Bohemian Days

n the stage route he was so eminently fitted to adorn. The unhappy Freckle continued in the prison of Clichy, and, having nothing else to do, commenced the novel process of thinking. The prison stoo

e place; but none of them were friendly with him when he was found to have no cash. Yet he heard them speak together of their countrymen who had lain in the same jail years before. Yonder was the room of Horace Greeley, incarcerated for a debt which was not his own; here the blood-stains of the Pennsylvania youth who looked out of the window, heedless of warning, and was shot dead by the guard; there the ancient chair, in which Hallidore, the Creole, sat so often, possessor of a million francs, but too obstinate to pay his tailor's bill and go free. Wh

nounced the tenets of his plain old sire as false and heret

expectedly returned to Paris, and, finding himself again p

of you," he said. "I shall serve out this term

after his discharge, and in another fashion became as stern, severe, and self-denying as had been his father. He sometimes saw his old comrade, Simp, driving

racy, grew more moody, and yet more ruined by the consciousness that after once suffering the agon

ature to depict, but since we have essayed it,

ood to relieve its sombre career, we have

as passed away. There are no longer slav

E GRI

ette, you h

for you w

ead was hea

ad lost its l

ld Quartier

vows one n

r life was

ask if it

go to kir

ved and le

s pelfish

our castle

its triu

es from the

ar the

ette, rich

fond to ch

or that I c

kiss from my

nothing g

crook, or so

tarving roa

how your nim

danced fast

my pen to ca

ard my hear

ld roofs and

e light for y

love a que

nt my

ette, the m

to me than

a blessing fit

the candle wen

chops I shal

s a trifle too

ch time befo

lock, aye wron

oor your fee

anger's chan

at picquet t

pipe;-is i

light your

me the da

y Gri

sette, the

ng while, tha

Seine from t

bridges foa

that your

bitiously

wned acros

I should

alf way roun

diamonds fo

ur gray a

re wise tha

etheart, to

tearful "

id, "A

sette, we

edded more

ss days in t

me I can

age must p

contracted

now, I o

ms haunt me

y, in peop

etween me a

he holines

proud, my b

speak of

youth with

e Gri

ED AB

MANCE OF THE Q

RT

PTA

in England had gone by wearily enough; but in this great city of Paris, where he might as well h

duces to that effect, and it happened

the stranger, turning

ed that youth, "I

ed the other. "Have you dwelt

at he was bored and sick of it, and had resolved to go ba

have no acquaintances. It is six o'clock; come with me to

ows of evening, and turning into the Rue de Seine, stopped before the doorway

he world, and addressing this man as "Père George" the stranger passed through a second sash doorway and int

t whereof fizzed and flamed from two unruly burners. A door at the farther end opened upon a cook-room, and the cook,

daughter; and the patrons of the place, twenty or more in number, were eating and laughing and a

was wedged into the remotest corner, with Terrapin upon his right, and upon his left a creature so na?ve

d very much as a peach might do, if it were possible for a peach to laugh. He could only say a horrible bon jour, and make the superfluous intimation that he could not speak Fre

re," said Terrapin, carelessly, "until you

se," said Flare, "

ed her, and when Ralph blushed she turned quietly

e was an alertness in her erect ear, and open nostril, and pointed brows which indicated keen perception and comprehension; ye

child was so quietly attired that her cleanliness seemed a matter of nature, not of command. Her cheap coral ear-drops and the thin band of gold upon her white finger could not have been so fitting had they been of diamonds; and her tresses, inclosed in a fillet of beads, were tied in

sire. Yet here in France, where climate, or custom, or man had changed the relations though not the nature of woman, he did but as the world

e, beef, mutton, pullet, vanished like waifs, and then came the salad, which he could not make, so that Suzette helped him again with her

d the eau-de-vie; and as the parties ranged themselves about the greate

-broke, as usual; and his friend, the sallow chap, is Moise, whose father died last week, leaving him ten thousand francs. Moise, you will see, has a wife, Feefine, though I suspect him of bigamy; and the t

said Ralph Flar

generally speaking. She breakfasts upon five sous; a roll, café, and a bunch of grapes-her dinner

dollars and a half a month

d his shoulders,

e was a bottle of Bordeaux. Few women play cards honestly, and Suzette was the first to go out; but seeing that Ralph floundered and lost continually, she gav

ntimely. Suzette tied on a saucy brown flat streaming with ribbons, and bade them good-night, ending

The great clamp at the portal of his hotel sounded very ghostly as

nsieur," he said,

t mean, Terrap

you always com

I come?" said R

d?" answere

in his chamber, funereal with griffins, and there were portraits with horribly profound eyes. The sofa and the chairs were huge; the deep window-hangings were talking together in a ru

be made merry with sunlight,

some of them. He worked feverishly, determinedly, for quite a t

ing, my pr

u walk w

your company

is you

u laugh at my

onely i

e y

to see my

uy you a

ove

in the great room, which made him thrill and shudder.

med to him that his mother was standing by his shoulder, pointing wit

hat does t

better when it was burned; but he could not burn a

RT

SES

with their baton of brown bread, and called for two sous' worth of coffee and milk. The men wore blouses of blue and white, and jested after the Gallic code with the sewing-girls. This bread

d skipping, and driving her glance

he smooths back her pure wristbands, disclosing the grace of the arm, and as she laughs in Ralph's fac

ieur, vous-avez

ughed like a sunbeam playing on a rivulet, an

said Ralph Flare; "I

onscience seemed to be blocking up the way-a tangible, visible, provoking

ckground of boxes, each with a button looking mischievously at him, or a glove shaking its forefinger, or a shapely pair of hose making him blush, and the daintiest child in the world, flushing and flirting and gossipi

ach him that this was no offence, or that the usage warranted the sin. He became acquainted, through Terrapin, with dozens of his countrymen; the youngest and the oldest and the most estimable had their open attac

, and he loved company. His age was that at which the affections and the instincts alike impel the man to know more of

good joke; he felt, indeed, that he was not entirely manly. He had half a doubt that he was worthy to walk with men, else why had not his desires, like theirs

ousand studies of her face; she should be his model, his professor, his divinity! What was gross in her he would refine; what dark he would make known. They would walk together by the river side, into the parks, into the open country. He would know no regrets for the friends across the sea. Europe would become beautiful to him, and his art would find inspiration from so m

ree and a sober cocher-to the Bois de Boulogne. Terrapin stated to Suzette in a shockingly informal way that

asleep, nodding and slashing his horses. And while Terrapin turned his head and made himself invisible in cigar-smoke, Ralph folded Suzette to his breast, and kiss

room was just adapted for so little a couple. Superficially observed, the furniture resolved itself into an enormous clock and a monstrously fine mirror; but after a while you might remark four small chairs and a great one, a bureau and a wardrobe, a sofa and a canopied bed

ed upon this cemetery. Her baby lay ther

y would not speak nor move, but the smoke of his cigar made a charmed circle around them, a

en his friends visited him did less honor to her purse than to her heart. She certainly made excellent punches; Terrapin thought her cigarettes unrivalled; she was fond of cutting a fruit-pie, and was quite a connoisseur with wines. Ralph did not wonder at her tidiness when the laundry bills were presented, but doubted that the coiffeur beautified

endered a full account of all your

is debt was so old that I ne

y more-old o

ld, but was able to recall thirty francs in the course of t

ls, but walked very soberly upon his arm, recognizing nobody, and exacting the same behavior from Ralph. Let him look at an unusually pretty girl, through a shop-window,

more to Ralph than any other correspondent. A single letter satisfied her of this; and when he was reading it, for the seco

hat letter

won

her temples, and gave it to him meekly, and sat down very stricken and desolate. There was one whom he loved better than her-she felt it bitte

e thought of his home, or the infatuation of his presen

s of the French school, so marvellous in color and so superb in composition, and the mighty museum of Versailles, with

nth barely sufficed to keep them, and once, in the interval of a remittance, they were in danger of hunger. Yet Suzette plied her needle bravely, and was never so proud as when she had spread the dinner she

ll of white roses, and floating a defiant ostrich-plume, and tied with broad red ribbo

he plumper, while its black color set off the whiteness of her simple collar, and with those magic gaiters, Ralph's gift also, he us

ber, and garments, and subsistence-more than any of your friends-and I am with yo

ed that he could not command any imposs

After three days I will not pay for your breakfasts, and every day in which you do not breakfast w

nd for a week earned a franc a day. The eighth day came; she had no money. Ralph put on his hat and went down the Rue L'école de Médecin without her;

k that she was hungry, but

er, Suzette! I keep

well,

d a hearth fire. Suzette made pretence of reading. She had an impenitent look; for she conceived that she had been cruelly tr

zette; you don't ma

ie

from below. He was regretful and angry. At Terrapin's room he drank much raw brandy and sang a song. He even called the astute Terrapin a humbug, and toward midnight grew quarrelsome. They escorted

k one as they looked at each other. She fell upon his neck and removed his garments, and wrapped him away between the coverlets; and he watched

