Andrew rose without saying one syllable in answer to his mother’s communication; he threw his manuscripts and the sheets which he had written into a desk; he locked it with a nervous, trembling hand, and then turned to leave the room. His face was of the most ghastly paleness; his eyes were calm and fixed; he seemed sick at heart by the disclosure he had heard; his lips trembled and shook with agitation.

“Where are you going, Andrew? It’s a bitter night.”

“Mother, it is good enough for me—for a—”

He could not speak the hated word which rose to his lips; he had an early horror of that word; he had dreaded that his was a dishonorable birth: even in his boyish days he had feared it; his mother had often asserted to the contrary, but now she had dispelled the belief in which he had rested.

He opened the door hastily, and passed out into the storm, which was rushing against the windows.

A feeling of pity for him—a feeling of a mother’s affection and solicitude, was stirred in Mrs. Carson’s soul, as she listened to his departing footsteps, and then went and seated herself beside the embers of a dying fire in the kitchen; it was a small, cold, miserably-furnished kitchen; the desolation of the severe season met no counterbalancing power there; no cheering appearances of food, or fire, or any comforts were there. But the complaining spirit which cried and sighed perpetually was for once silent within Mrs. Carson’s mind; something—perhaps the death-like aspect of her son, or a voice from her long stifled conscience—was telling her how ill she had fulfilled the duties of a mother. She felt remorse for the reproaches she had heaped on him before he had gone out in the storm.

She waited to hear his knock at the door; she longed for his returning steps; she felt that she would receive him with more of kindness than she had for a length of time displayed to him; she kept picturing to herself perpetually his thin face and emaciated figure, and a fear of his early death seized on her for the first time; she had been so engrossed by her own selfish wants, that she had scarcely remarked the failing health of her son. She started with horror at the probabilities which her naturally powerful fancy suggested. She resolved to call in medical aid immediately, for she was sure now that Andrew’s constitution was sinking fast. But how would she pay for medical aid? she had not one farthing to procure advice. At this thought the yearning, burning desire for money which had so long made a part of her existence came back with full force; she sat revolving scheme after scheme, plan after plan, of how she could procure it. Hours passed away, but still she sat alone, silently cowering over the cinders of the fire.

At length she started up, fully awake, to a sense of wonder and dread at Andrew’s long absence. She heard the sound of distant clocks striking twelve. It was unusual for Andrew to be out so late, for he had uniformly kept himself aloof from evil companions. The high poetical spirit within him, a spirit which utterly engrossed him, had kept him from the haunts of vice. His mother went to the door, and opening it, gazed on the narrow, mean street. The storm had passed away; the street was white with hail and snow; the moon shone clearly down between the tall but dilapidated houses of which the street or lane was composed; various riotous-looking people were passing by; and from a neighboring house the brisk strains of a violin came, together with the sound of voices and laughter. The house had a bad repute in the neighborhood, but Mrs. Carson never for an instant suspected her son was there. She looked anxiously along the street, and at every passing form she gazed earnestly, but none resembled her son.

For a long time she stood waiting and watching for the appearance of Andrew, but he did not come. At last, sinking with cold and weariness, and with a host of phantom fears rising up in her bewildered brain, and almost dragging her mind down into the gulf of utter madness, on the brink of which she had so long been, Mrs. Carson returned to the kitchen. As she looked on the last ember dying out on the hearth, a feeling of frenzy shook her frame. Andrew would soon return, shivering with cold, and she had no fire to warm him—no money to purchase fire. She thought of the wealthy—of their bright fires—and bitter envy and longing for riches gnawed her very heart and life. A broken deal chair was in a corner of the kitchen; she seized it, and after some efforts succeeded in wrenching off a piece, which she placed on the dying ember, and busied herself for some time in fanning; then she gathered every remaining fragment of coals from the recess at one side of the fire-place, in which they were usually kept, and with the pains and patience which poverty so sorely teaches, she employed herself in making some appearance of a fire. Had she been in her usual mood, she would have sat anathematizing her son for his absence at such an hour; but now every moment, as she sat awaiting his return, her heart became more kindly disposed toward him, and an uneasy feeling of remorse for her past life was each instant gaining strength amidst the variety of strange spectral thoughts and fancies which flitted through her diseased mind. At some moments she fancied she saw her father seated opposite to her on the hearth, and heard him reading from the Bible, as he did so often in her girlish days: then again he was away in the privacy of his own room, and she was watching him through a crevice of the door, and she saw him open the cabinet he kept there, and take out liquor, ardent spirits, and he drank long and deep draughts, until gradually he sank down on his bed in the silent, moveless state of intoxication which had so long imposed on her, for she had once believed that her father was subject to fits of a peculiar kind. She groaned and shuddered as this vision was impressed on her; she saw the spirit of evil which had destroyed her father attaching itself next to her own fate, and leading her into the depths of guilt, and she trembled for her son. Had he now fallen in sin? was some evil action detaining him to such an hour? He was naturally inclined to good, she knew—strangely good and pure had his life been, considering he was her child, and reared so carelessly as she had reared him; but now he had been urged to despair by her endless cry for money, and, perhaps, he was at that very instant engaged in some robbery, by which he would be able to bring money to his mother.

So completely enslaved had her mind become to a lust for money, that the thought of his gaining wealth by any means was for some time delightful to her; she looked on their great poverty, and she felt, in her darkened judgment, that they had something of a right to take forcibly a portion of the superabundant money of the rich. Her eyes glared with eagerness for the sight of her son returning with money, even though that money was stolen; the habitual mood of her mind prevailed rapidly over the impressions of returning goodness and affection which for a brief period had awoke within her.

In the midst of the return of her overwhelming desire for money, Andrew’s knock came to the door. The eager inquiry whether he had brought any money with him was bursting from her lips the moment she opened the door and beheld him, but she was cheeked by the sight of two strangers who accompanied him. Andrew bade the men follow him, and walked rapidly to the kitchen; the tones of his voice were so changed and hollow that his mother hardly recognized him to be her son.

He requested the men to be seated, telling them that when the noise on the street would be quiet and the people dispersed they would get that for which they had come. At that moment a drunken broil on the street had drawn some watchmen to the neighborhood.

He bade his mother follow him, and proceeded hastily to his own room. By the aid of a match he lighted the miserable candle by which, some hours previously, he had been writing.

“Mother, here is money—gold—here—your hand.” He pressed some gold coins into her hand. “Gold! ay, gold, gold, indeed!” gasped his mother, the intensity of her joy repressing for the instant all extravagant demonstrations of it.

“Go, go away to the kitchen; in about five or ten minutes let the men come here, and they will get what I have sold them.”

“Money! money at last; gold—gold!” cried his mother, altogether unconscious of what her son was saving, and only awake to the blessed sense of having at last obtained money.

