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+Project Gutenberg's The Pearl of Orr's Island, by Harriet Beecher Stowe
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Pearl of Orr's Island
+       A Story of the Coast of Maine
+
+Author: Harriet Beecher Stowe
+
+Release Date: March 6, 2010 [EBook #31522]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PEARL OF ORR'S ISLAND ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Edwards, Jane Hyland and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This
+book was produced from scanned images of public domain
+material from the Google Print project.)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE
+
+PEARL OF ORR'S ISLAND
+
+
+A Story of the Coast of Maine
+
+
+BY
+
+HARRIET BEECHER STOWE
+
+
+BOSTON AND NEW YORK
+
+HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY
+
+The Riverside Press, Cambridge
+
+1896
+
+
+Copyright, 1862 and 1890,
+
+BY HARRIET BEECHER STOWE.
+
+
+Copyright, 1896,
+
+BY HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO.
+
+
+_All rights reserved._
+
+
+_The Riverside Press, Cambridge, Mass., U.S.A._
+
+Electrotyped and Printed by H.O. Houghton & Co.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+  INTRODUCTORY NOTE                                  vii
+
+     CHAP.                                          PAGE
+
+        I. NAOMI                                      1
+
+       II. MARA                                       5
+
+      III. THE BAPTISM AND THE BURIAL                 9
+
+       IV. AUNT ROXY AND AUNT RUEY                   15
+
+        V. THE KITTRIDGES                            25
+
+       VI. GRANDPARENTS                              36
+
+      VII. FROM THE SEA                              47
+
+     VIII. THE SEEN AND THE UNSEEN                   58
+
+       IX. MOSES                                     74
+
+        X. THE MINISTER                              85
+
+       XI. LITTLE ADVENTURERS                        99
+
+      XII. SEA TALES                                110
+
+     XIII. BOY AND GIRL                             120
+
+      XIV. THE ENCHANTED ISLAND                     132
+
+       XV. THE HOME COMING                          143
+
+      XVI. THE NATURAL AND THE SPIRITUAL            154
+
+     XVII. LESSONS                                  165
+
+    XVIII. SALLY                                    175
+
+      XIX. EIGHTEEN                                 179
+
+       XX. REBELLION                                186
+
+      XXI. THE TEMPTER                              198
+
+     XXII. A FRIEND IN NEED                         208
+
+    XXIII. THE BEGINNING OF THE STORY               218
+
+     XXIV. DESIRES AND DREAMS                       229
+
+      XXV. MISS EMILY                               235
+
+     XXVI. DOLORES                                  245
+
+    XXVII. HIDDEN THINGS                            258
+
+   XXVIII. A COQUETTE                               270
+
+     XXIX. NIGHT TALKS                              279
+
+      XXX. THE LAUNCH OF THE ARIEL                  290
+
+     XXXI. GREEK MEETS GREEK                        303
+
+    XXXII. THE BETROTHAL                            315
+
+   XXXIII. AT A QUILTING                            323
+
+    XXXIV. FRIENDS                                  329
+
+     XXXV. THE TOOTHACRE COTTAGE                    335
+
+    XXXVI. THE SHADOW OF DEATH                      339
+
+   XXXVII. THE VICTORY                              351
+
+  XXXVIII. OPEN VISION                              358
+
+    XXXIX. THE LAND OF BEULAH                       368
+
+       XL. THE MEETING                              376
+
+      XLI. CONSOLATION                              380
+
+     XLII. LAST WORDS                               387
+
+    XLIII. THE PEARL                                393
+
+     XLIV. FOUR YEARS AFTER                         398
+
+The frontispiece (Mara, page 376) was drawn by W.L. Taylor. The vignette
+was etched by Charles H. Woodbury.
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTORY NOTE.
+
+
+The publication of _Uncle Tom's Cabin_, though much more than an
+incident in an author's career, seems to have determined Mrs. Stowe more
+surely in her purpose to devote herself to literature. During the summer
+following its appearance, she was in Andover, making over the house
+which she and her husband were to occupy upon leaving Brunswick; and
+yet, busy as she was, she was writing articles for _The Independent_ and
+_The National Era_. The following extract from a letter written at that
+time, July 29, 1852, intimates that she already was sketching the
+outline of the story which later grew into _The Pearl of Orr's
+Island_:--
+
+"I seem to have so much to fill my time, and yet there is my Maine story
+waiting. However, I am composing it every day, only I greatly need
+living studies for the filling in of my sketches. There is old Jonas, my
+"fish father," a sturdy, independent fisherman farmer, who in his youth
+sailed all over the world and made up his mind about everything. In his
+old age he attends prayer-meetings and reads the _Missionary Herald_. He
+also has plenty of money in an old brown sea-chest. He is a great heart
+with an inflexible will and iron muscles. I must go to Orr's Island and
+see him again." The story seems to have remained in her mind, for we are
+told by her son that she worked upon it by turns with _The Minister's
+Wooing_.