T I

SCI

igion, or even of respectability, this intimacy was baneful. A wild young man had broken his honor for the companionship of a poor, errant girl. She was poor, but she hated to work; she ha

s the infant was ushered into the world. To her father and brothers she was of an unprofitable sex, and her sisters disliked her because she was handsomer than they. Her childhood was cheerless enough, for she had quick instincts, and her education availed only to teach her how

only the wages of sin. It was not there an irreparable disgrace to have fallen. For a full year she lived purely, industriously, lonely; what adventures ensued Ralph knew imperfectly. She met, he believed that she loved him. It was not probable, of course, that she came out of the wrestle unscathed. She deceived in little

f a student from Bretagne, a worldly, plotting, masculine woman-the only one whom he permitted to visit her. It

when he essayed to study, and he would not walk with her of evenings, so destitute. Then Fanchette amused her: "Sew in my room,

te one evening, as she returned from her frie

; "that is, if ever I have mone

ke me with yo

N

t love me

is

me, my

ays bother me when my money is low.

ly, he felt repentant, and called her to him, and they talked a long w

you like me to take you to my co

uch, my

hards are filled with apples and pears. You must walk an hour to get around the corn-fields, and there is a picnic ground in the beech-woods, where we might entertain our frien

ll in, and the blood

t you were; you are anxious to be better-not in people's eyes only, but in mine, in your own. To do good deeds; to sit in the church hearing good counsel; to be patted upon the forehead by my father-his daughter!-and to call my brother your brother also.

her heart, beating. He had expressed what she scarcely dared to conceive-all her holiest, profoundest

come to me in a dream. Perhaps it is because you talk to me so that I love you so greatly. Nobody ever spoke to me so before. That is why I am angry when your proud friend Lizzie writes to you. All that g

, truly, s

d; he coughed in a dry wa

r us to be more to each other. My people would never speak to me if

nce did not come; he was out of temper, and said in jest that he would set out for Italy within a week. There was a pale decision in her countenance the fourth morning. She put on her gray robe and a little cap which she had made. He did not of

was sitting up by the fireplace; his rent

l you never went away two wh

ttance. He felt like a bear. Twelve o'clock came-Suzette did not appear. It drifted on to one; he listened vainly for her feet upon t

come from?" he as

e gave th

is kirsch wasser on your li

truggle, and delving into the soft cotton with which it was packed, brought out sleeve-buttons of gold and a pearl breastpin. They were new and glittering, and they flashed a burning suspicion into his heart. He force

s, Suzette?" he asked in

ient pa

s her

n't k

does sh

n't te

ips and altogether bloodless temples. His hand tightened upon her; his full, boyish figure straightened

t better than I. I shall walk out for one hour; at the end of th

RT

MO

a crazy pace across the Pont des Arts to the rooms of Terrapin. That philosopher w

o travel, but he felt that Europe had nothing to show him like tha

id, "that is the way w

be vexed. He drank pure cognac, to the astonishment of the Gauls, but it had no visible effect upon him, and Père George held up h

s heart, it would have been well. Then he reasoned, with himself, sensibly and consistently. It was a bad passion at first. How would it have shamed his father and mother had they heard of it! Its continuance was even more pernicious, making him profligate and idle; introducing him to light pleasures and companies; enfeebling him, morally and physically; diverting him from the beautiful arts; weakening his parental love; divorcing him from grand themes and thoughts. He could never marry this woman. Their heart-strings must have been wrung by some final parting; and n

mself, her, society, mankind. Then he cried like a child, and

rning, and walked to the banker's. His remittance awaited him, and he

nd searched ineffectually along the Rue Rivoli for a companion who would ride with him. "Go through the Rue de Beaux Arts!" he said, as they crossed Pont Neuf. This is a quiet street in the Latin Quarter filled with cheap pensions, in one of which dwelt

, absent manner into his face, like one who essays to remember something that was very dear but is now quite strange. He was pl

uld not do for her to occupy their single bedroom; but Ralph made reply by deputy, to the effect that the donor of the jewelry would, he supposed, give her a room. It was a weary week ensuing; he drank

he multitude of gar?ons contemplated each other's white aprons, and old Bullier, the proprietor, staggering under his huge hat, exhibited a desire to be taken out and interred. The wild-eyed young man with flying, carroty locks, who stood in the set directly under the orchestra, at that part of the floor called "the kitchen," was flinging up his legs without any perceptible enjoyment, an

he was impelled to speak to her; but he was obdurate and hard-hearted. He could have filled her cup of bitt

in; "are you cold? Confound it, man, you are si

You know some of these girls, old fellow? I mean to treat two of them to a bottle of ch

uch energy that they shrank back. He made one of them take his arm, and hurried here and there, saying honeye

his new friends into an alcove. She saw the wine burst from the bottle, and heard the clink of the glasses as they drank good health. She did not know that all his laughter

ter of a blood-drop. Such unnatural excitement must have some termination. He quarrelled with a waiter. Old Bullier ordered a cuirassier to take him to the door; he would have resisted, but Terrapin whispered: "Don't be foolish, Flare; if you are put out it will be

s nervously as he breathes hard. It is a bad sleep; it is the sleep of bad children, to

ntly. Aye! but those who do wrong after much admonishment are wickeder than those who obey the first ba

Far down as Suzette might be, she never could have been unfeeling, unmerciful as he. It is a bad character to set in black and white, yet you might ask old Terrapin or any shrewd observ

for Suzette, and forgive her, and plead with her to come back again. The door opened: she of whom he thought stood before him, more marked and meagre than he; and th

RT

RA

ht make Suzette give way at once under the burden of her grief, and rest upo

hed to intimidate him by a show of carelessness, so she first said quietly: "Monsieur Ralph, I have

, ma

a good way up-stairs, and

like,

y playfulness into his eyes, he regarding her coldly and darkly; and then, she laughed. It was a terrible laugh to come from a child's lips

ains and throwing unreal shadows upon the spent fire, the disordered furniture, the unmade bed; and there were the two actors, suffering in their little spher

ased, madame

round your eyes; you have not shaved; the bones of your cheeks are

ney lately. Being free to d

room. "Somebody has gone away fr

ed sugge

night; the company did you hono

shrewdly,"

; it may be she will

h me I permitted no one to visit me in your absence. My late friends will be vexed. Y

ought Suzette really meant to go,

t with you a little while. You drove me from you once. I know that you have found one to fill my place; but, enfant, I love yo

did not give you kindness only; I gave you nourishment, shelter, clothing, money. You were unworth

estly, you would consent. I only want you to think less bitterly of me. You must needs have some hard thoughts. I have done wrong, my boy, but you do not know all the cause, and as what I mean to say cannot make place in your breast for me now, you will know t

nt of plan or effort, yet with a wild power of love and gesture which we

the parted curtain and into the turbulent street. There were troops passing beneath the balcony, and the cl

t he would send her away before her agitation could pass, and she might speak. His face wore an incredulous sneer as she spoke, though he knew it was absolute truth. She told him how wretched she had been, so wretched that even temptation res

above her, in mind, in stature, so that he shall be able to do without her. Yet with that fear there is a pride like mine, when I felt that you were clever. Ah! Ralph, you loved to make me feel how weak and mean I was. You played with my poor heart, sick enough before, and little by little I felt your love gliding away from me, till at last you told me that it was gone. You said you should leave France, never to return-God forgive you if it was not tr

he placed that box of jewelry in my lap and ran away. I left it upon Fanchette's mantel that night. She filled my head with false thoughts next day. I never m

ich he used to express unbelief. She

light-hearted in France, and we live and laugh again. Perhaps you have made me more

wardrobes, and a watch, and a voiture. It is a dazzling picture for one who toils, going all her days on foot, and lovely

r. He asked her into a café, cavalierly, and was very careful to make display of his napoleons as he paid. He did not invite her, but she followed him to his hotel again, and here, as if with terrible ennui, he threw himself upon his bed and feigned to sleep, while she crouched at his table and wrote him a contrite letter. It was sweetly and simply worded, and asked that he should let her return to him for

There was bright sunshine, but it fell leeringly, not laughingly, upon the columns of the Odean Theatre, upon the crowds on t

thought that her long patience had moved him. Perhaps she should be all forgiven. Aye! they should dwell together a few days longer. It was a dismal thought that it must be for a few days,

er than to have loved thus truly, and have it accounted my shame. If I were married to this man I could not be his fonder wife; but because I am not he despise

e she entered the room. Her letter, blotted with tears, lay crumpled and torn upon

that letter is the last olive branch

knob. It shut behind her with a shock. Her feet were quick upon the stairs; he pursued her

or France-for the world. Be not rash or retaliatory! become not the companion of this Frenchman who has divided us. We will commence again.

