is ennobling, beautiful and grand in European life. For out of this sad wreck of all free thought and frank and cordial brotherhood, from its atheism and mockery of truth, and low morality, from its closed artists' studios and authors' closets, double barred, and upturned printing-presses, and shut pulpit doors, and darkened courts of justice, shall come up a low indignant cry, which shall increase, and swell and burst at length, until it rends the welkin. It shall first rouse, like inarticulate thunder; it shall resound over the nations, its spirit, lightening as it goes, till these words, clear and commanding, shall, like the trump of God, make the dead live, and raise them to light and liberty. 'Citizen soldiers, standing armies, lay down your weapons, reeking with the blood of those ye have no quarrel with; disband your forces. Ye are the Gods of Europe. Without ye, the despot's hands fall in paralysis.' Let them see at last and tremble at the sight, that bayonets not only think, but speak and act. And this, their language is. 'Too long have ye wielded us for your own selfish purposes, too long have we been your slaves to do your hellish bidding. Wounded, bruised and maimed, made like the ravenous dogs in temper, like the wild brutes in soul, a spark still burns within us which shall flame up and scorch ye for the ruin ye have wrought upon us. Fight your own battles if ye will. If to the damned ye choose to go with the blood of millions on your skirts, ye drag not us beyond this very hour. We will not war against you in fearful revolution; blood has been spilled in floods, and still we are in chains. But we lay down our arms and swear to fight no longer at your demoniac orders. Enough to do in the short life allotted us, to live for God and our own souls. Our children are born and live and die in most unnatural severance from us, who gave them birth. Wives, mothers, sisters weep till the eye loses its life and stares sightless with the vain hope of greeting the son, brother, husband of the sweet days long gone. For mutilated, worn and hopeless, with the springs of life all broken before our time, with misery and sin high heaped upon our souls, the cursed inheritance of cruel tyrants, we totter home to die, a desolated troop. O spirit brave, gentle and tender, whose name befits the music tuned by Heaven within thee, who wert sent by God to soothe the spirits of the under-world on earth, the battle-field and camp, bind up the wounds of those poor, fainting ones, steep them with cordials that strength may last for them to travel homewards, and weep out their homesick souls upon the bosom of their own and die, blessing you with their last breath! O beautiful type of womanhood, made strong by a faith, whose watchword is 'God and Humanity!'

" 'Kossuth! sublime, yet humble Christian Statesman, braver in self-restraint than in the deeds ye wrought for thy 'dear Hungary;' now is the time ye have long bided for. Take what belongs to thee, thou leading man of Europe, for thou wilt rule only to bless, till the time come, of which thy prophetic heart failed but in this, that it yearned to share too soon for its country's good, the rule with lesser spirits. Lead for a while with firm, yet generous governance, the millions who look over to thee in thy seclusion as their saviour. Marshal the forces, electrify them with the spirit caught from him, who lived to bless, and died to save mankind. Form Germany, Poland, Hungary, many-sided, yet with one yearning heart, into a Christian republic, each separate state an emporium for art, or science, or learning, or morals, yet sending their grateful tribute of life-blood to the centre, keeping it alive with the true living ichor, fraternal love, then returning it again in natural flow to every smallest member!

" 'Louis, thou modern man-sphinx, with thy face of stone and supple frame, now starting into this form and now that, to riddle the gaping nations! thou wilt yet glorify the land which the man of destiny, Napoleon, loved with such fond but doomed affection. Thou wilt yet reveal thy genius in a way more startling than any yet suspected. Thou wilt take off the chains from Artists, Philosophers, and Poets among thy countrymen, whose spiritual insight, whose instincts, beauty-loving, spirituelle, shall flower in noble action, prompting to greater labors, more enduring renown than awaits those deemed stronger, more worldly-wise, and mighty through rigid formalism. These sons of genius thou wilt bid God-speed in fashioning and adorning la belle France, till, charming, she stands forth in beauty bright, the graceful Lady of our continent. Then it will be proved to those who taunted her with capricious vacillation and weak subservience, that though it was not in her children to combine successfully for victory and power upon a coarse idea, she has but waited for her soul to grow beautiful, ay mighty, too, to announce her resurrection in heavenly, poetic, artistic, eloquent utterance, and rise and shine with glorious and growing lustre!' "

"What an oration!" said Mr. Körner. "Then that is the way you would talk if you could, is it? Try it to-night. I'll introduce you to the audience, and stand by you meantime."

"Of course I would not be so stupid as to be such a nuisance in a party. Everything in its season, I say. Conversation, light, graceful, tender, serious, airy, by turns in the parlor, and orations and sermons in the lyceum and church! When we women get the use of our tongues in our legitimate sphere in the family circle, we will show you how the thing ought to be done; but—"

"Indeed! everybody knows what chatterboxes you all are. What now?"

"Men are everybody, are they? Did you ever hear a woman say that her sex were the greatest talkers, making speeches four hours long in parliament, preaching sermons till they stretch to twentiethly, prosing hour after hour in private, standing in the door-way lengthening out their last words, et cetera, et cetera! I only ask you, or any of your brethren, to note the five next assemblings of—say three men and as many women in social converse, and see which division talks the most, and how many times any one of the ladies attempts to express herself and is not overborne by the louder voices of the other sex. That is all I want you to do. I am not anxious about the result. However, I am not entirely serious in this complaint at least. I believe that your sex ought to do the speaking in public. Let women write. They wield a pen of various power, and they can do it in the retirement they are fitted for. And even in private, I think that gentlemen may well form the basis of our conversation. Their substantial, granite natures are fitted for foundation-work of every kind. But if our thoughts, like vines and flowers, and rainbows and dew, or even a good pelting shower now and then, attended by thunder and lightning, which is very purifying you know, seek to gild and beautify and refresh, at intervals, do not say, 'pshaw, this is all flummery and nonsense. Let us brush the stuff away,' and then tramp on again with your heavy tread."

"Good. I'll agree to all this," said Mr. Körner.

"But to return to oratory," said she; "I simply meant that the spirit and subjects of our conversation should be more earnest and elevated than they are. I verily believe that many others as well as myself are revolving grave and stirring questions within, who simply give out the scum and froth of our best thoughts and feelings when we meet, and for that reason society has become tedious."

"I fully agree with you; let me stay at home and play with the children, I say. Yet if we would, through a broad culture, bring out what is in us all, each his separate gift, whatever it may be, society would be enlivening and elevating; but to stand up for four mortal hours and play and act the agreeable and interesting, with nothing inspiring in the tone or spirit of the gathering, is getting too much for my nerves, I confess," said Mr. Körner.

"I have not got to that pass yet," said Mrs. Körner. "I look forward with a child's delight to this evening."

"I am so glad," said Lisbet. "And why should you not, a sunbeam as you are, dance merrily here and there among those who love and court you for your warmth and brightness?"

"George Stephenson used to say, when his mother told him to dress himself for her evening company: 'Confound it, now we have got to stand and make faces at each other till mother orders in the provender, when we shall smudge round and eat apples in our prettiest way. Hilda, let's cut and run.' "

"Rather free-spoken was the said young American, but you seem to have a vivid recollection of him, my dear," said Mrs. Körner.

"I have. I wish I could see him now. I wonder if he is out in the western wilds of America, where he used to say he was going," and even Hilda looked dreamy and abstracted for a moment.

"But, sister mine, where did you learn so much, pray? What college gave you the prize for being orator primus? Tell me."

"Orator! did you say? I am no orator, only men are orators of course, who puzzle their brains and get angry if the children interrupt their awful lucubrations; who sit up till after midnight scratching their heads and drinking strong coffee, or brandy, gin, or what not; who smoke an extra number of cigars, or may-be take an opium pill or two by way of inspiration. And when the mountain has brought forth a mouse, the procession forms, the best carriage draws up to the door, the orator of the day steps in, supported on either side by grave gentlemen in black relieved by dazzling vests, and through crowds he mounts the rostrum, rattles with cracked thunderbolts and lightens with mouldy electricity in long-drawn, faded streaks, while the initiated cry 'hear, hear!' When his eloquence has expired of inanition, he is borne away on shouts to the feast-table, where in deep potations he is drowned in the praises of his compeers, which soothe his vailed, wine-composed senses with the flattering unction of the greatest Orator of these progressive times! No, no, I am no orator, for I am only a woman and go about my daily work—now make a pudding, now smooth a pillow, sweep my parlor, prune my vines, and weed my flower-beds, or for recreation sew——and you know what; these thoughts and feelings meantime swelling and rising until they flow out for your and Lina's entertainment, and if for something better, my beloved ones, so much the happier for me. But I am no orator; that cannot be."

"What possesses you with the idea that Napoleon, the Little, is going to work such wonders, and how do you come by your spirit of prophecy? What is the secret of it, pray?"

"You must wait and see if my predictions come true, before you call me prophetic. How do I come by the spirit? Think of a practical Anglo-Saxon asking me, a dreamy Oriental, as I call myself, such a question! If you had not an aurora of poetry in you which shines out now and then, as when you tell the children their good-night stories, for instance, I would not deign to inform you. Why, man, I get it all through my common sense. Yes, simply my common sense, which you all boast of so much, but of which there is a disgraceful, diminishing, and disheartening dearth in these dreary, drudging, dreadful times among your sex, to say the least. Ours will have to come to the rescue, I plainly see."

"But you have forgotten to answer my question."

"You should know yourself. Our Journals have exposed the result of Louis' great intentions. Did you not read yesterday's paper?"

"Yes, but I saw nothing of this kind."

"Strange, when it was so prominent! You must not be so busy with those law papers and then you would not fall behind the times. Why, in one of them was this announcement: 'That the empress Eugenie's face was remarkable for nothing so much as for its expression of a sense of enjoyment,' which added to what I know of the emperor through other sources, led me to this train of thought, and I leave it to you if it is not very common-sensible.

" 'Now,' thought I, 'if Napoleon were as mean and wicked as the world says, Eugenie's face would wear a different look from that. There have been times since their marriage when she seemed unhappy, and they say, that it might be because her husband resolved in his mind whether he had better not repeat the sacrifice of his uncle in giving up Josephine. But Louis and Eugenie's was a real love marriage, and great good always comes from such. At any rate, all seems right between them now. Still, I do not think it would be sufficient even for the happiness of an empress, though I grant she is in a very false position and one which is liable to make her very selfish, to throw over her face the glow of a lively sense of enjoyment, simply to have her husband love her if he were a very wicked man at heart, or did not at least give strong symptoms of reforming. No, Lisbet, you may depend upon it, she knows a fact or two, and how to keep her husband's secrets too. I have great faith also in stone faces, and that trustworthy newsman, they say, says that his is one of the purest water. Depend upon it, that underneath this dull surface something great and good is revolving for her and the country of her adoption. He has a strong will, a power of command, and executive abilities, all requisite in its present condition. Yes, he is just the man suited to succeed at this distance of time, that great genius and reformer, the first Napoleon. He will, guided by his example where it was wise, warned by his mistakes, with a sage insight into the spirit of the times and the requirements of the age, strike the first hour upon the horologe which is to usher in a new era of civilization, in which Art, Science, Literature, and Religion are to supersede Hatred, Tyranny, War, and Diplomacy in preserving the balance of power in Europe, and allow the peculiar genius of either nation to attain its natural development and growth.' All this I read in Eugenie's face, revealed with a true woman's artlessness, and you may be sure that she too will do her full part in bringing about this new order of things.

"Now, do not say absurd to my mode of reasoning, but wait five years and then pass your judgment upon it. I see in Lina's face that she does not think I am an idiot."

"O Lisbet, day by day is it revealed to me, why, when scarce beyond my infant years, as with fond care you led me to our rustic day-school, I felt such pride in your protection, and why, when the stranger met us on our homeward way, I nestled close beside you, that be might know I was your little sister. And now I greet you with glad and grateful welcome in your new sphere of thought and duty, sure that as with meek and patient spirit ye have gathered treasures, too subtle for me, engrossed as I am, with my maternal cares to grasp at, so will ye with true and graceful feminine force express them in the great cause of raising woman to her rights and duties. I only fear, that in your zeal for truth, you may overstep the line beyond which the world brooks not reproach and criticism. My loving heart bids me to keep the chain of affection ever bright between myself and others, and I do not compromise the truth, I ween, in doing thus. And they must love you even as I am loved, or half my happiness is missing. Keep in mind your mutual relations with the friends at least around you, and how painful will be a chasm between you wrought by too free a pen."

"Lina, I thank you for your kind greeting, and no less for the words of caution mingled with it. Think not that with unguarded spirit, I dash the crudities of my careless play-hours in the faces of my contemporaries. But with affectionate, reverent spirit, as befits a child of the All-Perfect, who, with wondrous skill made this our time-sphere, and pronounced it good; so do I gather the productions of my heart and brain, and weave them in simple fashion, but with serious purpose, with traits and incidents and expressions of my own and the little world about me, with careful hand pruning my work of every falsehood to Nature and God, hoping not to offend, but to give pleasure to the passing hour. But by the fiat announced by Him, who would have his children worthy of their high destiny, to immolate ourselves, rather than to offend one of the laws by which we are darkly held, I must reprove as well as praise. O, my sister, ye have called to mind our childhood, with your infant pride in me, and I have ever deemed it as but a foolish fancy; though I loved you for it. But I will be worthy of your early instinctive admiration, nor mar with bitterness, the fair home of love, which is the necessity of your being, but strive to have it fairer, more worthy of you through my bold pen. For it is made of a precious metal, the gift of friendship and relationship, and dipped in the milk of human kindness, which cannot, if it would, draw else than lines which run parallel with truth and love, though in the process it may strive to sever in all good faith, the ruinous excrescences from our lives, and touch them with added healthful grace and loveliness."

"Then, dear, erase some of the most pointed remarks, please do," said Mrs. Körner.

"Lina, I mind the time, when sleeping on your baby-couch, our mother and I would gaze in rapture on your unearthly beauty, as your cheek lightly rested on the tiny hand, the dark eyes closed in sweet repose, the lips divided by a smile, the forehead with delicate veins coursing across it, like rivulets repeating the upper sky-blue, and forehead expanded heaven-like, telling tales of the angels who joyously danced within. As with one breath, we would exclaim, 'how lovely!' I would question sadly, why, when I closed my weary eyes to sleep, my brow would settle into a frown of distress, and strange and fearful and unchildlike dreams would lower from the darkness round me. Our fates to me are now interpreted. You have fulfilled your early promise. Affection, beauty, brightness and approbation attend your every act, for each is overflowing with sympathy and humanity. The suffering poor feed from your open hand, which meantime softly heals the soreness of their grieved natures. The sad and lonely cast but a glance at your 'kind loving eyes,' and straightway lay their burdens in your bosom. Birth, death, marriage, and burial among those whom colder hearts would deem no claimants are all familiar to you, who shed your sympathy like the sweet dew from heaven, on all who ask it by look or word or sign of grief, while, if it might be, you would gather to your Eden a multitudinous household, and 'keep them warm' with your embrace."

"Do not flatter me, I but consult my happiness," said Mrs. Körner.

"It is no flattery, but the simple truth, my Lina," said her husband.

"I, on the other hand, like Memnon's statue, have stood in stony silence, my music sounding deep within me, waiting for the rising Sun's rays to strike my harp of thousand strings, and chant anew the song of Bethlehem's angels. Strange, that it should keep in tune so long amid life's chills and damps and heats, and the coarse world's rude handling; for my childhood mates have lived, acted, uttered their oracles, and died, or have been absorbed in the spirit of the times, making but slight individual mark, by which to date their memories. Children have risen since around me, and soon outgrown my dull intelligence in Fashion, Elegance, Esprit du corps, Science, Art, and Literature, Mental Acumen, and Skill of Leadership, each one measuring the other by prominent development in one of these or all, as is the custom. But I have simply lived a Soul, growing by every influence Our Father sheds around me, but chiefly by stretching my stature heavenward to grasp his beams of light shed downwards. They have guided me through no mean gymnasium which has trained and strengthened me till now. But such culture befits not one who would stand forth distinguished enough to influence largely, or give a prestige so as to be heard with gentle deference, though truth and beauty may drop like honey from the lips. Such manners and such regard are given to strong colors, red, yellow, or black and white mingled in striking contrast. But I, a neutral tint, though striving to mingle in the shade the elements of all the rest in fitting harmony, have been too insignificant to reflect the rays of any inferior luminary, shining by borrowed light. I have waited for the Sun of righteousness to revolve near my orbit with his full day of splendor, dawning near, to waken me to give forth such music as he approves.

"I am his instrument, and if the chords may sometimes rudely jangle, it is, that through temporary discord, they may be attuned to the sublimest harmonies and charm and elevate the listeners. I give you what is in me. Take it in the spirit of love with which I yield it. It is the concentrated essence of my life-song, ever sounding on through all the weary years, but too much blended with the sounds of Nature to be distinctly heard, except when some meek, docile listener, with ear quickened by nightly chant of spirits in his dreams, has placed his ear with loving trust to my stone face and deemed the rising Sun's rays the sole awakening cause of what he called unwonted strains, but which I have ever striven to sing from every pore of my stony-tinted being."

"Dear Lisbet, Memnon's music has never been turned from with a deaf ear by me, though I knew not its varied power of utterance. But to drop the figure, I simply meant to express the idea that in a work designed for the widest good, much tact and judgment must be used in its construction, and in the handling of the different characters, so as not to place you in antagonism with any of your readers, or at least as few as possible. What you say about your husband's parish, for instance, may offend more than benefit."

"My dear, I write for people who are gifted with common capacities, of course. One must at least, presume upon thus much. I only ask for the judgment of patient and sensible readers.

"The parish! I have been thinking that, like Æsop, I must take a candle at noonday to hunt it up, so gracefully it was bowing itself away from our entreaties to build anew our sanctuary; though when the pastor's services are needed for its multiform requirements, it starts up obvious enough. But, supposing that I should, in playful fashion, place in opposite scales on one hand, the awful injuries inflicted upon it by my pretty golden goosequill, and on the other the wrongs of the sisterhood of ministers' wives. For they grow uneasy upon the Procrustean bed on which they are bound and cry out for freedom from their restraint. I have no great complaint to make, for a neutral-tinted object is seldom aimed at by the marksman, it is not sufficiently evident to the eye, you know. Or, if some very sharp-eyed hunter notes me and raises his bow, I pass on, saying, 'It cannot be for me, O no!' And even if the arrows hit me, I am guarded by such proof-panoply within, that they slide from me like rain from off a cabbage leaf. So it is not for myself so much as them, I use the scales of justice."

"Weigh on," said Mr. Körner; "we'll see which side kicks the beam."

"Well, first item. To be made the subject of a long debate between wise men and sage elderly maidens, on our matrimonial eve, upon whether 'we'll do' for the fearful responsibilities of our future position. Item second. After careful calculation upon how little salary will supply our husband's slenderest needs, to be thrown in as a make-weight in the scale which tips too lightly on his side to the eye of careful bargainers. Item third. To have the same wise men comment upon the undue attentions which the pastor pays the bride during the honeymoon, thereby neglecting them, their wives and children; and the said elderly maidens throw up their eyes at the extravagance of her wedding trousseau, and especially at that bright bow or feather which she presumptuously sports in their face and eyes. Item fourth. To be so unfortunate as to throw the whole parish into convulsions if she steps to music a half hour or two, though the wives and daughters may meantime dance to early dawn; or into an incurable fever, because, forsooth, she goes to see a drama enacted, though she may meet the parishioners in a body at the play-house, on the plea that she sets a bad example! Item fifth. To have her first-born, and all that come after him, looked at askance by the reckless youths of the community if he happen to frolic extravagantly, when misled, it may be, by them, with the sneering remark, 'pastors' sons are always dissipated.' Item sixth. To be chief surveyor, engineer, conductor, and engine-tender of the locomotive society, so far as it devolves on women to keep it running, in order that the majority of her sex who are more favored by fortune may sit apart in indolent, elegant, fastidious leisure and seclusion from the vulgar labors, social connections and interests of the rude world at large, so detrimental by its contact to the superficial gloss and tinsel of fashionable and dilettante living. Item seventh. While at the same time she denies herself a generous cultivation of her artistic tastes and literary aspirations for want of time, engrossed by her public and social duties and family cares, increased by the necessity of earning, by some means, her own wardrobe, denied by the meagreness of the living granted her by the parish. Now look at the scales please, and tell me which side tips."

"Stop," said Mrs. Körner; "put first into them the affection and its tokens which ever have attended you, brightening your face with smiles while saying, 'how good God is, shown in these symbols of their love, blossoming thus beautifully in kindly deeds!' "

"Ay, Lina, not one is forgotten, but the spirit with which they were proffered is cherished in my heart of hearts. The children walk delighted through my dwelling and say, 'How many pretty things our pastor's wife has!' and I answer gladly, 'Gifts all of dear affection, doubly valued for themselves and for their beautiful associations.' The custom of the ancient Cyrus is repeated, who, when the meat and bread upon his table was grateful to his taste, said: 'Take the other half to yonder friend, and say, Cyrus loves this, receive it from him.' And when I walk abroad, proud of my brave attire, I say of some ornament, 'this was the choice of friendship, it fits me well.' "

"Then what would you have? You surely are not sordid, though really your speech tends that way. Should the sisterhood have a separate salary in addition to their husband's, in consideration of their interest and aid in his labors?"

"O no, no, no! we are too conventional and commercial now in our modes of showing our interest in each other, and it divides those who should be members, one in spirit, as they are of one 'household of faith.' A cordial greeting, a look saying 'God speed you on your way!' a flower, a little mint, the slightest favor expressing our spiritual relationship, would go far to unite those who fear to make life a drudgery by too general a sympathy, and so look askance lest the least greeting should draw down upon them a host of social obligations such as the fashion of the times exact. What I mean is this: that no woman should be set apart, as too holy by her position to mingle in any sports or recreations suited to her associates. It degrades both her and them by a miserable superstition. Nor in the work of life are they, more than she, exempted from the responsibility, which each one owes as a Christian woman, to do her full part to bring the world up to the tone of God's requirements. Each one should be a priestess of the Most High, and not only see that she burn no strange fire upon the altar of her faith, but that the pure flame of holy life shine brighter and brighter to the perfect day. Then no unequal burden would heavily weigh on one, no better fitted nor gifted with greater strength than others to bear along the interests of humanity; but while she could claim her share of leisure for beautiful culture and refreshing recreation, many a one, now palsied in mind, heart, and body by indolence and ennui, and an aimless life, will waken as from the dead at the summons to the true life-work, which now is resting upon a few wearied, and anxious, and over-worked ones, starving their fancy and living taste for beauty for want of leisure and pecuniary means with which to indulge their cravings."

"You are very radical, Lisbet. The world will call you a disorganizer," said Mr. Körner.

"I am, and I care not what it calls me, provided some words of mine may express the indefinite wish which many have for a reform, and thus hasten on its progress. We are souls and should have a soul's true existence, for no one, however just, is unaffected by the atmosphere of society around him, and I, for one, yearn for the companionship which is shut out from me by overgrown conventionalism. Sects, coteries, societies but divide us from each other. Even those of the same household, who have lived through every experience of mortal life together, birth, death, marriage, heart-rending agony, sickness, sorrow, and success, are ignorant as unborn babes of what makes each other's life-pulse beat with highest hope or sink in sad disheartenment. I say farewell forever to paltry self-seeking, exacting friendships such as these; Mene, Mene, Tekel, Upharsin is written against them on my heart of hearts, dooming them to banishment and eternal condemnation. They rob us of half our life; for a soul shut up within itself, denied full expression of what it lives, and moves, and has its being for, is but half living. And how can Psyche spread her wings and soar to the empyrean with no elastic atmosphere to buoy her up and answer, breath for breath, to the timid fluttering of her gauzy wings? Psyche! strange work must be thine own in this enlightened age of intellect, but darkened and misled concerning thee and thy just claims! Fold thy delicate pinions and take the pickaxe, spade, and auger, and bore deep, deep down to the crystal fount of human nature; free the pure stream of truth which surely flows beneath all upper incrustation, however dense, discouraging and dubious it may seem to the weak in faith. Tire not, but work in love, in season and out of season, by night and by day, alone or with the cold, indifferent, or sneering world gathered around thee to witness thy defeat. God, through his Son who bade thee to the work, looks on and cheers thee. Patience a little longer, and the living waters, buried for ages, shall, freed from their dark imprisonment, mount up high and still higher to greet the upper sunlight, and then descend in purifying showers, cleansing the atmosphere of all impurities, and leaving it healthful and inspiring. Meantime, it plays in fountains, flows on in rivers, falls in cataracts, collects in reservoirs, and is spread from thence through every household, clearing, purifying and gladdening all by its life and lustrous virtues. Psyche! then spread thy wings, refreshed by rest, strengthened by labor of thy more corporeal members, and fly into the clear transparent blue. Now shall men see thee as thou art, the symbol, expressive of what their life should be, strong, vigorous, manly for thy earth-labors, but with wings fitly plumed for highest soarings—heaven and earth in closest junction, as befits children of time, but heirs of heaven."

"Lisbet, destroy not unless you re-create a new and better friendship than you condemn. How can we live, how can society exist without connections, rude they may be, yet necessary to existence and efficient action here below? Tell me the remedy for our social ills; show me the substitute for what you banish."

"The Church! my Lina, formed of all living souls, each one alive to the priceless worth of his own nature and its development, burning with zeal to live like our great Leader, our elder brother, God's most obedient Son, nature's sole true interpreter, and to be one with him and God! The Church! beginning with the household, going out to our little company of fellow-worshipers, and spreading and spreading till it becomes a Christian commonwealth, embracing all people, tongues, and nations."

"A grand idea worthy of your husband! You have been his docile pupil," said Mrs. Körner.

"I have; but do not think it caught by rote from him. My soul is quickened, a-blaze with this great sentiment. O Lina! join this great communion; come to his feast. Spurn from your generous and child-like soul the coarse, metallic spirit of the age, if but its shadow has crossed it, which sees in these simple symbols nothing but elements of material bread and wine. They come to us from that dark hour when he, the brother of our purest heart of hearts, was in life's dire extremity. They whisper to us in tones sadder and softer than any voice can utter, to remember him who died that we might live. They summon us to awaken from our lethargy and sins, and be renewed in spirit and glorified in life; to commune through them with the great and good of all past, present, and coming time, with Jesus, as master of the feast, who blends in his great spirit the genius of all that is true and pure in the religions of the ages with the poetry of nature, to form the subtle essence of his own eternal Christianity."

"We come."

"Ay, ay, we come."

"O! let us join you also, in our youth," said Zoë and Hilda.

"And I too," said the child. "Do you love me, my aunty?

"Yes, darlings, each and every one. The sweetest flowers shall be glad offerings to our Lord, no less than the ripened fruit. Come one, come all!"

"Now we will leave you better, I trust, and happier for our meeting. Adieu, my sister!" said Mr. Körner.

"Till we meet again this evening, adieu, dear Lisbet!" said Lina.

"O this evening! Yes, I think I'll go. I feel at home at Mr. Sarran's; his benevolent face, beaming a benison upon his guests, is even better than if his speech were freer without it, and the kind, gentle greeting of the hostess reminds me of our mother. But wear that full gray robe of yours, my Lina, please, that if I fail of courage in a large company—for my heart sinks in entering a crowd—I may hide my head between its folds, and, like the silly fowl, imagine myself not seen. Or, now I think of it, our hostess wears neutral tints, and I'll stand close by her, or, if she is called away, I can hide myself behind the busts and statuettes, or, if they are engrossed, I'll retire into the library and put my face close to the portrait of my early friend, and may-be they will think I am simply a shade of that, for when we were young, it was said we looked alike.

Or better still, I'll sit upon the sofa with Miss Farrel; her face is almost as stony as mine, ay, and covers as much too, which will shine out some day to the amazement of the superficial. We'll chat, and the guests will say: 'Are there two there? No, yes, no; on the whole, there is but one. How prettily she crochets!' "

"Lisbet, darling, let me say one word, and deem me not intrusive. Your serious words have sunk deep into my heart; your light ones jar upon my spirit, following in such quick succession."

"Why, Lina? Dive deep into your soul and note in your most natural hours, if various tones sweep not, one after another, over its harp-strings. If pure and loving in their spirit, they make no discord, but form a richer, more thrilling melody. Look abroad on nature. Now it rains gently, making sweet symphonies; now pours in torrents, lightening for stage lamps and thundering for the chorus of the orchestra. Momently, the sun breaks from behind a cloud, like the great Primus Don, to dazzle us with the splendor of his acting. Do these changes in the heaven-theatre seem rude, unfeeling, and untimely? O let me be free, at least with you, my sister! I am too grave and sermonizing to suit my taste and fancy. My spirit is like a rainbow, many-tinted. Would that the atmosphere would reflect half its brightness! I live in the hope it some day will. But even now shadows are flitting across my vision, many-eyed and quick to sense the future. Heaven grant they may not darken around us! Adieu, adieu! Pray heaven for strength and guidance!"

————

CHAPTER XXI.

"The canker galls the infants of the spring
Too often before their buttons be disclosed;
And in the warm and liquid dew of youth
Contagious blastments are most imminent."—SHAKSPEARE.

ZOË'S eighteenth birthday had just passed, and she was beginning to look forward to rejoining her parents, from whom she had so long been exiled. A ship was soon to sail for Santa Cruz, and the question was debated by them whether she should return in it or wait for six months longer, when another opportunity would offer for her passage to the island. For a reason which will hereafter appear, they decided that, notwithstanding their yearning desire to see her again, which, on the part of her mother, had become almost a mania, it still was better that she should remain in Denmark for the present. In this Zoë more willingly acquiesced than she would have done before her intimacy with Mrs. Liebenhoff commenced. In her she found much relief from the devourings of her own nature, turned in upon itself for lack of proper sympathy and a nutriment congenial to it, and in that lady's high-toned and enthusiastic character and sentiments, accompanied, as they were, by a warm and growing attachment to herself, she found an approach to the ideal friendship of her day-dreams. On the one hand, the intimacy between them was beneficial to her. On the other, considering that her imagination was already unduly developed, and her aspirations and religious sentiments in advance of the character possible to an inexperienced young girl, whose world had been as yet only within herself and her school-room, and whose principles were not matured and strengthened by practical life, the soarings of her friend into the ideal and imaginative, as was her custom, acted unfavorably upon her. These were but the flowering of Mrs. Liebenhoff's nature on the summit of an experience, which had strengthened her to the degree that there was no exhaustion resulting from the act; the fruitage of a life so matured by faithful labor, watchfulness, and a culture suited to the soil of her mind, that it poured forth its abundant harvest spontaneously, without danger of injury. If the present influence upon Zoë were considered, she might be said to have erred in her intercourse with her, though in a way very natural. Never before had she found one so much like herself in her original constitution, and at the same time, with equal simplicity and unworldliness of character. Wearied as she was with many of the conventionalisms of society, baulked of a full expression of her aspirations and feelings by the different way of looking upon life and the future of most of her friends and associates, when with Zoë, childlike yet mature, imaginative and highly refined, and with a true eye for the beautiful in literature and art, yet fashioned, as she was, very much by the Hebrew Scriptures, and after the model of the ideal presented by them, she felt such delight in her companionship, that her whole nature gushed forth like the crystal stream from the fountain, delighting and elevating, but, at the same time, dazzling and unduly exciting her. To be sure, she gave her the wisest counsel, suited to her years and her peculiarities; but these were to bear fruit in her pupil-friend afterwards, while the intoxication of her fellowship was working daily in this impassioned child of the Tropics.

"O Hilda!" said she, as she walked homewards, "I feel as if Mrs. Liebenhoff were inspired whenever I am in her presence. Even when I am sitting in silence with her, when she is writing or sewing, or whatever she may be doing, I am raised above my common life. Do you not think there are some persons who shed virtue from them as our Saviour did, without their voluntary will, simply because they are so good and pure? I know I feel very differently when with her from what I ever do with Miss Ingemann."

"Miss Ingemann is good and pure, too," said Hilda.

"Yes, I know it; but compared with Mrs. Liebenhoff, she is worldly and common-place. They seem to me as unlike in character as this Madonna, on my breastpin, is from that portrait hanging up in the hall with a crape cushion on her head and stiff stays on."

"Mrs. Liebenhoff is too little conventional to suit my taste. I think she carries her ideas of fraternity and sisterhood too far. She would make people all alike, it seems to me. We should have no kings and queens, nor even noblemen and ladies, with common people and servants to work for and wait upon them; and I should not like that. I am for preserving my dignity and not suffering every menial and low-bred person to encroach upon me. I must say I like to use my power over those beneath me, and order them round a little. It makes me feel respectable;" and Hilda raised her head and made herself as tall as possible.

"I have never seen any one, not even Miss Ingemann, who had such control over other minds as she has, and I do not think it would be possible for one to treat her with disrespect," said Zoë. "Her power is within, and her rule, one which a proper self-respect, joined with love and sympathy for every human being, gives her. O Hilda, in the millennium, which I cannot but think is near, I believe that God will be the only King, and Jesus the great Leader of the world, with a more beautiful dominion than any there are now on the earth. I want no other."

"Then, if you were presented at Court, you would treat our King and Queen just like other people, would you?"

"No, indeed, that would be very absurd and wrong. God permits them at present to rule over us, and with a pretty mild sway, compared with that of other wretched countries in Europe. I should get instructions from some one who had been there before me of how I must behave with propriety, and I should not hesitate to say, 'your majesty,' as is the custom; and I think it a very pretty title for one who tries to deserve it as our good Queen does. But if I thought, that in her heart of hearts, she did not see, that by virtue of being a child of the Most High, and one who tries above all things, to serve him truly, I were as good as she, I should call her no lady."

"Indeed! Well these are new fashions of yours and Mrs. Liebenhoff's. I suppose you would like a republic, such as they have in America."

"I certainly should, only a better one, for Mrs. Liebenhoff says they retain still in that, a good many false, feudal notions in their government and social life. I want a real Christian Republic, such as Jesus would establish, were he to come on the earth, in which every one would be free to develop their natures according to their own and God's laws, government only serving to protect them in this great work, and placing as many facilities in the way of it as possible, and in which all the people would, in reality, feel that they were equal in the eye of God and adapt their manners and customs to the idea. You see that my year's intimacy with Mrs. Liebenhoff has not been lost upon me."

"No, I see," said Hilda, thinking at the same time, that although Zoë had been happier and less irritable in her feelings than before she knew her, yet, that she was even more given to abstraction and more positive than ever in clinging to what seemed to her extravagant fancies and opinions than formerly. At any rate, there was less and less sympathy if possible, between her and Miss Ingemann, and this and the evils resulting from it were the greatest trials of her own sunshiny life.

As has been said, Zoë's sentiments and imagination were in advance of her years; her physique reached its maturity at a later period than usual. While Hilda, at her age, had the development, character and bearing of a young lady, at least twenty-one, though mingled with great naiveté and vivacity; Zoë, on the contrary, at eighteen, wore still the appearance of a young girl just budding into womanhood. She was of medium height, of slender and symmetrical figure, graceful, but languid in her movements, with a face which seldom varied its expression from one of almost stolid repose, when with those uncongenial to her, or a pensive look of appeal and eager questioning, when with those she loved and trusted in. Her complexion was that of a clear brunette, her features regular, her eye being dark, soft and mournful, her nose delicate in its formation, though widening at the nostrils sufficient to give it character, and the lips just full enough to enrich and humanize a face, otherwise so ethereal in its beauty, as to mingle the pleasure with which she was regarded with the painful thought, that she would not be long for this world. Her hair was very dark and shining, and wearing it as she did, parted in front, confined by a band, with a rich mass of curls on the back part of her head, when she appeared abroad, she was always noticeable, no less for her beauty than for its foreign characteristics, which distinguished her from all her companions.

"How beautiful Zoë Carlan, your West-Indian pupil, has grown!" said a lady-visitor one day to Miss Ingemann. "I had no idea that she would develop so prettily."

"Yes," said Miss Ingemann, "but her face sadly lacks character, and for that it has ceased to interest me. It is but a transcript of her mind, which I have decided will always remain weak and childlike. I never shall be able to develop it beyond a certain point, and that a low one. She does not try me as much as formerly, because I see plainly her incapacity for high culture, and I resign myself now to her returning home with but a smattering of the branches taught her."

"Ah! I had the idea that she was very bright. Mr. Liebenhoff told me yesterday, that she had a rare nature."

"His wife has brought him over to her faith, I suppose. The two are very intimate," and she laughed. "A fitting companion enough for her she is too. I wish our Pastor had a partner who could support herself better in a position which calls for much strength and dignity of character. Were she really superior she might give such a high tone to our social circle. By way of complaisance, we have to place her in responsible stations when we meet for various purposes; but really, there are so many others better fitted for them, and who really do from necessity take the lead, that it seems a mere compliment."

"This, at least, can be said of her," rejoined her friend, "that she claims no skill in leadership, and on the whole, we get along more peaceably than if she were always queening it over us. I sometimes think it is a principle with her to keep in the background, as she does, that others may take the parts they are well fitted for. You know she is pretty radical upon the subject of all government."

"I know but little of her opinions excepting that I consider her moon-struck generally, and for that reason, I have dreaded her influence over Zoë, who has no balance of mind and character. All that I can do under the circumstances, however, is to counteract it as far as possible through her school lessons. I endeavor to do my duty by her."

So there was no relaxation for her pupil in her daily studies, but her powers were unnaturally taxed for many hours each day in acquiring an insight into dry metaphysics, or still dryer mathematics, so that at the most critical period of a young girl's life, on which depends very much her future fitness or otherwise, for its duties and enjoyments, her brain and nervous system were taxed to the utmost, without their being supplied with that strength and nutriment necessary to their well-being by air, exercise, and proper attention to general physiological laws. Added to this, Zoë was homesick from morbidly dwelling upon her mother and the love with which she would cherish her, and which was denied in a boarding-school, where, if she had been ever so attractive to her teacher, she could share her favor only with forty others. She was heartsick from knowing that, do what she would in accordance with her natural genius, she never suited one, whose methods of culture were so rigid as Miss Ingemann's, and whose views of human nature were graduated by the standard of judgment, most favored in this practical and intellectual age, by the narrow, keen, coarse, one-sided Anglo-Saxon mind. Added to these unfavorable circumstances were her premature religious sensibilities. Had she been under the modern American evangelical influence, so called, where there is a regular system in vogue of blowing up the tender souls of the young into a flame of excitement before the character is fitted to sustain, or the religious knowledge sufficient to guide, or the wisdom ripe enough to protect and train it in its great life-work, she would either have become a maniac or a blasé religionist, or, perhaps, as many do, have gone to the other extreme in animalism or infidelity. But, fortunately, she was subjected to no such forcing process in this respect. Miss Ingemann was a conscientious, sensible woman, who believed that as soon as she had a religious conviction it was to be carried out in practice. She instructed her pupils in our Christian faith, as she understood it. She was a Lutheran; but dogmatics are not carried to the extreme, in Europe, that they are in

America, so that their minds were much less overlaid than they would have been there with articles of human creeds. They were taught Christian morals and piety—in a modified form, it is true—still with less admixture of error than would have been possible in such hotbeds of Calvinism. Then Mr. Liebenhoff was of a wise, enlightened, and deeply Christian spirit; and his pulpit instructions were adapted to the guidance of souls, who have a great and good life-work to accomplish, leaving but little time to sharpen the wits to unnatural shrewdness by polemics. At home and at school, the Bible was pointed to as the chart by which they were to guide their steps, and train their spirits, both through time and eternity.

Enough has been said to show Zoë's appreciation of this volume, and the part it had in her training. Her mother had given her one when she left her, saying, at the same time, "Read this, Zoë, every day, and not only God and Jesus will be with you when you do so, but your own loving mamma, too; for by the light of the holy Word I shall see that my darling is under their kind care, and that when they will it, I shall fold you to my arms again." For years she had a superstitious, it may be, but none the less strong feeling, that when she sat down to peruse its pages her mother was near her, though unseen, guiding her in the selection for the day, and impressing upon her childish mind a reverence and love for its truths. So that her filial affections were constantly operating to form and strengthen her religious ones, at the same time that her absence from her threw a vail of romance, not only over the image of her which was impressed indelibly upon her mind, but also over the Scriptures with which that image was indissolubly connected.

Human nature is the most delicate and precious creation of God, and to develop and mature it worthily of its great Author and its high destination, it must have no one-sided or eccentric culture, though even that may be of a purifying and elevating character. Zoë's undue absorption in religion made her superstitious and fanatical. She suffered from a want of confiding and affectionate intercourse with a variety of minds, and a more practical knowledge of the world and its concerns. Hence her feelings became unduly concentrated upon herself. Both her instinctive and acquired sympathy with the character of Jesus was, through a want of guidance, becoming a dangerous idiosyncrasy. She felt that there was a similarity in their early fortunes and characters, and it followed that, gradually, she imagined that their destinies were to be similar. And here there was what seemed an inconsistency in her, though, at the same time, it was a very natural one. From having so high an idea as she had of what she ought to be, and what it was intended she should be, she suffered intense self-reproach for her own imperfections, and every accusation thrown upon her would deeply depress her, not so much from a sense of its injustice as from its seeming simply the meed of her deserts. And yet, whenever made thus miserable by reproach and a sense of being misunderstood, she would rush all the more eagerly to devotional musings, and in simple converse with the Christ, forget that she, a few moments before, had thought herself unworthy of being the least of his disciples. "Yes, glorious elder brother," she would say, "first-born of a new creation, how little do men know and love thee as thou art. But God has seen fit to reveal thy brightness to me—me, a poor little, simple, lonely, unloved girl. Jesus grew up a carpenter, and his friends knew not how great and good he was to be. Only his mother thought about the promise of the Father and kept the secret in her heart. I wonder if my mother knows that her child is to live over his life again in some way not yet revealed to her, but none the less surely will it be repeated. O come the time. Father in heaven, when I shall see clearly how I am to fully perform thy great and holy will."

These were thoughts which she never breathed, even to Mrs. Liebenhoff. Had she done so, she would have striven to correct them. But, on the contrary, that lady's glowing zeal for the improvement of society through the influence of Christianity, as embodied in his Church, served to fan her own sanguine hopes and aims to an intenser flame, and swell her heart with still wilder hopes, connected with her great mission. She would exclaim to herself, "Yes! the Church of Christ shall bring on, ere long, the millennial day, and I will be the leader to marshal in his second coming upon the earth."

These imaginations were more and more shaping her daily experience. They gave a point to all her reading, and through them she interpreted nature and the incidents of her life. Every change of the elements pointed to something in her destiny, and the most trivial words dropped by her associates were often big with meaning and suggestion to her. Her etherealized spirit sat lightly, in one sense, to the earth and its common interests and fashions. On the other, not a leaf could fall of the early autumn foliage, not an insect could flit across her sublimated vision, not an event occur either in her own private history, the social circle of which she was a member, or in the great busy, self-seeking world, without her reading in them the signs which were to usher in a new and glorious era of awakened Christendom.

The soul is a great realm. To the common eye it may seem shrouded in thickest film of sense and apathy, giving no sign even of ordinary action. And yet the outer revolutions of empires, the overthrow of thrones, and the construction of fairer kingdoms, principalities, and republics, upon their subverted bases, are simply the symbols and tokens of its workings. O reverence the human soul! thine own no less, nor yet more, than that intrusted to the keeping of thy fellows, for it is the vicegerent of the Almighty upon the earth, and woe, woe be unto it if it work not with all good faith and with enlightened wisdom his lawful bidding.

Zoë was sitting one afternoon of a hot July day, in an undress, upon a cushion, on the floor of her own apartment, directly opposite the window, looking upwards at the fleecy clouds, which, piled in changeful masses, floated past, breathing in with luxurious delight the fast fleeting breath of the short Danish summer. She was startled from her reverie by a white dove flying in at the window. As it came towards her, she almost involuntarily opened the single loose robe which partially covered her person, and it rushed eagerly into her bosom, where it remained with its wings spread, fluttering with fear, looking up into her face with an almost human expression of appeal for protection.

It was probably pursued by some bird of prey, and such seemed the obvious reason to her of so unwonted a visit. But she was accustomed to look below the surface of the most trivial events to gather hints for her direction in life, and, in this surprising one, she read with clearer vision than had yet dawned upon her the nature of her life-mission.

Poor persecuted innocent, she cried, as she looked into its pleading eyes. God sent thee unto me, for my stricken heart, he knew, would yearn towards thee and protect thee from all that would work thy ruin. But what other message hath he sent by thee, thou carrier pigeon from His great white throne? Ha, now I see the missive folded in thy fluttering pinion, and this its language is:

Zoë, life of my life, awaken, arise,
Clothe thee anew with zeal and devotion,
Put on God's armor and strive for the prize,
The world wots not of 'mid its noise and commotion.

O show it the way to the truth and the light,
As it shines in the face of thy Saviour divine,
O save it from sin and the perilous flight.
Which awaits it while buried in vice and in crime.

She closed the window, as after the first fright was over it seemed inclined to make its exit by the way it came in, but Zoë received it as a special messenger from heaven, and she had no idea of suffering it to depart without gathering from it its full meed of blessing. She gave it food and water, and called in Hilda and her other companions that they might admire its pure beauty, though, as usual, she was very careful not to speak to them of the deep significance which she attached to its visit. The next day the poor bird moped and seemed ill at ease, though carried into the open air of the garden, and wooed and petted with all the tender tones of endearment, which suggested themselves to her. Another morning came, and, cold and lifeless, it lay in the warm nest prepared for it by its gentle mistress. She looked aghast at first at the sacrifice made of it to improper diet and confined air, and, perhaps, to some injury received on its way to her. To Rinda's "I told you so," she made no answer, but stood and questioned with herself: 'What am I to learn by this?' and the answer came very readily to one so impassioned and absorbed in one idea as she was. "It bids me hasten to do my life-work, she said. The world is famishing, dying for the pure truth of God, revealed by Christ. Let me, even me, show it the way to the Father by the simple precepts and parables of our Lord; for has he not said that out of the mouths of the simple and tender he will perfect his praise?"

Filled more and more by this idea of being intrusted with a peculiar mission, nature, the incidents of her own life, the world and its events, became, as it were, but the running accompaniments, or, rather, the index pointing to this great object, each and all qualifying her for it, encouraging, guiding and sustaining her in its preparation, while, at the same time, God the omnipotent charioteer of the universe was reining it in to keep even pace with the hours, which were to usher in her ministry.

On her return from Mrs. Liebenhoff's she found on her writing-desk this subject, upon which she was to write her theme for the coming week, which Miss Holberg, at the direction of Miss Ingemann, had just placed there: "The beauties and advantages of docility and obedience in the young." Zoë immediately took the hint conveyed by this sentence, and it provoked her, for she had ever striven to obey Miss Ingemann's instructions and rules, and when she had failed, it was only where her nature and sense of truth had drawn her irresistibly aside from them. She had strong impulses and a quick irritable temper, wrapped within a nature of true gentleness and refinement. These sometimes got the mastery over her to an extent quite ludicrous for one invested with credentials for so sublime a mission as she imagined, and her subsequent shame and remorse were, of course, proportioned to the height from which she imagined herself to have fallen. But in this instance when the blood mounted to her cheek and the flash of anger gleamed from her eye, she called them only the natural and just effects of a holy indignation, and she sat down with her pen and dashed off these burning lines:

"Docility and obedience are the two handmaidens to lead along our steps during our weak minority, in the path which our great Father has marked out for his children, beginning with their birth and leading on and on to the glories and sublimities of eternity after eternity. But does any weak, blind time-tyrant think to fetter the immortal child of the ages, the soul of the souls of lesser spirits, dwelling in darkness on this earth-sphere, within its own narrow intellectual dimensions? No, no, for like the mist which the rising sun looses from the mountain's brow, like musical sounds freed from the heavy-toned organ at its swell and fall in the lonely midnight, like the poet's measures sung to the winds in moments of rapt inspiration on the solitary sea beach, so is the soul, enfranchised by obedience to its own great laws and the word of its Maker, and shame, contempt, and woe shall be the doom of him who seeks to chain it any more than them. I come the time when freedom's breath and religion's inspiring, directing wand shall be its only mistresses, clarified and sublimed, as it will be by the millennial light. So yearns and agonizes for this great spiritual truth the liberty-loving spirit of

"ZOË CARLAN."

She folded the paper upon which she had hurriedly written these sentences, and placed them in the usual repository for the pupils' themes, from which they were taken by the teachers for correction.

It will be seen by this style of her composition, that she had been strongly influenced by her interview with Mrs. Liebenhoff, for, though her habitual thoughts were in harmony with hers so far as their different ages would allow, with the exception of her own personal idiosyncrasy, yet her usual method of expression was more subdued, excepting when very much excited, and then she expressed herself in poetical strains, but limited more or less by the bounds of metrical verse. To the narrow and superficial this quality of imitation, which showed itself also in her religious development, may seem a servile and inferior one. Taking, as she did, the Saviour for her model not only in the spirit of his teachings, but too much, as it would seem, according to the letter also, since it led her into the extravagant notion of her own future Messiahship, she would be judged by the so-called philosophers of the present speculative and inventive age as wanting in the higher characteristics of genius and intellectual endowments. But when it is considered that the universe is a great school of all the sublimest arts, sciences, literatures, and philosophies, with God for the great central inspiring Spirit, who opens one arcana after another of its mysteries as his children, by their obedience to his generous and wholesome rules, are prepared for them, and that Jesus is the pure, true, sublime, and loving revelator of the just and right principles by which these mysteries are to be interpreted, appropriated, and made practical to our daily life, it follows that the most docile pupil and obedient follower of these laws and of their great Archetype is in the true path which leads to the inner temple, where shines evermore the celestial light, revealing the cherubim which keep their perpetual guard over the Holy of Holies. Like the student artist who wanders from one hillside to another, sketching, as it would seem, with slavish exactness each rock, tree, mountain top, and rivulet within the scope of his vision, spurning all aid from his own imagination or the suggestions of another, so tender and reverential is his love for each time-worn feature and furrow of the dear old mother Nature, and deems that his likeness is befitting and true, until he holds it up to her mirror with affectionate longing for her smile of approval, and her wave of "God speed you," when lo! disappointment. For the, but now, haggard and ancient dame Nature, so hoary and wrinkled, has doffed her garments of gray and her visage of eld, and shines out lovely and fresh as a bride on the eve when new life has been breathed through her being from the perennial Eden of love. He dashes his picture, the pride of his heart and the hope of his future, in rage and tears at her feet "O mother, capricious and cruel!" he cries, "why have ye deceived me?" But hark! hear her gentle and musical voice, which now elates him with joy and enhances his love to the pitch of devotion to Him, her great Author; for before his couched vision, His glory now shines in each line of her youthful and radiant face. And these are her words, "O Son of my love, who, still groping and blind, didst see too minutely each fissure and stain, each decay and excrescence, yet loved me no less, ay, even more for these weather-marked lines, indented by caring and laboring for thee, receive now the reward of your trust and affection."

She touches his eyelids and there thrills through his being, a divine inspiration, and now is revealed the great truth that he, who in reverent faith follows, step by step, the leadings of nature and God through his Christ, in his feeble minority, shall be one with them and the angels in blissful communion; and his soul shall be trained, and his hand shall be guided by a holy idealism, to paint for immortals the spirit of earth and the essence of the heavens, not on canvass alone, but on the ever during tablets within.

Another influence besides Mrs. Liebenhoff's had been, of late, assisting to mould Zoë by its effect upon her imagination and feelings. This was the acquaintance and instruction of her German teacher. His method of tuition was unlike any which she had been subjected to, and more in accordance with the nature and character of her mind. Discarding all tedious, elementary rules, he, at once, through the aid of an interlined copy of the Gospel of John placed that most beloved portion of Scriptures within her grasp, through a form of expression novel and suggestive to her. She made rapid progress, both in the pronunciation and translation, so that when Miss Ingemann asked him of his success with this, her most discouraging pupil, she was surprised by his cordial encomiums upon her mental capacity and docility of disposition. The thought crossed her mind that she might have made a mistake in her attempt to inclose Zoë within her own cast-iron methods, but like the oak tree, which, for a moment, may sway to a powerful passing wind, only to return again to its usual imperturbable sturdiness, so she soon regained her usual self-complacency on this point.

But in other ways was the Hungarian shaping her thoughts and sentiments more powerfully than through the German language. He was a man of a strong, acute intellect, trained both in the Jewish rabbinical schools and in the cloister-like universities of Germany, filled with curious and profound learning, both of the ancient and modern schools of theology, philosophy and literature, at the same time that his imagination was lofty and well controlled. But what impressed her more than any other quality of his character was his moral force. This was the commanding element, which gave aim, energy, and perpetual vitality and inspiration to his own life-work, and carried on his pupils from day to day to unprecedented success in every branch which he taught them. Like the waves of the sea at spring-tide, which bear on their resistless current all lighter substances, which, floating near, they draw within their influence, so did his strong will, and high and never-flagging sense of the great possibilities of the human mind, when awakened to its duties, propel them with glad but resistless impetus to high attainments. When a woman feels this influence buoying her up and impelling her onwards, she joyfully acknowledges the leadership of man. Her clear, spiritual glance sights from afar, the true, the beautiful, and right, and she plumes her butterfly wings and flutters gladly towards it, but with feeble and unsteady motion, unless his strong, eagle-eye and pinion, which never blinks or tires, cleave the air and make a swell, so that she be strengthened and sent onwards in her flight. If he do this, his heaven-ordered part, she sparkles brightly and more brightly as she nears the upper sunlight, playing about his head, resting her grace and beauty upon his heart, flying ever and anon in advance, sustained by his strong breath, then nestling with joyful acknowledgment of weak ness upon his kingly form, even making herself tinier than need be that he may be glorified the more in the view of the great skylight. O man! beware how ye come within the sphere of any base, destroying elements, for, though ye may escape utter ruin to your coarser immortal fabric, her more ethereal and tender one may be irremediably bemired. Keep her beside you in your highest soarings, and she will preserve the curtain of your eye cleansed to the point of clearest vision, and give you such glad impulse by her cheering that the rarer ether will never weary, but change more and more your earthly being to the celestial temper of her own, only relieved by what she most looks up to and admires, your strength and manhood. Zoë felt this force more than she reasoned upon it, and her progress was in accordance with the conviction. So delightful was it to be cordially praised for any acquisition, that, through her study of German, her whole nature took a start, and the school-girls, quick to perceive each other's inner or outer changes, laughed at her for actually growing taller under the new administration.

"Zoë," said Adelgunda Heiliger, one day as she was assisting her to dress, "you must get a new frock and charge it to Ben Ezra. He is the cause of this sudden outgrowth from the old one, and it is but right that he should replace it, for really this is too scanty for you in the present fashion."

"Let her piece it out to the proper length with her German exercises," said Rinda. "They will answer for phylacteries which, you know, she will have to don by-and-by, as is the custom of certain people. Hey, Zoë!"

"Of all things in this world, don't call our teacher a Pharisee," said Zoë, "for he is at the moral antipodes from that sect."

"At any rate he intends, from present appearances, to be no Essene," said Freya. "Zoë, love, invite me to the wedding, will you not, and introduce me to Ruth? I have always wanted to know her better. I will help her glean, next time she goes to the field of Boaz, and I will be as little fascinating as possible too, so as not to damage her prospects with her kinsman."

"Here are some nice smooth stones," said Adelgunda, "which I picked up on the sea beach, which I shall drop into David's pouch as I sit at the feast-table with him. I am going to strike for the throne and cut out Michal altogether. I never shall reprove him for dancing, but will waltz till the ark drops to pieces from old age. I shall have an opportunity to learn some new figures, shall I not? and I will astonish Mr. Ernestine next time he comes to give us our lesson."

"And I," said Hilda, "shall accept nobody's attentions but the magnificent Solomon's, and won't I scatter the inmates of his harem, and reign supreme over Israel, no less than himself? The Queen of Sheba need not think to come again and delude him by her flattering compliments. I will give her the go-by in a way she never experienced before. But we forget the principal personages of the occasion. Zoë, darling, what rôles will suit you and Ben Ezra best, besides that of bride, Madonna-like and saintly, and—what shall I call him of all his metamorphoses?"

"Call him the Prophet-Priest and King Melchisedec of the coming dispensation, who, without beginning of days or end of years, remains forever the emblem of peace and justice, on whom devolves the ministry divine of ushering in the representative of the second coming of the Son of God," said Zoë.

"Ah! King of Salem! I salute thee and hail with joy the day when thou, man of the ages, mysterious and mighty, born without father or mother into our time-globe, takest to thy arms of eld my Zoë to give thee youthful life again, and carry her on to her high destiny!" said Hilda, bowing to her German class-book.

"When is this wonderful union to take place, Zoë?" said Rinda. "I like to know of great events in season so as to be in proper readiness."

"Ask the great High Priest of heaven and earth, even our heavenly Father," said she with great seriousness. "There are secrets which even Jesus was not let into when on earth, much less am I. But cease your mirth and raillery, my friends, for I never expect to marry," and she walked out of the room absorbed in her own thoughts.

This was a part of her idiosyncrasy, which strengthened as she grew older, that, like Jesus, she should fulfill her mission unbound by the strongest ties of life. To-be-sure, she was shaken for a moment, now and then, when in the presence of her teacher, whose increasing interest in her became suspected by her companions. When his voice sank to a tender tone as he addressed her in her recitation, or she caught his eye resting upon her face when she raised it in inquiry to his own, while following his reading, she forgot for a moment her peculiar fate and felt a thrill of youthful love's first dream, but it was soon forgotten in her life-long musings.

————

CHAPTER XXII.

"If she be a traitor,
Why so am I; we have still slept together,
Rose at an instant, learned, played, eat together,
And wheresoe'er we went, like Juno's swans,
Still we were coupled and inseparable."—SHAKSPEARE.

WHEN Miss Ingemann read Zoë's outburst of feeling in her theme, she was shocked and almost discouraged; but being both strong and decided in character, and, at the same time, conscientious and faithful, so far as she saw her duty, she determined to make a strenuous effort to cure her pupil of her extravagant fancies and willful opposition to reasonable restraint. She sent for her to her room. Zoë knew what was coming, but she had got to the point, at last, where a determined purpose and strong conviction of being in the path marked out for her by God and her nature will bring even the most plastic and gentle. Therefore, with head unusually erect and eye expressing courage and enthusiasm, she stood before her teacher.

"Miss Zoë," said Miss Ingemann, "here is your theme. Its expression does not come within the limits of propriety and good sense, and therefore we cannot accept it from you. We require you to re-write it in a mode consonant to what you know is our reasonable expectation."

"Excuse me, Miss Ingemann, I cannot do it."

"What do you mean. Miss Zoë? That you intend a willful disobedience to the rules of this establishment?"

"I have no such willful intention. I have simply written my true feelings and thoughts, and I cannot falsify them by a different expression."

"You amaze me by your presumption. I demand of you a more subdued and rational composition. The thoughts are extravagant and fanatical, and the expression wild and highly improper, and we cannot permit such within these walls. This is my unalterable determination," and Miss Ingemann arose and stood at her full height.

Zoë was completely roused, and she burst forth like a torrent to the astonishment of her teacher, who had never seen her under such excitement.

"Madam, I have uttered what is in me, and woe be unto my soul if I turn aside the inspiration of God into another channel at the bidding of human lips! I read yesterday in a journal from that far-off land which God opened, that his children might have one abiding-place for freedom to worship God according to His and nature's laws, that her ministers, instead of being guides to lead and light along the people to the millennial day, enchain their minds each five years by a promise to utter nothing but what its creeds of ages gone by have ordered. So they squeeze, and trammel, and wind their thoughts like serpents, ever striving to be free, around a time-worn, bloody, lying parchment. Only now and then one frees himself, so as to interpret the Word of God as He demands of the growing powers he gave him. But hark! a hiss and sting, and the poor timid spirit coils himself again in meek submission to the dismal parchment, whispering, 'I said it not,' or, if I did, 'I meant the same as you!' And what is the consequence? Why, sins of every shape and hue start rampant round them, emboldened by the falsehood and treachery of the priests and prophets, scattering misery and darkness, and hurling to perdition millions whom God has given into their keeping. No, madam, even in my simple school-girl theme, I will take warning of this fearful doom. I change it not."

"What heroics are these?" said Miss Ingemann, indignant and astonished; then paused to look critically into Zoë's face to see if she were not insane. Her pupil knew well that gaze, and it always turned her into stone. She simply bowed and left the room.

Once out of her sight, she ran like lightning into her apartment, where she found Hilda.

"What is the matter?" said she, alarmed at seeing Zoë's excited face.

"The matter is, that I am going to sail to-morrow for Santa Cruz."

"Why, what has happened? tell me."

"Hilda, I have lived entrammeled long enough. My chains gall me to the point of desperation. God and my conscience command me hence, and I obey them. The ship departs to-morrow, and I shall take passage in her."

"But, Zoë, you cannot go alone. You never have been away from this retreat, and think how you would feel upon the deep or among uncongenial strangers!"

"Hilda, you know me not. I can do anything. I have powers within me that can shake the nations, ay, and shall do it too; how much more guide my own way across the waters. In God I trust. He will watch over me."

"O Zoë! I know you better than you think. I have noted your genius and rapt, poetic soarings, so different from the working of my mind, and I have striven to reveal them to our teacher, but your own failure of response to my encomiums by ever wearing before her your stony face, has made them seem to her only like my childish preference for you without a base of truth. I know too, that your broad vision takes in the practical, as required within our little circle, for we, your schoolmates, ever come to you for a decision upon our little tastes and decorations. But, darling, you are not strong as we are, and one day your spirits rise to the mountain top in exultation, and the next fall into the abyss below. Does she not aid and soothe thee then, thy own strong Hilda, of this common, naughty earth-sphere? Zoë, how canst thou live without me, or I without thee, if thou art far away?" and she began to weep.

"Hilda! my own, my good and true, who hast borne with such meek yet cheerful patience with my wayward temper, and hast had ever a word and smile of gladness for my strange woe, the cause of which I hardly know of, though it pervades my being, checking each gladsome thought ere it is fully formed, casting a shadow over each smile ere it shines forth to brighten my dull face, thinkest thou I love thee not? O my friend! though a strange gulf, riven not by me but by our Maker, for I have vainly striven all these years to cross it, to cover it up, or make believe that it existed not, divides our deepest souls, yet are you dear to me as my own life. When you are not by, I am restless and forlorn, I gaze into the distance to catch the first glimpse of your beloved form, and strain my ear for quick intelligence of her who is my sunshine, my tower of strength to lean upon, the interpreter of my thoughts to the stern world, which chills them ere they are expressed by its cold glitter and its icy breath. I know not how life can be life without thee, but God points with direct, commanding index towards the great ocean, and I go; for in him I live, and move, and have my being in a way which seems to me most peculiar, and if I disobey his counsel, not I alone but the whole universe is jostled from its orbit. Of this I must say no more; but, O Hilda! pray that I may have strength and guidance for my strange destiny."

"Zoë, my life, my inspiration, guide, restraint, and tenderest friend! I go with thee. Whatever betide thee shall be shared by me, so far as God permits. Thou shalt not leave me to the desolation which would come over my lot unshared by thee, my childhood's mate, the sharer of my room by night and day, and to whom I have grown each year by finer yet stronger ties, even to my opening womanhood, when judgment, taste, fancy, and deeper religious yearnings all point to thee as my best earthly satisfaction. Can I relinquish thee for all the world beside! No, never! we go together."

The two girls embraced each other with all the enthusiasm suited to their different natures, united as they were by a strong and disinterested affection, high principle, and the purest sentiment. To Hilda there remained a painful and difficult task, which was to inform Miss Ingemann of her determination. They loved each other. With the one, the affection was mingled with pride and a just satisfaction at the successful result of most conscientious training; with the other, gratitude and admiration for this oldest and most faithful teacher and guide. But she hesitated not a moment in view of this trial. "Zoë needs me more than any other one in the world, and how can I live without her?" she said to herself, as with the quick decision and courage which characterized her, she threaded her way to Miss Ingemann's apartment. She found that she and Miss Holberg had gone on a visit to a friend in the country, and would not return until late in the evening. What was to be done now? Zoë was the directress in this emergency.

"I must go and bid Mrs. Liebenhoff farewell," said she. "She has been so confined for the last week, nursing our pastor in his severe sickness, that I have not met her for several days; but I must see them both."

"Yes," said Hilda, "and Mrs. Körner and other friends too, and above all, Mr. Andersen. Then the captain—we must make arrangements with him immediately. O, how much we have to do!"

"Here is your hat, Hilda," said Zoë, as she put on her own. "Come, we can tie them on the way."

And the twain, with gloves in hand, arranging their mantles as they walked along the street in a way which would have shocked their teacher's nice sense of propriety, walked with rapid strides towards Captain Keiser's dwelling.

As they came within view of the sea, they saw a ship just sailing from port. They looked at each other and said nothing, but quickened their pace almost to a run to reach the captain's house. The servant at the door told them that he had just sailed for the West Indies, and that they had been misinformed in supposing that the next day was the time of his leaving.