+
+It was not, however, until eight years later, after _The Minister's
+Wooing_ had been published and _Agnes of Sorrento_ was well begun, that
+she took up her old story in earnest and set about making it into a
+short serial. It would seem that her first intention was to confine
+herself to a sketch of the childhood of her chief characters, with a
+view to delineating the influences at work upon them; but, as she
+herself expressed it, "Out of the simple history of the little Pearl of
+Orr's Island as it had shaped itself in her mind, rose up a Captain
+Kittridge with his garrulous yarns, and Misses Roxy and Ruey, given to
+talk, and a whole pigeon roost of yet undreamed of fancies and dreams
+which would insist on being written." So it came about that the story as
+originally planned came to a stopping place at the end of Chapter XVII.,
+as the reader may see when he reaches that place. The childish life of
+her characters ended there, and a lapse of ten years was assumed before
+their story was taken up again in the next chapter. The book when
+published had no chapter headings. These have been supplied in the
+present edition.
+
+
+
+
+THE PEARL OF ORR'S ISLAND
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+NAOMI
+
+
+On the road to the Kennebec, below the town of Bath, in the State of
+Maine, might have been seen, on a certain autumnal afternoon, a
+one-horse wagon, in which two persons were sitting. One was an old man,
+with the peculiarly hard but expressive physiognomy which characterizes
+the seafaring population of the New England shores. A clear blue eye,
+evidently practiced in habits of keen observation, white hair, bronzed,
+weather-beaten cheeks, and a face deeply lined with the furrows of
+shrewd thought and anxious care, were points of the portrait that made
+themselves felt at a glance.
+
+By his side sat a young woman of two-and-twenty, of a marked and
+peculiar personal appearance. Her hair was black, and smoothly parted on
+a broad forehead, to which a pair of penciled dark eyebrows gave a
+striking and definite outline. Beneath, lay a pair of large black eyes,
+remarkable for tremulous expression of melancholy and timidity. The
+cheek was white and bloodless as a snowberry, though with the clear and
+perfect oval of good health; the mouth was delicately formed, with a
+certain sad quiet in its lines, which indicated a habitually repressed
+and sensitive nature.
+
+The dress of this young person, as often happens in New England, was, in
+refinement and even elegance, a marked contrast to that of her male
+companion and to the humble vehicle in which she rode. There was not
+only the most fastidious neatness, but a delicacy in the choice of
+colors, an indication of elegant tastes in the whole arrangement, and
+the quietest suggestion in the world of an acquaintance with the usages
+of fashion, which struck one oddly in those wild and dreary
+surroundings. On the whole, she impressed one like those fragile
+wild-flowers which in April cast their fluttering shadows from the mossy
+crevices of the old New England granite,--an existence in which
+colorless delicacy is united to a sort of elastic hardihood of life, fit
+for the rocky soil and harsh winds it is born to encounter.
+
+The scenery of the road along which the two were riding was wild and
+bare. Only savins and mulleins, with their dark pyramids or white spires
+of velvet leaves, diversified the sandy wayside; but out at sea was a
+wide sweep of blue, reaching far to the open ocean, which lay rolling,
+tossing, and breaking into white caps of foam in the bright sunshine.
+For two or three days a northeast storm had been raging, and the sea was
+in all the commotion which such a general upturning creates.
+
+The two travelers reached a point of elevated land, where they paused a
+moment, and the man drew up the jogging, stiff-jointed old farm-horse,
+and raised himself upon his feet to look out at the prospect.
+
+There might be seen in the distance the blue Kennebec sweeping out
+toward the ocean through its picturesque rocky shores, docked with
+cedars and other dusky evergreens, which were illuminated by the orange
+and flame-colored trees of Indian summer. Here and there scarlet
+creepers swung long trailing garlands over the faces of the dark rock,
+and fringes of goldenrod above swayed with the brisk blowing wind that
+was driving the blue waters seaward, in face of the up-coming ocean
+tide,--a conflict which caused them to rise in great foam-crested
+waves. There are two channels into this river from the open sea,
+navigable for ships which are coming in to the city of Bath; one is
+broad and shallow, the other narrow and deep, and these are divided by a
+steep ledge of rocks.
+
+Where the spectators of this scene were sitting, they could see in the
+distance a ship borne with tremendous force by the rising tide into the
+mouth of the river, and encountering a northwest wind which had
+succeeded the gale, as northwest winds often do on this coast. The ship,
+from what might be observed in the distance, seemed struggling to make
+the wider channel, but was constantly driven off by the baffling force
+of the wind.
+
+"There she is, Naomi," said the old fisherman, eagerly, to his
+companion, "coming right in." The young woman was one of the sort that
+never start, and never exclaim, but with all deeper emotions grow still.
+The color slowly mounted into her cheek, her lips parted, and her eyes
+dilated with a wide, bright expression; her breathing came in thick
+gasps, but she said nothing.
+
+The old fisherman stood up in the wagon, his coarse, butternut-colored
+coat-flaps fluttering and snapping in the breeze, while his interest
+seemed to be so intense in the efforts of the ship that he made
+involuntary and eager movements as if to direct her course. A moment
+passed, and his keen, practiced eye discovered a change in her
+movements, for he cried out involuntarily,--
+
+"_Don't_ take the narrow channel to-day!" and a moment after, "O Lord! O
+Lord! have mercy,--there they go! Look! look! look!"
+
+And, in fact, the ship rose on a great wave clear out of the water, and
+the next second seemed to leap with a desperate plunge into the narrow
+passage; for a moment there was a shivering of the masts and the
+rigging, and she went down and was gone.
+
+"They're split to pieces!" cried the fisherman. "Oh, my poor girl--my
+poor girl--they're gone! O Lord, have mercy!"
+
+The woman lifted up no voice, but, as one who has been shot through the
+heart falls with no cry, she fell back,--a mist rose up over her great
+mournful eyes,--she had fainted.