ignation. He who had racked her all day for his pleasure was bou

In the days I have drunk deeply, squandered my money, tried all dissipations, and pr

day's lesson. Something impels me to return your cruelty; it is a bad impulse, and

sed her tears away, and wondered where the g

RT

ERT

der, roused Ralph Flare to his more legitimate ambition. "My child," she said, "i

e, and he selected a fine Rembrandt-an old man, bearded and scarr

here he could see her in miniature, the sweetest portrait in France. At last he was really absorbed, and she went into the city to f

apin, who made some philosophic comments upon the "sp

cutter, and had the superintendence of a work-room, where she made four francs a day, and so paid all her expenses. At the end of the second month he took the money which he otherwise would have required for board, and bough

no beautiful woman in France could do-weakened her grasp upon Ralph Flare's heart. For now Ralph's

ornarina, just as you may be called the Coutouriere, and he painted her portrait in the characters of saints and of the Virgin. She will be remembered a thousand year

ved than Suzet

ore than my art before; but I

toiled; and as she toiled the more, so grew her love the purer and her content the more equal. She was not the aerial

to part as they had done before, with anger; but any parting must be agony where she had loved so well. As he lay sleeping, he never knew what tears of midnight were plashing upon his face. He could not see how her little heart was b

tel and up the Boulevard. He followed her, suspiciously. She crossed the Place de la Sorbon

e kneeling in the chapels, whispering their sins into the ears of invisible priests. And beneath the delicate tracery of screen and staircase, and the gloriously-

if in shame, to a remote chair, and kneeling down covered her face with her missal. Now and then the organ boomed out. The censers were swung aloft, dispensing their perfumes, and all the peo

fore. After a while she spoke of her family, and wondered if her father would forg

man, and a letter came back, the fi

pport from Ralph. If I were his wife, she said, it might

duct did not draw him closer to her. He felt uneasy and unworthy. He missed the artfulness which had been so winning. He had jealousies no longer to keep his passion quick, for he could not doubt her devotion. T

glow and flame. His mother, whose woman's instinct divined the cause of his delay in Paris, sent

eave France-and

d took but a handful of baggage. She had doubts that were like deaths to her; but she believed hi

he take

N

expected wants-sickne

ustfully, "would not

e that the sound of that kiss was like a spell-the breaking of the pleasantest link in his life-the passing from sinfulness to a baser selfishness

ars moved one by one till the last, in which he was seated, sprang forward with a jerk; and though she was quite b

try, and to-night he will sleep u

ark city, and she will not sle

more sympathy beat out every day. We only notice this one

T V

LVING

ned, Suzette's pale face got between him and the canvas, he mentioned his own name and said "renown," and took a turn in the remote corridor where young Raphael's

he consciousness that he could forget her. After three months he set out for Florence and

ss he had known, and came to regard Suzette as a tolerably bad person, who had bewitched him. He burned all her letters, and a little lock of hair he had clipped

is departure northward. All the world was going to Paris-why not he? Was he afraid? Certainly not; it had b

ld so make better studies of passengers; for, somehow, your first-class people have not cha

sun shone, oh! so drearily, and taking up boors and market-folks at every monastic station. There was a pretty young girl sitting beside Ralph in the

sh, and the hairs of both turning gray. The man was commonplace, as he leaned upon a staff, and between their feet were paniers of purchases they had been maki

she would keep there a moment more. By Ge

nd the sky afar off brought into sharp relief the two Gallic profiles, close together, as if they were used

uation! Doubtless she works afield beside that old Jacques Bonhomme, and drinks sour wine or Normandy cider on Sundays. That may be the best fate of Suzette, but it must be an amply dry reformation for any little grisette to contemplate. For such prodigals going home there is no fatted calf slain. No fa

eyes half closed also, and the lull of the wheels, the long lake streaks of the sedative skies, the coming

ch was like a lost sense restored. He thrilled and sat stock still, with her withered

ab

to himself to grow quite o

nt pe

hair, and the old serge gown drooped as brownly; but the sweet old face grew soft as a widow's looking

as well with the turning of my hairs? Has the firs

the sadness of religion! I sinned no more, and sought my father's fields, and delayed, with my hand purified by his blessing, the residue of his sands of life. I made my years good to my neighbors, the sick, the bereaved. I met the temptations of the

eparate hair, the sudden remembrance of each separate folly; and the moments of grief he had wrung

hed. I asked your face only, and you gave me your heart. For the unfaithfulness, for the

me was that you had learned in the Quartier lesson

Latin; they felt no love but forgiveness, which is the tenderest of emotions. The whistle b

or her. She had been seen by none since his departure. He

Merci! P

zet

; and he turned his back on the Quartier Latin wi

IGEON

oping mar

llage of

turday h

nday, com

inds her i

panier at

pigeons li

plumage gra

bots droo

hief, brig

smooth,

uyers kne

ce, her fac

holy

s in a

ut the ru

in her co

usewives g

her eyes

n some h

bles, high

sunshine o

s two milk-

her lap

rmur of t

y the pa

their fligh

cherished f

so rel

hadows clo

ageant, foo

iants in

noon for

village se

nder sunbe

in the Oi

sh float up

diers touch

fés quit

est, to wi

at old be

els along

lle in ot

church of S

unts her d

sed such fri

merrily

orial c

, straight pa

forest,

low its l

chways' g

wondrous

grass beneat

lue-eyed

her, o'er

olled al

nely ca

est's tang

any stag

of the

se that ro

straight sa

wild boar's

rrow clov

note of t

ed myself

shed that

ward her j

Jean au B

father's

out the a

ol well l

Norman ho

tch the pi

forest r

hamlet,

otten al

orld's chil

ldhood sh

easant noo

ake the blo

hen her h

sensuous

rket we s

s kneel si

arm, each

t, my pre

MAN OF KE

f an Old

PTE

MU

the Quaker City, and occupying the same relation to it that Kensington in England does to London. Beyond both Kensingtons is a Richmond, but the English Richmond i

ker demon who is ever seeking to square them. Along the water side, or near it, passes a sort of Quay Street, between ship-yards and fish-houses on the one side, and shops or small tenement

ity. This street was once called Queen, afterward Richmond Street, and it is crossed by others, as Hanover, Marlborough, and Shackamaxon, which attest in their names the duration of royal and Indian traditions hereabout. Pleasant maple, sometimes sycamore and willow trees shad

dows of Kensington and the Jerseys. A few horses were driven on the ice, and hundreds of boys ran merrily with real sleighs crowded down with their friends. A fight or two was improvised, and unlicensed vendors set forth the bottle that inebriates. In the midst of the afternoon gayety a small boy, kneeling down to buckle up to a farther hole the straps on his guttered skates, saw just at his toe something like human hair. The small boy rose to his feet and s

nd thousands swarmed at the news that a dead body had been found. When they arrived on the spot, spades, picks, and ice-

look of drowned people of good condition-glassy and of fixed expression, as if in the moment o

en the main part of the crowd arrived. Ke

ne of the marine railways at Kensington. Come to think of it, I haven'

ness in old chains and junk. "You see they had another ship-mending place on the i

th young Andrew Zane, this one's son (touching the body with his foot),

surface and expect much-undulated to the outward boundaries. As the people moved the i

adequate use to this scientific necessity, and he called up two volunteers to turn the corpses over, keep back the throng, give him light, and add imposition to apprehension. Finally he stopped at a place in the garments of the principal of the twain. "Here is a hole," he exclaimed, "with

their bodies, and both had been undoubtedly murdered. Some supposed it was the work of river pirates; others a private revenge, perpetrated by some following boat's party in the darkness of night. But more than one person piped shrill

PTE

FL

ened and the news spread, the bell was pulled so often that it aided the universal alarm following a crime, and a crowd of people, reinforced by others as fast as it thinned out, kept

nd was of such general estimation, that the murder of the senior member of the film took on some unusual public sympathy from the reflected sorrow for his fellow-victim. The latter had been one of Zane's apprentices, raised to a place in the establishment by his usefulness and sincere love of his patron

y of Kensington: The murderer was he who had the only known temptation and object in such a crime. Who could gain anything by it but Andrew Zane, the impulsive, the mis

rebellious young sarpint of a son, who allus pulled a lusty oar, has chased them two older ones into the deep water of the channel,

ngleted, yellow hair. "Don't create a prejudice, I beg of you. Andrew Zane was my classmate. He gave his excellent father so

"He's a fine, mature-looking,

. He's going to succeed his venerable and pious

te William Zane. When it reopened he was seen with a handkerchief in hi

way!" interposed the fat fishwife.

ook of the greatest pain, "Andrew Zane has not bee

appeared into the low and eld

Andrew Zane should not be here to meet a charge like thi

d nimble little lady, under twenty years of age, who taught in one of the public schools and boarded with her former school-mate, Agnes Wilt. Agnes was an orphan of unknown parentage, by many supposed to have been a niece or relative of Mr. Zane's deceased wife, whose place she took at the head of

er in the midst of a generally light and flexible life, now told against him in the public mind. "He has nerve enough to do anything desperate in a pinch," exclaimed the very wisest. "Didn't William Zane find him out once in the island of Barbadoes grubbing sugar-cane with a hoe, and the the

fell the whole burden of this double crime and mystery, ten times

-house struck midnight. "Oblige me, my dear! I cannot slee

g so near." She locked toward the front parlor,

always kind to me. My fears ar

again and again, and knew that feelings bet

nnot help loving him, and as long as he is loved by you I

her face to give the mandat

n a moment float away like other dreams. Brought to this house an orphan, and twice deprived of a mother's love, she had only entered woman's estate when another class of cares beset her. Her beauty and sweetness of disposition had brought her more lovers than could make

uch tears as we shed in supreme moments saturated her handkerchief, "what have I done to make such misery to

eaking from his coffin to upbraid her. A door burst open in the dining-room, which was behind her, and then the dining-room door als

n instant, standing there, shivering, and then he retired a pace or two and closed the door to the cellar, by which he had entered the house. Even this little movement in the intruder had something familiar about it. He advanced again,

ever give with purity, drew the soul of the suspe

to-night. Every place I might have resorted to is watched. All Kensington-my

place to make your peace; here ta

defend me now, and that would hang me to the gallows. I come to put

nd I cannot give you up. Yes, I will pray for you now, before you start on y

is t

r fa

while, and his c

ispered finally.

the dim light of the chandelier. Turning up the burners it was revealed in its relentless, thou

alment and disguise, placed his arm around Agnes, and his knees

d, also weeping, "I

to a chair, and as she sat upon it he laid his head in h

d at last, "so help me God, I did!