Zoë looked bewildered for a moment, for guided, as she felt herself to be, by a special inspiration, this obstacle she could not account for. They were slowly retracing their steps when an acquaintance of Miss Ingemann, an elderly gentleman by the name of Sarran, whom Hilda, in her fondness for playful titles, had dubbed "the Viking," from his frequent voyages, met them.

"Good evening, my Volkyria!" said he to her. "Why droop your wings in that fashion? Come, give me a shake of the hand, ay, and something better too, as a parting blessing, for I suppose you know that I am off to-morrow?"

"No, sir; for where?" said Zoë and Hilda in one breath, catching at the faintest hope of release.

"To Santa Cruz. Do you think I am going to winter my old rheumatic frame among the ice and snows of old Denmark? Not I. I hope I know what is best for myself. Any commands? I am at the service of any fair damsels of Valhalla, who may wish to send anything, mayhap in the shape of a love-message to the other world, and keep it a secret, too, from the powers at head-quarters," said he, winking at them. "Neither Odin nor Freya get any revelations from me. Hey, ladies!" and the good-natured old gentleman laughed at his own bright wit, as it seemed to him.

"May we go with you?" said Zoë. "O, pray, let us!"

"How are you going?" said Hilda, "the ship has sailed."

"By England. The monthly steamers to the West-Indies are a better conveyance than any other, in these days. Besides, I have business in London. You go with me? Bless my stars! ain't I in luck? To-be-sure you may, and you need not fear but that I will take good care of you too. There is no gallantry in these days like what I was bred to. But be sure and not be tardy, for I like to be in season. At five o'clock, to-morrow evening, we must be on board, bag and baggage. Remember the hour, please," and the old gentleman bustled away more self-important than ever.

"It is just what I want," said Hilda. "Mamma has always said that I might visit her relations in London, before I left Europe, and now is my opportunity. But here is the parsonage. I hope that Mr. Liebenhoff is not very ill."

They ran up the steps and asked for their friend. Mrs. Liebenhoff at first sent down her excuse, saying, that she could not leave her husband; but on telling the servant that their urgency was extreme, she appeared, but sad and worn by night-watching and anxiety. They told her in hurried terms, of their sudden determination, but forbore to enter into particulars in her present state of feeling, and she, though sad and tearful at the thought of losing them, was not so much surprised as they expected. The fact was, she knew that they were to go home in the course of the year, and preoccupied as her mind was by her husband's illness, it did not seem strange to her that they should be summoned to return a few months earlier than they anticipated, so she did not question them about it.

"Can we not see Mr. Liebenhoff, one moment?" said Hilda.

"I think so. I will see," she said.

In a few moments they stood before him. He was propped up by pillows, pale and emaciated, and they were shocked to see the change which a few days of suffering had produced in him.

"You are going to leave us then, and next Sabbath you were to join us in our renewed communion? We shall sadly miss our dear young friends. It may be, however, that I shall be absent too; what think, dear Lisbet? Well," seeing her turn aside in agitation, "it must be as God wills. Farewell, little ones! be good children and remember us, as we shall you, with love and prayer, that God may bless you and grant us to meet again!"

They kissed his pale forehead, then were folded for a moment in the arms of Mrs. Liebenhoff, and weeping left the house.

A few more calls, and tender adieux, and many tears, and then they returned to gather their goods together for their voyage. They sat up late packing their boxes, writing farewell notes to friends whom they should not see again, and arranging everything with a discretion and sense of fitness remarkable in two young girls, who had ever been watched over by careful guardianship. But it seemed as if a great purpose had matured them in a day and carried them to its fulfillment, as with the force of inspiration. They talked over their plans till late at night, then fell into fitful, dreamy sleep to awaken by the broad sunlight shining into their window.

After breakfast, hand in hand they appeared before Miss Ingemann. She looked up from her book and started, as if she read a strong resolve in every feature of their faces. Hilda, who thought she had nerved herself for the crisis, began to cry.

"What means this?" said their teacher.

"We come," said Zoë, "to inform you, madam, of our determination to return to Santa Cruz. We are in readiness and shall leave this evening. We ask your blessing on our way."

Miss Ingemann looked from one to the other, doubting the evidence of her senses, then with dignity and a slight curl of the lip, said to Zoë:

"And who has given you permission to leave your guardians so abruptly?"

"God and my conscience," answered Zoë.

Miss Ingemann had high respect for principle and a strong resolve, and though she saw lamentable fanaticism in her pupil, yet she could not but respect the determined bearing of the young girl, though she meant that it should yield to her own strength of will.

"Zoë," she said, "I do not wish to be harsh with you; but you are entirely in the wrong in this matter. People are not inspired in these latter days. We have other aids to guide us. It is very wrong for you to think of leaving your school before your father sends expressly for you."

"My father had in view only my greater ease and pleasure in bidding me stay a few more months. But I know he is in trouble from the unsettled condition of our island at this time, and I wish on that account, if on no other, to return. I am not selfish, as I wish to prove to him. Already he has spent beyond his lessened means in my education; and my mother and I are pining to meet each other. I wish to go. Mr. Sarran will protect us on the voyage."

Miss Ingemann's methodical mind was not convinced by these reasons. There was always much formality in the manner of the dismissal of her pupils, and this extemporaneous leave did not consort at all with her strict notions. She waved her hand and said, "It is of no use to exchange words upon this subject. I dismiss you, young ladies, to your studies."

Zoë was roused and burst out again. "No, madam, it is of no use, as you say, to lengthen words upon my leaving you. A greater than my teacher bids me go hence, where my every respiration is drawn at the expense of truth, of nature, and the high behest of God.

"Last night in dreams I saw myself upon the broad and fearful waste of waters. Strangely did they sustain my weight, as with most natural self-possession, with drooping head and hands suspended by my side I walked upon them. There was darkness behind, and gloom and a fearful wall of briny waves before me, but a bright gleam from heaven, shining through a silvery cloud, lighted my footsteps close before me, and the mists blew westward, and the waves flowed fast towards the same goal; and the wind, the sun, and every voice of nature sounded in my awakening ear—'Onward, still onward,' and I must go."

Seeing the girl's determination, and knowing that, in a few months, at farthest, she was to give her up, the thought came to Miss Ingemann's mind, like a flash, that she had better not contend longer with a nature with which she had so little sympathy and success; and as she knew Mr. Sarran well, and that she could confide her to him with safety, she changed her tone and said: "Well, Zoë, if you choose to take the responsibility of disobeying your father, I will no longer fetter you, as you, in your high-flown language, accuse me. I will write to your parents, explaining to them the reasons for permitting you to leave. I am sorry if my care and labor for your good have only given you the sense of bondage. I have striven to do right by you," and her voice trembled.

Zoë was completely subdued by this expression of feeling. One of her accustomed revulsions came over her after a time of excitement. She threw herself on her knees before her teacher, wailing out, "Think me not ungrateful for all the good I have derived from you. My heart is burdened with a sense of unworthiness; for I well know I have not met your plans and exertions in my education as you have desired. Forgive me, and yet pity me, for I know not what I am, nor what God would have of me. I could not be what you wish, and yet I am weighed down by remorse that I am not."

This unwonted revelation of her struggling feelings, which was forced from her by the softening influences of the occasion of parting from her home and teacher of years, brought out strongly the opposite characteristics of these two beings.

Zoë, gentle, affectionate, and humble from ever looking upwards to an exalted ideal; poetic, sensitive, and delicate in her feelings and of quick insight into character, felt no resentment at the obstinate efforts of Miss Ingemann to warp her nature aside from its rectitude and beauty by a culture unsuited to it. On the contrary, she looked at the conscientious motives which had governed her in the main, forgetting now what she had previously felt very forcibly, that wounded pride was also a cause of her being no better liked by her teacher. She simply wished to be free as God and her own soul irresistibly impelled her, and, therefore, the step she was taking, accompanied as it was by so much heart-rending feeling.

In Miss Ingemann's character, on the contrary, pride, self-reliance and self-esteem were combined with a strong, clear, but narrow intellect, and a reason which took in but little besides the obvious, striking, and practical in life and character. To this was superadded a religion, which though abstract, speculative, and mystical in its creed, and favoring a certain cast-iron form of sentiment and contracted mode of religious experience for all souls alike, frowned upon all indications of an awakening religious life in accordance with the advancing mind of the age, and the natural influence of a more rational understanding of the spirit of our faith in its gradual emancipation from a slavish obedience to the bare letter of Scripture. The consequence was that there was in her a hardness, directness, sternness, and even scorn and intolerance towards what was the deepest life and inspiration to Zoë, her poetical sentiment and rapt musings with the ethereal spirit of nature and the universe, quite crushing to all her confidence and trust.

These qualities were revealed in her answer to Zoë's simple expression of gratitude and confession of self-reproach.

"I am very glad, Miss Zoë, that you show symptoms of a proper consciousness of your faults, and that you are not entirely unmindful of all that has been done for you. However, I am very direct, as you know, (this she often said with much emphasis,) and I must say to you that there are reasons why I, of late years, have not expected the same of you as my other pupils, so it may serve as some alleviation to your sense of imperfection as well as to my own disappointment. But let me advise you, as a friend, to give up your foolish and sinful fancies and be governed by common sense and evangelical faith in God. I wish to part from you in friendship," and she erected her head with self-satisfaction at her magnanimity.

Zoë keenly felt all that was conveyed in this truly coarse speech, though Miss Ingemann did not intend it as such. It was simply the natural expression of a woman highly bred by aristocratic, conventional, dogmatic life, just in the proportion that she was vulgarized by losing sight of the eternal principle of the equality of every immortal soul before God, blinding herself to the truth, that if one seems inferior to another, it is because circumstances have made it so, or what is equally probable, because her own standard of judgment is too low for her to see the truth as it really is. The conviction flashed upon her pupil with lightning force, that while she, in her simplicity, had opened her heart to her teacher as in the presence of God, she had been met by a severe, selfish, worldly spirit, revealing itself quite as much through her religious wishes in her behalf, as in her implied inferiority of caste and mental endowment. She too erected her head and left the room, her sorrow and self-reproach turned into a sense of injustice and indignation.

In this mood of mind she ran into one of the recitation rooms for a book, where she found her German teacher. He had just heard from Mrs. Liebenhoff of her intention of leaving Copenhagen, and came immediately to see her. They gazed into each other's faces for a moment, and a quick intelligence revealed their mutual feelings before Zoë had time to train her eye to its usual look of passionless repose. At this moment the youngest "child of the regiment" of school-girls, a favorite of Zoë and who was often hanging about her during her recitation, came into the room. She was artless, and affectionate, and a great chatterer.

"O dear!" said she, "you shan't go away, Zoë, shall she, Mr. Seüll? Why don't you make her stay?" said she. "If I were a great, strong man, I would. Do try, won't you?" and she took a hand of each, and endeavored to draw them together.

"You believe in intimations from above," said he. "O! accept this, through one, about whom heaven lieth in her infancy. Will you not stay? or may I not go to you?"

Zoë said nothing, but her face expressed the opposite feelings, striving within her.

"I know she will stay if you want her to; because she told Hilda she was very sorry to give up studying German; that she liked to speak it better than Danish."

"Let me interpret that," said he, "for my own soul holds the true key to it, or I mistake me. 'Because you can think aloud in it better than in the more northern tongue.' Tell me that it is so."

She smiled and blushed, and emboldened, he approached her. She waved him back, for the thought of her great mission came between her and the rapture of a first affection. Still, partly swayed by passing suggestions, various thoughts flashed through her mind. "It may be that God intends him for a helper in my great work. But shall I return to my dear parents with my life's partner chosen without their knowledge? I will not be so unfilial." She partly turned from him, saying, "Wait but a year."

"What say you?" he said, not wishing to believe that he heard aright.

"Be my friend for a little year," she said decidedly, "and, in the meantime, I go to the arms of my beloved mother."

"Have pity on me first," said he, "and give me surer hope than this. I have dreamed that at last heaven was propitious to my prayer, and was granting that in you I might see the completion of one arc of my weird destiny, and that in your loving care and tenderness, comfort would flow into my stricken heart."

This had the opposite effect upon Zoë to what was intended, for her own life had been one of such suffering and privation, that when she thought for a moment of the possibility of marriage, it was as a refuge and consolation to herself in some degree, and the oft-repeated words of Mrs. Liebenhoff, implicating his sex for its low view of woman, now came forcibly to her, chilling her feelings very perceptibly.

He saw this, and interpreting it wrongly, said: "It may be that far away, you will forget, in the smiles of others, even to wait one little year."

Zoë flashed up at the possibility of any want of truth and rectitude in herself.

"Do you believe that I would trifle with your most sacred feelings?" said she.

"I know well that the youthful of your sex are not without caprice, and lack, sometimes, a faithful memory of those they leave behind. How can I trust my fate to the few words you have spoken, and those so enigmatical? I am in chains, and you would sail away unshackled into the dim distance, leaving me—"

"Free as the air that blows over the Carpathians from even the bonds of friendship," said she, turning abruptly from him and walking out of the room. If Ben Ezra, after months' acquaintance, in which she had revealed herself to him more than to any other one, believed her so worldly and common-place, she wished to be bound to him by no tie whatever; and indignant and disappointed she ran to complete her arrangements.

Hilda remained with Miss Ingemann after Zoë left the room. Her teacher did not dream of her going, too; for loving her as she had always done, she felt sure of her being obedient in every respect to her wishes. Seeing her in tears, she said, "I am sorry for this misguided girl. She gives us all much trouble, but dry your eyes, my dear. I am going into the country to pass the next Sabbath with my friend, Mrs. Petersen, and you shall accompany me, love. In the meantime make yourself as happy as possible, and—perhaps you would like to assist Zoë in her preparations the next hour or two. If so, I will excuse you from recitation this morning."

"I must go with Zoë," said Hilda.

Miss Ingemann started and paused before she would trust her voice to speak.

"You, my dear Hilda, my pride and joy! You will not disappoint me by any disregard of my hopes and wishes? Why should you go now? Another opportunity will offer six months hence. Zoë will leave this establishment in disgrace for her willfulness and ingratitude. I wish my darling to carry with her all the honors it can give her."

Here, too. Miss Ingemann failed in her appeal, though to a nature very much like her own in its original characteristics. But Hilda had been moulded by Zoë, quite as much, though more indirectly, than by her, and now that her gentler friend was in trial, she clung to her. She had gradually been awakening to the wide difference between the two, and her mature preference was for the more poetic and spiritual one, though she was not blind to the extravagances in her development.

She wiped her eyes, and with as much decision and coolness as Miss Ingemann could manifest when occasion offered, she answered to what she considered a low motive for her to place before her for staying. "I must go with Zoë, Miss Ingemann;" and then left her.

At five o'clock, all was in readiness for them to leave; the last box corded, the last little gift exchanged with their favorite companions, and the last kiss given to Miss Holberg, who was in and out all day assisting them by kindly suggestions, and exchanging many a word of affectionate interest. The final duty was to go and bid Miss Ingemann farewell. The latter was cold and dignified to Hilda, in proportion as her affections and pride were more severely wounded by the step she was taking, and Hilda acted the same rôle in a little less lofty and dignified style, while Zoë was overwhelmed with sorrow. Miss Ingemann, partly touched by this, and partly to rebuke Hilda, with whom she was really offended, condescended to say, "Miss Zoë, perhaps at some future time you will again visit Denmark?" Her pupil, softened by the thought of leaving the only home of which she had any distinct knowledge, and her sole guardian since infancy, longed to throw herself into her arms and respond warmly to this chilly, non-committal invitation; but she thought what a gulf there was between them. She never yet had uttered an untruth, and in mournful accents and with drooping head, leaning with sinking form on Hilda's arm, she slowly answered, "No." So she went forth to meet her destiny; a reed, shaken by every passing breeze; a wind-harp, now tuned to melody by each gentle breath, now its cords snapped asunder by a rude touch or gale; a vase, inclosing in its depths a store of sweet perfume, essence, and spirit of lore and science, by no means meagre for one so young; a failure, it is true, in the discipline of mind deemed essential by the calculating, critical spirit of the age; yet a trophy of success in the great school of Christ, for she had learned of him to be meek and lowly, at the same time that she was brave and true to Nature and her most enlightened conscience, and had caught a glimpse of the power and grandeur of a life like his, and by what struggle it was to be attained, so that, come death, come woe, or serenest happiness, it mattered not; the goal was before her, and for that, her aim was set, and never-ending labor.

As they drove away. Miss Ingemann said to Miss Holberg, "I am more than ever convinced that there is no use in trying to educate the masses, excepting to suit their low position. In this instance, I have been unsuccessful, while Zoë has been a great detriment to the really superior mind of Hilda."

"I feel," said Miss Holberg, weeping, "that we have not been able to interpret her nature successfully, and hence our disappointment. Depend upon it, she has treasures within her, which only need the right key to unlock them, to astonish and delight us."

"Do you think so?" said Miss Ingemann, and stood thoughtful for a moment. She was truly religious, and seeing her assistant in such grief, she said, "Well, my dear, we have striven to do our duty by her. May God forgive us if we have been guilty of an unintentional mistake. We can only commend her to Him now, and may He supply what may have been lacking in our instructions."

The Pastor's wife watched with sinking heart, the sands of her husband's hour-glass running silently, but none the less surely towards eternity. In one sense, she was prepared for this premature ultimate of a life, taxed in mind and heart beyond the possibilities of a healthy longevity. But more than actual exorbitant work, in its injurious effects upon the physical system, was the heavy weight of responsibility thrown upon him, by the want of co-operation of the surrounding community in his labors, for what he felt to be its absolute and imperative need. Quickened as his soul was to a high point of spiritual insight and elevation, the prevailing materialism, and the lack of a full and living appreciation of the high duties devolving upon every human being towards itself and the world, weighed upon an already fractured constitution with destructive force. Lacking her keen imaginative glance and ever-living hopefulness, he was sustained in his unflagging self-devotion by firm principle and love for truth, more than by any prospective vision of eventual success. He was invested with every quality of mind, character and culture incident to humanity, save the single one of passion which would have given to the others the magnetic dart, necessary to pierce through the heavy crust with which mammon and sense had covered up the hearts of his people. But all was over, and she, like Marius upon the ruins of Carthage, sat upon the grave of her desolated hopes, and thus her soul sighed out its dirge, broken in its strains by the anguish of many loving friends of his flock, no less than by the sense of her own life-loss.

And is thy pale, worn corse all that
Is left to me of thee, my beautiful, my true,
And good! This the end of earth to one,
Of whom, in his boyhood's purity, it was said
By the wise and saintly, "there is no stain upon
His life I would efface, no virtue suited to
His years, if it were given me, that I could add!"
This the end of time to one, so bravely knit
In his corporeal frame, by nature, frugal fare,
The fresh breeze of Heaven's country, and willing obedience
To all its varied laws, unfolded to his eager
Yet reverent seeking? O! what befell thee, my beloved,
That thou, ere thy full prime, shouldst droop
Thy noble head, so busy in its varied workings,
Now coping with philosophy, now gathering wisdom,
From science, history, life, and the economy of God's dealings?
What came to thee, dear heart, so full, yet gentle, in its beating,
That it drew towards thee, equally, the sage, the learned,
The little child, and humblest pensioner upon thy bounty?
What blight could fall upon thee, dearest, that thy hand should early fall
So cunning in its artifice, that it could pen
Thy clear-eyed, eloquent truths, which shall be
Memorials of thy Christ-like power, no less
Than stars of light and leaves of healing
To the ages; then turn to fashion with artistic skill
Many a thing of use and beauty, to be a joy forevermore
To those who love thee? O! my eyes of blue!
Twins of my own, waken to answer
Smile to smile, to give intelligence by their sweet approval
Subdued to the point of mystic,
Secret sympathy, invisible to others, of my every feeling,
Deed, and aspiration! Drowned are they in deeper night
Than erst we've shared together! Mute are they
As ne'er before to my still questionings!
O meekly, yet with the might of faith,
Thou didst enfold thy hands upon thy breast,
Saying, "Thy will be done, be it as thou wouldst have it,
Though scarce intelligible thy decree,
So much have I to do for thee, O Father!
So many have I yet to bring within thy circling fold,
So wide to spread thy worship, and renew
The angel song. Peace on the earth, good-will to men,
And glory to God forevermore;
To lead the youthful and the world-beset,
To living waters, ceaseless in their flow,
And quenchless in their potency of thirst-cure;
To walk with freer bound in fields of light and loveliness,
Strewn with the flowers of Art and Poesy,
With her whom Thou hast given for my completeness.
Can I relinquish this thy costliest gift? Can heaven
Be heaven without her? Can I withdraw from her
My arm, strong to support, provide and guard?
O help my unbelief: I would believe and meekly bow,
To thy behests, vailed as their wisdom is from my weak vision!"

Cease ye my sinless, pure and sanctified,
With no faltering wing shalt thou ascend to the heaven of heavens,
Thy birth-place, home, and ceaseless aspiration.
No broken pillar art thou, fractured 'mid high, untimely.
No torch, inverted, telling of no relighting.
But a glorious, full-orbed sun, whose strongest hurtling rays,
Can pierce sublime through murkiest, earthiest ether.
Thou hast baptized me "thy Completeness,"
So will I be in this, thy soul's extremity,
And sing the song thy lowly spirit deems not meet for thee;
Rise to thy rest, reward, rejoicing,
Even to the inner temple, where God's purest light is shining,
See and adore and love with sense all purified,
What the dim eye of earth may not conceive of,
And when thy soul hath slaked its first deep longing,
Take the credentials tendered thee for the mission,
Thou, in thy charity, greater than required
By the letter of the Word, didst pant for,
"To be the ministering spirit to the lost underworld."
Ah! well I know the cause of thy untimely exit,
And as Achilles by Patroclus' death-bed
Vowed to avenge him, so do I thee, my own,
Twice slain, once by excess of care and labor
For the selfish world: then by the foul city's breath,
Made poisonous by sins, too mighty for thy cure,
Too monstrous for thy slackened power of life's continuance.

Man of the ages, mysterious and mighty,
Whose strong but tender ministering helped me
To soothe the weary frame, support the aching head,
With words of holy cheer to waft the passing spirit
To its upward haven, where no tossing, booming waves
Can make stern shipwreck of the richly-freighted soul-ship.
Was it for this, weird man, the ages, car-like,
Have borne thee to my dying one,
To be the sage and gentle fate by God appointed,
To cut the thread of life, worn to attenuation,
And close the eyes, couched for the skies' clear light,
More than for the cold, dim, smoky earth-air?
I would fain have pleaded with the sisters dread—
"Spare him! O spare him yet a little longer!
Pity me! O pity me! gentlest of the three!
Ye say, 'ye have learned to love the life, whose beauteous web
Charmed even thee, conversant with Infinity.' "
But soft and low, with tender aspect, Parca whispers:
"I cannot, God commands, and while I snap the thread,
Cast your eye upwards and say, 'God speed you, brother!'
And half the pain will spend with thy submission."
Man of the ages, dear to the departed,
For thy truth of spirit and thy life, forever uprising,
For these, I too will garner thee in my treasury of jewels,
And if the key should ever rust, which would admit thee
To the sanctum of my friendship, only retouch it with the wand,
Left in thy hand by my ascending, saintly one,
And it will be the "Open Sesame"
To my most holy confidence.

O my deepest soul! how fares it with thee
In the rude shock, Time with his scythe hath dealt thee?
Hark I hear its answer low, but strong as life, and firm as destiny.

Gathering in, gathering in
Grain for the winnowing,
Gold for the purifying,
Gems for recrystallizing,
Trees for rejuvenating,
Flowers for retinting,
Humanity for renewing,
Heaven and earth for re-uniting.

After due care and observance, Ben Ezra left the remains of the dead to bid a more satisfactory farewell to Zoë, than she, in her impatient excitement, had allowed him. As he passed the quay, he saw a ship with its sails fully set, just sailing away into the thick mist, which at the hour of evening was enveloping the harbor. He inquired of a bystander its name and commander, and found it was the one in which she and Hilda had embarked. A double sense of desolation settled on his spirit. His dearest friend in the present scene of his lengthened experience had just departed, and now the hope, which had gilded his latest life, was fast fading away into the grave which the ages had been lowering and ever lowering. Thus he wailed out his lament:

"Gone! gone! another ray of sunshine over my pathway stealing.
How long, O Lord, how long dost thou deny my heart's sore pleading!
Am I the sport of a blind destiny, the caprice of a stern fate?
Who ever answereth to my anguished cry for love—too late, too late!
Enlighten me, O Father, upon the purpose of my wandering!
Unvail to me thy great designs on which I tire of pondering.
Give me, O give me life in love! that I, renewed for aye,
May ever worship God, through Christ, and toil for his humanity!
For lo! from age to age, phenomenal, I gather,
With the assemblies of the people—one with them—yet, alas! another.
Give me, O give me life in love! that I, renewed for aye,
May ever worship God, through Christ, and toil for his humanity!

Zoë fades from my light, like the mist of the night.

Call to me, Ocean, from thy deepest soundings,
Blow to me, breezes, from thy remotest boundings,
Stars, from your blue profoundest shine articulate,
Sun, with your melting beams, her love perpetuate!

No answer comes from them to my deep heart's appealing.

Speak to me, my deepest nature,
Reveal the presage of the future.
Hush all discordant whisperings,
Listen to its revealings.

No answer comes to me from its abysses.

Woe! woe! is me! the oracle of all Time is dumb,
Lonely and sad I wander. God! do thou yet sustain!
Still be my light, my life's exceeding gain,
Ever I trust in Thee, though crash of worlds should come!

————

CHAPTER XXIII.

"The youth, who daily farther from the east
Must travel, still is nature's priest,
And by the vision splendid
Is on his way attended."—WORDSWORTH.

"Lord! 'tis not ours to make the sea,
And earth and sky a home for thee;
But in thy sight our offering stands,
A humbler temple 'made with hands.' "

WILLIS.

(Mrs. Liebenhoff dedicates her book, "THE WAY," to the children of Mr. Liebenhoff's Sunday-School.)

"I have been thinking, if there were any so simple and unlearned that I could dedicate my book to them, and it has come into my mind that you, my little ones, may have preserved your child-like temper, so as to receive it in the spirit in which it was written. There are plenty of shrewd and knowing people, who will tell me if it is formed according to the rules laid down for authors, if the sentences are too long, if the facts agree with the time stated, if the characters speak and act as they ought to, and make many other remarks upon it which you would not, and I hope, never will understand. But I wish to give it in charge to those who will love it for its spirit, its deepest meaning; so I come to you, and if a part of it is too old for you now to take a lively interest in it, you will, I hope, grow to like it better by-and-by.

"My children, you know all too well that we are left without his guidance, who was ever faithful and loving in his instructions to us, so we must be all the more true and earnest in laboring for ourselves. He loved each and all of you, little ones. It cheered him, each Sabbath morning, to come to you, and look into your sunny eyes, and mark your obedient attention when he spoke to you of God and Jesus. And when weighed down in spirit by the lack of interest of his older hearers in the truth he gave them, which was dearer than his own life to him, he would say: 'The children will drink into their young hearts its beauty and purity, and their souls will bud and bloom into sweet flowers for the garden of our God; and they will build a temple for his worship, and each of them shall be a living stone in it, polished to fittest grace and loveliness.'

"And now that he is gone, they say, 'we cannot rebuild our church, so we will leave it as it is, a wreck for passers-by to gaze at, and, may-be, scoff for our lukewarmness.'

"My children, we will build the church, new and complete in every part, a fit offering to the great, good Father and our Redeemer. Come one, come all, Mary, and Freya, and Edgar, and Carl, and Gunhilda, and Louise, and Eva, and Fritz, and many more that I cannot name. We will dig stones from the quarry and fashion them into a glorious church, worthy of our Maker, and the souls he gave us; and the few faithful ones, who loved to teach and talk to you of the way to be good and happy here, and afterwards in heaven, will lend a helping hand, when most it may be needed. And little Petrea shall sing for us, meanwhile, the simple song she learns at school, and Meta shall come and dance for us, and if she trips with graceful step to help, by her playful, winning ways, to build a temple where she can learn of Him, who loved more than all else, little children, then she will grow up and never be proud and vain because of her 'flouncy gown.'

"Do you ask, how we shall have strength and money enough to build our church? Never fear, my children. 'God will provide.' Only begin with loving hearts and an earnest purpose, and the sweet heavens and every gracious influence of earth will aid us. Never fear, but commence the work in fullest trust and love, and more than the half is done.

"What shall its form be, do you say? It shall grow into grace and beauty under our hands, even as a forest-tree. Strong and massive shall it be, to live for ages, so that our children's children shall see where their parents worshiped, and say, 'we will praise God even more worthily than they, because of their blest instructions and the ever-living, growing action of our own souls combined.'

"Its pointed doors and windows shall uplift us as we gaze towards the heavens. Its two towers, one surmounted by an anchor, the other by a cross, shall speak to us of consecration of ourselves to duty, however trying, and of high hope combined. Its shell, with open ear, shall teach us to be awake and listening to every hint borne to us from God without and God within us. Its pillars, many-branched, shall, like the trees, tell us of God, walking amid the cool wood's shade, of which our temple shall be a symbol. The angel blowing the trumpet over the preacher's desk, shall ever prompt him to utter the whole sacred, needed truth, as it flows in upon him.

"It shall be light, airy, and home-like, with the seats all rounding towards one centre, as if we loved, one the other, and liked to look into each other's faces, and wished no one to hide himself in a dark corner, where he might steal the Word, but lack the sympathetic charm of loving hearts, which gives it half its potency. The minister will give us in simple, earnest fashion, the pure truth of Christ. He will read, too, of God's dealings to his people before his coming; and then of his full, consummated truth, exemplified by his great life. And we will chant the psalms and hymns together—turning our faces towards the choir and organ—each one as he best may, with melody of utterance, or by the sincere and voiceless spirit.

"It shall be adorned with pictures, which speak to us, at times, even with plainer voice than words. The infant Jesus, in his sweet mother's arms; she, smiling upon us, saying, 'Lo! this beloved, holy child is a new era in the world's life. Love and grow like him, and the spirit within you shall be pure, tender, beautiful, strong and mighty to prevail over the inner and the outer world as his was.'

"Christ, walking upon the water, an emblem of the electric spirit's potency, shall be a hint to us of the power of the coming future. The Prodigal Son, welcomed by his Father, will show us the forgiving love of God for sinners. And we will not forget our suffering Saviour, for his crucifixion tells us trumpet-tongued, of the high cost of every man's redemption; for, not alone by Jesus dying to ease, to glory, and to earthly love; nor by his resignation to what God appointed, but by our own likewise, do we gain the crown, and reign as conquerors over sin and ruin forevermore.

"We will build high our church, with steps ascending to it, so that the 'Children's Chapel' underneath shall have full air and sunshine. It shall be broad and spacious, even as the Church above, for many will come to our Sunday-school, I ween.

"Pictures shall be here too; Christ blessing little children; holy ones praising God with prayer and song, and many others, with medallions and statuettes, such as you will love to look on. I have many ready for our Chapel now, my own.

"It shall be open each Sunday evening too. Sometimes we will gather to hear one, who can tell us well of the wonders of the stars. Again another shall teach us of the beauty and high uses of the trees and flowers; another, of the marvels of the tinted shell, linking each with thoughts of God, and his many-sided goodness, loveliness and power. And thus the Pastor will be relieved and cheered by the aid of many minds, intent like him, upon spreading God's truth and love, and making our lives harmonious therewith. Sometimes, too, we will meet in our Chapel-home for social converse, brightened by intelligence and thought, and warmed by sympathetic interest in high themes.

"And now, I am going to speak to you, my children, of what many pious people will think a very sinful plan, but it is not nevertheless, to my simple faith. So be attentive to me. You know that the Sabbath was given us to rest from labor, to grow good, to do good, and be happy in. God has not told us exactly how, though all the ages have pointed to the Church and its simple and holy ordinances, as one great means of becoming thus; so every Sunday morning, if possible, we will come to church; and in the afternoon, there are so many good books to read, it seems a very pleasant way to spend the hours in, to learn something from their teachings. But sometimes, on Sunday evenings, we will have dramatic representations in our Chapel. Is it so very dreadful? You have felt, I dare say, after being serious all day long, as if you would like to sport and play. God put this love of change into your feelings. You only must learn to guide it rightly. It is no more wicked to laugh than weep, indeed much less so, I think, in a world which God has made purposely for us to be happy in. So we will be merry a part of Sunday, will we not?

"And do you not think, if a little boy or girl were striving very hard to grow up good, and wished to learn how, in every way he could, that, if he saw, represented by living persons, the struggles, trials, and at last the victory of some great and good man or woman, who had toiled from childhood for this high aim, that he would learn as much, as if he went to a darkened church three times each Sunday, to hear a gloomy-looking man say in the morning, over and over again, 'that sin is exceeding sinful;' and in the afternoon, tell of the 'terrors of the law,' and in the evening, 'that God was going to burn up a multitude of his children for ever and ever?'

"I think we should learn a great deal more. So the young people, with little trouble and preparation, will use the talent which has been given them, for some good purpose, to make our Sabbath evenings happy and beneficial to us.

"And now, I go into the sweet country and the bright tinted woods to gather comfort and hope again from their refreshing influences. Farewell, my children, and when I return, come to me, for a little while, and a few at a time; for I have much to do, and your noisy prattle when too long listened to, disturbs the current of my many thoughts. And you shall see my pictures, and select one, each of you, as you best like; for I have many which have been suggestions to me while I wrote my book for you, and which I will with pleasure give to my little friends. Farewell."

END OF VOL I.

VOLUME II

ZOË:

OR, THE QUADROON'S TRIUMPH.

————

CHAPTER I.

"O, ye heavens, be kind!
And feel, thou Earth, for this afflicted race!"—WORDSWORTH.

WE must now return to Santa Cruz and give a hasty sketch of the fortunes of George Carlan and his wife, during the twelve years' absence of their daughter in Denmark.

It will be recollected that the former, in emerging from slavery, had placed before himself two objects for which to live and labor—wealth, and independence; or as it may be expressed in one phrase, independence through wealth. Towards these his aims were directed and his ambitious hopes constantly aspiring.

Sophia, on the contrary, affectionate and retiring, as she was, shared but in a slight degree her husband's restless wishes; and if ever her thoughts were turned towards his favorite goal, and her imagination excited by his visions of distant good attained through these means, it was that he and her child, more than herself, might win the happiness which would accrue from their possession.

Mr. Carlan's industry and enterprise had been crowned with success so far as to place them in comfortable circumstances. Indeed, in comparison with most of his tribe, he was wealthy and was regarded with consideration by his own caste. But his affluence gave him no honorable position among the white Creoles of the island. To-be-sure, he had business relations with them, and the Danish officials treated him with a half friendly, half condescending familiarity, which was anything but agreeable. But by the English residents he was looked upon with distrust and aversion as an ambitious, discontented man, who was to be avoided and scorned on every possible occasion to prevent his impertinent encroachments upon their dignity and aristocratic rights. As these latter saw their power and influence decline in the island just in proportion to the losses and poverty incurred by their miserable management of their property, spendthrift habits, and ruinous absenteeism, so in the same ratio did they hate the Irish emigrants into whose hands their estates had fallen, or the colored people who, through their enterprise, were seizing upon their commerce and manufactures.

Had George Carlan, when he emerged from slavery, possessed a true idea of the value of freedom in its relations to the training and development of the human soul above all things else, he would have been saved much bitterness of feeling and many heartaches, and in the end have prospered much better also in his worldly affairs. For by this principle deeply-rooted and acting vitally upon his daily life, he would have gained a self-possession equal to every emergency, an insight into the laws of commercial intercourse, and proper appreciation of the forces of nature, and the due balance to be preserved between the consumption of the products in which he dealt and the law of their supply, quite indispensable to success in any business department. This, too, would have given him that patient reliance on Providence in untoward seasons, and that geniality and kindness of demeanor in his social and business relations, which are better than a capital of thousands to one who launches forth on the sea of commercial life. But these ideas he had had no opportunity of learning in slavery, and it was not to be expected that he would begin his career as a merchant under better auspices, in these respects, than multitudes, who commence life with none of his disadvantages. Still he had much skill, shrewdness, and industry, and for several years his success was without a drawback, and, as was remarked in the commencement of this story, he was enabled to surround himself and family with not only the comforts, but many of the luxuries of life.

But in his social relations he was, as it were, between two fires. On the one hand, he was looked down upon, yet dreaded and contemned by the whites. On the other, in proportion as he was separated from the blacks by his mixed caste, his ambitious aspirations, and his gentlemanly, and it must be confessed, haughty bearing and more luxurious surroundings, so was he hated, suspected, and even scorned by them. Many a time, in the market and on the highway, as he passed along through groups of laborers, or even met the convict-troop on their way to work upon the roads, did he hear the muttered sentence: "Black man get along very well with Buckra before colored man come; he make all the trouble." This, of course, did not increase his sympathy for his race, or give him much hope of aiding them in their uprising. On the contrary, he grew more and more moody and silent as the years went by, more discontented with his position, and more hopeless of taking his stand side by side with the haughty whites. Absorbed in business as he was, he gained no higher tastes with which to occupy his few leisure hours, so that he too often, instead of bringing sunshine and strength to his home, distressed Sophia by throwing out hints of his determination to leave the island altogether and go to Denmark, or better still, to more sunny and genial, and hospitable France.

How, in the meantime, did she, the more simple, refined, and retiring nature, fare in this rude, conflicting war of the different elements which made up the social life of her adopted island? In one sense better, in another worse.

She and her husband were very unlike in temperament and character. He, with his admixture of Anglo-Saxonism, partook very largely of its more striking characteristics. He was proud, self-respecting, practical, and grave. She, on the other hand, had the traits of the poetic, artistic, religious African. The white tinge in her cheek came, too, from French extraction on the maternal side, which modified her character to a tone more graceful and spirituelle. Her mother was from Martinique, a slave in a prominent family in that island, and favorite cook of the establishment. The father of Sophia was the son of her master, and she had dim recollections of being fondled, in her infancy, by a handsome young man under the shade of the banana trees which surrounded their hut. When about eighteen years old, her master and mistress came to Santa Cruz on a visit, bringing her as one of their attendants. Wishing to show their appreciation of the hospitality of their host and hostess, they gave Sophia to their eldest daughter as a parting gift. In the course of two or three years after this event the young lady died of a painful and lingering disease, in which the slave-girl watched her by night and day. Through this companionship of suffering on one side, and of tender, devoted, and sympathizing alleviation on the other, there grew up between them a strong affection. Elinor, for that was the young lady's name, could hardly permit her out of her sight. No hand could smooth so suitably as hers the pillow for her aching head, the bitter draught lost half its loathsomeness when held to her lips by her gentle bondwoman, and when she was away, her eye would wander restlessly around the room for her favorite attendant. Sophia had learned, previously to this time, how to read imperfectly, and soon her young mistress preferred her slow, interrupted articulation of passages from her favorite authors to the more finished enunciation of her own sisters. Here was a spur to improvement in this art, so that she learned to read with much propriety in this her primary school both of literature and bereavement. For, at one time of that mysterious, dead hush of nature, which attends the hours of early morning in the hottest summer nights, when it seems an effort for even the well and strong to keep the vital spark from failing, this delicate southern flower folded its petals, drooped, and faded away into the dull hue of death, exhaling its latest breath into the ear of her beloved nurse in the form of the glad tidings of—"Liberty to the captive." So she was free, and ere-long she was a freeman's wife, and the wild rapture of her betrothal, the bliss of her bridal eve, the chastened delight of her first room of motherhood were all blended in her mind, hallowing it by their influence, with that sad but sweet death-bed scene, and with those entrancing words, toned down to tenderest, softest accents by her young mistress's failing breath, of "Ye are free, inasmuch as ye have willingly done all this for me."

Until Zoë's departure, scarcely a shade had come across her wedded life. Her husband, though much engrossed by his business, was kind and affectionate, and she had so much gladness within herself, that his occasional fits of abstraction and silence were not much heeded by her, especially as she was ever pretty successful in withdrawing him from them by her playful chit-chat. When Zoë was born, after a three years' marriage, her happiness was complete, for the care of her child filled up the hours of her husband's absence, and she had no ambitious designs of a foreign culture for her, and no corroding anxiety for a higher station than her present one in the associations of the island. With no relatives of her own there, she had chosen her companions very much as her natural affinities led her, so that they were among the best of her class, and with a strong, instinctive love of nature leading her daily into the most beautiful haunts within reach of her home, she was less dependent upon social intercourse than was common among her people.

Her husband's relations were of a very mingled character, both as it regarded color, habits, and general development. Some were in slavery, some free, but none of them had enjoyed the same early advantages as himself; for he was a trusty servant to one of the best English residents, and had caught much of the tone of mind and manner of his master and his household.

They, on the contrary, even the emancipated, had less sense of character, less idea of the discipline necessary to enable them to make the most of their freedom, and were, therefore, thriftless, improvident, and disposed to rely very much on him for assistance and support. They attributed his greater success to good luck; were ever bemoaning their own hard lot; comparing, in a discontented spirit, their fortunes with his; repining at their own sufferings and struggles; and, at the same time, congratulating him with sinister look and tone upon his exemption from them. All this was a great trial to Mr. Carlan, and he tried to remedy their difficulties as much as possible; but, of course, time was requisite to heal all the evils entailed upon them by their former slavery.

Sophia's quick woman's wit and keener spiritual insight, saw that the trouble rested very much upon their indolent habits, and want of judgment, and that, while men and women in stature, they were but children in character, and mental and social habits. They wasted their earnings by thriftlessness, and then came to her husband to make up their losses, and yet were angry if either of them suggested a different and better course of conduct for them. They quarreled among themselves and appealed to him as an umpire; and yet loaded him with abuse, if, in mediating between them, he ventured to condemn, though in the most careful manner, the conduct of either party, so that he was constantly perplexed and anxious on their account. All this served to imbitter him still more when he thought of the rank which the colored people held in the island.

He was sufficiently advanced himself to see the evils resulting to them from the prevailing prejudice against caste and color, at the same time, that he had but little hope, and saw less and less prospect of their taking soon a different position. The curse of slavery still hung over this beautiful island, and its effects were most deadly and disheartening; and in the little world of his relations the several acts of its fearful tragedy were daily enacting.

"My dear," said Sophia to him one day, "I really think it is better for you not to give your brother Fred so much money as you do. He does not spend it prudently. I met him this afternoon driving two horses tandem, and dressed in a style which you do not allow in yourself, and really his wife quite outshines me in her finery."

"I know it, Sophia. I try to have him more thrifty and saving, but I can't make much impression upon him. He has been miserably brought up, poor fellow! what can we expect of him?"

"I know we must make allowances, of course; but really your money injures him, I think. It prevents his depending upon his own industry and fosters his spendthrift habits. Besides, it is not right on your own account. Here you are working from morning to night, and pouring out your means like water to one and another, and when I get tired of being alone, and beg you to stroll on the sea-beach with me, or sit under the veranda and enjoy the cool breeze, you say you have so much to do that you cannot. I really think Fred ought to depend on himself more, and his children should be trained to industry by necessity, if not willingly. Character is worth more to them than any amount of presents from you. Tell him so, will you not, dear, next time he asks you for money?"

"Sophia, he is my only brother; I must help him or he would soon suffer. I cannot make up my mind to tell him so either. I know I work hard for my income, but as it is mine I must do as I think best with it."

His wife was silent and subdued, but, though a colored woman, with the quick, instinctive, moral sense of her race, and acute natural idea of justice, she was not able to see, any more than her white sisters under the same circumstances, how it happened, that when they began their married life together, with scarcely a stiver, and she had, by her own industry and good management, helped to make their home comfortable and tasteful, and by her economy in saving their earnings, had served to increase their means, that they should be so coolly, and quite as a matter of course, appropriated by himself, and she, in the meantime, be made to feel as a dependent and intruder if she alluded to the mode of their expenditure. Still she was happy, and able, therefore, to dispel all such unpleasant reflections which might be forced upon her.

But year after year passed, and matters grew worse and worse. George was more discontented and gloomy, less than ever at home, and more and more silent when there. Sophia watched with a beating heart his dark and brooding countenance, and strove by endearments and delicate attentions to withdraw him from himself and become once more to him what she was in the first years of their marriage.

Not that he was unkind to her. He would have been shocked had he been told that he was negligent in his home-duties, and cruel towards the tender, loving spirit, who had given her affections and happiness into his keeping. By the sophism, that business was all important, and that, by providing her with abundant food and clothing, he was fulfilling the pledge he had given her on their marriage eve, he silenced any reproaches which might arise within him as he saw her move about their dwelling with abated spirits, or detected traces of tears on her morning face instead of the bright expression of days gone by.

But with all this absorption in business, he did not prosper as well as at first. As his spirits darkened and he grew morose and suspicious, he ceased to be the favorite that he had been with the captains of vessels and other strangers who visited the island. So that his yearly profits were less and less, and with the diminution of moral force of character, he was more and more imposed upon by his eager relatives. Thus his property sensibly diminished from year to year. This was readily perceived by Sophia, who adapted her expenditures accordingly. The French, it is well known, have wonderful capabilities in providing nutritious and attractive repasts from slender materials. Sophia had profited by the early instructions of her mother, and was an adept in all kinds of cheap, yet elegant cookery. She dismissed some of her servants to suit the exigencies of their lot, and occupied herself more with her domestic affairs. But in this course she went too far, for, by exerting herself too much in household exercise, debilitating in its effect in a hot climate, she brought on an illness, which put an end to the hope which had given her fresh joy, that soon, in the care of a new object of affection, her constant sense of Zoë's loss might be relieved.

Her husband, aroused to the idea of his wife's critical situation, insisted upon it that she should work less at home and live more, as she was so fond of doing, in the open air among her favorite haunts. He even gave some more time each day to her care and diversion, and something like by-gone happiness revisited them.

But as he saw her recover her accustomed strength and health, he returned to his old habits of busy toil during the day, and silent, moody, or sleepy evenings, and she was thrown more and more upon herself.

And yet she was not alone, for, to the true lover of nature every tree is a support to the spirit as much as to the leaning frame—every sound of its waving leaves, when touched by the breeze, is a gentle whisper of the Almighty to the quickened ear of het who stands and reverently listens. Each flower is a smile, brighter or more tender, of the beauty-loving Artist of the universe. Each tiny moss-cup is a hint of God's ever-watchful care and supervision of the lowliest of his children. Each brilliant shell and sparkling coral, as it is thrown up from the deep, murmurs of infinite love and joy. Every bird warbles in its song of its intimate communion with the spirit who gave it its little harp, from whose strings gush forth such melody, and she tunes her own inner flute to harmonious liquid measures; and the great ocean, with its roar and surge, is but a fitting accompaniment to the full organ-tones, which swell almost to bursting from the over-soul within her.

Sophia was without the education of the schools, nor was her mind trained to subtlety and shrewdness by the current literature and philosophy of the day, any more than her tastes were shrunken to dainty dillettanteism, or her character warped to suit the vulgar loftiness of tone of modern, fashionable, conventional life. But God be thanked for the great school, which, through our dear mother Nature, he has opened for the souls of his children, for the high seminary of which Jesus is the head, where we may learn the great principles for the government of ourselves and the nations; and for the university of life where we may acquire, at the same time that we put in practice, the rules which are to fit us for, and conduct us through the eternities. Sophia was a docile pupil in all these schools. She daily sat at the feet of each prophet and seer, both in the Book handed down from the ages and in "God manifest" near her on the sea-shore, and mountain-top, and mahogany grove, and her spirit grew under their influence till in its beauty, and richness, and perpetual vitality, it surpassed the luxurious vegetation of her tropical island. For so wonderfully has God adapted himself, his visible creation, and us to each other, that we have but to put ourselves in loving relationship with them, through their various voices and intonations, and second their efforts in our training by obedience to their wholesome methods and gentle admonitions, and we grow into symmetry and loveliness like the tamarind tree or the star-jasmin, and the fragrance of our lives arises sweeter to heaven than the odor of the orange tree. This lesson has the midnight student yet to learn, who shuts himself up day after day from the sweet air, and the dancing sunlight, and the cheerful voices of his kind to bury himself among the dusty tomes of the past, till his brain aches, and his face becomes wizard-like, and his hand is palsied by grasping his ponderous volumes, and life, nature, man, and God, take nightmare shapes in his view, so that when he pens his lucubrations, they darken more than enlighten mankind.

But it is not well for us to dwell too much alone, and Sophia suffered in this respect. She lived on pleasant terms with her neighbors, and was affectionate and kind to her husband's relatives. But they were all unlike and very inferior to herself. One family, of a sister of her husband, she hoped much from in the way of companionship. They had natural refinement and were better taught, in some ways, than the other sisters and nieces. But their false position in the society of the island showed itself in a way peculiarly disagreeable to her taste and moral sense. They led a melo-dramatic life, as it were, acting not from the spontaneous impulse of simple, truthful minds, but with an eye to effect and admiration.

"Aunt Sophia," said Eliza Larkin one afternoon, as she sauntered into her parlor, "I have come to sit with you a little while, and see if you cannot cheer me, for I am very drooping to-day."

"Ah! what has happened, dear; you look well. No bad news I hope from Thomas?"

"O no! he was well yesterday, and his employer has raised his salary; but I often suffer from low spirits. Lieutenant Heidrich, who was at our house last evening, noticed this, and told me that my pensiveness was very becoming," and she cast up her eye towards the ceiling and sighed.

"When is Thomas coming home?" said Mrs. Carlan.

"Next month, I believe. Have you heard from cousin Zoë lately, aunty?"

"Yes, dear. We had a letter by the last ship, and she sent much love to all her cousins. I thought I told you."

"I dare say. Did she ever write of the Baroness Von Worm? Lieutenant Heidrich says that I remind him of her; that I have an expression in my eye which he never saw in any one but hers," and she opened and shut them several times with great emphasis.

"No, I think Zoë does not know her. She speaks of Mrs. Liebenhoff, and Mrs. Körner, and a few others; but she has not very many acquaintances outside her school."

"I went to the Governor General's last levee with Uncle Fred, and the Danish officers were very attentive to me, and I heard one of them say that I was the handsomest girl in the room;" and she raised her hand to brush aside her curls.

Her aunt said nothing to this, and she continued.

"I wore my blue tarleton, with my new bertha, which is edged with real lace, and Lieutenant Heidrich put a lovely red rose in my hair, and said that it set off to good advantage my luxurious beauty."

"My dear Eliza, I hope you will not suffer your head to be bewildered and your heart turned away from Thomas, your good lover, by Lieutenant Heidrich or any other Danish gentlemen. Depend upon it he means no good to you by his flatteries. Heed my words, love, will you not?"

Eliza grew sullen, and said but little more before leaving; and Sophia's heart sank within her at the thought of the easy virtue of the women of her people, whom the taint of slavery still infected in the holiest sanctuary of married life, and blasted the hopes with which the truth of loving hearts was plighted.

Thus Mrs. Carlan had but a limited companionship, either with her busy husband or with her low-toned relatives and neighbors. Her own being was constantly growing through the natural influences upon it of life, nature, and the Word of God, while no one kept even pace with her, so as to balance it by a sympathetic expansion and support. She was constantly receiving strength and inspiration, while she could ordinarily give out only what her friends were capable of absorbing—the mere surface-workings of her soul. Imprisoned, as she was, to all intents and purposes by the conventional walls which society had built up around her, she could no more act out fully her highest self, than when she was a slave, could she go at her own will from island to island.

In Santa Cruz she was an exceptional person. Perhaps another could not be found of a similar development, so few influences are there to rouse human nature to its fullest action. But in our own free land society is full of women, restless, discontented, and morbid from a painful sense of repression. Some strong, energetic spirits in the higher walks of life, who unfortunately feel themselves exempted either by the possession of wealth or by pride of caste, from the common labor of their households, and who have a nervous dread of any of the unfashionable ideas about woman's rights, spend their lives in trifling occupations, insisting upon it that their sphere is sufficiently large for them. They think, perhaps, that their frequent fits of ennui, the blues, or whatever other name may be given to nervous depression and melancholy, are quite in the common course of human nature, though a disagreeable phase of it. So, if young, they emerge from a ten days' fit of complaining ill-temper, and sadness combined, to expand themselves to a broader circumference in hooped skirts, extensive collars, latitudinary plaits of hair, and marvellous hats, astounding by their showy quality just in proportion to their diminishing quantity, and rearward tendency. If matrons and housekeepers, they make up for their stinted normal action of mind by devoting themselves to spacious mansions, mirrors, and showy upholstery, which suggest that Aladdin's lamp should ever be in their possession; and to entertainments which vie with the extravagant waste of the ancient Romans in the days of their voluptuous decline.

Some, stung to desperation by our falsities of thought and life, mount the rostrum and the pulpit, and, Pythoness-like, screech out their denunciations against our slaveries, monopolies, and frauds, and get hooted at for their fury and zeal. And there is some truth of feeling in the condemnation of society, though it may be sinning to the very extent of their accusations; for, if one has a truth in advance of the age, it should be regarded as a precious trust and deposit; it should be hovered over by the soul, with the brooding love of a bird for its young; it should be fed with the choicest nutriment to be found under God's canopy; ay, and He should be wrestled with by the strong arm of prayer until he nurture it from his own storehouse above. It should be aired by the fresh breezes which blow all about us, so that it contract no rust or taint from our own possible mental stagnancy. Above all, it should nestle in the most loving nook of our hearts, and in its warmth it should abide until its sweetest song is panting to warble forth of itself, and its pinions are so strong that it can ever mount higher and higher without wish to return again to the earth or the home of its infancy. Then, its clear, musical note entrances and wins, and men cannot but listen and learn from its song the lyrics of the skies.

Others, with gentle accents and tearful eyes, speak out the thought that is in them, an evidence of their earnestness, though it may not be strong enough to bear up the listeners to the point of their own interest and fervor. Others still, in individual and associated action show their powers of direction, and thus give expression to their benevolence. Some issue their prettily turned thoughts in verse and fiction with facility and pleasure and gain by this relief, and in the world's acceptance and praise the happiness they ask for.

But what shall she do whose tastes, culture, disposition, and aversion to prominent leadership point to no satisfactory division of labor in society as it is, but who sees the necessity of a still greater upheaving of old principles and customs and modes of thought and action before she can take her full share of the work of society upon her shoulders? Her daily life is an ideal one, but she has outlived the period when she thought it necessary and right to push it aside, cover it up, or extinguish it altogether, in order to fulfill God's appointments for her in the world. She has measured it by the Christian standard, and it compares well with that, and she sees that to live the same is the vital necessity of the world no less than of herself. She looks abroad and beholds signs on every side of the need of a higher life, and prognostications of its approach, though it limps, and wanders, and seems sometimes almost lost on its way. Restrained, as she is, by the laws of her own being, which have become to her a primary revelation, kept within her accustomed sphere by reverence and regard for the beloved and revered, whose feebler and less piercing imaginative glance discerns not what is clear to her in coming futurity, prevented from full expression, lest she should alarm them by what they would deem the vagaries of insanity, what, we ask again, can she do when the truth is as clear as a sunbeam to her that the feminine element, as expressed by the religion of Jesus, and which all along, in the world's history, has been in abeyance, is to lead on the ages of the future? The feminine element! not merely in woman of course, but wherever it may be found, in all the different races, conditions, and castes, but which needs something more than the timid, slow, and compromising means put in force by the men of this generation, however sincere they may be, to give it supremacy. In the prevailing skepticism of the day, the abandonment of churches and growing disbelief in the Scriptures, she sees how much the intellect of the age is in advance of its creeds and forms. In magnetism, spiritualism, and other forms of psychological development, she discerns a growth of soul, hitherto scarcely dreamed of on this side heaven. It shows itself at present in startling, awkward, abnormal ways, but by little and little it comes under obedience to legitimate laws, and, ere-long, will adjust itself to natural, simple, but elevated philosophical rules. What, I say, can she do, when she sees all this, and, in the new order of things, opening to society through these means, recognizes her extended sphere of action, but bide her time, and nourish, and, at the same time, keep within bounds her struggling, fluttering faith, and subdue herself to the patience needed for the slow and wearisome hours? She rises in the morning, not to tire herself with labor, for she finds not sufficient of the same to suit her present development. On the contrary, the struggle is to repress her powers to her limited exigencies and means, to still herself to endure the world's present slow march of progress in spiritual life, to do her part meekly in the humble now, when her plans are squared to the broad spaces of the glorious future. The masculine minds around her point to the past, and weary her with old saws and maxims of the times gone by, when she hints of her hopes of the coming era! And well they may, for that has been their sphere in which her account was small. But the future belongs to the feminine power, and in that is her home, and there will she find her crown of rejoicing. Thus dying to the past, while awakening to the future, upon which no one looks with her prophetic vision, and, therefore, her words are but as idle tales to her companions, there is nothing left her but to write, write. So she covers sheet after sheet with her burning thoughts, that thus the fervor of her soul may allay itself, and as she weaves, day by day this bright-colored web of her destiny, whose warp is of lightning and its woof of the mid-day sunbeams, she is but half relieved of the fire which flames through her whole being. O! then comes to her, like the draught of cooling water in the desert, our holy religion, bathing her spirit so that it is subdued yet not weakened. It paints before her mind's eye scenes as beautiful, but more true than the mirage in the skies of the east. It bids her wait patiently for the fulfillment of her visions, trusting in a power greater than her own, at the same time that it points with directing finger to the work which will leave her no sense of insufficiency, but will glorify and brighten her daily lot with the pomp and radiance of the heavens.

But Sophia Carlan had not the ready aid of her pen to relieve her mind in its preternatural operations. She was in delicate health. She was lonely and longed for the companionship of her child, and in her husband she found but scanty sympathy, proportioned to the increasing demands of her nature. So that, like many at the present day in this country, the over-soul spilled itself out in weird, abnormal ways. She became a somnambulist, and was subject to trances, which frightened him, and to clairvoyance, which puzzled while it filled him with dread. He was not without superstition, and at first he feared some evil spirit had got possession of her, yet, as she was always in a happy and elevated state when in them, he gradually lost this feeling, but at the same time kept her away from all prying eyes when under their influence. Such was their mutual condition when an event long looked forward to, but sudden at the last, occurred in the island. The dark gathering clouds shot their bolt of lightning, and uttered their peal of thunder, awful to the unprepared, but healthful and invigorating in their tendency to the waiting and longing who saw beyond the war of the elements the bow of promise arched above.

————

CHAPTER II.

"Yet, freedom! yet, thy banner, torn, but flying,
Streams, like the thunder-storm, against the wind!"—BYRON.

THE government of Denmark had for years kept in view the emancipation of the negro slaves, included within its colonies of Santa Cruz, St. Thomas, and St. Johns. It had afforded the means for a small amount of education through the schools and churches under the care principally of Moravian missionaries, and facilities through which liberty could be bought by the more industrious and enterprising blacks. It granted privileges by which the free colored people became equal to the whites in the eye of the law, and were allowed the same religious advantages as themselves. Farther than that, the governor-general encouraged social intercourse between them, and by means of his occasional levees, strove to bring them together as much as possible. This, of course, was dreadful to the whites, and, if they dared, they would never have returned an affirmative answer to the invitation to honor themselves by their attendance upon him, their unpopular governor.

"What do you intend to wear to the levee to-night?" said Emma Stinson to Jane Rutgard.

"I have not thought much about it," said she, with a toss of her head. "I had rather be put into the calaboose than go there at all. I hate the governor, and despise all his invitations," throwing his card across the room.

"Hush!" said her mother, who at that moment saw John, one of the servants, slink out of a distant door of the long apartment in which they were sitting. "Do be careful how you speak thus within hearing of the people."

"I do not care, mamma, I am too indignant to keep my speech within bounds. Here we are, forced to go whether we will or no, to cringe and bow to this shameless man, whose yellow mistress will be permitted to give herself airs over us, and her vulgar relations will jostle us aside to take the precedence as we walk to the supper-room. I can't bear it," and Jane reddened with passion as she gesticulated with great emphasis; "I have a great mind to say, I will not go at any rate, and then tell him the reason."

"And have your father civilly told that his services are no longer needed by government—hey? My dear, you may as well submit to these little unpleasantnesses," said the indolent Mrs. Rutgard, leaning back in her arm-chair and fanning herself. "It is not very often we are obliged to endure it."

"Affairs are growing worse and worse," said Emma. "Mamma says, that she verily believes, from all she has heard, that the governor is plotting for the emancipation of the slaves. Already they begin to grow insubordinate and take airs upon themselves."

"They have never been as contented and obedient since the law was made, that after twelve years, they should have their freedom. Give them an inch and they will take an ell," said Jane.

"I know that they are an ungrateful race," said Mrs. Rutgard, with a little more energy than usual. "Though I have been so indulgent to my servants, and they have had so many favors, I dare say, that they would forget it all in a moment, were there a prospect of their freedom and leave me to take care of myself," and the poor lady put her handkerchief to her eyes.

"There will be no safety for us, if there should be an insurrection," said Miss Tomkins, an elderly maiden, in a harsh, guttural tone. "They would take all our lives. I would not trust one of them. Our safety rests upon their being kept under strict rule. I wish we could have a different governor-general from this present treacherous one." These last words were spoken in a lowered tone, lest the trade-wind, as it fanned their faces in their open apartment, should waft the rebellious sentences to any one of the many greedy Danish officials by whose exorbitant salaries, among other means, the mother country impoverished her colonies.

"O! I was so frightened, one night last week," said Jane. "I was at 'Hannah's Rest' with Amelia. We sat up pretty late chatting, and after I went to my room I could not get to sleep. Her tea was so strong, I believe it kept me awake, for I drank more than usual in the evening. There I was lying alone, feeling a little nervous and fidgetty when I heard a tap, tap, tap. I did not move at first, though I trembled all over, but listened with my ears wide open. By-and-by, tap, tap, tap again. I felt then quite sure that it was a signal of the slaves who were assembling for some mischief or other. I jumped up, determined to do my part to put them down if I died in the attempt, and lighted a lamp. I stood and listened, again tap, tap, tap!"

"For heaven's sake, what was it?" said Emma, wrought up to great excitement by her graphic, earnest manner of telling her story.

"I went to the window and looked all about, but could see nothing by the pale moonlight, and everything seemed still. I began to think it was my imagination, and I was going to bed, when tap, tap, tap again!"

"O, gracious!" said Emma, clasping her hands, and holding her breath.

"I could bear it no longer, so I went to brother Andrew's door, and told him that there was a disturbance among the negroes. He was out in quick time, as you may suppose, with pistols in hand."

" 'Where? what?' said he, looking really pale with fright; and as for Amelia, I thought she would go into fits. Her scream, when I first told them, awakened the baby, who began to cry at the top of his voice, so you may suppose, what a bedlam there was."

"Go on, and tell us about the revolt," said Emma, catching hold of Jane's arm, angry at her collateral details, and her eyes staring with fear.

"Why, it was not a revolt, child," said she, alarmed by her eager look. "I led Andrew into my room and told him to stand still and listen. By-and-by, tap, tap again."

" 'You foolish child,' said he, partly relieved and partly provoked, 'it is in your own closet.' He opened the door, and away sprang a little mouse. My sister had set away some guava jelly upon a salver, resting it upon two small bandboxes. Mousey was attracted by the paste which was used in covering it with paper, and in nibbling upon that, moved the salver which was set unevenly upon the boxes, and hence, the tap, tap, tap!"

"O, dear!" said Emma, "is that all? Next time you relate an exciting story, tell how the end is to be, before you begin. Why, you have scared me out of a year's growth."

"We ought to be prepared for the worst," drawled Miss Tomkins. "Emma," said she, to her niece, "put down your window at night, won't you? There is no knowing who may come about the house; the negroes are getting very disorderly, I think."

"Why, Aunty, you know I should suffocate without air, and it is at least twenty feet from the ground. But if you think I ought to, I will."

This is but one instance of the continual apprehension which haunts the slaveholder. No matter whether his fears are well-grounded or not, they are the ghosts which injustice and wrong conjure up, and no influence within the limits of the terrible system, can allay them. They stalk about, growing ever more grim, ghastly and threatening, until the evil shall be repented of, and removed from the land.

It was true that the slaves were getting more and more dissatisfied with their condition, so one fine morning, instead of going to work as usual, a troop of some thousands of them assembled together from the plantations, with their sharp, working implements in hand, and declared themselves free. They shed no blood, and their depredations upon property were comparatively small. Only a few persons who had made themselves particularly obnoxious to the blacks by cruel usage or provoking remarks at the time, suffered from their retaliation. They even attempted to allay the fears of the whites, as they marched through the streets of Fredericstadt, where the rebellion first began. To a lady, who gazed fearfully upon their movements from her piazza as they passed along, a dark, tumultuous crowd of excited human beings, they said; "We won't hurt you, Missis. We only want our freedom, and freedom we will have!" There must have been a general concert among them, for, with some unimportant exceptions, the insurrection was universal throughout the island, Bassin, the eastern town, being only a very little later in the same movement, than its sister town at the more western point.