+
+The story of this wreck of a home-bound ship just entering the harbor is
+yet told in many a family on this coast. A few hours after, the
+unfortunate crew were washed ashore in all the joyous holiday rig in
+which they had attired themselves that morning to go to their sisters,
+wives, and mothers.
+
+This is the first scene in our story.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+MARA
+
+
+Down near the end of Orr's Island, facing the open ocean, stands a brown
+house of the kind that the natives call "lean-to," or "linter,"--one of
+those large, comfortable structures, barren in the ideal, but rich in
+the practical, which the workingman of New England can always command.
+The waters of the ocean came up within a rod of this house, and the
+sound of its moaning waves was even now filling the clear autumn
+starlight. Evidently something was going on within, for candles
+fluttered and winked from window to window, like fireflies in a dark
+meadow, and sounds as of quick footsteps, and the flutter of brushing
+garments, might be heard.
+
+Something unusual is certainly going on within the dwelling of Zephaniah
+Pennel to-night.
+
+Let us enter the dark front-door. We feel our way to the right, where a
+solitary ray of light comes from the chink of a half-opened door. Here
+is the front room of the house, set apart as its place of especial
+social hilarity and sanctity,--the "best room," with its low studded
+walls, white dimity window-curtains, rag carpet, and polished wood
+chairs. It is now lit by the dim gleam of a solitary tallow candle,
+which seems in the gloom to make only a feeble circle of light around
+itself, leaving all the rest of the apartment in shadow.
+
+In the centre of the room, stretched upon a table, and covered partially
+by a sea-cloak, lies the body of a man of twenty-five,--lies, too,
+evidently as one of whom it is written, "He shall return to his house
+no more, neither shall his place know him any more." A splendid manhood
+has suddenly been called to forsake that lifeless form, leaving it, like
+a deserted palace, beautiful in its desolation. The hair, dripping with
+the salt wave, curled in glossy abundance on the finely-formed head; the
+flat, broad brow; the closed eye, with its long black lashes; the firm,
+manly mouth; the strongly-moulded chin,--all, all were sealed with that
+seal which is never to be broken till the great resurrection day.
+
+He was lying in a full suit of broadcloth, with a white vest and smart
+blue neck-tie, fastened with a pin, in which was some braided hair under
+a crystal. All his clothing, as well as his hair, was saturated with
+sea-water, which trickled from time to time, and struck with a leaden
+and dropping sound into a sullen pool which lay under the table.
+
+This was the body of James Lincoln, ship-master of the brig Flying Scud,
+who that morning had dressed himself gayly in his state-room to go on
+shore and meet his wife,--singing and jesting as he did so.
+
+This is all that you have to learn in the room below; but as we stand
+there, we hear a trampling of feet in the apartment above,--the quick
+yet careful opening and shutting of doors,--and voices come and go about
+the house, and whisper consultations on the stairs. Now comes the roll
+of wheels, and the Doctor's gig drives up to the door; and, as he goes
+creaking up with his heavy boots, we will follow and gain admission to
+the dimly-lighted chamber.
+
+Two gossips are sitting in earnest, whispering conversation over a small
+bundle done up in an old flannel petticoat. To them the doctor is about
+to address himself cheerily, but is repelled by sundry signs and sounds
+which warn him not to speak. Moderating his heavy boots as well as he
+is able to a pace of quiet, he advances for a moment, and the petticoat
+is unfolded for him to glance at its contents; while a low, eager,
+whispered conversation, attended with much head-shaking, warns him that
+his first duty is with somebody behind the checked curtains of a bed in
+the farther corner of the room. He steps on tiptoe, and draws the
+curtain; and there, with closed eye, and cheek as white as wintry snow,
+lies the same face over which passed the shadow of death when that
+ill-fated ship went down.
+
+This woman was wife to him who lies below, and within the hour has been
+made mother to a frail little human existence, which the storm of a
+great anguish has driven untimely on the shores of life,--a precious
+pearl cast up from the past eternity upon the wet, wave-ribbed sand of
+the present. Now, weary with her moanings, and beaten out with the
+wrench of a double anguish, she lies with closed eyes in that passive
+apathy which precedes deeper shadows and longer rest.
+
+Over against her, on the other side of the bed, sits an aged woman in an
+attitude of deep dejection, and the old man we saw with her in the
+morning is standing with an anxious, awestruck face at the foot of the
+bed.
+
+The doctor feels the pulse of the woman, or rather lays an inquiring
+finger where the slightest thread of vital current is scarcely
+throbbing, and shakes his head mournfully. The touch of his hand rouses
+her,--her large wild, melancholy eyes fix themselves on him with an
+inquiring glance, then she shivers and moans,--
+
+"Oh, Doctor, Doctor!--Jamie, Jamie!"
+
+"Come, come!" said the doctor, "cheer up, my girl, you've got a fine
+little daughter,--the Lord mingles mercies with his afflictions."
+
+Her eyes closed, her head moved with a mournful but decided dissent.
+
+A moment after she spoke in the sad old words of the Hebrew Scripture,--
+
+"Call her not Naomi; call her Mara, for the Almighty hath dealt very
+bitterly with me."
+
+And as she spoke, there passed over her face the sharp frost of the last
+winter; but even as it passed there broke out a smile, as if a flower
+had been thrown down from Paradise, and she said,--
+
+"Not my will, but thy will," and so was gone.