ng, intercession continues for all our offences only there. It must be our recourse in this sep

is my reliance, dearest. I have always been disobedien

rew. Poor,

s. Perhaps they are suspecting me. I must fly. Oh! shall we ever meet again under a brighter sky? Will you cling to me? I

ver say them to me again. Beautiful, and to the end of su

od! let me ask forgiveness from these frozen lips. My father! purs

at the outer window the sound of his escaping. When all was s

TER

DEAF

suspicion resting on Andrew Zane and an unknown laborer, who had left Pettit's or Treaty Island, at night,

tors of the Zane estate were named as Agnes Wilt, Rev. Silas Van de Lear, and Duff Salter. The two dead men were interred together in the old Presbyterian burial-ground, and after a month or two of di

sibly awkward circumstances of origin and relation. All men, of whatever time of life and for whatsoever reason, admired her-the mean and earthy if

dy churchwoman in all my ministration in Kensington, which is now forty years. Besides being pious, and virtuous, and humble before God, she is ver

ather in the venerable church close by, and was

orth proposing to. It's true that we don't know just who she is, but

ng is denied to his saints in righteousness. The sense of wedded pleasure, the beauty that delights the eye, love, appetite, children, and financia

she is superb. But she is a little too good for me. She looks at me whenever I talk to her, whereas

ore evil than a light heart and occasional rebellion. If she loves him still, do n

e are no depths to which jealousy cannot go in a small suburban society. Agnes, as an orphan, had felt it since childhood, but nothing had ever happened until now to concentrate slander as well as sympathy upon her. It was told abroad that she had been the mistress

o the Zane house with a broad-shouldered, grave, silent-eyed man, who wore a very long white beard reaching to his middle. As he was also ta

nsas. He cannot hear what I have said, for he is almost stone deaf. However, go through the motions of shaking hands. I am

, shook hands with the grave

you are wel

d box from his pocket, unlocked it and sniffed a pinch of snuff, and then gave a sneeze, which he articulated, pla

t of Mr. Zane's estate, it will devolve upon me to examine the whole subject. I am a stranger in the East. As Mr. Van de Lear may have told

t a protection to us,

om his pocket, with a pencil, and

rite your

rote

ts, and in the evening had it read and answered. Agnes was a good deal of the time preoccupied, and Podge Byerly, who wrote as neatly as copper-plate, answered these inquiries, and conducted a little conversation of her own. Podge w

ou mar

time and wrote b

uld one forget if

same tablet: "No

ught a minute, and then conclude

e an ol

the upper window. That night, instead of any inquiries, he stalked down in his worked slippers-the dead man's-and long dressi

y pr

he gave her the ivory tablet,

id you ever f

k his h

"What else do the

ed, "The

n off at such a serious turn of responses, but was too much of a woman not to b

ds sing now? Ar

ny can hear who n

in, "Are you

ed, "Very

k his h

o Agnes, who had entered. "He looks as i

kerchief and sneezed into i

e next night when she read on his t

emoralizing in teach

"Yes, stupid old v

wrote; "I mean

pirit as before, "I think

and his strong, yet benevolent Scotch-Irish countenance. Podge,

by giving him doubts about me! I am real bad,

ugh to try to improve,"

o! Jericho!" sne

to the small table and proceeded to write. They hallooed into his ear once or twice, but he said he was deaf as a mill-stone, and might be cursed to his fac

who wrote this an

te and found in a woman'

ting and artful-and what else, you can find out! One man has been murdered in that

War

. He moved forward as if to speak to her, but corr

he least by an anonymous letter. I only kee

PTE

UIT

lated, when the door-bell rang, and Podge Byerly went to see who was there. She soon returned and c

Calvin Van de Lear, our future minister. He's e

entertain

, but he asked in a ver

r m

oked dis

I called to pay my respects part

at was said in the front parlor, and partly see, by the brighter light there, the motions of th

e the large

hear what girls sa

calling on our b

afrai

feel when a

el imp

rateful, then; on

we have the advantage over a man. We can p

the other

e, "play just the same w

r looked u

at wrong?

mischievously

ed so exceedingly grave tha

propensity to plague a man dependent on

o know it, and

s old man is dreadfully serio

e, the voice of Calvin Van de Lear was heard by Podge,

troubles here, to express my deep interest in you, and to find you, I

outside of this house," replied Agnes. "My mind is altogether p

y. "I have always been Cal. before-short and easy, Cal.

fflictions have taught me t

call me C

. Van d

s got nothing to do with social things. When I take the governor's place in our pulpit I shall make my sermons for this g

r the pressure of them we draw nearer to happiness. What merry words should be said to t

neezed loudly: "Jericho! Jerichew! Je-ry-cho-o!" He produced a tortoise-shell snuff-box, and Podge took a pinc

eat dirt an

t last dirt ea

They will chew anything from a piece of India rubber shoe to slippery elm and liquo

must have something in their mo

uorice root,

the boys in

don't like boys. They like ni

onversation in the front parlor was rene

ligious duty, as you seem to prefer, I must tell y

said in re

at privilege now. As a daughter of the church you should give the encouragement of your beauty a

ising. "How dare you spea

hout a living guardian-requires to hear the truth, even from an erring brother. You have no right to go outside the range at least of respectable men, to place your affections and be

ed Agnes; "perh

ceeded, broken by young Van d

w but it is the be

shame

edevil feats we heard of, he was at the head of them. After he grew up his eyes fell on you. For a time he was soberer. Then, perceiving that you were also his father's choice, he conspired against his

as returned

n! That you declined the son only because his father might disinherit him, and put off the father because the son would have the longer enjoyment of his property! I have defended you

as heard in hasty an

ore. Be silent. Am I not b

he door and looked in, because Duff

-o-o! Jer-

a pack of cards and shuffled

a point, the tablets at hand between them to write

e, "that all Western me

to her ast

w

t it a

the

bling was a si

e," wrote Duff Salter

's a

heart, captur

one," added Po

name?" wrote

's te

wo people in the front pa

Lear. You do not know the pai

st maddened me for years. Your resistance would give me

impossible;

verently. I can put you at the head of this society-the wife of a clergyman. Busy tongues shall be stilled at your coming and going,

heard, as if the amorous young pr

rose, l

stolid, and unconscious of a

"that your attentions are offensiv

auty. You are not alarmed by these d

you have slandered to win my favor is as dear to me as y

doors just as Duff Salter h

icho! Jer-ric

ty, Calvin Van de Lear mad

d, "most reputable l

d him, "that we'll make a pitcher of port sangaree and have a little glass bef

exclaimed Podge Byerl

this, for, with his grave eyes be

-thr

e Byerly snatched at the card

nto tears and

Byerly, "I believe this old gr

over the best resid

very mail, making charges and imputations upon Agn

" "A second Mrs. Chapman!" "Jezebel,"

r in very delicate male chirography, as if

ny-more beautifully in the writing, more shameless in the meaning, as if, with the nethermost ex

erer strikes the vital spot but once. Here every commandment is broken in the cowardly secret letter. False witness, the stab, illicit jo

cancer, or wart on her eye, or marry a bow-legged man. The resurrectionists will get he

ht following Calvin Van de Lear's repulse at their dw

irection of the venerable pastor, Calvin Van de Lear, of his own motion and as a matter of cou

er fingers, saw a handsome, high-colored woman a

ther, Knox-a blonde of large, innocent eyes

he became conscious that something in the prayer was di

d or bold looks, observed Agnes Wilt,

r sounded high and meaningful

, even, O Lord, of religion, leading the souls of men down to death and hell. Thou knowest who stand before Thee to do lip service. All hear

Salter, who had taken too big a pinch of snuff and forgot himself, so as to ne

i-cho

op of the pulpit and smiled, but, luckily, D

n her veil, and trembled under the st

the street, Podg

who address God with slant arrows to wound others, as is often done at pray

. "I can go to church no more. When will they get b

PTE

GH

scarves and bonnets, and the boys said that an old sucker of Penn's Treaty Elm down in a ship-yard was fresh and blithsome as a second wife. In the hearts and views of living people, too, spring brought a budding of youthfulness a

hief, that I am not

d Podge, "like a piece of hale ol

Laurel Streets to Second, but kept down the river bank by Beach Street, to see the ship-yards and hear the pounding of rivets and the merry adzes ringing, and

de Lear, who had great expectations that Duff would build them

shouldn't object to a spire on my church, with the figure of William Pen

ated with the Indians in Kensington?"

il 4, 1683, he met King Tammany under the forest elm, with the savage people in half-moon circles, looking at the healthy-fed

alvin Van de Lear, rather idiotically

-not much. Philadelphia had no foundation then, and Shackamaxon was

build a spire," wrote Duff

rk, or passenger, and refusing to return, had become a mule-driver in the mines of cinnabar, and there had remained for years in nearly heathen solitude, until once he arrived overland in Arkansas with a train from C

rned with the truth of this tale than wi

tead!" said the people that spring.

public Echo, "as long as there are two fine young w

course-the anonymous letter was then the suburban

be the subject of a coroner's inquest. That house is bloody and haunted, rich Mr. Duff Salter! Be

a city character, and he strolled far up Cohocksink Creek till it meandered through billowy fields of green, and skirted the edges of woods, and all the way was followed by a path made by truant boys. Sitting down by a spring that gushed up at the fo

ing civic destiny. Alas! the little brook that once ran unvexed to the river, freshening green marshes at its outlet, has become a sewer, discolored with dyes of factories, and closed around by tenements and hovels till its purer life is over. My playmate, too, flowed on to womanhood, till the denser social conditions shut her in; she mingled the pure current

as he ceased to speak, and he found

ng man, howling in the elder's ear, "because I wanted

ory tablets on the divinity stu

slow. Besides, it admits of nothing impres

at way a third time I'll knock you down. I'm deaf, it's true, but I'm not

iling, Calvin Van de Le

u seen t

ho

osts of the

st of anything in

ne and Sayl

as see

one that has been seen. Zane's gh

at

tious people say, because their m

murdere

and profited by th

alter. "Young man," he wrote delib

ind as well as deaf. Do yo

Do

by night. One of the school directors shoved her on the public schools for intimate cons

ch-co!