“Away, I say; go to the kitchen. I have no time to lose.”

“Money! blessings, blessings on you and God—money!” She seemed still in ignorance of Andrew’s request that she would withdraw.

“Away, I say, I must be alone; away to the kitchen, and leave me alone; but let the men come here in a few minutes and take what they have purchased.”

He spoke with a strange energy. She obeyed him at last, and left the room: she remembered afterward that his face was like that of a dead man when he addressed her.

She returned to the kitchen. The two men were seated where she had left them, and were conversing together: their strong Irish accent told at once their country. Mrs. Carson paid no attention to them; she neither spoke to them nor looked at them; she held tightly clasped in her hand the few gold coins her son had given her; she walked about like one half distracted, addressing audible thanksgiving to God one instant, and the next felicitating herself in an insane manner on having at last obtained some money. The two men commented on her strange manners, and agreed that she was mad, stating their opinions aloud to each other, but she did not hear them.

The noise and quarreling on the street continued for some time, and the men manifested no impatience while it lasted. All became quiet after a time; the desertion and silence of night seemed at last to have settled down on the street. The two men then manifested a strong wish to finish the business on which they had come.

“I say, whereabouts is it—where’s the snatch, my good woman?” said one of the men, addressing Mrs. Carson.

She looked on him and his companion with amazement mingled with something of fear, for the aspects of both were expressive of low ruffianism.

“She’s mad, don’t you see,” said the one who had not addressed her.

The other cursed deeply, saying that as they had given part payment, they would get their errand, or their money back again.

At this, a gleam of recollection crossed Mrs. Carson’s mind, and she informed them that her son had mentioned about something they had purchased, which was in his room. She thought at the instant, that perhaps he had disposed of one of his manuscripts at last, though she wondered at the appearance of the purchasers of such an article.

“That’s it,” cried the men; “show us the way to the room fast; it’s all quiet now.”

Anxious to get rid of the men, Mrs. Carson proceeded hastily to her son’s room, followed closely by the men. The first object she saw, on opening the door, was Andrew, leaning on his desk; the little desk stood on the table, and Andrew’s head and breast were lying on it, as if he was asleep. There was something in his fixed attitude which struck an unpleasant feeling to his mother’s heart.

“Andrew!” she said; “Andrew, the men are here.”

All was silent. No murmur of sleep or life came from Andrew. His mother ran to his side, and grasped his arm: there was no sound, no motion. She raised his head with one hand, while at the same time she glanced at an open letter, on which a few lines were scrawled in a large, hurried hand. Every word and letter seemed to dilate before her eyes, as in a brief instant of time she read the following:

“Mother, I have taken poison. I have sold my body to a doctor for dissection; the money I gave you is part of the price. You have upbraided me for never making money: I have sold all I possess—my body—and given you money. You have told me of the stain on my birth; I can not live and write after that; all the poetical fame in this world would not wash away such a stain. Your bitter words, my bitter fate, I can bear no longer; I go to the other world; God will pardon me. Yes, yes, from the bright moon and stars this night, there came down a voice, saying, God would take me up to happiness amid his own bright worlds. Give my body to the men who are waiting for it, and so let every trace of Andrew Carson vanish from your earth.”

With a lightning rapidity Mrs. Carson scanned each word; and not until she had read it all, did a scream of prolonged and utter agony, such as is rarely heard even in this world of grief burst from her lips; and with a gesture of frenzied violence she flung the money she had kept closely grasped in her hand at the men. One of them stooped to gather it up, and the other ran toward Andrew, and raised his inanimate body a little from its recumbent position. He was quite dead, however; a bottle, marked “Prussic Acid,” was in his hand. The two men, having recovered the money, hurried away, telling Mrs. Carson they would send immediate medical aid, to see if any thing could be done for the unfortunate young man. Mrs. Carson did not hear them; a frenzied paroxysm seized her, and she lay on the floor screaming in the wild tones of madness, and utterly incapable of any exertion. She saw the money she had received with such rapture carried away from before her eyes, but she felt nothing: money had become terrible to her at last.

Her cries attracted a watchman from the street. A doctor was soon on the spot; but Andrew Carson was no more connected with flesh, and blood, and human life; he was away beyond recall, in the spirit-world.

An inquest was held on the body, and a verdict of temporary insanity returned, as is usual in such cases of suicide. The young poet was buried, and soon forgotten.

Mrs. Carson lingered for some weeks; her disease assumed something of the form of violent brain-fever; in her ravings she fancied perpetually that she was immersed in streams of fluid burning gold and silver. They were forcing her to drink draughts of that scorching gold, she would cry; all was burning gold and silver: all drink, all food, all air, and light, and space around her. At the very last she recovered her senses partially, and calling, with a feeble but calm voice, on her only beloved child, Andrew, she died.

The Life of Christ was undertaken to counteract the impression made by STRAUSS’S “Life of Christ,” in which the attempt was made to apply the mythical theory to the entire structure of evangelical history. According to Strauss, the sum of the historical truth contained in the narratives of the evangelists is, that Jesus lived and taught in Judea, where he gathered disciples who believed that he was the Messiah. According to their preconceived notions, the life of the Messiah, and the period in which he lived, were to be illustrated by signs and wonders. Messianic legends existed ready-made, in the hopes and expectations of the people, only needing to be transferred to the person and character of Jesus. The appearance of this work produced a great sensation in Germany. It was believed by many that the book should be prohibited; and the Prussian government was inclined to this measure. Neander, however, advised that the book should rather be met by argument. His Life of Christ which was thus occasioned, wears, in consequence, a somewhat polemical aspect. It has taken the rank of a standard authority, both in German and in English, into which it has been admirably translated by Professors M’CLINTOCK and BLUMENTHAL.

The great work of Neander’s life, and of which his various writings in the departments of Ecclesiastical History, Biography, Patristics, and Dogmatics are subsidiary, is the General History of the Christian Religion and Church. The first part of this, containing the history of the first three centuries, was published in 1825, and, improved and enlarged, in 1842—43. The second part, which brings the history down to the close of the sixth century, appeared originally in 1828, and in a second edition in 1846—47. These two parts, comprising four volumes of the German edition, are well known to English readers through the excellent version of Professor TORREY. This is a history of the inner development of Christian doctrines and opinions rather than of the external progress of the Church, and in connection with GIESELER’S Text-Book, furnishes by far the best apparatus for the study of ecclesiastical history now extant.

A correspondent of the Boston Traveler, writing under date of Berlin, July 22, gives the following graphic sketch of the personal characteristics of Neander:

“NEANDER is no more! He who for thirty-eight years has defeated the attacks upon the church from the side of rationalism and philosophy—who, through all the controversies among theologians in Germany, has remained true to the faith of his adoption, the pure and holy religion of Jesus Christ—Neander, the philosopher, the scholar—better, the great and good man—has been taken from the world.