+
+Aunt Roxy and Aunt Ruey were soon left alone in the chamber of death.
+
+"She'll make a beautiful corpse," said Aunt Roxy, surveying the still,
+white form contemplatively, with her head in an artistic attitude.
+
+"She was a pretty girl," said Aunt Ruey; "dear me, what a Providence! I
+'member the wedd'n down in that lower room, and what a handsome couple
+they were."
+
+"They were lovely and pleasant in their lives, and in their deaths they
+were not divided," said Aunt Roxy, sententiously.
+
+"What was it she said, did ye hear?" said Aunt Ruey.
+
+"She called the baby 'Mary.'"
+
+"Ah! sure enough, her mother's name afore her. What a still,
+softly-spoken thing she always was!"
+
+"A pity the poor baby didn't go with her," said Aunt Roxy;
+"seven-months' children are so hard to raise."
+
+"'Tis a pity," said the other.
+
+But babies will live, and all the more when everybody says that it is a
+pity they should. Life goes on as inexorably in this world as death. It
+was ordered by THE WILL above that out of these two graves should spring
+one frail, trembling autumn flower,--the "Mara" whose poor little roots
+first struck deep in the salt, bitter waters of our mortal life.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+THE BAPTISM AND THE BURIAL
+
+
+Now, I cannot think of anything more unlikely and uninteresting to make
+a story of than that old brown "linter" house of Captain Zephaniah
+Pennel, down on the south end of Orr's Island.
+
+Zephaniah and Mary Pennel, like Zacharias and Elizabeth, are a pair of
+worthy, God-fearing people, walking in all the commandments and
+ordinances of the Lord blameless; but that is no great recommendation to
+a world gaping for sensation and calling for something stimulating. This
+worthy couple never read anything but the Bible, the "Missionary
+Herald," and the "Christian Mirror,"--never went anywhere except in the
+round of daily business. He owned a fishing-smack, in which he labored
+after the apostolic fashion; and she washed, and ironed, and scrubbed,
+and brewed, and baked, in her contented round, week in and out. The only
+recreation they ever enjoyed was the going once a week, in good weather,
+to a prayer-meeting in a little old brown school-house, about a mile
+from their dwelling; and making a weekly excursion every Sunday, in
+their fishing craft, to the church opposite, on Harpswell Neck.
+
+To be sure, Zephaniah had read many wide leaves of God's great book of
+Nature, for, like most Maine sea-captains, he had been wherever ship can
+go,--to all usual and unusual ports. His hard, shrewd, weather-beaten
+visage had been seen looking over the railings of his brig in the port
+of Genoa, swept round by its splendid crescent of palaces and its
+snow-crested Apennines. It had looked out in the Lagoons of Venice at
+that wavy floor which in evening seems a sea of glass mingled with fire,
+and out of which rise temples, and palaces, and churches, and distant
+silvery Alps, like so many fabrics of dreamland. He had been through the
+Skagerrack and Cattegat,--into the Baltic, and away round to Archangel,
+and there chewed a bit of chip, and considered and calculated what
+bargains it was best to make. He had walked the streets of Calcutta in
+his shirt-sleeves, with his best Sunday vest, backed with black glazed
+cambric, which six months before came from the hands of Miss Roxy, and
+was pronounced by her to be as good as any tailor could make; and in all
+these places he was just Zephaniah Pennel,--a chip of old
+Maine,--thrifty, careful, shrewd, honest, God-fearing, and carrying an
+instinctive knowledge of men and things under a face of rustic
+simplicity.
+
+It was once, returning from one of his voyages, that he found his wife
+with a black-eyed, curly-headed little creature, who called him papa,
+and climbed on his knee, nestled under his coat, rifled his pockets, and
+woke him every morning by pulling open his eyes with little fingers, and
+jabbering unintelligible dialects in his ears.
+
+"We will call this child Naomi, wife," he said, after consulting his old
+Bible; "for that means pleasant, and I'm sure I never see anything beat
+her for pleasantness. I never knew as children was so engagin'!"
+
+It was to be remarked that Zephaniah after this made shorter and shorter
+voyages, being somehow conscious of a string around his heart which
+pulled him harder and harder, till one Sunday, when the little Naomi was
+five years old, he said to his wife,--
+
+"I hope I ain't a-pervertin' Scriptur' nor nuthin', but I can't help
+thinkin' of one passage, 'The kingdom of heaven is like a merchantman
+seeking goodly pearls, and when he hath found one pearl of great price,
+for joy thereof he goeth and selleth all that he hath, and buyeth that
+pearl.' Well, Mary, I've been and sold my brig last week," he said,
+folding his daughter's little quiet head under his coat, "'cause it
+seems to me the Lord's given us this pearl of great price, and it's
+enough for us. I don't want to be rambling round the world after riches.
+We'll have a little farm down on Orr's Island, and I'll have a little
+fishing-smack, and we'll live and be happy together."
+
+And so Mary, who in those days was a pretty young married woman, felt
+herself rich and happy,--no duchess richer or happier. The two
+contentedly delved and toiled, and the little Naomi was their princess.
+The wise men of the East at the feet of an infant, offering gifts, gold,
+frankincense, and myrrh, is just a parable of what goes on in every
+house where there is a young child. All the hard and the harsh, and the
+common and the disagreeable, is for the parents,--all the bright and
+beautiful for their child.