The white Creoles fled to the ships in the harbor, and awaited the result. They sent immediately to Porto Rico for assistance from its troops, as the Danish force on the island was small and hesitating in its movements. Some of the negroes came down to the shore and solicited the return of the inhabitants to their homes, telling them that they should be unharmed; but they were too much alarmed to run the hazard. At Bassin the military fired a few times into the rebel crowd, and some individuals were sacrificed, one of which was a woman.

But the all-important point was gained. Freedom was proclaimed by the governor-general, who all along had been suspected of aiding and abetting them in their determination. The government made arrangements by which each troop of negroes should be required to remain for a year in their former homes for small wages, and the island settled down again into comparative quiet. It seemed to be considered necessary to make an example of the leaders, so that fifteen of them were, a few weeks afterwards, shot in cold blood on the open square of the western town, and a large number of others were condemned to the chain-gang. These examples of cruelty and bloodshed came with an ill grace from the whites, who had been spared by the blacks in their day of power, not a blow having been struck, nor a hair of their heads being injured in the insurrection.

The Governor was recalled to Denmark in disgrace, and another was appointed in his place. The Spanish troops which were sent from Porto Rico returned home on the arrival of the Danish reinforcements, and the turbulent elements which had threatened to submerge this fair little island in a sea of troubles, were to the casual observer allayed by the prompt discipline and watchful oversight of the mother country.

Mr. Carlan was one of the sufferers by the insurrection. He was distasteful to the blacks, for his admixture of race and his aspiring temper, which naturally led him away from their fellowship. By the lower class of colored people he was also disliked, because of his haughty reserve; and among these were some of his distant relatives. He had gone on, recklessly giving to one and another of them of his means, without much sense of responsibility, deaf to the suggestions of his wife, that he was really hindering their rise in the scale of humanity by relieving them from the exertion of their powers, which she plainly saw nothing but absolute necessity would arouse.

At length his eyes were opened to the fact that, as their demands were insatiable, it was of no use to attempt to satisfy them, and that he must graduate his gifts by his own sense of what was right under the circumstances, leaving them to be pleased or discontented, as the case might be. This aroused the anger of those whose assistance from him was reduced; and low as they were in spirit and character, they were angry with him for his diminished help, rather than grateful for the generosity of past years. Too late for his or their good he learned that, in solving the difficult problem of how to benefit the less favored classes, the first step is to accumulate as much power of character as possible in ones-self, and while, at the same time, that, from a broad outlook we take in their general and particular wants, we must have an equal sense of responsibility, firmness, and common sense in administering to them as in guiding ourselves from the hurtful effects of weakness, indolence, error, and guilt.

The mob, at the time of the insurrection, gathered around Mr. Carlan's store and made some threatening demonstrations, but were about leaving, when a free colored man, a cousin of his, to whom he had refused money the day before, called out, "Pitch into the upstart's goods! Let him see what comes of looking down upon people!" They obeyed, and his well-filled warehouse was soon a scene of confusion and spoil.

His home, which was near, they did not molest. His wife's gentle, affectionate heart and deportment were well known, and in a moment after the deed was done, some of the rioters repented on her account, and testified to its truth by assisting in their leisure hours to repair the damage committed and replace the articles saved from destruction in their positions again.

The same group of white Creoles were sitting in the cabin of the Emily a few days after comparative quiet had been restored in the country, though they dared not yet return to their homes.

"What a dreadful state of things for us!" said Mrs. Rutgard. "It was as much as I could do before this rebellion to manage my servants and make them do what I required of them. But now that their heads are turned by this foolish notion of freedom, matters will be a thousand times worse. O dear, how ungrateful in them to subject us to this, after all we have done for them!"

"I expected nothing better of Jim and Bill, for my part," said Jane; "and as for Susan, she has always been as impudent as she could be to me. She will be giving herself airs, I suppose, and tossing her head at me, (and Jane's was in imminent danger of dislocation from a sudden jerk upward,) I declare I want to leave the island forever. Papa, let's go home and live."

Jane was born, bred, and educated in Santa Cruz. It was her father and mother's birthplace too, though they had been sent to England for a few years when young. Her grandfather, it was true, was a native of that kingdom, so, according to the custom of the islanders of considering themselves as expatriated, the whole family called the mother country home.

"I shall not have sufficient property left for that, my dear," said Mr. Rutgard. "This cursed emancipation has ruined us all. My estate would go for a mere song now. Confound the government." (Sotto voce.)

This said estate had been impoverished by the ruinous system of raising a succession of crops of the sugar-cane for years, instead of relieving it by other productions; it had never been generously enriched, and besides that, the gentleman was convivial in his habits, extravagant in his expenditures, and thriftless in the management of his business every way, and yet emancipation was to bear all the blame of his diminished means!

"Papa says that he thinks we may get along even better than before," said Emma. "The negroes will be contented with small wages, and will work all the better for them. At any rate, he is going into the new system in good earnest and try to have it work well."

"I don't want it to work well," said Mr. Rutgard. "And if every planter would stand back, instead of making the best of it, we might yet induce Denmark to give us back old times again. Curse these new-fangled notions! The slaves are not fit for freedom. They are an ignorant, degraded set, and yet they are to be equal to us in the eye of the law. What are we coming to? The impudence of those colored rascals is insufferable. When we were conferring with them on the day they came down to ask us to return to the town, that scoundrel Bill had the impertinence to nod to me with a twinkle in his eye, as if I were an equal."

Emma turned away with an irresistible smile, for so striking was the resemblance between the two, that among both slaves and freemen of all colors he bore the sportive appellation of Gen. Rutgard, Jr.

"Ah!" said the languishing Mrs. Rutgard, who could be pungent when occasion offered. "Our iniquities find us out. These children of sin will, I verily believe, get final possession of our beautiful island. I want no other home to live and die in; but we may be forced from it," and she fumbled in her pocket for her handkerchief, while her husband wriggled on his chair.

"I know," said Emma, "there are some dear, good creatures among them. When the first cry of insurrection was raised, Mammy Otte turned pale—you need not laugh, Jane—she did turn pale with fright, and wound her arms around little Edwin and me, gasping out: 'They will kill you, my children; let me hide my dear children from them!' "

"She always was a good soul," said Jane. "What a difference there is in them!"

"And there never was a better fellow than Dick, our coachman. Poor Dick! He slept in the window-seat one night, with the full moon shining upon him, and that side has been partially paralyzed ever since. Of course, he could no longer be trusted with the horses, and he was so fond of them and of all of us. Papa gave him his freedom, but he is always lingering about the place. I never can help saying, 'How sorry I am for you, Dick!' as he touches his hat to me, and says, 'Your servant. Miss Emma!' "

Mr. and Mrs. Strophel, though panic-stricken like the rest, suffered no other inconvenience from the new order of things, than a residence of some days within the small quarters of a crowded vessel, and after their return, from some natural pertness and fainéant tendencies of their home servants. Being a pensioned officer of government, he had no plantation to adjust in its workings to the new order of things, so life soon went on with them very much as before. Mr. Strophel had infirm health, and did no business, and with a diminished income lived quietly, his once handsome establishment bearing many marks of neglect. His wife, from having but little opportunity to indulge her passion for gayety, had settled down into a managing housekeeper and scheming mother, gradually taking, more and more, the rule of the household upon her shoulders, as her husband's health declined till he was fast becoming but little better than a supernumerary in the establishment. She was looking forward to Hilda's return with mingled curiosity and anxiety and a modicum of maternal affection, it is true, but that had been insufficient to abate her happiness very much by her more than twelve years' separation from her. She would have been very glad to have heard of her having matrimonial prospects in Copenhagen, but as no such tidings came to her, she began to cast about her for a suitable match within the island.

Delia, her youngest daughter, was but fourteen and immature for her age, so she could, for the present, concentrate her attention upon the older and marriageable one.

Mrs. Carlan had for many months anticipated the insurrection. With the quick insight of an awakened soul, she had read the signs of the times, and knew that a change was coming over the fortunes of her people. When in her natural state, she seldom alluded to it, for her husband was so accustomed to look on the dark side of things, that she got but little sympathy if she indulged in any visions of a better future. But when under the influence of somnambulism, she would express herself in a more highly-wrought style than was usual to her, and dwell with exultation upon the emancipation of her race. With no literary culture, associating only with minds of the simplest style of development, whose speech and general subjects of conversation were very circumscribed, she had, of course, but a small storehouse of language to draw from, even in her excited moods.

Clairvoyants in our own country, who have had but little direct training, when in their abnormal condition, astonish by their power of expression and capacity for giving advice upon subjects foreign to their usual state of intelligence; and they are supposed by many, to be under the influence, involuntary to themselves, of disembodied spirits in their revelations; but this seems inconsistent with reason and nature, and derogatory to the dignity and independence of the individual soul. If we valued that as we ought, regarding it as an emanation from God, intrusted to us to discipline, develop, and worthily prepare it by the use of all the means he has imparted, to become one with him in communion and aim and thus aid him in perfecting the creation, already but begun as it were, we should dread nothing so much as to give up our individual wills and personal responsibility and become mere automata, though even glorified beings might reveal themselves through us. For nothing, in one sense, can be so great to us as the nature which God has seen fit to originate for our especial selves, and we turn aside from his evident design if we are used by any external, created force in a way to blend and confound us with the volition of another. It is virtually saying that we are not satisfied with God's handiwork in us, thereby proving ourselves ungrateful, undeveloped and low in our conceptions of Him and of our own souls. Aid, suggestion, encouragement, sympathy we can gather from each other, and thus unite ourselves in loving fellowship with the great and pure spirits of all past and present time. It is good to associate with our fellows in the various enterprises, instituted for the elevation of mankind. But while yielding to others their meed of influence and opportunity to develop each one his peculiar genius and distinct characteristics, we must guard with delicate care against the absorption of ourselves in the general mass, or give up the particular qualities, tastes, and tendencies which go to make up the individual me. For we may be sure that, if the Infinite took pains to fashion our being and breathe into it his pure breath of life, he wishes, not only on our account, but for His good pleasure also, to have us bloom into the proportions which will make us a beautiful, new variety in his garden of exotics, rather than to shape ourselves into one general conglomerate without definite beauty of form, loveliness of hue, or distinction of fragrance. This answers the idea which is so widely spread, that spirits speak through mediums without their voluntary will. Are not they, as well as we, creatures of God? therefore should they not be suffered to tyrannize over us, any more than those clothed with humanity. No, it is time to understand that we belong to the great Father, not to each other in any servile or arbitrary sense. To him we are to look for our highest communion; his universal spirit influences without enslaving; his enlightening voice speaks, when we will let it, into our inmost souls, and in proportion as they are prepared for its incoming, does it echo it in more forcible or feebler modulations. Even God has a tender respect for our individuality, working with us for our regeneration, instead of compelling us to obedience. Therefore, when men and women speak with unwonted, and, as it seems to many, with supernatural power in these days, it is a proof of a soul awakened either by normal or unnatural means, and that it has unwonted glimpses of truth either through some crevice caused by disease, which is working in this preternatural way, or as a natural result of the just and conscientious use of means to exalt the spirit, character, and life.

The ignorant may thus, in exceptional instances, utter wonderful verities in elevated language, just as in excited moments the arm may break through a stone wall, or lift immense weights. In this country of books many facts may have been gathered from them to be made use of in this time of excitement, to give utterance to their unwonted contemplations. For it must be remembered that nothing is lost from the soul, but each casual word which it takes in, even when listening carelessly in some occupied hour, falls upon its soft tablets, making an impression, which, though it may be overgrown, is never eradicated and is to start up in some future day, either to rejoice and exalt, or to condemn and disgrace us, according to its character, and the spirit with which it was received. We believe this doctrine to be true of the future world. What proof have we that the spiritual faculties may not be so awakened in this life as to live through the same experience, not alone in occasional and startling exceptions, but more according to the rule of an age, quickened, as no past time has been, by the thousand new agencies put into motion for its advancement? When human nature, in the material departments of life, has taken such an unprecedented start, it is no better than infidelity to suppose that the spiritual life of humanity is always to remain in a state so disproportional to it as it now is, in the high places of power, influence, and trust, no less than among the masses of mankind. The universe is one. All spirits are emanations from one parent source. It may be that an intimate sympathy may exist between those of different, outward spheres, through the subtle and potent power of spiritual affinity; but that is a secondary consideration. The supreme, indispensable one is, that we become one with the Father through the means taught and exemplified by Jesus, the great head of a new spiritual creation, the Inspirer and leader in the career of the boundless development of the soul.

Mrs. Carlan's mind was filled with the poetry, imagery, and rapt prophecies of the Bible, which principally made up the sum of her literature and classical power of expression, so that when somnambulic, she would express herself similarly to them, and quote them in apt illustration of the truths she uttered. She would exclaim, with clasped hands and streaming eyes, "O! that the salvation of my people would come out of Zion!" Then her face would brighten as she would exultingly go on, "When God bringeth back the captivity of his people, all the righteous shall rejoice, and they who love the Lord shall be glad. Yea, they who were down-trodden shall build the waste cities and inhabit them; they shall plant vineyards and drink the wine thereof; they shall also make gardens and eat the fruit of them."

Thus prepared by her observation and foresight for the exciting scene of the insurrection, she was not only calm herself but went from one family to another, both of the free and enslaved, counseling moderation and self restraint, at the same time that she sympathized with, cheered, and encouraged them in the step they were taking.

As she recovered her health, and the time drew near for Zoë's return, the thought of which gave new life to her being, she lost, in a measure, the morbid expression of her intensified nature, though she felt it had taken an onward spring which gave new richness and significance to her life. She still employed the language of Scripture to aid her in the expression of her awakened feelings; but she was gradually losing all tendency to somnambulism, which was a great relief and cause of rejoicing to her husband. With her present state of mind he had but little sympathy, and thought her very fanatical and far removed from common sense and a sound judgment.

Though unable to write very freely to Zoë from her defective penmanship, she had not lacked means of communication, or remained a stranger to her child. For when, through her simple letters, she failed to express fully her affection, she gathered and sent with them the various beautiful shells from the sea beach, each one of which became a symbol of the "mysterious union" between them. She strung the brilliant Jumba and Cocrico beans, for bracelets for her darling, and occupied many a leisure hour in weaving various pretty useful articles, of the rich, shining chestnut-colored seeds of the wild tamarind. She at first pressed the flowers of the island, but finding they lost their hues by the process, she brought them home, and taught herself to copy them in water-colors in beautiful arrangement, so that Zoë's volume of West Indian wild flowers was the admiration of her friends.

The sea-weeds and mosses she rescued from the waves, and their pencil-lines and bright variegated tints, were a proof to her child as much of her unseen mother's love, as that down deep in the sea, where no one is near to note God's admirable working, he lavishes his skill in the pure spirit of beauty upon these waifs from the lower ocean-depths, no less than upon the gorgeous flowers born of the sunlight and soil.

Before the insurrection, Mr. Carlan had determined to send for Zoë; but that event occurring a little previous to the time when Captain Keiser, an acquaintance of his, would leave Denmark, he thought it better that she should remain until matters were more settled, as there was yet great uncertainty felt concerning the workings of the new system. We have already seen how Zoë decided otherwise. There was no time, of course, for her to forewarn her parents of the step she had taken, so that she was fast nearing them on her homeward way, while they thought her still in the safety and quiet of her school-retreat.

————

CHAPTER III.

"A flower, the wind, the ocean, which shall wound,
Striking the electric chain, wherewith we are darkly bound."—BYRON.

ONCE on board and Copenhagen fading into the dim distance, the excitement of preparation and departure from Miss Ingemann and her friends over, Zoë sank into one of the terrible fits of depression to which she had always been liable, but which, as she grew older, deepened and lengthened in their character and duration. She threw herself upon her bed in her state-room, not to weep, for the bitter grief which weighed her down was beyond all reach of tears, but to live over her whole life again and question herself of its history in the past and its destiny for the future. To the keenly sensitive spirit no great change can take place in its environments without a corresponding one in its physical and psychological life. It dies, as it were, to one great experience before it awakens to another. Zoë felt this truth in its full force. Prostrated in body, deeply despondent in mind, her world seemed coming to an end, and had the crack of doom sounded in her ear from without, summoning her to judgment, it would, at that moment, have appeared to her as in the natural course of events; for with her, as with all persons who live much within themselves and in the spirit of Nature, the two seemed indissolubly connected. She looked back to her infancy, even to the third year, for her memory served her thus well, and took in each stage of the wonderful journey of human existence. Glimpses of the loving tenderness with which her first years were nurtured, and of being led by her mother through a paradise of verdure, laved by the many-tinted sea of the tropics, came out, one by one, from the daguerreotype within her. But over even that sunny period of childhood there was a shadow. Her father's grave face looked darkly upon her from the background. Her mother's, sweetly pensive, smiled with tears in her eyes as she gazed upon her child, and listened with attention to the troubled words of her husband. Of the latter she had lost the memory even, if she had ever understood them, and yet their spirit and those sad looks of her parents had, somehow, woven a dark thread into the fabric of her soul. She recalled the parting from them, the life on board ship, with its wonderful sights and still more wondrous legends of the helmsman. Her distaste for some of the duties of her school, her fears of her teacher, and yet her constant sense of her intended kindness, were a mystery, a trouble, and a reproach to her. She recalled the sweet intervals of country life, when Miss Ingemann would take her pupils to the hillsides for a few summer days each year, when she would talk with the white elves in sisterly terms of endearment, and try to propitiate the good-will of the dark elves, and encourage the little Hill-fôk with her own confident hope of their eventual welcome to Heaven. She sported with the lambs and calves, with the full belief that, imprisoned within them was some poor little boy or girl, who one day would reveal to her the story of their dumb imprisonment. Each tree, leaf, and flower were to her sentient existences. She sought for the particular one in which she had once been enshrined, but found it not in the cold climate of the north, for the mimosa thrives only where a southern sun and gales open and close it gently by their soft morning and evening breath. The sea, in the July days, would waft her spirit on its sparkling, fluent waves to her southern home; but in winter, when the cold snow would mingle with and whiten its waters, and the icebergs would float by in chilly and glittering majesty, she would close her eyes and wrap her mantle about her bosom that the image of her own blue Caribbean might not be swept away by its rude whirlwinds. She thought of the good captain and his dying wife, and how, when the news came to her of the death of the latter, in a few months after their landing, a tie seemed severed between her and the home from which she had attended her. She recalled how she had gladly welcomed her little daughters, Freya and Adelgunda, that through their love and companionship, she might renew the severed bond, and how faithfully they had ever kept the promise made to their mother, to love the little stranger. Her after friendship with Mrs. Liebenhoff, the Sunday instructions of her pastor, the thousand opportunities for culture of mind and character which had been hers in the home she was leaving, all came up vividly to her mind's eye, forcing her to pass judgment upon the profit she had derived from them.

Like all idealists, Zoë lived as it were two lives. In her usual one, she was the reformer, devoted by Heaven, to a great ministry. For this she had been involuntarily preparing herself, by her intimacy with Nature and the Word of God. The training of her school, and her general literary culture were of a character to foster and help her on to the fulfillment of this settled instinct, first; then, idea of her mind. Everything which she gained, in accordance with her taste, was absorbed into her being, enriching and exalting it, and hastening its maturity. From history, she learned the economy of God's providence, and the philosophy of mankind's existence and growth. From poetry, she exhaled the subtle essence to be intensified in her own spirit. In romances and biographies, she was brought into sympathy with human character and life, while they gave her hints in the mastery of a knowledge of herself. She seized hold of the most striking facts of the natural sciences to prove the truth of her feeling that the universe was one in plan, tendency, sympathy, and progression. By the separate beauties they revealed, which responded to the truth of her own observations, was she lifted higher and higher into the regions of the poetic, so that more and more did she grow into the world of idealism, while less and less was she fitted to cope with the actual. For, though burning with a love of humanity, and panting to save it, living as she had, in almost cloister retirement, when brought into contact with the world, she was ill at ease, unhappy and bewildered. No one came within reach of her ideal of perfection, and yet, so much better could the practical and common-place do well their part in life, adorn society and be happy in it than herself, that she was miserable at the thought of her own deficiencies, and abashed before the superiority of the world. Then would the thought be forced upon her, that, though indulging daily in visions of the extensive use of every faculty intrusted to her, she was in reality in the rear in this respect, of the most worldly and least gifted. So overborne was she at times, by reflections like these, exaggerated as her sentiments were, by a somewhat morbid development of body as well as mind, accompanied by a reserve which had become a second nature to her, that her occasional fits of despondency were dreadful, though her passive features and quiet manner revealed it but little to others.

Hilda knew her much better than any one else, and without prying into her confidence or directly attempting to console her, had great power over her feelings, by her sunny temperament and never failing affection. She saw Zoë's depression and hastened to her relief.

It was curious to see the utter difference of their feelings at this time towards Miss Ingemann. Hilda was that lady's favorite of all the girls in the school. She alone, of the number, was on terms of familiarity with her. Her playfulness and naïveté amused her, and her courage, decision and energy called forth her approval. Through these qualities, she had carried herself, as if by storm, into a kind of companionship with her dignified teacher, which was a separate cause of wonder to both of them. But the younger and more impressible nature had been very much modified by the refined, tender, long-suffering, poetic Zoë. She had learned somewhat her mode of psychological outlook, and her opinions were becoming more and more shaped to an accordance with hers. She, therefore, year by year, regarded the style of development, of which Miss Ingemann was a most favorable type, with distrust and lessened admiration, and the last few days, though they had made her tremble more than ever for Zoë, had convinced her of the inferiority of Miss Ingemann in all that pertains to the spiritual grace and elevation of womanhood. Lacking Zoë's comprehensive, Christian sentiment of fraternity, charity and all-sided consideration, in judging of character, the more she saw her friend suffering and despondent, the more did her affection for Miss Ingemann diminish for the time being, until indignation at Zoë's wrongs and indifference, and even aversion towards the cause of them were her prominent sentiments.

"Come on deck with me, Zoë," said Hilda, as she opened the door of her state-room, "and let us take our last look of Copenhagen. There is a beautiful sunset and a new moon, too. I saw it over my right shoulder; so you see that everything is propitious for our voyage."

"Not now, dear," said Zoë; "you may go and leave me here for the present. My head aches."

Hilda saw how it was with her, and hesitated whether she should speak to her of her sadness or leave her to herself, as Zoë usually preferred when her tone of spirits was at the very lowest ebb; but as they were all in all to each other now, away from other friends as they were, she was compelled to a different course.

"Zoë, love," said she, "what troubles you so very much?

I know it is sad parting from them all; but then, you know, we love each other better than we do all the rest of them put together, so we will be happy, nevertheless, will we not?"

"Dear Hilda, you will always be happy; but I—"

"And you, too, because you know you live in the seventh heaven where the sun shines all the time, only tempered a little by those white, throne-like clouds you like so well. I only manage to exist while you live, my seraphina, pure as ether!"

"Don't say so, Hilda. I am all wrong, wrong." And she turned her head away from her.

"Don't tell me that, or I shall grow dangerous, who know well enough where all the wrong lies. But we are away now, thank heaven. Humph!"

"O! I owe so much to Miss Ingemann," said Zoë, "and I have always troubled her so."

"O! I owe, is a very pretty play upon words, but I am not disposed, in my present state of mind, to go any farther into their meaning, unless it be in a very unchristian direction, which I know will not please you, so we will drop this dreadful debt which seems to weigh upon you, into the sea, while we, in the meantime, go down to tea."

"I don't wish for any tea to-night. I had rather stay here."

"Come, life," said Hilda, without heeding her answer, "I will introduce you to the captain. I have already commenced a most sentimental friendship with him. I was rushing along the passage at the rate of ten knots the hour, (you see I am a sailor already) when I ran against him as he came out of his state-room, with such force that he involuntarily put his arm around me to save himself from falling. Of course I was dreadfully embarrassed, and knew not what to do at first; but I caught the twinkle of his roguish eye, so what did we do but laugh outright in each other's faces. It was as good as a month's ordinary acquaintance and you shall share the benefit of it with me. Come, again I say; we will seat ourselves by him at table, you on one side and I on the other, and thus command the best of everything going."

Zoë smiled and said, "not to-night," and relapsed again into abstraction and sadness.

Hilda could be serious and was very sensible too.

"Zoë," said she, "I really think you ought to try and overcome these unhappy feelings. You seem to me to indulge in them more and more, and it is very bad for you every way. Come, cheer up, will you not for my sake?"

Zoë began to rise.

"If you do not, I shall begin to think that parting with Ben Ezra has something to do with this forlorn mood of yours."

Here she showed her want of a delicate sympathy in the means she took in rousing her friend. If she thought so, it was the last remark possible she ought to have made, and if she did not think so, she should have known that so abrupt a reference to it as that, to an enthusiastic nature like Zoë's, who disliked nothing so much as the common trifling upon one of the most sacred subjects of life, was a sad mistake in her present nervous state.

She sank back again on her couch sayings "Hilda, please never, never mention his name to me."

Hilda opened her eyes wide for her own relief and edification, out of sight of Zoë, wondering if there had been any passages between them, concluded upon the whole there had been, and went down to the dining-saloon, saying to herself, "O dear, dear, here is new trouble in the wind! How am I ever to get this gossamer web, woven of spirit and nerves, with any kind of safety, through this rough, wicked world! Even knowing how tender its meshes are, as I do, don't save me from making a rent in it now and then. How much more will the selfish and coarse, who think it is compounded of nothing but common materials!" And she drew a long sigh, as she seated herself by the captain.

Zoë, left alone, recurred to the parting scene between herself and Ben Ezra, not without self-reproach at her abrupt and indignant reception of words, which he was guiltless of supposing would thus anger and wound her.

"I am bewildered and distressed," she said to herself, "Is it not a vain fancy that I have been indulging, that I am to reject the dearest happiness of life through the martyr-spirit, prompting me to give up everything for the cause of Christ and God? Have I not been negligent in reading aright the intimations of Providence, which, perhaps, pointed to the very consummation he wished? Now I remember how, from the first, his words seemed to me as the inspiration of God; how, as he recounted his experience through one age after another, my spirit reveled in the freedom it so much pants after, and soared in companionship to the heaven of heavens.

"Let me bethink myself. The first night of our meeting there was a strange and startling conjunction of the new moon and the star of love. Since, this lunar complement of my soul has shown even more than her wonted sympathy with my every phase of feeling. When I was happy, the effulgence of her rays gave still richer tone and gladness to my spirit. When I have been sad, clouds more or less dark and dense have vailed her mild face from mine, telling of her sorrow for my grief. And later still, the planet Jupiter has come within our orbit with unwonted brilliancy, he and the love-planet on opposite sides of heaven, looking into each other's eyes with strange intelligence. But ah me! last night I looked for my beloved queen, Venus, the shadow-attended star of evening, and lo! it had fled from heaven, hiding her face in anger and shame, at the dull comprehension of her favored votary. O sad, sad willfulness of my untutored spirit, thus to thrust aside what God intended for my bliss and highest good, and through me the fulfillment of his promises to men! O miserable me! Blind, presumptuous me! who have called myself great Nature's fondling and God's prophetess of the coming dispensation. How could I be thus perverse? Am I not all wrong, a poor, weak idiot and fanatic, false to truth and duty, and condemned to punishment for my soaring fancies, of which this dark pall, hanging low and dense over my spirits, is but the prognostic and preparation? O help me, God, forgive, enlighten, point me to the path where I must walk, to the work appointed me by Thee!"

Thus was Zoë ever questioning with herself, and in this experience with the mysterious stranger was opened upon her a new world of anxiety and doubt. In any other young girl it would have been simply disappointed love, which threw her whole being into commotion. Ruled, however, first of all by the great idea of self-consecration to a religious reform, she was not liable to yield up her affections hastily. On the contrary, as has been said, her feeling had been that she should never marry. But in reviewing the past, it seemed now that she had made a mistake, both as it regarded herself and also the furtherance of her mission. As a woman, she felt that she had thrust from her recklessly a whole constellation of enlightenment and joy; a sun in his clear intellect, which would ever guide her onward in her search, after truth; a gentle moon, shining upon her with benignant, loving light at the same time that there were depths in his being like the fathomless gorges of that planet, satisfying to her thirst after the mysterious and indefinite. He was Jupiter in his power, and strength, and capacity of a glorious, protecting affection. He was Saturn, into whose ocean-like depths of soul she could pour the rivers of her own pent-up being, and find relief, and at the same time receive fullness in return. And in his steady revolution through the ages, while governed by the natural laws which kept him within the earth's orbit of duty, sympathy, and its highest means of cultivation, he was at the same time, ever like our system of worlds, revolving nearer and nearer towards the great clustered suns of the universe.

As a reformer, she had perhaps thrown away half her own power by what seemed to her now her own self-absorption, and she mourned over a mistake which might condemn multitudes to partial blindness and death. Thus she mused in bitterness and doubt until sleep, the refreshment of weary, troubled mortals, wafted her gently into the regions of harmony and peace, and attuned her soul to devotion and trust, as in the morning she awoke to see the sun springing out of the ocean-bed, and by its ascending rays, scattering golden colors over the wave-crests, like bright-eyed hopes, ever rising and falling, yet ever renewing, till embraced by, and blended with the sea of infinitude.

When Hilda came into her state-room after she had risen, she found her quite cheerful and ready to listen to the various incidents which she had already a store of, and to go with her into the cabin and join in whatever there was of interest and novelty within the compass of the sailing vessel. Their voyage was a successful one. Mr. Sarran was all devotion and gallantry to his young lady charges, the captain was a frank, agreeable Danish gentleman, who made them feel at home on board his well-ordered ship, so that at the end of a few days when they were fast nearing London, the pleasure and excitement of the scene before them were allayed by regret at bidding good-by to their hospitable, ocean-host.

Hilda knew the exact locality of her relatives, so that the two friends were soon welcomed in true English style and made amply comfortable, and soon happy among the kindred of her mother, in the very centre of the world-renowned city of London.

Mr. Sarran established himself in a hotel near, and divided his time between the accomplishment of his business and attending them to some of the principal objects of interest in the city. He was a man of dispatch, and told them that in one week, he should be ready to go on board the steamship Forth, and sail its usual route, first to Bermuda, touch at the Bahama islands, then on to Mobile, in Alabama, U. S., from thence to Havana and Jamaica, passing by Porto Rico, and so on to St. Thomas and Santa Cruz. Zoë thought it a circuitous route home, but Hilda rejoiced in it, and reminded her that, as they had intrusted themselves to the Viking, there was no knowing when they might heave in sight of their island. For her part, she should like well to make a voyage of discovery, so she should encourage Mr. Sarran's sailing propensities as much as possible, as she never expected to have another opportunity of seeing the world, which, so far, she had found quite to her liking.

One day they went to Westminster Abbey, and spent an hour amidst its aisles and in its poets' corner. To Zoë this temple spoke impressively of the past by its architecture and the monuments to its distinguished dead. She bowed reverently to the genius which had fashioned each architrave and pillar to the spirit of a past religion, whose venerable breath still whispered through its cloistered alcoves. When the organ swelled forth its world of solemn, low-toned music, the roar of the ocean and the vast forests seemed hushed in concord with her soul, that no possible discord might interrupt its harmonies. And when it pealed forth its chorus, with the vocal choir as an accompaniment, O! then her spirit was swept upon its wings of wondrous melody to an ideal region, where the joyous morning song of birds, the rich, blended sound of myriads of insects, rejoicing in their summer life, the hallelujahs of a nation's joyful pæans, ay, and the music of the spheres seemed combined to constitute its majesty. Still Zoë lived too much in the future to blend her feelings permanently with the genius of the pile. For to her vision, the simple, joyful faith of Jesus clothed itself, it is true, with the pointing, uplifting form of the Gothic architecture in its exterior development, but within, in a cheerful, domestic, home-like church in which God and man could meet in natural, unforced communion, together with Jesus and the great and good of all past and present time, with the light of heaven shining through to brighten, warm, and animate the scene.

As they returned home through Hyde Park, the word was given out by the coachman that the Queen was coming. He drew the horses aside, to be out of the way and at the same time to give the party a good view of the pageant. The train came grandly on, horses, and carriages, and outriders, with her majesty in one of them with Prince Albert, the Princess Royal, and a youth, whom their friends said was the Prince of Portugal. The Queen bowed to the assembled crowd as she rode by, the glittering train passed on, and Zoë and Hilda with their friends returned on their homeward way.

The two girls were alone in their room.

"How splendid the Queen's cortège was! What a magnificent equipage, and with what pomp the whole train moved along! You cannot deny, Zoë, that there is something very imposing in royalty, although you have fallen in love so with republics! Confess, now, that you were impressed by it."

"Certainly I was, I have an eye for splendor and beauty of arrangement, no less than you, provided it is no more than proportionate to what is much grander."

"You mean, of course, the souls of these great people. Well, I don't know how it will do to look as deeply as that in judging of the show. But at any rate, as a woman and a mother, you cannot but respect Queen Victoria."

"Most assuredly. She dares to live a much more natural and human life than any of her predecessors, and for that I am very glad, and feel that I could really love her."

"I know I should like to be in her place. Now don't shake your head in that fashion; I mean for a little while, at least. The fact is, I do like to rule. I always did, and I believe I always shall."

"Then you had better not wish to be Queen Victoria. Poor lady, poor, poor lady!"

"What do you mean? She does not want you to pity her. Is she not queen of the greatest and most powerful kingdom on the globe, the one which takes the first rank in the civilization of the day? I glory in the idea that a woman can be thus exalted. You see that I can talk in Mrs. Liebenhoff-style, as well as you."

"Mrs. Liebenhoff would not glory in Queen Victoria's position, Hilda, far from it. What is it but one of wretched helplessness? Nominally a sovereign, really but an instrument in the hands of her ministers and aristocracy, compelled to make war through the force of a miserable, wicked, and barbarous usage, to hear of the slaughter of thousands of the best and bravest of her subjects, with no power to save them, while she is insulted by having it sounded through the world, that she shows her sympathy for their woes by hemming pocket-handkerchiefs for them! Think you if she, a woman, had the power you ascribe to her, there would be the sufferings there are in her ill-furnished camp, in which cold, pestilence, and famine are slaying even more than the siege and battle? And now, what a rejoicing at the victory in which thirty thousand Christian Europeans have been murdered for the quarrel of a few crowned heads! And she, a woman, forced to congratulate the people for what sends them into mourning and sadness forever! O Hilda, Hilda! rather than stand in her proud place, and sweep through the streets in regal splendor, while deeds like these are mingled with her name and crying aloud for redress and retribution, her hands meanwhile bound as with chains, and her heart crushed down by pagan codes and worldly forms and customs, I would put on the rudest peasant garb and walk by night and day to their relief, and say to the poor, maimed, and dying soldiers: 'See, I, your queen, could not abate the cruelty of the men ruling the councils of our nation, so I have come to bind up your wounds, to bathe your burning, blood-stained brows, and die with you, if God wills—it matters not—here I lose but one life, but away from you, on England's throne, I groan out a martyr's death each moment in thinking of your wrongs and woes!' "

"But, Zoë, she does not look at the matter as you do. She sees more of the glory of victory than the sufferings of the people. I own I used to, and thought formerly I should like to marry a great general like Napoleon, for instance, and go with him to his campaigns; but, really, since this disgraceful siege of Sevastopol, begun without enthusiasm, and continued without any spontaneous heroism, has been on the tapis, I must say I have got to hate and despise war nearly as much as you."

"O! it is horrible. I wonder why it never comes into the minds of any queen or king to be a great, spiritual sovereign like our Saviour, and so rule the ages as he does and ever will?"

"But, you know, he was different from other beings, Zoë. Nobody can be like him, only in a very distant way."

"I know he was greater and better than any one that will be on the earth again, because he lived in an age of the world when there were more obstacles to his leading a life of perfect holiness than now, and yet he attained to that elevation, and endured more suffering and persecution from carrying out his heavenly principles than any other one; for sinless as he knew himself to be, yet he submitted manfully to the direst death that can be conceived of. Therefore he is our Leader, now and forevermore. But if he did not know that, in our different spheres, we could do as he did in his, ay, even more in proportion to the increased materials we have to work with, and the prepared state of the mind of the world by the prevalence of his religion, why did he say, 'greater works than these ye shall do, because I go unto my Father?' "

"Well, Zoë, I don't know about it; but I think it is not right, dear, for us to talk so about these high matters. We are young and must be guided by other people's opinions. Miss Ingemann did not think as you do, I am sure. Let's go down into the drawing-room." And she put her arm around Zoë and drew her out of the room, chatting merrily upon other subjects as she went down the stairs.

It had become her custom, and more than ever now, that she was left alone with her, thus to draw her away from herself, as it were, fearing that she was getting into danger through fanaticism. Zoë appreciated her tender solicitude, which it needed no words to understand, and in one sense, felt strengthened by the supervision of Hilda's more practical and common style of character and thought. On the other, she constantly suffered from having her strongest feelings thrown back upon herself, and her nature grew in intensity and fervor in proportion as it was denied all free expression.

————

CHAPTER IV.

"Breathes there a man with soul so dead
Who never to himself hath said,
This is my own, my native land!
Whose heart hath ne'er within him burned,
As home his footsteps he hath turned
From wandering on a foreign strand!"—SCOTT.

WHEN the week was ended, and Mr. Sarran's business accomplished, he was impatient to be on the wing again. They, therefore, went on board the Forth, one of the large steam vessels, which now plyed between England and the West Indies, touching the United States on its way.

They bade an affectionate farewell to Hilda's relatives, who had administered, in such kindly manner, to their comfort and pleasure, and the girls, to their delight, found themselves established one fine day, just before evening, in their spacious and comfortable state-rooms. In this respect the ship compensated pretty well for its ordinary ladies' saloon, situated at the stern of the vessel, whose motion at that point was particularly favorable to sea-sickness, while the accommodations for those who might thus suffer, were meagre in quantity and style. During their rather tempestuous voyage they kept in them principally, well ventilated as they were, until one morning the cry on board was—"land ahead!"—and the island of Bermuda was visibly rising from the sea as they gazed.

Hilda had recovered from her qualmishness and was on deck in fine spirits, watching every indication of this solitary group of islands, which are more isolated than any other point of land except St. Helena, on the globe.

As they approached it the colored pilot came on board, and he, with the captain, were continually on the outlook, for the approach is a very hazardous one on account of the coral reefs which lie under the water. For they change so by constant growth that the greatest care is necessary else the ship is injured by contact with their sharp branches. The rules of the British service are very strict, so that the captain took especial care to prevent it, lest he should lose his command, that being the penalty for any severe abrasion.

Hilda stood by an English gentleman, by the name of Dennis, with whom she had become somewhat acquainted. As they neared the island of Ireland, their point of destination, she said:

"What a pretty contrast there is between the deep verdure and the glistening white buildings."

"Yes," said he, "the island looks like a nice little dish of spinach and eggs."

Hilda laughed.

"What are those houses with immense sloping roofs here and there?" said she.

"They are for the purpose of collecting the rain which falls and conducting it to reservoirs, otherwise the residents would suffer inconvenience for the want of good water; that which is in the wells is very much impregnated with lime."

"What are those miserable-looking old ships in the harbor?"

"They are hulks of vessels, used as prisons for convicts. John Mitchell, the Irish rebel, is now confined there."

Here there was a perceptible shock given to the steamship by its grazing against a hidden coral-reef. The captain moved about from one point to another, looking very much disturbed, and spoke with great severity to the pilot, to whose want of skill, he attributed the accident. Whether all the blame rested on him or not, became a subject of discussion among the gentlemen passengers. Was the ship given entirely into his care, or, as the captain was on the outlook, was not he partly responsible? All agreed, however, that notwithstanding the buoys swung here and there, at the entrance of the harbor, to warn pilots of the most dangerous reefs; yet, from the constant working of myriads of sea-insects, it must always be a very difficult one to enter. Great sympathy was felt for Capt. Stedman, and a certificate was signed by the passengers, attesting to his care and faithfulness, in order to avert, if possible, the penalty attending any accident to one of the ships of the Royal Mail Steam Packet Company.

Hilda kept Zoë informed of everything passing on deck, while she was detained a prisoner upon her couch by the languor produced by sea-sickness. As the ship slowly neared its haven, its lessened motion gave her some relief. She rose and sat upon her berth to look out of her port-hole, and was delighted with the variegated tints of green, violet and purple, which the ocean strangely reflects upon its bosom. And now, that all was still within the huge leviathan, of whom she felt she was a part, so sympathetic was she with its every breath and motion, she arose, and with the aid of Hilda's stronger arm and steadier frame, arrayed herself to go on deck.

At that moment, there were steps in the passage, and a knock at the door. Hilda opened it, and two young women stood at the entrance with large bundles in their hands. One was a Quadroon, the other, a full Negress.

"Any soiled clothes to be washed. Missis?" said the elder and prettier of the two.

"No," said Hilda. "I have already given them to some one," and was about to close the door.

"Stop, Hilda," said Zoë.

Emboldened by this request, the young woman advanced a step, taking some lemons from a basket on her arm, and saying to Zoë, "will Missis have some?"

"O! it is just what you were wishing for, is it not, some good, sour lemons to give you an appetite?" said Hilda. "And here are some green ones, the first I ever saw. Let me pay you for them—here," thrusting some uncounted coin into her hand, and standing between her and her friend.

Zoë seemed completely engrossed by the stranger. She sat quietly gazing with eager questioning in her look, (her arm half extended, as if to receive the lemons,) into the Quadroon's face. As Hilda bustled about nervously, coming as much as possible between the two, she would, involuntarily as it were, turn her head one side and the other, so as to get a view of the girl, whom her companion succeeded in half hiding from her sight. The Quadroon seemed intent, too, on evading equally with herself, the form of Hilda, until the latter, having completed the bargain, told her quite peremptorily that she might go, and hurriedly shut the door.

"It is very strange and provoking," said Hilda, "that people don't know when they are dismissed, but persist in hanging around one in this style;" at the same time, looking anxiously towards her friend.

Zoë said nothing, but seemed absorbed in thought. Hilda stood by her arranging her hair.

"Mr. Dennis says that we shall stay here a day and a half, and that to-morrow he will hire a boat and take us ashore. Won't it be delightful to tread on terra firma, and feel that we are bona fide children of the soil again, after the tiresome lullaby old ocean has given us, day after day?"

"Yes," said Zoë, but half heeding what she said.

"Although Mr. Liebenhoff does call me the water-sprite, I have no idea of being wedded to Neptune, with his hoary locks yet. I shall wait till my old age for that. I am going to turn Hamadryad, and live in one of those cedar trees I see in the distance; and you, darling, may take up your abode in that palmetto. That will suit you, will it not?"

"Yes, dear Hilda," said Zoë.

The bell rang for tea, and she continued, "go down without me, please, to-night. I am not quite strong yet. To-morrow, I will accompany you on deck, and ashore, and wherever you wish me to go."

Hilda knew pretty well when it was better to leave her friend alone, so telling her that she would send her supper to her by the stewardess, she ran to seat herself by the captain.

(Zoë alone.)

"What a new world is dawning upon my vision, through the simple errand of two poor peasant women! I thought it was my second self I saw, with the huge burden of my griefs of years made visible. What is she? So like me in feature and expression, yet so different in the nameless, voiceless atmosphere she carries about her! And yet, I felt a yearning towards her, as if she were my sister, and if I had been stronger, I should have lifted half the weight of that vast bundle upon my shoulders. And that other darker being who attended her! Let me bethink myself. There are slaves in the Indies, and they were Africans, and Africans come from the torrid zone, where the fervid sun dyes to intensity, whatever it shines upon. Am I of that race? I have called myself an Ethiopian, and gloried in the title, for it spoke of fervor and enthusiasm and poetry. But the degraded negro! that is different. Why, he is despised wherever he abides. He is a slave, an outcast. Am I of the slaves' origin? Am I part and parcel of degradation, ay, a descendant of the victims of oppression, wrong, and every form of injury? Be still, my heart, be quiet, quiet I say, my brain! while I unravel the tangled skein, thrown at me at the very portals of my childhood's birth-climate. O! now it becomes clear and clearer to me; the separate threads arrange themselves in order and I evoke from the whole twisted knot, the story of my birth. Yes, yes, my father's gravity of mien, my mother's pensiveness, my warp and woof of sadness and anxiety, scarce daring to be relieved by brighter qualities within me, which, under genial skies, would sparkle with varied lustre! Ah! I know it all. And perhaps that is why Miss Ingemann disliked me. Where have I lived, that I never thought of this? Stupid, blind, deaf, unreflecting me! This comes of always dwelling in an ideal world, stooping but seldom to the actual! What am I to do now, with this revelation bursting upon me with the force of lightning? Hush, hush, my soul! while I commune with the Infinite Spirit, Parent of Nature, and of poor bewildered me!"

This was the event of all others, to which Hilda had looked forward with fear and dread for her friend. She had known for a long time, that Zoë was of African descent, and what was the condition of her race wherever found. It seemed strange to her that she too had not discovered the fact. But neither her father nor mother ever alluded to it in their letters to her, and she was so accustomed to idealize everything in her own mind, which did not come into direct contradiction with its nature and tendency, that her Eastern descent was a source of an ever-flowing current of poetry and fancy. Hilda knew this, and in proportion to her exaggerated regard for the fact, fancy-tinted in this way, did she fear the effect upon her of the revelation of the naked and painful truth. For, though from Zoë she had caught something of her way of looking at her birth-right in the division of races, from Miss Ingemann she had imbibed another most painful impression.

When her teacher saw how much Hilda was swayed by Zoë, and that she was, by her example, leading her to a very unwarrantable departure from her rules, she sent for her to her apartment and the following conversation took place between them:

"I must communicate something to you, my dear, which you seem unaware of, and which I have forborne to speak of, as I know your fondness for Miss Carlan. She is of African birth."

"I know it, madam. The difference between us on that very account fits us the better to be companions. I have learned to be much more gentle and refined from her than I otherwise should be."

"I hope the influences of my home are all of a nature to produce that result, Miss Hilda?"

"O yes, ma'am, certainly! but—"

"You must certainly know, if she does not, that the whole race are in a Pariah condition, and, of course, take no position in Santa Cruz. You will necessarily be separated as soon as you get home, and now I reproach myself—"

"Separated! What do you mean, Miss Ingemann?"

"Why, that as there is, and can be no equality between you, that your parents will never permit you to continue your acquaintance on its present footing. Zoë will sink into a very low class of society, while you will mingle with those fitted for your companionship."

"Miss Ingemann, my teacher, to whom I have looked up as a model all through my young years, do you counsel me to perfidy and faithlessness!"

"God forbid! You will ever greet Zoë kindly when you meet, but your friend she can no longer be. Your parents will never allow it. I have thought much about the matter, and have come to the conclusion that it is unnatural for the two races to mingle, excepting as master and servant, and I was going to say, that I now regret and reproach myself for permitting you to associate with such intimacy as you have done. I see that you both are to suffer by the means, and I really lament it on your account, my dear. But, indeed, the first fault was in permitting her to enter my establishment at all. I have learned a lesson for the future."

Hilda stood swallowing her emotion and anger while her teacher was speaking.

"Madam, I know not what may be my poor Zoë's lot. I have many, many fears for her myself, but of this she may be sure, that, whatever may be in the future for her, I shall stand her friend. No matter if all the pomp, and splendor, and fashion of the world were weighed against her, they would not make me swerve a hair's-breadth from her, for I know the beauty, truth, and glory of her soul, and thank God that she has taught me to value that above all else. O my teacher!"—She was going on in a strain of encomium in favor of her friend, but she saw from Miss Ingemann's face and manner, that it would not in the least impress her, and she sickened at the thought of again forcing Zoë's rare qualities upon an utterly prejudiced ear, so she turned and went out. This was, more than anything, the source of her indignation at Miss Ingemann, vailing from her for the time many excellent qualities and her own great indebtedness to her.

She now laid awake a full hour, thinking how she could alleviate for Zoë the painful knowledge of her being one of this servile people. She thought over the principal characters among her tribe, who had made their mark upon the world, Toussaint L'Ouverture, Payenga, Placido, and Dumas, besides others known in history and the present times. In her sincere love for her friend, she turned over and over in her mind, how she could most strongly, and at the same time, delicately express her own affection and admiration for her, which should never be abated by the opinions of society, whatever they might be.

In thinking of all this, and of other means by which she might express her tenderness and sympathy, she warmed herself to a point of great fervor, and even became in danger of turning admirer of herself, especially for two or three particular expressions, which seemed to her really eloquent and poetical, and she fell asleep to see in her dreams the sweet visions, which come only to pure and truthful minds and loving hearts.

Zoë's nature, ever hopeful and bright in the upper world of fancy and imagination, commuting, as it did, every untoward incident and dark event into light and loveliness, however it might seem to the realist, after the first shock was over, recognized in this discovery of her race only the surer and speedier call to the great mission to which God had devoted her.

"Father, I thank thee," she said, "for this revelation of thy designs for thy child and servant, and for making it doubly dear and beautiful by rejoining me to my people, for now I see plainly that I can gaze into their deep, mournful eyes, whose glance is ever forced within by the harsh world's unsympathizing and scornful gaze, and meet the answer to my ceaseless questioning. O welcome to my soul is the reply to my whole life's wailing appeal for love and power to act out my being's instincts! O glorious destiny! to raise the fallen, comfort the sorrowful, and not only point, but lead the way to a virtue as yet undreamed of, and a happiness commensurate with eternity."

In such jubilant strains did she spend the hours before she fell asleep, and she awakened in the morning with a hope and exhilaration of spirits never felt before, so that when Hilda, fearful and trembling, came into her state-room, with her budget of comfort and alleviation all ready to be poured out at her feet, she found that, so far from its being needed, Zoë was the one to set the tune of the day to bright and joyous measures.

Human nature has a spice of perversity in it, and it was manifest for a few moments in Hilda, for the first feeling, when seeing Zoë's pensive face lighted up by a more radiant expression than usual, was disappointment at the waste of so much beautiful, consolatory material as she had all in readiness to furnish her. But her chagrin was quickly turned to wonder at this new manifestation of her companion, who was continually mystifying her by strange and eccentric changes. But this slight disappointment was followed by true enjoyment at Zoë's good spirits, and they were soon in busy chat about what they should do to amuse themselves during the day.

Mr. Dennis offered his services to Mr. Sarran to assist him in escorting the ladies to the island. A boat was chartered, and, with two or three others of the passengers, they were rowed to Ireland, and soon were sauntering over its verdant slopes, and shaded by its noble forest trees. Vague memories of tropic scenes came one by one to Zoë's mind as she threaded her way through copse and glen, and the spirit of Poesy made music in her soul, as the breezes gently fanned her brow, and the trees waved in unison with their breath.

Both Zoë and Hilda read and spoke English well and were familiar with Shakspeare's plays. The latter could recite many passages from them. Zoë, on the contrary, had a less ready memory, but her nature was like the magnet, which attracted to it its affinities in thought, poetry, and fact; and while she, at the same time, kept distinct from herself the individuality of each author with whom she was put in communion, she absorbed into her own being their subtle essence, thus adding to its growth and beauty.

"These are the vexed Bermoothes of which Shakspeare wrote, I suppose," said Mr. Dennis.

"O yes," said Hilda, "where Prospero and Miranda lived, and where Ferdinand wooed and won her. And Ariel and Caliban, why this is classic ground, Zoë. How beautiful is that passage where Miranda pities her lover for his servile labor and wishes to aid him," and she began to repeat the lines as she walked.

Zoë disengaged herself from her companions and turned aside to a seat among geraniums, cacti, and japonicas, with a palmetto rearing its fan-like summit near, and thus she breathed out her soul:

"Welcome, ye generous products of my native clime,
Children, as I am, of the torrid sunshine!
Long, long have we been divided;
Ye have bloomed on meanwhile in the sweet consciousness,
Though feeble it may be, that ye were doing your Maker's bidding,
While doubt, dissatisfaction, and vague yearnings—
A shadowy train—have ever close attended me.
But now I clasp ye to my heart of hearts
In tenderest embraces. Speak to me, my tree,
Ye many-fingered! Tell me, ye know and love me!
O waft your fragrance to me, flowers, as sign of recognition.
I have nursed your namesakes in the snowy land,
All for your sakes, beloved!
O many tinted ocean! coral-reef-ed ocean!
Islet-studded, zephyr-breez-ed ocean!
Fain would I be imbosomed in your warm and fluent waters
That ye might hush to rest my longing, love-lorn being!
O deign to mingle with your roar a tenderer note
As welcome to your votary. As you kiss the sands
Leave the impression, ever so faint, 'This is for Zoë.'
And though it may be enigmatical to all besides,
I hold the key which can interpret it.
Yes, yes, ye answer well to my appealing,
Deep, deep in my soul sounds low and gentle the replying
Come to us, lonely one,
Trust in us, aspiring one,
Ever love us, impassioned one,
Grow like us, inquiring one,
Reflect God like us, thou chosen one—
Be ever near and nearer to us, immortal one,
So shalt thou be one with Him, eternal one.
Ay, ay, this is the mystery of thy revealing,
May I obey it!
And this is the scene of the weird working
Of thy subtle genius, England's wondrous son!
God! I thank thee for the gift with which
Thou didst invest him to speak with power
And thrilling harmony to the ages.
May we not cling too closely to him, but see in him
A light to guide us to an equal height of inspiration.
For no god nor tyrant was he for the world's worship
And subjection, but one, who in life so meekly
Bore his heaven-invested dignity, that the world's
More noisy great ones scarcely noted him, while by his
Fellows was he better known as sweet Will Shakspeare,
Than as the Swan of Avon.
Prospero! with thy magic mantle,
And thy subtle spirit, Ariel! what were they,
And what thy marvelous strength of will
And wonder-working? Is there a power in man to rule
The elements in the outer world, and still more potent might
To sway his inner being? To be the wise and tender fate
To guide his destiny, and to summon him
To God's nearer presence, even as the mother hushes
Her babe into the sweet and peaceful realm of sleep?
Does God intrust us with his parental power
Of lullaby, by which the worn and weary body
Drops from the soul prepared and winged for flight
Into his higher temple of the boundless universe?
O my asking soul! never gathering from the wisdom
Of the past, finalities to rest upon, only hint
And impulse to pry and question more
Of the deeps profound of Nature and its Author!
Prospero! a wizard wert thou, feared and dreaded;
But as no imagining is vouchsafed to man
Which he is not to realize, in some sense in his actual,
So do I gather from thy coarse and barbarous might,
An inkling into the more humane and loving future,
When the powers of man shall be so subdued
By the spirit taught and lived by Jesus,
That God will, in a new and higher sense,
Than we now wot of, adopt us as his co-creators,
Co-workers, and ministers to a beautiful life,
And still more beautiful euthanasy.

Zoë rejoined her companions, and after stopping a few moments at the yard of the prison to traffic with the convicts—who thrust their hands through the grating as they passed—in specimens of the spar of the island, cut into various forms and highly polished, they returned to their boat and were soon on board ship again.

————

CHAPTER V.

"Black spirits and white,
Red spirits and gray;
Mingle, mingle, mingle,
You that mingle may."

SHAKSPEARE.

THE next morning the Forth was on her way towards the Bahamas, at which islands their stay was brief. After a few hours' delay, they were steaming away towards Mobile, their next point of destination. They arrived in the night. Hilda went down to breakfast at the usual early hour.

"Good morning, my Volkyria," said Mr. Sarran. "What news from Valhalla? But where is your shadowy friend, does she yet fear the daylight?"

"Yes, sir," said Hilda. "I can't persuade her to come upon deck yet."

"O but she must, she must! It won't do at all. I must go to her, I plainly see, and bring her up in my arms. She will allow an old man that privilege, especially one who learned how from daily practice lang syne"—and the old man's voice trembled.

Hilda remembered the story of his early sorrows—how he first lost his wife, then a lovely young daughter, leaving him alone in his home, and from these bereavements were dated his roving propensities.

"I shall insist upon her coming on deck after breakfast, and I will tell her of your intention," said she, glad of being reinforced by what she knew would be an additional inducement for Zoë to rise, to escape Mr. Sarran's rather too demonstrative friendship. Hilda would always joke and play with him, and never refuse a seat upon his knee if he drew her towards him; but Zoë was kept in perpetual trepidation lest he should take advantage of what he called an old man's right, an occasional kiss, or the support of his embracing arm as she walked the deck.

"Zoë" said Hilda, on her return to her, "get up, dear, Mr. Sarran is coming soon to take you upon deck in his arms."

"Heavens and earth! Hilda, what do you mean?"

"Only what I say. You are weak and he is strong as a polar bear you know, so he will kindly save you the trouble of walking."

Zoë rose and bustled about anxiously for the different articles of her wardrobe, exclaiming, "Do help me, Hilda dear—there, that will do—tie this, please—button that if you love me"—till quite exhausted she sank upon the side of her berth, still reaching after her shawl, saying, "throw it over my shoulders and let us go at once."

Hilda, who had hardly restrained her laughter, now burst out in great glee.

"What is your great haste? Do give good, gallant Mr. Sarran the felicity of feeling that he is all-important to you."

"I had rather administer to his happiness in some other way. I must confess, Hilda, I shall be thankful when we are free from his tender assiduities. The price he sets upon them is quite too irksome for me to render. I avoid him as much as I can with any sort of decency, seeing we have put ourselves under his protection."

"You do not like him, do you?"

"Only at a distance—when he is so deep in his afternoon nap, or in his game of whist, or his after-dinner discussion and wine, that I know I shall be safe from him. I wish old men would not make themselves so disagreeable, for I always wish to love them."

"O never mind if he does pet you. I believe I am a born coquette, Zoë, and if I cannot find any better subject to flirt with, why Mr. Sarran will answer very well; and the old gentleman likes the joke as well, I verily believe. We have got up quite a flirtation together, if you will believe it."

"Take care, Hilda, or you will get into trouble."

"Nonsense; we are merely joking, of course, just to while away the monotony on board. He understands it."

"Take care, I say again, or you may really pain Mr. Sarran. He has a very affectionate heart, is susceptible to kindness, and is almost alone in the world. There is no knowing what hopes you may awaken in him."

"You are mighty tender of our friend all at once, it seems. I thought you only liked him at a distance."

"True; I wish he would never kiss me. I am not willing that many persons should, and never a gentleman, unless I love him a deal better than Mr. Sarran. But I regard him quite too much to wish to see his feelings hurt, poor man."

"You know I would not injure them more than you, Zoë. But I do really love fun, and so does he, and why should we not enjoy ourselves. This is the first time I ever thought you prudish."

"O don't call me so, for I detest the word. But, dear, we are left to our own guidance now, and I think we ought to be careful. Remember how kind and watchful Miss Ingemann was of our characters in this respect."

"O yes," said Hilda, "I don't forget; but I am going to enjoy myself, nevertheless. I am as happy and joyous as the day is long, and if I know that my heart is innocent and kindly towards every one, what harm can I do? One would think I was a Medusa to hear you talk, my little guardian angel, only better, for you are not too good yet for naughty, human love, such as what I have ever for you, brimming up and running over;" and she threw her arms around her and caressed her until Zoë begged for quarter.

"Anything but a Medusa, darling," said Zoë.

"Away with you then! I'll not be a bugbear to frighten even one little joy away. Come, we'll steal a march on Mr. Sarran. He is not going to touch so much as his little finger to assist me," and arm in arm they went on deck.

They seated themselves on a bench and looked about them. The ship's crew were busy taking in coal, and the luggage of the passengers, who had just come on board. The wharf was covered with drays, wagons, omnibusses, carriages and negroes, and the two girls sat making their observations. Zoë's eyes were for the most part riveted upon the slaves, as some of them brought their loads with slow, thoughtful faces, and such deep sad eyes, as made her sigh to see them. Others looked stupid and abject, as if either the soul-spark never had been awakened, or had been benumbed by cruel usage, while others, the larger number, cracked jokes among themselves, played tricks upon each other, and in extravagant fashion and language, exchanged the greetings of the morning.

Hilda felt ill at ease at first, in the presence of Zoë, with them on every side, but she thought of her cheerfulness since her first meeting with the Bermuda women, and she was emboldened to speak when she saw their apparent happiness.

"Those people look very happy, do they not? See that little boy turning somerset; and his playmate puts his cap on his feet while they are up in the air, so that he is a monster with two heads. What a shout of laughter from the whole group! They are happy, are they not?"

"They are quite merry just now."

"That American lady who visited Mrs. Pendleton last summer, who had lived in a slaveholding state, said 'that the negroes were, after all, happier than their masters and mistresses.' "

"O, of course!"

"And that they had an easier life, than those who held them in slavery."

"Of course, dear, it could not be otherwise."

Hilda turned to look at Zoë, to see what she meant. She gathered no answer from the expression of her face, which was one of mingled thoughtfulness, pity and sadness.

"What do you mean by 'of course.' I have not thought so, I am sure."

"You cannot think that the unjust are ever happier than the injured, if innocent. If the slaves act as well as their circumstances will allow them, they are very near to 'Our Father,' which of itself is happiness; while the injurer, by his very injustice, shuts out God's presence from his soul, and what misery can be so great as that?"

"But many of the slaveholders are very kind and indulgent to their slaves, Mrs. Taylor said."

Zoë said nothing.

"Do you think it so very wrong, for such persons to hold them?"

"Wrong, to pretend to own a human being, Hilda? If Jesus were on earth, do you think it would be right to hold him as a slave?"

"My dear, how different the two cases! You shock me, by such a question."

"They are just the same, just the same."

Hilda marveled at her friend, and looked serious for a moment, and seeing Mr. Sarran, ran to meet him. He drew her arm within his own, and they walked up and down the deck, chatting and laughing together.

They soon approached the bench where Zoë was sitting, Mr. Sarran saying, as he handed Hilda to her seat, bowing at the same time profoundly, and laying his hand on his heart:

"May your Viking hope that his Queen will preserve his image enshrined within her pericardium, while he roams for a brief period?"

"Yes, if he return laden with the roses, jasmines and heliotropes of this halcyon clime, as a propitiation."

"And orange flowers," said he, partly dropping on one knee.

"Ay, and a vail of tulle," said she, letting her head fall on one side, and looking very modest. "How unhappy I am that my bridesmaid is so far aloft, as to be unmindful of my feelings, and thus neglect to spare them on this tender and delicate occasion!"

Mr. Sarran laughed and called her roguish, looking pleased at the same time, as his simple, honest face was seen descending the steps of the vessel to go on shore.

Zoë slowly shook her head at Hilda, but forbore to say anything.

"I am a sad trial to you, am I not? But what are life and liberty good for, unless one can enjoy herself? Why, I am like a bottle of champagne that has been corked for years. The stopper is flying out just now, but the extra gas will puff off in a little time, and I shall remain a sparkling, brilliant wine of the first order, that will be just the article to flush and brighten the semi-soberness, demi-dullness of my wise, youthful Mentoress," and Hilda sang a snatch of a lively German air.

"O! there are the new passengers," said she; "look, Zoë."

They now began their speculations upon them.

"That mild, handsome gentleman in black is one, I suppose," said Zoë. "I like his looks so much. His face expresses high and refined thought and feeling. And see, how observant he is of everything. He is pointing at something on shore, and directing that young lady's attention towards it."

"That younger and taller gentleman is his brother, I suspect. They resemble each other. Is not he handsome? and what a noble air he has!" said Hilda.

"If he is his brother, he is very different; for he looks so much more like a man of the world than the first one."

"And those two young ladies. Do you think they are married to them?"

"Perhaps so. No, they resemble them too much. They must be their sisters."

"What splendid eyes the taller one has! How they sparkle when she laughs! Do you think she is handsome?"

"Yes. Her eyes are handsome, to say the least. She is what Miss Ingemann would call high-bred; and she is something better than merely that too, for I see she looks thoughtful, and now a shade of sadness comes over her face."

"Yes, she is dressed in black, you see. I wonder what friend she has lost," said Hilda.

"But the other one. I wish she would turn her head," said Zoë. "She has scarcely looked from that one point for the last ten minutes. O, now I see! She has more regular features than the other, but it is not so easy to read the character of her face as that of the taller one."

"They are like some Spaniards I saw once. I wonder if they are of that nation? The younger gentleman looks like a Don, does he not? I should like to know where they are going. But who is this? See, Zoë, see! May Odin protect us! Did my eyes ever behold such an impersonation of solemnity and woe-begoneness!"

The individual, who now riveted their attention, was tall, elderly, and gaunt. His face was furrowed deeply, his eye was sad and lack-luster, and his hair but thinly shaded his high brow. But the most remarkable features were his cheek and mouth. The corners of the latter were drawn down, while the lips were closed with a perceptible pucker. These two combined expressions gave a hard, stiff look to the whole side-cheek, peculiarly repulsive in its character. But the most painful idea connected with the whole physiognomy was, that it was not truthful and natural. Not that the man looked wicked, far from it; but through some superstition or asceticism, he had brought himself to suppose that to look very serious and solemn was the true expression of a child of God, and, therefore, he was determined to train his face to the idea. A life-long nurture of this mistaken notion had had the effect of thus disfiguring him.