“He was never married, but lived with his maiden sister. Often have I seen the two walking arm in arm upon the streets and in the parks of the city. Neander’s habit of abstraction and short-sightedness rendered it necessary for him to have some one to guide the way whenever he left his study for a walk or to go to his lecture room. Generally, a student walked with him to the University, and just before it was time for his lecture to close, his sister could be seen walking up and down on the opposite side of the street, waiting to accompany him home.

“Many anecdotes are related of him illustrative of his absence of mind, such as his appearing in the lecture room half dressed—if left alone, always going to his old residence, after he had removed to another part of the city—walking in the gutter, &c., &c. In the lecture room, his manner was in the highest degree peculiar. He put his left arm over the desk, clasping the book in his hand, and after bringing his face close to the corner of his desk, effectually concealed it by holding his notes close to his nose.

“In one hand was always a quill, which, during the lecture, he kept constantly twirling about and crushing. He pushed the desk forward upon two legs, swinging it back and forth, and every few minutes would plunge forward almost spasmodically, throwing one foot back in a way leading you to expect that he would the next moment precipitate himself headlong down upon the desks of the students. Twirling his pen, occasional spitting, jerking his foot backward, taken with his dress, gave him a most eccentric appearance in the lecture room. Meeting him upon the street, with his sister, you never would have suspected that such a strange looking being could be Neander. He formerly had two sisters, but a few years ago the favorite one died. It was a trying affliction, and for a short interval he was quite overcome, but suddenly he dried his tears, calmly declared his firm faith and reliance in the wise purpose of God in taking her to himself, and resumed his lectures immediately as if nothing had over taken him to disturb his serenity.

“Neander’s charity was unbounded. Poor students were not only presented with tickets to his lectures, but were also often provided by him with money and clothing. Not a farthing of the money received for his lectures ever went to supply his own wants; it was all given away for benevolent purposes. The income from his writings was bestowed upon the Missionary, Bible, and other societies, and upon hospitals. Thoughts of himself never seemed to have obtruded upon his mind. He would sometimes give away to a poor student all the money he had about him at the moment the request was made of him, even his new coat, retaining the old one for himself. You have known this great man in your country more on account of his learning, from his books, than in any other way; but here, where he has lived, one finds that his private character, his piety, his charity, have distinguished him above all others.

“It would be difficult to decide whether the influence of his example has not been as great as that of his writings upon the thousands of young men who have been his pupils. Protestants, Catholics, nearly all the leading preachers throughout Germany, have attended his lectures, and all have been more or less guided by him. While philosophy has been for years attempting to usurp the place of religion, Neander has been the chief instrument in combating it, and in keeping the true faith constantly before the students.

“He was better acquainted with Church History and the writings of the Fathers than any one of his time. It has been the custom upon the recurrence of his birth-day, for the students to present to him a rare edition of one of the Fathers, and thus he has come to have one of the most complete sets of their writings to be found in any library. Turning from his great literary attainments, from all considerations suggested by his profound learning, it is pleasant to contemplate the pure Christian character of the man. Although born a Jew, his whole life seemed to be a sermon upon the text, ‘That disciple whom Jesus loved said unto Peter, It is the Lord!’ Neander’s life resembled more ‘that disciple’s’ than any other. He was the loving John, the new Church Father of our times.

“His sickness was only of a few days’ duration. On Monday he held his lecture as usual. The next day he was seized with a species of cholera. A day or two of pain was followed by a lucid interval, when the physicians were encouraged to hope for his recovery. During this interval he dictated a page in his Church History, and then said to his sister—‘I am weary—let us go home.’ He had no time to die. He needed no further preparation; his whole life had been the best preparation, and up to the last moment we see him active in his master’s service. The disease returned with redoubled force; a day or two more of suffering, and on Sunday, less than a week from the day of attack, he was dead.

“On the 17th of July I attended the funeral services. The procession of students was formed at the university, and marched to his dwelling. In the meantime, in the house, the theological students, the professors from Berlin, and from the University of Halle, the clergy, relatives, high officers of government, etc., were assembled to hear the funeral discourse. Professor Strauss, for forty-five years an intimate friend of Neander, delivered a sermon. During the exercises, the body, not yet placed in the coffin, was covered with wreaths and flowers, and surrounded with burning candles.

“The procession was of great length, was formed at 10 A.M. and moved through Unter den Linden as far as Frederick-street, and then the whole length of Frederick-street as far as the Elizabeth-street Cemetery. The whole distance, nearly two miles, the sides of the streets, doors and windows of the houses were filled with an immense concourse of people who had come to look upon the solemn scene. The hearse was surrounded with students, some of them from Halle, carrying lighted candles, and in advance was borne the Bible and Greek Testament which had ever been used by the deceased.

“At the grave, a choir of young men sang appropriate music, and a student from Halle made an affecting address. It was a solemn sight to see the tears gushing from the eyes of those who had been the pupils and friends of Neander. Many were deeply moved, and well might they join with the world in mourning for one who had done more than any one to keep pure the religion of Christ here in Germany.

“After the benediction was pronounced, every one present, according to the beautiful custom here, went to the grave and threw into it a handful of dirt, thus assisting at the burial. Slowly, and in scattered groups the crowd dispersed to their various homes.

“How insignificant all the metaphysical controversies of the age, the vain teachings of man, appeared to us as we stood at the grave-side of Neander. His was a far higher and holier faith, from which, like the Evangelist, he never wavered. In his life, in his death, the belief to which he had been converted, his watchword remained unchanged: ‘It is the Lord!’ His body has been consigned to the grave, but the sunset glory of his example still illumines our sky, and will forever light us onward to the path he trod.”

THE DISASTERS OF A MAN WHO WOULDN’T TRUST HIS WIFE.

Now Hans, from boyhood up, was a remarkable person. His father had known his share of troubles, and having two sons, both older than Hans, naturally looked in his old age to reap some comfort and assistance from their united labors. But the two elder sons successively had fled from the shop-board. One had gone for a soldier, and was shot; the other had learned the craft of a weaver, but being too fond of his pot, had broken his neck by falling into a quarry, as he went home one night from a carousal. Hans was left the sole staff for the old man to lean upon; and truly a worthy son he proved himself. He was as gentle as a dove, and as tender as a lamb. A cross word from his father, when he had made a cross stitch, would almost break his heart; but half a word of kindness revived him again—and he seldom went long without it; for the old man, though rendered rather testy and crabbed in his temper, by his many troubles and disappointments, was naturally of a loving, compassionate disposition, and, moreover, regarded Hans as the apple of his eye.