+
+When the fishing-smack went to Portland to sell mackerel, there came
+home in Zephaniah's fishy coat pocket strings of coral beads, tiny
+gaiter boots, brilliant silks and ribbons for the little fairy
+princess,--his Pearl of the Island; and sometimes, when a stray party
+from the neighboring town of Brunswick came down to explore the romantic
+scenery of the solitary island, they would be startled by the apparition
+of this still, graceful, dark-eyed child exquisitely dressed in the best
+and brightest that the shops of a neighboring city could
+afford,--sitting like some tropical bird on a lonely rock, where the sea
+came dashing up into the edges of arbor vitae, or tripping along the wet
+sands for shells and seaweed.
+
+Many children would have been spoiled by such unlimited indulgence; but
+there are natures sent down into this harsh world so timorous, and
+sensitive, and helpless in themselves, that the utmost stretch of
+indulgence and kindness is needed for their development,--like plants
+which the warmest shelf of the green-house and the most careful watch of
+the gardener alone can bring into flower. The pale child, with her
+large, lustrous, dark eyes, and sensitive organization, was nursed and
+brooded into a beautiful womanhood, and then found a protector in a
+high-spirited, manly young ship-master, and she became his wife.
+
+And now we see in the best room--the walls lined with serious
+faces--men, women, and children, that have come to pay the last tribute
+of sympathy to the living and the dead. The house looked so utterly
+alone and solitary in that wild, sea-girt island, that one would have as
+soon expected the sea-waves to rise and walk in, as so many neighbors;
+but they had come from neighboring points, crossing the glassy sea in
+their little crafts, whose white sails looked like millers' wings, or
+walking miles from distant parts of the island.
+
+Some writer calls a funeral one of the amusements of a New England
+population. Must we call it an amusement to go and see the acted despair
+of Medea? or the dying agonies of poor Adrienne Lecouvreur? It is
+something of the same awful interest in life's tragedy, which makes an
+untaught and primitive people gather to a funeral,--a tragedy where
+there is no acting,--and one which each one feels must come at some time
+to his own dwelling.
+
+Be that as it may, here was a roomful. Not only Aunt Roxy and Aunt Ruey,
+who by a prescriptive right presided over all the births, deaths, and
+marriages of the neighborhood, but there was Captain Kittridge, a long,
+dry, weather-beaten old sea-captain, who sat as if tied in a double
+bow-knot, with his little fussy old wife, with a great Leghorn bonnet,
+and eyes like black glass beads shining through in the bows of her horn
+spectacles, and her hymn-book in her hand ready to lead the psalm. There
+were aunts, uncles, cousins, and brethren of the deceased; and in the
+midst stood two coffins, where the two united in death lay sleeping
+tenderly, as those to whom rest is good. All was still as death, except
+a chance whisper from some busy neighbor, or a creak of an old lady's
+great black fan, or the fizz of a fly down the window-pane, and then a
+stifled sound of deep-drawn breath and weeping from under a cloud of
+heavy black crape veils, that were together in the group which
+country-people call the mourners.
+
+A gleam of autumn sunlight streamed through the white curtains, and fell
+on a silver baptismal vase that stood on the mother's coffin, as the
+minister rose and said, "The ordinance of baptism will now be
+administered." A few moments more, and on a baby brow had fallen a few
+drops of water, and the little pilgrim of a new life had been called
+Mara in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost,--the minister
+slowly repeating thereafter those beautiful words of Holy Writ, "A
+father of the fatherless is God in his holy habitation,"--as if the
+baptism of that bereaved one had been a solemn adoption into the
+infinite heart of the Lord.
+
+With something of the quaint pathos which distinguishes the primitive
+and Biblical people of that lonely shore, the minister read the passage
+in Ruth from which the name of the little stranger was drawn, and which
+describes the return of the bereaved Naomi to her native land. His voice
+trembled, and there were tears in many eyes as he read, "And it came to
+pass as she came to Bethlehem, all the city was moved about them; and
+they said, Is this Naomi? And she said unto them, Call me not Naomi;
+call me Mara; for the Almighty hath dealt very bitterly with me. I went
+out full, and the Lord hath brought me home again empty: why then call
+ye me Naomi, seeing the Lord hath testified against me, and the Almighty
+hath afflicted me?"
+
+Deep, heavy sobs from the mourners were for a few moments the only
+answer to these sad words, till the minister raised the old funeral
+psalm of New England,--
+
+    "Why do we mourn departing friends,
+      Or shake at Death's alarms?
+    'Tis but the voice that Jesus sends
+      To call them to his arms.
+
+    "Are we not tending upward too,
+      As fast as time can move?
+    And should we wish the hours more slow
+      That bear us to our love?"
+
+The words rose in old "China,"--that strange, wild warble, whose
+quaintly blended harmonies might have been learned of moaning seas or
+wailing winds, so strange and grand they rose, full of that intense
+pathos which rises over every defect of execution; and as they sung,
+Zephaniah Pennel straightened his tall form, before bowed on his hands,
+and looked heavenward, his cheeks wet with tears, but something sublime
+and immortal shining upward through his blue eyes; and at the last verse
+he came forward involuntarily, and stood by his dead, and his voice rose
+over all the others as he sung,--
+
+    "Then let the last loud trumpet sound,
+      And bid the dead arise!
+    Awake, ye nations under ground!
+      Ye saints, ascend the skies!"