It was a cool morning, and he had a large cloak with a small cape thrown over him, and as he gazed over the vessel's side upon the scene on shore, he placed his arms akimbo under it, thereby extending it like a huge pall between Hilda and Zoë and the view of the town. The girls looked at each other significantly. After standing thus a few moments, he half turned towards them, so that they could see his side face; his jaws moved, as if chewing some substance, when suddenly he expectorated a nauseous fluid, which fell in a loathsome puddle upon the clean, holystoned deck, and then with measured tread he slowly walked away.

"O dreadful!" said Zoë.

"What is the matter with him?" said Hilda. "He must be very sick."

"If he is not I am," said Zoë. "Do assist me to my state-room." Her stomach was still suffering from the effects of sea-sickness, and this disgusting and heedless exhibition of uncleanliness was quite too much for it in its present delicate state.

"Detestable!" said she, as she sank on her berth, her face expressing the disturbance she suffered from.

"What can ail the man?" said Hilda.

"O! nothing but a filthy habit," said Zoë. "I recollect Mrs. Pendleton said that her countrymen chewed the nasty tobacco-weed, and that there was scarcely a place in the United States clean from the effects of this disgusting practice. Pah!"

The ship was soon in motion, and Hilda was on deck amidst the excitement of leaving; Zoë, sea-sick again, remained below. For the whole day she was on her couch, too ill to rise, but well enough to enjoy the view of the ocean through her port-hole, Tennyson's new poem, which Mr. Sarran had kindly purchased for her in the city, and Hilda's sketches of the passengers, which she gave her from time to time.

She came into her state-room in a glow of excitement.

"O, Zoë," said she, "there is another new passenger, which you did not see."

"A lady?"

"No, a young gentleman, equal to the Druid, in his own way, which is a very different one."

"How does he look?"

"He is tall—more than six feet, I should think. He must have been intended for a giant, but Nature forgot to fill out his proportions, for he is as straight and slender as a reed."

"Is he handsome?"

"I hardly know what to say. He has a very clear, gray eye, and handsome brow, and his nose is well enough. As for his mouth and chin, they may, or not be, for they are scarcely visible, being covered by a long moustache and an untrimmed beard, giving him a very shaggy look. But his hair, Zoë, O, if you could only see that! It is almost as long as mine; of a beautiful brown, and as soft as silk."

"How does he manage this feminine accompaniment, pray?"

"In no woman's fashion, I can assure you. When it falls over his shoulders in front, so as to be in his way, he gives it a toss back, like a high-spirited horse, when on the full run. When it drops upon his forehead, he runs his fingers through it, giving it a twirl on the top of his head, leaving it in a sort of loop, pointed at the top like a horn; the symbol of power, you know, and, in short, he plays all sorts of off-hand tricks with it."

"A funny specimen of humanity, he must be."

"Yes, indeed, you would have laughed to see our meeting. I ran up the gangway, and the first person I saw, was this figure. He was standing looking out upon the shore, one foot a little in advance of the other, the latter bent a little, as he rested upon the one behind, his arms folded, his head thrown back, and his eye taking in everything that passed before it. But his dress, Zoë, O! his dress! His pants are too short for him, so are his coat-sleeves. The latter garment, is a rather loose one, with a leathern belt around his waist. His hat is a soft, broad-brimmed beaver, with the crown all crumpled up, apparently by design, just to look odd and strange, I know. He wears it either on one side or else thrown on the back of his head."

Zoë laughed.

"Have you heard the phenomenon speak?"

"O yes, and that is the best of it. I stood for a minute, taken completely aback, then moved forward a little, looking around for a seat. At that moment, he saw me, and, quick as lightning, sprang for the only chair visible, and brought it to me, saying, 'Take a seat, ma'am? Pleasant day!'

"I said, thank you, yes, very pleasant—another spring, and he brought a stool for my feet; so there I sat, perched up, thinking I was wonderfully waited upon, and wondered if all the American young gentlemen were as polite as he."

"Did you have any farther conversation with him?"

"Yes, I could not avoid it if I had wished to. He was disposed to talk, and one subject led to another, until we were in great glee. It is like taking exhilarating gas to be with him. You have to laugh whether you will or not. There is no place like shipboard, to make friends. All conventionalism is dropped, and you walk straight into people at once."

"Dear Hilda, you must be careful in making the acquaintance, of gentlemen, at least. Do be a little more reserved. It is but the part of a lady, I will assure you."

Hilda looked thoughtful for a moment, and then said; "Those dark-eyed young ladies, and their brother, think so too, for they repelled me with a very dignified air, when I attempted to get up a little acquaintance with them, and when I was talking with my knight of the waving locks, they rose, and seated themselves at a distance from us."

"There, dear, let that serve as a hint to you, to be less hasty in forming friendships."

"It will be a hint to return the compliment to their dignity, in a similar fashion. I can erect my crest as well as they;" and Hilda straightened her tall and elegant figure to its full height. "I do not wish for their fellowship, if they are so saving of it." She paused a moment, and then broke out. "The fact is, Zoë, you must get well, and come up on deck, and take care of me. I never get on safely without you. There is one gentleman you will like, I know; the elder of that party, to which the Don and his sisters belong. He is dignity and affability combined, and talks delightfully."

"I shall do so, very soon. The captain says, that we shall be in quiet seas, before many days, and I already feel much better."

"Mr. Sarran has seen the list of passengers, and learned the names of the new ones. The Druid is the Rev. Dr. Chichester, from Missouri, United States. The younger gentleman in black, is Mr. Lindsey, and the name of the brother and sisters, is Pierson. As for the Pine Tree, I have not learned his genus and species, technically."

Mr. Pierson and his sisters sat apart from the other passengers. A gentleman from Boston, and a young English officer, bound to Barbadoes, had just risen from seats near them, to walk the deck.

"I wish you to be very careful in selecting your associates here. Keep a stiff upper lip, and do not be encroached upon by any one. That young Danish girl is a perfect hoyden. I would make her keep her distance," said the gentleman.

"She is fine-looking," said the elder, whose name was Emma.

"She is too little refined," said her brother. "Do you see how free she is with that rough-looking Young America? She is just like a boarding-school miss set free, who does not know how to use her liberty."

"Her companion is a colored girl, I should think," said the younger sister.

"She is so. Of course you will not make a companion of her. Mr. Custis will introduce you to his mother, and the young English officer, I am glad to know."

"There is Mr. Lindsey in conversation with Miss Strophel and Young America," said Meta Pierson.

"Yes," said her brother. "He is no rule for us you know, in this respect. He is a minister, and it belongs to the cloth to know and be gracious to every one. Of course

I do not mean that this is in his disfavor, or that he is not the very best companion that we could have—but you understand me. He is not quite up to the highest tone of society, you know, in his manners; and it is better, in his position, that he is not, for he can thus be more generally useful. Let him, of course, do as he pleases."

Hilda was soon on deck again reconnoitering. Her stay was brief, however, for she was so fond of sympathy, that, as Zoë was not by her to receive every passing suggestion, she was continually running back to talk with her.

"I wonder of what profession those new-comers are. I thought Mr. Lindsey might be a minister, but as I heard him talk about politics, I thought he must be a statesman. Next he was talking upon agriculture, as if he had cultivated land all his life; so I am puzzled."

"Whom is he talking with?"

"With my chevalier of the chair and stool. I am just as much at a loss about him too. I never thought he was a clergyman, it is true, but during the conversation, by turns, I thought him a farmer, a notary, and now I have come to the conclusion that he is an artist, he talks so enthusiastically about paintings. By the way, he has got his easel with him, so he must be one."

"And the elder gentleman?"

"He is the Reverend Dr. Chichester; there can be no mistake about him. But may I be spared from his ministrations! He never would carry me to heaven, I know, but leave me groping about in the darkest part of the under-world. Good-by."

In the course of an hour she was with Zoë again.

"Now I think I have it. But would you believe it? that mild, cultivated gentleman, Mr. Lindsey, is an instructor in gymnastics. He has had his coat off for the last half hour, teaching le cheveluse—I may as well call him so—in that science. He has an empty decanter in one hand, and a pitcher in the other, to serve as clubs, and such demonstrations you never beheld. His pupil follows his example exactly—now swinging the weights—now turning himself round about on a pole—now at his full length on the deck in strange contortions. I am hardly alive for the laughter I have been subjected to. Yes, Mr. Lindsey must be a gymnast."

Zoë laughed. "I suspect," said she, "that they both belong to a class very common in America, for I remember that a writer in the New York Evening Post, which I read at Mr. Körner's one day, said that the 'Yankees'—a name which some persons give to the people of the United States—are Jacks at all trades and good at none."

" 'Jacks at all trades and good at none,' " repeated Hilda. "If they undertake and carry everything through with as much spirit as they do those exercises, they will, in time, be good at everything, I should think. I am going to see what comes next on the tapis. O, Zoë, do get well and come up and see them."

"I was just thinking I would go now. Mr. Sarran will come for me soon if I do not."

They ascended to the deck, and the first person they met was Hilda's hero—Young America. He started on seeing them together—looked first at one, and then at the other, and half-questioning, half-asserting, said, "Zoë and Hilda?"

The two girls looked amazed, then Zoë exclaimed, "George Stephenson!"

"Yes, it is your old playmate. I hope you are glad to see him," said he, looking at Hilda, who, blushing, laughing and half crying, extended her hand, to which he gave a hearty shake. They then sat down, and, for the next hour or two, were deep in reminiscences of the past.

————

CHAPTER VI.

"When the old world is sterile,
And the ages are effete,
He will, from wrecks and sediment,
The fairer world complete.
He forbids to despair;
His cheeks mantle with mirth;
And the unimagined good of men
Is yeaning at the birth."—EMERSON.

THE next morning a group was seated on deck, consisting of Mr. Lindsey, Zoë, Hilda, and young Stephenson. Mr. Pierson and his sisters sat a little apart, with the young English officer. Mr. Sarran walked to and fro, stopping occasionally to keep the thread of their conversation in his mind, while Mr. Chichester, who was reading a Tract, looked from time to time over his spectacles at them.

"This is the day of the election of President," said Mr. Lindsey. "I wish I knew who is the successful candidate."

"Paysons, of course," said Mr. Pierson; "everything tended that way, when we left."

"Yes," said Mr. Lindsey; "we are not far enough along yet for a Freesoil man, but the next will be one with those principles."

"Not as you know of," said George Stephenson. "He'll be a Know Nothing, I can tell you."

"A Know Nothing!" said Hilda. "Do you want a dunce for a President?"

"It is the name of a party," said Zoë. "Do you not remember, when we called to bid Mrs. Körner good-by, that Fred said he had been trying to persuade his father to emigrate to America. Mr. Körner objected on the ground that he should not, perhaps, have more freedom there than in Europe, since the Know Nothing party had arisen, as they had such a prejudice against foreigners that they were trying to restrict them in the right of suffrage."

"O! I remember it," said Hilda.

"Yes, we don't want any more ignorant Europeans, who know nothing about our principles of government, yet try to get the reins into their own hands, and fill the fattest places in the country. Put them down, I say. They should not vote until they have been in the country twenty-one years. We will fix them. There shan't a mother's son of them have an office two years hence."

"I agree with you that American principles, interpreted in the most liberal and Christian way, with the increasing light which every age can throw upon them, should hold rule in the counsels of our nation. These are no less beneficial to the strangers, who flock to our shores, than to us. God forbid, that we should repeat through them the worn out policy of the old world governments. Our country was opened to the races for better things than that career!"

"Then we must put down the Dutch and Irish," said Stephenson.

"I am much more afraid of demagogues among our own people than of any body of foreigners. It is they who give the latter the power to injure us. They make the ignorant among them tools for their selfish and base designs, deceiving them by their misrepresentations, and setting them on to, and joining them in the commission of deeds which disgrace us in the world's eyes, and retard the legitimate workings of our noble institutions," said Mr. Lindsey.

"Yes," said Mr. Pierson, "politics have got to be such a miserable game for the demagogues of all parties, that I have concluded to have nothing to do with them. I did not vote at all this year."

"There you was very wrong, in my opinion, Horace, excuse me," said Mr. Lindsey. "What is to become of the country, if the most high-toned men thus neglect their first duty of a free citizen? It is virtually giving it over into the hands of its destroyers."

"Whom should I vote for? I like neither of the candidates, and could not make up my mind which was the better one."

"On the fence, hey?" said Stephenson.

"Yes, and it is so muddy both sides, that I had rather be excused from jumping either way."

"Vote for the best man on the whole, is my rule. The fact is, we cannot live in exhausted receivers. We must accept our lot with our fellow-men, and work with, and act for them as our most enlightened conscience guides us. If we stand aloof from them, from any dilettante notion of superiority, and wrap ourselves up in self-satisfaction at our purer and higher purposes, ten to one the wave of popular opinion will not make an unwonted swell onwards, in some unexpected moment, leaving us stranded far behind. Depend upon it, the average of popular thought is equal to, if not in advance of any single individual. I stand by the people, not of course, allowing them to arbitrarily govern me, but simply acting up to my highest convictions in my choice of leaders for myself and them," said Mr. Lindsey.

Mr. Chichester now spoke in a very deliberate and solemn tone:

"I never vote, being a minister of the Gospel, as I think it is not consistent with doing my Master's work, to trouble my mind much with such worldly matters. But this, I will say, that the needless discussions upon the subject of our peculiar Institution, is the chief cause of trouble in our country. Until the North ceases to meddle with what is not her business, we shall never be at peace again."

"The Abolitionists have done a vast amount of mischief," said Young America.

"Mr. Webster had the right ideas upon the subject. If we had followed his wise counsels, we should be better off than we are now. The Union is in great danger," said Mr. Pierson.

"Three propositions," said Mr. Lindsey, "which we might discuss the whole length of our voyage, and yet not change each other's views; so I will simply say, that as a Minister of the Gospel, I deem it my first duty, to act the part of a man in the legitimate affairs of men; of a citizen, in what concerns the weal of myself and family, no less than that of my fellows; and especially to bear my testimony, as every Christian should, against the greatest sin and wrong of the times. Slavery affects every part of the country, in its religion, morals, social well-being, and pecuniary prosperity. Farther than this, though I belong to no association of Abolitionists, I respect them as earnest, unflinching advocates for the rights of the slaves, and believe that their leaders will fill a higher place in history, than many now called great through advocacy of compromising measures, instead of taking their stand upon eternal principles. As for the dissolution of the Union, I have no fears for it, but I say, dissolve it, rather than strike hands with injustice and wrong forever."

Mr. Chichester shook his head and said, "We had fallen on evil times, and that we needed a refreshing from the presence of the Lord. That it behooved his servant to pray that he might not stay his coming. That he would vouchsafe to come right down into our midst and save his elect, and especially scatter all wolves in sheep's clothing, who taught the wicked devices of their own corrupt natures instead of the essential doctrines of the Bible."

"Are you a clergyman?" said Mr. Stephenson to Mr. Lindsey.

"Certainly, why not?"

"I am astonished," said he, looking embarrassed. "Why, I have talked to you just like any other man. Yes, and I asked you to take a hand at whist last evening. I beg your pardon, by George—he-e-e! excuse me, but you were so cheerful, I never once thought of such a thing, as your belonging to the cloth."

"Of course, I am cheerful, my friend. That is one of the privileges of a profession which brings one into such intimate communion with God, nature, and the deepest soul of humanity. How could I be otherwise?"

Mr. Stephenson made no answer, but looked towards Mr. Chichester, as a refutation of the remark.

"May I ask what order you are of," he continued.

"Of the Unitarian Congregationalist."

Mr. Chichester drew down the corners of his mouth to the extremest possible limits, and looked over his spectacles at Mr. Lindsey's pedal extremities, to see if either of them were cloven, drew a deep sigh, and resumed the reading of his Tract, which was entitled, "The Swift Road to Everlasting Burnings."

"They call your sect infidels, up in our diggings," said Young America.

"O, yes," said Mr. Lindsey, "and when the children are refractory, tell them to be still, or the Unitarians will catch them. In the eastern States, too, we are called so by all who value their sect more than the truth. By such, we are told in one breath, that we are dying or dead; and, in the next, are preached against, prayed against, while the people are warned against us, as if we were living, rampant, and destructive in our influence still. We are very sorry to be regarded as such bugbears, when we take for our motto nothing less than 'Liberty, Holiness, Love,' and try to act up to it as far as is in our power."

Mr. Chichester rose and walked away, and the party separated, each to follow their own inclinations, leaving Mr. Lindsey and Mr. Stephenson together.

"I am glad to have an opportunity of talking upon the subject of religion with a man of some brain," said the latter. "I am disgusted with it as it is presented by the religionists in our part of the country, and am often tempted to throw the whole thing overboard. And yet I know I have strong religious instincts."

"You have simply outgrown the present creeds and forms in which this great good of our being is so much enveloped, hiding its simple majesty and beauty, and presenting a repulsive aspect to you."

"And I am not the only one in this condition of mind either. In the large circuit of which I am Judge, more than half the lawyers are skeptical. They contribute to the support of religion from various motives, for the sake of their families, because it is respectable for them to do so, and they regard it as a kind of police to keep the ignorant and superstitious in order; but they laugh at the whole matter when they are together."

"You must allow me to interrupt you a moment by asking if you are really a Judge?"

"Certainly, I am nothing else."

"You are young for that office."

"O yes, but Young America is the order of the day, out West, you know. I went to Iowa five years ago, when I was about twenty-three, as a soldier of fortune. I practiced law, stumping it around the country, as occasion offered, and two years since the 'boys' put me in as Judge. The old fogies made a great row about it, thinking such a harum-scarum fellow as I would set the river a-fire at once. But I've taught them a thing or two."

"Do the people pay the office due deference, impersonated in one so young?"

"Don't they? I make them toe the mark, I can tell you.

There wasn't a more disorderly community in the State when I was elected, and now I am willing you should ask my bitterest opponents if there is a better one."

"How did you bring it about?"

"By enforcing the laws, to be sure, and adding a few of my own."

"Will they obey those!"

"Ye-es, they have to. If any one asks for a precedent, if he don't like my decisions, I come down upon him like 'a thousand of brick.' We make laws in this office, I say. That is the way you have to do in a new country."

"But the older lawyers?"

"O we get on bravely together since I put one of them in jail for contempt of court. That is the way I do if all is not right. 'Sheriff, I say, take that man out'—and he does not hesitate a hair. It is the only way, sir."

These remarks were made with many gesticulations, with an occasional toss of his hat back, and an odd adjustment of the hair, which had so attracted Hilda's attention.

"But about religion," he resumed. "I was bred a Calvinist. My father is one of the straightest of the sect. But I can't go it now any way. I won't have a God, as they represent him. He is a deal worse, according to them, than the most corrupt judge in the land, putting his own son to torture for others' sins. What kind of justice is that, I should like to know. And then, their three in one and one in three, I don't understand it, and I have made up my mind that it is all fol-de-rol, and that I'll have nothing to do with it, but give it the go-by. And yet I can't quite do that either, for it seems to me that, when I resolve to do so, I hear my mother, (she was a real good woman, sir) calling me back to the faith she lived and died by."

"Have you churches in your part of the country?"

"Yes, plenty of them. Heathen temples, I call them, with such priests as that old fellow yonder, with faces as long as the moral law. If their heaven is peopled by such specimens, I beg to be excused from going there. I'll try t'other place."

At that moment Zoë and Hilda approached them as they walked to and fro upon the deck. Stephenson jumped up and offered them his seat. "Will you join us?" said Mr. Lindsey. And they seated themselves beside him.

"That poor old gentleman seems very unhappy," said Zoë, glancing towards Mr. Chichester, as he stood looking over the guards.

"I don't wonder," said Stephenson, "with such hell-fire doctrines as he holds to. What I complain of is, that he is not half unhappy enough."

"I should not think his worst enemy could wish him a more doleful physiognomy than he has," said Hilda.

"Yes, it is bad enough; but part of it is made up. Didn't you see how hard he tried to lengthen his visage down to the sanctimonious point while Mr. Lindsey was talking? I'm up to 'em. They can't come it over me again. I was a subject of grace once, but I'm not the fish to be caught in their net a second time."

"What do you mean?" said Hilda.

"Why, that I was converted; went through the whole process, slick as a whistle. Convicted, wasn't I though; felt awfully, took the anxious seats; was pawed over; prayed over; whispered and groaned over by the brethren, the old maids, and the young sistren, to boot; obtained a hope; got religion, and was set up as an example of a saint of the first water, all in a day and a half. Lor, don't I know the whole scheme of salvation from beginning to end, and yet, what does it all amount to? I am no better but all the worse for it, fallen from grace, the elect say, and I don't know but I am."

Hilda laughed, and said he bore his fate very coolly.

"What is the use of crying for spilled milk. It is a settled point that I can't be religious in such a humbugging way as that is, and if the powers at head-quarters don't think me worth saving, why, I am not the one to dispute the matter with them."

"Is the revival system as much in vogue, at the West, as it formerly was?" said Mr. Lindsey.

"Not quite. The fact is, there isn't the material there once was. People begin to see through the joke. Every spring, the preachers come together and try to get up a holy pow-wow, but it is no go, half the time. They pray to the Lord, as if he were the stump orator-general of the universe, going the rounds from one section to another; and when they want to get up the steam in any place, they order him on to the field."

"Shocking!" said Zoë.

"It is just the way, ma'am. I don't pretend to be pious, and don't mince matters, as you see, but it makes my blood run cold to hear the coarse, familiar tone in which the revival preachers pray. And that is not the worst of it either; for they take the occasion to tell the Lord lots of things about himself which, I guess, he is surprised to hear, and about the people too."

"I never heard of such things in Europe," said Hilda.

"No," said Mr. Lindsey, "the character of our people is a very intense and excitable one. They are eminently practical too, rapid in the execution of their business, and they have invested the subject of religion with the coarse, materialistic tendency of the times. It is very disheartening to all of a more rational faith, whose religion is woven into every fibre of their souls, reclaiming, enlightening, guiding, and exalting, to witness such perversion of this great sentiment which connects us with God and the spiritual world. But I am very hopeful, and regard it as a transitory phase of our civilization, which is to give place to a freer and better faith than the world has yet seen."

"You must be hopeful if you expect to see this Phœnix rising from the ashes of what we call 'the burnt districts,'

where the transient fire of revivalism has passed over," said Stephenson. "I wish you could have heard Elder Snow hold forth, a few years ago up our way. If he wasn't a burster! That old man yonder is not a circumstance to him. Such swearing I never heard, as came from him as he strove to frighten the people into the anxious seats."

"Swearing!" said Hilda. "What do you mean?"

"Just what I say. Now I, sometimes, in the heat of excitement take the name of his black majesty in vain, though I know that it is not just the thing; but never do I dare to use the titles of the Powers above in the heedless way they do. The fact is, the churches are a regular school to teach swearing."

"It may be so," said Mr. Lindsey.

"I know it," said Young America. "Why, when the ministers curse and damn the people—excuse me ladies—as they do every three or four sentences, what can you expect of us sinners, I should like to know? If they use the holy names so glibly in denouncing us, why should it be strange that rude and thoughtless boys and young men should do the same? Reform the preachers first, I say, and then we'll mend our ways in this respect. Elder Snow swore more in an hour's sermon than I ever did in my whole life."

"That is a novel use to put churches to," said Hilda, very much amused at his recital.

"It is a fact. I have a good mind now to tell you my 'experunce' of religion, as the old women call it."

"O do!" said Hilda.

"Well, the old governor, as I said before, is one of the straightest of the sect now, since he gave up politics and the world, which happened when he was disappointed of an office under government after his return from Denmark."

"The governor! what, of your State?" said Zoë.

"Lor! no, ma'am, my father. That is the cant phrase we use in speaking of the old gentleman. He was always at me to get religion. My mother was one of the excellent of the earth. You remember her, Hilda. She died when I was seventeen, but I never forgot her pious instructions, and I know she prayed for my conversion every day of her life. So you see I was pretty tender upon that point, and I often wished I could bring it about, if it was only to please her; but I did not know how to go to work exactly, for the preacher mystified me so with his you-can-and-you-can't, you shall-and-you-shan't, you'll-be-damned-if-you-don't doctrine, that I was all in a puzzle. After mother's death, an aunt of mine, my father's sister, kept our house and took care of the children; and between you and me and the post, she was no better than she should be. She was a real termagant, and we youngsters had to stand round, I can tell you. Well, I went away to college, was gone two years, kicked up a rumpus with some of the b'hoys, and was politely told that I might make myself scarce in those whereabouts; so, of course, I bowed myself away from the premises. Went home, father was awful mad, wouldn't speak to me for three days. I did not care so much for that, for he was always rather stern with me, and I expected as much. But my mother's picture hung in my room, and when I awoke in the morning, the first thing I saw were her eyes (she had beautiful eyes, if you remember her, Zoë) looking straight upon me. Then I felt bad, I can tell you. I cried like a child; the first time since her death. Then I expected my aunt would give it to me in great style, for disgracing the family by my expulsion, but to my surprise, she was as kind and amiable as she could be. I did not understand it at first, but my sister told me that she got religion soon after I went away, and that, since that time, she had governed her temper for the most part, and was real motherly to them. Well, as I told you, Mr. Lindsey, I have strong religious instincts, and often in waking up suddenly in the night, I would tremble all over to think how my life was flying away and I did not know what there was beyond for me. Being tender too, at this time, thinking of my mother, and meeting my sisters, and my aunt being so kind to me, and knowing that my father had cause to be angry with me, made me feel more upon the subject. Just now I heard that the great revival preacher, Elder Snow, was in the township, and that a good many of my old cronies, among the boys and girls, had obtained a hope. Thinks I, now is the time for me. So I went to the prayer-meeting in the evening, heard him preach, saw all my sins pictured out before me just as plain as you can see the different places on this map. I went to the anxious seats with the rest, and returned home to pass an awful night. I saw myself just ready to fall into everlasting flames, exactly as he painted it. Thinks I to myself, I can't stand this. If there is help for me in this world or the next, I must have it. So without saying anything about it to the folks, I went straight to the preacher.

" 'Elder Snow,' said I, 'I want religion, and must have it, whether or no.'

" 'Well, my boy,' said he, 'I am the man for you. Do you believe that you are the wickedest sinner on God's earth?'

" 'Yes,' said I; 'and what is more, I know it,' for I really felt so at the time.

" 'Do you feel as if you deserved hell-torments now, and forevermore?'

" 'Anything that you can name—and they have begun with me, I feel them this very minute.'

" 'Do you trust in the merits of Jesus Christ, and that he is able to save you by his blood?'

" 'I suppose so, as far as I understand. Heaven knows, I haven't any of my own to boast of, and I'm willing to trust in anything that will do the business for me.'

" 'Well, my boy, I think you are a special case of God's grace.'

" 'Can you put me through, do you think?'

" 'Yes,' said he, 'kneel down, and let us pray.'

"I did as he said. He first took off his coat, rolled up his shirt-sleeves, and then went at it, and prayed for a full hour and a half, at the top of his voice. At the end of it, I was as light as a feather, my sufferings all gone, and I felt that I was on the highway to the land of Canaan—beyond the floods. I went to the conference. Elder Snow told the assembly, that I was a flaming instance of heavenly grace, and called upon me to relate my experience, which I did.

"For two weeks, I never enjoyed myself so much in my life; went to the meetings three times a-day, prayed, sang, and exhorted, and was made much of by all the Christians, old and young."

"Well, what was the end of it?"

"The end of it was, that when Elder Snow went away, my religion seemed to vanish with him. I never have been able to get up much since, and I feel as if I had been cheated and imposed upon. I did not fall into the reckless vices some of my comrades did, but I know well enough, that I am none too good for this world, much less for the other one. So that is the history of my religious experience."

"What a strange idea of religion such preachers as you describe, must have. One would think it was a mantle to put on and off, instead of being a principle, a sentiment, and a life. I never heard of a like absurdity."

"Yes, such mistakes have had a most lamentable effect upon the moral sense of the community at large. It will take more than one generation to recuperate it to a healthy evangelical tone," said Mr. Lindsey.

"From what are such ideas derived?" said Zoë. "They do not get them from the Bible surely?"

"O, no! they are the natural running to seed of the dogmatism of the past ages, united with the more vital but extravagant spirit with which Wesley, Whitefield and others endeavored to galvanize them. These men did a great work for Christianity by their fervor and piety, but they had not reach of mind and simplicity of character sufficient to lead them to thrust aside all the incrustations around Christianity, therefore a new reform is necessary. The world has got to return to the simple teachings of Christ, casting aside their false philosophies and theologies, receive, like little children, his unadulterated truths, and imbibe and imitate the spirit of his life."

"O, yes," said Zoë, "and they are so beautiful, and speak so plainly and tenderly to the soul, how can men misunderstand them, or resist their call to the higher life, embodied in them?"

"Only in Christ has the spirit of his religion been wholly incarnated. Ever since his death, has it been deteriorated more or less by human admixtures, concocted by the darkened intellects and blind passions of men. I look forward, however, to a better future. My own sect has thrown aside all the creeds of men's invention, and though their numbers are apparently in the minority, yet, through all Christendom, Unitarianism, or the belief in one God and in Jesus Christ as our great spiritual Leader, has acted as a powerful leaven to raise the masses to higher conceptions of religion than the dominant Churches give them," said Mr. Lindsey.

"I should like to know your belief, for I am as much on the fence in religious matters, as that young Squire yonder is in politics."

"I cannot better give you an idea of it, than by saying, that it is comprised in the precepts and parables of our Lord, enforced by the spirit of his example and life, recognizing with awe and gratitude, as I do, the seal he set upon his heaven-sent mission by dying a martyr's death for truth and God. These precepts, this holy, pure, loving and self-sacrificing spirit, it is my aim to embody in my own life, to set them forth in my Sunday ministrations to my people, and to develop them in accordance with the march of God's Providence, as is seen in nature, history, and life, making civilization and the highest possible conception of Christianity one and the same, now and forevermore."

"That is beautiful," said Zoë. "It is my ideal of Christianity, though I might not be able to express it so well. Why does not the world see and acknowledge this beautiful revelation? It is as clear to me as noonday."

"If that is Christianity, why I feel that there is some hope for me. There is reason in that. But the doctrines that are preached in the churches that I have attended, upset nature and common-sense, and would turn the world into a complete Pandemonium if fully carried out. If you will believe it, our minister said one day, in answer to my sister, who referred him to Christ's Sermon on the Mount for her belief in the essentials of religion, that Jesus did not go quite far enough there," said Mr. Stephenson.

"Fortunately the religionists are very inconsistent, seeing that they cling to a paganized Christianity," said Mr. Lindsey. "Human nature is very vagarious in its imaginings, and bad enough sometimes in its perverted manifestations; but, thank heaven, it recoils from carrying out its most unnatural and diseased lucubrations into full practice. I doubt if our dismal friend yonder, though he looks more like Calvinism embodied than any other one I have yet seen, would not shrink from many of his opinions, if they were to be wrought out in the experience of himself or those dear to him."

"I guess so; but these fellows always contrive to put themselves on the safe side, when they give out the Almighty's decrees. They and their children are of the elect, while we, who don't believe their lies, are among the goats; they are the ones to look over the battlements of heaven, while we, who don't come into their traces, are down below, gnashing our teeth in the flames. I know them, inch by inch."

"One of them, a minister, whose child's funeral my father attended, before the separation between the Orthodox and the more liberal sects took place, consigned his own baby, of a year old, to the bad place very coolly," said Mr. Lindsey. "He said, while walking home from its little grave, in answer to some consolatory remark of his friend, that he 'supposed the little viper deserved to have its head crushed,' and then added, 'that hell was paved with infants' skulls not a span long!' "

"Horrible! horrible!" said Zoë and Hilda in the same breath. "What form of paganism could be more dreadful in its results?"

"That I call the legitimate working of the Calvinistic system. Thank heaven, that other influences more often come in to modify it," said Mr. Lindsey.

"I guess that the Dr. there is of the same stock. Look at him! I should think he had eaten fever and ague damps for his breakfast, bilious miasma for his dinner, and the cholera cramps for his supper all his life."

"Poor man!" said Zoë.

"I think you deserve, at least, a dessert of those imponderable miseries for caricaturing him as you do," said Hilda.

"It is no caricature, and you will see that it is not before we get rid of him. I know 'em," said Young America. "I wish he'd tip overboard. I've enough original sin in me for that. Fool, to think that we are suffering more for our first grand-dad's fault than for our own, or for our father's neglect of physiological laws, it may be!"

"Perhaps he has the notion of the old man with whom I talked last summer. I spoke to him of what I considered the absurdity of the doctrine of imputed sin, and he said that his belief was, that when Adam and Eve ate the apple, all the souls of the human race were present and consented to the deed. I asked him if he remembered the circumstance, and he said he thought he had a dim recollection of it!"

The girls laughed at this instance of a retentive memory, and Stephenson said that he was glad to see that one of the tribe was consistent.

At that moment a cry was raised that a whale was spouting in the distance. Dr. Chichester turned to look at it, stepping back, as he did so, to be free of some obstacles between it and the sphere of his vision, and was in imminent danger of falling backward down the gangway. Young America darted forward, caught him as he began to totter, and with his strong arm placed him on safe footing again.

" 'Does your mother know you are out?' " said he. "By jingo! a little more, and you had been where you would have seen stars. Take a seat, sir," said he, softening his voice, as he saw that he was growing faint from the shock. "I will go and get you a cordial."

So away he went, and in an incredibly short time returned with wine and water, insisted upon his drinking some, and attended upon him as if he had been an affectionate son; and when he was able, gave him his arm to lean upon as he went to his state-room.

"Thank you, my lad!" said he, as he assisted him to his couch. "An old man's blessing be on you!"

Mr. Lindsey, Hilda, Zoë, and others ran to offer their services, but Stephenson was so assiduous that they were not needed. As the two walked away, Mr. Lindsey said: "A good heart beats under that rough exterior."

"Yes," said Hilda; "we liked him so much when he was in Copenhagen. His father was minister to that court when we were very little girls, and his residence was near Miss Ingemann's school. George staid but one year with his family, as his parents thought he had better be at home at school; but during that time, we became great friends. I was only eight, and he was sixteen, but he was my favorite playmate, nevertheless, and was always ready to do anything for us we wished him to. I never have forgotten him, though he has changed so much I did not know him at first. But I find he is as good and funny as ever."

Stephenson now returned to them. "The old gentleman isn't so bad, after all," said he. "I wish he hadn't gray hairs, and I would get up an argument with him. I'd knock his Calvinism into a cocked hat for him, for he is a deal better than his thunder-and-lightning creed."

Mr. Pierson and his sisters now appeared on the opposite side of the deck. "There's a big-bug," said he, designating the former by a side toss of his head, as he seated himself by Hilda.

"Where, where?" said she, jumping up and brushing with her hand her neck, upon which one of her ringlets had fallen.

"That Don over there," said he, "brother to those young ladies. What frightens you?"

"I thought you meant that there was one on my neck, and I can't bear insects. Why do you call Mr. Pierson a bug? I think he is a very elegant young gentleman."

"Elegant enough! so are lady-bugs, but they have got a pretty considerable of a hum to them. He is one of the Boston chaps, I reckon. I had as lieve have a regular John Bull round, and a little rather, for he is genuine, while this is a counterfeit. I know 'em."

"Have you become acquainted with the young ladies?"

"Not I. They are too uppish for me. Don't they cut a swath?" said he, as he saw them with their brother walk backwards and forwards on the deck.

"I wonder what they are thinking of!" said Hilda, as she saw them looking very serious.

"Solving a problem," said he.

"What problem?" said Zoë. "What do you mean?"

"O, whether God Almighty made them, or they made Almighty God!"

"I think you are very irreverent," said Hilda.

"They are to blame for suggesting it to me," said he. "I know those Boston fellows. They think their little hill is the head-quarters of creation, and if the universe was to be destroyed, the most effectual way to begin the work would be to extinguish one of their first families."

"I thought," said Hilda, "that America was a republic, and that you were without an aristocracy."

"O no! we have the codfish aristocracy in New York, the whale-oil aristocracy in New Bedford, the coal-trade aristocracy in Philadelphia and Baltimore, the rise-of-land-and-pork aristocracy in Cincinnati, the F. F. V. aristocracy in Virginia, the cotton aristocracy down South, the literary, and best family, and fine-mannered aristocracy in Boston, and in every little one-horse village a six by nine aristocracy, founded upon whatever comes handiest in the set-up line. You are very much mistaken, Hilda; we are the most aristocratic nation on the face of the globe, I'll venture to say."

"Is it so?" said Zoë to Mr. Lindsey. "I hardly know how much to believe Mr. Stephenson."

"Yes, in a manner," said he. "Human nature is very much the same all over the world, and until elevated and refined by Christianity and a true philosophy, these coarse and barbaric manifestations will repeat themselves, though modified more and more by the increasing light of higher principles. It requires a more elevated tone of character than exists under our present forms of religion, to see in its fullness the significance and beauty of the saying of our Saviour: 'Whosoever shall exalt himself shall be abased, and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted.' Until this heavenly sentiment is incorporated into the soul, there must be lacking that true dignity of character, which seeks not to prop itself up by external demonstrations, in lieu of that celestial ascendency of spirit imparted by Christianity."

"I am so glad to hear you say so," said Zoë. "I have always felt thus, and that is my friend Mrs. Liebenhoff's idea, but it strengthens my belief in them, to hear the same truths uttered by you, sir. I have not found them common among my associates."

"You have not named the over-mastering aristocracy of our country," said Mr. Lindsey.

"I should like to hear the tip-top one," said young America. "What is it?"

"The ecclesiastical aristocracy! the Pharisaical pretensions of the predominant sects over those who differ from them in creed or expression of their religious sentiments, is but the same worldly and feudal temper transferred to the future world as the scene of its monstrous assumption. The spirit of the age and the common law forbid the penal fire, the rack and the thumbscrew, so the unsanctified imagination of religionists revels in the idea, that those whom they cannot bind here by the chains of their formulas and articles of belief, forged and drawn up by benighted and tyrannical minds, shall afford them horrible satisfaction in the future world, by undergoing the woes of an eternal inquisition. But the force of the idea is fast dying before the growing spirit of love and light of truth, and will, in time, like obscene birds and ravenous beasts be banished from the earth."

"Do you not think that a great reform is soon to take place throughout the world?" said Zoë.

"I do not know that any sudden improvement will be allowed us. But I believe the age is progressing towards a more complete realization of Christianity."

"I think," said Zoë, "that there is soon to be a new era in the world's spiritual advancement, and that the spirit and instructions of our Lord will be recognized all over Christendom as they have never been before. I think I see a great many signs of it."

"You are a little enthusiastic are you not, my dear young lady. Let me warn you against fanaticism. I believe in the advancement of society through Christianity, most heartily, but I do not know that there is to be any sudden revolution."

Zoë was silent, and Hilda, as was her wont, drew her into conversation upon some other subject. The group separated, and Mr. Lindsey rejoined his friends.

"You do not get acquainted with those young ladies opposite. Let me introduce them to you," said he to Emma and Meta Pierson.

"No, I thank you, sir. I don't care to," said the elder of the sisters.

"You will find them very agreeable. The taller one is full of vivacity and spirit, and the other, very gentle, refined and spiritual."

"She is colored, is she not?" said Mr. Pierson.

"I suspect she is. Nevertheless she is a lady."

"I must say, I have not yet surmounted my prejudice against the hue of the African, sufficiently to put myself on a level with any one of the race. It may be a weakness. It is not that I am not opposed to slavery, for I am truly so," said Emma.

"Young America and Miss Strophel seem to have got up quite an intimacy," said Meta.

"They are old friends," said Mr. Lindsey, "and formerly knew each other in Denmark."

"I think she needs some more mature lady-companion than the one she has," said Mr. Pierson, "I should be very sorry to see my sisters as free and easy with all sorts of people as she is."

"She has great frankness of character, and it is liable to lead her into some imprudence, yet I think that she has been essentially well-taught and will not very far overstep the bounds of propriety."

The young people said no more, but seemed indisposed to comply with Mr. Lindsey's suggestion, so of course, he did not press the matter. They were very dear to him and his wife, with whom they had resided, as they were orphans, and were all that were left of a once large family. They were naturally reserved; repeated afflictions had bound them together very closely, as well as withdrawn them from a very extended social intercourse. Besides, they had been brought up under very different influences from Mr. Lindsey, and were much imbued with the conventional exclusiveness of the times. If ever justified in any one, it might be in them, as they possessed all the qualities which gild the highest life in our country, respectable parentage, wealth, position, beauty, refined manners, a high religious tone of character, and a broad intelligence. That they did not interpret in its whole length and breadth the spirit of Christianity, Mr. and Mrs. Lindsey attributed to circumstances, more than to any willful perversity, and they trusted to time and the events of God's providence, to bring to a complete flowering, souls whose budding promise of beauty and excellence of no common order, were the delight of their childless home, and the joy of their united hearts.

————

CHAPTER VII.

"A voice is ever at thy side,
Speaking in tones of might,
Like file prophetic voice that cried
To John, in Patmos, 'Write!' "—LONGFELLOW.

THUS the time sped on shipboard joyously to Hilda, with unwonted cheerfulness to Zoë. She had recovered from her sea-sickness, and was in good health. The tone of Mr. Lindsey's mind was more congenial with her own, than any one she had ever met, excepting Mrs. Leibenhoff's. Young America amused and exhilarated her. And whatever latent prejudices there might be on the part of the other passengers against her caste, and color, she, as yet, was not made cognizant of them. The idea of her peculiar mission still governed her. The dissatisfaction of Mr. Stephenson with the prevailing forms of religious belief, and the hopeful character of Mr. Lindsey's faith, were, to her, a presage of the triumph of her own life-long convictions. The skepticism prevalent in America, as well as Europe, convinced her that the want of a clear conception of absolute Christian truth, was the vital need of the world. The consequent lack of enthusiasm and spirit in carrying out its requisitions, even by its professed disciples, to say nothing of the actual heathenism of a large part of the so-called Christendom, pointed, as with a finger of fire, to her duty and destiny.

The only question was, how should she accomplish it! and the readiest answer seemed to be, by her pen. So she gathered her paper together, and as she leaned over it, in the stillness of her room, her spirit was hushed to the quietness of thought, which flowed upon the page like the clear rivulet from its source among the mountains, reflecting the hues of the heavens above. No fire of Poesy, no passionate eloquence possessed her; but it seemed as if the spirit of Jesus, with which she had ever walked in reverential communion, had stilled her into submission to his own pure and sweet-toned elevation. No hosannas sang she like the multitude, as he entered the scene of his suffering, which was but the dark prelude to his world-wide triumph, but a like humble exaltation of spirit was hers, as she traced the history of God's dealings to his people to the time of his advent. Then she gathered up the forces of her soul, and with the trust which comes through communion with the Highest, condensed his instructions, and represented his spirit in the persons of a few simple-minded, holy and earnest beings, such as a young girl would naturally imagine, who was unused to the world and its many-sided manifestations, but who was filled more than by anything else, with the spirit of his character, and the desire of his glorified reign.

At first she would lay aside her pen, as Hilda approached her, for she wished no one to come between her own soul and the Infinite; but as she approached the conclusion of her work, she yielded to the impulses of her love for her, and a desire for sympathy, saying nothing, however, of the deep significance she attached to her Tale. In her heart of hearts, she treasured the knowledge that its publication was to be an era in the religion and literature of the nations, and that through her, the age was to take an unwonted stride onwards in the path of its advancement. In the intervals between her writing, she was on deck, drinking in the soft ocean breeze, and joining with more animation than ever before, in the varied conversation of the passengers.

"I have some engravings that I should like to show you," said Mr. Stephenson one morning to Zoë and Hilda. "Let us go into the saloon as no one is there now."

"I am delighted," said Zoë, who had a true eye for the beautiful in art as well as nature; so they followed him, and soon after Mr. Lindsey joined them. They were not very rare engravings and were soon laid aside by all but Zoë, whose mind was less critical of the execution of a work than it was quick to seize upon whatever would serve as a nucleus, around which her imagination might weave its subtle web of poetry and fancy. So that with a child's delight would she recur again and again to any cheap and ordinary wood-cut, provided it was suggestive to her. Of course, if it were, at the same time, well wrought, she enjoyed it proportionally; but the spirit of any work, either in letters or the arts, was her main object of search and the natural food of her being.

"There is great expression in some of those pen and ink drawings," said Mr. Lindsey; "did you trace them?"

"Nobody else, sir," said Young America.

"Do you paint, too?"

"Yes, after a fashion. I never have had much instruction, but it comes sort of naturally to me; so in my vacations I use the brush a little."

"What department of the art do you prefer?"

"Composition; but I can take portraits, and when I get tired of the law and like the looks of a fellow pretty well, I just clap his phiz on to the canvas. I've quite a gallery at home—most of them oddities in their way, taken in all sorts of attitudes and costumes—one sitting with his chair tipped back, smoking, with his feet upon the mantlepiece— another pretending to be drunk, with a decanter and wine-glass just slipping from his hand—another swapping horses, whittling while he makes the bargain—and I have a whole group of fine b'hoys of my acquaintance on a flat-boat on the Mississippi in a great frolic."

"A singular taste your friends show, to be taken in such situations," said Hilda.

"But they are very suggestive, I suppose, of the habits and tendencies of the young Americans," said Zoë.

"Yes, in one sense," said Mr. Lindsey. "Our people have a great deal of love of fun in reality. They have had so much hard work to do since the settlement of the country, and asceticism is so much the spirit of the dominant sects that we are sadly behind-hand in furnishing rational amusements for them, so that their wit and drollery leaks out in all sorts of uncouth and extravagant ways in consequence. The fact is, they have yet to learn how to entertain themselves in a hearty, yet graceful and rational manner, so one sees strange manifestations among them. But I hope that a better taste will spring up in time."

"Yes, that's it," said Stephenson; "the preachers condemn the theatre, preach against dancing, denounce games of chance and skill, and now they are going to put down, as a trick of the Devil, calisthenics, that the little girls find some pleasure and exercise in! I wonder they don't go out into the woods and fields and put a veto on the birds singing and the lambs frisking; or read the Assembly's Catechism to Watch and Fido, if they get up a gambol together! Confound their fire and brimstone notions that they are always dealing out to us! If they really believed what they said, I should not so much care, but to see one of your young dandy priests, with no blood in him but milk and water instead, get up, dandling his scented pocket-handkerchief, and consign to the lower regions all but a few slim specimens like himself, just for enjoying themselves a bit in some innocent way, why, I can hardly keep my hands from pulling his nose for him. I wonder what color the sun and moon would be if such fellows made them: dingy-black, I guess—the same that they are, outside and inside. I am glad to see that you know how to laugh, sir," said he to Mr. Lindsey.

"I have not learned that it was more wicked for the muscles of the mouth to stretch latitudinally than longitudinally. Indeed, I think we commit high treason against the good Father, if we are not cheerful and at peace in his bright and glorious universe. I reproach myself every time I suffer a cloud to rest over my spirit; it seems a mark of ingratitude to Him. O! when will men open their eyes to the beautiful intentions of God in their creation, and go hand in hand with Him and Jesus in fulfilling them?"

"How happy we should all be then!" said Zoë. "Earth would be like heaven at once."

"My sister and I sometimes talk over how we should like to live," said Mr. Stephenson, "and we have come to the conclusion that, when I've made money enough, we will form a community of such people as we like—put our business on such a plan that we shan't have to work but four hours a day to support ourselves, and enjoy life, the rest of the time, in literary and scientific pursuits, with fun thrown in as we want it. And we won't have a common-place person among us. I'm tired of society, as they call it. I've been in the world enough to see how hollow and superficial it is. You may spend an evening out, every day in the week, and ten to one, you don't get a new idea during the whole time."

"I have not the faith in communities that many have," said Mr. Lindsey. "They involve such a multiplicity of rules, and there is such a complication of interests within a small space, that, with human nature in its present condition, they seldom work well long. The Christian principles and spirit must be manifested in great perfection among the members, else there will be an unequal distribution of labor, means, and power, and consequent clashing; and if there is a thorough appreciation of Christianity, why then society will need no such total revolution in its outward arrangements, but all will go on well without it."

"But there is a great deal of waste labor now," said

Stephenson, "by each family living separate, as it does. And what is the worst of it, the women have such a hard time, especially in the new districts, where it is almost impossible to get help. My eldest sister has a bright mind, and she would be up to almost anything in the book line, only that she has to spend most of her time cooking and drudging in every way for the family."

"I agree that here is a great evil. Still, the family seems to me such a holy and beautiful institution, and quietness and seclusion are so sweet to me in my own separate home, with those most dear to me, after the labors of the day, that neither I nor my wife would be willing to relinquish them for the confusion of a monstrous Phalanstery."

"But you might have your separate apartments and be just as retired as at home."

"Impossible," said Mr. Lindsey. "Then in the education of children, you would have constantly to struggle against the influence of an artificial association upon their young and impressible minds. There is too little individuality now. Under such circumstances I should fear their becoming a mass of conglomerates of the same quality and hue. No, the family is the institution of God for the development of infancy to its just and beautiful proportions. There it can be fitly nurtured in the religion of home, which will prepare it to extend its sympathies, as it grows older, to other friends—to the neighborhood, the church, the city, or hamlet; and from thence to the state, the country, the world, and to be bounded only by Infinity itself."

"The system upon which society is founded, seems to me to be very wrong, now," said Stephenson. "Competition, not cooperation, is the order of the day. Everybody looks out for number one; the fellow that can run the fastest race in business and office, seizes hold of the prizes, and 'the devil take the hindmost' is the motto. He does not care, and more likely than not, he gives others a kick backwards to prevent their getting up with him. I'm sick and disgusted with the selfishness of the world. I'll move into the wilderness, when I get home. I don't want a human being within twenty miles of me."

"I am very much mistaken, if your nature is not quite too social to endure life in a hermitage long. But what you say of the labors of women in the new settlements, and indeed throughout the country, more or less, among the middle and poorer classes, is a subject worthy of great consideration. I wish some methods could be adopted to relieve them, for the old relations of master, mistress, and servant seem fast falling into desuetude in our country, and we must have something better to take their place."

"Communities would do the thing for them. Each one would have her own allotted part of the labor, and each would have the advantage of every improvement going, and leisure to act out her own particular genius. That's the true way, sir, you may depend upon it."

"I can't relinquish the separate family yet. My wife has her own notions upon this subject. I should like to read them to you some time. She writes to me pretty fully during my absence. I found letters in Mobile for me from her, and expect others when I get to Jamaica. I will read you extracts from them some time, if you would like to hear them."

"O do, sir!" said Zoë. "I should like to know if she thinks about such things as I do."

"I wish you knew my wife. Miss Carlan. I think you would suit each other very well."

"Why did she not come with you?" said she.

"She was writing a book, which she was very much interested in, and she wished to superintend its publication. Besides, she had spent one winter in the West Indies, and as I was not ill enough to require her care as an invalid, she persuaded me to accompany our young friends without her. But it is the first time we have been separated, and half the pleasure of the excursion is lost by the means."

"Are your friends ill?" said Hilda; "they look very well."

"No, but the New England winter climate is intensely cold, and Mr. Pierson, who had some tendency to bronchitis, persuaded his sisters to spend the winter with him in the tropics, as much for the novelty as for health."

"They look very interesting," said Zoë.

"They are so," said Mr. Lindsey; "they are highly cultivated in mind, and their characters have great promise."

"The trouble with him is, he has no boiler aboard," said young America; "he'll never do anything."

"He has very good executive abilities," said Mr. Lindsey.

"That may be," said he, "but he has no steam—no more than half those Boston chaps have. They run to seed before they are thirty. The difficulty is, they have too much money; I know 'em."

"Mr. Pierson is not wealthy, though he has a pretty competence."

"He never will do anything till he gets rid of it, and that won't be very long, I reckon. These fellows always follow one another's lead. If one worth a million makes a great splurge with his money, all the others follow suit, and that don't do as well for him who has but a few thousands; they are gone before he knows it—but it is all the better for him. Then they have to go to work, and if there is the real stuff in them, it comes out and they make something, but not otherwise. My father did not give me a red cent to begin life with. It has been pretty tough tugging, I can tell you, but I've weathered the cape, and now it is plain sailing."

"And you are going to South America?" said Zoë.

"Yes, my vacation comes in the winter. I had a little spare pocket-money and I thought I would just step down to the valley of the Amazon and see what the 'boys' are doing. There is a new settlement there, you know. I shall stay and look round in those parts till half my money is gone, and then I shall turn my face homewards. I expect to have rare fun hunting and shooting. I have got my easel, you see, and I mean to take the heads of some of the Indians in those diggins. If I like the country and climate right well, I may perhaps pull up stakes in Iowa and settle there."

At that moment, Mr. Sarran came in and said, that the island of Cuba was visible, and they all went on deck.

"Where?" said Hilda; "I don't see it."

"Don't you see that high mountain, that looks almost like a cloud?"

"O yes, look, Zoë!"

"O, there are the tops of the palm-trees!" she exclaimed. "They look as if they were growing out of the water. My beautiful palm-trees! my waving cocoa-nut palm-trees! how happy and joyful I am to see you again," and she clasped her hands upon her breast, and the tears gushed to her eyes. Seeing that she had excited the observations of the by-standers, she went to her state-room to give full vent to her passionate emotions.

"Miss Carlan shows real feeling," said Meta Pierson. "Mr. Lindsey says she has cultivation and poetic sensibility."

"Poor thing!" said Emma. "I am afraid they will not be of much service to her. I do not believe she will associate with the whites much, when she gets home."

"No," said her brother; "of course not. It is no kindness to educate one of her class. It only makes her more sensible of her inferiority, and increases her sufferings. Strange, the colored people don't see this, and be contented in their own condition."

The steam-ship arrived off Havanna, and was met by a boat from shore, manned by the officers of health of the city, with inquiries, at what port they last touched; and when informed that it was Mobile, the passengers and crew were forbidden to land, as it was known that cholera existed in that city, and the Spaniards were afraid of infection. There was great grumbling and discontent on board, as a few individuals were intending to spend the winter there; but rather than submit to a fortnight's quarantine, they decided to go on to some more southern island. All were very much interested with the view of the city; its Moro, the governor's palace, its cathedral and churches, and the cheerful light-blue and salmon and pink colors of its dwelling-houses, surmounted by terra-cotta vases, containing often some small tree or shrub growing, and at a distance, having the appearance of turrets. Letters and papers were exchanged between the ship and the officer on the boat, although they took the precaution of receiving them on the point of a long sharp instrument, and smoking them well before daring to touch them with their hands. The Americans laughed at this extraordinary caution, and as they steamed away from the harbor, threw out many an indignant fling at what they considered an old womanish timidity and whim.

Stephenson said, that he would not land among such a set of cowards, if he could. Hilda was saucy enough to repeat the old adage—"sour grapes," to him; but he made the rejoinder, that he should join the next filibustering expedition, and take Cuba and carry it home in his coat-pocket to use as a sugar box, and set up the Hidalgos as ten pins upon his bowling alley, and by that time, he guessed, they would find out that young America was up to snuff.

As Mr. Stephenson and Hilda were leaning over the guards, talking and laughing, while they watched the receding island of Cuba, Mr. Chichester joined them.

"Young man," said he, "I can't help thinking of your kindness to me the other day, when I came so near losing my life, as I should in all likelihood have done, had it not have been for you."

"O never mind, it was nothing to speak of. A little more, and you would have kicked the bucket though. I hope you will be more cautious next time where you step, sir. It is no joke for a man of your years to get a tumble head over heels."

"I've been moved, I say, to try and do something for you in return. I always feel a desire to, as it is my office, under God, to win souls to Christ; and I feel an earnest longing that your feet may be planted on the highway to Zion."

Young America looked at Hilda, who turned from him for fear he would tempt her to laugh.

"Well, stranger, I rather guess we are on the way there, by the direction of the vessel. Rather slow rate we go at, I confess. Confound this clumsy British craft; give me a Yankee steamer, I say, that'll cut the water at the rate of fifteen miles the hour. There would be some hope of getting there then."

"You mistake me, my friend. It was of your soul's interest, I wished to speak. Have you ever had a change of heart?"

"O yes, lots of times, it changes once or twice every day. What do you think it is made of? I ain't a granite boulder."

"But do you feel that you have an interest in Christ?"

"That I can't tell you, stranger. Those that know him better than I do, say that I ought to invest capital in that bank, that it is a very safe one; but I ain't much acquainted with him myself."

"But you know that your eternal salvation rests upon his vicarious atonement?"

"As long as we are on Scripture subjects, hadn't we better stick to Scripture truth? I know nothing about your vicarious atonement. It is not in my Bible any-how; and mine is one of the genuine sort, I reckon. My mother gave it to me on her death-bed."

"I fear you sadly neglect the interests of your soul, young man. O, be warned to put your trust in the blood of Christ. He only can wash white your guilty stains."

"When I can see my way clear to believe in your Pagan mode of salvation, I'll try my best to do so; but if I remember right, my Book tells me to love the God that is anything but the cruel tyrant you set up for us; my neighbor, that, according to Jesus, is worth loving, instead of being the monster you paint him; and do all the good I can in the world. As for Jesus Christ, I like the way he says he is going to save me, better than your new-fangled one. I'll stick to him if the time comes that I'm pious enough to. I don't intend to be impudent, sir, but as you make pretty free with my private concerns, I suppose you want a plain answer to your questions."

"I fear you trust in the filthy rags of your own righteousness!"

"There you are entirely out of your soundings. I never set up for a saint yet, whatever others might do. But there is one thing, old gentleman, I never expect to get to heaven without some. And I'll be so bold as to give you a caution, stranger. There ain't so much goodness in the world, that you need to decry morality as you preachers do. Many a fellow, to my knowledge, is on the high-road to ruin from good works being put down to zero. We are afloat, entirely, by your telling us in one breath that we can't do anything for our own salvation, till a miracle is wrought in us; and in the next, sending us to the bad place for not accomplishing everything in the godly line. What sort of consistency is that, I wonder!"

Dr. Chichester shook his head, and walked away, evidently thinking that Stephenson's was a doomed case. He turned, after going a few steps from him, saying: "I shall pray for you, young man."

"That's right, stranger. If I was much used to the business of late, I would do the same by you. As it is, I am afraid my ticket would not forward you on the lightning train to Canaan."

"I was afraid he would begin to question me," said Hilda, "and although I am very frank, too unreserved, Miss Ingemann used to tell me, I must say it would disturb me very much to have my most sacred feelings pried into in that way."

"Yes," said Stephenson, "according to them, human souls must be put into the hopper of a regular grist-mill—and there is a great hue and cry if every one does not come out of it pretty much alike; labeled, 'Good for the New Jerusalem—this side up,' but without the care, mind you."

"I don't know what Zoë would say to it," said Hilda, "with her delicacy and reserve. I am glad she is not here."

"You are as fond of each other as when you were little girls," said Stephenson.

"A great deal more so," said Hilda. "As we grow older we see in one another what the other lacks, and love and confide in each other accordingly."

"She is the only colored person I could ever tolerate," said Young America. "But somehow she never seems to me to have the negro taint."

"What an unreasonable prejudice your people have against the Africans," said Hilda; "it is incomprehensible to me."

"It is natural. The whites and blacks never can live together. I wish the slaves were free; but I would have every soul of them quit the country. We don't want them in the Northern States. I can't bear the sight of a nigger."

Hilda felt wounded by this speech, but said nothing, yet pondered in her mind with anxiety and dread what the probable fate of Zoë would be in the coarse, superficial, misjudging world, and went down to her friend's state-room to lavish upon her the caresses which, as her fears for her increased, were multiplied in number and fervor.

————

CHAPTER VIII.

"I like to hear the young talk on these matters;
The new rings clear, the old but clatters."—GOETHE.

"WHAT sketch are you taking?" said Hilda to Mr. Stephenson one morning, as she saw him sitting at his easel when she came on deck.

"Just the people hereabouts," said he. "I am trying to get a likeness of Mr. Lindsey in the foreground. The old Doctor will be thrown in for a shadow to bring him out in better relief. I want you and Zoë to be sitting together, she leaning on your shoulder for the fancy part, and the Don and his sisters will do for the quality, you know. I shall make quite a master-piece of it, I reckon."

"Have you picture-galleries in America?"

"Not to speak of. They give artists precious little encouragement up our way. The fact is, we don't care for much yet, but making money and getting a good living."

"There is great improvement, however," said Mr. Lindsey. "Picture-shops are multiplying among us, and young painters are starting up on every side, and there are embryo galleries in almost every large city. They only need culture and time to develop the latent genius, which they really possess."

"The great difficulty with our painters is," said Mr. Pierson, "that they are not patient and persevering in their studies. They need to copy the best masters and be willing to give up their crude pretensions. The fact is, our artists think they know too much ever to make much progress. Even if they go to Europe, they come back, saying, that they did not see much of value there, so they soon fall into a crude mannerism, and either degenerate or remain in a condition of mediocrity."

"I know that is the truth with regard to numbers of them; but there are some honorable exceptions. There are some young men from my own city who are doing much honor to themselves in the Dusseldorf school. Several beautifully finished landscapes have been sent home by them as trophies of success in this department of the Art."

"I don't think much of the Dusseldorf gallery myself," said Mr. Stephenson. "If you want to cramp American genius and inflict upon us a set of mannerists, send the boys there. If you want to develop American genius in its own legitimate way, let them stay away from the musty European galleries, and the old world tyrants, who think nothing can be done but to copy them."

"And you would neglect the wealth of genius of all past times, from the vain notion of the necessary supremacy of our new giant country in everything, would you?" said Mr. Pierson. "It is this miserable assumption that prevents our rising in the department of high Art."

"I disagree with you in toto. It is in this very thing that we forget that we are the western giants, but consent to be spaniels to crouch to those who by their tyranny have frightened us into the belief that they and theirs have exhausted the genius of all creation. Throw them overboard, I say, and begin anew. We'll show them how the thing is to be done. We'll paint landscapes that have some life to them, not like those dead, gray things from the school over the water, in which God's sunlight is all squeezed out of them; and faces that have some soul, not those mere flesh and blood saints of the ancient masters."

"And the divine Madonnas of Raphael you designate thus, do you? and the celestial Murillos?"

"Yes, I do; were not they Raphael's mistresses, who sat to him for the 'Holy Mother?' How could you expect from such models a spiritual expression, I should like to know? I never have been able to see any. I could pick out twenty women of my acquaintance, who would make better Madonnas than his are. As for the Spaniard's, I have seen copies of his, and they are neither angels nor women, but a sort of cloudy, misty, Castilian go-betweens. I would not give a picayune for the whole lot."

Mr. Pierson walked away, thinking it waste time to parley longer with such a Vandal, and Stephenson continued:

"The idea of leaving our glorious western sunsets, which one would think God had tipped his whole box of colors over, to go to Italy to rave about scenery and skies! The truth is, these upstarts never looked at one of our own sunsets enough to know what it is; so when they see a decent one over there, they make a great fuss about it.

"I'll show them what a sunset and a sunrise, too, is, when I've practised a little more. I'll put in the tints. O won't it be beautiful, beautiful!" said he slowly pronouncing the words, as if too luscious to be abandoned, and moving his brush in the air, as if painting, his clear gray eye, meantime, lighting up with an expression of genius, toning down all the coarseness of his face to one of beauty, and refinement, and high-spirit combined. "What do you think, Mr. Lindsey?"

"That you are very extravagant in your Americanism. I allow too, that my friend, Horace, having been in Europe just enough to taste the beauty of its artistic life, without encountering its evils much, sees everything there couleur de rose, without appreciating at their full value our own opportunities of working out for ourselves a more exalted life in Art, no less than in practical life. But if we ever accomplish a higher destiny in this respect, it will be by assimilating to ourselves the best spirit of the ancients, and indeed of all times, in order to reproduce a grander, tenderer, and in short, a more Christian phase of civilization in this regard."

"Would you have all our best young men go to Europe, then, to spend their lives, copying the models in the Louvre? You won't catch me to do it, sir, if I can ever get money enough to give up the law."

"By no means. I will agree with you so far as to say, that I should wish no men or women to cross the ocean, until their souls are sufficiently awakened to the idea of God's great designs in opening our continent to the nations, as to feel that the opportunity awarded them to do so was a great trust, so that instead of aimlessly flitting from one time-hallowed city to another, imbibing their vices and bringing home nothing but discontent and disease of body and mind, they might, like the bountiful earth, receive the good seed to give out a harvest, of not the identical grain, but fourfold more in a newer, richer, and diviner form."

"I will agree to that, if they will but do it; but the trouble is, they don't. Another evil is, artists have to struggle along without help and a cheering word, now and then, till they get discouraged. Many a young fellow, whom I know, would do wonders in his line, if he could only be encouraged. The money bags are in the wrong hands, according to my reckoning. They get possession of it, who either hoard it, or use it for mean objects, so that Art is kept in the background."

"All very true. There is lamentable lack of public spirit, no less than of private benevolence among us, judged by the highest rule, but you should at least give credit for what there is. I have no sympathy with the misanthropy which besets some of our young men. It is a proof of lack of power, no less than of an ungrateful spirit. Then, again, though there should be sympathy and readiness to cheer artists in every judicious way, yet if they ever wish to accomplish anything beyond mediocrity, they must live in the true sense of that word. Every one, to be a genuine man or woman either, has got to work out his or her own salvation in the deepest and highest sense of that injunction."