Hans was of a remarkably light, slender, active make, full of life and mettle. This moment he was on the board, stitching away with as much velocity as if he were working for a funeral or a wedding, at an hour’s notice; the next, he was dispatching his dinner at the same rate; and the third beheld him running, leaping, and playing, among his companions, as blithe as a young kid. If he had a fault, it was being too fond of his fiddle. This was his everlasting delight. One would have thought that his elbow had labor enough, with jerking his needle some thirty thousand times a day; but it was in him a sort of universal joint—it never seemed to know what weariness was. His fiddle stood always on the board in a corner by him, and no sooner had he ceased to brandish his needle, than he began to brandish his fiddlestick. If ever he could be said to be lazy, it was when his father was gone out to measure, or try on; and his fiddle being too strong a temptation for him, he would seize upon it, and labor at it with all his might, till he spied his father turning his next corner homeward. Nevertheless, with this trifling exception, he was a pattern of filial duty; and now the time was come that his father must die—his mother was dead long before; and he was left alone in the world with his riddle. The whole house, board, trade—what there was of it—all was his. When he came to take stock, and make an inventory—in his head—of what he was worth, it was by no means such as to endanger his entrance into heaven at the proper time. Naturally enough, he thought of the Scripture simile of the rich man, and the camel getting through the eye of a needle; but it did not frighten him. His father never had much beforehand, when he had the whole place to himself; and now, behold! another knight of the steel-bar had come from—nobody knew where—a place often talked of, yet still a terra incognita; had taken a great house opposite, hoisted a tremendous sign, and threatened to carry away every shred of Hans’s business.

In the depth of his trouble, he took to his fiddle, from his fiddle to his bed, and in his bed he had a dream—I thought we had done with these dreams!—in which he was assured, that could he once save the sum of fifty dollars, it would be the seed of a fortune; that he should flourish far beyond the scale of old Strauss; should drive his antagonist, in utter despair, from the ground; and should, in short, arrive eventually at no less a dignity than—Bürgermeister of Rapps!

Hans was, as I believe I have said, soon set up with the smallest spice of encouragement. He was, moreover, as light and nimble as a grasshopper, and, in his whole appearance, much such an animal, could it be made to stand on end. His dream, therefore, was enough. He vowed a vow of unconquerable might, and to it he went. Springing upon his board, he hummed a tune gayly:

“Ha! ha!—slipped down into the mud that he emerged from!” cried Hans, and, seizing his fiddle, dashed off the Hippopotamus in a style that did him a world of good, and makes us wish that we had the musical notes of it. Then he fell to, and day and night he wrought. Work came; it was done. He wanted little—a crust of bread and a merry tune were enough for him. His money grew; the sum was nearly accomplished, when, returning one evening from carrying out some work—behold! his door was open! Behold! the lid of his pot where he deposited his treasure was off! The money was gone!

This was a terrible blow. Hans raised a vast commotion. He did not even fail to insinuate that it might be the interloper opposite—the Hippopotamus. Who so likely as he, who had his eye continually on Hans’s door? But no matter—the thief was clear off; and the only comfort he got from his neighbors, was being rated for his stinginess. “Ay,” said they, “this comes of living like a curmudgeon, in a great house by yourself, working your eyes out to hoard up money. What must a young man like you do with scraping up pots full of money, like a miser? It is a shame!—it is a sin!—it is a judgment! Nothing better could come of it. At all events, you might afford to have a light burning in the house. People are ever likely to rob you. They see a house as dark as an oven; they see nobody in it; they go in and steal; nobody can see them come out—and that is just it. But were there a light burning, they would always think there was somebody in. At all events, you might have a light.”

“There is something in that,” said Hans. He was not at all unreasonable: so he determined to have a light in future: and he fell to work again.

Bad as his luck had been, he resolved not to be cast down: he was as diligent and as thrifty as ever; and he resolved, when he became Bürgermeister of Rapps, to be especially severe on sneaking thieves, who crept into houses that were left to the care of Providence and the municipal authorities. A light was everlastingly burning in his window; and the people, as they passed in the morning, said, “This man must have a good business that requires him to be up thus early;” and they who passed in the evening, said, “This man must be making a fortune, for he is busy early and late.” At length Hans leaped down from his board with the work that was to complete his sum, a second time; went; returned, with the future Bürgermeister growing rapidly upon him; when, as he turned the corner of the street—men and mercies!—what a spectacle! His house was in a full burst of flame, illuminating, with a ruddy glow, half the town, and all the faces of the inhabitants, who were collected to witness the catastrophe. Money, fiddle, shop-board—all were consumed! and when poor Hans danced and capered, in the very ecstasy of his distraction—“Ay,” said his neighbors, “this comes of leaving a light in an empty house. It was just the thing to happen. Why don’t you get somebody to take care of things in your absence?”

Hans stood corrected; for, as I have said, he was soon touched to the quick, and though in his anger he did think it rather unkind that they, who advised the light, now prophesied after the event; when that was a little abated, he thought there was reason in what they now said. So, bating not a jot of his determination to save, and to be Bürgermeister of Rapps, he took the very next house, which luckily happened to be at liberty, and he got a journeyman. For a long time, his case appeared hard and hopeless. He had to pay three hundred per cent, for the piece of a table, two stools, and a couple of hags of hay, which he had procured of a Jew, and which, with an odd pot, and a wooden spoon or two, constituted all his furniture. Then, he had two mouths to feed instead of one wages to pay; and not much more work done than he could manage himself. But still—he had dreamed; and dreams, if they are genuine, fulfill themselves. The money grew—slowly, very slowly, but still it grew; and Hans pitched upon a secure place, as he thought, to conceal it in. Alas! poor Hans! He had often in his heart grumbled at the slowness of his Handwerks-Bursch, or journeyman; but the fellow’s eyes had been quick enough, and he proved himself a hand-work’s fellow to some purpose, by clearing out Hans’s hiding-place, and becoming a journeyman in earnest. The fellow was gone one morning; no great loss—but then the money was gone with him, which was a terrible loss.

This was more than Hans could bear. He was perfectly cast down, disheartened, and inconsolable. At first, he thought of running after the fellow; and, as he knew the scamp could not go far without a passport, and as Hans had gone the round of the country himself, in the three years of his Wandel-Jahre, as required by the worshipful guild of tailors, he did not doubt but that he should some day pounce upon the scoundrel. But then, in the mean time, who was to keep his trade together? There was the Hippopotamus watching opposite! No! it would not do! and his neighbor, coming in to condole with him, said—“Cheer up, man! there is nothing amiss yet. What signify a few dollars? You will soon get plenty more, with those nimble fingers of yours. You want only somebody to help you to keep them. You must get a wife! Journeymen were thieves from the first generation. You must get married!”

“Get married!” thought Hans. He was struck all on a heap at the very mention of it “Get married! What! fine clothes to go a-wooing in, and fine presents to go a-wooing with; and parson’s fees, and clerk’s fees; and wedding-dinner, and dancing, and drinking; and then, doctor’s fees, and nurse’s fees, and children without end! That is ruin!” thought Hans—“without end!” The fifty dollars and the Bürgermeistership—they might wait till doomsday.