+
+The sunbeam through the window-curtain fell on his silver hair, and they
+that looked beheld his face as it were the face of an angel; he had
+gotten a sight of the city whose foundation is jasper, and whose every
+gate is a separate pearl.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+AUNT ROXY AND AUNT RUEY
+
+
+The sea lay like an unbroken mirror all around the pine-girt, lonely
+shores of Orr's Island. Tall, kingly spruces wore their regal crowns of
+cones high in air, sparkling with diamonds of clear exuded gum; vast old
+hemlocks of primeval growth stood darkling in their forest shadows,
+their branches hung with long hoary moss; while feathery larches, turned
+to brilliant gold by autumn frosts, lighted up the darker shadows of the
+evergreens. It was one of those hazy, calm, dissolving days of Indian
+summer, when everything is so quiet that the faintest kiss of the wave
+on the beach can be heard, and white clouds seem to faint into the blue
+of the sky, and soft swathing bands of violet vapor make all earth look
+dreamy, and give to the sharp, clear-cut outlines of the northern
+landscape all those mysteries of light and shade which impart such
+tenderness to Italian scenery.
+
+The funeral was over; the tread of many feet, bearing the heavy burden
+of two broken lives, had been to the lonely graveyard, and had come back
+again,--each footstep lighter and more unconstrained as each one went
+his way from the great old tragedy of Death to the common cheerful walks
+of Life.
+
+The solemn black clock stood swaying with its eternal "tick-tock,
+tick-tock," in the kitchen of the brown house on Orr's Island. There was
+there that sense of a stillness that can be felt,--such as settles down
+on a dwelling when any of its inmates have passed through its doors for
+the last time, to go whence they shall not return. The best room was
+shut up and darkened, with only so much light as could fall through a
+little heart-shaped hole in the window-shutter,--for except on solemn
+visits, or prayer meetings, or weddings, or funerals, that room formed
+no part of the daily family scenery.
+
+The kitchen was clean and ample, with a great open fireplace and wide
+stone hearth, and oven on one side, and rows of old-fashioned
+splint-bottomed chairs against the wall. A table scoured to snowy
+whiteness, and a little work-stand whereon lay the Bible, the
+"Missionary Herald" and the "Weekly Christian Mirror," before named,
+formed the principal furniture. One feature, however, must not be
+forgotten,--a great sea-chest, which had been the companion of Zephaniah
+through all the countries of the earth. Old, and battered, and unsightly
+it looked, yet report said that there was good store within of that
+which men for the most part respect more than anything else; and,
+indeed, it proved often when a deed of grace was to be done,--when a
+woman was suddenly made a widow in a coast gale, or a fishing-smack was
+run down in the fogs off the banks, leaving in some neighboring cottage
+a family of orphans,--in all such cases, the opening of this sea-chest
+was an event of good omen to the bereaved; for Zephaniah had a large
+heart and a large hand, and was apt to take it out full of silver
+dollars when once it went in. So the ark of the covenant could not have
+been looked on with more reverence than the neighbors usually showed to
+Captain Pennel's sea-chest.
+
+The afternoon sun is shining in a square of light through the open
+kitchen-door, whence one dreamily disposed might look far out to sea,
+and behold ships coming and going in every variety of shape and size.
+
+But Aunt Roxy and Aunt Ruey, who for the present were sole occupants of
+the premises, were not people of the dreamy kind, and consequently were
+not gazing off to sea, but attending to very terrestrial matters that in
+all cases somebody must attend to. The afternoon was warm and balmy, but
+a few smouldering sticks were kept in the great chimney, and thrust deep
+into the embers was a mongrel species of snub-nosed tea-pot, which fumed
+strongly of catnip-tea, a little of which gracious beverage Miss Roxy
+was preparing in an old-fashioned cracked India china tea-cup, tasting
+it as she did so with the air of a connoisseur.
+
+Apparently this was for the benefit of a small something in long white
+clothes, that lay face downward under a little blanket of very blue new
+flannel, and which something Aunt Roxy, when not otherwise engaged,
+constantly patted with a gentle tattoo, in tune to the steady trot of
+her knee. All babies knew Miss Roxy's tattoo on their backs, and never
+thought of taking it in ill part. On the contrary, it had a vital and
+mesmeric effect of sovereign force against colic, and all other
+disturbers of the nursery; and never was infant known so pressed with
+those internal troubles which infants cry about, as not speedily to give
+over and sink to slumber at this soothing appliance.
+
+At a little distance sat Aunt Ruey, with a quantity of black crape
+strewed on two chairs about her, very busily employed in getting up a
+mourning-bonnet, at which she snipped, and clipped, and worked,
+zealously singing, in a high cracked voice, from time to time, certain
+verses of a funeral psalm.
+
+Miss Roxy and Miss Ruey Toothacre were two brisk old bodies of the
+feminine gender and singular number, well known in all the region of
+Harpswell Neck and Middle Bay, and such was their fame that it had even
+reached the town of Brunswick, eighteen miles away.