"I guess you would think some fellows of my acquaintance have a pretty smart chance at that same thing, if you knew the hard scratching they have to keep the wolf of poverty and starvation from the door. Confound the world, and most of the people in it! If I thought that Symmes' Hole was really open, as he said, I'd cut for the jumping-off place at once."

"How do you know you would find better friends there than here?" said Hilda. "I advise you to stay above ground and make the best of us all."

"Mrs. Liebenhoff would say—'We women will set all things right,' " said Zoë.

"No, that is the worst of it," said Young America. "In our place they have undertaken to open a gallery of pictures. Now, I don't, like some of my comrades, make fun of the whole matter, simply because it is a woman's plan, I am willing she should take the position she can fill and do whatever she is capable of doing well."

"Provided she does not come into conflict with you," said Hilda, with a sly look at Zoë.

"Well, it's something so. I'll acknowledge the corn. I was going to say, that instead of filling their gallery with native pictures, they have sent off to Europe and got some of those pagan divinities over there, in the shape of casts, and imported some copies of the old masters, they call them, of the color of shoe-leather, and filled most of the other spaces with pictures after the style of the scarlet woman. Ha, ha, ha! Good for the ladies, I say. I hope they enjoy them! You won't catch us to go and see them, except to laugh at the copies. Who cares anything for a copy, I should like to know? You can't learn anything from a copy. Give me originals, I say, and by our own artists too."

"I suspect, the ladies in your place have very much such a gallery as they have in the Queen City. I must read my wife's musings therein. She seems to find 'copies' and casts of pagan divinities quite suggestive."

"O do, please," said Zoë and Hilda in one breath.

Mr. Lindsey went for his portfolio and took from it a letter, and read this extract:

"Our Picture Gallery is at length opened, quite to our satisfaction. Its situation is very good—an apartment back of Mr. Weld's picture store, which makes a very agreeable entrance. The young proprietors are very gentlemanly and obliging, and the ladies prompt in sending in contributions from their own collections of paintings. We anticipate much pleasure ourselves from an occasional resort there, and hope it will prove an acceptable addition to the scanty sources of refined recreation with which our city is furnished. After my last visit to it, I sat down and wrote the following, which I send you:

"MUSINGS IN A PICTURE GALLERY.

"Hail Art! thou truest, best expression, by mortal mind, of the divine afflatus breathed into it by God. His highest manifesto is the human soul. O glorious decree of the Almighty, who ordained it to be an image, a reflection of Himself, the Infinite Artist! O! that we might be up to the very 'top of the bent' of the great possible thou hast marked out for us—that fixing our eye on Jesus we might, with simple faith, but deathless purpose, follow his leadings, even to the point of his true art-perfectness. Hush, the very air is redolent on every side with his pure presence. Holy and loving hearts have caught a glimpse of, and skillful hands have traced his hallowed face and form in various guise and attitude; and, like a benison, their influence steals over my spirit, attuning it to a sister-melody with his own. Let me follow him by aid of sacred art, through different steps of his great ministry.

"THE ANNUNCIATION.

"Pure and saintly Virgin! Meekly, but with strange joy, thou droopest thy head at the mysterious whisperings of the angel to thy still soul. Garner the secret in thy heart as joyful nutriment for the unborn, so that his inward life, through its inspiring power, may have more than recompense for the heaviness of his earthly destiny. Not alone to thee, O Mary! the tidings come of the great birth-right of thy child, but to every parent, if she would but heed the prophecy. Joy, joy to thee, young mother of humanity! Jesus has lived, sinless and sanctified—died, submissive and triumphant over the grim angel—enemy no longer—but a bright spirit opening the portals of a more transcendent heaven, of which earth, through him, is to be the clear and sunny pathway.

"MADONNA.

"Thy big hopes have laid thy tender one within thy arms, a messenger to us all, that we, as well as he, have a celestial parentage. 'Our Father who art in Heaven!' We will lisp this prayer with him in infancy, on the cool mountain, upon the dusty highway, within the temple's hallowed courts, by the sick couch and grave of our beloved dead, leaning over the symbols of thy sacrifice, in mortal agony of loneliness, and gasp our last sigh out, like thee, in the glad requiem—'It is finished.'

"JESUS IN THE CARPENTER'S SHOP.

"Gentle and faithful workfellow! Thus, thou beginnest thy great mission. Obedient to thy parents, doing the duty nearest thee, thus climbing step by step, life's ladder, many rounded, until each one surmounted, thou ascendest with a wing plumed by the lowliest labor, as well as the sublimest. Joseph and Mary! well may ye watch with questioning tenderness, his grave demeanor, his eye, heavy with thought and feeling; for within his childish form is the growing germ of a new spiritual creation. Has the world, so clamorous for his supremacy and worship, developed his God-thought and aim sublime, his kingdom of heaven on earth? O, let us cease our babblings, and like him work, work with mighty faith, so that God at this late day, more truly may be glorified through him in us.

"CHRIST BEARING HIS CROSS.

"Not alone toward Calvary, did he feel its weight, but all through life. It was made heavy by no self-inflicted ponderousness, but by lack of the world's sympathy and aid in working for its own weal. May we learn of thee, O Crucified! how to mount to heights sublime, by meekly bearing each ill of life; for the cross planted deep in time, will bloom eternally with flowers of hue divinest in the upper sunlight.

"JESUS IN AGONY.

"Lo! all thy might of soul and conquering power of genius, all thy transcendent knowledge and clear insight into the ways of God and the workings of man's nature, all thy vast hopes filled with the light descending on thee from thy Father's throne, and faith, which hitherto, hath lifted thee to dwell in the heaven of heavens, while walking meekly amidst thy brethren here below—one with them, yet not of them—now whelmed in the blackest night of anguish!

" 'O, help me, God!' he cries, 'in this my deepest soul's extremity! Shine with one single gleam of light from off thy great white throne, whence beams thy clear effulgence. Rend the vault above me, and reveal thy purposes. I have called thee Father, and have taught the dear and hallowed name to my disciples. Have I deceived myself? I have poured out my love, a sea filled from no earthly source, I deemed, upon the world's struggling, suffering, wearied and diseased ones, and all save a few, have passed me coldly by. I have given them of Thy truth, from a well whose depths no one but Thou canst sound; whose life would give them more than life, and they have scarce paused to sip even its sparkling foam. The healing that abides in my whole being, only requiring the gentlest touch of my person, freighted with life's elixir, to raise the dead and heal the corporal ills of man; the music of my voice, tuned by the choir above, to such potent melody, that the departing and sleeping reason stops and starts up again to soundness, and clothes the maniac in his right mind, are all forgotten and passed unheeded by. My mien, majestic in its serenity, has quelled the billowy waves of ocean and the more tidal surge of human passion. Yet the trifling world forgets all, and calls the noisy and rude destroyer mighty and great.

" 'And now, a fearful and lingering death frowns on me, near and sure. How short my ministry! Has the truth taken root, so that my death and time's allurements shall never wrest it from my own? Will the seed germinate and grow and become a tree for the healing of the nations? The poor, lost, darkened, wretched, God-forsaking world! Fain would I live to share with it my lot, my every blessing, vouchsafed by thee. O, who will nurture it as I have striven to nurture it? Who will brood over thee, my Salem, as I fain would, even as a hen foldeth her wing about her little ones? Even now, the fiat for thy doom unspeakable hath gone forth for thy stiff-neckedness and rejection of Him who came to save thee. O, my disciples! little ones of simple faith and trust in me, their Master, how will ye abide the shock to your worldly and selfish hopes? Even they will all forsake me, and leave me alone. O God! am I deceived? Have I in weak fanaticism and pride deemed myself one with Thee in counsel, in design and love of the Good, the True in the worlds without, and the universe within Thee and humanity, or am I alone, alone? O, help me God.'

"Lo, the heavens open, and brighten; winged angels with holy eyes, and lips which glow with living inspiration, come to strengthen and reassure him, and point beyond the Cross, to the Crown of bliss and everlasting life and glory which shall be his forevermore.

"So shall it be with every true and faithful soul, who, first of all things, follows with meek and reverend eye and patient, persevering step, the upward soaring of his glorified Redeemer, Saviour and Exemplar.

"MAGDALEN.

"Much loving! Well mayst thou plead that purity, like a crystal stream, should again flow through thy whole being. For thou hast had strength and courage breathed into thee by him who knew thy gentle, loving nature, and, that thy fall was through its weakly yielding to the deceiver's promised good, more than through love of sin. He knew the virtue, so slightly buried, that his potent—"Go, sin no more; thee I condemn not"—would be no license to continued evil. For the pitying love with which his words were freighted, would, like a fire, thrill through each member, nerving to strength and freedom from pleasure's bonds. Beautiful lesson, taught by Jesus' clear-eyed virtue! that if the bruised worm can heal itself, and live with double life through the cruel foot's rude marring, how much more shall the eternal soul recuperate, and, mayhap through much forgiveness, burn with intenser flame among the cherubim, who chant the song of the redeemed.

"MILTON.

"Poet, blind to the outward, to be doubly wakened to the realm within thee! thou boldest strange parley with spirits of the upper and lower deep. Thanks to thee for thy rapt soarings towards the Infinite spring of power and beauty, for thy Eden and its blissful pair! Thanks for thy human devil, too, showing that no creature of a good God can be wholly evil, but retain sparks of the divinity which it fell, hinting that even the direful principle itself may, in the end, pale and fade away in the effulgence of the future promised good and truth.

"DON QUIXOTE.

"Idealist, men call thee. So thou wert, yet in thy world of fancy, tinted with hues of rainbow and fragrant with perfumes, there is more simple truth than in the worldling's actual. That shall pass, like a scroll, away at the touch of the true fire, latent in Christ's religion, while the pure visions of poets and seers shall become the common life of mortals. Only let noble deeds keep even pace with high imaginings, and no day-dreams can equal the bliss God has in store for us, even while on earth.

"THE LAST OF HIS RACE.

"Son of the forest! pushed with thy dear ones even to the verge of ocean, yet unblenched standest in thy free and graceful majesty, relieved by tender thoughts of woods and prairies, and the graves of thy fathers alienated from thee by the white-man's grasp! Pour out thy soul to the wild ocean's roar! Rend the vault above thee with thy heart's cry of agony, and articulate shall roll to thee this prophecy from their profundity: 'Slowly, but surely the ages will render thee justice, now wrested from thee. Then shalt thou stand forth a double power to the wondering gaze of the short-sighted; for Israel's ten tribes shall be seen in thee, the lost but found again. And thy 'Great Spirit' shall show strange union with the 'One God' adored by them. Then, hand in hand, thou, in rude nature's panoply, he, in the patched and meagre garments of the olden past, shall together worship God in his Christ glorified, and the song of Bethlehem's angels shall echo through synagogue, and wood, and mountain to our remotest bounds.'

"THE WESTERN PIONEER.

"Stranger! how fares it with thee in the rude wilds where thou hast reared thy cabin? Game in abundance, more than sufficient to fill the sense of famine! But how does thy soul prosper in these vast wilds? Does God speak to thee so audibly from these majestic trees, and these blue skies, and the luxurious covering with which centuries have clothed earth's surface, that church, and school, and social bonds would be superfluous to thee? Or is that peril imminent of which the sage has spoken—barbarism the first danger of the emigrant? O! heed each softening influence which comes to thee through nature interpreted by the Gospel, and thou shalt be a second Providence to re-create a world of thriving beauty where erst the swamp and thick-leaved forest sent their miasma far and wide.

"Young artist! whose boyish handiwork in thee I recognize, let me, from thy picture cast thy horoscope, and deduce from it a kindly hint for thy direction. Strength, vivid conception of character, richness of tint, and wondrous skill for thy young years! What is lacking, say you? I answer not, but leave the response until a coming day, when hope whispers to me, that thy genius cultured, refined, deepened, and sanctified by the richest influences of earth and heaven, made thine through fidelity, shall raise thee to the acme of completed power in Art and its high uses. Then will this picture, which filled thy youthful eye, shrink to its due proportions to make room for thy chef-d'œuvre on which all eyes shall gaze with fullest satisfaction, as a rich trophy of a freeman's maturity of genius, revealing itself through a complete, sublime, harmonious soul. Shall this fruition be thine? The answer rests with thee.

"A CAST OF APOLLO.

"Model of manly beauty! might and majesty shine triumphant through thy kingly form! Intellect is seated on thy brow, disdain congealed about thy mouth. I greet thee, glorious one, flower of the ancient manhood! But with thy stature, strength, and grace, our century demands in its ideal an expression more humane, loving and holy, showing the march of the ages heavenward, proving our race no stupid dullards in the great art-school God opened for his children, with his Messiah for teacher, exemplar, and leader toward the arcanum of all Poetry, Beauty, and Perfection.

"DIANA.

"Fleet of foot, and chaste as snow-flake! Type of a womanhood replete with spirit, energy, health, and active service! Thy thought ne'er curdles in thy being, but flashes out through every pore, enlivening, dazzling, and commanding. Give to our slothful, inglorious fair ones, an impulse to new life and labor. Hint to them of the sweet luxury of woodland life, of the dewy morning breeze, of health and happiness gained through Nature's teachings, of wisdom, learned from birds and animals, and of high thought and feeling, breathed in with the moon's changes, and the constellation's twinkling beams. So, hand in hand, the Old and the New World, shall help to bring on the golden age, and open the spring where bubbles up eternally the perpetual life-elixir.

"VENUS DE MEDICI.

"Thou woman toy! beautiful, but trifling. Nature and alluring affectation both unite in thee. I will not condemn thy style of character. All creation has its playthings; the sky its meteors, the sea its foam, the meadows their will-o'-the-wisp, the plants their feathery seed-down, the animal tribe its kitten, and birds their magpies. Thou art man's joy, coquettish, pretty one! Only, like them, cover with some serious intent, thy loving, sportive levity; let purity and principle keep fast hold of thee, and thou, even as the more serious and earnest, shalt be a true minister to our good, and dancing along the thorny, narrow way of truth, shalt entice us onward, when a more serious mood might damp our ardor in life's battle.

"GLADIATOR.

"Bravo, stern pugilist! I take thee into my service, not to mar, by thy fierce blows, thy fellows, but to knock aside and pull down the evils of life at every turn. I'll remember thee, in time of need; stand ready to be my champion. Au revoir!

"VENUS OF MILO.

"The antipode to the gay trifler! Model of serious, earnest, deep-hearted womanhood! too meek to attract the superficial gazer, too unconscious in thy high thoughts' absorption, to care for unappreciating eyes. Well was it, that mother earth concealed her loved one through all the noisy centuries, in which glitter and show usurped the place of worth and beauty of soul. Even now, our thrice repeated gaze but half reveals thy priceless, hidden worth. Yet when conviction matures into the glad, admiring truth, never to be lost sight of, that a pure woman's soul, that flower of our humanity, is treasured in thee; no indication speaks in thee of vain consciousness of our admiration for the high standard thou hast attained to, of true womanhood. Be unto us an inspirer, Venus Victrix, and we will more than match thy true ascendency.

"NEGRO, WITH A GLASS OF WINE IN HIS HAND.

"I pledge thee, friend! Health and success to thee, in the New World, time's cycles, spiral-lined, bring both to thee and me! Peep with thy sharpened eye, Massa, thou canst not see what maggots fill our brains in these new days. Might shall be right but little longer. Prepare for thy reckoning, not call for his, thou tyrant! Read and ponder well the story of Pegasus, and the coarse and clouted drayman of the olden times, and apply it to our own, which acts an equal rôle on monstrous scale. We'll see what we shall see!

"And now we come to thee, thou waiting Sibyl, that thou mayst trace upon thy unwritten page the coming fortunes of our gallery.

(She writes, and lifts the scroll, and bids me read—this is its import.)

" 'Toil, poverty and solicitude have been the nurses of its infancy. But patience! the planets will in their course, revolve the horn of plenty, and pour it at its feet. She, the elder Patroness, shall joy in the fulfillment of her visions of future good through it to the city of her adoption. The sister band who nurture and mature its life, shall, through its loving and refining influence, be knit more closely to God, to excellence in thought, and word and deed, and learn from holy Art to chant the tune, which shall unite in loving harmony all who resort to it, as an oasis from the world's rude labors and contentions. Courage and faith be thine, and naught shall fail thee in its advancement.'

"I accept thy leaf of prophecy with grateful gladness. Come to its rescue, ye lovers of the Beautiful; lead onwards its renown, all ye who aim at the uprising of our city Queen, for the destiny of this, its handmaid, is linked with its progression.

"Artists! welcome all, within its precincts, who have caught a glimpse through the gift of genius within ye of the glorious behests of God in its bestowal. See ye through it what blessed fruits the renunciation it demands will yield you? If the vision divine hath dawned upon you, ye will cleanse your soul of all defilement, and make it a fitting chamber for the All Beautiful to trace his imagery upon its walls. Ye will heed your speech, that no rude babble mingle with His eloquent utterance through you. Ye will clear your breath that the pure spirit, as it hovers over our sanctum, may not start back aghast at its pollution. Ye will square your deeds, so that whatever your hand touches, shall start into a thing of beauty, and ravish all beholders. Let such be your high aim, and we shall learn of you how to add to our small stock of science in the Artistic, and we will repay the debt as best we may, either by words of cheer or glad exchange of Mammon's transitory lucre, with your immortal efforts."

"Is there any more?" said Zoë.

"No," said Mr. Lindsey, "but here is an article, published by one of her friends in the Herald of Freedom, which my wife sent me, to show the signs of the times. I will read it to you after dinner, if you are so disposed."

The party assented.

Young America drew his hand through his locks to hide a little perceptible embarrassment, then gave them a toss back from his forehead, saying:

"I reckon I haven't, after all, got quite the hang of the Ladies' Gallery. I'll just drop into it when I go home, and look over the pictures and casts again."

————

CHAPTER IX.

"So, round their Queen,
Move the triumphant Amazonian train,
In bright array, exulting, to the plain."

VIRGIL.

MR. LINDSEY reads to the group on shipboard, the following article, from the Herald of Freedom, written by a friend of his wife.

"In view of the severe labors of the gentlemen of the Queen City, necessarily preventing them from attending to the remedy of some of its existing evils, and bringing out its great capabilities for a pleasant and beautiful residence, the ladies of the same met together, to devise measures by which these objects could be effected. After all due preliminaries, Mrs. Lumkins being elected President pro tem., they proceeded to business. It is unnecessary to relate, even the very brief discussions which took place, so I will simply record the almost unanimous decisions of the meeting.

" 'Voted.—That a Committee of Ladies be chosen to sweep and thoroughly cleanse the streets of the city in every part, and adopt such measures as may seem best to them for its continued purification.

" 'Voted.—That money be cheerfully and abundantly raised to liquidate every church debt within its boundaries.

" 'Voted.—That the church edifices which are in need of repair shall either be completely re-arranged and beautified, or else pulled down, and new, stable, and fitting structures erected in their stead.

" 'Voted.—That all the public buildings in the process of erection shall be completed forthwith, with as honest and careful regard to Uncle Sam's money used for the purpose, as if it were the individual property of the builders.

" 'Voted.—That all the buildings on a certain well-known square, excepting the single one which by right belongs there, shall be pulled down and the rubbish removed for a Park to be arranged for the use of the city to whom it of right belongs.'

"There was some discussion upon this point, and it was at length decided, that as the quantity of material strewn around the neighborhood by the destruction of so many large establishments would put to serious inconvenience the ladies as they promenaded the street, it was better to decide that public opinion should demand the full value of the property to purchase some tract of woodland in the neighborhood of the city, which was to be immediately fenced and laid out in walks for the aforesaid purpose. With regard to the propriety of the measure there was no dissenting voice; justice to the defrauded and the eternal safety of its present holders demanded the sacrifice.

" 'Voted.—That a large tract of land in the Millcreek Valley be also purchased for a similar purpose.

" 'Voted.—To see that the poor, who demand charity during the coming winter, be provided with working implements, and directed by a committee of ladies to raise the aforesaid land to a proper level by means of soil carted on; and fenced, and beautified for the purpose.

" 'Voted.—That another committee of ladies be appointed to communicate with the surrounding country for the purpose of finding suitable homes for poor women and young girls, who may apply for charity to the Relief Union, thereby putting it in their power to gain an honorable independence, instead of ruinously relying on the charity of the community.

" 'Voted.—That a vigilance society be appointed for the purpose of protecting the property of strangers, especially emigrants, from the loss of their baggage by means of the carelessness or dishonesty of our public conveyances.

" 'Voted.—That methods be devised by which the disgusting effluvia, issuing from our pork establishments, soap, and lard manufactories, and limekilns, be completely remedied.

" 'Voted.—That large gas establishments be erected in the vicinity of the city, by which the coal now consumed in its crude state, may be converted into this element for the purpose not only of lighting, but heating manufactories, stores, public buildings, dwelling-houses, etc., etc., thereby removing, in a great measure, the nuisance of the smoky atmosphere from our midst.

" 'Voted.—That stationary engines be erected on the levee to draw up burdens from the steam, coal, and wood-boats, and rafts, and thus relieve the horses which are now shamefully abused by being overloaded.

" 'Voted.—That the present temperance law be fully carried into practice throughout the city, thus shielding fathers, husbands, brothers, and sons from a fruitful source of misery and guilt.

" 'Voted.—That as most of the men and many of the women of the city have become raving crazy by the prevalent miasma of worldliness, and as the ladies of the assembly have so much care and labor in consequence upon their hands, as to make it impossible for them to provide strait-jackets for the multitude, that each one of them should petition daily to our good Lord, that he have them in his holy care and keeping until their recovery. Then, if they choose to take their own work into their hands and do it efficiently and promptly, why, very well! But it has got to be done! and if they neglect it, we will immediately band ourselves into an army of Amazons, the fourth body of that name and character since the creation, and leave them to delve in their warehouses and banks sixteen hours per day, preparing for another crash, the consequence of their ignorance of the true laws of labor as well as those of commercial supply and demand of the world in which they exist.'

"These few items will give the spirit of the meeting. Many other reforms were decided upon, but we will defer the publication of them until a more convenient season.

"Two of the ladies proposed an adjourned meeting to reconsider these resolutions; but as both were under unfortunate antediluvian influences at home, and the resolutions otherwise were entirely unanimous, after politely listening to their objections, the vote was passed in the affirmative, and the meeting adjourned.

"The next morning the committee appointed met and arranged the different parts of the city into districts, with a view to its complete purification. The President made out the report of each one's duty in this wise:

" 'High up on Willow street there dwelleth one, brave in the cause of virtue, faithful in works of charity. She will, with her mighty besom, purge her precincts of all corruption, even as far as the home for orphans. Lead out that many-numbered band, ye foster mothers, each with her little spade, and make the air pure and healthful to nurture them to a higher type of womanhood than their progenitors, mayhap, have given them for inheritance.

" 'The portion of the city where dwelleth your Moderator, shall be given into the care of her Lottie, a child of but few summers, it is true, but so fond of rule and supervision that the humble precincts of her home but dwarf her energies. She and her numerous mates, which swarm around, will do well the work, while her gentle friend the Copyist, will hint to her when she oversteps a democratic governance, and note, with tasteful eye, if 'well done' shall be the sentence for her reward.

" 'All around the Park and farther east, shall be consigned to two who have been noted for an energy, quiet, but none the less effective. One is the sister-mother in a home with a sign of the 'infant angel' over its second story window. If the little one's wings chance to need brushing at the proper hour for labor, why, let the namesake of a most lovely damsel of olden time, who was not ashamed to draw the water for her father's herds, be her willing substitute. Who knows but she may find some generous stranger by the means, with jewels rare to adorn her neck and arms, and whisper to her of a home among her father's kinsfolk far away?

" 'She need not work alone, for one with an ever-smiling face and brilliant eye, but a few steps onwards, will leave her little one in the care of her young brothers and wield well the broom and shovel, and no lack of merry jokes and cheerful chat will be there to while away the hour of labor.

" 'A little south and farther west, she who believes in the enlargement of woman's sphere, will gladly, with her handmaiden, do the part allotted her in the regeneration of our city.

" 'Next comes a maid of order and decision, with too much pride to tolerate the refuse of the market near her door, so, though not so pleasant to arrange as 'the feast of reason and the flow of soul' in books, yet for the sake of duty and the weal of the community, she will adorn the highway instead.

" 'But where are Minna and Brenda? I met them not lang syne, their lower persons enveloped in purple clouds, with an inverted rainbow from the waist upward, their mourning for the sea-king defied. Will they not aid to sweep our streets? They may choose where it suits them best. It may be that some gallant (I know not) will aid them in their labor, ashamed to see the maidens thus employed. Let them thus try the chivalry of our Urban Knights.

" 'And there is a matron, a friend, it may be, of their own, magnificent and stately; will she not do it with a grace? Even the stars might be excused if they peeped from their hiding-places at unwonted hours, as with vailed face she sweeps along the streets. Was ever city-soil thus honored? I ween not.

" 'Mother judicious and gentle, who hath a sense of beauty beaming from thy soul! thy little ones so carefully trained may be intrusted to themselves an hour, whilst thou and thy companion-daughter, over whom a shadow hath fallen in her dew of youth, step forth with brush in hand to remove the slightest stigma from the stones about thy mansion.

" 'And one of many eyes and thoughts for others! if I knew not she shrank from notice of her deeds, I would say that, after a careful memory of the wishes of her friends by day, and pleasures artistic during the hours of evening, she might steal for half an hour to the pavements to renew the boulders' tints, and, perhaps, reset what are awry, so as to better please the eye by their arrangement.

" 'That young girl's school towards the setting sun must calisthenics practice. Here is a new kind with great improvements. Brave teacher, marshal them in order for the amusement, for such we will call it, and we will see who most doth honor herself and her instructors by her zeal in our behalf.

" 'On Damson-street there will be no lack of faithful laborers, though sorry I am that one is absent, whose growing purity and loveliness brooks not the least taint within the soul, or in its outward garments.

" 'But our Fidelité will do well her share, for she has had no lack of training or practice in the work of life. The wee brothers, a numerous band, will aid her, and thus repay the cares, by day and night, of those who hover over them, almost with the love of her who plumed her wings and mounted to the heavenly sphere, to make ready a mansion for her numerous brood hereafter.

" 'The Minstrels opposite, must sweep a broad space around them; so many seraphs, hereabouts, claim the young matrons' time and thoughts. Let them sing merrily as they go, cheering their own labor; and, at the same time, by their clear melody, hushing each troubled dream of the tender ones not used, as yet, to the lower world's rude ways.

" 'Two mothers I well wot of, farther on a little north, will, for the sake of the children's play-hours, safety and pleasure, make pure their neighborhood. No mountain will the labor be to them, but simply a thing by-and-by; a recreation in the intervals of their many household labors.

" 'We will excuse the matron the next below, for she has delved fully her share of work for the public weal in days gone by.

" 'Tread lightly by the mansion high above the street, enveloped by odor of honeysuckle, sweetbrier and roses, for the proprietress must be laid safely away, for a time, to rest, else she will fail when all who sorrow or sicken come to her for relief and aid. So we will lay our orders upon the young mother opposite, who, with her stalwart baby, will brighten up the highway, that it may reflect the sunshine all over her dwelling, making it cheerful, healthful, and beautiful.

" 'Opposite, on the lower street, is another who will descend to do her part; and thus we will go on and on, until we find the mother and daughter who will complete the remainder of the city cleaning, ay, and rejoice in the labor too. Good for the ladies! that those can be found among them who from no greed of pelf, but from artistic love, engage to keep our city pure and free from all defilement, the first condition to a healthful tone of public morals, and pure advancement in the soul's true life.' "

————

CHAPTER X.

"A Roland for your Oliver."—SHAKSPEARE.

"DELIVER me from strong-minded women, I say," said Young America; "it is the only one of the species I won't give my seat up to, in a crowd. There is nothing I like better than to wait upon a lady. But if they choose to be men, let them take their chance with men, and rough it as they do."

"I thought," said Hilda, "you were willing to let them take any position that they can well fill, and yet the moment they attempt to, you scorn their proceedings. Not that I care much about the subject; I have always acted pretty much as I choose, as yet, and I am sure I do not wish to sweep the city streets; I can enjoy myself much better in other ways"—and she turned to a sketch she was taking of a ship not very distant, with its sails fully set.

"There have always been foolish women who have insisted upon unsexing themselves," said Mr. Pierson; "and there always will be, I suppose. But a true woman understands that her sphere is in her home. Only there, does she shine out in her fullest grace and loveliness; and only in feminine pursuits can she be ever attractive to us."

"Which of course, is to be the chief end and aim of woman," said his sister Meta, a little sarcastically.

"There must be a higher order of young men than the majority of those on the stage, if you expect women to fill their life in administering to their happiness and delight. They may be very proper and worthy, but there is not that in them to awaken enthusiasm, or retain it if once excited."

"There is evidently a change coming over their fortunes," said Mr. Lindsey. "Feminine women, of course, we would have, but the signs of the times show that the sphere of pursuits included within the term feminine, is to be enlarged. As for their taking upon themselves those of an opposite character, if man wishes to prevent it, he must arouse to a greater and stronger style of action, and go forward himself in all noble enterprises. Until he does so, you may be sure there will be plenty of instances of women departing from their own sphere."

"Come, Hilda," said Stephenson, "let's play a game of backgammon."

They went apart a little and were soon deep, not so much in the game as in free and lively chat. Hilda was frank, social and excitable, and she put but little restraint upon herself in conversation with any one. Young America had sufficient respect for women in general, and her in particular, to shun any coarse vulgarity; yet he had no very deep conviction of the value of human nature in itself or as developed in a pure woman's soul. The instinct of its worth was lying in him in a state to be easily acted upon, but as yet Hilda had shown him only the surface of her character, and she was to him like a beautiful plaything, which every day he sought more and more to please himself with. She was enlivened and amused by his quaintness, and his extravagances kept her perpetually laughing. Added to these, there were constantly shining out from his character gleams of genius and taste, though as yet quite untrained. Then he was generous and frank, and she delighted more and more in his society. This was very evident to him, and it elated him so, that he never was so prodigal of his eccentricities as when tête-à-tête with her, or with Zoë sitting near, whom he liked to startle from her reverie and make her really, heartily laugh.

"What a lovely day it is!" said Hilda. "I never felt such a delicious air."

"Yes, I sent last evening to the clerk of the weather, on the top of the Rocky Mountains, for just such a day as this, and you see we've got it."

"Order a storm, do," said Hilda; "if you have such influence, I should like to see the ocean in its sublimity."

"Shouldn't dare to. Women change their minds so suddenly, that in sending it back, as I should have to, the contrary winds would make a tornado which would swamp us all." Hilda laughed. "It is your turn to move."

"What are you going to do, besides hunt and sketch, when you are in South America?"

"O, make love-knots of the boa-constrictors to send to the lady I like best!"

"I hope you will send her a good strong bureau, with a lock on it, to keep them in. What next?"

"Help the boys dam up the Amazon to carry on our grist-mill with!"

"I am afraid you won't sketch much," said Zoë, "if you attempt such mighty works as that. I have been depending upon seeing your portfolio when you come to Santa Cruz, as you say you will."

"The sketching I am going to set the sun to do, in regular new-fashioned style, not through your miserable daguerreotypes, and if the old fellow don't put in the warm colors good, why, I'll just call in a streak of lightning to help him."

"I read to-day in the newspaper, that a petrifaction was found somewhere, which had a distinct impression of the surrounding scenery upon it, probably given it by a flash of electricity."

"Lor, yes! that is no news. Didn't it take its lessons of me? The old governor never liked my pupil, for he was afraid of his hay-crop nicely packed away in the barn. So I used to go and give it to him in the very middle of the darkest thunder-cloud you ever saw."

"I should think there would have been a scarcity of light, when he got so deep in his lesson as to forget to flash," said Zoë.

"Yes, there was at first, until I caught Sirius, as he was whirling by, and stuck him into my inkstand, just as you would a tallow candle into a turnip, and he answered my purpose exactly, for I did not have to stop every three minutes to snuff him. By the way, Hilda, I've got an elegant wreath for your head, made out of a part of that same lightning streak, and you shall have it to wear at your next party. The piece that was left of it, I made into a walking-stick, and, as it was rather hot for my hand, I topped it off with a slice of one of the icebergs that wall up Polonia."

"Thank you!" said Hilda. "I shall create a sensation with my new head-dress, surely. But what have you got for Zoë?"

"I am waiting till we get into more southern latitudes, and then I am going to steal the Southern Cross. It won't be missed much, I reckon, and she may have that to wear round her neck."

"But she will want a chain to hang it on."

"I have got one all ready for her. As I was riding through Franconia Notch, among our White Mountains, you know, I just scooped up that crystal waterfall by the roadside, and I have got ever so many strings of beads made from it. She shall have one of them."

"I am afraid it would not become my dusky face," said Zoë. "My taste is like Mrs. Liebenhoff's in this respect. I like pearls. Have you any of them?"

"I shall have lots of them, if you will only wait six months. As I sailed down the Ohio, I ordered the shell-fish to make a cartload for me of different sizes, and they fairly jumped out of the water for joy at such a grand chance for making their fortunes; for I told them I would pay them just what they asked me, if they were all of the finest water."

"Where did you learn so much rhodomontade?" said Hilda. "I should think you had been born and bred in Jotunheim."

"Not I. Don't tell me of any of your one-horse concerns, up north among the Laplanders, where the frosts put a veto upon their growing knee-high to a toad!"

"The northern people of Europe are not all Lapps, I would have you to know," said Hilda, quite excited. "I defy you to present a nobler history and mythology than our northern people can."

"They will do well enough for old times, but they can't shake a stick at America."

"Can your America, that you boast so much of, the child of a day, as it were, compete with our time-honored Europe, think you?"

"Don't be angry, Hilda, your country is well enough, but I could crush it between my thumb and finger," said he snapping them very provokingly.

"Are objects always measured by size, pray? Then that great heap of charcoal, down in the hold, is worth more than the Kohinoor diamond."

"I go for quantity and quality too; haven't we liberty in America, while all Europe suffers a few upstarts to lead her by the nose? Do be reasonable and confess that ours is the greatest country the sun shines on. For what, pray, are all the people coming there for, from over the water, if it is not A number one, and no mistake?"

"They go as missionaries, to civilize and improve you, to-be-sure."

"That's it, is it? Queer missionaries some of them! At any-rate, missionaries or not, we give them a walking-ticket, now and then, and they go home a little wiser than they came. We are not going to have the prisons of Europe emptied upon our shores, I can tell you."

Zoë rose and walked away. She had been troubled before by Hilda's free discussions with Young America, which, more than once, had verged on ungentlemanliness on his part, and anger on hers, but she had said all that she thought necessary by way of check, and now she preferred leaving what she saw plainly would be a scene of excitement, and if Hilda chose to take a hint of her disapproval of her course from it, she might.

"You spoke of the liberty prevalent in your country," she said, as Zoë descended the gangway out of hearing. "Very consistent your America is in its proud proclamation of freedom, when there are three millions of slaves in it! What kind of a republic is that, I should like to know?"

"Just the best that can be. All who have a right to freedom, value it the more for seeing the niggers under the control they are and ought to be."

"That is just like the ancient Spartans, who made their slaves drunken that the youths might scorn intemperance. Pretty civilization that! Why, do you know that in Europe, in classing countries according to their advancement, we always designate those as barbarous who hold slaves?"

"Who cares for Europe, or her opinions? She could not exist a day without us to prop her up and take care of her starving thousands. We've no poor of our own, but old, worn-out Europe fills our almshouses bodily. If we were not as magnanimous as we are, we could knock her overboard any day. But we condescend to let her alone for the present, because she has a few workshops which we find convenient to draw from; but if she don't walk pretty straight in future, we'll squeeze her flat for a picture, put her into a frame, and hang her up in our big gallery at home. She would be quite suggestive to the artists, I reckon.

"As for the niggers, we have not made up our minds yet whether they are human or monkeys. It will be time enough to think of freeing them when we have settled that question. I, for one, think that they are in the best place they can be. So, hurrah for Jackson! Clear the track, go ahead! I say. There, Hilda, you're beat. Your last man is as dead as a door-nail. What do you say to that?"

Hilda said nothing but walked away, with head erected, angry at his last speech about the Africans, and resolving mentally to keep Mr. Stephenson at his distance in future, and went down to the saloon.

Zoë saw how it was, but said nothing. Hilda sat down, tapped her foot in an excited manner on the floor, brushed her curls hastily behind her ears, and looked at Zoë as if she wished her to speak to her.

"Braggart!" she at length exclaimed, "rude, ignorant! Zoë, do help me to hate that impertinent fellow. I'll never speak to him again."

Zoë laughed—"Until day after to-morrow, it may be!"

"No, never. He is the most inconsistent person I ever saw."

"I agree to it."

"I never could bear insolence, especially in one who calls himself a gentleman."

"Stephenson does not intend to be insolent. He is very free in his mode of speech to-be-sure, Hilda, especially with you, who are the same."

"I never shall be again. I've learned a lesson I shall not soon forget. He has deeply wounded my feelings."

"How?" said Zoë, looking alarmed. "He surely—"

"O no, no vulgarity—that you fear, of course. But the fact is, I never can like him again. He has no feeling. He is a cruel wretch."

"O no," said Zoë, "There you do him injustice. He is coarse, I allow, more in expression than in feeling, however, and is, what Mrs. Liebenhoff would call, imperfectly developed, therefore inconsistent. But he is fresh and natural, and of a very bright mind. But, dear, I am glad you have had this little quarrel, for you will be more cautious with him in future, shall you not?"

"Never fear me again, Zoë. I have made up my mind how to treat him henceforward."

Filled with this resolution to be very self-restrained, Hilda set about devising plans that all surrounding circumstances might strengthen her to be so. Mr. Stephenson had changed his original seat at the table, to be at her left hand. He must be removed from it.

"Zoë," said she, "I can't have George Stephenson near me any longer at table. There are several reasons why it is disagreeable. He both smokes and chews, and thus makes himself a perfect tobacco manufactory, and I cannot bear the effluvia therefrom;" and she turned up her pretty nose, a little retroussé at best, to quite an alarming extant.

Zoë smiled to herself, for, in a discussion the day before respecting these offensive habits, she had strongly expressed her aversion to them. Hilda, on the contrary, was quite lenient towards the cigar, and insisted, with some warmth, that she liked the scent of one of the best quality very much. Now, however, a great change had taken place in her constitution and tastes.

"Dr. Chichester is my evil genius in this way," said Zoë, "for you know I sit by him, and he chews, smokes a pipe, and takes snuff besides. I don't know how a man can expect to see the truth clearly, who shuts up his senses at so many avenues from the subtle influences of the universe about us, or utter it with any power, while he is so little under the restraining influence of God's beautiful physical laws. I never could rely on a man's virtue in any respect, who had so little control over his appetites as these customs evince."

"Let us ask the captain to remove their seats from our vicinity."

"No, that will never do. If we wish to be rid of them, we had better remove ours."

"No, indeed, not I; neither shall you, dear. Yes, I will have them banished from our vicinity, on the plea that they are nuisances. For they are so to the very point of disgust. I will go this moment to Captain Stedman."

No sooner said than done. She swept her commanding figure past Young America, as she went on her errand, giving him only a dignified inclination of the head which made him utter a very expressive whew! as she whirlwind-like sailed by him.

"Captain," said she, with her most fascinating manner, "you will oblige Miss Carlan and me very much, if you will provide other seats, than those near us, for the two American gentlemen, Dr. Chichester and Mr. Stephenson."

The captain opened his eyes, doubting that he heard aright.

"We are extremely incommoded by the effects of the disagreeable habits they indulge in. My friend has very delicate perceptions, and she is inclined to sea-sickness, and really it is but the part of common humanity to do so, she suffers so much from any offensive odor."

"I should be most happy to oblige you, Miss Strophel, and so far as it concerns the Dr. I can do so. For do you think, the Americans have so unreasonable a prejudice against the Africans, that he has but just now asked me to remove Miss Carlan from his side at the table on account of her color. He says that he never before sat at the table with a 'yaller gal,' that was the term he used, and he can abide her no longer."

"Did you consent to it?" said Hilda, towering up to her full height.

"No, surely not, Miss. No Englishman would do that. I hope that our common-sense and humanity are more than skin-deep. But this request of yours gives me an opportunity to comply with his wishes. I will give him a seat near Lieutenant Wilson, and you may be sure he shall know the reason of it too. A pretty good joke it is to have the tables turned on him so completely! But I really do not see how, with propriety, I can request Mr. Stephenson to change his," and he looked curiously at Hilda.

"I desire it very much," said she, turning half away from him to avoid his scrutiny. "The fact is, Mr. Stephenson is—somewhat rude in his manners and too free in his speech to make him an agreeable companion."

"Has he insulted you, madam?" said Capt. Stedman, with a very serious air, as if not only the honor of his ship, but of all Britain, were involved in the answer to his question.

"Yes—no, yes," said Hilda with the recollection of not only her own wrongs, but Zoë's also, to give point to her answer. "Yes, so far as the expression of most unwarrantable contempt for my country and the race to which my dearest friend belongs, can be called insult, he has, Capt. Stedman. If Mr. Stephenson is allowed to take his accustomed seat, I shall not come to the table."

"He shall be removed, Miss Strophel, depend upon it. Do you like to see beautiful shell-work?" said he; "If so I will show you a specimen."

She assented, and he led the way towards his state-room, Hilda called Zoë to share the pleasure with her for a beautiful toy—it was a basket, which he had purchased for his wife, made in the Bahamas of the small rice shells so abundant in the islands, ornamented with wreaths and flowers, with the bright-tinted mussel shells of various colors to give semblance to the roses, pinks, and lilies, imitated in their arrangement.

As soon as they had left him, the Captain went directly to Mr. Chichester, and informed him that he would show him to a seat at the approaching dinner-hour, by the side of the Lieutenant.

"Ay, ay, thank you," said he; "I am not used to keeping company with these Children of Ham, on such equal footing. If she knew her place, she wouldn't thrust herself where she isn't wanted, but would go to the kitchen, where she belongs. O! Captain Stedman, it is joining hands with the enemies of the Lord, to favor, as you English do, this accursed race—fairly fighting under the devil's banner. Has not Jehovah said, through the mouth of his servant, 'Cursed be Canaan, a servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren?' " And he drew down the corners of his mouth, and wrinkled up his forehead to the extreme limit of sanctimoniousness.

The Captain gave no direct answer to this Biblio-infidel speech, the offspring of a slavish, mistaken adherence to the dead-letter of Scripture, leaving out of sight, entirely, its free, humane, and life-giving spirit; but he hastened to undeceive him, with regard to the cause of his removal from Zoë's side.

"Miss Carlan has an aversion to the scent of tobacco, in all its forms, and her friend, Miss Strophel, has requested that she might be relieved from it. You will find the Lieutenant a very agreeable, cheerful person, and I hope you will enjoy your dinner in his company."

Mr. Chichester made no answer, but brought his cane down twice upon the deck, with great emphasis; relieved his feelings by a heavy half sigh and half groan, and walked away.

The Captain next went to Young America, with whom he was on familiar terms—the frank character of both parties having led to a rapid acquaintance.

"What's in the wind between you and Miss Strophel?" said he. "I've been thinking we might have a wedding on board the Forth, but instead of that, one of the parties sues for a divorce before the bans are celebrated. She requests me to find a seat for you away from her. She as much as told me, that you insulted her and her friend. What's the fact of the case?"

"I insult her! It is the last thing I intended to do. What! I insult a lady who joined the 'boys' in a regular dance round an old bonnet, away up among the Rocky mountains, a few years ago! I'm only too soft that way—a regular spooney. I'm rather porcupiny, I know—rough as a chesnut-burr in my speech, but it is only skin-deep. I thought Hilda understood me. The fact is, I haven't considered enough that she isn't the little sprite I used to hold on my knee, the year I spent in Denmark, among the great ones there. I must be more careful."

"But what about Miss Carlan? There the shoe pinched the hardest."

"Lor'! there's her strange fancy for that Quadroon, the only nigger I could ever tolerate. It is what I said about the darkies that's killed me dead as a musquito. Well, I shall have to be more prudent in future. What's my sentence? Not more than hanging, I hope!"

"Just as you choose to consider it. You must take your seat by the reverend Dr., at the Lieutenant's end of the table."

"Not I. I'll go on the opposite side from her, if you say so, but I am not quite ready yet to make my pillow of coals of fire and rolls of brimstone. I can't go that, any way you can fix it. Seeing it's Zoë, I'll not make a fuss about her color; I'll sit by her."

"You will have to do as I say, my friend. One of the troubles is, that you and the Dr. are too odoriferous with your tobacco, in its various forms, as you use it. So, you see your room is considered altogether better than your company."

"Whew! I was condescending to color a little too soon, wasn't I? There's where the shoe pinches, is it? Well, I must reform my habits. I've been promising my sister that I would, for the last ten years."

"Begin to-day, and set the Dr. a good example. Who knows but that you'll beat him at his own trade of saving souls. Try it. Sit by him, like a good fellow, and make no trouble about it."

"Well, if I ain't on the anxious seat now, I'm no born Buckeye. Who'd have thought she would have turned up for trumps, the ace of spades in that style? Heigh-ho! I'll keep my eye cocked that way at dinner-time, and see how much she means by all this maneuvering."

Zoë was sitting in Hilda's state-room, looking over a novel which Young America had lent her, and rendering her friend the little assistance she needed in attiring herself for dinner. The latter was kneeling by her trunk, taking out from it one package after another, to find something in its very lower strata. She was attracted from her book by an occasional exclamation of impatience from her companion.

"What are you looking for, dear? Can't I assist you?"

"No, thank you. I have found it at last, my jewel box; I want my diamond pin."

"On shipboard, Hilda! It is too showy for your plain chintz dress. They don't look pretty together."

"I can't help it, Zoë. It is diamond cut diamond with Young America now, and I am going to reinforce myself with external brightness. I'll see which is to carry the day, the old or the new world. Braggadocio! I imagine he thinks he is Jupiter Olympius, with his thunderbolts. Humph!"

"And Juno is going to get up an equipage by herself, instead of riding second to him in his car. Bravo! I think I would not put on that red string, darling."

"My camel's-hair scarf! the handsomest part of my wardrobe, you call by that ignominious name, Zoë! You are too provoking with your radicalism. See how soft it is! Even you can appreciate that, though you won't acknowledge that it is very beautiful."

"Yes, it is delightfully soft. Poor little victims to woman's vanity! I should like to know if it is true, as I have read, that it is made of the hair of the young camels, taken from them before their birth? If so, I think it is a great waste of creation to destroy so many useful animals as must be necessary for what is of no more intrinsic value."

"I know nothing about that. I only am cognizant of this fact, that Miss Ingemann gave it me when she was in one of her most queenly and magnificent moods, and I hope that it will act as an ægis to shield me from impertinence. Talking about his love-knots, with such a knowing look! Not so fast, sir!" and Hilda towered to her extremest longitude.

At dinner the arrangement was made agreeably to her wishes, and she delighted Mr. Sarran, who had felt quite neglected of late, by her playful sociability as he sat by her side. She avoided glancing towards Mr. Stephenson, and one might have thought he had dropped out of existence, she ignored him so completely, until the dessert was on the table. She and Mr. Sarran were preparing for a fillipeen, both in high spirits. At a pause in their merriment, she stole a glance towards a distant, diagonal corner of the table, and unfortunately encountered Stephenson's eyes, looking intently upon her from under his bent brow. What possessed him, who had an hour before resolved to be more reserved, respectful, and elegant, to carry his thumb and forefinger to his nose, thus stamping him as Young America still? She understood the symbol, for the day before he had taught her it among other peculiarities common to his countrymen. Her first impulse was to laugh, but she subdued the mirthful expression down to a contracted smile, and blushed, and rose and left the dining-saloon, passing him, on her way out, in rapid talk with Mr. Sarran.

————

CHAPTER XI.

"By how much unexpected, by so much
We must awake endeavor for defense;
For courage mounteth with occasion."

SHAKSPEARE

IT was proposed in the evening by Mr. Lindsey, that they should all get up at an early hour to see the sun rise the next morning.

Zoë was not a very early riser, but she was so desirous of being in season for this object, that she arose an hour before it was necessary. She called Hilda, and they were dressed and sitting in readiness to go on deck, when suddenly there was great commotion on board. Rapid steps went to and fro; the Captain's voice was heard, giving orders—"Reverse the engine, down with the sails, etc.," and then a violent resistance to the vessel's motion threw both Zoë and Hilda at their full length upon their berth, upon which they were seated.

Shrieks, screams, oaths, prayers, and passionate exclamations went up from each heart of this moving little world, whose crack of doom was sending dismay and terror to so many human bosoms; whose life-pulse was, for the time being, so closely blended with their own.

Zoë clasped her hands and bowed her head upon her breast. Hilda shrieked, then clung to her friend, crying, "Help me, Zoë! We are dying, drowning. O save me! save me!" and seemed as if she would go into convulsions.

Zoë threw her arms around her, and soothed her as she would an infant. "Hilda," said she, "do you remember when we were little girls, that you feared to walk in the streets one summer time, lest the mad dogs should bite you?"

"I remember."

"And I told you that no evil could ever come to us, which God did not oversee and turn to good, if we but put our trust in Him. Then let us wait his will. Put on your cloak and hood, dear, and I will go and see what is the matter."

She met Mr. Lindsey at the door.

"What has happened, sir?"

"The ship has struck upon a reef of rocks. There is no immediate danger for us, but we have got to leave it. The boats are being lowered. I will assist you and your friend."

Zoë gathered her scattered articles of clothing together, and put what she did not immediately want into her boxes, locked them, and did the same for Hilda, with the assistance which her trembling hands allowed her to render. They were just leaving the rooms, when she caught sight of the camel's hair scarf, hanging on a high nail. She seized it and hastily tied it round Hilda's neck. Mr. Lindsey took her arm to go out.

At that moment came young America, striding at full speed along the passage.

"Take my arm, Miss Hilda," said he. "I'll place you safely in the boat, and then return for your baggage. Never fear," said he, as he felt her trembling hand. "We'll weather this dry, sunshiny storm, and make better headway than ever, after it."

They met Mr. Sarran in a great fluster a moment afterwards. Viking as he was, he had not sufficient control of himself to be of much service to any one, and was even very glad of assistance by the strong arm of young America, to help him into the boat, which was launched alongside of the ship.

Poor little Mrs. Rose, the stewardess, a character in her way, compounded of gossip, green tea and weak good nature, whose life was made up of drudgery, complaining, and cordial-sipping combined, was frightened half out of her frail little wits. Mr. Stephenson took her up, as if she were a rag-baby, and placed her in haste, between the Lieutenant and the prim little Doctor of the ship, who each of them held an oar.

Emma and Meta Pierson were in despair at first, lest the boat should leave them. They had been beleaguering their brother's door for the last ten minutes, refusing the proffered assistance of Mr. Lindsey, the Captain and others, feeling, that if either were to be drowned, they would all go down together.

"Horace, pray hasten," said Emma; "we are lost if you do not."

"I am coming. No danger, dear, at all. I see from my port-hole just the condition of the ship. She will live for hours yet."

"Do come, Horace," said Meta. "The last boat is just on the point of leaving."

"The Captain won't dare to leave us behind. He is too much of a gentleman. Never fear."

"Horace, for pity's sake, don't stop to clean your nails, only come. Come, come," said Emma, giving a most energetic knock at the door.

It opened, and my gentleman walked out perfectly self-possessed, put an arm around each of his sisters, saying, "There is not the least cause for fear. I have been in greater danger than this many a time. What troubles you? You should not be so impatient."

"There is no place for us in this boat and the others have gone. See," said Emma.

"Mr. Pierson," said the Captain, "I have reserved places for you and your sisters. Walk this way, sir." And with his usual dignity and coolness, with a tender, protecting oversight of his pale, frightened sisters, he made his way to the seat assigned them—the very best on board.

"There!" said he as he sat down. "Don't you see that I was right? Be sure and never be too early if you want to fare well. Nothing provokes me like having people over-punctual. There is nothing gained by it."

His sisters said nothing, but thought that if they lost no external good there had been a great waste of feeling on their part while waiting for him. And the passengers, one and all, felt it to be an injustice that the whole company should suffer exposure and inconvenience for the delay of a single individual of their number.

"See how we feathers swim!" said Young America. "That's the way in this world. Head up, so as to look down upon it at an angle of forty-five degrees, and everybody runs to wait upon you and give you the best that's going. See him. How imperturbable he is. The first mark of a gentleman, Hilda, is never to wink or move a muscle, if the Angel Gabriel blows his trump of judgment right in your left ear. I wonder if I shall ever be up to the trick!"

They were a few rods distant from the ship, when the cook's waiter, a negro, whom they had taken on board at Mobile, appeared on the deck of the sinking craft and sent forth a piteous wail for help. He had been forgotten, and had overslept himself, and was, therefore, left behind.

"Put back," said the Captain.

"We are already full," said one of the officers, "the boat won't bear much more weight."

"There is room for him by me," said Mr. Lindsey. "Of course, put back for him."

"O do, do," said Zoë and Hilda.

"The Lord has been so gracious in saving so many lives," said Dr. Chichester, "that it may be he wishes to be glorified by the loss of this, his lowest servant. I really am afraid we shall sink," said he, clutching hold of the side of the boat and trembling with fear and the cold combined.

"Turn back, I say," said Young America, catching hold of a spare oar, thus giving the aid of his arm to hasten the boat's backward motion. "What kind of piety is that, I should like to know, that has a sharp eye to number one in this world and the next too!"

They found that the ship had drifted a little from its position, and that a heavy surf prevented the near approach of the boat. What was to be done now? The negro would not trust himself to the waves. Young America, quick as thought, tied a rope around his waist, put the other end into the seamen's hands, and jumped into the water. He struggled manfully a moment or two, ascended the vessel's side, seized the cook by the collar of his pea-jacket, and in a short time was on board again. Hurra! for Young America, went up from a dozen voices, and Hilda looked radiant with the pleasure and excitement of the deed. Stephenson, as he sat by her side in his wet garments, and noted the expression of her face, looked as if he should like a shipwreck every day, if it would bring him so much good luck as the present one had.

Mrs. Rose sat ensconsed in her nook by the side of Lieutenant Wilson, who, with a sudden movement of his arm, by accident, twitched the little woman's night-cap off, and a breeze just at that moment taking it, it went overboard. She cast a rueful glance, as she saw its exit, and put her hand to her head, whose locks were none of the thickest. "Let us give her one of the Dr.'s bandannas," said Stephenson, who sat directly behind him, and had a good view of his great coat-pocket, which was stuffed with tobacco, a bladder of snuff, three pipes, twice as many handkerchiefs of different colors, to meet the exigencies of his slavery to the weed; and last, but not least, a well worn Bible. The Dr. might not have heard him, but just at that moment he put his hand back to secure his property better by giving it a thrust farther into its depths. Hilda threw her pet scarf to her and had the satisfaction of seeing her cover her head and all of her face with it, excepting a narrow line about the width of the pupil of a cat's eye at high noon, and at last drop asleep under its comforting influence upon the Lieutenant's shoulder.

"Quashee, can't you move a bit from my neighborhood?" said Stephenson.

"Does he crowd you?" said Hilda.

"No, but I can't help it, Hilda. I have a born antipathy to niggers. The fact is, they are different from us every way."

"Hush!" said Hilda, "he will hear you, poor fellow. What a singular inconsistency you show! Here you have just saved his life, at the expense of your own, and now you dislike to have him near you."

"Another thing entirely! Who would not save a fellow-creature's life, when it was in danger? But I have a particular objection to have the monkey so near me"—and he put his handkerchief to his nose.

"Sit by me, friend," said Hilda, making way for him by her side, "There, that just balances this part of the boat.

Here is a thick shawl for you!" and she threw it ever him.

Stephenson looked rather envious at this preference, and thought how strangely different people's feelings were on opposite sides of the Atlantic; but, no doubt, accounted for it on the score of America being the nicest nation the sun ever shone on.

The ship proved to have been lost eight miles from Jamaica. The Captain had attempted a shorter course than the usual one, and had not made sufficient allowance for their drifting by the current. After an anxious night of watching, he had retired, for a brief hour, to his state-room. The sailors, while holystoning the deck, in the gray of the morning, were admiring the bright reflection of the moon's rays upon the waves, when, suddenly, they were appalled by the faint roar of breakers which they were approaching, whose white foam they had mistaken for the moonbeams. They did everything that men could do; but it was too late to arrest the vessel. She was carried upon the shoals. Hence this shipwreck. They soon reached the port with but little damage to health and comfort, but with many painful regrets for the destruction of the good ship Forth, and much sympathy for Captain Stedman's misfortune.

————

CHAPTER XII.

"I chatter over stony ways,
In little sharps and trebles,
I bubble into eddying bays,
I babble on the pebbles."—TENNYSON.

THE passengers of the Forth found another English ship bound to Barbadoes, lying at Kingston Harbor.

The Thames, Captain Arnold, was to sail in ten days, and the gentlemen went immediately to engage berths in her. The next afternoon they took carriages and rode through the town and surrounding country; and Mr. Pierson called on Santa Anna, who was then in the endurance of a sort of exile from his country, and lived in the vicinity of Kingston. He then rode out to a "Pen,"—the name given to the small country seats on the island—to see some old traveling acquaintances; and he brought an invitation to his sisters to visit them the next day, and meet the daughter and young wife of the hero of Mexican notoriety.

Mr. Lindsey and his friends found letters and papers from America, and in the evening the party gathered around a table to read them and discuss their contents.

"What news from Mrs. Lindsey?" said Emma. "Has she sent you any of her musings? or any more signs of the times?"

"Yes, both. Should you like to hear them?"

The four young ladies assented, and he read the following, after premising that his wife was spending the few days of Indian Summer at Tecumseh, that she might enjoy the fresh country air and the woods in their autumn glory.

"RAMBLE THROUGH THE RAVINE.

"One sunny day, when the air whispered of all things balmy and aromatic, and the trees were decked as if to receive visits from the seraphim, whose home is in the rainbow, so much do they love a brilliant ether, I found this note on waking from my morning dreams. It was written on a white stone, polished to smoothness, with ink of elderberry and pen of reed. As it could not be folded, the writing was shielded from prying eyes by a vail of whitest frost, which only needed ten minutes' sunshine to reveal to me the characters. It ran thus:

" 'DEAR FRIEND AND LOVER:

" 'Come to me, I pray you, and let us take a stroll together. We are twin souls—is not that the phrase? and I am longing for sympathy, and simple and true affection. I know you live in the great city, where the big Ohio now rolls with swelling pride, now contracts to most penurious width and volume; now floweth clear and transparent as a cheap window glass, now turbid and opaque as brown sugar and water, very, very sweet. Still I think you are not quite spoiled by such capricious company, and if you are a little dingy soulward, by communing with such a dubious companion, I, with my clear-eyed purity and transparency, will look into your being, and banish hence each vile intruding parasite. Come, O! come to

" 'Your loving

" 'BROOK.'

"Could I refuse? I knew you would not be jealous of such an innocent country beau, especially as you know him well, and love his playful, simple wiles as well as I. So I donned my hat and mantle, and went straight forth to meet and greet him.

"He looked so sweet and pure as I approached him, that I forgot my bashful modesty, and without blushing, said, 'Good morning, owny, dony Brooklet! If it were proper, I would say how much I love you. You are my delight, my pride and admiration, and next summer—'

" 'What of next summer, say you?' Brooklet answered. 'I know of no next summer. I asked you to come and see me now. The present is our time. Do not be naughty for me to scold you. O! do, for once, live in the present. Both of us may be asleep next summer—who knows? That comes of your city living. But cheer up; see how merrily, merrily I flow, now here, now there, now babbling with a wreathed bough, now curling round a mossy stone, and anon finding a broader space to make myself a mirror for the sky, and clouds, and trees to gaze into. Are they not pretty? I love them as well as you. Therefore, I drink in their beauty and receive tokens of their affection. And to-morrow morning early, mark me well, and you will see my incense of praise rising to heaven as thanks to the generous Giver of all this love and beauty, and for making me a portion of his living, fluent universe.'

" 'O Brooklet! you are beautiful and good, and I will learn a lesson from you; and now, though I love to wander with you, yet by your bounty, you have made these trees so grand and stately, and they are so eloquent that I must leave you briefly and commune with them. Hark, Brooklet! hear them chant a strange, low tune, solemn, yet musical and calmly rapturous, high up among their branches.

" 'This is the Air.'

" 'Slowly wave we high above thee,
From poisonous breaths of earth we save thee,
From scorching sun's rays, close we guard ye,
O! spare us, and we'll farther teach thee.
Love us, and we'll ever shade ye,
And point unerring to heaven beyond ye.'

" 'And this is the contralto of the firm trunk and ribbed bark.'

" 'No song, however joyous, can long endure,
Unless it has its inspiration and support
From consort with the rude but healthful work-day world.
This sphere of common uses, men deem me,
And yet, it is precisely as they choose to call me.
I care not—but this I know, that God has made
Each cell and vein and artery of my wondrous being
Instinct with poetry. The music of the leaves and waving branches,
And the sweet flowerets are but the subtle essence,
The perfume of my power and strength; the bright-winged angels,
To scatter far and wide, the germ of my continued life.'

" 'Listen to the Bass, resounding low and strong, among the roots extending under ground.'

" 'Strange joy have I, lonely and dark, unheeded by
The vain and busy world in my retreat.
On Mother Nature, generous and loving, I repose, and she feeds
Me with her choicest elements, guarding my tender fibres
From remotest harm; strengthening me to bear
The sunlight and the fierce whirlwinds of the upper world;
And when she deems me fit, she opens her bosom,
And reveals to Man my origin,
And her careful hand-and-heart-work, by the
Strong, massive shoot, which, tall and broad,
And high, towers upward toward the sky.
Do men deserve me, God's own, his beautiful and majestic?
If so, let them show it, by squaring their work
To suitable harmony with Nature's holy artifice.

" 'But, Brooklet! what high walls are these,
On either side? I thought you were free.
I would not be thus imprisoned.'

" 'Imprisoned,' say you, 'don't you see me run,
Obedient to no servile law, only restrained
By God's own sense of beauty, and that suits me.
They are fortifications, dullard, to conceal
Me from careless, unappreciating eyes,
And by surprise to heighten the delight,
Of those, my real friends, who chance.
Or take the pains to find me in my retreat.
You might have known they were not
Intended for my jail. Don't you see
How prettily I have decked them
With mosses rare, and vines and climbers,
All in festoons, to say nothing of the shrubs
Which love to grow and bloom upon their summits,
Just to please me? You must be brighter
Next time you criticise so smartly.'

" 'Brooklet! I am very much ashamed.
Forgive me.'

" 'Come to me, come to me,' Brooklet says. 'See my mosaic. Was any so lovely, ever? Shall I give you my receipt for it? I just heap up the pebbles underneath me, and flow a little roughly over them, the bright sun shining down to my depth, meantime, and any quantity, of different size and shape and hue are made to order. But I've got a patent for them, so if you think to steal them and carry home, with which to adorn yourself, why, you will be disappointed; for only on Brooklet can they be seen to be the jewels that they are. Look your fill on me. It is just as well, and better, if you would but think so—than stingily to crave them for your own, to lock up in your cabinet, two-thirds and a half of the time. That is no proper way. Brooklet does not do so, O, fie!

" 'And now ascend the little hill,' my Brooklet says, 'and see what you can see.'

" 'O Brooklet! a broad and spacious natural park, with trees just numerous enough to shade, without gathering unhealthful damp and gloom. No underbrush to impede my walk, and tear my robe, and green grass plenty, for a carpet. Yes, and for these gentle kine's food too. They eat it as if they liked it. Patient animals! I love to look into your soft, dark eyes. I know there is more beneath their surface, than the soulless wot of. They tell me of something very strange, yet what I love to ponder. We'll keep it a secret, won't we, Mooley cow, my childhood's rustic friend?

" 'And there's the mansion of the rich proprietor. It has been better in its day, and might be prettier now. Nathless it has an easy, insouciant look I don't dislike, as if the lady resident fled from her city fine one, to enjoy more the woods and thee, O Brook! than dazzling walls and the world's foolish, costly gear. But there's a noble barn, showing that a careful farmer is he, who tills his lands, reaping a harvest a hundred-fold, I ween, more than he sows. Here is an orchard, and a vineyard, too. They say, he is very generous with their bountiful products. I wish he would send me some. Ask him, Brooklet! next time you see him. And hint to him in your most winning way, my sweet one, that he to whom God has intrusted this rich domain as his time-steward, should be liberal to every righteous cause—religion, morals, learning, art, science, and every good of life, as the bounteous lands he calls his own are to his easy culture. Now I think of it, I had rather you would send the message to him through his gentle lady, whose rapt soul dreams of perfection attained by mortals, even on earth. She will persuade him if he needs, I know.'