“Well, that is good!” thought Hans, as he took a little more breath. “They first counseled me to get a light—then went house and all in a bonfire; next, I must get a journeyman—then went the money; and now they would have me bring more plagues upon me than Moses brought upon Egypt. Nay, nay!” thought Hans; “you’ll not catch me there, neither.”

Hans all this time was seated upon his shop-board, stitching, at an amazing rate, upon a garment which the rascally Wagner should have finished to order at six o’clock that morning, instead of decamping with his money; and, ever and anon, so far forgetting his loss in what appeared to him the ludicrousness of this advice, as freely to laugh out. All that day, the idea continued to run in his head; the next, it had lost much of its freshness; the third, it appeared not so odd as awful; the fourth, he began to ask himself whether it might be quite so momentous as his imagination had painted it; the fifth, he really thought it was not so bad neither; the sixth, it had so worked round in his head, that it had fairly got on the other side, and appeared clearly to have its advantages—children did not come scampering into the world all at once, like a flock of lambs into a meadow—a wife might help to gather, as well as spend—might possibly bring something of her own—ay! a new idea!—would be a perpetual watch and storekeeper in his absence—might speak a word of comfort, in trouble when even his fiddle was dumb; on the seventh—he was off! Whither?

Why, it so happened that in his “wander-years,” Hans had played his fiddle at many a dance—a very dangerous position; for his chin resting on “the merry bit of wood,” as the ancient Friend termed that instrument, and his head leaned on one side, he had had plenty of opportunity to watch the movements of plenty of fair maids in the dance, as well as occasionally to whirl them round in the everlasting waltz himself. Accordingly, Hans had left his heart many times, for a week or ten days or so, behind him, in many a town and dorf of Bohemia and Germany; but it always came after him and overtook him again, except on one occasion. Among the damsels of the Böhmer-Wald who had danced to the sound of his fiddle, there was a certain substantial bergman’s or master-miner’s daughter, who, having got into his head in some odd association with his fiddle, was continually coming up as he played his old airs, and could not be got out again, especially as he fancied that the comely and simple-hearted creature had a lurking fondness for both his music and himself.

Away he went: and he was right. The damsel made no objection to his overtures. Tall, stout, fresh, pleasant growth of the open air and the hills, as she was, she never dreamed of despising the little skipping tailor of Rapps, though he was shorter by the head than herself. She had heard his music, and evidently had danced after it. The fiddler and fiddle together filled up her ambition. But the old people!—they were in perfect hysterics of wrath and indignation. Their daughter!—with the exception of one brother, now absent on a visit to his uncle in Hungary, a great gold-miner in the Carpathian mountains, the sole remnant of an old, substantial house, which had fed their flocks and their herds on the hills for three generations, and now drew wealth from the heart of these hills themselves! It was death! poison! pestilence! The girl must be mad; the hop-o’-my-thumb scoundrel must carry witch-powder!

Nevertheless, as Hans and the damsel were agreed, every thing else—threats, denunciations, sarcasms, cuttings-off with a shilling, and loss of a ponderous dowry—all went for nothing. They were married, as some thousands were before them in just the like circumstances. But if the Bohemian maid was not mad, it must be confessed that Hans was rather so. He was monstrously exasperated at the contempt heaped by the heavy bergman on the future Bürgermeister of Rapps, and determined to show a little spirit. As his fiddle entered into all his schemes, he resolved to have music at his wedding; and no sooner did he and his bride issue from the church, than out broke the harmony which he had provided. The fiddle played merrily, “You’ll repent, repent, repent; you’ll repent, repent, repent;” and the bassoon answered, in surly tones, “And soon! and soon!” “I hope, my dear,” said the bride, “You don’t mean the words for us.” “No, love,” explained Hans, gallantly; “I don’t say ‘we,’ but ‘you’—that is, certain haughty people on these hills that shall be nameless.” Then the music played till they reached the inn where they dined, and then set off in a handsome hired carriage for Rapps.

It is true, that there was little happiness in this affair to any one. The old people were full of anger, curses, and threats of total disownment. Hans’s pride was pricked, and perforated, till he was as sore as if he had been tattooed with his own needle; and his wife was completely drowned in sorrow at such a parting with her parents, and with no little sense of remorse for her disobedience. Nevertheless, they reached home; things began gradually to assume a more composed aspect. Hans loved his wife; she loved him; he was industrious, she was careful; and they trusted, in time, to bring her parents round, when they should see that they were doing well in the world.

Again the saving scheme began to haunt Hans; but he had one luckless notion, which was destined to cost him no little vexation. With the stock of the shop, he had inherited from his father a stock of old maxims, which, unluckily, had not got burnt in the fire with the rest of the patrimonial heritage. Among these was one, that a woman can not keep a secret. Acting on this creed, Hans not only never told his wife of the project of becoming Bürgermeister of Rapps, but he did not even give her reason to suppose that he laid up a shilling; and that she might not happen to stumble upon his money, he took care to carry it always about him. It was his delight, when he got into a quiet corner, or as he came along a retired lane, from his errands, to take it out and count it; and calculate when it would amount to this and that sum, and when the full sum would be really his own. Now, it happened one day, that having been a good deal absorbed in these speculations, he had loitered a precious piece of time away; and suddenly coming to himself, he set off, as was his wont, on a kind of easy trot, in which, his small, light form thrown forward, his pale, gray-eyed, earnest-looking visage thrown up toward the sky, and his long blue coat flying in a stream behind him, he cut one of the most extraordinary figures in the world; and checking his pace as he entered the town, he involuntarily clapped his hand on his pocket, and behold! his money was gone! It had slipped away through a hole it had worn. In the wildness and bitterness of his loss, he turned back, heartily cursing the spinner and the weaver of that most detestable piece of buckram that composed his breeches-pocket, for having put it together so villainously that it broke down with the carriage of a few dollars, halfpence, thimbles, balls of wax and thread, and a few other sundries, after the trifling wear of seven years, nine months, and nineteen days.

He was peering, step by step, after his lost treasure, when up came his wife, running like one wild, and telling him that he must come that instant; for the Ritter of Flachenflaps had brought in new liveries for all his servants, and threatened if he did not see Hans in five minutes, he would carry the work over to the other side of the street. There was a perplexity! The money was not to be found, and if it were found in the presence of his wife, he would regard it as no better than lost. He was therefore obliged to excuse his conduct, being caught in the act of poring after something, to tell, if not a lie, at least the very smallest part of the truth, and say that he had lost his thimble. The money was not found, and to make bad worse, he was in danger of losing a good job, and all the Ritter’s work forever, as a consequence.