+
+They were of that class of females who might be denominated, in the Old
+Testament language, "cunning women,"--that is, gifted with an infinite
+diversity of practical "faculty," which made them an essential
+requisite in every family for miles and miles around. It was impossible
+to say what they could not do: they could make dresses, and make shirts
+and vests and pantaloons, and cut out boys' jackets, and braid straw,
+and bleach and trim bonnets, and cook and wash, and iron and mend, could
+upholster and quilt, could nurse all kinds of sicknesses, and in default
+of a doctor, who was often miles away, were supposed to be infallible
+medical oracles. Many a human being had been ushered into life under
+their auspices,--trotted, chirruped in babyhood on their knees, clothed
+by their handiwork in garments gradually enlarging from year to year,
+watched by them in the last sickness, and finally arrayed for the long
+repose by their hands.
+
+These universally useful persons receive among us the title of "aunt" by
+a sort of general consent, showing the strong ties of relationship which
+bind them to the whole human family. They are nobody's aunts in
+particular, but aunts to human nature generally. The idea of restricting
+their usefulness to any one family, would strike dismay through a whole
+community. Nobody would be so unprincipled as to think of such a thing
+as having their services more than a week or two at most. Your country
+factotum knows better than anybody else how absurd it would be
+
+    "To give to a part what was meant for mankind."
+
+Nobody knew very well the ages of these useful sisters. In that cold,
+clear, severe climate of the North, the roots of human existence are
+hard to strike; but, if once people do take to living, they come in time
+to a place where they seem never to grow any older, but can always be
+found, like last year's mullein stalks, upright, dry, and seedy,
+warranted to last for any length of time.
+
+Miss Roxy Toothacre, who sits trotting the baby, is a tall, thin,
+angular woman, with sharp black eyes, and hair once black, but now well
+streaked with gray. These ravages of time, however, were concealed by an
+ample mohair frisette of glossy blackness woven on each side into a heap
+of stiff little curls, which pushed up her cap border in rather a
+bristling and decisive way. In all her movements and personal habits,
+even to her tone of voice and manner of speaking, Miss Roxy was
+vigorous, spicy, and decided. Her mind on all subjects was made up, and
+she spoke generally as one having authority; and who should, if she
+should not? Was she not a sort of priestess and sibyl in all the most
+awful straits and mysteries of life? How many births, and weddings, and
+deaths had come and gone under her jurisdiction! And amid weeping or
+rejoicing, was not Miss Roxy still the master-spirit,--consulted,
+referred to by all?--was not her word law and precedent? Her younger
+sister, Miss Ruey, a pliant, cozy, easy-to-be-entreated personage, plump
+and cushiony, revolved around her as a humble satellite. Miss Roxy
+looked on Miss Ruey as quite a frisky young thing, though under her
+ample frisette of carroty hair her head might be seen white with the
+same snow that had powdered that of her sister. Aunt Ruey had a face
+much resembling the kind of one you may see, reader, by looking at
+yourself in the convex side of a silver milk-pitcher. If you try the
+experiment, this description will need no further amplification.
+
+The two almost always went together, for the variety of talent comprised
+in their stock could always find employment in the varying wants of a
+family. While one nursed the sick, the other made clothes for the well;
+and thus they were always chippering and chatting to each other, like a
+pair of antiquated house-sparrows, retailing over harmless gossips, and
+moralizing in that gentle jogtrot which befits serious old women. In
+fact, they had talked over everything in Nature, and said everything
+they could think of to each other so often, that the opinions of one
+were as like those of the other as two sides of a pea-pod. But as often
+happens in cases of the sort, this was not because the two were in all
+respects exactly alike, but because the stronger one had mesmerized the
+weaker into consent.
+
+Miss Roxy was the master-spirit of the two, and, like the great coining
+machine of a mint, came down with her own sharp, heavy stamp on every
+opinion her sister put out. She was matter-of-fact, positive, and
+declarative to the highest degree, while her sister was naturally
+inclined to the elegiac and the pathetic, indulging herself in
+sentimental poetry, and keeping a store thereof in her thread-case,
+which she had cut from the "Christian Mirror." Miss Roxy sometimes, in
+her brusque way, popped out observations on life and things, with a
+droll, hard quaintness that took one's breath a little, yet never failed
+to have a sharp crystallization of truth,--frosty though it were. She
+was one of those sensible, practical creatures who tear every veil, and
+lay their fingers on every spot in pure business-like good-will; and if
+we shiver at them at times, as at the first plunge of a cold bath, we
+confess to an invigorating power in them after all.
+
+"Well, now," said Miss Roxy, giving a decisive push to the tea-pot,
+which buried it yet deeper in the embers, "ain't it all a strange kind
+o' providence that this 'ere little thing is left behind so; and then
+their callin' on her by such a strange, mournful kind of name,--Mara. I
+thought sure as could be 'twas Mary, till the minister read the passage
+from Scriptur'. Seems to me it's kind o' odd. I'd call it Maria, or I'd
+put an Ann on to it. Mara-ann, now, wouldn't sound so strange."
+
+"It's a Scriptur' name, sister," said Aunt Ruey, "and that ought to be
+enough for us."
+
+"Well, I don't know," said Aunt Roxy. "Now there was Miss Jones down on
+Mure P'int called her twins Tiglath-Pileser and Shalmaneser,--Scriptur'
+names both, but I never liked 'em. The boys used to call 'em, Tiggy and
+Shally, so no mortal could guess they was Scriptur'."