" 'O cease your prosing,' Brooklet says, 'and come to me here. Did you ever see a spring so powerful, clear, and health-inspiriting as this one? I call it mine in my presumption.'

" 'O where did you get it, Brooklet?'

" 'Its source is in—the Andes, I dare say. It trickles down their sides, joining the river's flow, making strange meandering on its way, gathering the subtle essence of salts and minerals, down deep, deep in the earth, and when well concocted by the great doctress. Nature, wells up with a strong flow—you would not believe me—much less remember—how many gallons in a minute, just for you, ungrateful men and women that you are!'

" 'Why ungrateful, Brooklet? My best friend likes it well. So should I, only I have such a deep and living well of exhilarating gas within me, that when I quaff of yours, my head aches with the excess. Excuse me, but really it is quite unnecessary for me to put you to so low a use. I love to look upon you, and I gain more than corporeal life thereby, even a stronger, freer swell to my soul's flight. Pray, call me not ungrateful.'

" 'Well, not you then, but your brothers and sisters, who swallow so many of the concentrated drugs found in earth's laboratory, that they sicken and die before their hour, or drag out a painful existence, worse than death a thousand times. Now, if they were wise, they would come and drink of me and my many sister-springs in the broad, ample range of this, your country. Tell them so, my friend.'

" 'They will not believe me, simple country Brook! They would dub me Quack, or, if they came to quaff you, it would only be after their physic's dose—by way of dessert at best. The Doctor tells them that the great pills or the little ones have much more potency. I have warned them over and over again to be more chary of him. It is of no use. Please excuse me.'

" 'I had some friends and followers once,' poor Brooklet murmured, 'whose trail stretched through these woods—sons of the forest, dear to me as my own music in the hush of even. But alas! alas! they are gone, all gone! The white man swept them far away beyond my ken, and ever since there has been a note of sadness in my song which I cannot away with. Even though learning sits in yonder halls, and science, whose steady working just below in its hydraulic symbol, speaks of increasing purity and intelligence in my servitors, thus cheering my onward way, yet shall I never, never flow on in my old-time gladsomeness, until the red men's children come hither, as of yore their fathers did, and share with equal lot with those the white man's blessings, and range these woods with free but milder spirit than before, befitting the Christian sons of nature. O bring them back to me and I will love and bless you evermore!'

" 'I will, my Brooklet! Already are their eyes, with longing, turned to thee, and wait but for the white man's tender—the silver coin—to accumulate, through industry or just due's payment, to bring their sons, a goodly band, to be nurtured by your side. O sigh not so, my Brooklet! Not many moons shall wane before Tecumseh's children, brothers and sisters both, a goodly band, shall drink of thee as erst their father did. They will instruct the people in thy virtues, and then we shall return to nature's laws of health, from which we have so far departed.'

" 'Turn to the right, walk through the park,' the Brooklet leaps and answers, 'and I will show you how glad I am at the thought of greeting my own again.'

" 'Yes, friend, I know the way. Ah, now I hear thee, laughing louder and more gayly than e'er before. I will descend the bank and lean against this tree, planted on purpose for those who love thee, to lean against and look their fill into thy depths. Bravo! Brooklet, thou art glad and joyous indeed. Thy cascade need never hide itself for shame, for here it bounds and leaps and pours and soars. It dashes and sprays and shines and foams. It runs and drops and trickles and glistens. It shakes and waves and ripples and bubbles. It winds and glides and murmurs and gurgles. What can Niagara more?

" 'If I might only say next summer, (now you are so good-natured you will not chide me,) I will get behind thy beady vail, and Naiad-like, see how the world appears through thee. But now thou art too chilly in thy embrace, for the first kiss of autumn hath left its mark upon thee. He is very generous in his gifts, raining them down, day after day, till we, if not ye, are almost weary of his profusion; yet, for all that, I love and admire you at this distance better than nearer.

" 'And now, my Brooklet Waterfall! I wish to follow thy windings, even as far as the Pool, a long, long stroll for these degenerate days of dainty exercise; and I am afraid to trust thy guidance, lest thou shouldst play me a trick, thou art so full of glee and frolic. I'll even ask this lad the shortest way, for if you wander here, and there, and everywhere, we'll separate for a time, only to meet again more happy than before.

" 'He says I cannot cross you, and knows but very little about you any way, it seems to me. So don't be vain, as if you were the universe in a rill, and everybody lived by you. You are only my own, my darling Brook, just big enough, and none too little, so we'll go together as far as best we may.

" 'And so you widen and widen, naughty, provoking Brooklet! that I need not cross you. We'll see. I'm neither sugar nor salt to melt at your moist and softening touch, so I'll e'en doff my hose and shoon, and wade across. I'm not at all afraid of you, but those sharp stones! And then, by chance, some gazer may pass by. Well, my foot is not so ugly, I would have you know—rather large I own—but only proportioned to my size; and I've not squeezed it to make believe it smaller, therefore I am not ashamed of it—and pointed stones to walk on are not so bad, if you but get accustomed to them. So here am I in for it. I defy you, saucy Brooklet!

" 'I see your drift. You are going to lead me many a mile, with your numerous crooks and turns, so I'll just cut across, and meet you by-and-by. Au revoir!'

"And now begin my troubles. Here is a fence to climb. Never mind, they called me 'Tom-boy' when a child, and now I reap the advantage. I'm over with a bound, my frock a little torn, but I'm a woman. I can at least mend that, without departing from my sphere. Another fence! and now a ditch, and next a field new plowed! I've crossed them all with little damage; but dear, dear me! what pricks me so? Ten thousand pointed pins sticking to me and my wardrobe in the shape of vegetable vermin—to give them a genteel name. 'Beggar's lice,' we called them in our school-days. This host of Lilliputians is the worst trial after all. I verily fear they will pin my clothes so close about me, that a new edition of the pillar of salt will be advertised in the Morning Journal; I being condemned to savory bondage for looking forward too much, instead of backwards, as was the sin of the olden matron.

I'll hie to the welcome wood near by, and rid me of my enemies, which, like the smaller trials of life, are harder to bear than great ones. I'll sit in this cool shade; no, I'm very warm, and the sudden change will give me fever and ague. Well, here is a sunny spot! no, that will cause the typhoid, bilious or intermittent! O dear, dear, dear! what weaklings we have got to be, that if Nature, kind and loving, blows with her cool, refreshing breath upon us, we straightway tremble like cowards; or smile upon us cordially, and we melt into tenuity! I'll not be a slave to miasma or any evil demon which would mar me and make me useless in this busy world. I've made a compact with creation, and am so docile to her behests, that she strengthens me with her best spirit's might, which can withstand foes that a faithful oversight cannot remove.

"Now freed from my Lazzaroni, I'll join my Brook again. But where is he? Hark! I think I hear him. No, it is the music of the trees. What harmony they have caught from each other, showing they should live together; for if one is absent the other always languishes.

" 'Now I see; here you are again, and another waterfall! Am I so near the Pool as this evinces? I fear not, so I'll take the highway to it another day. I'm rather crestfallen, I own, at my disgraceful failure to find a rural path to it. But this cascade! not quite so pretty as the first, is it my Brook? yet very fair.'

"I see a mansion near. I'll cross the stone bridge just above, and reconnoitre, and then go home by the beaten path. What! two proprietors hereabouts, with such surroundings grand!

"O foolish me! It is the very, very same, and I've but wandered round and round to the same point again. 'I beg ten thousand pardons, Waterfall! I really thought you your twin brother, only not quite so pretty; but the other side of your face is a little different, you know, from this one—and then I'm weary, and objects are less bright in consequence. Besides, a shadow has fallen over my spirit, such as does sometimes in looking towards the future, and shall I say it, Brooklet? I will to you, though I'm almost ashamed to, for I am no child. I woke this morning weeping, and my eyes are rather dim, of course. Do others cry as well as I, I wonder?'

" 'Yes,' Brooklet answers, 'Nature is very willful, and if she is dammed and dyked by day, so as to keep the tide from rising too far and overflowing, why, she has her own way at night, I ween, when all are sleeping. I would, if I were she.'

" 'And now we'll return the upland way, in sight and hearing of you, my Brooklet, and meet the lowland path at the foot of the 'Camel's Back.' We've crossed the little stream, but which way now! I'm puzzled. This way I'll go. No, the other. No, it will lead me wrong. What shall I do? 'Look at the sun,' I hear you say, my husband. Well, there is the sun in the heavens, and my abiding place on the earth, but how to put that and that together, I know not, so as to be an aid to me! O dear! I shall be late to dinner, and I, an authoress, pride myself upon being punctual like common people! My hostess, if she were not kindly and were not one herself, would say: 'What trouble a novelist is! Deliver me from such!' Well, she will have a subject for her next story, 'The Woman in the Wood;' and I will make a compact with the bluejays, as all the robins have flown, to bury me with leaves, for, Brooklet! you have completely hemmed me in, and where to go, I know not. So, of course, nothing is left for me but to lie down and die by thee. I'm glad my fate is nothing worse.'

"Nonsense! here is the path, all plain as daylight, I know some trick has been played upon me. The earth must have whirled around four times as often as it ought, and hence my blunder. I'll arrange my fluttered garments. But here is wheel-grease on my clean, gingham frock. Ten minutes ago it was fresh and pure. Yes, here is the proof of mischief. Phœbus, whirling by, spattered me from his car. We came too near him in our whirligig. I wonder, and I wonder.

"Two students from yon college overtake me. One says to the other: 'The earth in going round the sun makes a loop each day.' 'No, not each day, but once in twenty-nine. Yes, once it makes a loop, each nine and twenty days.'

"Ah! that explains it all. I happened in the loop, in the smallest part, and hence my loss of way, and hence the wheel-grease from Phœbus' car. Good for the college! I'll always live by one, and when I lose the points of compass, its philosophy will enlighten me of the cause.

" 'And now, my loving Brooklet! before we part, I'll tell you a little secret. My life began like yours, all poesy and dreams. But this is a rude world, and I was taught by lessons drear that a foundation, stable and strong, must underlie them, so I turned aside to con the teachings of the work-day world. I've learned them pretty well by heart, and now I return to poesy and dreams again, and who knows but I shall make them actual? So, Brooklet! ne'er forget me, for many a stroll we'll have together in the sunny, playday future. Adieu, for a day, adieu.' "

"And now for the 'signs of the times,' " said Hilda.

"It is too late this evening," said Mr. Lindsey, "but to-morrow I will read them."

On the arrival of the party at the hotel, Mr. Chichester had proposed that they should immediately unite in thanksgiving to God for their wonderful preservation from the dangers of the deep. But there was bustle and excitement and work on every side, so it was declined for the present by the others of the party. He thought it a sad sign of an ungodly temper and ungrateful spirit.

Now, however, when all was quiet and they were about to separate, Mr. Lindsey, with earnest words and spirit, expressed their gratitude to God for his loving care, and felt the truth anew that his watchful Providence never sleeps but is on every side, caring for us no less on the fearful deep, with but a plank between us and death, than now in the still room, with the refreshing land-breeze passing through it, seaward, to return the tribute the ocean rendered it by day.

————

CHAPTER XIII.

"Is it possible, disdain should die, while she hath such meet food to feed it, as Signior Benedick?"—SHAKSPEARE.

THE next evening Mr. Lindsey, Zoë, Hilda, and Mr. Stephenson, sitting together around the center-table in their hotel, strewn with their books, newspapers and sewing, looking quite as if at home. Mr. Pierson and his sisters had gone to fulfill their appointment with their friends in the country.

"Please give us those 'signs of the times' you promised us," said Hilda to Mr. Lindsey.

"O yes," said Zoë, "America is the future of this world for the next age, I plainly see. Do give them to us."

He assented, and read the following chapter purporting to be from the publication of Mrs. Pumpkin, entitled—

"TOO MUCH MAN.

"I read in yesterday's Journal, that 'a great mob of women' were assailing the printing presses, eager to have their works published. Now, thought I, is my time. I don't like to be conspicuous, and among a crowd a modest woman, who likes nothing so well as to do her work quietly in her own way, won't be painfully noticeable. So I'll begin to write this very afternoon.

"My little niece, Hattie, says that she is going to make haste and learn to write, because she has a story on her mind which she wishes to have published. I should be mortified to have her outstrip me in literature; therefore I will delay no longer.

"Now, I am not going to write an elegant, stiff, prosy book, according to the rules of the critics, but an easy, conversational, and very frank one. Not that I am going to be a second Mrs. Nickleby and tell all about myself and the world that I know of, and a little more, but as far as I go I shall tell the truth. It is to have pictures, and as the substance of it is to be so very plain, I have concluded to put a little touch of the genteel to it by giving it a French name out of compliment to my illustrator, who is from France. So I call it 'La Vérité.' I mean to have the same publisher that my friend Mrs. Applebutter has. She sent him her work when she had completed ten chapters out of the forty, and he agreed to publish it. Is there another in the United States, in these cowardly and money-making times, that would dare to make such an engagement with a woman? For you know it is very doubtful if it is bright enough to be salable, or, if that is the case, she might take a notion to bring him into it in some odd, freakish way or other. I shall be just as likely to as not, so he had better think twice before he dares to make a bargain with me.

"Mrs. Applebutter has an idea that her Tale is going to have a great run, and she chose him, because he is the white horse, spoken of in Revelation, 'which goes forth conquering and to conquer.' There was a time in the summer, when she had some doubts about it, he appeared so slow and sleepy, but deary me, she says he pricks up his ears, and goes at such a gallop now, that it is as much as she can do to keep up with him. However, these were her words—'I should like to see the printers that can set types as fast as I can write. And, my dear Mrs. Pumpkin, there is one thing I am very set about, if he does not use the fortune my Tale brings him, in fulfilling the prediction concerning him in the sixth chapter of Revelation, second verse, by doing the great work which he is so well fitted for, he gets no more of my books to publish. Not that I am going to watch and pry into his affairs; I have enough else to do, but just to see that he sets out on the right track, and then he may go to Polonia, if he pleases, only I hope he won't jump over into the big pond, nor get stuck to an iceberg up there, as then he would be of no more use hereabouts. For I am not going to be like some men, I know of, who have their property invested in a big or a little grog-shop, and then, if anybody gets murdered in it, or the drunkard's wife and children lead a life of misery, for the husband buying whisky in it, he waves his hand very genteel-like, and says, 'Very sad, very bad, Mrs. Applebutter!' and then sips his tea and laughs and chats as if nothing had happened. No, no, my property goes for better uses than such-like ways.'

"What could I but say, on hearing this last remark. Too much man, altogether! too much man!

"For one of the pictures, I shall introduce the printing-press which helps me to give 'La Vérité' to the public. It has a very knowing look, as it is waited upon by a company of young women, who like nothing better than by its means to proclaim their own freedom. The friendly proprietor does not frown a particle, as it winks first at one young girl, and then at another. His inward voice has told him, that it is none too early for that same publication, so though he may keep his broad brim upright in the midst of the general ogling, yet he will say, 'If thee has a call to preach this gospel, Mrs. Pumpkin, thee may as well do it in this way, as to use thy earthly organs of speech in the Quarterly Meeting. Thee must follow thy own light.' This God-speed is no more than I should expect of a sect which has always been a friend to humanity, whether found in the poor Indian, the Black Niggers, or the White ones. Not too much man there!

"If I happen to like any of my lady friends better than my dead ones, I shall work them over into characters for my bantling. Indeed I should like to have them all perpetuated in this way, (for of course they will be if I put them in my book,) but that would keep me writing too long. So for those that I omit I shall put a caret thus, ^ which means that they are all understood. I think they will make a very pretty bouquet, arranged tastefully as I shall try to have them. For a bouquet-holder, I shall take a stalk, very seedy at the end, (as I have a great fancy for symbols,) which means the men, and that brings me to the subject of my first chapter, 'Too much man!'

"There are four great divisions of the human family at the present time. They are the Feminines, which include the very choicest portion of both sexes of all races, conditions, classes and color. Over against these are the Ani-MALS, or animated evils, just as you please to call them. Then there are the Big-eyes, which mean those who are always on the look-out for something wonderful, and who, at the present day, are mastered by the exciting subjects of Magnetism, Spiritualism, Psychology, etc., etc. The fourth, are the Commons, who have not much character or principles of any kind, but are moulded by the influences around them.

"But I forget; I must go back a little, to be up to the times.

"I know it is the fashion for authoresses to have their faces for the frontispiece of their books; but I am not handsome enough for that, so I shall put my heroine there instead. But supposing the public were curious to know how I look, I will gratify them so far as to say—so much like all the rest of the world, that nobody knows us apart, so I have to tell people when I speak to them, which is which.

"Autobiographies too, are all the vogue, therefore I will just give a hasty sketch of my parentage and life.

"I am of the good old stock of the Puritans, and that is what makes me so free and easy, for you well know that they liked liberty. My remote ancestors, my father, my husband and most of my relations are ministers, and that, of course, is why I am so very lively. I was born in the country, which makes me feel very much at home in the city. I am just old enough to feel very young, tall enough not to suffer myself to be trampled upon, and not too tall to cause inconvenient expense for my wardrobe in the present lean condition of Mr. Pumpkin's purse.

"I am a Unitarian Christian in religion, which makes me a believer in all the faiths which ever were preached. I am a Know Nothing in politics, which is the reason that I know something of what most interests 'Sam' in these days, and especially gives me a great liking for foreigners.

"I have no children, so, having all creation to select from, I have a very large family.

"With regard to my attainments, having led a very industrious life, much of it in the kitchen, I am, of course, mistress of considerable literature. I have no accomplishments, so I am quite an artist. I always like to read prose better than rhyme, therefore, I am a poetess. I have never had much time to observe and study nature, so I am a passionate lover of it and know a good many of her secrets; and though I am as sinful as my neighbors, I am very religious.

"With regard to whether I have genius or not, that will depend upon how it is defined. In a conversation with some of my friends the other evening, I said, 'A genius is one who knows what is what, and who is who, and how to do a thing or two.' A gentleman, who sat by, said it was one who knows 'beans;' another said it was he whose 'mother knows he is out' and yet is not anxious lest he should get into trouble. While an elderly lady said, that, in her opinion, 'it was one who knows enough to come in when it rains.'

"According to either of these definitions, I am a genius, but I prefer my own, as being the most comprehensive.

"I think that I have enlightened the Public sufficiently about myself, so I will resume my subject. If I think of any other items I will just throw them into the body of the chapter.

"Some people of my acquaintance don't like to be classed with the Feminines, though they belong in that category. I should like to know which of the other classes suits them better. I suppose they would say: 'We wish to be manly.' But what is the great difference, pray, between manly and womanly, when the mal part of the animal is struck out? What are they going to occupy themselves about, if they are not feminine, or where are they going to live? There are to be no more wars, and fighting and murder make the great distinction between them now. America is a woman, and Religion is a woman, and the Arts and Sciences are women, and Literature is a woman. Ceres, which means farming, is a woman; Pomona, which means horticulture, is a woman; and Flora is a woman.

" 'Politics and law,' they say, 'will be left to them.' Not so fast. There is to be no more diplomacy, and log-rolling, and litigation. Justice and Truth are going to carry the day, and they are women, so if they don't consent to be Feminines, they are in danger of being nowhere and nothing at all in the new times coming. But the trouble is they won't believe in the advent of the new era. They are too proud to look at the signs of the times, and be strong in faith. They had rather reason and argue of the future from the past. Too much man! too much man!

"Then the Big-eyes are always running after shadows, such as twin-soulships, affinities, harmonies, and the like. The provoking part of it is, however, that each one has so many psychological mates. If they would remain true to their sublime theory and faithful to the twin-soul, one would have more trust in them. But no! they find any quantity here and there at the corners of the streets, sitting at the windows, or in the newspapers—just as it happens. Or perhaps they pride themselves so much upon their big-eyes that they get to think they are the Olympian Jove and can look down any obstacle in their way to their twin-soul, and so pick and choose as they please. But you may be sure they do it by night instead of in broad daylight, and are very careful to have no spectators, especially ladies. They, perhaps, know how sharp they are to detect them, though they may be as sly as Moses and treacherous as Judas. Dear, dear me! When will even Big-eyes, that call themselves wise, get developed to the point of seeing that there is one greater than themselves, who puts a veto upon such proceedings, or if they choose to break his laws, why they suffer the consequences, that is all. Destruction is not their forte. The ani-MALS can beat them at that, any time. To re-create is what they were born for. Matters will come right in eternity, if not in time, if they will but be patient and faithful.

"My theory about twin soul-ships and true marriages is this: That if you are married, your husband or your wife, whichever it may be, is your psychological complement, unless the single cause which our Saviour speaks of, divides you. God had a hand in joining you for wise reasons of his own. It is for you to find out what they are, and get and return all the good from the marriage which was intended. If he sees that it would be better for either of you to be separated, why He will arrange it. But for Heaven's sake be quiet and do your duty where Providence has placed you, and give up this disgusting cant, and these sickening, corrupting meetings and circles, and billings and cooings which disgrace yourselves, bring scandal upon the whole subject of spiritual affinities, (in which there is a great truth no doubt,) and lead to moral and physical death and destruction.

"No, no. Big-eyes are not to be relied upon. Magnetism and Spiritualism have got the better of them—instead of their handling the subjects as great souls should—notwithstanding all their mighty power and wisdom, and advancement before the age. They wield the most subtle and life-inspiring element in creation, as if it were a plaything given them to make themselves and others fools with. Not so did Jesus; and until they learn of him the high purposes for which it was given them, and catch from his transcendent superiority the spirit with which he wielded it, they will remain no better than poor, blundering, blind, destructive infidels and idiots. That is a piece of my mind upon the subject!

"If I were a young lady, and Big-eyes offered himself to me, I would make a very safe compact with him, else I should expect if he got tired of me, and saw another 'twin-soul' in the distance he liked better, he would stare at me with all his might, and I should find myself in my winding-sheet before my time. Supposing, for instance, he had chosen to divide the happiness he expected from me into eight portions, and he had got five-eighths, and chose to take for granted that the other three-eighths would be withheld, he would want no better excuse to put me aside for another 'complement.'

"So I advise my young friends to make a very sharp bargain—something like this: Of course it is taken for granted that half of all the property and privileges of the partnership, as much of his society as she likes, and power to do just as she pleases, in everything, is to be hers. Leave the discussion of those points to the ani-MALS. He has got beyond that.

"But after he has promised an unheard-of amount of love and devotion, just say to him 'there is one little proof more that I require of you before I consent to marry you.'

" 'What is it? It is yours, it is yours!'

" 'Wait a bit,' I say; 'don't be rash!'

" 'What is it? I shall only be too happy! O! tell me what it is?'

" 'To die when I do!'

"He pauses and seems taken aback.

" 'To die when I do!'

" 'But really, how can I promise that?'

" 'TO DIE WHEN I DO!'

"He stands deep in thought for a moment, and then exclaims joyfully: 'Yes, yes, I promise to die when you do! Yes, I die when you do; be mine, be mine!' Then very coolly get up, and bowing to him over your left shoulder, leave the room, saying 'I'll think about it.' It is the only safe way, you may depend upon it, of treating the men, and especially Big-eyes. For if you should say, Yes, and perhaps give him your daguerreotype to save him from shooting himself, or you, and make him good-natured, then ten to one he does not go away and forget it after all. That is the way with the men. Too much man!

"Now for the ani-MALS! I hardly know where to begin upon them, they need so many truths to set them right, that it will require more than 'La Vérité' to do it. But I think their cowardice is their most glaring fault, so I'll commence with that.

"In their wars they show this vice on a gigantic scale. They are afraid they shan't have territory enough, or they are afraid they shan't be thought the bravest people under the sun, or they are afraid they shall lose their kingship, or presidentship, or what not; or they are afraid the people will get to think themselves as good as they are, so they go to war like the ani-MALS they are. Too much man, man, man!

"So in politics, instead of being fair and open as if they were doing something right and proper and for their country's good, they get together in little companies here and there and are mighty secret about their movements. Diplomacy and pipe-laying, and lobbying and caucusing, and what not they call it, but it is just nothing but cowardice. And if a word is said about the women or the negroes and other sensible, innocent but courageous people joining them and putting in a word, why they absolutely turn pale and shake with fear, or grow angry or abusive, which is a certain sign of cowardice. Too much man, I say, too much man!

"Then as to all the moral questions of the day, they are a set of arrant cowards. If slavery is spoken about, or preached about, or written about, or voted about, or labored about, dear me! they are half frightened out of their wits. They are afraid the negroes will rise and kill them, though they have had proof upon proof that they never do so when their freedom is given them; so out of fear they keep them in bondage. They are afraid they shall come to poverty, or shan't be thought so grand if they do them the simple justice to free them, so they tighten their chains. They are afraid the Union will split to pieces if they even talk upon the subject, and try to devise methods to set this matter right. They are afraid they shan't make so much money if anything is said upon it, so they are either mum, or furious, or are so frightened that they hide themselves behind any screen they can find. Then there is the ever-present fear of losing office if they speak upon this subject. That haunts them by night and day; afraid of losing their fat places, or afraid of not getting one at the next election.

"There is one thing I wish they had more wholesome fear of, and that is of breaking the commandments of God and of not doing their duty to Him, to their fellow-men, and their own souls. A thousand times too much man!

"And that brings me to their fear of being too religious. They are afraid the world will talk and laugh about them if they do their whole duty to their Maker and themselves. They are afraid they can't be so free to be wicked as they would like to be. They are afraid they shall lose popularity by the means; and they are afraid they shall have duties imposed upon them which they don't like to perform. They are afraid religion is a humbug, and are afraid they shall be taken in by it; and especially they are afraid it is a more costly luxury than they can afford to indulge in. Perhaps they make up their minds, years ago, they will keep free from the duties imposed by religion, so are afraid they shall not be thought consistent, or still farther, they are afraid of narrowness and sectarianism, if they come out and confess themselves Christians—'Too much man, too much man!'

"Even in literature the ani-MALS want to carry the day and to frighten the publishers into their notions. Nobody must write more than a dollar and quarter story-book, especially if it happens to please the feminines. Pretty well too. Supposing when I invited company I should go round and say, you must not talk but just five cents worth, and you ten cents worth, and you twenty cents worth. But if one of the ani-MALS was present I should say, you may talk a dollar's worth! what sense or propriety would there be in that? or will the world ever come right if you always give up to the ani-MALS?

"So they try to manage me, but they don't find it so easy. No, no, Mrs. Pumpkin is not a ripe, round pumpkin for nothing. She is going to have her say and tell it in her own globular way, and not feel when her work is done as a watchmaker would if he had left the main-spring out. Nobody need to buy her book if they don't want it. Young America need not buy it, if he likes his tobacco and confectionary better. The colored people need not buy it, if they like the first cauliflowers and new potatoes, and earliest green peas, and prettiest flowers better. The women need not buy it, if they like rich lace and moire antique cloaks better than they do 'La Vérité.' Just as they please. This is a free country. But it is my book and I am going to write it in my own way. A dollar and a quarter! Pray where is the other seventy-five cents? Is it a luck-penny, for pity's sake, that they hug it so close? 'Too much man!'

"Then with their corporations of all sorts, that squeeze the souls out of people and leave them like my bouquet-holder, very seedy at the end.

"They are going to control lecturers, are they? And they get up a great rumpus if they don't speak just when, and where, and how, and for how much they want them to. What is the world coming to, with its suspicions, and its falsehoods, and its denunciation, and its tyranny? Next thing, they will be for putting a regulator upon the chestnuts and walnuts, and especially the beechnuts, for dropping in the autumn where they see fit, and especially if they happen to light down in a little different way from what they have been accustomed to have them. They can't be made to believe but that there is mischief and wickedness in any other mode than their own, though beechnuts have never been in the state's-prison for crime, that I know of. O, most righteous and pious community! Too much man!

"A still farther instance of the cowardice of the ani-MALS is in committing suicide so often. If they lose their property, or their good-name, or their friends, or their health, or some favorite indulgences, or, indeed, if their wills are crossed in any way by a good Providence, who knows just what is best for them and deals with them accordingly, why, ten to one they do not throw away the life given them for the highest purposes. Too much man, too much man!

"But the great fear of all which makes the ani-MALS miserable, is of the women getting their rights. They begin to be afraid of them at home and abroad, by night and by day, on sea and on land, in public and in private, in office, in business, and, indeed, it would be difficult to say where they are not in fear of them!

"Now what is it that makes the ani-MALS, who have heretofore thought that all the bravery of the world was in their keeping, so timid? It really makes me uncomfortable, it draws upon my sympathies quite too much to be surrounded by so many trembling, frightened people. Do they want to be petted like a little baby, thus? 'They shan't be hurt, no, they shan't! The niggers shan't kill them, no, no; the women shan't hurt them, indeed they shan't! Hush, hush!' Why can't they be courageous, like a woman. She sees no bugbears in the way. Slavery is too delicate a subject to think of, much less to speak of plainly, is it? A man is a fool, is he, if he gets up in a religious convention and speaks about three millions of slaves in a mild, Christian way? Again I ask, what are the men afraid of? I don't hear of any crack of doom, nor the Union falling to pieces if I cry freedom to the very top of my voice, when I take my walk in the woods, and if it were civil and in good taste I would just as soon do it in the largest assembly in the land. Is not this a free country? Too much man, man, man!

"Mr. Pumpkin is a great trial to some people for being a friend to niggers and women. It is very natural he should be, seeing his wife is a woman and a nigger too. Yes, I say, she is a white nigger. That is what makes her know so much about their character and peculiar wants. But that is thought no sufficient reason for his speaking a good word for them; so one slams the door at him, another shakes his head at him, another begs him not to say freedom in his sermons, while another stays at home from church altogether, lest he should hear the word slavery. Again I say, what are they afraid of? To-be-sure Mr. Pumpkin has committed one most incendiary deed. He has given one woman her freedom, and that is Mrs. Pumpkin, and there is no knowing what may come of it! If she should take a fancy to dye her face black and crisp her hair to rectify a mistake of nature, seeing she is a nigger, he would only say: 'Is that judicious, my dear? However, I wish you to act out your own genius.'

"One great cause of the ani-MALS being such a nuisance in society, is their intemperance. Whisky, or wine, or brandy, or beer must supply to them the liveliness which the Feminines draw from the elements, from heaven, and from their own souls. I don't believe there is one of them that gets so heady as some friends of mine, I could name, do on these pure spirits, their native-born intoxication. And they never rave and murder their families like the ani-MALS, either. Too much man, man, man!

"If any Feminine young lady receives an offer of marriage from an ani-MAL, I should advise her to conduct towards him something like this. You know the feminines have beautiful wings which set off their beauty to great advantage. They live in the third heaven, and one of their favorite employments, is to paint and draw the lovely scenes and faces around them, while the ani-MALS crawl and stumble down on the ground. Well, an ani-MAL looks up, and says, 'Will you come down and marry me?'

" 'No, certainly not. If you wish for me, you must let your wings grow, and fly up here.'

"Perhaps he is not inclined to take the trouble, but hopes to succeed in his suit in some other way; so he says, 'I have got plenty of money, and you shall have some of it.'

" 'No,' (she keeps on drawing.)

" 'I have got a fine house and furniture.'

" 'No, I say.'

" 'I have got a carriage and horses, and servants in livery, and my coat of arms is blazoned in full sight on the coach—Shanghai triumphant! Humble-Bee couchant!'

" 'A very significant and startling device in these days,' says the lady aside. 'The common breed of fowls did not crow loud enough to proclaim the ignominy of Humbugs, so some individual of the species imported these monsters, whose harsh voices will finish the business of putting them down, in a way they little thought of. But I'll not forget to call out, No no!'

" 'I have got a library, full of Book covers, which look just as well as books, and I'll give the key into your charge, so that nobody need to find out the sham.'

" 'No, no, no!'

"He offers more inducements of the same sort, and protests that he loves her dearly, but she knows well enough, it is not of the quality to suit her, so she takes no more notice of him, which is the best way to cure a grown-up or a small child of teazing, and at length he leaves her.

" 'Dear, dear!' she says, 'what a trouble! now I have got to paint this over again. What a daub! All the fault of that Ani-MAL! when will the species ever get wings and fly up into the third heaven, where we enjoy ourselves so much.' Too much men, five million times too much men!

"Now, I dare-say my book will be criticised by all the aforesaid classes of men. One will be sure to pick out all the little faults in it the first thing, and then very carelessly finish by sayings 'the spirit is very good, and it answers the purpose for which it was written.' Another will say, 'pretty well, but a lady in our place is going to write one, which will be the best that ever was.' Another, 'I think this writer was afraid of being dull and prosy some time, so she made a great effort not to be. If she had put a few more goody words in it, it would be better, and in one instance she travesties Scripture very sacrilegiously, which I am shocked at.' Another, 'a very remarkable style! a-hem!' Still another, 'Pretty good! Some folks can do more with an old jackknife than others can with a whole chest of tools. I like her better, after all, than one of your vinegar-faced Presbyterians. I'll shake hands with her,'—over the fence. Indeed, very condescending isn't he? And supposing I shouldn't give him a chance? I have never wanted for agreeable acquaintances. Too much men!

"I suppose some people will say, that I have stolen their thunder and lightning, and have not given credit for it. Once for all then, wherever they see and hear it, let them consider themselves quoted. I don't pretend to be a genius, sent on a mission express from God's great white throne, with a parchment all ready folded in my hand, a pen stuck in my ear, and a bottle of ink hung by my side, but I have grown up little by little, by seizing hold of and assimilating to myself odds and ends of all creation, men, women and children included, so that I am a living walking Olla-podrida, with a touch of glory from the heavens above, which everybody might have, if they would go the right way to work to get it. And for these reasons, most people will like something in me and my composition.

"Other women will come up, who will write better than I do, but for this I shall always be remembered as having given old lady Grundy the go-by, as no one ever has before. Not that I would be disrespectful to her. She is a great deal better than no guide, and until the world has made up its mind to take Jesus for its master, and God for its Almighty Sovereign, it had better keep fast hold of her apron strings, else heaven save us from the men, men, MEN!

"I haven't said anything about the Commons, because there was nothing to say, as they have no settled opinions or principles of their own. When they get some, I'll attend to them. I think this chapter is nearly long enough. They begin to be afraid already, I shall make two volumes of my book, so that it won't sell, I have tried my best to make whom it most concerns at this present time believe, that I am going to be famous, but it is no go. I suppose it is because I am only a common, healthy, happy woman, and not like the pictures one sees in vignettes, of Religion, clasping her hands and making wry faces as if it was dreadfully hard, disagreeable work to be pious and thankful to the best and most beautiful Being in the universe; or of Literature, very tall and pale, with her head hanging one side in an affected way, holding out a book; or Art, with her brushes and pallet, looking up at the sky as if she was quite too nice to do anything in this lower sphere. All my trouble comes from my liking my liberty so well and choosing to be mistress of them, instead of letting them govern me. Heigh-ho! However, my publisher has got so far as to say—'Seeing it is you, Mrs. Pumpkin, I will issue two thousand copies of 'La Vérité,' for the first edition. Two thousand copies! Why don't he say two hundred thousand, so as to have them ready when they are wanted! Well, I shall have this consolation. When he is in a dreadful hurry-skurry, ordering paper, and answering everybody's demand of—'Have you got 'La Vérité' on hand?' 'Where is 'La Vérité?' '  'Will you send on five thousand copies of 'La Vérité?' '  then I can say—'I told you so.' I think the most prudent way will be to wait till 'La Vérité' is fairly out before I venture to say here, Too much men! And so ends my first chapter."

"That is the way the women are allowed to write in your country, is it?" said Hilda. "What a funny woman Mrs. Pumpkin must be!"

"I expect they are concocting a second declaration of Independence with the niggers to back them. Whew! Strong-minded, too strong-minded! A fellow would like to know under which category he is to be classed in these new feminine times. Whew!" and Young America took a cigar from his pocket, but looking at Hilda, and seeing that she had her eye upon it, he put it back, and asked her to play a game of backgammon with him.

————

CHAPTER XIV.

"All thoughts, all passions, all delights,
Whatever stirs this mortal frame,
All are but ministers of love,
And feed his sacred flame."—COLERIDGE.

HILDA had become completely reconciled to Young America by his bravery and disinterestedness and tender care of her in the shipwreck, so she put very little restraint upon herself in her intercourse with him. Not that she would have allowed, even if he had, in the remotest degree, approached any indelicate liberties, but she was, as Mr. Pierson denominated her, a hoyden in this, her first release from the somewhat rigid restraints of a punctilious, conventional boarding-school teacher. One half hour she would be joking and prattling with Mr. Sarran, and delighting him by her half-filial, half-coquettish way of receiving his caresses; the next, she would be listening with great gusto, to some of Mr. Stephenson's extravaganzas of speech, and impelling him on to his utmost limits of hyperbole, by competing with him in his own favorite sphere. He never was jealous of the favors she bestowed on her elder admirer, because in his more expressive than elegant phraseology he considered him a goney, and thought that if, like an old worn-out war-horse as he was, he liked to have the little colt cavortin round him, he wouldn't be the one to put the bits in her mouth and rein her in. Give her full tether and she would come back the quicker. The fact was, he was in love with Hilda as far as he was capable of being, while his own deepest feelings had never been stirred by the revelation of the rich wealth of soul, which really lay under her sunny, glittering surface. He had appropriated her to himself about as coolly as he would a brilliant tulip, or cloth-of-gold rose, by offering the tender of a trifling coin. In Hilda, on the contrary, love was but just stepping his tiny, graceful foot on the threshold, and laying his thrilling hand on the portal of her fresh, maiden being. If ever, for a moment, the joyous, unreflecting present gave way to a dreamy glance towards marriage, it was made rapturous through a sentiment which spoke to her of more than all the poetry she had ever yet read or conceived of, and of the pure hope of an added elevation of character, through the sympathy and companionship of another's gifted spirit, impossible to be attained by her own solitary efforts. Therefore she was as little prepared for the rude shock she received one morning, as Stephenson was at the effect of his really honest expression of preference for her.

Zoë was sitting at her writing, when Hilda rushed in and threw herself on the bed, in an agony of tears and sobs, and broken exclamations.

"What is the matter, darling!"

No answer—but a fresh flood of grief.

"O! Zoë, Zoë! what shall I do? what shall I do? O, oh!"

"What is the matter? you frighten me. What has happened?" said she, folding her arms about her.

"O Zoë! if I had only minded you! Fool, fool that I am! what shall I do?"

Zoë caught a glimpse of the truth. "George Stephenson has said something to trouble you, has he not?"

Another gush of woe.

"He can't have dared to be disrespectful to you! If he has, I will appeal to Mr. Lindsey at once."

"No, no, don't; and if you will never breathe it as long as you live in this world or the next, I'll tell you"—and in a voice scarcely above a whisper, she said: "He asked me to marry him!" And Hilda lifted up her voice and wept.

Zoë must be pardoned if she could not avoid laughing, though she controlled her risibles as much as possible.

"Is it so very bad?" said she. "I thought young ladies liked to have offers, and to be married"—and her own eye, for a moment, grew dreamy, and her voice faltered a little.

"But he asked with very much the tone and look, and manner that he did one of the ship's apprentices, the other day, to swap jack-knives with him!" And she burst out afresh, and covered her face in her pillow.

Zoë laughed again to herself, then said:

"Dear Hilda, I fear I have done wrong, in not trying to restrain you more; but I knew, as you said, that your heart was innocent, and I could not bear to dampen your joy. Then I have been happier than ever before myself, in what I hope is the fulfillment of the purpose of God's giving me my life, and my spirit has danced in harmony with yours, my own, as it never has in the past. It has seemed to me that He was at last granting me a childhood and youth in one; for, O Hilda! I am old, old, measured as the harsh world does not stop to measure in its superficial graduation. So how could I mark so sharply, if your gladness was leading you into danger, when it was but the expression of my deep, still happiness, which has for its source no earthly fountain, and looks for its fruition towards no sea of this life, however blue and bright-tinted it may be? But now I see that even in our most harmless pleasures and purest delights, there must be some reserve, else we overleap the bounds which our Father kindly plants around us. He does it, that when we chafe and grow weary of restraint, we may look yearningly upward to the blue sky, whose unfathomable depths speak to us of the infinity of bliss beyond it. That shall be ours, if we meekly garner up some of our brightness and wealth of feeling and affection, as seed to sow in the glorious future, where no rude foot shall tread, or rough tornado bend low its flowering."

"Dear Zoë, you always do me good, and I will stay with you, and then I shall be safe. I have books to read, which my friends gave me, and there is my drawing and embroidery; and I want to translate the beautiful German poem Mrs. Liebenhoff gave me, into English, so I will seat myself by this window. I won't hinder you in your work."

Mr. Lindsey was sitting with Emma and Meta Pierson in the parlor, and listening to their account of their visit to Mr. and Mrs. Morgan. They described their impressions of Jamaica life from the glimpse which they had of it, and spoke warmly of the hospitality shown them, and admiringly of the beauty of the youthful wife of Santa Anna.

"She has the true Southern eye," said Meta; "so full of liquid softness, and yet there is a latent fire slumbering in its depths."

"Have you observed Miss Carlan's eye?" said Mr. Lindsey.

"Not particularly," said Emma.

"I wish you would do so; it is so full of soul, which is such a characteristic of the African face."

"The negroes look very much alike to me," said Emma. "I never used to be able to distinguish them; now I can, of course, since I have seen so many. Miss Carlan is not a negress, to be sure, but she has a decided taint of her race in her person."

"She seems a very quiet, thoughtful little body," said Meta.

"And for those qualities you would like her," said Mr. Lindsey. "You do not appreciate those two young persons, nor Young America either!"

He paused, and then said, "I wish it were the custom to have broader views and sympathies. Society, in that case, would get along much better than it does now."

"I don't pretend to be broad, I own," said Meta. "I have my dear friends and associates, and try to think kindly of the world in general. Then, as an artistic pleasure, I like to go where I can see the common people, for human nature in them acts out so spontaneously, and if there is a remarkable specimen of any kind, I take it for a study, and often get a great deal of amusement from it."

"Yes, and if you would do yourself justice, you would say, too, 'I find satisfaction in sharing the bounties of my lot with the poor and suffering among them;' and I know you always gain the love of those you benefit. But you don't like to give up the distinctive, artificial lines which divide the different classes."

"No, I can't say that I do."

"In our own country," said Emma, "there are very few barriers dividing different circles. I do not believe in the common distinctions, caused by wealth or rank, but in order to prevent the encroachment of the vulgar and ill-bred, one must by the power of character, of attainments, and of good manners, keep intruders at a distance."

"I agree most heartily to your idea in part. One has a right, indeed, it is a spontaneous instinct of a pure and delicate nature, to fold itself up, as it were, within its natural defenses so as to guard itself from defilement. But herein we disagree. You would make the reserve, the exclusion of yourselves the rule of life, whereas I, having more knowledge of, more confidence in, and more hope of human nature would make it the exception. I think one great means of raising the tone of life in our country is by a more general mingling of the different classes."

"I do not. In our village, for instance, society has always been excellent, you know. It is because a few high-toned individuals have not only by their positive beneficial influence helped to make it so, but also because they have had the force of character sufficient to exclude inferior elements."

"I disagree with you. Sects, cliques, and coteries impoverish and vulgarize individual life and character no less than the community at large, physically, intellectually, morally, and spiritually. Human nature is very grasping and capricious in its demands. If denied the legitimate connections which God allows it, by making of one blood all the nations and families of the earth, you will see the bitter fruit, in the end, in the shriveled, deformed, diseased body, the narrow, one-sided, mean type of mind, and still meaner, more debased and groveling character."

"How can one endure the disgust, consequent upon mingling with the masses on any terms of equality? Society would lose all its charms for me," said Emma.

"On the contrary, a broad outlook upon humanity, generous sympathies, a quick discernment of the best points of character, an ever-living appreciation of the worth of our common nature, would enlarge your enjoyment beyond bounds. For you would then discover how much pure gold was on every side of you, which you have looked upon as only the baser metals. Life would have new charms for you. It would give you a sense of freedom you have never felt, and afford you an insight into the happiness and extended sympathies of the glorified state.

"I have a letter from Mrs. Lindsey here, and I will read an extract from it to the point, if you would like."

"By all means," said both of them.

It was as follows:

"As I look upon and mingle in social life in this new city, more and more do I feel the necessity of the saving power of the religion of Jesus being presented with greater vividness and in a more thrilling way than any man, however high-toned and faithful, can present it. The masculine element, by which I mean coarse might, physical and intellectual strength, has all along so predominated, that men hardly begin to be cognizant of the mighty spiritual power which underlies Christianity. It has ever been taken for granted by the majority that these were always to hold precedence. But it is not so. The feminine element, whose crowning glory is spirituality, is only gathering its gentle forces, to dissipate gradually, like the morning sun's rays, the threatening clouds which now envelop the country. If men do not see this, if they do not read the signs of the new times, already dawning through its subtle power, they would believe it no more, if it were proclaimed from the housetops. But there are women who know this, who have waded through their 'slough of despond,' have greeted with trembling fear and joy the flickering light upon its borders, and have found it no will-o'-the-wisp. They have trodden for long, to their own comprehension, on an equal footing with men in spheres of influence and command, smiling when forced to endure the grave discussions of philosophers, statesmen, and divines, who are too dull to see, or too proud to acknowledge their significance, but choose to wail at the incompetency of their worn-out weapons of defense against error and wrong, and still rely on their own weak inventions for enforcing the truth.

"There is an intelligence among such women little dreamed of, for it is more secret than Freemasonry, and more sure than Knownothingism. They come not abroad to proclaim their freedom, they spend not their strength in denunciations, they waste but few words with each other, but they know their own, and gaze with unblenching eye upon the future, in which they shall enroll themselves for a victory, gained without battle, and an onward march in which they need no impulse but their own invincible trust in the all-conquering spirit of their glorified Master.

"Of this regiment will be many whom the world calls not worthy, who, from some pique and injustice, or, it may be for some fault have been tabooed from society, but who, in the solitude of their own souls, with their God for witness and help, have struggled up from one height to another, until, in the new order of things, they will be seen far aloft in the upper sunlight, while those who banished them with Pharisaical haughtiness, will, like Zobeide, look up dazzled and amazed at the winged flight of what they trampled upon as a creeping serpent. Birth, rank, fortune, elegance, genius, intellect, beauty have been the watchwords to band society together in the past, but in the future, the soul is to bear sway. He or she who is willing to give up everything earthly to save, enrich and enlighten his or her own, and the soul of the world, will need no other passport to enter into all its privileges and joys."

At this moment, dinner was announced. The party assembled, and there was no more said upon the subject. But Mr. Lindsey observed that both pairs of the young people were gradually approaching each other, and when the fruit was brought in, the mutual enjoyment of the incomparable Jamaica oranges seemed to complete the sundering of the barrier which divided them. Emma, who was seated near Hilda, was evidently pleased to find her much more than a hoyden—an intelligent, high-principled young lady, while Meta and Zoë seemed gratified that their tastes squared so well in Literature and Art. Mr. Pierson was charming through his elegance and versatility. Mr. Sarran was made happy by his favorite's interest in him, though more subdued in its expression than before, while even Mr. Chichester, though, in his long grace he spoke of them all as lost and ruined souls, who deserved nothing but the wrath of God, yet brightened up somewhat through the urbanity of Mr. Lindsey, and, as Hilda said, "enjoyed his dinner as much as any of them, notwithstanding their threatened doom." He even got as far as, in the first place, to feel very sorry that such an amiable man as Mr. Lindsey should be eternally lost, and afterwards to conclude that he would not certainly be suffered to die a Unitarian, and retired, that he might pray in the secret of his chamber, that God would let him see his way clear to become a Calvinist of the good, old-fashioned type of the Assembly's Catechism.

As for Young America, it was very evident to him, that his star was in its declination. There was no mistake now, in Hilda's serious wish to avoid him. Emma and Meta had never permitted his advances, indeed he had avoided them and their brother, no less than they him. Zoë knew well enough that he was polite to her, simply on Hilda's account; so when she saw him dejected and forsaken, she did not, as she otherwise would have done, enter into free and easy conversation with him.

Thus it continued for several days. There was a growing intimacy between the other young people, but he was entirely excluded. Mr. Lindsey, of course, was even more than usually social with him. He did not understand exactly the present state of things, but saw that something was wrong between him and Hilda. But it gave him an opportunity to see him in a different light from heretofore, which increased his respect and interest in him. He found him full of information, judicious in his opinions upon society and life, and reformatory and humanitarian in his tendencies. All that he seemed to need, was a firm and rational Christian faith, whose principles were already his admiration; and the softening, refining influence of feminine society, of which he had been stinted for many years.

Hilda said nothing of him even to Zoë. The latter rejoiced at the least indication in her friend of self-reliance of soul. Of this quality in action, she had no lack, but it had been her disposition as soon as she was in hailing distance of a thought or a feeling to report it to some one—thereby preventing her nature growing in depth in proportion to other directions.

One day, they were sitting in the common parlor, devoted to their party. Hilda and Emma were playing chess.

Zoë was translating some favorite German poetry for Meta to enjoy with her. Mr. Pierson was alternately listening to them, and attending to the game, hardly knowing which fair competitor to aid; for he had of late, found that Hilda was both handsome and agreeable, while Young America was walking in and out of the room, talking with Mr. Lindsey, and eyeing askance their proceedings.

It boded no good to him, to see Mr. Pierson so attentive to Hilda as he had been of late, and, though she conducted towards him with great dignity, yet he knew his own deficiencies too well not to fear the effect which the assiduities of a handsome, elegant, highly educated man of refined principles, tastes and sentiments might have upon her. So, while there was increasing sunshine and laughter in the group before-mentioned, there was a very threatening storm in the west. It growled and thundered under the dark cloud, settling over Young America's brow, and only required a conductor of the slightest texture, from the opposite point of the compass, to bring out an electric explosion. This was soon furnished.

"So the women are going to take the ascendency in the United States, are they, Mr. Lindsey?" said Mr. Pierson, rising from his stooping position over the young ladies' chess-board.

"Such seem to be the signs of the times."

"A pretty kingdom we shall have then," grumbled Young America. " 'A chance world,' where a fellow won't know whether next minute he'll be standing on his head or heels."

No notice was taken of this.

"I hope the sovereigns will condescend to choose gentlemen for their prime ministers," said Mr. Pierson.

"Queen bees must always have drones in the hive."

Mr. Pierson straightened up at this, and looked very dignified.

"I am curious to know precisely in what form they will announce their decrees."

"Burst out crying, I s'pose, if a fellow asks them a simple favor."

Mr. Pierson gave him a withering look.

"I wonder which of them will be next President?"

"The greatest flirt that comes handy," said Stephenson. Perhaps he did not intend it, but his head, as he tittered this rude speech, very evidently inclined towards the young ladies of Mr. Pierson's party.

"What is that, sir? repeat that again, if you dare!"

"The greatest flirt thereabouts." Then looking round the room, he provokingly added, "If the coat suits any one, she is welcome to it."

"You are an insolent—dog"—was so nearly uttered, that Stephenson caught the half sound of it, which Mr. Pierson changed to 'fellow!'

"Dog!" said Stephenson, "I thought I did hear a little puppy bark just now."

"Do you think I am going to have these ladies insulted, sir; or myself either?"

Stephenson was provokingly cool. His wrath had subsided just in proportion to Mr. Pierson's rising. He walked to the window, looked out, and remarked to Mr. Lindsey, that it was unusually warm. He guessed the thermometer must be up to 90.

"You shall account to me for this, sir," said Mr. Pierson. "You have insulted my sisters."

Mr. Lindsey rose to speak.

"I haven't insulted them," said Stephenson.

"My sisters shall receive no insult, which I have power to resent."

"I haven't insulted them. You lie if you say so," said Young America.

This was the climax. The cloud burst. Mr. Pierson was high-spirited, of quick temper, though in his intercourse with those whom he respected, very self-restrained, and with a keen sense of honor. Anything which reflected upon that or his truth fired him at once, and when roused to the point of resentment, he blenched at no consequences in the fulfillment of what he considered its laws.

He turned pale, and a settled purpose spoke from every lineament of his face. His sisters were in agony, for they knew him well. Mr. Lindsey tried to mediate, but he was not heeded. His young friend retired to his chamber, and in a few minutes Stephenson received a note from him containing a challenge to fight a duel. He accepted it at once, and the little party broke up in confusion and grief, each to act as he or she best might, in these unforeseen circumstances.

Mr. Lindsey first went to Horace and had a long conversation with him, the close of which was this remark: "I confess that my conduct is at variance with the Christian standard, and that your principles are abstractly true. I honor them and the life you and Mrs. Lindsey are enabled to lead by their means. But I am a man in the midst of worldly men. I should lose my character, and by that means my influence for good should I rest ignobly with this stain upon my name. Nothing but an acknowledgment from Stephenson of its falsity would satisfy me. I commend my sisters to your care if I fall. You know how dear we are to each other, but I should love them less were they willing that I should live at the expense of honor. I thank you for your friendship, and feel confident that it will never fail them."

A gleam of hope came into Mr. Lindsey's mind when an apology from Mr. Stephenson was spoken of, as an antidote for Mr. Pierson's injured feelings. He went immediately to him. He was standing upon the veranda which commanded a view of one of the ever-verdant mountains of Jamaica, his eye resting upon a white cluster of buildings upon its side, where a troop of English soldiers were stationed, to be away from the sickly heats and malaria of the town. A lignum-vitæ tree stretched one of its branches athwart its pillars, and he had plucked one of its lovely blue blossoms, but was crumpling it up in his hands, apparently without consciousness of what he was doing. He turned as Mr. Lindsey approached him and showed the traces of tears upon his cheeks. He brushed them away indignantly and straightened himself up to his full height.

"My friend," said Mr. Lindsey, "though our acquaintance is short, I do not miscalculate your generosity of character in appealing to it as I am about to do. I come from Mr. Pierson. I find him inflexible and—"

"If he wants to be made mince-meat of he can be. I never have missed my mark when I shot a coon. I have brought the tip of his ear down many a time. I guess a diamond pin or a seal ring will be as good a target."

"Can you talk thus coolly and boastfully of taking the life of a fellow-being; a high-toned and truthful man; the dependence of his orphan sisters; the—"

"I don't want to fight with him, I say. Mr. Lindsey, the quarrel is of his own seeking. The challenge is his own, and do you think I am afraid of a rifle? I haven't been among the Indians for nothing. I'll fight if he wants me to, but he has got to take the consequences, that is all. It isn't my fault."

"Yes, my friend, it is your fault. You were the first offender."

"How, pray?"

"By speaking in the very tantalizing way that you did of him and the young ladies."

"I have nothing to do with any young ladies of his. I was not thinking of his sisters. And I should like to know who is the oldest acquaintance of Miss Strophel, he or I?"

"Does your length of acquaintance authorize you to fling rude remarks at her? Is that the way you show your interest in her?"

"How can a fellow help being mad when he is sent to Coventry just at the minute he thought he was on the high road to kingdom come?"

"I see where the difficulty lies. I have been something of a student of human nature. Supposing I could say a word to make you feel that your sentence of perpetual banishment to that comfortless place was not entirely fixed upon?"

Stephenson started and look him full in the face.

"I had occasion to pass Miss Strophel's door and I thought I heard indications, which, if I were a young man, would save me from utter despair."

"God bless you—if I thought so—but it is too late, too late!" and he threw back his hat and wiped the perspiration from his brow.

Mr. Lindsey paused a moment. "I came," said he, "as I had no success in changing my friend's determination, for he says, that without an acknowledgment on your part, he will never withdraw his challenge, to appeal to your magnanimity, by proposing that you should render what is justly your duty."

"Do you think so?" said he, brightening up. "I have no objection to eat my words, if they are of the sort to choke him so. I have no quarrel with him. I never thought of his sisters. The fact is, Mr. Lindsey, I was jealous and angry with Hilda, and I suppose, I whipped her too hard over the others' backs for their liking."

"You certainly owe Miss Strophel an apology. Whipping young ladies, in person or by proxy, is not the most chivalrous way, to say the least, to treat the sex, much less gain their favor."

"Well, the fact is, I see I am a regular brute, and no mistake. I have been beaten about, most of my life, among rude boys in college, in the woods, on the Rocky Mountains, in hotels, and circuiting round in a wild country, so that I am not more than half-civilized. I knew Hilda when she was a little, wild, free girl. I always threw out whatever came into my head and she would laugh at it, and say that, when she grew up, she would come West with me and live on a bluff. Of course, I thought then, it was childish nonsense, but I have never forgotten it. I have lain awake many a night in my buffalo robe, on the prairie, thinking of her, and when I met her, it seemed to me, what our minister would call 'a special Providence.' I don't believe in such myself, and told him once, when he kept dinging the doctrine into me, that a special Providence had never got out west of the Alleghanies. But, as I was saying, I thought everything would go smooth between us; yet, somehow, I haven't been able to suit her, when I thought I was on the lightning-train towards suiting myself, at any rate."

Mr. Lindsey laughed. "Women are strange beings, I own. I can't say I quite understand all that they are up to, though I have been married nearly twenty years. But I believe it is quite as much our fault as theirs, or, as my wife would say, our want of thorough development. Men, in these days, are too exclusively practical, intellectual, coarse, and common-place, while the soul, with all its feelings, affections, and sentiments, its soaring fancies, burning imagination, and religious aspirations, is left in abeyance. In a true woman, this is a vast realm; but if they live in that, and we in our cold kingdom of abstract thought and prosy world of facts, why, of course, we are constantly in danger of losing acquaintanceship altogether, or else of meeting at a great disadvantage. I am learning new lessons every day, and I hope you will profit by your experiences also. But come, we forget that Psyche is on the tenter-hooks, this very moment."

Mr. Stephenson, accompanied by Mr. Lindsey, went in search of Mr. Pierson, and found him in his sisters' room.

Emma was clinging to him, uttering entreaties mingled with expressions of despair. Meta was sitting like a statue tipped from its pedestal, and finding on his shoulder the support for the classic head which would fall to the dust if he did. Horace, with pale face and compressed lips which told his agony, was trying to soothe them. Mr. Lindsey tapped at the door, which was ajar, and then opened it. Stephenson walked straight up to Mr. Pierson.

"I had no thought of insulting you, or your sisters, or—anybody else, but if I was impudent, I beg your pardon. I am a rough fellow at best, but my bark is worse than my bite. Come, shake hands and let us be friends."

Mr. Pierson forgot his imperturbableness that had so provoked Young America's criticism, shook hands warmly, and responded heartily to his cordial greeting. Emma's eyes flashed diamond-rays, while she even clasped Stephenson's arm with both her own. Meta looked round bewildered at first, but recovered her wits, and sat upright with both hands raised and mouth partly open, but joined in the laugh excited by Young America's ending the scene, as he found his eyes growing inconveniently dim, with "Well, it is lucky, after all, I didn't have to fight, for the 'Doctor,' as I call my rifle, since it always lets blood, is out of order, I am afraid, and if I had disgraced myself by a bad shot, the coons would have hissed me next time I went into the woods, and accused me of turning Homeopathist, which don't do up our way. We go the whole figure in medicine and surgery up there, and take quinine so, as a regular dose, that we ring the church bell at noon for everybody to pitch into it."

Hilda and Zoë were in the next room, and overheard all this conversation. Zoë begged her friend neither to go crazy, nor to eat her up entirely with her vehement caresses. Hilda kept aloof, knowing very well where her peculiar weakness lay. Zoë went to the rejoicing, and her more subdued happiness, at the termination of the trouble, was not thought out of place by any one of them.

Stephenson looked repeatedly towards the door for another face, but as it did not appear, he went out seemingly disappointed.

He need not be criticised too closely, to ascertain how much his renewed hope in that direction influenced him in this confession. That was in perfect harmony with his frank, generous nature; and as God is so careful of our virtue and true happiness as to grant us unnumbered props to sustain it, and impelling forces to seek after it, it would be but the part of ingratitude not to avail ourselves of them. Our only care should be to have the central principle of our actions one of eternal reference to Him.

After seeing most of the objects of interest in Kingston, and bidding adieu to the few acquaintances they had made, they left in the Thames, much to Zoë's satisfaction, as she was impatient to get home.

————

CHAPTER XV.

"Society requires, like mother earth herself, not one, but several strata for its perfection; not the masculine granite, or the Saxon sandstone alone, but fruitful limestones and clays of dark color, in which to grow her flowers and fruits."—LIVERMORE.

THE circumstance which at first threatened to be so untoward, through the timely mediation of Mr. Lindsey, and the proper acknowledgment of Mr. Stephenson, proved the means of uniting the different elements of the two parties in the greatest harmony. The good effects of the reconciliation were seen on all sides. Mr. Pierson and his sisters unbent from their dignified reserve, and unfolded their richly-stored minds, as a contribution for the general pleasure. Young America, received on the footing his intrinsic merits deserved, and seeing hope for himself in Hilda's eye, though she kept at a distance from him, laid aside some of his peculiarities, and retained only those which served to spice their interviews, and give them the zest so grateful at any time, but especially on board ship.

They were sitting together, looking at the receding city, when Stephenson said, with one of his expressive 'Whews!' "Glad am I to get out of that old tumble-down town. I was afraid to breathe a full breath while in it, lest it should fall about my head and ears."

"Emancipation has been the death of the Island," said Mr. Pierson.

"I consider it the first symptom of reviving life," said Mr. Lindsey. "The system of slavery had eaten out all its heart and soundness; and the freedom given the blacks, but revealed the rottenness of its condition. Now there is some hope, after it has rested from its former drainage and bad system of management every way, that it will eventually revive."

Then followed a long discussion between the gentlemen upon slavery in the abstract, no less than slavery in Jamaica. The young ladies grew weary of the discussion, and retired; and at length Mr. Lindsey and Stephenson were left alone.

Said the latter: "The blacks never have proved that they possess much mind or force of character, excepting a single one here and there."

"And he should be regarded as indicative of the capabilities of the race. When you paint a portrait, you consider that you have a right to catch the very best expression you can get, the idealized look, else you disappoint the individual and his friends. So it is with these people. Look at those branches of trees floating in the sea, do they not surely indicate the vicinity of land? So, if one African has manifested genius, to me, he is but a waif cast providentially upon the shore of civilization to guide to a full and tropical sea of mind—now flowing smoothly, fanned by the gentle breath of the trade-winds—now rushing with hurricane-force to its object—now imaging upon its surface the variegated cloud-tints, or opening its bosom so lovingly to the sun, that it colors the sea plants below with its intensest dye, so that they are reflected to the eye of the beholder. My friend, we speak of genius, talent, as distinctive in gifted specimens of the race. But each of God's children comes from His hand with the germ of immortal powers, differing, it is true, in combination and character, so as to make up a beautiful variety. All types of human nature are necessary to the perfect development of one, not in any subsidiary sense, but through a beautiful equality of influence. Let us not be so infidel as to suppose that so large a part of humanity as the African race is left out of his category of high and beautiful uses, but accept the indications appearing on every hand, that they are to be a no less mighty, than mild and Christian influence in uprising humanity."

"But their skin is the sticking point with me. Now, confess, Mr. Lindsey, have you really got rid of all prejudice against color?"

"What color do you mean? There are several hues imposed upon the human face divine, which I not only pre-judge unfavorably, but my after judgment is entirely opposed to, also.

"One is the ruby color of the drunkard; another is the chalky and green color of the sensualist; another is the light-yellow, or cadaverous blue color of the fashionable young lady, who dissipates, lies abed late, and whines at the musquito perplexities of life, without trying to raise herself above them. Another is the mottled saffron and brown color of those who neglect bathing, exercise, and proper observance of the laws of health; to say nothing of the pink and powder tints dashed on to hide, in the quickest, though not surest way, the ugliness of these colors. And, my friend, you must excuse me, if I say that one tint very offensive to me, is the dirty snuff-color superinduced upon the sacred person of the image of the Most High by the use of tobacco!"

Stephenson resorted to his hair, as was his custom when he had not a ready answer.

"Then amalgamation is a theory of yours, I suppose?"

"I profess to have no theory upon the subject," said Mr. Lindsey. "I leave theories to you men of the world. I, a student, an observer and a worker on the sphere of our deepest nature, deal with facts; and I know, that from the marriage of the whites with the Africans, has sprung up a race in our midst, who, by the development, in every direction, required by physical, intellectual and spiritual laws, are equal to the duties of a complete manhood and womanhood. This class is, in the future, to be a power, no less mighty than subtle, to help carry on our country to its magnificent destiny."

"Marriage! I did not know that there had been many marriages between the blacks and whites."