Away he ran, therefore, groaning inwardly, at full speed, and, arriving out of breath, saw the Ritter’s carriage drawn up at his opponent’s door. Wormwood upon wormwood! His money was lost; his best customer was lost, and thrown into the jaws of the detested Hippopotamus. There he beheld him and his man in a prime bustle from day to day, while his own house was deserted. All people went where the Ritter went, of course. The Hippopotamus was now grazing and browsing through Hans’s richest meadows with a vengeance. He was flourishing out of all bounds. He had got a horse to ride out on and take orders, and to all appearance was likely to become Bürgermeister ten years before Hans had got ten dollars of his own.

It was too much for even his sanguine temperament; he sank down to the very depths of despair; his fiddle had lost its music; he could not abide to hear it; he sate moody and disconsolate, with a beard an inch long. His wife for some time hoped it would go off; but, seeing it come to this, she began to console and advise, to rouse his courage and his spirits. She told him it was that horse which gave the advantage to his neighbor. While he went trudging on foot, wearying himself, and wasting his time, people came, grew weary, and would not wait. She offered, therefore, to borrow her neighbor’s ass for him; and advised him to ride out daily a little way. It would look as though he had business in the country. It would look as if his time was precious; it would look well, and do his health good into the bargain. Hans liked her counsel; it sounded well—nay, exceedingly discreet. He always thought her a gem of a woman, but he never imagined her half so able. What a pity a woman could not be trusted with a secret! Were it not for that, she would be a helpmate past all reckoning.

The ass, however, was got: out rode Hans; looked amazingly hurried; and, being half-crazed with care, people thought he was half-crazed with stress of business. Work came in; things went flowingly on again; Hans blessed his stars; and as he grasped his cash, he every day stitched it into the crown of his cap, taking paper-money for the purpose. No more pots, no more hiding-holes, no more breeches-pockets for him; he put it under the guardianship of his own strong thread and dexterous needle; and all went on exceedingly well.

Accidents will, however, occur, if men will not trust their wives; and especially if they will not avoid awkward habits. Now, Hans had a strange habit of sticking his needles on his breeches-knees as he sat at work; and sometimes he would have half-a-dozen on each knee for half-a-dozen days. His wife often told him to take them out when he came down from his board, and often took them out herself; but it was of no use. He was just in this case one day as he rode out to take measure of a gentleman, about five miles off. The ass, to his thinking, was in a remarkably brisk mood. Off it went, without whip or spur, at a good active trot, and, not satisfied with trotting, soon fairly proceeded to a gallop. Hans was full of wonder at the beast. Commonly it tired his arm worse with thrashing it during his hour’s ride, than the exercise of his goose and sleeve-board did for a whole day; but now he was fain to pull it in. It was to no purpose; faster than ever it dashed on, prancing, running sideways, wincing, and beginning to show a most ugly temper. What, in the name of all Balaams, could possess the animal, he could not for his life conceive! The only chance of safety appeared to lie in clinging with both arms and legs to it, like a boa-constrictor to its victim, when, shy!—away it flew, as if it were driven by a legion of devils. In another moment, it stopped; down went its head, up went its infernal heels; and Hans found himself some ten yards off, in the middle of a pool. He escaped drowning, but the cap was gone; he had been foolish enough to stitch some dollars, in hard cash, recently received, into it along with his paper, and they sunk it, past recovery! He came home, dripping like a drowned mouse, with a most deplorable tale; but with no more knowledge of the cause of his disaster than the man in the moon, till he tore his fingers on the needles, in abstracting his wet clothes.

Fortune now seemed to have said, as plainly as she could speak, “Hans, confide in your wife. You see all your schemes without her fail. Open your heart to her—deal fairly, generously, and you will reap the merits of it.” It was all in vain—he had not yet come to his senses. Obstinate as a mule—he determined to try once more. But good-by to the ass! The only thing he resolved to mount was his shop board—that bore him well, and brought him continued good, could he only continue to keep it.

His wife, I said, came from the mountains; she, therefore, liked the sight of trees. Now, in Hans’s back-yard there was neither tree nor turf, so she got some tubs, and in them she planted a variety of fir-trees, which made a pleasant appearance, and gave a help to her imagination of the noble firs of her native scenes. In one of these tubs, Hans conceived the singular design of depositing his future treasure. “Nobody, will meddle with them,” he thought, so accordingly, from week to week, he concealed in one of them his acquisitions. It had gone on a long time. He had been out one day, collecting some of his debts—he had succeeded beyond his hopes, and came back exulting. The sum was saved; and, in the gladness of his heart, he bought his wife a new gown. He bounded into the house with the lightness of seventeen. His wife was not there—he looked into the back-yard. Saints and angels! what is that? He beheld his wife busy with the tubs. The trees were uprooted, and laid on the ground, and every particle of soil was thrown out of the tubs. In the delirium of consternation, he flew to ask what she had been doing.

“Oh! the trees, poor things, did not flourish; they looked sickly and pining; she determined to give them some soil more suitable to their natures; she had thrown the earth into the river, at the bottom of the yard.”

“And you have thrown into the river,” exclaimed Hans, frantically, “the hoarding of three years; the money which had cost me many a weary day—many an anxious night. The money which would have made our fortunes—in short, that would have made me Bürgermeister of Rapps.” Completely thrown off his guard, he betrayed his secret.

“Good gracious!” cried his wife, exceedingly alarmed; “why did you not tell me of it?”

“Ay, that is the question!” said he. And it was a question; for, spite of himself, it had occurred to his mind some dozens of times, and now it came so overwhelmingly, that even when he thought he treated it with contempt, it had fixed itself upon his better reason, and never left him till it had worked a most fortunate revolution. He said to himself, “Had I told my wife of it at the first, it could not possibly have happened worse; and it is very likely it would have happened better. For the future, then, be it so.”

Thereupon, he unfolded to her the whole history and mystery of his troubles, and his hopes. Now, Mrs. Hans Nadeltreiber had great cause to feel herself offended, most grievously offended; but she was not at all of a touchy temperament. She was a sweet, tender, patient, loving creature, who desired her husband’s honor and prosperity beyond any thing; so she sate down, and in the most mild, yet acute and able manner, laid down to him a plan of operations, and promised him such aids and succors, that, struck at once with shame, contrition, and admiration, he sprung up, clasped her to his heart, called her the very gem of womanhood, and skipped two or three times across the floor, like a man gone out of his senses. The truth is, however, he was but just come into them.