had seen a school director visiting the house, but thought it natural enough that he should take a kin

are saying is indictable language? It would h

shed up to the roots of his long dry hair and almost colorless whiskers, as if he had been drinkin

soon after his child was born, followed at no great distance to the grave by his widow. While a child, Agnes was cold and subtle. She professed to love me-that w

rote Duff Salter stiffly. "What do you want particularl

up at once with the church people. I'm told that a little objection to my prospects in the governor's church begins to break out. If I can marry Agn

Duff Salter smilingly. "

mony can do it. Now, with your aid I can manage it. Miss Wilt doe

they

If not a principal in it, she is an undoubted accessory after the fact. Andrew

e sure

man who penetrated into the house by the coal-hole is established by the discovery of the clothing he excha

zed Duff Salter, but wit

; but it would be a gratuitous and vile

ose to make myself her rescuer afterward, and establish myself in her gratitude

onora

mpels you to discover his murderer. You are rich; lend me money to continue my investiga

executor, I will spend any proper sum of money to inflic

asionally haunted by Governor Anthony Palmer's phantom coach and four, which was pursued by his twenty

rly. For the first time Duff Salter noticed that they looked both intimate and confused. He tried to reason himself out of this

chool director making a motion as if to embrace Podge

ought Duff Salter. "If I could only hea

ble state of mind for a gentleman. Agnes, too, looked guilty, as he th

curtains down and set the door ajar, for in the increasin

, which was to avenge my friend. Yes, suspicion was my duty. I should have been suspicious from the first. Even this vicious young Van de Lear, shallow

armth of his feelings, and

if I would. He made me go with him even on his truant expeditions, and carry his game bag along the banks of the Tacony, or up the marshes of Rancocus. Yet it was a happy servitude; for beneath his impetuous mastery was a soul of devotion. He loved like Jove, and permitted no interposition in his flame; his dogmatism and force

e very image he was describing met his gaze. There were the black ringlets, the pale forehead, the anxious

olve as he advanced; with a tripping motion it receded and left a naked space. In the darkness of the stairway it absorbed itself, and the deaf man grasped the balustrade where it had stood, an

exclaimed Duff Salter with

ears with companionable light. Then, while the perspirati

recreant to the high duty of punishing his murderers? The ghost of William Zane admonishes me that there can be no repose for my spirit until I take in hand the

PTE

MPAS

growth," remarked Podge Byerly when

le to hear what is around him in t

their guest, and he could scarcel

his tablets du

for me, and rid me of some of the burdens

orer?" inqu

outhed fellow like myself-one wh

hook he

Salter t

keep him here on the premises, close by me. I have almost finished up this work of auditing and clearing the estate. I intend now to pay som

and felt the execut

erly was

ve them any opportunit

ere. There is a mystery somewhere which has not been pierced. It is very probably a domestic entanglement. I shall expect you (to Agnes), and you,

ets to write a reply. Something seemed to arise in her mind to

e. Then, little Miss Byerly, I will try to throw off its guard thy

ough Beach, and came up with her as she went out of Kensington to

ffidence amid all his gravity,

eight o'clock, and an hour before s

were wholly concealed from shore

cho!" he sneezed, without any sort of meaning. "Miss Podge," said Duff Salter, "if you look directly into my eyes and articulate

undred

? What do yo

y mother a

oursel

! y

inwardly; "that director comes in the c

my junior," she sai

twenty-four years old? Did

d will never be well,"

ter, "was it constitutional dis

himself, infatuated him while a boy, and he marr

fell for th

er graspe

three grown people on five hundred dollars a y

d with her now, and money is scarce. She would take other boarders, but public opinion is a

s tear

ervitude of your young body, wearing its roundness down to bone, exciting your nervous system, an

is tones; it seemed like protec

omen must suppor

to see her more distinctly. "Did that brother who rushed in vicious precocity to

g along by the wharves, seems to suck and plash all day in my ears, as we see and hear it now. At my desk I seem to see those low shores and woods and marshes, on the other side, and the chatter of children, going all day, laps and eddies up like dirty waves between me and that indistinct boundary. I am floating on the r

chool-had the strength to break the solid shield of ice under which the river held up the dead and bring the murder out. Do you ever think o

. Salter? Nothing h

me to my threshold and peeped on me sitting there inattentive to his right to vengeance. We sh

ed Podge Byerly.

low tone, "has Andrew Zane been se

t ask

pen your mind to me, and I will send you to Europe. Your brother shall be my broth

nd an expression of restful joy. Then recurring indignatio

exclaimed. "Never, till

rs in the very parlor where my dead friend lay. Agnes has admitted it by silence. I have seen your lover releasing you from his arms. Miss Byerly, I thought you artless, even in your arts

handkerchief staunching her tears, and people wa

! Jerich

t with a long face called for a boat and

d touched the plaster of the wall. She had hardly receded when it reappeared, and all between it and her mind was merely empty river, wallowing and lapping and sucking and subsiding, as if around submerged piers, or wave was relieving wave from the weight of floating things like rafts, or logs, or buoys, or bodies. Into this wide waste of muddy ripples every sound in the school-room swam, and also sights and colors, till between her eye-lash and that filmy distant margin nothing existed but a freshet, alive yet with nothing, eddying around with purposeless power, and still moving onward with an under force. The open book in her hand appeared like a great white wharf, or pier, covered with lime and coal in spots and places, and pushed forward into this hissing, rippling, exclaiming deluge, which washed its base and spread beyond. Podge could barely read a question in the book, and the so

ave me!

iss Byerly, what is the meaning of this? Your division is in disorder. Nobody ha

f upon the river. Save

incipal motioned another lady teacher to com

in fever?"

occurred in her family. Last night, I have been told, Miss Byerly refused Mr. Bunn, our

e?" said th

"Mortified at her refusal, because confident that s

Byerly heard. Then it seemed tha

livered by mail. That refined handwriting which had steadily poured out the venom of some concealed hostility survived all oth

an jealousy in it; it is sincere hate, drawn, I should think, from a deep social or mental resentment, and enraged because I do not sink under my troubles. Yes, this must be a woman who believes me innocent but wishes my ruin. S

of Agnes's callers had dropped off, and she felt that she could no longer worship, except as a show, at Van de Lear's church; but this deprivation only deepene

armed; with beauty, courage, mystery, w

ted confirmed the other theory tha

ain and the real to be inferred from it. Duff Salter believed in the ghost, as Agnes was satisfied; he had become unsocial and suspici

ys wiped his feet at the door, and appeared like a person of not much "bringing up." One day Agnes had to descend to the kitchen, and there she saw a strange man eating with the cook; a rough person with a head of dark red hair and gra

the man; "me and cook takes

again at the landing on the stairway. He bo

less y

tain rough grace which she now perceived, and as she turned back to look

watched?" th

this good old man, the patriarch of Kensington, by whom she had been baptized and received into the communion, Ag

n, in his clear, practised articula

empted to wipe them away the good old g

n the land that is awaiting me, I had expected to see the beautiful face which has so often encouraged my preaching, and looked up

through them all; his sterling nature in their composition was lost like a grain of gold in a mass of alloy. They had nothing ideal, no reverence, no sense of delicacy. Taking to his arms a face and form that pleased him, the minister had not ingrafted upon it one babe of any divinity; that coarser matrix received the sacred flame as mere mud extinguish

ted, and became ch

pe of women, rather of the wholly loving; but the deep afflictions of the past few months, working down into the crevices and cells of her nature, had struck the impervious bed of piety, and

us instinct, that the aged minister was presently aware of a preternatural power at hi

unto its own deep needs. The minister was swept along in the resistless current of the prayer, and listened as if he were th

his angel must have been a woman like this

TER

CU

to the back parlor and listened at the crevice of the folding-door until his father had given the pastoral benediction and departed

gentleman up-stairs, and perceiving that devotions were be

nience she had, therefore, appreciated in his eyes. To marry her, become the proprietor of her snug home and ravishing person, and send her off to pray with the sick and sup with the older women of the flock, seemed to him such

submissively that Calvin Van de Lear was to be their next pastor. This, of course, was conditional upon his behavior, and all knew that his father would be the last man to impose an injurious person on the church; they had little idea that "Cal." Van de Lear was devout, but took the old man's word that grace grew more and more in the sons of the Elect, and the young man had already professed "conviction," and voluntarily been received into the church. There he assumed, like an heir-apparent, the vicarship of the congregation, and it rather delighted his father that his son so promptly and complacently took direction of things, made his quasi pastoral rounds, led prayer-meetings, and exhorted Sunday-schools and missions. A priest knows the heart of his son no more than

object to your necessary visits her

ubject we last talked of?" a

s positivel

Calvin, "you must

seat again with a

not the person for such remarks. I have just ris

urning nun if

said Agnes. "Yet the

of your burden upon mys

ou every happ

or-nothing earthly and withi

e her head. As she walked to and fro the theological student perceived a change so extraordinary in her appearance since his

it, dea

tone little in keeping with

it is love! Love only, that can

"You trample it under your feet. My heart-many hearts-h

it is not the perfect love that cast

over her features. The young man lost nothing of all this,

s, Agnes? Do not repulse me. At the worst-I swe

s, gave her something of a Roman matron's look; her eyebrows, dark as the eyes beneath that now shrank back yet shone the larger, might have befitted an Eastern queen. Lips of unconscious invitat

t, her eyes still upon the floor; "if

ooked at him from under a head of dark-red hair, and in a low voice cursed his awkwardness. The man bent to

ellow?" asked C

. "When ye see me coming, take

sterious words as at a hard, lowering look

going out, and he looked in and touched his hat, and paused a minute. Somethi

for me?" a

en there's nobody by to

ut of sight and shut the street door behind him Agnes felt a fainting feeling, as if an apparition had looked in upon her and vanished-the apparition, if of anything, of him who had