"Not know it? Woe, woe be to this generation, who, seeing with their eyes, perceive not, hearing, hear not, neither understand. Not know it? It is because men live in slavish obedience to the mere letter of the Word, in Scripture, in Nature and in life, and are dead to their saving, inspiring spirit. Not know, that if an immortal spirit has descended from on high, it is the fruit of marriage, though no priest may have pronounced the bans nor ritual joined the hands, nor human laws proclaimed its sanction! Young man, God has another mode of judgment than that of sensual, mammon-ridden mortals, who think to go quits, though by the wicked indulgence of their beastly appetites they may tread the souls of their victims down, deep in the quagmire of wretchedness and sin, while the destroyer may ride on the popular will to the very acme of power and applause. The electric potency may be long in gathering, the lightning may restrain its sheeted flash or its forked finger, even until the earth fills up the measure of its preparedness, but, as surely as Nature never collects its forces but to scatter them abroad, so surely will the bolt be borne to its destined goal on the lines of conductors set up for it. In like manner, will the thunder and lightning of God's moral laws, for a time violated with impunity, just as surely and by just as natural means be sped to the points which the ignorant and disobedient have sharpened and multiplied to invite their approach. It will do its work as speedily, as surely as the first, and when the rude, but healthful conflict of the elements is over, then will be seen overturned and dismantled, the kingly oaks of the forest; while the violet and anemone look up with clearer eyes to the blue heavens, and glorify their Preserver by blooming with a purer and more beautiful sheen than before. That time is fast approaching. Let the unprepared quake and turn from the evil of their ways, before it be too late."

"That is Unitarian preaching, is it? I have had hell-fire thrown at me by the Calvinists most of my life, and somehow it isn't of the quality to singe a hair of my head; but I feel scorched by the flames you conjure up, from the sole of my foot to the top of my crown."

Mr. Lindsey threw a penetrating glance at his companion.

"Not that I am guilty in the way you may suspect," said Stephenson. "No, thank heaven, if my mother were alive now I could lay my head against her bosom, as pure of that sin as when I slept a babe in her arms. I do not owe this exemption from a vice which I can tell you, sir, is rampant in the land, so much to principle as to a delicacy, which, rude as I may seem, was implanted in me by the precepts and example of my saintly parent. But I have always despised the niggers, and I begin to see that I may have been putting the boot on the wrong leg. Seriously, though, as to their color!"

"Well, then, seriously. I have long ago ceased to be prejudiced against any hue of the skin, which is normal, which God, through a true obedience to his laws, shows is best adapted to the purposes of a man's condition and country."

"Should you be willing to have your daughter marry a nigger?"

"I know of no negro to whom I should be willing to intrust her, any more than to many an Irishman, German, or even to you, my friend, American though you are. Nay, start not. I would have my daughter marry one of such high tone of mind and character, and with such pure habits that I should know that, not only no dark cloud would ever come across the fulfillment of her maiden dreams, but that her husband would be the priest appointed to aid her in her perpetual ministry at the altar of worship, which her whole life, in its every varied scene, should be."

Young America looked serious then, shook his head, and said, "She may, perhaps, find such a rare jewel for a husband, but if I were her father I should be dreadfully afraid she would die an old maid."

"Let her, then, as I know that she can be very happy in a life of single blessedness. For she has been taught that happiness is not a thing of circumstance chiefly, but the result of a true development of soul, more especially to be looked for by her in the future world. More especially still is her marriage indifferent to me as I happen to have no daughter but ideal ones, which, in these free times, when children are born, are married, and die without leave or license from those who should be their guardians, are quite as safe and more obedient to me than any tangible ones."

"Ha, ha, ha!" Young America burst out. "I began to think that if all the girls that I know, have set their standard as high as you have, I might as well as not, say it was a gone case with me, for I shall never get up to that point."

"Why not, my friend? Why should man forever grope about in swaddling clothes and go muling and puling through this glorious world, instead of proving himself its lord, the director of its forces, and, through a harmonious correspondence with it, be the recipient of its best blessings?"

Young America was thoughtful for a few moments, then said: "Mr. Lindsey, I am not used to talking sentiment, or if I happen to have any deep feelings, laying them open to the world. But I feel impelled to say to you, that I have always felt a want, a void which I never understood. I have thought it was the love of adventure, which drives me from one part of the country to the other, and never allows me to be at rest anywhere. But I begin to think it sticks so close to me, that going to South America, or getting rich, or being a great lawyer, or artist, or—or getting married even, will not free me from it. I am pretty fast making up my mind that the want is in my own soul, and if that is about right, other things will come along well enough as a fellow happens to need."

"That is it, friend, only be in right relations with God, nature, and humanity, through a full and Christian faith and the work of life is done. What do I say? It is but just begun on its truest, most blissful and glorious conditions. By means of that, existence is no longer a scene of disheartenment, inconsolable sorrow, and a constant, losing conflict with the powers of evil, but a high-school to prepare us to enjoy, to the best advantage, the future play-time of our being, when, through the complete discipline of our powers, the most active service in accordance with their peculiar character, will be a perpetual hymn of praise to the Most High."

Zoë had now completed her Tale, for she simply had to pen it upon paper from a full and glowing, yet serene and joyful mind. What to do with it now was the question. Hilda proposed that she should show it to Mr. Lindsey, and if he thought it worthy of publication, he would offer to take it to America and issue it from thence. To Zoë, who had written it, as she thought, by special inspiration, the bare idea of its being declined or disapproved of seemed impossible. It was not her work so much as God's, who had simply used her as an instrument, through the force of her natural powers and attainments, aided by his Spirit ever given to the trustful and asking soul. How could it then be rejected? She had an earnest in her own nature, living and burning in every fibre and nerve, that simple as it was, it still would be seen to be the condensation of God's highest truth to the ages, and that the nations, taking their departure from that point, would immediately advance with rapid strides to perfection. Hence, she was not prepared for the very subdued judgment of Mr. Lindsey concerning it. Its truths were familiar to him, and he recognized not the significance of Zoë's compilation of them. He saw not, in her quiet, passive features and mien, an evidence, which God vouchsafes to the earnest soul, that, if it consecrates itself to any work, vast and difficult though it may be, if its accomplishment is longed, toiled for, and patiently trusted in and waited for, it surely will be granted. Zoë lived in the future, in Christ's glorified reign. She asked for no worldly honor nor wealth to spend profusely upon herself. She only saw and wished for the time when, through the means acquired by the publication of her book, she could carry out the completion of Christian reform, but begun by the promulgation of its truths.

It lay upon the table one day, for she cared not who saw it now, and Emma and Meta Pierson and Young America took it up. The young ladies turned it over and thought it prosy and deficient as a work of art, and Stephenson said he thought she used the word 'soul,' and two or three others of the like import, too often. It was well enough, but if it was published it would never set the Ohio a-blaze, or the fame of it be hung out from the highest steeple. Zoë happened to overhear their criticism as she passed through the saloon, though she neither revealed by word or sign that she did so.

The ship Thames was sailing gradually on its way, stopping at each island to deliver the mails.

When off Hayti, there were some sneering remarks by the American passengers at the late disturbances on the island, and the sanguinary proceedings of the full blacks towards the colored people, and it was spoken of as an evidence of their incapacity to organize and carry on a government themselves.

Mr. Lindsey spoke of France as an instance of a Caucasian people finding that same difficulty in their attempts at a perfect republican state, and spoke of the miserable condition of Europe generally in both her internal and external relations. Then, why should this country, so lately emerged from slavery, be judged more severely than the more forceful and practical nations of Europe?

The party looked forward to being separated at St. Thomas. Mr. Lindsey and his young friends would go on to Barbadoes, where they would stay for a short time and then come back to Santa Cruz. Mr. Sarran and his young lady charges would cross over to that island as soon as possible. Mr. Stephenson would go on to South America, sailing as far as Barbadoes with Mr. Lindsey's party.

One evening the passengers were enjoying the sunset from the deck, when gradually one after another went below, leaving George Stephenson, Zoë, and Hilda leaning over the guards, looking at the phosphorescent light, which rose and fell, and made perpetual motion by the rotation of the wheel. Zoë was trying to recall all the scenes of her childish voyage to Denmark, by means of the shimmer it cast upon the waters. She involuntarily parted a little from her companions in order to have no disturbance to the flow of her memory, and in the silence of her own being to commune with the Infinite through this proof of the presence of his spirit.

Hilda on seeing that Zoë had left her side, rose from her stooping position in which she was leaning over the guards and was on the point of going below.

"Hilda," said Mr. Stephenson, "will you always be afraid of me in the future? Return me the confidence with which you formerly treated me. As a little girl, I have always carried you in the purest part of my heart. Do not let me go among rude and unprincipled men without the safeguard, which, thinking that you did not despise me in your beauty and youth, would give me."

"Despise you! O no, Mr. Stephenson! far from it. I shall always remember my childish acquaintance with you, with great pleasure, and I shall certainly ever think very kindly of you in the future."

"And that is all, is it?" said Young America, giving his hat an involuntary thrust over his eyes. "Well, I know I don't deserve anything more, but—"

Hilda was going.

"I must tell you what is on my mind, whether or no," said he, giving it a toss back, showing a face, in which love, bashfulness and bold determination were curiously mingled. "Hilda, I feel as if I had lived ten years in the last fortnight. I begin to believe in sudden conversions, and take back all I said against the Dr.'s saving grace. Even special providence, and the whole scheme of salvation, interpreted in Mr. Lindsey's broad, Christian way, I subscribe to, with all my heart; for I am a living instance of the working of them all. I think really, that I have met with a change now, and no mistake. You know I am a rough fellow at best, and am no more worthy of a woman's love—especially yours—than to have God's sun shine on me, as it does every day, but—but, if I thought I could ever gain it, Hilda, I would crawl on my hands and knees to Jericho!"—Hilda could not help smiling in the midst of her confusion—"or I could worship the ground you tread on, instead. May I hope that, some time or other, if it is not for a hundred years, I may make you happy in my shanty out West?"

Hilda had been growing, too, for the last ten days, and her ideas of love, though they might have lost some of their roseate hue and lavender scent, had not changed in their desire for its fervency and strength, and she saw there was both in this characteristic offer of her childhood's playmate, and now the lover of her youth. She did not accept it, finally, for, of course, she must consult with her parents first, and feel that her affection and hopes of the bright and dancing future were sanctioned by their consent. She promised him, however, that if he would not urge her more, to let him accompany her to Santa Cruz now, he might return there on his way home. She did not forget to tell him before they parted, that "she should expect him to bring her the present he promised her, especially the streak-of-lightning wreath for her head-dress!"

"Hilda," said Young America, "I never saw so perfect a man as Mr. Lindsey, in all my life. I could kiss the print of his footsteps. He is the only harmoniously developed man I could ever tolerate; for I used to think they must, as a matter of course, be so smooth as to be stupid. But he is the farthest removed from that. He is a saint and Christian of the first water—and do you know that it was he that gave me the first glimpse of hope, when I was stuck in the snow-bank on the under-ground railroad, as I call those dark days not long back, that I might, possibly, some time or other, see daylight again? I wish I was rich, and wouldn't I give him a farm, and build a church for him, and give him three thousand dollars salary a-year? Nothing is good enough for him—that is a fact!"

Zoë rejoiced in Hilda's joy, and Stephenson's last prejudice against her race evaporated, when she shook him warmly by the hand, and told him that if she did not wish so sincerely for Hilda's happiness, she should not congratulate him; that she had full cause to know a truer friend than she, never breathed; and that he had but just begun to know the priceless worth of the jewel he had won. To all of this, he most cordially assented, and wondered that he had never before thought Zoë very pretty, as he certainly found her now.

Young America had hardly ceased to be jealous of Mr. Pierson, though there was friendliness between them. But he knew well how dangerous is the comparison between elegance on one hand, and awkwardness on the other, and mentally resolved, as he saw him walking the deck the next day, to cultivate the graces more. He had scarcely yet come to the conviction that a pure and loving soul, whose highest aim is to do one's whole duty to God and man in the little, no less than the great affairs of life, is in a better school to learn a graceful and gentle demeanor than in any seminary, professing to teach those accomplishments by merely garnishing the external manners.

"Mr. Pierson is a real good fellow," said he, "and I like him right well. He has been chosen Secretary of Legation to Chili, it seems, and is going to cut across to that place from Santa Cruz as soon as he arrives with his sisters. I think he would make a first-rate minister, myself. I hope he will get that office next."

"And his sisters are so high-toned."

"Yes, I know it. A little too much Boston stiffness and conceit about them; but one can't have everything, you know."

"Mr. Lindsey says, he considers Boston the most advanced city on the globe, if you look upon it in the light of its religion, its general intelligence, its high sense of the proper uses of money, its philanthropy, and—"

"Yes, but the trouble is, it knows it all too well, and that more than half spoils it. However, among so many views as its ladies have, and so many notions as the men have, it is not to be wondered at that a little self-consciousness should creep in with the rest. But I have no quarrel with them, Hilda, especially as you like them; so when I build my shanty, I'll add a room on purpose for them, and I know of young fellows out in our diggins, real quality too, who would jump over the moon and toss up Venus as they would an India rubber ball to get acquainted with them! We'll have them out there. As for Zoë, if kingdom-come don't claim her before I get polished up to the right Christian tone, she shall come and live with us. And if any body dares so much as have the word color come into his head, I'll knock him into the very heart of Africa. There he shall shell out the coppers and the knowledge too, and set such a first-rate example as a Christian missionary, that the real live niggers, and no mistake, there, shall crowd to the gates of heaven so fast, that Peter will have to let them in, and never think whether they would pass muster among the Calvinists or not! That's the way it is going to be, Hilda, in the future, especially if Young America gets the sovereignty, as it ought to."

"I shan't allow you to talk of sovereignty. I am a republican, you know."

"I mean Mrs. Pumpkin's sovereignty of the Feminines, where every one is to do about right, or else be rowed up Salt River at once. All the States' prisons are to be up there, and we'll see that they are properly ventilated, and if the keepers and other officers don't do their duty in providing proper means for the reformation of the criminals, we'll hang them on our big gallows up there, so high that they can see over the other side of the universe. That is the way, Hilda. Reform is the order of the day out West. That is the tune, and we'll sing it till the Rocky Mountains burst out laughing so loud that the folks over the other side of the Pacific will have to join in it whether or no. So goes the world when Young America is engine-tender."

They soon arrived off St. Thomas and were received into its pretty, sheltered harbor, and looked upon its red-tiled houses, set one above another upon its steep hill-side, making the town, as some one remarked, look like a colored lithograph.

They all landed and passed the night at Bonelli's hotel. In the course of the evening Mr. Lindsey read to the company the following lines written by his wife, upon the "Steam Engine," which he found in letters which had just come by a ship direct from New York.

————

CHAPTER XVI.

"Hurrah! hurrah! the waters o'er,
The mountains steep decline,
Time—space—have yielded to my power—
The world! the world is mine!"

CUTTER

THE STEAM ENGINE.

"WHAT shrill and shrieking sound comes echoing through these woods and hills at morning's dawn? It speaks to me of the might of our material life, of a civil state, gigantic in its energies, untiring in its labor for the gain of gold, and set to the tune of a dominion over the rude powers of nature, undreamed of by the prophets and seen of older ages. Its rude blast rends through the air like a trumpet blown by Cyclops, backed by every heathen divinity of the Pagan times. Jupiter is its name, fit cognomen for the engine whose food is fire, whose breath is boiling steam, whose race-course is the world throughout, its ministers every element known to the ancients, and its high-priest, to do its bidding, the shrewd intellect of the keen-sighted, forceful, daring hero of our century's civilization.

"But hark! It gives a parting snort, as if scorning to be held in bondage. It snuffs the air and tries its power to be sure that, Samson-like, its strength has not been stolen in its sleeping. On, on it comes, faster and still faster, the rattling thunder of its wheels now mellowed by the shield of hill or wood, now sounding louder and still louder as it nears my vision. Thou genius, beautiful yet tremendous, of this age—which with Titan throes gave birth to thee! half war-horse and half eagle!—thou art the angel of the covenant made between man and nature, revealed and brought into familiar parlance with him by the laws of Science. Thy pillar of fire by night and cloud by day are the symbols to prove that heaven appointed thee to thy mission. Thou wilt lead on our hosts to a greater, more longed for, and richer inheritance than the promised land to those, who erst were guided by Jehovah. For, through thee, each continent shall open its stores of greater affluence than Canaan offered. Not alone to a single people is the promise given, but every land through earth's remotest bounds shall, through thy aid, possess the Rich, the Good, the Fair, and the Beautiful of every tribe, and tongue, and nation. And thou shalt be the messenger to carry to the heathen the tidings of Christ glorified.

"Ha! there thou art in all thy pride, and strength, and majesty! I greet thee with joyful awe, my bird of mystic form, and spirit-life, and power of double passage. I marvel at the sturdy meaning of thy machinery as it turns and turns, as if impelled by thought of the huge labor to be wrought, to finish the creation but begun by God, to be completed by his children. Thy war-horse portion shall level the mountains, raise the valleys, scoop out the ledges to make a fitting pathway for thy eagle-mate to fly without impediment. Now she spreads her pinions, buoyed up by the dense air made palpable and visible by the frosty breath of Autumn. They stretch far hindward, reflecting brightly the rising sun's rays, then float into the clear ether and are welcomed to the bosom of the still atmosphere to be made for a time its own, and when replumed by subtle process, returned with added force and power again to thee.

"Shall I dare to intrude into thy presence, Jupiter, and sue thee to act my servant to bear me to the city's whirl and strife? Yes, for though mighty, thou art docile as an infant to the mind which guides thee. Though thou art great, still greater is the force of the immortal intellect of thy priest and minister. Thus God appoints.

"O gloriously we speed through mount, ravine, and field, now dive into the tunnel dug for thee, now cross the bridge arched high above the flood, now skirt along the precipice, now speed through throngs of gaping villagers, who never tire of gazing upon thy lightning-train. My spirit blends with thine in wondrous unison, and fire and fancy, like a flame and flood, flow into my waiting soul as I feel thy electric thrill in every motion of thy potent being. Would I could consort more with thee, my Jupiter! For thou hintest to me of the time when, by a more ethereal spirit than thine own propeller, I shall be borne from star to star, and be familiar with the vast spaces of the boundless universe.

"But hark! a jog, a dragging motion and next a crash, crash upon crash, in horrible continuance, and then a plunge a hundred fathoms into the deep below.

"O misery and perdition! Shriek upon shriek, groan upon groan, the dead and dying, the bereaved all huddled together with thy ruins in frightful, direful masses! How can humanity bear the sight, the sound, the feeling of the woe, woe of the mangled form and face divine, the bitter loss of near and dear by a fate so fearful; and last, not least, the pictured scene which, like a ghost, will haunt by night and day the memory of survivors!

"What is the cause of this awful doom on every side of our wisest, best, bravest and loveliest? Does God frown on the workings of the intellect with which our demi-god is instinct? Does he condemn in threatening tones, and punish worse than the infant world conceived of, because the tree of knowledge has been seized upon and eaten daringly?

"O no! but this is his behest. Heed it, my countrymen! Learn it and be wise; obey it and be true to yourselves, to the laws of nature, science, life, and your own souls.

"There is a power above the intellect, greater than your most subtle skill and shrewdness, which should bear the sovereignty in the world in which God rules, in part, and gives in part into your keeping. It is his Holy Spirit granted to every one who knocks and asks, and opens his soul to gather of its fullness. The Holy Spirit! It will teach you to lay no rude and careless hand upon this sacred ark, freighted with the message of One God and the history of his righteous dealings to the nations. It will warn you to fashion it with true and honest purpose of the most precious of the matter lavished all around us, created for its special uses. It will cleanse your eye so as to detect each latent flaw, prophetic of destruction. It will give that careful conscience and tender moral sense to its priests and ministers, so that sooner than peril the lives placed by Providence at their disposal, they will cut off the hand, the foot, or pluck out the right eye and cast it from them. For what hell can be more awful to the awakened soul than that opening to him who, through selfish ease, or thirst of foolish fame, or paltry gain heaps up, demoniac like—his hecatombs of slain, and sends their spirits untimely to their last judgment! And more than all things it will utter its rebuke, in trumpet-tones, where most 'tis needed—on the rulers of this great and mighty, but blind and striving, wallowing, God-forsaking people; and on its rich and prosperous, and scheming full ones in this world's wealth and fatness.

"Hark! do ye not hear the Spirit's awful voice, ye proud and presumptuous, but poor, weak, inglorious seekers for this world's renown, whose note of triumph shall die away into a hiss of scorn! Listen too, ye mammon-worshipers, who hug your gold for basest uses, and give your copper for the Lord's anointed, and the great purposes of his mission. Bow your heads and receive the sentence, blowing in the harsh autumn winds, pouring upon you in the raining floods, steaming up to you on the deadly miasma's breath, roaring to you in the destructive ocean's surge, while the six hundred shrieks and wails which, of late, scared the sun from the heavens, and set the thunder and lightning raving through the sky, shall be the seal of your condemnation! 'Thou art weighed in the balances and found wanting! The kingdom hath departed from thee!'

"O ye servitors of the mighty war-horse eagle of our civilization! Ye brakemen, flagmen, conductors, engineers, firemen! do well each one thy work, for God, for man, and your own souls! Relieve by your fidelity your worn and ever-watchful, anxious superintendent, whose soul is chained by sense of care and high responsibility, and firm determination to fulfill each trust committed to him, even though through neglect of his assistants a crushing weight falls on him. Silence broods over even his freest, happiest hours, for the trail of the serpent—fear of evil through unfaithfulness—haunts him, though she, the bright, sunny, ministering spirit of his home fain would chase it far away. May she not tire nor faint in her loving mission, for a better time is coming, when the Holy Spirit's power will plume our eagle's pinions to safe and rapid flight over the spaces, which our mighty war-horse, who snuffs the peaceful battle, will level far and wide for her victorious soaring."

"Hurra! for the Feminines," said Young America. "Life-preservers will be at a discount at once, I see, if they get the direction of affairs; and a fellow will dare to go ten miles from home without making his will, or carrying his ascension-robes with him, or even getting his health insured, thinking he shall in all likelihood return to hobble round with two crutches the rest of his life. Hurra for the white Feminines, and black ones to boot! I begin to think the age of miracles has come back, that I should live to say that. Excuse me, Zoë! I—I forgot, but never mind! Hurra for Zoë, and all her people; from Quashee up to Soulouque, the Emperor. Every mother's son of them shall be freed, or I'll divide the Union, and shoot the south through my little brother's pop-gun, straight into a vacuum. America is to be a free country in the future! She is to wave her stars and stripes in the breeze without having a long, black trail to them, with a slave-ship painted at one end, and a flying-horse, which means the Africans, and women of all hues tied to a plow at the other, with a coarse, brutish fellow holding it, cursing and swearing at the top of his voice, while a finely-dressed lady is on his back, and her little boy, with a whip in his hand, is giving him a cut every minute or two to make him go faster."

Mr. Chichester, who was sitting by, rose upon this, shocked and angered, at the picture Young America had presented to them.

"What is the country coming to?" said he, in a tone, in which wrath and sanctimony were strangely mingled. "What judgments from heaven will not be poured upon us, when those who call themselves God's ministers, advocate worldly amusements, talk in trifling tones with scoffers of the essential doctrines of the Bible, and try to turn aside the judgment of Heaven from those whom he has cursed, and—" looking directly at Zoë—"seeking to place those who have the mark of this condemnation upon their very forehead on equal footing with the Anglo-Saxon race, whom he has commissioned to be the conquerors and rulers of the world!"

"My friend," said Mr. Lindsey, "you have alluded very plainly to me in these remarks of yours; I will be equally faithful in asking, with all the earnestness which comes from a deep-seated solicitude for the welfare of my country, what indeed is it coming to, when the dominant churches throughout the length and breadth of the land meet together in synod, council and convention, to condemn calisthenics, dancing, and reading of works of imagination, but are silent upon, if they do not applaud, the gigantic sins of the times—Slavery—which is but another name for lust as well as oppression, Mammon worship and Pharisaical bigotry? I commend this great question, sir, to the consideration of the next meeting of the American Board, and Presbyterian General Assembly."

Mr. Chichester turned on his heel and went out with a half groan and half execration, and appeared not again in their circle.

"The spirit of Calvinism impersonated!" said Mr. Lindsey. "Glad and grateful am I that the rude ages are passing rapidly away, when this stern and mistaken minister of the ancient law, will be seen by our Heavenly Father to have fulfilled his mission on the earth, and be permitted in the course of his Providence to make way for the angels of Peace, Hope and Love."

————

CHAPTER XVII.

"Hearts are not steel, and steel is bent;
Hearts are not flint, and flint is rent."

THE next morning, the captain of the little sailing vessel, which plies back and forth between St. Thomas and Santa Cruz, came at an early hour to Zoë and Hilda to inform them that he was all in readiness to set sail.

There were friendly and affectionate leave-takings between the young people, and expressions of the hope of soon meeting again.

Mr. Lindsey put into Zoë's hand a package of books, saying: "These I give to both of you, if you will accept this joint present from me. They are the writings of our great and pure American moralist and spiritual leader, Channing. I know that you will derive both pleasure and profit from their perusal."

"Have you none of your own writings with you, Mr. Lindsey? If so, please give me those too. They will do me double good from having known and felt interested in the author."

He went to his room and brought from thence several volumes of Notes upon the Scriptures, which he had prepared with a view, first to the benefit of the young people of his parish, and then with the hope that, through a more extensive spread, they might do something to revive the failing interest in, and growing disregard of the sacred volume. Then giving his arm to Zoë, they followed Mr. Stephenson and Hilda to the vessel.

It was soon on its way to the island of which they had all through their childhood and youth dreamed and talked, investing it with all the brilliancy and poetry which young, ardent, and susceptible natures are wont to throw over distant scenes and beloved ones far removed.

Mr. Sarran had seen to the safety of their luggage, and now came and took his stand by Hilda's side as she watched Young America waving his handkerchief towards her receding figure, while she returned in like manner his parting salute.

She was holding in her hand an engraving—Stephenson's last gift to her, just as they were separating. It represented a boat of antique form, filled with young maidens in poetic guise, in gay rejoicing mood, with palm branches and musical instruments of different form in hand, just sailing away upon the smooth sea, enveloped in the golden sunset atmosphere, with the new moon's bright, silvery crescent clearly discernible just over their shoulders. In the foreground sat a dark, stooping figure looking grimly and mournfully at their enjoyment, his own lute unstrung and useless by his side, indicating that the freer, gladder song which these nymphs were tuning themselves to sing would forever silence his own weird, melancholy notes.

"I have called that old gentleman, there, Dr. Chichester," said Stephenson, in giving it to her; "but now I feel as if it were myself. Do have pity on him, Hilda, and take him into the boat with you as soon as you can. He will merely ask to be helmsman, or anything you think he is fit for. Only let him go."

"Be patient," said Hilda, "and who knows but he will be captain yet. Those pretty young ladies don't look as if they were fitted for, or wanted to spare the time from their music, to row the boat or manage the sail."

"It is more than I am fit for, I am afraid, to take any sort of control over those sylphs. But this I know; that if a storm should come up and darken that bright sky over their heads, which looks as if it were made on purpose for them, I'd reef their sails and row them into the snuggest harbor ever thought of."

"There will be no clashing there about each one's duties," said Zoë; "for they look as if they had arrived at the sphere in which each one was doing what she was best fitted for, so that there is no room for discontent or jarring discords."

"You can interpret the picture as you please," said Young America, "provided you will let me have a berth in her, and allow me to give a helping hand to the one I prefer above all the rest of the angels above or the saints below. I only wish I was good enough, to call for my passage from the lady commander."

"Captains don't have to call for their passage. They have only to prove themselves worthy to guide the ship safely round the world, and they take the supervision at once. Until that time, of course, the Feminines, as Mrs. Pumpkin calls them, must take the lead; but if they are like me, I should be very glad to be excused from any such conspicuous position."

Zoë smiled at Hilda's modest relinquishment of one of the governing qualities of her character—love of control—and marveled at the power for remoulding the temper, which a true affection gives. And so the Old and the New World parted to meet, ere-long, never to be separated.

Mr. Sarran took the picture from her hand as she now stood waving her handkerchief, excepting, as she lowered it from time to time, to wipe the gathering tears from her eyes. The title of the picture was: "Les Illusions Perdues." He looked at it intently, then said, "the flight of the illusions—the flight of the illusions," kissed his hand to the nymphs and turned bitterly away.

Then Hilda saw the injury and grief she had caused to a solitary and affectionate heart by her thoughtless coquetry. She was full of remorse and sorrow at the idea.

"Who would have thought, Zoë," said she, "that such an old gentleman would once think of a young flirt like me, excepting in a grandfatherly way? I don't understand it."

"The pure, loving, and honest soul, if living in accordance with God and nature's laws, never grows old, dear, remember that," said Zoë. "Its environment may decay and drop to the earth to mingle again with its sister atoms; but the inner spirit, if obedient, is renewed, expanded and perpetually glorified, through its ever-nearer and closer communion with its Infinite Source. Never presume upon the want of susceptibility of any human being, for either the highest or the most ardent emotions of which human nature is capable, but treat every one, as before God, you would wish to be dealt with, knowing, as you do now, its quivering sensibilities, and then you will be safe from danger of wounding another, or degrading or paining yourself."

Hilda was very serious, and wondered that there should always be a shadow cast over every enjoyment. But without appealing to Zoë, as had always been her wont in her psychological questionings, she reflected long enough to have the conviction take root in her mind, that God has such ever-watchful and tender care over us that he kindly places guardians to defend us from pride and presumption—those giant enemies of the soul—through a painful inner experience, or by the chafing of some outward circumstances against it sufficiently to keep it quickened to the point of unrest in the present, that the future good may be the more eagerly sought for.

Another cause of solicitude to Hilda was Zoë's interior life as well as her outward prospects. She understood pretty well now, how she would be looked upon in the conventional state of society they would find in Santa Cruz. But besides this, she read in her friend's face and manner, that the excitement under which she had written her Tale, was passing away, leaving her prostrated in health and deeply dejected in mind.

It was true that a terrible revulsion was taking place in Zoë's whole being. She was of a highly susceptible, nervous organization, which had never been taken much into account in her training, so that imperfectly disciplined as she was, in the practical and common-place departments of life, it combined, with her vivid and ever-active imagination, to distress and perplex her. Her health was suffering, first from being overtaxed in her studies, and now by the transition from a temperate to a tropical climate.

Like the balloon of fragile texture and workmanship, which carries within it, at the same time, its own propelling force and its sure cause of ultimate destruction, so Zoë's soul flamed up and flickered hither and thither with every movement of its delicate car, threatening to consume the latter and dissipate its sustaining, ethereal element to the four winds of heaven.

She understood not yet the intimate connection there is between the corporeal, the mental, and spiritual constitution, therefore, when her spirits sank to a lower tone than ever before, in proportion to their late elevation, she thought it must be from some perverse sinfulness in herself.

The work, which, subdued in its tone as it was, had been a lyric to the Most High, now seemed mean and dull, and filled her with disgust.

In vain, as she approached the termination of her voyage, did she strive to rise above her depression. How could she meet the parents from whom she had so long been separated, who had sacrificed so much for her, with heaviness of spirit and the inanimate expression which revealed but too plainly her want of interest in life, or anything that pertained to it! But the greater her struggles the more signal was her spirit's defeat. A mountainous weight settled upon it, a heavy pall folded itself over her, unaccountable even to one whose life had ever been so unjoyous as hers.

In this mood, her eye fell upon her manuscript. It glared upon her as if it were the ghost of every fast-fleeting vision of her childhood and youth. "And this is all that my whole life's aspirations have been able to make real! Fool, fool that I am, to separate my mind from the actual, until I feel strange and forlorn in the world in which God has placed me to be useful, and among my fellows, whom it was intended that I should benefit, but whom, by my presumptuous dreamings, I cannot now bring within the sphere of my possible influence. You, at least, deluding cheat, will I sacrifice to the manes of every hope and desire of the future, which I but too plainly see, are never more to revisit me."

She seized it impulsively, and tying it to an orange which Mr. Stephenson had given her, was on the point of dropping it into the deep.

"What are you doing, Zoë?" said Hilda, startled from her reverie, for even she could dream now. "Your manuscript!

you are crazy;" and she threw an alarmed look at her friend's face, while she caught hold of it.

"Less than ever before, Hilda, for now I see what an idiot I have been all my life! As if I could write anything fit to read. Give it me, dear; I never want to see it again."

"No, no, indeed! Give it to me, Zoë."

"I am afraid you will show it to some one."

"No, I will not. Only give it to me."

Zoë felt too little spirit or interest in anything to contend about the matter, so her infant production went away not only from the gaze of the world, but she who gave it birth, after a whole life's throe of untold agony spurned it from her as a poor, worthless, unacceptable expression of her love for her Master, and with sinking despondency, saw no other way in which she could glorify him.

They were now within sight of Santa Cruz. The emerald green of its fields of sugar-cane, the deep verdure of its forest trees came out gradually to the eye, and their aroma to the scent, as they approached, and now the low-roofed, veranda-circled houses, the clusters of negro huts, and then the barracks and custom-house, with its arched oriental-like entrance, stood before them. The boat was lowered, the luggage secured, a few strokes of the oar given to the gentle waiting Caribbean, and its child, who had so tenderly and tearfully yearned for it in her exile, was borne lovingly upon its waves to the shore.

The passengers first went to the custom-house, to submit to the examination of their luggage. Hilda and Zoë were standing at the door, looking around for a hackman, when a dark, grave man sauntered in. He started on seeing the two girls, looked admiringly at Hilda's tall, elegant figure and animated face; then upon Zoë, and exclaimed, "My child, can this be you?" and the next moment she was folded in her father's arms!

O susceptible, sensitive, thrilling soul of woman! giving to thy sympathetic, fleshly envelope hundreds of eyes, myriads of ears, and the power of reading the inner thoughts and feelings of the world about thee, and of retaining to it from the fountain within thee, either an inspiration to high endeavor and strength to accomplish mighty deeds in the inner and the outer life, or Circe-like, alluring to death, or, what is worse, to the spirit's bondage to sin and evil! Heed well the power invested in thee, and it shall be a ministry to lift thee and thy fellows heavenward—neglect or pervert it, and it may drag them and thyself down to the lowest Erebus!

Through this subtle magnetism of an etherealized spirit, Zoë read in her father's eye, in his somewhat constrained manner, and his brooding brow, that he compared her unfavorably with her brilliant companion, and that he was disappointed in the result of his life-long labor and sacrifice for her. This, of course, only threw a deeper shadow over her spirits, and unnerved her for the meeting with her mother. Hilda and she separated at the custom-house, the former saying, as she bade her good evening, "I shall see you to-morrow:" and in a few moments she was folded in her mother's embrace.

"This, my child, was dead and is alive again; she was lost and is found!" said Sophia, in the rapt language in which she now often expressed herself.

Zoë's life had been one of yearning and unrest. In her outpourings of sentiment, she had always coupled her mother with the cravings of her deepest nature. She had felt that, if she could but once be pressed to her bosom, new life would be given her, and that she should start up quickened as from a second and conscious birth. How different from the letter was the reality! She had but just strength to totter towards her, and, for the first time in her life, swooned entirely away.

————

CHAPTER XVIII.

"God did anoint thee with his odorous oil,
To wrestle, not reign."—ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING.

MRS. STROPHEL was surprised at the arrival of Hilda thus prematurely, and delighted to see her beautiful development of person, and self-possessed, dignified carriage. Mr. Strophel was too infirm in body and mind to notice her with very warm and continued interest, but asked her repeatedly, "How she left the health of their majesties in Copenhagen."

Alice, the younger daughter, looked wonderingly at her, and divided her attention between her newly-arrived sister and her spaniel, for an hour, and then ran away to have an undisturbed frolic with her pet.

In the evening, her two married sisters, who resided in Fredericstadt, came in to greet the new comer. One of them, Mrs. Warrington, who had been educated in England, thus living away from her home for many years, seeming to understand what Hilda's feelings would naturally be on coming home to so many stranger relatives, seated herself by her side, and caressed, and spoke to her in tones of endearment and warm affection.

But the great subject of interest and never-ending talk was the insurrection, the conduct of the blacks, the advent of the Spanish soldiers, their departure, together with discontented references to the conduct of the governor-general. So that Hilda soon gained the impression that this beautiful Eden, which had risen to her vision from the waves of the azure-tinted sea as she gazed upon it, was made the abode of discontent and strife by artificial usages, false and barbarous customs, and the lack of the life-inspiring influence of the pure and simple religion of Jesus, freed from heathen admixtures.

Before she retired, she communicated to her mother her attachment to Mr. Stephenson. She was minute in her inquiries of his parentage and standing in society, his fortune and his prospects in life, and the result of her conversation with her daughter was her expression of satisfaction at her future prospects.

The next morning on rising from breakfast, Hilda said, "I must go and see Zoë."

"My dear," said her mother, "I hope you are going to drop your acquaintance with George Carlan's daughter."

"Mamma!" said Hilda, reddening from sudden excitement.

"Of course, you will not continue your foolish school-girl friendship with that lowborn Quadroon. I don't like it very well, that Miss Ingemann permitted it. Did she think that my daughter was worthy of no better companion?"

"Zoë is a lady!" said Hilda, "and more than that, she is the most precious soul that ever lived; and dear mamma," she continued, with enthusiasm, "she is my beloved and most valued friend!"

"Nonsense, Hilda, what will be thought of you, if you are seen among the colored people on any terms of equality? I can't permit it, and there is nothing more to be said about it"—and she went out to give directions to her servants.

Hilda obeyed so far, as to say no more about the matter, but went immediately to Zoë. She looked ill, and she knew that she was sad, but was evidently trying to make herself at home with her father, and to interest herself in her mother's occupations and little family arrangements. Some of her cousins came in to see her, and them she received with great sweetness, though Hilda knew how painful it must be to her affectionate nature, to find among them none who could give her companionship, excepting in her most trifling hours. She mentally resolved to be more to her in the future, than she had ever been.

Towards evening, Zoë and her mother walked upon the sea-shore, and had it not been for the weight of disappointment at the non-fulfillment of her religious dreams and aspirations, her deadness of interest in the present, and her growing anxiety for the future, both in this world and the next, she could not but have drank in with delight the charms with which a tropical sea, sunset and perennial verdure enriched the landscape around her.

She was not disappointed in her mother. She was simple, affectionate, pure and a true and ardent lover of Nature, and she longed to be able, as she laid her head on her breast, to unburden the woes of her soul. But that she could not do, even to her, for she felt that to her parent's circumscribed mental vision and comparatively narrow imaginative outlook, the revelation of the dreams, of which she was compounded, so entirely had she blended her whole interior life with them, would make her start back aghast; or, if she should reveal her disappointment and consequent depression, it would be the means of separating them heaven-wide apart, through the natural rebuke she would give her. So she labored on with that heaviest and most discouraging burden, a sick, weary and remorseful soul. With her father, she felt under continual restraint. He was superficial in his philosophy, worldly in his aims and desires, and narrow and one-sided in his judgment of human nature and character. He was a disappointed man, because he had looked for the uprising of himself and his race, through external power and worldly advantages, instead of through the patient, steady growth of character and soul. Even if Zoë had appeared in her most favorable light, he would not have been satisfied, for he wished her to be a showy, striking, handsome person, with obvious energy and force of character, and that loftiness of demeanor which impresses the shallow, and compels outward adherence and a show of respect, though the inner spirit may all the time chafe, curse, despise, and slily use all possible means to evade its influence.

Zoë strove to be social and lively, but this was harder than all besides, for as it was not in accordance with her darkened spirit, she shrank from expressing what she did not feel. She reflected more and more upon the failure of her hopes, more and more did her self-respect leave her, more and more glaring did her lifelong mistake weigh down her whole being.

Thus week after week passed away. It did not matter to her that she was not received into the social circles of the whites. Had she been so, it would not have enlarged her estimate of herself—that she was ignored by them did not change her opinion of her own deserts. To God, she had always looked for approval and impulse—from Him, she had hitherto received a full measure of inspiration and encouragement.

Once only, did she show the least symptom of resentment at the prevailing prejudices against her caste, and its disregard of justice in its blind adherence to the floating surface of things.

She had made the acquaintance of a Santa Cruz lady at Mr. Liebenhoff's, to whom she had brought letters of introduction, and it had so happened, that she was able to pay her many little attentions, and give her, in several instances, valuable aid in settling herself comfortably for a summer residence in Copenhagen. Hilda, on the contrary, not taking a liking to her, and being occupied with her own affairs, paid her scarcely any attention. Now, however, Zoë ascertained that Mrs. Orlandsen had given her blonde-haired, pale-complexioned friend, letters of introduction to her wealthy relatives in Bassin, who were most assiduous in paying her various attentions in the way of invitations to visit, to ride, and to sail with them in the little pleasure excursions got up from time to time in that part of the island. Her pensive face glowed for a moment with resentment at this ingratitude and disregard of the common courtesies of life, but it was soon unheeded in the experience of what was of infinitely more moment to her; for the fearful and heartsinking feeling possessed her, that, by her blasphemy in likening herself to the Messiah, she had forfeited the favor of God, and therefore he had withdrawn from her his support, protection, assistance and communing Spirit. Her debilitated health, the entire change of her associates, the discouraging effect of seeing the low condition of her people, her father's unhappiness and evident disappointment of his last hope of rising in social life through herself, all tended to make her miserable. The memory of Miss Ingemann's dislike to her, her disapproval of the style of her mental and psychological development, added to the condemnatory words of Dr. Chichester concerning her race, which she had overheard, the sense of its wide-spread debasement, giving apparently some sanction to the idea, increased her dismay.

But the overmastering cause of her wretchedness was the conviction that, through an undisciplined imagination, she had brought ruin upon herself and dragged down upon her guilty head the retribution meet for the proud, presumptuous, and self-exalting soul. Then came bitterly to her mind the warnings of Mrs. Liebenhoff against unrestrained fancies, and she saw, but too late, that she had sinned against the clearest light and the wisest counsel, and in the same proportion to her wicked neglect of them, would be her punishment and doom. A less reserved and delicate nature and a less self-sacrificing temper would have relieved itself by expressions of some sort, even though it might not have met with full sympathy or appropriate aid. But it was a part of her nature, as has been already said, to reveal herself no farther than she met with a response, and the bare thought of increasing her mother's trials, and diminishing the comfort she could find in her recovered child, kept her mouth almost entirely closed upon the subject of her misery.

She entered with all the energy of which she was capable into her domestic occupations—for her father's diminished means made some personal labor necessary to them—both from a desire to relieve her, and bring her own mind also in contact with the practical and common-place. She would select the most difficult and disagreeable duties, and faithfully perform them, though her mother would beg her to desist, and would watch, with tearful eye and a heart full of tenderness, this fragile being stemming the current of the rude world's uses. A lily she seemed to her, sitting like a spirit of light above the thick river mud, or amidst the green slime of the stagnant pond inlet, with no defilement upon its pure petals, only its central star-rays folded from sight either by its own lack of power to open them in scenes so unmeet for it, or, by the sickly heaviness of the circumambient air.

In her wish to bring herself into kindly relations with her people, she would frequent the market when the negroes brought of their produce for sale. But they loved not her father, they were jealous of her superiority of culture, and they either coldly returned her greeting, or more decidedly evinced their want of friendliness to her by a muttered reference to her outlandish education.

Hilda was with her daily for an hour or two, and sought indirectly to rouse and cheer her. Her mother pretended not to notice her visits to Zoë, though she well knew she was disobeying her wishes that she should drop the acquaintance; but an inferior spirit, if at all intelligent, learns to dread coming into collision with one superior to itself, knowing how it will be worsted in the encounter. As this was the only instance of her displeasing her, she was silent upon the subject, though she strove to keep the friendship of Hilda for Zoë a secret from her conventional friends.

One day she was sitting chatting by her side, telling one incident after another which would, she thought, interest Zoë, and not being over-careful of exposing the family jars, which occasionally happened in Mr. Strophel's abode. She lacked Zoë's delicate sense of propriety, which, like the magnet, always settled at the true point of the compass, and having been away from her family all her life, she had not the peculiar pride in its appearing always to the best advantage, that would be sufficient to counterbalance her sense of the ludicrousness of some of the scenes enacted within the walls of her home.

"O Zoë!" said she, "you don't know what a funny time we had yesterday at the dinner-table. Two English gentlemen dined with us, of the true British stamp, seeing nothing but their country and her glory above the horizon, every button upon their dress-coats an institution, and to be honored in the closing accordingly. Papa, as he always does, got upon Denmark, and the court, and their majesties, and enlarged upon them to the satiety of the guests.

"I tried to relieve them by turning his attention to some other subject, but did not succeed. Major Lanman, seeing me in distress, came to the rescue, as he thought, by saying, 'Mr. Strophel, I am delighted with Santa Cruz. It seems strange to me now, that I have never before given myself the pleasure of visiting you (meaning the island of course). I have often been at St. Thomas.'

"Papa smiled and bowed in his most courtier-like way, and said, 'Indeed, I hope you may never have that pleasure again!'

"The Englishman looked grim at first, but his feelings changing suddenly, I thought that he would burst, in trying to keep from laughing, and then that he would certainly grow tipsy by seeking to cover his confusion by his wine-glass."

She paused a moment, then said, "I see you do not think it is quite right to repeat these blunders of my respected relatives, but really, Zoë, it is quite a difficult matter always to be governed by the fifth commandment, in intercourse with those who have always been strangers to you, especially if they do such provoking deeds as papa did the last evening."

"What was it, dear?"

"Why, don't you think, that he has taken a fancy to making a gallery of the fine arts of our bath-house. He has the twelve apostles in Parian marble on brackets here and there, and this morning, I found he had cut out some of the handsomest engravings from that expensive and beautiful book, cousin Harry gave me, as we were leaving London, and stuck them up over the bathing-tub and washstand! Is it not too bad?"

"I am sorry you left the volume where your father could appropriate it to himself. You know you told me before, that it was his habit to select for his own use, without regard to meum and tuum. It is a pity, surely."

"O, Zoë, I need you every hour in the day, to prompt me to do right, and lead me into careful ways, instead of having to steal in the manner I do, to see you."

Zoë started. "Then your mother is unwilling to have you visit me?"

"I thought you knew, dear, that there is no bottom to the iniquities and absurdities which the system of slavery has entailed upon the white people of this island. One is, it has eaten up their souls, leaving them with just about as much capacity of perceiving rightly the eternal truth of things, as my great century doll with Mr. Andersen's spectacles on. They see only people's skins, and their favorite hue is that of skimmed milk, very, very blue! It seems to me, that the whites have only a skin-deep religion, skin-deep politics, skin-deep political economy, skin-deep literature, skin-deep morals, skin-deep education, skin-deep tastes, feelings, affections, and judgment of character. There, dear, never dare again to think that I am not a philosopher. I have spelled that out all by myself, and I have come to the conclusion, that if some of the other races don't rise to their proper position and sway among the nations, that the world will shrivel all up like an old, dry piece of parchment and blow away into the sea in the next hurricane. What do you say about it, Zoë?"

"I am thinking, Hilda, that you ought not to come and see me, if your mother has forbidden it."

"I am a woman, Zoë, and I must do as I think best."

"But we must honor our parents here, and obey them, while we are under their guardianship."

"It is of no use trying to make me think, that it is my duty to give up my love for you, or not to show it by coming to see you, and there is an end of the matter."

"But can't you have a talk with your mother, and let her see that it is a settled principle with you, rather than a mere school-girl feeling? I think she can't but respect that in her grown-up daughter."

"That is true, Zoë. I will do that very thing, for I don't feel quite right to come to you so slily as I do. It is unjust to you, no less than to them and myself. You are always so good, dearest, and direct me so beautifully! How can I ever live without you?"

"No, Hilda, don't call me so any more, I am wicked;" and her face expressed all the despair which this feeling caused her.

"You wicked! Yes, as wicked as that white cloud sailing by, glorified as it is by the sun's rays shining upon it!"

"Hilda, I am wicked, wicked!"

Hilda took another turn to try to comfort her.

"Well, dear, so am I wicked, as wicked as all out of doors, as George would say. I despise my father, I hate my mother, and dislike all my other relations, excepting sister Warrington, and if that is not being wicked, I don't know what is. And as for this poor, forsaken little island, I feel so imprisoned in it, and weary of my bondage, that I should like to take it up in my hand and toss it over to the coast of South America. Then wouldn't I give it into the keeping of somebody, that would shake it into a sensible way of thinking and acting? Wouldn't I?"

Zoë made an effort to smile.

"And seeing we are both so wicked now, we will have a nice little time repenting of our sins, and to-morrow morning wake up all new, and pure, and good as need be! Won't we, darling?"

Zoë shook her head despondingly.

"O my dear little friend!" said Hilda, folding her in her arms as if she were a grieved child; "I wish I were good enough, and broad enough, and deep enough to console you; but I am not; so I can only love you dearly and pray to our Father to take the very best care that he possibly can of you."

"Yes, Hilda, nobody but He can aid me, and the worst of it is, I have gone beyond even his help, I fear. But why do I trouble you? It is better for me to keep my feelings to myself, and if I am ever to rise from my depression, it must be by communion with Him alone."

"That reminds me," said Hilda, "that mamma proposed that I should go to St. Thomas to-morrow, to see my married sister there. I did not like to leave you, but perhaps I had better on your account."

"Go, dear, by all means, and before you come to me again, speak to your mother about it and get her consent."

Hilda promised, and the two friends separated for a brief season.

————

CHAPTER XIX.

"Arise, my God, and strike, for we hold thee just,
Strike dead the whole weak race of venomous worms,
That sting each other here in the dust;
We are not worthy to live."—TENNYSON.

HILDA had a cousin on the father's side, an officer in the Danish regiment stationed at Santa Cruz, who was educated in one of the German universities. He had occasionally visited her while at Misa Ingemann's, and always manifested a good deal of interest in Zoë. She never had liked him very much, as his style of character and his conversation harmonized very little with her own. He was deeply imbued with the latitudinarian philosophy, so rife at the present time, was ultra rationalistic in his religious belief, an advocate of free love, and quite superior to all church ministrations and ordinances. He came to see her now with Hilda occasionally, and showed an undiminished regard for her. Though Zoë never thought of love in connection with him, he was more tolerable to her than in Denmark, simply from her having so few intelligent associates and from his being connected in her mind with many of the works of art in Copenhagen, which they had visited together.

Mr. and Mrs. Carlan were members of the Episcopal Church, now under the care of a young clergyman from the United States by the name of Marland.

The Danish government, as has been said, was striving to raise the free blacks by giving them equal social, as well as political privileges with the whites. In the churches it frowned upon any dividing lines, either by the appropriation to their use of inferior seats, or in the administration of the ordinances. Still old customs had great power, and it required more courage and effort than the majority cared to evince, to take the position in all cases allowed them by the laws.

In the communion service, it had been the habit all along for the whites to come up to the altar to receive the elements, then the free colored people, and lastly the blacks.

One Sunday Mr. Carlan was at church. His wife was not well and Zoë staid at home to attend upon her. Possessed, as he was, by the spirit of rivalry—knowing what his rights were as a free citizen under the Danish government—when the first communicants went to the altar, he also arose and mingled with them as they knelt to take the emblems of his meek and lowly yet sublimely tempered Lord. Mr. Marland was disconcerted at this unusual demonstration of independence from a colored person; he knew the prevailing feeling with regard to this very man's assumption; he hesitated a moment, then passed him by, and gave of the cup and bread to the white communicants first.

Mr. Carlan returned home very much incensed, threatening to inform the magistrates of this disregard of the Danish law; which menace the next day he carried into execution, and the church, in consequence, was ordered to be closed, until the excitement among the colored citizens should be allayed.

His wife tried to soothe him, but in vain. Zoë attempted to turn his mind to a higher view of this trying circumstance; but stung to desperation as he was, it was of no avail, but, on the contrary, brought upon herself a verbal expression of his disappointment in her.

It needed but this scene and those stinging words to complete Zoë's despair. She said nothing, but her spirit groaned in its deepest recesses at its incompetence either to direct aright her own meditations, or to strike the key-note which would reduce to harmony her father's discordant nature.

"Woe, woe is me!" she said to herself, "that with this fearfully quickened perception of what is the only true good of our being, I should be manacled and chained by the abuse of my powers so as to be nothing but a useless weight, an incumbrance in the sphere which I should fill to completeness, and adorn, in accordance with the privileges bestowed upon me!"

When she was no longer needed by her mother, she walked out towards the sea-side and sat down upon a fallen tree in a grove whose boughs almost bent over the waves. Not a breath of air stirred a leaf upon the tree over her head, the sky wore a lurid look, and a stagnation was in the atmosphere such as betokens a hurricane. This was not, however, the usual season for one, so to Zoë it seemed but the sympathy of nature with her, or, rather, its reproach dramatized in this way, to enforce more surely to her deadened, powerless existence the fact of her being only a cumberer of the ground. She felt as if she should stifle in the heated unelastic air. She threw back the hair from her temples and bared her neck to be free from resistance to any possible passing breath, but it did not relieve her. She thought that the curse of God had settled thus palpably upon her head, she felt its crushing weight, its stinging hiss and mocking syllables were in her ear, its awful message was written upon the heavy, dark cloud which hung low and threatening in full view before her.

At this moment the cousin of Hilda, Lieutenant Tileston, came and seated himself by her side. She half shrank from his presence as she always had, yet now that her being was awry as it were by disease and mental suffering, she had come to distrust the gentle warning which a pure soul gives out to its possessor of the approach of danger or defilement. It was a relief at this fearful moment to have any human form approach her.

"Zoë," said he, "I am ordered to St. Thomas with my troop, and I have come to see you before leaving."

"Hilda has already gone there you know," said Zoë.

"I have no interest in Hilda, Zoë; you are my soul's complement; without you I can no longer live. Do you not see how a magnetic sympathy drew me towards you. I knew not of your being here, but the force of the affinity existing between us impelled me towards you. O go with me, Zoë, my love, my twin spirit, and a true marriage without the slavery which priests or laws impose shall be ours through time and eternity."

One cause of Zoë's wretchedness was the separation from her kind, which an exaggerated idealism, unrestrained by a proper discipline of the social and practical elements of our constitution ever imposes. She was solitary in the midst of living, sentient humanity—lonely and forlorn with the busy, pleasure-loving world on every side of her. And now, O soul-crushing, heart-quaking thought! Nature, whose fondling she had lovingly called herself, frowned upon her in every phase of its manifestations; and the Infinite, whose peculiar child she had reverently thought she was, turned rebukingly away from her, or chided her in each intimation of his Providence! What wonder, then, that she should catch at the slightest hint that the great Father above and the tender mother below were relenting towards her and indicating, through the sympathy of one human being, their pardon for her sinfulness!

The young man saw the impression his words were making upon her. He was on the point of laying his arm on her shoulder to draw her towards him. She looked quickly in his eye, and started up as if a serpent had stung her, for she read plainly in its glance a selfish, unbridled passion, a destructive, ungovernable lust. The spirit of divination, which ever possesses one who purges herself from earthly pollution and looks up to the heavens calmly, longingly and perseveringly, came back to her with full sweep and potency.

"O! Genius of the universe, of matter and of mind!" she exclaimed, as with form erect and arm up-lifted, she looked first up to the heavens, and then with withering and majestic glance upon him who sat gazing astounded at her feet. "Now I know why thou sufferest the polluting breath of concupiscence to fall upon thy undefiled! It is that she may gather into her heart of hearts the multitudes of her poor, seduced, betrayed, abandoned, lost and ruined sisters. I see them everywhere—a man-forsaken, woman-scorned throng. They cast their imploring eye up to thee, O pitying Father, in the field—they cower, frightened and dismayed, in the hut—they stand rigid and passive upon the auction block—they smile sicklily, in satin and lace, in the harem—they flaunt boldly that they may conceal their despair in the streets; and, O misery and perdition! they curse and wail, and bemoan their pollution of soul and body in the brothel, and die, and are cast out as worthless weeds into the highway. Come to me, O come to me, ye poor, lost, ruined, man-forsaken, God-forsaking frail ones! I will lift you out of the mire of the roadside; I will bind up your wounds, both of the body and soul; I will place you in safety from the foot of the destroyer. And when, through the spirit of our tender, forgiving, life-inspiring, crucified Master, ye have come to be clothed in your right mind, O! then I will point you to the glorified Christ, and ye shall help to bring on his triumphant reign. While those, (and she pointed her finger with scorn at the Lieutenant,) who selfishly have torn from thee, Psyche, thy delicate wings and trampled them in the dust, shall cower and creep away into the thick darkness to repent for thy wrongs, and learn, in humiliation of spirit, how priceless is thy worth before God."

She ceased, and before the man had recovered from the mental stupor occasioned by this new revelation of power in one whom he had thought so plastic and gentle as to be moulded as he saw fit to his purposes, she had glided from his sight and taken refuge in the embracing trunk of a silk cotton-tree near, where she waited until he should leave the vicinity.

He rose, looked around, and seeing nothing of her, the thought came into his mind that she must have dissipated with the dense atmosphere. A bird of the parrot species, called by the negroes, the 'Black Witch,' at that moment flew out from a shrub near, circled over his head for a moment, and then soared away.

He put his hand to his crown, uncovered as it was, on account of the heat, as if a condemnation had fallen upon it, as the bird fluttered past him; he bent his form, so proud and self-sufficient but a moment before, and shrank away, a pitiable instance of high-flown imaginings, and most paltry and mistaken doings.

O miserable, short-sighted philosophy of the unassisted reason! which leavest the truths of the ages condensed in the sublime religion of Jesus, to piece out for thyself a shapeless, stained and meagre reliance for the ever-living soul; to form, for its guidance, a compound of fanaticism, superstition, pride, self-conceit, bigotry and Pharisaical assumption, with but just enough truth hanging loosely to it, to delude without saving from sin! why dare ye show your wrinkled, blear-eyed, harlot-front before the sanctified religion of the cross? How have ye the fool-hardy courage to come with your scarlet, blood-stained, bespattered garments into the precincts of the sacred courts, and compare your faded, tattered cloak, which but scantily hides your deformity, with the seamless robe of the Christ, or offer your stingy, mammon-crusted, man-seeking gift upon God's altar of the Holy of Holies!

Ye shall roll up from inherent lack of ability to preserve yourself from unseemly furrows and folds! Ye shall pass away in the muttered sighs of the confessional, the dead forms of the rubric, the fiery, yet icy dogmas of the Athanasian creed, in the vain whinings after the leeks and onions of a dying and receding intellectual belief, and in the rappings and table tippings, which are but presages of the electric might of the rising majesty and sure victory of the religion of Jesus.

The soul will, first or last, reclaim its full rights, and if it recovers them not in the legitimate way, it will scare and make fools of the gaping multitudes by wizard-like demonstrations and ridiculous or fearful manifestoes. It is for man to give it its just and proportionate sway over the present, and the future will be sure to slide gracefully and beneficently into its fitting and harmonious locality and state.

Zoë came out from her hiding-place when she was sure of being left alone, the momentary excitement of her nature abandoning her to a still deeper and darker depression.

She tottered a few steps, and then threw herself upon the ground in her agony.

"Woe, woe! is me that I have lived to endure insult and the offer of pollution. This never would have been, had I not forfeited the favor of the pure-eyed One above. Were I worthy to be shielded by Him, I should pass unscathed through the direst dens of defilement without drawing upon me the evil glance of corruption. Why, why am I permitted to live in the universe of his holiness! Better is it that I should sink into annihilation than to be a blot on His lovely creation!"

Her hand fell upon a manchineel apple, under whose parent tree she was prostrated. She seized it, and the thought of self-destruction rushed over her, for by swallowing that, she would soon lie lifeless under the bleaching, torrid sun.

"And murder, too, is added to my catalogue of sins! O, that I should live to fill up the measure of human iniquity!"

At that moment a vivid streak of lightning, followed by a crashing clap of thunder, rent the air. The wind swept down the gulleys and ravines along the declivity of Mount Victory, which bounded one side of the spot where she was sitting. A hurricane sent forth its fearful blast, as a signal of her everlasting damnation.

She bent low her head for a moment, as if in submission to its heralding trump of doom. Faster and faster fell the rain-drops, louder and louder shrieked the whirlwind in its sweeping passage by her. An instinct of self-preservation impelled her to look around for a retreat from its fury.

She discerned, at a little distance, a disused sugar-house, and she rushed frantically towards that, and had just time to enter it and crouch down in a corner when the full force of the tempest sped over her.

In fearful unison with its raging was the frenzy of her mind.

"Roar, O ye tree-tops!" chimed in her disordered spirit with the sound of their waving branches. "Ye echo most fittingly the rage of hoary ocean at my youthful, yet old as Cain sanguinary imagining!

"Scream out your scorn, tempest, at the weak virtue which cannot look the deceiver into Hades! Hurl your thunderbolts, dart your lightning, thou electrical Spirit, at the presumptuous one, who ascribes to herself a more than equal share of thy smiles! Rend the earth, uproot the kings of the forest, thou tornado, which shakest in thy fury the proud uplifting spirit of the presumptuous Zoë! O sea, which I have proudly called mine in tones of endearment! meet is it that thou upbraidest my pride by sweeping over thy barriers and threatening to overwhelm me!

"Hush! what is that image, frightful, and cruel? It is the press where my poor, helpless people are ground to the dust, and their life-blood bespattered upon the pavement of stone. The caldrons, the caldrons! They are full of the mangled limbs of my own. The hogsheads are brimming with their terrible woes. In the distance I see the treadmill, where, faint and fearful they stumble, crying, 'Massa, pity me, dear massa! For God's sake relieve me!' And there is the scourge, all clotted with gore, its whip braided of the long hair torn from the brow of the murdered. And now the distillery stares at me. From its alembic of all conceivable horrors, exhales to the heavens, the souls tried as by fire! Ha! is it not right, that God should destroy the earth, steeped to the brim in its sins? Yes, yes, the wicked are cut down by the hot breath of his nostrils. Now it sweeps over the town, carrying destruction and ruin in its path!

"The men and women tremble, as well they may, at this fearful retribution. We are overwhelmed, we are buried in the wreck of the world. Hear its frightful shock and shiver, as it splits and overwhelms the sinful, devoted nations! 'Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do!' " shrieked Zoë, as an uprooted tree fell across the roof of the sugar-house.

The sound of her own voice above the boom of the elements, recalled her a little to herself, and brought back the ever-recurring attempt to trace her mind's history back to the time when she first fell into her ruinous habit of day-dreaming, to which she had of late attributed all her subsequent trials. She clutched in imagination at the period, when she lay a happy, contented infant of three years in her mother's arms, or tottered by her side on the sea-beach, pleased and satisfied with the sight of the blue and violet-tinted waves of the sea of the Caribs. Ever since that time, she had spurned the present, and lived in the future, but that brief period of her remembered infancy, came up to her mind like a backward hope of retrieving the past by amendment in the future.

At that moment, her father rushed in, having come in pursuit of her, and had traced her to her retreat, by her scarf which had fallen from her, not far from the entrance.

"My child," said he, "why are you here?" Filled with the recollection of her innocent, contented childhood, she stretched out her hands to him as had then been her wont, saying, "Take me into your arms, papa."

The strong man folded her to his bosom weeping for joy, and as he strode homewards over uprooted trees, braving the encroachments of the ocean's surge and the angry force of the elements, ay, even treading upon the wreck of his goods by the storm, he felt a new thrill of joy through his being. For in Zoë's infantile petition and clasp of his neck, as she fell into unconsciousness, he felt that he had not only recovered his child in lieu of the changeling which she had brought to him in her sadness and reserve, but, that he had in a measure, found his own lost self as he was, when comparatively at peace, he had watched with Sophia, the gambols of their darling in front of their veranda. He gave her tenderly into the arms of his wife, who, as she laid her worn and wearied frame upon the couch, thanked God, who had thus brought her precious one "out of much tribulation."

————

CHAPTER XX.

"All her excellencies stand in her so silently, as if they had stolen upon her without her knowledge. She makes her hand hard with labor, and her heart soft with pity. She doth all things with so sweet a grace, it seems ignorance will not suffer her to do ill, being her mind is to do well."

OVERBURY.

A LOW, lingering sickness followed this strain upon the physical and spiritual nature of Zoë. She lay unconscious of all outward scenes and impressions, though her inner world was peopled by a multitude of shapes, and was the sphere of incessant psychological workings. At first, she was in great distress, struggling with phantoms, and fighting with fearful dreams, but gradually she grew more quiet, her face recovered its placid expression, and at length she settled into a deep and unperturbed sleep.

Her parents watched over her, as if their life's happiness were chained to the frail tenement which inclosed the precious spirit of their child, and many were the questionings which forced themselves upon the mind of George Carlan. He was learning at last the lesson of dependence, upon a surer stay than the world's breath of popular favor, a more certain mode of exaltation than wealth or ambition can furnish.

Hilda heard accidentally, in St. Thomas, of the illness of her friend, and hastened home to be with her.

"Mamma!" said she, with the decision which characterized her, while her commanding figure and noble face served to enforce her remarks; "I have disobeyed you in going to see Zoë contrary to your commands. I will comply with your wishes in what does not compromise my truth, my conscience, my honor, and my deepest affections. The friendship of Zoë, I learned all by myself, when a little girl, was a sacred trust reposed in me by my Heavenly Father. Therefore, I know you will respect the convictions which impel me to more than ever cherish and care for her. You will suffer your daughter to judge and act in this matter, as her love and her sense of right require her, will you not, mamma?"