From this day, a new life was begun in Hans’s house. There he sat at his work; there sat his wife by his side; aiding and contriving with a woman’s wit, a woman’s love, and a woman’s adroitness. She was worth ten journeymen. Work never came in faster; never gave such satisfaction; never brought in so much money; nor, besides this, was there ever such harmony in the house, nor had they ever held such delectable discourse together. There was nothing to conceal. Hans’s thoughts flowed like a great stream; and when they grew a little wild and visionary, as they were apt to do, his wife smoothened and reduced them to sobriety, with such a delicate touch, that, so far from feeling offended, he was delighted beyond expression with her prudence. The fifty dollars were raised in almost no time; and, as if prognostic of its becoming the seed of a fortune, it came in most opportunely for purchasing a lot of cloth, which more than trebled its cost, and gave infinite satisfaction to his customers. Hans saw that the tide was rapidly rising with him, and his wife urged him to push on with it; to take a larger house; to get more hands; and to cut such a figure as should at once eclipse his rival. The thing was done; but as their capital was still found scanty enough for such an undertaking, Mrs. Nadeltreiber resolved to try what she could do to increase it.

I should have informed the reader, had not the current of Hans’s disasters ran too strong for me, that his wife’s parents were dead, and had died without giving her any token of reconciliation—a circumstance which, although it cut her to the heart, did not quite cast her down, feeling that she had done nothing but what a parent might forgive, being all of us creatures alike liable to error, demanding alike some little indulgence for our weaknesses and our fancies. Her brother was now sole representative of the family; and knowing the generosity of his nature, she determined to pay him a visit, although, for the first time since her marriage, in a condition very unfit for traveling. She went. Her brother received her with all his early affection. In his house was born her first child; and so much did she and her bantling win upon his heart, that when the time came that she must return, nothing would serve but he would take her himself. She had been so loud in Hans’s praise, that he determined to go and shake him by the hand. It would have done any one good to have seen this worthy mountaineer setting forth, seated in his neat, green-painted wicker wagon; his sister by his side, and the child snugly-bedded in his own corn-hopper at their feet. Thus did they go statelily, with his great black horse drawing them. It would have been equally pleasant to see him set down his charge at the door of Hans’s house, and behold with wonder that merry mannikin, all smiles and gesticulation, come forth to receive them. The contrast between Hans and his brother-in-law was truly amusing. He, a shadow-like homunculus, so light and dry, that any wind threatened to blow him before it; the bergman, with a countenance like the rising sun, the stature of a giant, and limbs like an elephant. Hans watched, with considerable anxiety, the experiment of his kinsman seating himself in a chair. The chair, however, stood firm; and the good man surveyed Hans, in return, with a curious and critical air, as if doubtful whether he must not hold him in contempt for the want of that solid matter of which he himself had too much. Hans’s good qualities, however, got the better of him. “The man’s a man, though,” said he to himself, very philosophically, “and as he is good to my sister, he shall know of it.” Hans delighted him every evening, by the powers of his violin; and the bergman, excessively fond of music, like most of his countrymen, declared that he might perform in the emperor’s orchestra, and find nobody there to beat him. When he took his leave, therefore, he seized one of Hans’s hands with a cordial gripe that was felt through every limb, and into the other he put a bag of one thousand rix dollars, saying, “My sister ought not to have come dowerless into a good husband’s house. This is properly her own: take it, and much good may it do you.”

Our story need not be prolonged. The new tailor soon fled before the star of Hans’s ascendency. A very few years saw him installed into the office of Bürgermeister, the highest of earthly honors in his eyes; and if he had one trouble left, it was only in the reflection that he might have attained his wishes years before had he understood the heart of a good woman. The worshipful Herr Bürgermeister, and Frau Bürgermeisterin of Rapps, often visited their colossal brother of the Böhmerwald, and were thought to reflect no discredit on the old bergman family.

[From Dickens’s “Household Words.”]

Every evening, before I say my prayers, I read a chapter in the Bible that Miss Ellen gave me; and last night I felt my tears dropping forever so long over one verse, “And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain; for the former things are passed away.” The words made me think of them that are gone—of my father, and his wife that was a true, fond mother to me; and above all, of my little sister Mary, the clureen bawn[F] that nestled in her bosom.

I was a wild slip of a girl, ten years of age, and my brother Richard about two years older, when my father brought home his second wife. She was the daughter of a farmer up at Lackabawn, and was reared with care and dacency; but her father held his ground at a rack-rent, and the middleman that was between him and the head landlord did not pay his own rent, so the place was ejected, and the farmer collected every penny he had, and set off with his family to America. My father had a liking for the youngest daughter, and well become him to have it, for a sweeter creature never drew the breath of life; but while her father passed for a strong[G] farmer, he was timorous-like about asking her to share his little cabin; however, when he found how matters stood, he didn’t lose much time in finding out that she was willing to be his wife, and a mother to his boy and girl. That she was, a patient loving one. Oh! it often sticks me like a knife, when I think how many times I fretted her with my foolishness and my idle ways, and how ’twas a long time before I’d call her “mother.” Often, when my father would be going to chastise Richard and myself for our provoking doings, especially the day that we took half-a-dozen eggs from under the hatching hen, to play “Blind Tom” with them, she’d interfere for us, and say, “Tim, aleagh, don’t touch them this time; sure ’tis only arch they are: they’ll get more sense in time.” And then, after he was gone out, she’d advise us for our good so pleasantly, that a thundercloud itself couldn’t look black at her. She did wonders, too, about the house and garden. They were both dirty and neglected enough when she first came over them; for I was too young and foolish, and my father too busy with his out-door work, and the old woman that lived with us in service too feeble and too blind to keep the place either clean or decent; but my mother got the floor raised, and the green pool in front drained, and a parcel of roses and honey-suckles planted there instead. The neighbors’ wives used to say, ’twas all pride and upsetting folly, to keep the kitchen-floor swept clean, and to put the potatoes on a dish, instead of emptying them out of the pot into the middle of the table; and, besides, ’twas a cruel, unnatural thing, they said, to take away the pool from the ducks, that they were always used to paddle in so handy. But my mother was always too busy and too happy to heed what they said; and, besides, she was always so ready to do a kind turn for any of them, that, out of poor shame, they had at last to leave off abusing her “fine English ways.”

West of our house there was a straggling, stony piece of ground, where, within the memory of man nothing ever grew but nettles, docks, and thistles. One Monday, when Richard and myself came in from school, my mother told us to set about weeding it, and to bring in some basketfuls of good clay from the banks of the river; she said that if we worked well at it until Saturday, she’d bring me a new frock, and Dick a jacket, from the next market-town; and encouraged by this, we set to work with right good will, and didn’t leave off till supper time. The next day we did the same; and by degrees, when we saw the heap of weeds and stones that we got out, growing big, and the ground looking nice and smooth and red and rich, we got quite anxious about it ourselves, and we built a nice little fence round it to keep out the pigs. When it was manured, my mother planted cabbages, parsnips, and onions in it; and, to be sure, she got a fine crop out of it, enough to make us many a nice supper of vegetables stewed with pepper, and a small taste of bacon or a red herring. Besides, she sold in the market as much as bought a Sunday coat for my father, a gown for herself, a fine pair of shoes for Dick, and as pretty a shawl for myself, as e’er a colleen in the country could show at mass. Through means of my father’s industry and my mother’s good management, we were, with the blessing of God, as snug and comfortable a poor family as any in Munster. We paid but a small rent, and we had always plenty of potatoes to eat, good clothes to wear, and cleanliness and decency in and about our little cabin.