Lear entered his room, Duff took a large pinch of snuff and shoved the tablets forward. Calvin wrote on

Jericho! Je

nce again, and wh

ou be mi

it there!" wrote

inference?" wr

ucti

ew minutes, Duff Salter in profound astonishm

gious!" wrot

dental to the condit

great blow to

the minister's son. "It

ain t

iage mantle over her.

take a wife out o

as handsome as ever, a

as now dark and ominous, as if with gloom and anger. He spoke in a low tone as if not aware that he was hear

ke the rills of the Arkansas. I pined to leave that life of renegades, half-breeds, squaws, and nomads to bathe my soul in the clear fountains of civilization,-to live where marriage was holy and piety sincere. I find, instead, m

ay he looked at Agnes sitting in her pla

is t

g-man. Such an unequal servant he had never seen-at times full of

you yesterday?" asked th

d, yer

ils you

e-ti

came

out of

you strike

me. For weeks I was wid a cracked

factory as a servant. He often forgot the place where he left off a certain day's work, and it had to be recalled to him. He was irregular, too, in going and coming, and was quite as likely

Salter receiv

Van de Lear's house, on Queen Street nearly opposite your place of lodging. If Mars crosses the orbit of Venus to-night, as I expect-there being signs of it in

a

er a little while afterward. "You can have all the eve

a grin. "I doesn't like Kinsington aft

they killed as they cros

ve become so common. Everybody belaves in thim in Kinsingt

eved in spirits going and coming and hoping

nthirely. It must have bee

earnestly, and from head to foot, and

, deafish voice, "I am going

ar Mister

antly. "I shall have a man here who will either co

hat, took his stick, an

ployer turned at the doorway and looked back, and, with a countenance more waggish than exasper

he head of the tea-table

ff Salter, and po

nes, so delicate as to be almost u

tea side and wro

ttle Podge

will be unfit to teach her school for mont

ted a little wh

everybody happy behi

u going

with a sudden decision. "I am not truste

le in pain and wistful

prevents our perfect trust in

ere a traitor, a liar, a coward, and a doubter; but none upbraid the last, poor Thomas, and he is sainted in our faith. Do you know that suspicion made me deaf? Yes; if we mock Nature with distrust, she

Agnes, and the pale and purple colors came and went upon her face as she bent her body forward over the

the unfaith he had tried to put behind him. Why did you do it? The suppression of the truth is never excusable. The secret you migh

eceived the stab of her guest's magister

has dispelled these black shadows, and I see you now the victim of an immeasurable mistake. Your weakness and another's obstinacy have almost r

im," spoke Agnes Wilt. "My we

u must walk through Kensington to-morrow

ut would have fallen had not Duff Salter caught her in his arms a

, little

TER

L ROO

n, who scarcely bore one feature of his venerable father. "Come in, Mr. Salter," bellowed Knox, "tea's just a-waitin' for you. Pap's here. You know Cal, certain! Thi

pse or two to flavor them," said

quite out of quantity with her bone and flesh, and her eyelashes seemed to be weak, for they closed togethe

ittle chill upon me. At my age chills are the tremors from other wi

making haste to fill his cup. "You do

chattering. "I haven't had apprehension

u'll be a preachin' when I'm a granddad

for three things: to see my new church raised; to see my son Calvin ready to take my place; to see my neighbor, Miss Wilt, whom I have seen grow up un

lvin irreverently, holdin

cately-tinted eyelids till the long lashes rested o

ly office you must avoid abruptness. Be direct at all important times, but neith

Mrs. Knox. "Do you think s

ut I draw that from my reason and human faith. That woman was a pillar of strength in my Sabbath-school. M

know it by seeing him eat waffles. She refused Cal one day

ing her voice, "you have a beautiful

id Duff Salter. "Why

Agnes that, considering Papa Van de Lear's position in Kensi

said Duff Salter, re

" exclaimed Calvin. "The old man ha

lliam Zane?" asked the minister, with his bol

t is worth, clear of everything and not including doub

state in Kensington,"

e finished my work as co-executor with you. The third executor is Miss Wilt. With the estate in her hands she will change the to

e needs all the power she can get to meet this insensate suburban opinion. When I was a young man, commencing to minister here, I

and closed her eyes with a

her, suspected as she is, to have the custody of so much wealth that ha

e may be to get a husband as soon as she can, who

get a hus

as a Jew. She's smart enough to capture him and ad

and sneezed into it a soft art

have won Aggy long ago. It's a better show than I ever had. You see I have to be at work at six o'

her silken lids of pink. "My poor husband goes away from me whil

l?" asked the bookbinder. "He's b

Miss Wilt," said the lady,

n, "I am not in love with h

uld be if you thought she w

oolish question

ty smile which she shut away under her eyelid

r. It is so demoralizing to take these working-girls, shop-girls and school-teachers, in where religious influences had prevailed! They became inseparable; Agnes had to entertain such company as Miss Byerly brought th

nd as he stopped to sneeze and apologize he noticed that Calvin Van

alvin, "will return at the ne

aimed the lady; "he i

father is a very sick man. Let us take h

He leaned forward, however, from strong habit, to close the meal with a blessing, and his head fell forward upon th

ds I hear in music now! There are voices in it keeping heavenly time, saying, 'Well done! well done!' My strong, kind brot

man upon his breast, and his long, hale be

his eyes on Duff Salter's breast, and Mr. Knox Van de Lear went out softly to send for a physician. Duff Salter, looking up at a catch in t

all my life of serving the church and its Divine Master, I have first looked out for the young people. They are most helpless, most valuable. See that Sister Ag

little man's head again upon

ily take him a

ber, and Duff Salter, unassisted, walked up-stairs with him like a father carrying his infant to bed.

having him in its grasp, "God has ble

fter your people have done their best I wi

red the dying pastor. "And le

f Salter, his feet muffled like his voice, in the habit of

ply that the nestor of the suburb was about to die; the last of the staunch old pastors of the kirk who had never been silent when liberty was in peril. The times were not the same, and the old man was too brave and simple for the latter half of hi

s, "go out with the pitcher and get us half a gallo

the doctor, Lot

ould not do for him to go for ale! He is to be the junior pastor,

red husband, "I'll go. W

de Lear, a kiss resounded through the little

rude

ar. "Salter is deaf as a post. Lo

n peeped through his fingers and saw the lady of th

she whispered. "

'll be a mother before shad hav

Cal dear, you see nothing ex

ealth, and welcome," spoke the

an? Will he not

hat will cure his partiality. Lo

strong, animal throat and chin stood sharply defined,

lenching Calvin's wrist wi

neighboring fire company's house, and Knox

e bell at the news of fa

a glass of ale

r of Kensington!" as he l

her eyelids and smiled reprovingly; "this irreverence comes of

gave a fur

Oh! oh!

he dining-room and the parlor, and drew Duff

o up on the hous

m in surprise, an

an to thro

ttle as he laughed flippantly, and stroked hi

he ghost's walk," he

books, and some pictures far from modest, disclosed the varied tastes of an entailed pulpit's expectant. Calvin drew down the curtain of the one w

y when I study or enjoy myself. The governor doesn't

e Lear serious as t

ff Salter with the most open countenance he had ever

? I want to have a small do

bundle of what appeared to be lady's letters, and selecti

sneezed Duff Salter. "The most a

ook the

you, Salter, to follow up this Zane mystery. I hope to be

ollars," wrote Duff Salter.

ne is in K

he

the neighborhood, with small furniture and effects-evidently a mere servant-moved in. My brother's wife has taken a deep interest in the Zane m

feel so muc

y were very intimate-some thought under engagement to marry. Suddenly she accepted my brother, a

i-cho

ch of snuff to his host, who declined it, but se

cated Salter

ybreak, my brother's wife, g

, you say, be

usly at Duff Salter

e's old residence and move under shelter of the ridge of the roof to the newly-

Jericho!

nes, and we applied a test to her. To our astonishment we found she had only see

lf-contained woman like Agnes Wilt?"

from Podg

ing over the snuff-box and forgetting to sneeze

with some surpris

ame back on Podge for support. Knowing how corruptible he was, I got access to him and paid him out of your funds to wheedle out of Podge all that Lady Agnes told her. She had no idea that

ter, "you never thought

redit, my brother's wife

cho-o

r was hims

tinued to deepen why Andrew Zane infested the residence of his murdered father if he never revealed himself

ch other intently as Duff Sa

andon the woman he had seduced, as was perfectly natural. He haunted and alarm

exclaimed Duff Salter, loo

t and rear, and the apparition on the roof was so irregular that we could not understand what occasions it took to come out until we