Mrs. Strophel saw well how seriously Hilda viewed the whole subject, and she dared not oppose her, therefore, she gave an ungracious assent, requesting her not to be seen more than was possible with Zoë in the street, as she felt very much mortified by her acquaintance with her.

When Zoë recovered her consciousness, Hilda was sitting by her side, watching every indication of returning convalescence. She opened her eyes, fixed first a mournful, troubled, inquiring gaze upon her face; gradually its expression brightened as if a cloud were slowly rolling away its dark folds, leaving a sunshiny smile to cheer and rejoice those who lived, as it were, in its light. There was joy in every beating of Hilda's pulse; there was a sweet, subdued thankfulness in the heart of Sophia; and Mr. Carlan, as he kissed the pale forehead of his risen child, felt that he, too, had not in vain gone with her to the gates of the dead, for he had brought from thence a contrite spirit and an appreciation of something higher and better than was recognized by him in his most prosperous days.

Zoë gradually recovered, so as to take part again in the duties of her home, and she sought, as much as possible, to extend her sphere of usefulness abroad.

She gained by little and little the right idea of her constitution in each of its departments, and its true relation to God and humanity.

She thought of herself no longer as special and peculiar, either in nature, character, or destination, but as one of a grand company of souls, each invested with a more than princely right, under God, to develop itself to the point of Infinity. Only in the direction of evil and wrong does the Almighty Republican Governor interpose his beneficent influence to restrain and save his own from destruction and injury; towards the ever multiplying spheres of the All-Good and All-Perfect he has placed no barriers to their progress, but on the contrary, has blazoned on high every inducement through Nature, Christianity, and his ever-watchful Providence for their advancement and complete felicity.

Mr. Lindsey and his party returned from Barbadoes to Santa Cruz, with the exception of Mr. Pierson, who decided to go on with Mr. Stephenson to the Amazon, and from thence to Chili, his place of destination.

Zoë and Hilda greeted them with cordiality, and they found comfortable lodgings in the hotel of Mrs. Howard.

Mr. Carlan found himself very much reduced in his means, his losses by the hurricane being the last of repeated blows, leveled against his fortune. He re-arranged his affairs on a reduced scale, and his wife availed herself of her talent in making nice confectionary and pastry to increase their resources. Zoë's natural taste and idealism came into play in this occupation, and she was a willing and efficient aid to her mother in her work.

"See, mamma!" said she, as she pointed to a wedding-loaf she had decorated to answer an order upon their skill. "Is not that a work of art? If I make a beautiful cake or tart, with a true aim after perfection in all its parts, I shall feel as much satisfaction, so far as the effort goes, as if I had painted a beautiful picture, and who knows, if I begin and am faithful in this department, but that I may, in future, rise so high as to work over the sky, and the clouds, and the human form divine in a painting, as easily as I now mould this sugar to my purposes. I think I'll hang out my sign, 'Zoë Carlan, Artist in Pies and Cakes;' and if people are bright enough to see a few years in advance, they will read through these materialized syllables the golden letters underneath of, 'Zoë Carlan, Artist in Composition Pictures and in Statuary.' "

"What confectioner did you employ?" said Mrs. Rutgard to Mrs. Stinson, on the occasion of her daughter Ellen's marriage.

"Mrs. Carlan made all these knick-knacks; are they not pretty? and this large loaf was ornamented by Zoë. What exquisite taste it evinces! By the way I heard you had had trouble with your servants?"

"Yes," said Mrs. Rutgard, "they are as impertinent as they can be. O this dreadful emancipation! We are all ruined by it."

"Do you think so? My husband says his servants behave remarkably well in the fields, and mine in the house never did half so much work as they do now, or half as well. They seem really to have risen in the scale of humanity since the emancipation."

"Mr. Rutgard says that it is all a mere fancy of enthusiasts to suppose that the African race is capable of improvement. Why, look at Zoë Carlan, educated as many years as she has been, who has settled down into nothing but a pastry cook!"

Yes, Zoë was a pastry cook! for in this occupation did she see her way of duty in the present. She would array herself fitly for her employment and delight her mother and find satisfaction for herself in expressing, in this humble way her ideas of the beautiful and truly tasteful. From her throne of labor, humble yet exalted as it was by her high principles of action, she surveyed the myriads of her sisters of every color and clime, who minister thus lowlily to the comfort, health and happiness of mankind. She thanked God that she could be thus brought into living sympathy with them, and at the same time with Jesus, their great workfellow and friend, whose words oftentimes cheered her in the heat and labor of the day: "For whether is greater, he that sitteth at meat, or he that serveth? is not he that sitteth at meat? But I am among you as he that serveth."

How much nobler and truer, verily, is the rude life of the kitchen if its walls and its most unseemly work are hallowed by high endeavor, than the luxurious indolence of the hysterical drone or of the butterfly-belle, floating upon life's surface, on the fashionable promenade or in the midnight assembly!

When the labors of the day were over she would either stroll with her mother—and father sometimes now—amid their favorite haunts, or sit under the shade of the tamarind tree and weave into artistic form the shining seeds of the mimosa, talking simply, yet ever beautifully upon the themes which enriched and gladdened her life.

She was a pastry cook! but sometimes she would wander alone till she reached her most beloved seat on a large rock which had been washed up by the waves upon a point extending far out from the main-land. Here she felt less bounded than anywhere else by the inclosures of time and sense, and her freed spirit would utter itself in jubilant strains with the breaking surf for an accompaniment, and the sea-birds' flight upwards to serve as the ethereal spirit of music to waft her notes to the throne of the Highest.

"O glorious and ever-shifting, yet always the same ocean! venerable in thy hoary age, mighty in the propelling, uplifting force of thy world-encircling waters! Thou speakest to me of eternity in the past, and of a still more glowing eternity in the future! Roll on in thy majesty like the ages upon ages, ever bearing on thy varied front—now darkened by storm and made terrible by thy roaring surge, now reflecting the infinite and loving, universal smile of God—the image of His great and marvelous dealings with the nations.

"Spirit of the universe! Ruler and parent of all the dwellers in the multitudinous spaces of creation! Thou ever givest us good from thy inexhaustible sources of sustenance. Thou breathest into us of the life-inspiring fullness of thy being; thou invitest us to become co-workers with thy Omnipotence; thou grantest us a foretaste, through the soul's subtle sympathy, of thy Omnipresence; thou spreadest before us the means of sharing with thee in thy Omniscience; thou invitest us to be one with thee in thy sublimely beneficent workings, while all time, eternity, the creation without and the universe within us, cry out to thee to unite us with humanity and Deity by the everlasting bonds of thy love!

"Jesus, thou pure and bright essence, descended from the Father on high, first-born of a new spiritual creation! Leader, Redeemer, Saviour, Elder Brother and Friend! fain would I clasp hands with thee and labor to bring on thy glorified reign. Intercede with our Father to aid me in erecting thy kingdom below, to lead on the time when peace shall reign over the lairs of the forest and the habitations of men, and a little child shall lead on the hosts of our God to power and renown through the might of all-conquering love!

"Elder Scripture of Him, who spoke chaos into order and harmony by the breath of his power! Nature, dear mother, sweet mother, careful mother of eld, bloom brighter, more beautiful, more fragrant than of yore, for God and man will unite as never before to prune away thy excrescences, to deck out thy loveliness, and call forth thy fruitful stores to gladden the poor, and give more equally than now to all the dwellers below.

"O wonderful Word! vouchsafed from on high! the clear message of God granted to guide us through the wilderness world! thou speakest to us now in thy every revealing, in equal tones of command, of prediction, inspiration, warning and tenderest love, even as thou didst to prophet, historian, rapt-singer and seer, or to Mary sitting docile at the feet of her Lord.

"O Life! thou art beautiful, befitting and grand. Through harmonious correspondence with thy Author and his behests, the hours glide away blissfully as eternity's flow. Thou art a grand drama, in which, if we have conned well our parts, every scene and each act chimes in without interruption or jar with the rôle of the great theatre Manager, showing a fit work of art. Thou art a triumphant march, in which each one treads to music, who sees with couched eye how to keep step with the Infinite, whose everlasting arm we lean on. And an anthem art thou, in which God calls upon solo, duet, quartette and orchestra to sing in loving and spirited harmony to the never-ending praise of his mercy and majesty.

"Death! what art thou but a radiant angel, standing midway between heaven and earth to shadow its too brilliant effulgence from mortals! Thou foldest the good to thy loving embrace, and then turnest thy face to the sky, and lo! the freed spirit returns thy embrace with thanks for breaking the chain of its bondage.

"Immortality! the other side of life's page, on which the faithful and pains-taking soul may be rid of the blots and erasures of the first, and illumine it with the truth and beauty of heaven. O! would that the sky-vail could be folded aside, that I might greet and rejoice with the souls of my own! for my frame is restless and worn with the chafing and struggling of the spirit within it. It flutters and pleads, and pants in its cage, saying, 'Release me; O free me, that I may soar far away!'

"When, when will the hour come, so longed for by me,
In which the spaces of earth will be given to the free!
When the worship of the Father and the love of the Lamb,
Will be the watchwords to labor for God and for man!"

————

CHAPTER XXI.

"There is a fire
And motion of the soul, which will not dwell
In its own narrow being, but aspire
Beyond the fitting medium of desire."—BYRON.

ZOË suffered from having too little opportunity to employ the energies of her mind, and allow her to precipitate, so to say, the soarings of her imagination. She needed some occupation commensurate with her intellect, and equal to her capabilities of usefulness. She had persevered in her attempts to bring herself into pleasant relations with her people, and she devised many little ways of raising their condition. But she worked in fetters, for the Danish government kept a watchful eye upon its colonists, to see that they did not overstep the lines marked out for them, either in religion, education, politics, or in their manufactures. She was like a highly-charged electric battery, filling and ever filling with the subtle elements all around her, with which she was in harmonious correspondence, but having few points of sufficient power extending towards her from any opposite pole, by which she might discharge the superfluous ether, and thus relieve herself of the nervous restlessness which pervaded her being.

She was one day expressing the wish to Hilda that she could find more to do in accordance with the working of the strongest part of her nature, and thus give expression to her ideas of what life, individual character and society ought to be, when her friend asked her why she did not write a book.

"You know my attempt and failure in that line," said she, "I have not sufficient command of detail or dramatic power enough to make it striking and interesting."

"O try again!" said Hilda, " I know you will succeed, You may have me for one of the characters and make me just as foolish and ridiculous as you please. George will like nothing better, than to have you show him up with all his extravagances. Mr. Lindsey will make a beautiful minister for your use. Dr. Chichester, as my hero once said, will do for the background, to bring him out in better relief, and for the quality, to quote my Cid again, you could not desire more delightful specimens than Mr. Pierson and his sisters. Begin with your school-life, and bring in our dear Mrs. Körner, the pastor and his wife, and can't you weave Ben Ezra in, in some wizard-like way?" said she, looking slily at Zoë.

"Yes," she answered, without changing countenance in the least, as Hilda expected; "he will do for the spirit of Judaism. I wonder how Mrs. Liebenhoff was going to manage him in the plot of her story. I think, dear, I will make a second attempt. Thank you for suggesting it."

She selected her subject; one connected with the fortunes of her people, and her pen flew over the paper with lightning speed, so that in a few weeks, she read her manuscript to Hilda, whose enjoyment of its incidents heightened her own satisfaction in this labor of love, and healthy discharge of a part of her nature, mostly hidden from the knowledge of the world.

Like plants, whose seeds have not germinated till near the closing of summer, and which hasten to do their life-work in a tithe of the usual time, lest the frosts should nip them untimely, and thus prevent their leaving behind them mementoes of their existence, so did she feel impelled by a premonition of change in her destiny to shed the past phases of her being by expression, that the future might grow into more symmetry and beauty unencumbered by their weight. She wrote from her own life, as much as her shrinking nature would permit her to embody herself in the form of Art, but far behind all its revelations, there was the holy of holies, in which no one entered but the Spirit of her God, in whose growing communion she had more and more a foretaste of the heavenly world.

She received about this time, a letter from Mrs. Liebenhoff, in which she told her of her own great loss, and then went on as follows:

"Do you ask me, Zoë, how I bear up under an affliction so heavy, a loss so complete, of the object of my former continued reference, solicitude and respectful regard? You, at least, will understand me when I say, that though sinking at times from the lack of the ever-sustaining arm, watchful love and never-failing affectionate interest of my beloved, yet, deep in my inmost soul is there at times, a strange joy, never experienced in the happiest hours of our marriage.

"For now I know that my glorified one, freed from the mortality which fettered and chilled his intenser being, can hold nearer and more loving communion with what most incloses my life, even the soul, which burns and flames upward, towards the spheres to which I know he has risen. I lack not for sympathy and most friendly interest, and oversight. As God gives to the trees, ere they cast their leaves in the chill autumn, a promise of fresher life, beauty and luxuriance after their winter repose, by drawing to them, through their own attraction, the forces of surrounding Nature, that plant on what seemed their deadened branches, the living, beautiful buds of hope and joy in the future, so my existence is enriched, as I once never could have believed possible, by the tenderness and affection of newly-found loved ones, added to the trusted and tried. He, I well know, adds a new swell of joy to his cherubic song when he sees that I, no more than he, fail of the sympathy which, in my first hour of bereavement seemed lost to me for ever, with the sudden quenching of the light of his eye."

Then followed some local information, which she thought would interest Zoë, concerning Miss Ingemann, who preserved intact, her systematic mode of training all minds alike; of Miss Holberg, who had separated from her, and taken the care of a few girls whom she was seeking to develop in harmony with their own peculiar, natural characteristics; of the American minister, who had been recalled, and another sent in his place; of Mr. Körner, who had emigrated to America; and lastly, of Ben Ezra, who had accompanied them to the same country. This had given her Illustrator an opportunity to exhibit him in a new light in one of the pictures in her book. He is holding a cross in one hand, while a roll of parchment is lying at his feet. An intelligent-looking eagle is standing by his side, to whom he is saying, "Reverence no longer, the letter of Scripture, but imbibe its life-giving spirit, and it will point thee ever to the crucified Jesus, as the ideal of human perfection, the inspirer and guide to a sublimely spiritual life and its consequent bliss."

Mr. Lindsey came often to see Zoë—so occasionally did Emma and Meta Pierson. The former would bring and read to her any tit-bit of literature she received from America, and Meta would play upon her guitar and sing in feeling strains, some of her favorite German airs. Zoë would join her voice to hers, and it seemed to them as they listened to it like the tones of a spirit hovering near and enticing them to heaven by the subtle melody of its strains.

One day, they came to her in grief and affliction. Their brother, in whom their own being was wrapped, so strong and tender was the affection between them, had suddenly married a Spanish lady in Chili, after an acquaintance of a few days. They were much distressed thereby, as it must, of course, finally separate them from him, and they feared that a foreign marriage would not be favorable for his happiness, more than their own. The lady was intelligent, of a freer soul than her education would indicate, and a poetess.

"If she is all this, why be so troubled?" said Zoë.

"I cannot relinquish him, who is a guardian, lover and brother all in one, without a terrible pang. It seems to me, that I wish no longer to live," said Emma.

"I can understand your feelings, dear Miss Pierson, for I know from a life-long experience, the soreness of a soul riven from its natural support. Still, such is the way of the world in the course of God's Providence. Who knows, but that a fresh shoot started in your new civilization may not grow into a noble tree, sending forth luxuriant and fruitful branches in the old worn-out one, for Chili is aged in its Spanish life."

"But we have so few remaining friends, and Horace was such a host in himself," said Meta.

"Why do you not engage in some work which will absorb your powers, dear young ladies, and leave you less at the mercy of the changing circumstances of your lot; you have both of you such richly stored minds?"

"Meta does write occasionally," said Emma, "though only to beguile her private hours."

"Why should she not be the Sappho of your country; I see a world of idealism in the still life of her classic features, which hide only to reveal all the more, the consuming fire which they cover—an earnest of passionate, burning song. Give it vent, and it shall at the same time, delight her friends, and save the tenement which enthralls it from ruin."

"I live in the past very much," said Meta. "I fear you would not like my poems, your eye looks so much into futurity."

"I love all times now," said Zoë, "for perhaps you don't know I dwell in eternity, as my friend Mrs. Liebenhoff once told me she did. Do not look for poesy only in the distance, or in the times long gone by. O! see it on every hand, in the history of the past, in the living present, and the advancing future! Every part of creation is instinct with it, all times express to the awakened spirit its sentiment, and all events, incidents and circumstances, assimilated into our innermost, form themselves through the subtle chemistry of the soul into rhythmical numbers, and flow to the point of the pen in the still meditative hour."

"I am proud and grateful for my sister's genius, and look forward to her taking no mean place among the writers of our country."

"And you, Miss Emma, your quick observation, your power of analysis of character, and the fire and force of your nature point, as it seems to me, to your sphere. Put them and your attainments into full requisition, and I should like no better resource for my leisure hours than a Tale from your stylus."

They bade her adieu, as they were to leave Santa Cruz in a few days, and as they walked home with Mr. Lindsey, Emma said to him: "Never again will I judge a human being by the superficial standard of the world; for I now see that one may pass by an angel of light, hidden from the eyes of the vulgar by a dusky envelope, only to give out a more loving lustre to the spirit prepared and waiting for the blessing it can yield."

"Zoë is passing away!" said Meta. "No power on earth can retain her, for I read in her eye the beckoning light, which the angels award to the sky-born. Before we reach our home she will have risen to hers."

"It will be but a translation," said Mr. Lindsey, "when she departs. It is not disease that is wasting her, but the fluttering and beating of the imprisoned soul against the frail walls which inclose it. Thank heaven there are spheres, where conventionalism will not place its iron hoof upon the natural action of giant, spiritual natures. In heaven Zoë will shine as a star of the first magnitude, not to dazzle, but to lead to the upper mansions furnished for emancipated souls."

Hilda came to Zoë one morning in aglow of excitement. "I have just received a letter from George Stephenson," said she, "which is so characteristic I must read you a part of it, even if it is somewhat lover-like, at times, in its expression. It is from Amazona.

" 'Here I am among the 'boys,' a pretty clever set of fellows too, in this warm valley, into which God seems to have poured the fattest and richest of all his most luscious productions, with the giant river rolling its turbid length within full sight of my hut. Didn't I think there was no end to the long brook as we paddled down it in our canoe? I can tell you, Hilda, the world is made on a pretty generous scale, if we fellows would only get the cracks of our skulls open wide enough to let the notion of it shine into our muddy brains. The Southrons think that they are going to get possession of this country and slide slavery into it as slick as the water running over our great mill-dam here. But they'll find that it takes two to make a bargain, and that Young America, north of Mason and Dixon's line, has a word or two to say before closing that contract. No, sir-ee; niggers, as niggers, don't come into these diggins. If they will emigrate here and set up a school for manners of the real Christian style, and soften us rough fellows down to a little more civilized stamp, and show us how to be 'jolly under creditable circumstances,' as none but a nig—I mean an Americo-African—can, and put some real genuine humor into our Yankee sobersides, and share the very best that's going with us, why, then we'll give them a welcome. But we have had flying-horses long enough to plow our fields with. Give us machinery in the future, I say, that will go fast enough without having to lick it, which spoils the temper on both sides of the hedge. Until our steam engine and other tackling come from the States, I am going to have a real live elephant to plow my fields for me, and set the lions and tigers to plant the sweet potatoes, and the monkeys, of which there are any quantity here, will gather them into the cellar, provided they don't eat them all up on the way. What funny critters they are, Hilda, and no mistake—real caricatures of humanity. I think I must have been one once myself, I enjoy their tricks so much; and they seem to know it too, and wink at me as much as to say, 'Giggle, if you will! When we come to be men and women and set the reform-top spinning, you will laugh t'other side of your mouth. For we will have kingdom-come on the earth in a jiffy—not of the kind that some people want, in which all the women are to wear white aprons, and intone the litany with their heads and hands hanging down like frost-bitten poppies, and the men scraping up money like dirt in the streets to shut up in their strong boxes, or to squander in some ruinous way or other, but a good, healthy, happy, frolicsome one, where everybody will do what he pleases, provided he does not tread on other people's corns, or throw pepper or sleepy dust in their eyes.' Hilda, I am getting to be such an anti-slavery man that I expect my hair will begin to grow kinky, as my sister's has ever since she became a freesoil woman, and I am such a pious Christian that I have to hold myself down by the force of one or two little bad habits, such as smoking a cigar once in a week or so, or I should balloon up to the third sphere before my time. However I intend to leave off entirely before I see you again. It is all owing to Mr. Lindsey, God bless him! He has saved me from infidelity and showed me how I can be religious without blotting out nature without, or nature within me. Now don't think, my dear Hilda, that I am going to bring you into this wild place to live, where you would be eaten up by the sand-flies and musquitoes, to say nothing of the other discomforts of a new settlement among half-savages. No, no, I don't see my way clear to make a martyr of myself or of you to that extent. I have made friends in Iowa, and I am useful there, though I say it, that shouldn't say it, perhaps, and there I'll build you the prettiest little shanty there is between this and the full moon.

" 'I don't know what I've done to deserve such good fortune as to have one of the angels of heaven condescend to pity me in my wild condition, but this I know, that if thinking of, and wishing for you ever since I was sixteen years old has given me any title to your love, why then it is bestowed upon the right one. I feel as if I could do anything in creation in the finishing-off line, which Mr. Lindsey says we were put here for, with you to encourage and back me; and if I don't have a real Christian community in our place in less than ten years, where every one shall do about right, then I'm mistaken in myself.

" 'I have written to my father and sister that I have found again the most precious diamond ever crystallized this side of the central fires, and I guess I shall have a little different reception when I return home this time, from what I did when I came back from the Rocky mountains. I never told you that story.

" 'Well, here it is:

" 'After I had been home from college some weeks, I got tired of hanging round my sister's rocking-chair, and holding her yarn while she wound it, (blessed little soul as she is! every grain of her is pure honey). I thought I would join a company and just step off to the tall hills I had read about so much. I said nothing about it to the gov——, I mean my father, because you see, I was determined to go, and did not want to give him the trouble of refusing me for nothing. I was away two years. Had a pretty hard row to hoe, I can tell you, and was glad enough to get home with my rebellious top-piece safe in its place. I arrived in the evening. Sister and aunty were almost crazy with joy, but felt anxious about my reception from my father. I don't know in what way they managed to let him know I was in the house, (leave women for such delicate business as that!) but the next morning I went down to breakfast, and he looked up from his coffee and beef-steak as calm as a clock, and said, 'Good morning, George!' just as if I had not been away a single day. That was his way of rebuking me. Didn't I feel cheap? I should rather he would have given me a scolding or a round box on the ear by a long chalk. But I never ran away again, that is certain.

" 'I am collecting all the pretty things I can for you; but it is strange, since I met you, how my ideas have grown about what is good enough for a present to a lady. Don't despair of me, Hilda, and I will try and make something worthy of you yet out of myself. I only need you to lead me on and point the way to the higher regions, and if I don't make you happy in this world and the next too—if you don't get tired of me—it will be because the order of things is reversed in the universe, and effects no longer follow causes. Take good care of yourself, dearest Hilda, for you must remember you have charge of two lives instead of one, for the future; and if yours goes by the board, the other certainly will.

" 'Give my love to Zoë, and tell her I am collecting all the poetry and romance I can for her, in the shape of stories and incidents, and traits of character.

" 'I have got one beautiful one about a bird called 'La Alma Perdidà,' the lost soul, which I shall repeat to her when I come to Santa Cruz.

" 'Your ever devoted lover, G. S.' "

"Mr. Stephenson has a noble, generous soul," said Zoë. "He will do all in his power to make you happy, I am sure."

"I will read you one paragraph more which I hesitated to at first, but I wish you to see what a vein of tender sentiment there is underlying his free, imaginative intellect and strong, impulsive character.

" 'Do not fear, my own Hilda, that you will find no tenderness under the rough buffalo hide, within which I have wrapped all my gentler emotions. A man who had such a mother as mine to watch over him all his boyhood, to share with him his sports, his little troubles, his studies, and his work, and teach him about God and all holy things, though he may get crusted over somewhat by the wicked world, and slide into some of its evil ways, will not need much urging to return to the right path by the woman he loves. My mother used to be anxious lest I was growing up irreligious and careless of all high subjects of reflection; and, somehow, I shrunk from letting her know how much I did think of them (I am sorry for it now as it would have pleased her,) but a fellow can't be out night after night as I have been under the stars without feeling himself in God's presence, and thinking that he had better take some heed to his ways, so as to have his character come within speaking-trumpet distance of his ideas of right. If she knows now of my love for you, it makes her happier in heaven. She will know that through you she will, some time or other, meet me again. So, though I have led a rough life, having slept upon the prairie, eaten bison meat, and drank out of the Mississippi, my heart tells me that there is a nice, warm, downy place in its depths where yours can nestle and find happiness, and repose in its most loving and sacred hours.'

"O Zoë," said Hilda, as she finished, "I feel very rich in the possession of so noble a heart, and I hope I have some proper sense of the responsibility with which I consider womanhood is invested by our heavenly Father, to be the leader of the beloved of the other sex in the moral and spiritual departments of life. If you would accompany us to America, dearest, my happiness would then be complete. I shall go with him on his return."

"I can never leave my father and mother while I live; and Hilda, my soul warns me that my life is not to be long. Nay, weep not, I am but just beginning to be free from the feeling of orphanage and forlornness, for, by the inner light, I see the home of my life's yearnings, and him whom it has been the passion of my whole life to reveal in his glory. Will you take my manuscript to the United States and publish it for the benefit of my down-trodden people? I know, Hilda, that you will always be a friend to them."

Hilda could only enfold her in her arms and weep and sigh out her love for her, and the promise of devotion to the cause of Christian freedom and holiness which Zoë had lived, moved, and had her being in ever since she was a conscious existence.

After sitting silent a few moments, she took from her pocket a poem which her sister, Mrs. Warrington, had handed her, written by a friend of her own, a former resident of the island, just before leaving for England. She had brought it that Zoë might share with her its sweet, affectionate sentiment and rhythm.

"Farewell! farewell! thou lovely isle!
In tropic splendor richly drest—
Still mayst thou brightly, sweetly smile,
Thou garden of the glowing West!
Isle of the Holy Cross, farewell!
Gem of the sparkling Carib Sea!
What mingled thoughts my bosom swell,
As now I bid adieu to thee!

"How on my saddened spirit float.
Dreams of the unforgotten past.
Of scenes—of hours—of griefs remote,
And faded joys that could not last.
The dead—the lost—around me rise,
The loved—the absent—the estranged,
They pass before these aching eyes,
To tell, alas! how all is changed!

"How oft, at such an hour as this,
Beneath yon clear moon's silver ray,
In social converse—tranquil bliss,
Dear distant friends—'twas ours to stray!
And in communion—silent—sweet—
Have hearts not throbbed, and eyes not wet,
Eyes, that no more on Earth may meet—
Hearts—that in vain, perchance, regret.

"Hark! borne upon the evening breeze,
And on the murmuring ocean nigh,
And mingled with the rustling trees
What voices—long unheard—sweep by!
Voices, that at such stilly hours
Have breathed in friendship's warmest tone,
Voices, that midst soft moonlight bowers,
Might, whispering, deeper feelings own.

"Away, ye visions of the past!
Invoke no more sad memory's aid;
Why may oblivion never cast
Its spell o'er feelings when they fade!
Isle of the Holy Cross, farewell!
These eyes may never greet thee more,
But tears—ay—bitter tears can tell,
I grieve to quit thy sea-girt shore.

"To richer, prouder lands I go,
To distant scenes that once were loved,
Where my young spirit knew not woe,
But led by Hope and Pleasure wooed,
I go where merry England spreads
Her smiling plains—her harvest-fields,
Where Health midst Peace, its blessing sheds,
And Plenty her abundance yields.

"I go where proud Augusta rears
Her splendid domes in regal state,
Where hallowed, though untouched by years,
She stands and seems to scorn at Fate;
Where Caledonia's heath-clad hills,
In stern and rugged grandeur rise;
Where dash her thousand mountain rills,
Perchance, again, my footstep hies.

"Yet whereso'er my steps may bend,
Whatever distant lands I roam;
Sweet Indian isle! my heart shall send
A thousand sighs to thy dear home,
And oft shall fancy, lingering, dwell
On thy blue wave—thy cloudless sky—
On thy soft scenes, remembered well—
On hours—and hopes—and dreams gone by.

"Thy shady groves—thy jasmin bowers—
The music of thy waving canes,
Swept by the wind—thy brilliant flowers,
Thy clustering vines that nature trains,
Thy golden sunsets, whose soft light—
O'er foliage—flower—and rock is shed,
In purple glow, to Fancy's sight
Shall oft their tints of lustre spread.

"Then fare-thee-well! thou lonely isle!
In tropic splendor, richly drest;
Still mayst thou brightly, sweetly smile,
Thou garden of the glowing West!
Isle of the Holy Cross, farewell!
Gem of the sparkling Carib sea!
What mingled thoughts my bosom swell,
As now I bid adieu to thee!"

————

CHAPTER XXII.

"What is the chaff, the word of man,
When set against the wheat?
Can it a living soul sustain,
Like that immortal meat?"—WESLEY.

LIEUTENANT ARNSEN, the chief of the Danish forces in Fredericstadt, with a view to the entertainment of the men of his troop, got up little festivals from time to time, to which he invited the neighboring gentry. On one of these occasions, he came to Mrs. Carlan, to order some confectionary for it, and invited her and her husband and Zoë to be present. As a Dane, he was comparatively free from the English prejudice against their caste and color.

There was to be a comedy in the early part of the evening, then a hop by the Danish soldiers and the young colored girls from the neighboring families, and afterwards, Lieutenant Arnsen's friends were to adjourn to his room for music and dancing, and refreshments among themselves.

They accordingly went. Zoë and her mother chose a seat in the back part of the room, resisting the friendly Lieutenant's entreaties to place themselves nearer the stage.

The petty drama enacted was one chosen with reference to the quarrel between Denmark and Schleswig Holstein. As all present were good Danes, of course it was so arranged that Denmark should have all the glory in each scene, and the unfortunate duchy all the disgrace and defeat. It went off very well, and caused much amusement; and the Lieutenant was thanked for his effort to throw a little additional life over the social circles of the island.

Hilda was seated in front of the curtain with a gay group of her Santa Cruz and American acquaintances. Zoë saw her eye turning inquiringly from one side to the other, and she supposed she might be looking for herself. The invitation was given to attend the fête after Hilda's usual morning call upon her, so that they had no communication upon the subject. At length, in a pause between the acts, Hilda, with her usual independence of action, when impelled by a strong feeling, stood up and turned completely around and gazed over the assembly. She had the earnest look of one seeking after some particular object, which redeemed it from the appearance of staring at the company. She caught a glimpse of Zoë's family party, and, quick as thought, she left the Count and Countess of Aliford, by whose side she was sitting, with an apology at her abrupt leave-taking, and made her way unattended, so sudden was her exit, and came and seated herself by Zoë and her group of colored friends. There were sly looks and winks among the members of the first circle, and her mother was intensely mortified. After returning home, she scolded her severely, in her first outburst of anger. Hilda bore the torrent of abuse unflinchingly, saying, "Mamma, in this one matter of my affection for my dearest friend, I must act according as my love and my duty impel me. Zoë and I are one and inseparable, not only in our private hours, but whenever she honors any public gathering by her presence. Let the superficial world despise her if it will. Her spirit dwells where neither the breath of popular favor nor the hiss of its scorn can affect her; and, thanks be to God, who has been so gracious to me as to permit my more terrestrial temper to rise so far heaven-ward as to be a support and a source of enjoyment to her. I go with Zoë!"

The arrangements for the fête were very pretty and tasteful. The grounds surrounding the barracks were lighted by lamps, inclosed within colored paper, giving a pretty effect to the scene; and the entrance was through a gateway arched with wreaths of flowers twined round a device expressive of loyalty to the Danish government and crown.

Mrs. Carlan and Zoë declined the invitation of Lieutenant Arnsen to adjourn to his own apartments to partake of the after amusements, and then of the refreshments.

An instinctive delicacy and true self-respect guarded them from forcing themselves upon those with whom they could have so little affinity, as with the self-exalting, social circles of a people who still hankered after the feudal usages and barbarous customs which the system of slavery entails upon its adherents.

The next Sunday, the communion service was observed, and Sophia and Zoë welcomed the opportunity of clasping hands, as it were, with the Christ through the symbols of his love and self-sacrifice, and renewing, through this simple rite, their devotion to his great and ever-expanding mission on the earth.

To be entirely relieved from any possible cause of offense to others, and thus have their minds in harmony with the occasion, they waited until a few of the last communicants, some old, infirm negro women, who subsisted by charity, went up to the altar. As Zoë knelt by the side of her mother to receive of the elements, she felt a soft hand laid on her own, as it rested upon the chancel, and she knew it was none other than Hilda's. She had purposely waited, that they might together pledge their Master in his death-cup, which both of them had pierced so far to the centre of spiritual life, as to discern it was the true life-elixir, in its power of perpetual rejuvenation, while the bread was the long sought for, yet never found by the world, philosopher's stone, which gives to the partaker, when received in the spirit of our Lord's bequest, the command of the wealth, not only of the earth, but also of the heavens everlastingly.

There were whisperings and exclamations among the inmates of Mrs. Howard's boarding-house, one morning, which Emma and Meta Pierson could not comprehend, until Mr. Marland came in to make his usual evening call, and said, that he was going to attend a wedding at Mrs. Graenske's, the next morning at six o'clock.

"A wedding! and whose, pray?" said Jane Rutgard, who had just come in from her brother's plantation in the country.

"Lieutenant Tileston's."

"To whom?"

"To Mrs. Graenske's youngest daughter."

There was great wonder, then whispers again, and angry exclamations on Jane's part, as if the reputation of Fredericstadt society, of which she was a decided unit, to say the least, had suffered a stain. Then there were half explanations about bayonets and pistols being put in requisition by the young lady's brother, if the marriage was not consummated, etc., etc. But this fact was fully established in Mr. Marland's mind, that the ceremony was to be performed by him at the aforesaid unseasonable hour, as the pair were to leave for St. Thomas on the boat.

He then entered into conversation with Miss Pierson, in which he enlarged upon the excellencies of the rubric, the truths of Episcopalianism, the glory of, and venerableness of the Church, and grew so eloquent, in his own estimation, as to justify him in staying until quite an unseasonable hour. Meta Pierson retired to her room—one by one, the other ladies and gentlemen left, and still the fruitful theme was not exhausted. Miss Pierson was a heretic, and must be made to see the error of her ways.

She tried the effect of silence, then grew less careful in the concealment of her yawns, until he slowly roused to the idea of his untimeliness of stay. He got as far as the door, hung upon the latch, still unwearied in his attempts at her conversion, when, not being able to bear it longer, she arose and took the candle, saying, "Good evening, Mr. Marland. You must excuse me if, at this late hour, I am not able to see the force of your argument. But really, in my present somnolent condition, I am not responsible for any amount of dullness of comprehension of the claims of your sect to plume itself upon exemption from mistakes in its creeds; much less do I see the justice of its assuming to be the 'immaculate conception' of the Apostles of the Christian time. I may be singular in my taste, but if I am to lean on any uninspired authority, which your Church, as well as all the others, has proved itself very plainly to be, I shall go back a step or two farther and rest in the bosom of that of the Catholics. You will excuse me if I speak very plainly, but I must say that, if I ever leave that of my own simple faith, which God forbid that I ever should, for any less advanced one, I shall worship with them; for, if I am to be in bondage, it shall be to one tyrant, not to ten thousand. If dogmatism and condemnation are hurled at me in the cathedrals, I can at least resort to the symbols, the pictures, and statuary for diversion and relief. It would be well if we, to a certain extent, as those religionists do, aided ourselves in accordance with common sense and reason, by the use of these means. Instead of having nothing but bare walls to stare upon, or to echo back the mistaken and presumptuous insults of fallible men to my injured and indignant soul, when assailed, I have found them an acceptable resource. Good evening, Mr. Marland!"

He went out with the full determination to write a sermon for the next Sunday, expressly for Mr. Lindsey and the young ladies. He thought it over, determined where to put the flourishes of oratory, and where a half-whispered and half-hissing annunciation of their horrible future doom, which must certainly finish any disposition for free thought henceforth. He became so much interested in this mental occupation that he laid awake until a very late hour. His imagination branched off from the prospective delivery of the sermon to its being published, and to its attracting the attention of the bishop, who would, perhaps, grant him a good rectorship, in consequence, in the great metropolis of his country. And then how reverently he would fold his canonicals about him in the vestry! and how spotless should be his surplice, and neckerchief, and bands! With what devotion he would cover his face with his lawn before the great congregation, when he entered the desk, hem-stitched as it was by some fair member of the Church! and with what propriety he would read the service, and through what eloquence he would save dying souls! How the hooped moire-antique skirts and fur cloaks, with the elegant matrons within them, would pet, and patronize, and court him to their sumptuous abodes! Especially how would the French hats, with young ladies in front of them, and the rich, trailing, silk robes inclosing—what should be, if they are not—souls full of immortal hopes, admire and look up to him!—And yet, for all this, Mr. Marland meant to be a pretty good and conscientious man. But the angels of Faith, Hope, and Charity, as viewed in the comprehensive Christian sense were, in him, but of a diminutive and feeble type. They were ever liable to be smothered in his surplice, or scorched in the Puseyite candles, or trodden upon when he turned his back to the people as High Church demanded, or crushed between the purple velvet covers of the prayer-book, or precipitated in the repeated reading of the creeds. He was in continual peril lest, instead of "Holiness to the Lord" being inscribed upon every part of his ministerial ménage, even to "the bells of his horses." there should be written all over himself and them in delicate letter-press, with frequent

Italics to give emphasis to the announcement—The Right 'Reverend Cream Cheese,' Lord Bishop of ——, W. X. Y. Z.

It is no wonder that, kept awake as he was, by these uplifting meditations, he should oversleep himself in the morning. It was within a few minutes of the time set for the wedding when he awoke. He jumped up, threw on his clothes without having time for his ablutions, and with unkempt hair, with no perceptible white collar about his neck, and with the knot of his kerchief awry, he dashed along the street and entered Mrs. Graenske's abode just as they were dispatching a servant to hasten him. The company were all assembled, the ceremony must take place without delay, else the Lieutenant would lose his passage in the boat and outstay his furlough. So Mr. Marland tried to collect his scared and scattered wits to read the marriage form. In his flutter he called the bride, husband, and the groom, wife, which created a giggle among a group of nephews and nieces, and brought down upon them grave shakes of the head and wide open eyes at their naughtiness. But when at the conclusion he pronounced them, in his excitement, "a match," they laughed outright, and were taken out of the room at once by the head and shoulders, not to appear again until they had given such vent to their mirth as to make them safe inmates in the drawing-room.

A hasty glass of wine was drank to the health of the bride, with rueful looks on the part of her relatives, while the groom was treated with sufficiently stiff politeness to announce to him that he was accepted as a necessity more than as a son or brother.

Then commenced the procession seaward, The family ark received the "twin souls," and drove lumbering away, while negroes, little and big, followed after, running with boxes, bags, umbrellas, baskets, causing a general excitement through the town, for the people were, at this hour, chiefly on the market square, or going to or from it.

They arrived at the shore just as the "Blue Peter," the small signal sail, was taken down. The bride was safely put aboard; but the Lieutenant, who chose to be married in his scarlet regimentals, with his sword on, in going hurriedly up the steps to the vessel, got that appendage entangled in some way between his feet, causing him to fall into the water. He sank so as to cover even the very tip of his plume, but was dragged out by two stalwart negroes, who grinned from ear to ear at his sorry, draggled appearance; for the blacks had no very good-will towards the Danish officers. He retired to put on his citizen's dress, somewhat crest-fallen. Every time he appeared during the voyage, they would laugh, and it did not increase his equanimity to hear them say, "He 'gin to shake his plume again. Next thing him crow and tip backwards. Him sharp, iron tail feathers very much in way. Ha, ha, ha!"

And this was the unpoetical conclusion to the marriage of our philosopher, whose system of morals was quite too extensive and sublime to be bounded by Christianity. His self-selected, psychological twin had the humiliation of feeling that she was now forced on him, as his companion for life, by his fear of being shot down by her incensed relatives. And the exalted idea of the true union with which he had deluded her, threatened to end in the separation of their spirits, which a want of due self-restraint and disobedience to the highest laws laid down by nature and God will inevitably cause.

His unseasonable matinal marriage was the seal to the unbecoming character of the whole affair. Formerly the devices for such events were, Cupid playing with a nymph; Cupid catching a butterfly; Cupid with a torch, etc., etc. In these prosaic days, when symbols and emblems seem to have lost their force and beauty, it should be Cupid on a steam engine with eyes starting with fright at a threatened explosion; Cupid on a lump of ice in the middle of the river, shivering from cold; Cupid in a cave, with a tallow candle in his hand, peering around at the darkness made visible; or Cupid in the kitchen among the pots and kettles all begrimed and begreased thereby.

————

CHAPTER XXIII.

"Life! we've been long together,
Through pleasant and through cloudy weather.
'Tis hard to part when friends are dear;
Perhaps 'twill cost a sigh, a tear;
Then steal away, give little warning,
Choose thine own time;
Say not, Good-Night, but in some brighter clime,
Bid me, Good-Morning."—MRS. BARBAULD.

MR. LINDSEY and his young friends were about to leave Santa Cruz. They had been received and treated very hospitably and kindly, both by their hostess and the neighboring gentry, and had treasured up a store of pleasant memories for the future, both of its perennial verdure, and its social and agreeable inhabitants.

To Mr. Lindsey, it was a season of unmingled enjoyment, with the exception of his wife's absence from him. He improved this season of leisure in collecting information with regard to the history of the island, its system of servitude, of the late emancipation, and its probable prospects in the future. He was a student in the natural sciences, and his eye was open and quick to perceive all that was rare, curious and beautiful in this tropical climate, and to read a fresh page of God's love and wisdom in the new phases of Nature presented to him.

The evening before he set sail for St. Thomas, he called on Zoë. She was sitting alone, (her mother having gone out to see a sick person near,) reading Dr. Channing's sermon on the future life. She spoke of the pleasure and profit she had derived from his works, and then went on to say:

"I think we dwell too much on the distinction between this life and another. To me, existence is a grand totality, a sphere without circumference, a universe without limitation. I know that this frail tenement which incloses my spirit, must drop from me, for neither my friends nor I have known how to keep it in exact accordance with my spiritual nature. But who knows, Mr. Lindsey, in the future, when through a more complete knowledge of the laws of a healthy life, by means of science and art, when the world shall become so subdued to order, as to be a more fitting abode than now, for God's most precious creation, human nature, but that there may not be this apparent decided break in our being? May it not come to pass that the ever-growing, ever-refining soul may gradually and easily form to itself its fitting abode, and death be indeed, but a deep sleep for an hour, to revive itself, that it may awaken again, replumed and brightened for fresh communion with those with whom it lives in affinity below. We speak of the lower and the higher world, of heaven and earth, but this is simply to accommodate our feeble conception of spiritual things to ourselves and our friends. Heaven and hell are in the soul. The spiritual world is all about us. We are a part of it ourselves; we see and commune with what we are capable of appropriating. And we shall all through eternity see world within world rising to infinity, according as we are elevated to the capacity of perceiving these successive spheres."

"It is a delightful train of thought to indulge in, and it may be so," said he. "But the world will not be satisfied with it, for the majority of our race are so discontented here, and see so little beauty or poetry about them, that they look for something entirely different outwardly, in the future life. And yet, did they but consider a moment, they might see that those of different mental and spiritual characteristics here, are just as ignorant of each other as if in different worlds. Yes, it must be, that the soul makes its own sphere here and hereafter, and it may be, that it will become so superior to the elements of nature, that they shall never have the power to strike it down, but ever be the aids to carry it on to a more glorious destiny without any rude rupture or decay."

"I think so," said Zoë; "I have great faith in the instincts of large classes of humanity, or of those of a few individuals even, who live to express and make them practical in separate ages, though in somewhat different forms.

"The occasional eager search after the life-elixir points to something, we may be sure. It is a prophecy, that we shall find it some day. In my opinion, it is the electric fluid which pervades all space, and which the true, harmonious and spiritual human being is pervaded with, and which gives him ever-growing life and power. If it can have legitimate action and be regulated by other sympathetic beings, it will perpetually renew the corporeal part. But—" and she paused and silently pressed her hand upon her heart, while her voice lowered—"it may be so restrained by the confinement of an uncongenial sphere, as to burst the frail tenement which incloses it by the very force of its desire for expansion and response."

"I have a letter from Mrs. Lindsey here of which I will read you a part in which she has inclosed some lines, which show the deep yearning and sympathy there is in the feminine heart of America for the oppressed of your people. I have copied them to leave with you, if you would like them.

"My wife writes as follows:

" 'There is nothing particularly new in the affairs of the country. There is the perpetual play, as is usual, of wheel within wheel, without the apparent possibility, on the part of the men of the nation to rise to an elevated stand-point from which society can be viewed in all its relations, and a new, and higher, and more thrilling key-note be struck, from which shall burst out the battle-song against evil and corruption, and lead on the anthem commemorating our country's true greatness. This it is left for us women to do. You smile when I talk thus, and go on reasoning the next moment with your gentlemen friends upon the effect of this or that movement put in force by your sex. But for the next century, at least, and I know not if longer, man will, through the Providence of God, look to woman's spiritual insight to hint to him of God's will and design for the good of the world. There will be no rude change of the spheres of the sexes. Woman will remain as the best instincts, and reason, and affections of true men all point to her being, not his drudge, his toy, or unequal companion, but the carefully cherished wife of his bosom, the mother of his children, the tender sympathetic friend, lover, consoler, and aid, and the sunny, beneficent, ministering spirit of his home. Besides all this, she is to be the priestess of the inner, sacred temple left in charge of humanity by the Most High. She is to utter the oracle which is to direct men to purge, and purify, and exalt the counsels of the people, and, if need be, at first, until he moves with quicker step than has been his wont, to lead on the peaceful armies to their bloodless and glorious victories over the forces of sin, and establish the spiritual reign of Christ on the earth.

" 'Art will, through her consecrated genius, become what it is not at present, worthy of Christendom in the nineteenth century. Literature will rise to be the fitting handmaid of religion. Science will not only open resources for material wealth, but will bind the two former by indissoluble chains to the Author of the universe. And Christ, through the faith, character, and spirit which he bequeathed to the world, interpreted by all the light which can be thrown around them by the advancing spiritual might of this era, will be, without question, the Leader, Exemplar, and Saviour of the world.

" 'Since your departure I have made the acquaintance of a young man, a Hungarian Jew, who brought a letter of introduction to you from your friend Mr. Fielding.

" 'He is a person of education and a gentleman, devoted to the cause of Christianity interpreted in a very liberal sense, and to the good of humanity in every form. It is refreshing, in these times of dainty ease and self aggrandizement, and lowered tone of public spirit and sentiment, to find one who lives, through the force of a perpetual spring of enthusiasm, for high ideas and principles. In an age too, when the intellectual and practical engross so large a part of the best men and women of our country, it enlarges one's sphere of sympathy and ideas of the companionship possible in society between those of like interests and aims, to find in him the Soul with its fire, poetry, insight, magnetic force, and attraction, occupying pretty nearly its legitimate proportion and sphere.

" 'Not that his nature has as yet reached its equilibrium upon the thousand and one points of investigation and discussion in this thinking, curious, restless era. Women are to ascend first to the pedestal which is sustained by the Infinite alone, through a docile and joyful obedience to his various laws; but he approaches nearer to that position than most men. When he learns to trust more implicitly, than he now does, to the simple Christian precepts and less to the ancient philoso-phers and modern philoso-phies, he will work himself clear, and make his mark upon the world.'

"This letter," said Mr. Lindsey, "is written in the form of a Journal, and comprises the experience of several weeks. She goes on farther to say of him:

"' He is a singular being from this fact, that the soul in him bears such sway as to modify very perceptibly his external appearance from time to time. I have an opportunity to observe him narrowly, as I read German with him daily, in accordance with your parting wish that I should learn it.

" 'Sometimes I can think of nothing but of all the patriarchs impersonated in him, so venerable is his whole personnel and manner. The next day he comes like the young warrior he was in the revolution of his country, and instead of expecting him to sit down quietly and hear my lesson, I am on the qui vive for the cry of 'To horse! bring my horse! Let us speed over the mountains! We will cut down the Russians and scatter the Austrians! See us sweep down the barriers to the freedom of the Magyars! Kossuth! come, Kossuth! Quick, quick, lead on our warriors!'

" 'Another day he comes in, the keen, acute, critical Rabbi, splitting hairs, dividing sharp-edged razor lines, and trying to look with his wizard-like eyes into the very depths of one's being.

" 'Still again, he is a tender, sympathizing friend in affliction and trouble, as I have occasion to know through some of my neighbors.

" 'Again, he is the poet, full of fire and fancy, reading the hidden meanings of flowers, and trees, and symbols of every kind, as none but an Oriental can, and scarcely able to repress the deep, and bitter, and ever-present sense of his loneliness and exile.

" 'Again, he is the reformer, reaching forth with every point of his fingers, no less than his subtle, wakeful intellect after new truths and intimations to aid him in his constant aspiring after excellence and advancement.

" 'He speaks of the past as having been the grave of many hopes and yearnings after happiness and peace, and occasionally expresses the desire and trust, that he shall yet find in affection and family ties a home in the future.

" 'But after one of these seasons of mysterious reference to his destiny, he will bury himself in his studies, and one would think then to hear him converse or witness his absorption in learning—that Plato was to be the rule of the mind of the present—that Socrates was again to propose his ceaseless questions (Heaven save us women from touching even the hem of his robe!), or that the German philosophers were the Messiahs of the ages.

" 'And lastly, he evidently imagines himself, in his most excited moments, a Fate destined to cut the thread of the worn-out times that still linger, and to bury them out of our sight, and spin anew the warp and woof which will weave a more enduring and beautiful web. He says that in Europe, he fixed his eye on the map of the United States, and singled out the Queen City as the scene of his mission; and he speaks in tones of authority and decision of his plans for its improvement. And yet, so different is man from woman, that when an inspiration is given to him for his life-work, and an intimation of the theatre of its accomplishment, what does he do but already begin to speak of going hence!

" 'Strange being is this descendant of the chosen people of God! Last week I read an extract of your letter to him, in which you spoke of the young Quadroon, Zoë Carlan—of her pure character and tender, imaginative soul, and he started up as if new life were infused through his being. He rushed out as soon as he could do so with propriety—leaving me amazed at the effect of a few detached sentences relating to her. I was wondering what connection there was between your innocent epistle and my Janus-faced German teacher, when in turning my eye over the text-book he has brought me to-day for my use, I found on a blank leaf written over and over again—Zoë, Zoë, Zoë, with Ben Ezra, Ben Ezra, in close connection. I now remember his once saying that he had come last from Copenhagen, and I conclude that she might have been a pupil of his in Miss Ingemann's school, and that there is an attachment, on his part, towards her. Since that he has been in high spirits. The warrior part of his nature is decidedly in the ascendant.

" 'Another phase has come over my Hebrew of Hebrews. Like Job he sits in sackcloth and ashes, no less dismal to him and dreary to others that they are not external but cover over his spirit with darkness and dust.

" 'Still another manifestation! This Israelite, whom I had thought without guile, came into our midst in the dimness of the last evening, his gloom having given way to cynicism and ire. Wrath sat upon his furrowed brow, scorn curled his lip and beard, and every word was a hiss and a sting. In my innocence I spoke to him of what occurred to me of the trifling incidents of the day, and you would have thought I had been Atropos, destined to cut the different threads of which his destiny is spun, and that he hoped to brow-beat me from the behests of the great arbiter who directs the Three Sisters, so fiercely did he receive and answer my unconscious and child-like remarks. I remembered the story of the 'Wandering Jew,' who scoffed at our sublime, solitary and suffering Lord, and I then knew that this man was no other than he, and that the loneliness of his lot, the bitterness of his doom, was at times beyond his power of patient endurance. I pondered upon the strange and awful existence of this wonderful being, and said to myself, how long will men cling to the worn-out creeds and parchments of the past, and not see that in the religion of Jesus is the cure of all life's ills, the sure hope of its perennial vigor and youth! For if he would but receive this later gift of God in its purity and extent, then would he be relieved from his imaginary curse and be at rest from his wanderings.

" 'This morning I received this parting note from Ben Ezra:

" 'I go to the sunny south, and Hope whispers to me that when I kiss the shores of the isle of the Holy Cross I shall find the rest which, through ages, I have sought for in vain, and the bliss which flows from both forgiveness and love.' "

Mr. Lindsey looked up as he finished, and something in Zoë's face indicated to him not to remark upon the contents of Mrs. Lindsey's letter. He relieved her from a perceptible embarrassment by saying:

"By the way, Mrs. Lindsey says that Mrs. Pumpkin told her when she last saw her, that, as she was so exorbitant in her wishes for a large edition of her work, that her publisher advised that it should first appear in a paper, which my wife and I are going to establish on my return, entitled the 'Independent Highway.' A chapter inserted weekly will answer very well to show the 'signs of the times;' so I shall accede to her proposal to introduce them."

————

CHAPTER XXIV.

"They are a neglected race, who seem to have been excluded from the pale of human sympathy from mistaken opinions of their quality, no less than from the unpretending lowliness of their position."—SWALLOW BARN.

"Now vast eternity fills all her sight;
She floats on the broad deep with infinite delight,
The seas forever calm, the skies forever bright."

WATTS.

MR. LINDSEY arose to take his departure, and as he held Zoë's hand within his own in his final farewell, she said to him, "I thank you, sir, for the aid which your clear intellect, high adherence to truth and duty, and your ever cheerful tone of mind have afforded me. In you I have seen the combination of the broad, free views of life and society, a highly cultivated mind, a ready attention to the smaller no less than the larger obligations of our lot, high devotional sentiment and gentle affections, with the consecration of every part of your nature to the claims of the Christian religion. You have done me great good, and I shall always remember you with gratitude and love." So they parted—he and his friends turned their faces towards the invigorating breezes of the north—she cast her ever-clearer and more penetrating glance upward, where a more than tropical sun enlightened her by His beams and kindled to an ever intenser flame the spirit within her.

She reverted to the manuscript which Mr. Lindsey had left for her, and read as follows:

COLLOQUY BETWEEN THE AFRICANS AND THE DEEP FEMININE SOUL.

"O miserable me! The white man tore me from my sunny home, where the leaves are ever green and shining, and the flowers and birds and shells are brightly tinted, to shiver in the cold north wind, which pales both man and them, and the poor Buckra freezes, and his soul grows stiff within him."

"Poor, poor chilled Buckra," echo answers, very low and far away.

"My mother wrings her hands and weeps for me beside the cottage door. My little sisters stay their gambols on the sanded floor and look bewildered in her face, then utter a frightened cry as she wrings again her hands and shrieks—'The white man's slave-ship! See its black hulk scud, with guilty, murderous look, far with my boy away!' "

"O wretched, wronged, and bleeding mother's heart! Pity her, O heaven! Soothe the wounds that never more will heal."

"The memory of the vessel's hold, O God! it haunts me now. Fathers and brothers, in fearful file, the sweet air of heaven turning to corruption; the touch of friendship changed to loathing by continual contact; the restless agony; the wearisome restraint. Cover the hateful scene, O Father! from my mind's backward eye; I faint, I die."

"Even so do I."

"The long procession to the mart of sale! The brutish voice and stare of the unpitying bargainer! Struck off to the highest bidder like paltry merchandise! A human soul! A bleeding heart! God's image in his child! Our Lord's redeemed one. O me! and can it be! They have forgotten me! Woe! woe! woe! I am, indeed, forlorn."

"Forlorn! forlorn!"

"The long, long hours of labor. No rest and playful ease under the tamarind tree. No freedom to sleep—then sport and gaze into the sunny heavens, or on the deep blue sea. But work, work, rude, heavy work for him whom God designed for his brighter, freer, gladder labors.—And the harsh whip. I see, I feel it now. Creep, O my flesh! Flow fresh, my gore, at the wicked, barbarous lash of the overseer!"

Echo says, "O, oh! I feel it now! Forbear, forbear!"

"Ha! see my helpless sister struggling to be free from the lewd master's power! Sweet heaven! canst thou thus shine when, horrible to say! the worse than death betides her? And I thus manacled! Break, burst my bonds! Free me, that I may strike the tyrant down! Swallow him, thou earth, from the sight of God and men! How long? O Lord! how long?"

Echo repeats, "O Lord! how long!"

"O my dark, heavy soul! My ignorant, unenlightened mind! Teach me, ye men of privilege and might, to become the being God would have me be; a glory to his name! I thirst for knowledge. I crave the wisdom that He designed for me. My heart and flesh cry out for the living God. Show me the way to heaven. Teach me of his revealings."

"Enlighten me, teach me, men of might! O teach me! Darkness broods over the feminine soul!"

"I look beyond to Freedom's land. I start renewed to life. I run, I cut the waves, I reach the shore! Help me! O help me, freeman! Thou knowest the untold worth, the incalculable boon of liberty. Give me thy hand. I tire, I fall. The pursuer is close upon me. Pitiless monster! Demoniac lust of gold! Paltry man-worship! He hurls me into the stream, whose current forces me back to bondage and perdition! Heart of stone! God will adjudge thee!"

"He will adjudge thee!"

"Again I flee. The strong man welcomes me. I think to find a friend. But lo! he would use me for most vile and selfish purposes! I point to heaven and say, 'God's freeman am I!' He curls his lip. He speaks with scornful phrase: 'I love thee not! A slave art thou to greed and fame! I spurn thee from me!' So he, who was to be my leaning-tower in the new scenes, opening through my freedom, shrivels at my simple touch, as reed at the approach of fire. That curling lip! Those scornful words! O may I die! I weary of my aching life!"

"God help me! So do I," echoes the deep woman-soul.

"And now, poor bondman, whether in slavery's chains or weighed upon by the stern white-man's laws and rude and darkened judgment, I come to thee. I have wandered in the years gone by, half-restless and dismayed, seeing no soft and mournful eye on which my own could rest and find response for my deep, thoughtful sorrow.

"But now I gaze far into thine, and see the answer to my life's woe and yearning wail for sympathy. O come to me, ye bondmen! Speak to me, captive women! Look tenderly, ye little ones in Christ, on the still waiting spirit, who only pleads to be one with you in the kingdom of our Lord! We will plant deep and rear high his standard in our midst, and it shall be the watchword to lead us on to glory."

"We come, we come!"

Zoë was fast fading away from day to day. She rode on horseback, and loved to ascend to the summit of the highest mountain, from which she could see the ocean on both sides of it, and be fanned by its vast, extended breath.

When too weak for that, she would be placed in the carriage, and her father would drive with her for a short distance into the country, whose fragrant breeze never failed to revive her.

One day she was going, as usual, to take her airing, when she felt that her hour of change was approaching.

"Please, take me back to mamma," she said to her father. He looked into her face, and, without speaking, laid her head on his shoulder and turned towards home.

Her mother and Hilda received her at the door and placed her in her favorite arm-chair, where she could look down the green slope through its trees, which but partially hid the Caribbean from her view.

Mr. Carlan came and sat beside her. She said to him, smiling faintly:

"My father! you sent your child away from you that she might become learned in the world's lore and be fashioned by its rules. But she brought back to you instead a mind taught in Christ's school. She could not learn to command by a haughty demeanor, but she sought the way to be obedient and lowly. She failed in gaining the good-will and admiration of her teacher, and such as she; but she has found abundant bliss in the approval of her Maker. She closes her short life on this beautiful earth, but she will find a fairer heaven above. My own good, generous, and much loved papa! you will build up the heavenly kingdom more and more within you, I know, and then, ere long, you will greet your own Zoë, where no disappointment shall again roar the bliss of our re-union. Tell me that it shall be so and I will leave you in peace."

He bowed his head on her hand, and, with faltering voice, sighed out, "Lord, I believe; help thou my unbelief!"

"Mother, for whom my soul so yearned in the days of my absence! you have taught me that the spirits are ever about us, whispering to us pure messages from the sky-born in the still hour of meditation. Be it so or not, I know that when I ascend I shall meet your pure twin angel above, who 'always beholdeth the face of our Father who is in heaven.' She will reveal to me of your ever-growing love for your child. And when you are re-united with her, never again to be divided, O then we will wander together in sweeter fields than those of earth, and be refreshed by the fragrant airs which fan the celestials."

"I see her fair form, I feel her soft breath. O hasten the hour when I too can depart!" said Sophia, looking upwards with a gaze of intensity and rapture.

"Hilda, my brave, my beautiful and true! who hadst faith in thy friend, when it was lost to herself—I have no need to tell of my heart's best love for my own—to thee I commit my most precious and sacred trust. Take this scroll, and let it be a legacy to my poor people in the country of your adoption, who, like Tantalus, are nearly immersed to the brim in the liberty they pant for, and yet cannot quaff of the stream. O see in each form, however defaced, the soul of your Zoë, pleading for freedom from the bonds which enthrall it, and speak thou the hope and courage which will give it new life."

Hilda arose, seized the manuscript which lay upon the table, and holding it aloft in the enthusiasm of the moment, with the glance of a Skald, and the gesture of a Norny, exclaimed, "Thy people shall be my people, as thy God is my God! On his help I will rely that He may strengthen my heart and the hands of my beloved, until we upturn every root of oppression from the land of their forced adoption, and make them equal partakers, with us, of each and all of its blessings!"

Zoë gazed with kindling eye upon the rapt Sibyl before her, clasped her hands and looked upward, saying, "Father, I thank thee! I die content."

The sun was just setting in a sea of glory. He slowly disappeared below the horizon, coloring the masses of clouds with purple and crimson as they sailed slowly athwart the scene of his exit. There was a hush in the room while all looked toward the pageant, which seemed to be a fitting accompaniment to the Quadroon's Triumph. She gazed silently upon it with placid eye, her breath growing fainter and fainter with the decreasing light, when, just as it seemed flickering like a candle in the socket, Ben Ezra stood before her.

He laid his hand upon her shoulder, as if he would stay the parting spirit in its flight.

"Nay, my friend!" she said, "seek not to recall me to the earth, but rather ascend yourself to the glorified spheres, where we will exchange with each other the sign of the soul, which will unite us forever and ever."

She ceased to breathe, and when they looked upon her again, her face was, as it were, the face of an angel.

When Hilda arose from her supporting position by Zoë's side, she looked around for Ben Ezra. He had vanished, but instead of him there lay upon the floor a parchment, his negative tribute to the value of the spirit of the Scriptures. She took it up, and started, for there came sounding to her ear from its deepest centre, in low, weird, dying tones, these words:

"But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away."

They laid upon Zoë's breast a sprig of the star-jasmin, and interred her in a corner of the Episcopal burying-ground, placing upon her tombstone the simple inscription, "Zoë Carlan, aged 20. She is not here, but is risen!"

As the small procession was returning from the church-yard, Jane Rutgard said to Mrs. Strophel, as they sat at her window gazing upon it, "I hope this girl's death will be a warning to the colored people not to attempt to educate their children, beyond the point they need for their low condition of life. Zoë might have lived to old age and made a very useful pastry-cook for us, but she has, of course, died of disappointment that she was not received into our circle, I am sorry for her father and mother!"

"Yes," said Mrs. Strophel, "I have no doubt she did. I can't imagine what Hilda ever saw in the girl to fascinate her so. She seems to me like one bewitched. Now I think of it, I remember that there were black parrots always flying about in the grove near Garlands. I begin to think with the negroes, there is something superstitious about that bird. As for Zoë, of course, it was the most absurd thing that could be thought of to attempt to educate her like a white person. It has only brought trouble upon herself and her parents, as we see."

And is it true that we must measure the value of a soul's growth and expansion by the superficial estimate of a half-barbarous civilization, in which the letter bears sway over the spirit? That if conventionalism chooses to be owl-eyed and hoot at any other method of development than its own one-sided, frigid intellectualism, therefore, the world is forever to be barren of God's own harmoniously proportionate souls? No. There shall rise, aside from the present chaos of philosophies and theologies—which enlighten but to blind, which guide but to lead astray—the pure religion of Jesus. Like God's "Let there be light!" on the day of creation, it shall scatter the clouds and vapors with which poor, weak, presumptuous man has enveloped the ages. Then will bloom the flower of a new and ascending civilization. It shall be lovely as the lily of the vale, fragrant as the violet, pure and delicate as the anemone, regal as the rose, and surpassing all others in grandeur, like the Victoria Regia. It shall be no hot-house plant, but it will exhale its perfume in the open air to those who are of the temper to receive it. It shall gladden by its beauty all classes of the people, and it shall be the homely but beneficent herb to heal all the ills of humanity. For God will be the sun to fructify and nourish it; Jesus the gardener to watch over its growth to perfection; and the dew of the Holy Spirit will distill ever upon it, perpetually renewing its life, so that no blight or death can befall it.

THE END.