Five years passed on in this way, and at last little Mary was born. She was a delicate fairy thing, with that look, even from the first, in her blue eyes, which is seldom seen, except where the shadow of the grave darkens the cradle. She was fond of her father, and of Richard, and of myself, and would laugh and crow when she saw us, but the love in the core of her heart was for her mother. No matter how tired, or sleepy, or cross the baby might be, one word from her would set the bright eyes dancing, and the little rosy month smiling, and the tiny limbs quivering, as if walking or running couldn’t content her, but she must fly to her mother’s arms. And how that mother doted on the very ground she trod! I often thought that the Queen in her state carriage, with her son, God bless him! alongside of her, dressed out in gold and jewels, was not one bit happier than my mother, when she sat under the shade of the mountain ash, near the door, in the hush of the summer’s evening, singing and cronauning her only one to sleep in her arms. In the month of October, 1845, Mary was four years old. That was the bitter time, when first the food of the earth was turned to poison; when the gardens that used to be so bright and sweet, covered with the purple and white potato blossoms, became in one night black and offensive, as if fire had come down from heaven to burn them up. ’Twas a heart-breaking thing to see the laboring men, the crathurs! that had only the one half-acre to feed their little families, going out, after work, in the evenings to dig their suppers from under the black stalks. Spadeful after spadeful would be turned up, and a long piece of a ridge dug through, before they’d get a small kish full of such withered crohauneens,[H] as other years would be hardly counted fit for the pigs.

It was some time before the distress reached us, for there was a trifle of money in the savings’ bank, that held us in meal, while the neighbors were next door to starvation. As long as my father and mother had it, they shared it freely with them that were worse off than themselves; but at last the little penny of money was all spent, the price of flour was raised; and, to make matters worse, the farmer that my father worked for, at a poor eight-pence a day, was forced to send him and three more of his laborers away, as he couldn’t afford to pay them even that any longer. Oh! ’twas a sorrowful night when my father brought home the news. I remember, as well as if I saw it yesterday, the desolate look in his face when he sat down by the ashes of the turf fire that had just baked a yellow meal cake for his supper. My mother was at the opposite side, giving little Mary a drink of sour milk out of her little wooden piggin, and the child didn’t like it, being delicate and always used to sweet milk, so she said:

“Mammy, won’t you give me some of the nice milk instead of that?”

“I haven’t it asthore, nor can’t get it,” said her mother, “so don’t ye fret.”

Not a word more out of the little one’s mouth, only she turned her little cheek in toward her mother, and staid quite quiet, as if she was hearkening to what was going on.

“Judy,” said my father, “God is good, and sure ’tis only in Him we must put our trust; for in the wide world I can see nothing but starvation before us.”

“God is good, Tim,” replied my mother; “He won’t forsake us.”

Just then Richard came in with a more joyful face than I had seen on him for many a day.

“Good news!” says he, “good news, father! there’s work for us both on the Droumcarra road. The government works are to begin there to-morrow; you’ll get eight-pence a day, and I’ll get six-pence.”

If you saw our delight when we heard this, you’d think ’twas the free present of a thousand pounds that came to us, falling through the roof, instead of an offer of small wages for hard work.

To be sure the potatoes were gone, and the yellow meal was dear and dry and chippy—it hadn’t the nature about it that a hot potato has for a poor man; but still ’twas a great thing to have the prospect of getting enough of even that same, and not to be obliged to follow the rest of the country into the poor-house, which was crowded to that degree that the crathurs there—God help them!—hadn’t room even to die quietly in their beds, but were crowded together on the floor like so many dogs in a kennel. The next morning my father and Richard were off before daybreak, for they had a long way to walk to Droumcarra, and they should be there in time to begin work. They took an Indian meal cake with them to eat for their dinner, and poor dry food it was, with only a draught of cold water to wash it down. Still my father, who was knowledgeable about such things, always said it was mighty wholesome when it was well cooked; but some of the poor people took a great objection against it on account of the yellow color, which they thought came from having sulphur mixed with it—and they said, Indeed it was putting a great affront on the decent Irish to mix up their food as if ’twas for mangy dogs. Glad enough, poor creatures, they were to get it afterward, when sea-weed and nettles, and the very grass by the roadside, was all that many of them had to put into their mouths.

When my father and brother came home in the evening, faint and tired from the two long walks and the day’s work, my mother would always try to have something for them to eat with their porridge—a bit of butter, or a bowl of thick milk, or maybe a few eggs. She always gave me plenty as far as it would go; but ’twas little she took herself. She would often go entirely without a meal, and then she’d slip down to the huckster’s, and buy a little white bun for Mary; and I’m sure it used to do her more good to see the child eat it, than if she had got a meat-dinner for herself. No matter how hungry the poor little thing might be, she’d always break off a bit to put into her mother’s mouth, and she would not be satisfied until she saw her swallow it; then the child would take a drink of cold water out of her little tin porringer, as contented as if it was new milk.

As the winter advanced, the weather became wet and bitterly cold, and the poor men working on the roads began to suffer dreadfully from being all day in wet clothes, and, what was worse, not having any change to put on when they went home at night without a dry thread about them. Fever soon got among them, and my father took it. My mother brought the doctor to see him, and by selling all our decent clothes, she got for him whatever was wanting, but all to no use: ’twas the will of the Lord to take him to himself, and he died after a few days’ illness.

It would be hard to tell the sorrow that his widow and orphans felt, when they saw the fresh sods planted on his grave. It was not grief altogether like the grand stately grief of the quality, although maybe the same sharp knife is sticking into the same sore bosom inside in both; but the outside differs in rich and poor. I saw the mistress a week after Miss Ellen died. She was in her drawing-room with the blinds pulled down, sitting in a low chair, with her elbow on the small work-table, and her cheek resting on her hand—not a speck of any thing white about her but the cambric handkerchief, and the face that was paler than the marble chimney-piece.

When she saw me (for the butler, being busy, sent me in with the luncheon-tray), she covered her eyes with her handkerchief, and began to cry, but quietly, as if she did not want it to be noticed. As I was going out, I just heard her say to Miss Alice in a choking voice:

“Keep Sally here always; our poor darling was fond of her.” And as I closed the door, I heard her give one deep sob. The next time I saw her, she was quite composed; only for the white cheek and the black dress, you would not know that the burning feel of a child’s last kiss had ever touched her lips.