-cho-h

moment he leaves the trap-door of the tenant's house, it will be entered by officers at the waving of this lamp at my window. One officer will proceed along the roof and

the corner of his study to the roof, and

thrust their heads into th

tarlight, b

, and at points beheld the Delaware flowing darkly, indicated by occasional ligh

patched, and irregular, except where the black walls of

Kensington basked in the midnight like some sleeping village of the pl

r mentally

title for the playthings of a few brief hours? Yes, heaven itself was signed away by man and woman for the juices of one forbidden fruit. Here, where the good old pastor, like another William Penn, is running his stakes beyond the stars and peopling with angels his possessions there, the sav

pulled violently, and hea

Do you

mass of the buildings and moved rapidly along the opposite ridge of houses against

out to be a woman or

nor cower, but strode boldly as if with right to the larg

stitious, but Calvin Van de Lea

inity student flashed his lamp and saw the door of the ho

Van de Lear extended Duff's hat

e residence, but were still there in time to employ Du

to alarm a lady. Mr. Van de Lear and myself will make the search of the house which you have already

ding stature of Duff S

house, lighted the gas, and walked from room to room,

oden leg, as quietly arranging the models of vessels and steamers as if he had no

, pale with exertion and rage, "are you h

urned, do you see, because I forgot somethi

lapels of his coat, and placing the other hand upon his h

our disguise is detected. Yield yourself like a ma

PTE

COU

of any event of the night. At the breakfast-table s

me call you so hereafter-did yo

ith agitation. "For

est of Kensin

r eyes. "And must he die uncertain of my blame or i

ission from you for this day.

ment in earnest reflec

my conscien

ully do. Decision is what is needed now, and I will

wil

o to the magistrate's office

ested?" she ask

me it will not

of anguish, "I am not fit to be se

n his arms li

t. But all this morning I must be closely engaged. An important event

lmost every window was filled with gazers; the sidewalks were lined with strollers, loiterers, a

ng beside her comely grown daughter, who had put her la

laimed the mother of the girl, "h

l; "it's safer standing in mar

dark, smooth skin and features, talking to a grown boy. The girl

of the two had a double pair upon her most insidious and suspicious nose. As Agnes passed, this old lady gave

ot less marked surprise. Agnes, by an excitement of the nerves of apprehension, saw everything while she trembled. She could read the dates of all the houses on the painted cornices of the water-spouts, and saw the cabalistic devices of old

ness to their wives from Agnes when those wives were in confinement. Both to

ts, and with boots outside their trousers. They did not say a word, but gazed as at a riddle going

ake my oran

ery fragrant. Duff Salter reached

re now and then appeared, moulded in the bricks of the pavement, a worn letter, or a passing goose foot, the accident of the brickyard, but now become personal and intentional. The little babies, sporting in their carriages before some houses, lea

it was Mary Magdalene going to the cross. At almost every house she felt a kindness speak for her, except mankind; a recollection of nursing, comforting, praying with some one, but all forgotten now. "Via Crucia, Via Cruci

uff Salter led her in the private door to the residence itself. A cup of tea and a decanter of wine were on t

udent and austere, and making use of but few words, so that there was no way of determining

ppears

east-bone; his fine intelligent features, clear, sober eyes, and hale, house-bleached sk

and Saylor Rainey. It is a preliminary examination only, and the person suspected by public gossip has not retained counsel. With your permission, as the executor of William

the magistrate, and add

got up and bowed

the bedside of a dying parent to see that her interests are properly a

magistrate. "Salter

an!" called

the other, and scars on his face, walked into the al

ertain night when you rowed the prisoner, Andrew Zane, and certain other

It seems to me I have seen that fellow's face before.

it," answered

ot it on now?" cri

e own legs was plenty good

ordered the sententio

d Duff Salter, "and repeat no part

oars. Mr. Andrew Zane was in the bow, on the watch for difficulties. In the stern sat the boss, Mr. William Zane. Between him and me-God's rest

ter, "that the whole length of the skif

earer, the one to the tother, than that, for the whole of the ixpidition. And

conversations," commanded Duff Salter,

ed for Kinsington, and I only noticed that Mr. Rainey comminced the conversation in a low tone of voice. Just at that time, or soon afterward, your Honor, a large vessel stood across our bow, going down stream in the night, and I put on all my streng

ving strict attention. Even Andrew Zane, whose face had b

alter gently. "You r

Mr. Rainey and the master were disputing and raising their voices higher and higher, and what surprised me most of all, your Honor, was the unusual firmness of Mr. Ra

lter. "You were not to repe

the throat and called him a villain. They both stood up in the boat, the masther's hand s

laimed Duff Salte

outed. They clinched, and I saw something shine dimly in Mr. William Zane's hand. The report told me what it was. I lifted one oar in a feeling of ho

in the court except a suppresse

aimed the lame magistrate, risi

oat. 'My God!' exclaimed the masther, 'what have I done?' As quick as the beating of my heart he plac

e outside the window, hoarse and cheery, shouted to the out

simultaneously gave cheers, calling others to the scene, an

ed. "Right enough! G

ression of obstinacy, and glared at Calvi

rd!" exclaimed Calvin.

your story!" com

a hard, overbearin' masther. But I thought of his poor son, standin' paralyzed-like, and the kind Mr. Rainey drownin' in the wintry water, and I jumped down in the da

to be," intimated Duff Salter,

e, how drownin' men will hold to straws. That straw, yer Honor, was the spar of a vessel movin' through the water. It was, I found out afterward, one of the pieces which had wedged the ship on the Marine Railway, where she had been gettin' repaired, and she comin' off hurriedly about dusk,

e open yet," said

il he found the owner of the voice, "Mr. Calvin Van de Lear,

your tale. You were carried of

he concluded I was ravin' and a seein' delusions. The Austrian was short av a crew, and the docthor said if they could get away

d, and cheerful hands were extended to the witness an

minious flight for months from his home and from persons he

tand, Mr. Andrew Zan

a wolf. I will give no evidence in Kensington, where I have been so sham

old and obstinate spirit which is speaking. You are the ghost I t

ment and stood ready to depose, when

t. "Where are your tablets that you carry eve

interrogator like a lion. "I am wholly cured of d

d pale to the roots of h

" he mu

upposed apparition drove me to investigate the mysterious death of William Zane. I believed that Agnes knew the story, but was under this prisoner's command of secrecy. Seeking an assistant, the witness, Donovan, forced himself upon me. In a short time I was confounded by the contradictions of his behavior. Looking deeper into it, I suspected that in his suit of clothing res

in Van de Lear. "Is this

nd fitting a wooden leg to the knee-a trick well known to British ballad singers. That leg was in Donovan's sea-chest, as it had been left in this city, and also the crutch necessary to walk with it. Mr. Zane and Donovan had exchanged the leg and crutch, and the former matched his fellow with a wig and

xclaimed young Van de Lear. "He had destroyed the purity of a lady an

I had hoped to respect the lady's privacy, but M

he crowd. Calvin Van de Lear officiously sought to assist the witness in, but Duff Salter pressed him bac

tly. "Speak very plain, so that all these

y, "is Agnes Zane. I am th

hingly. "You are the wife of Andre

t mon

urt-room, Mrs. Zane, that you wis

ce, and saw a person, at whom all were g

" she whispere

cried Andrew Zane.

PTE

CRET M

s elder sons, and only his lips were seen to move in silent prayer, when a younger

the great Kensington scandal, w

e slowly declining eyelids raised

while others gathered around, showing the ministry to ha

re his father died. There was no murder in the case. Zane the elder, in one of his frequent fits of wild and arrogan

occasion of

n a violent reaction against the accusers of young Zane and

on the floor called attention to the fact that the lady had a little swooning turn. She was he

natural loudness in that hushed room. "It eve

he words. A ministerial colleague be

r, and strove to clasp his hands. "The

d to beat at that minute, and they raised aro

uff Salter was the hero of the hour. The alderman made no effort to discipline any person; people hugged and laughed, and entreated

sententious old alderman. "Come t

and's obstinacy slowly giving way, seemed to be gone entirely when, searching the room with his eye, he detected the flight of Calvin Van de Lear

ine me, my fat

will!" explod

ternate of the late Mike Donovan,"

ed kind treatment had encouraged me. Indeed, my friends, I am in every alternative unfortunate. To

h our apposite tempers frequently brought us in conflict. Neither of us knew how to curb the oth

could not be long postponed when Agnes's increasing beauty and my ardor kept pace together. I sought an occasion to break the secret to my father, an

t to inflame us both. Her household habits and society were to his liking; he offered me everything but that which embraced all to me. 'Go to Europe!' he said. 'Take a wife

ner whom my father had raised from an apprentice to be his equal, and asked him what to do. He told us to marry while we could. Agnes preferred an open marriage as least in consequences, and involving every trouble in the brave outset. I hoped to wean my father from his wilfulness, and yet protect my affection by a secret marriage, to which with difficulty I pre

you and Agnes are married, and his suit is fruitless. He will be unable to do worse than sit still and bear it in

I recount the dreadful circumstanc

truth!" exclaimed the st

oung friend," said Duff Salter.

have like a gentleman and a parent. The young people love each other.' 'I have the young lady's affections,' said my father. 'You are making her miserable,' said Mr. Rainey, 'and are deceiving yourself. She begins to hate you.' 'You are an insolent liar!' exclaimed my father. 'If you mix in this business I will throw you out of the firm.' 'That is no intimidation to me,' answered his partner. 'Prosperity

d was unconquerable. His ready hand had sought his weapon, I think, hardly consciously. His dis

before my eyes a homicide of insanity, a suicide of remorse; and to end all, the

hless attention. Andrew paused and glanced at his wife, whose face was bathed with the i

t next affected me? With an instant's sense of sublimity! I said to myself, 'How dared I marry so much beauty and womanly majesty? Doing so, I have tempted the old gods and their fates and furies. This is poetical punishment for my temerity.' Still all the while I was laboring at the one scull left in the boat while my brain was fuming so, and listening for sounds on the water. I heard the sailor cry twice, and then his voice fainted away. I began to weep at the oar while I strained upon it, and called 'Help!' and implored God's intervention. At last I

eart's necessity. 'Great God!' I thought aloud-for none could hear me there-'how dreadfully that secret marriage will compromise my wife! Who will believe us without a witness of what I must assert-a story so improbable that I would not believe it myself? I must say that I married my wife secretly from my father's house, confessing deceit for both of us, and with Agnes's religious professions

lf.' 'Why did he shoot himself?' 'Because I had married his ward.' 'But his partner is gone too.' 'He is murdered.' 'Why murdered?' 'Because he interceded for me.' 'Where is your witness?' 'He has disappeared.' I saw the wild improbability of this tale, and t

claimed Mike Donovan, giving the relief

e in Kensington for all those melancholy months. I had just learned the place for which the bark which passed us on that eventful night had cleared, when the two bullet-pierced bodies were discovered in the ice. That night I sailed for Wilmington, North Carolina. When I arrived there the bark was gone for the Mediterranean, but I

d to Duf

request. He knew me to be the resident executor, and wrote to me. I did it because

e magistrate. "I would ha

now not how, impelled me to postpone my vindication and make a test of everybody. I was full of suspicion and bitterness-the reaction from so

ere no punishment at law for men, and women too, who have cruelly persecuted my

magistrate. "Yes, I will.

et it," said And

that we are happy. God has forgiven us our only deceit, wh

ner is ready in the next room for Mr. and Mrs. Zane, and

PTE

ATY

shadow of his father's rage-had forebodings of some violence when the two young men should meet in the little thoroughfare of Kensington-the one with the accumulated indignities he had suffered liable to be aroused by the other's shallow superciliousness. Agnes had but one friend to carry her fears to-Him "who never forsaketh." She had not persisted that her husba

in bed hearing the tolling

nox Van de Lear was at the g

xclaime

could make him. A terrible t

oked at each other

own. Professing to desire some clothing for the funeral, they took a carriage together, and were driven to Tacony

l back on

temptation all the time. He has escaped, and my soul is oppressed no more. Do you know, Agnes, that the guilty

s re

of egotism, the conquest he had made over an unknown lady's affections, and passages of the correspondence. The keen old man immediately identified in the handwrit

ushed a little

anonymous letters would result in her arrest and public trial for slander, as they would have done. The magistrate promised me that he would issue his warrant for ever

olen his savings and mortgaged his household furniture, which he was confiding enough to have p

s expiation to make. Voluptuous, jealous, restless, and, like a snake in the tightness of her f

so well?" asked

sp on man as the animal, the study of the proprieties of life, and apparent impatience with all misbehavior. Her timid voice assisted her cunning as if with a natural gentleness, and invited onward the man who expected in her ample charms

ut he did not drop his eyes. The wife looked

Andrew Zane, "t

in a moment and ki

w. "That is why I give you this pain. It

erhaps, of Lottie's ang

he declares war on her own past and its imitators. You were pursued because you had exchanged deserts with her. You were pure and abused; she was approve

nature? God has blessed you with wisdom. I felt, myself, by some intuition

"the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. Yonder, where I sk

e," said Agnes, "yo

er pretty, timid way, but with the look of a lion out of her florid fringes, 'I will shatter your future hearthstone. You are not fit to marry a Christian woman like Agnes W

f so good a man should b

y being her most degraded creature, leading and misleading to

d gave his address as the "Treaty House," on Beach Street, near

there will be a nurse in that house before midsummer. If I was deaf as I once was, it would m

eds of strangers, who moistened their throats and cooled their foreheads in the great bar parlor of the Treaty House. It was still a secluded spot, shady and dewy with venerable trees, and the moisture they gave the old brown and black bricks in the contiguous houses, some of them still stylish, and all their windows topped with marble or sandstone, gray with the superincumbent weight of time or neglect. Large rear additions and sunless sideyards carried out the idea of a former gentry. Some buttonwood trees, now thinning out with annual age, conveyed by their spe

s as if they meant to be launched into the air and go cleared for yonder faintly tinted spectral moon, which lingered so long by day, like the symbol of the Indian race, departe

ty House before Duff Salter had taken his ju

all over. There is

ir

t th

was truly mother's labor, and ought to have

oke Andrew soberly. "I hop

chered each other so often because they threw into empty stomachs a long tumbler of liquor and leaves. You are we

ess. My serious experience has been followed by a sort o

yed man. "Such rests are often medicine, as sleep

Salter? Money would be a small

t. Too independent!

ame to the house, little Mary Byerly would be there. She i

little Podge, but it's all over. With no understanding of woman's sensibilities, I shook tha

ing 'of good report.' You know it came

he new church, and then take a foreign journey. Since I stopped sneezing I have n

of gold around the baby's neck, and was about slipping out w

f she is cool now she will be cold here

e sitting in the shadows of that thrice notable room where death and grief had been so often c

again," said Duff Salter. "

by these few words, the late dea

ften I accused myself since your il

tle silence

Was it you who sent me many beautiful and dainty

then? At least I

the dread river and its dead. I have often tried to restore you as I once thought

would come back, the wandering head would

we talked freely before you, prattling out our fancies undisguised. We wouldn't have done it if

before we were acquainted. If you will let me drive you out into the country to-morrow I will tell you t

ough different little villages and mill-seats until they came to nearly the highest mill-pond, in the stony region about the Old York road. A house of gray and reddish stones, in irregular forms, mortised in white plaster, sat broadside to the lawn before it, which was covered with venerable trees, and bordered at the roadside by a stone rampart, so that it looked like a hanging lawn. A gate at the lawn-side gave admission to a lane, behind which was the ancient mill-pond suspended in a dewy landscape, with a path in the grass leading up the mill-race, and on the pond a little scow floated in pond-lil

h I might be spirit of a mill, or better still, that old boat

uff Salter. "Let us go in and s

stone walk of the lawn she saw a fa

said Podge. "What is

ave it to us. You will need to teach no more. The mill a

ned to Du

s, tender as they are, excite me. Everything about you is mysterious. You

ve you. You cured me of years of suspicion, and I consented to hear again. The world grew candid to me;

," said Podge. "Tell me the

ooked very delicate as her color rose and faded alternately in

some man. "This gray beard is not the creation of many years. It is t

one of your faculties since I

me impetuous. I fought more than one duel, and, like all men who do desperate things, grew more desperate by experience until, upon one occasion, I was made deaf by an explosion in the bowels of the ground. For one year I could hear but little. In that year I was comparatively humble, and one day I heard a workman say, 'If the boss gets his hearing back there will be no peace about the mine.' This set me to thinking. 'How m

en, in your present pas

ve that there is no resisting

will as to hold his tongue for seven years. Suppose you had a second attack

I had banished the disturbing element in Nature; for our enemy is always within us, not without. In that seven years, for most of which I heard everything and answered n

ever in lo

d marriage to a young girl on this very lawn. It was in the springtime of my life.

yond it to the vales of the Tohicken and Perkiomen. They descended the lanes along the Pennypack and Poqessing, and followed the Wi

ht at the Treaty tavern to see Duff Salter. Duff had gone, however, up the Tacony, and in a listless way Andrew sa

Indian Nations, 1682. Unbroken Faith! P

at, knee-breeches, and buckled shoes. Something in his countenance was familiar. Andrew looked again, and wondered where he h

called to

xclaimed

ne of voice th

called to

at the peculiar man, with such a tone of a

d you as speaki

d the object, in precisely the

hotel and saw Duff Salter, freshl

uaker dress standing by th

aid Duff heartily. "I have bee

in Quaker dress spoke to

did he

deliberately, 'Thee

man spoke from within you. Do you know that it is the earnest desire of

re is something startling in this apparit

church, and the moment his intention was announced of entering the ministry, there a

of my family, your piety and my feelings, all concur in this step. I

of my heart are fully answered now. When you saw the image standing by the Treaty tree

family name. Here, where we made our one mistake, we will labor for others who err

Zane entered the church. He did not speak a word, but at the appea

again until you ac

at are you going

er. "One is for you, if you will accept it. If not I sh

ng out her lips and kiss

e said, "I'

anding up in a glow of excitement, gave wi

ho! Je

AD BOH

to take

my promi

face so beaut

d called m

d ambiti

tection in hi

was qui

w End

fancy and his

thirsts i

s were i

calm and el

s convers

er to m

rsive at our

vid and

aming at

piate nights

yon nev

ord in

sweetness I w

not th

rom warmt

magic rend

ome want

me past he

life the zest

grew my

my prid

ched him like

ralist

Boh

en and nerves

r decoy

ushed, lov

g life to its

his haunts

his rhymes

ughed at my rep

ess dreams

the walls

fresh and in

ke an ep

tifulness

mory, tendere

with grac

and pur

t as some gran

E

pelling, punctuation and accents in the o