+
+"Well," said Aunt Ruey, drawing a sigh which caused her plump
+proportions to be agitated in gentle waves, "'tain't much matter, after
+all, _what_ they call the little thing, for 'tain't 'tall likely it's
+goin' to live,--cried and worried all night, and kep' a-suckin' my cheek
+and my night-gown, poor little thing! This 'ere's a baby that won't get
+along without its mother. What Mis' Pennel's a-goin' to do with it when
+we is gone, I'm sure I don't know. It comes kind o' hard on old people
+to be broke o' their rest. If it's goin' to be called home, it's a pity,
+as I said, it didn't go with its mother"--
+
+"And save the expense of another funeral," said Aunt Roxy. "Now when
+Mis' Pennel's sister asked her what she was going to do with Naomi's
+clothes, I couldn't help wonderin' when she said she should keep 'em for
+the child."
+
+"She had a sight of things, Naomi did," said Aunt Ruey. "Nothin' was
+never too much for her. I don't believe that Cap'n Pennel ever went to
+Bath or Portland without havin' it in his mind to bring Naomi
+somethin'."
+
+"Yes, and she had a faculty of puttin' of 'em on," said Miss Roxy, with
+a decisive shake of the head. "Naomi was a still girl, but her faculty
+was uncommon; and I tell you, Ruey, 'tain't everybody hes faculty as hes
+things."
+
+"The poor Cap'n," said Miss Ruey, "he seemed greatly supported at the
+funeral, but he's dreadful broke down since. I went into Naomi's room
+this morning, and there the old man was a-sittin' by her bed, and he had
+a pair of her shoes in his hand,--you know what a leetle bit of a foot
+she had. I never saw nothin' look so kind o' solitary as that poor old
+man did!"
+
+"Well," said Miss Roxy, "she was a master-hand for keepin' things,
+Naomi was; her drawers is just a sight; she's got all the little
+presents and things they ever give her since she was a baby, in one
+drawer. There's a little pair of red shoes there that she had when she
+wa'n't more'n five year old. You 'member, Ruey, the Cap'n brought 'em
+over from Portland when we was to the house a-makin' Mis' Pennel's
+figured black silk that he brought from Calcutty. You 'member they cost
+just five and sixpence; but, law! the Cap'n he never grudged the money
+when 'twas for Naomi. And so she's got all her husband's keepsakes and
+things just as nice as when he give 'em to her."
+
+"It's real affectin'," said Miss Ruey, "I can't all the while help
+a-thinkin' of the Psalm,--
+
+    "'So fades the lovely blooming flower,--
+    Frail, smiling solace of an hour;
+    So quick our transient comforts fly,
+    And pleasure only blooms to die.'"
+
+"Yes," said Miss Roxy; "and, Ruey, I was a-thinkin' whether or no it
+wa'n't best to pack away them things, 'cause Naomi hadn't fixed no baby
+drawers, and we seem to want some."
+
+"I was kind o' hintin' that to Mis' Pennel this morning," said Ruey,
+"but she can't seem to want to have 'em touched."
+
+"Well, we may just as well come to such things first as last," said Aunt
+Roxy; "'cause if the Lord takes our friends, he does take 'em; and we
+can't lose 'em and have 'em too, and we may as well give right up at
+first, and done with it, that they are gone, and we've got to do without
+'em, and not to be hangin' on to keep things just as they was."
+
+"So I was a-tellin' Mis' Pennel," said Miss Ruey, "but she'll come to it
+by and by. I wish the baby might live, and kind o' grow up into her
+mother's place."
+
+"Well," said Miss Roxy, "I wish it might, but there'd be a sight o'
+trouble fetchin' on it up. Folks can do pretty well with children when
+they're young and spry, if they do get 'em up nights; but come to
+grandchildren, it's pretty tough."
+
+"I'm a-thinkin', sister," said Miss Ruey, taking off her spectacles and
+rubbing her nose thoughtfully, "whether or no cow's milk ain't goin' to
+be too hearty for it, it's such a pindlin' little thing. Now, Mis'
+Badger she brought up a seven-months' child, and she told me she gave it
+nothin' but these 'ere little seed cookies, wet in water, and it throve
+nicely,--and the seed is good for wind."
+
+"Oh, don't tell me none of Mis' Badger's stories," said Miss Roxy, "I
+don't believe in 'em. Cows is the Lord's ordinances for bringing up
+babies that's lost their mothers; it stands to reason they should
+be,--and babies that can't eat milk, why they can't be fetched up; but
+babies can eat milk, and this un will if it lives, and if it can't it
+won't live." So saying, Miss Roxy drummed away on the little back of the
+party in question, authoritatively, as if to pound in a wholesome
+conviction at the outset.
+
+"I hope," said Miss Ruey, holding up a strip of black crape, and looking
+through it from end to end so as to test its capabilities, "I hope the
+Cap'n and Mis' Pennel'll get some support at the prayer-meetin' this
+afternoon."
+
+"It's the right place to go to," said Miss Roxy, with decision.
+
+"Mis' Pennel said this mornin' that she was just beat out tryin' to
+submit; and the more she said, 'Thy will be done,' the more she didn't
+seem to feel it."
+
+"Them's common feelin's among mourners, Ruey. These 'ere forty years
+that I've been round nussin', and layin'-out, and tendin' funerals, I've
+watched people's exercises. People's sometimes supported wonderfully
+just at the time, and maybe at the funeral; but the three or four weeks
+after, most everybody, if they's to say what they feel, is
+unreconciled."
+
+"The Cap'n, he don't say nothin'," said Miss Ruey.
+
+"No, he don't, but he looks it in his eyes," said Miss Roxy; "he's one
+of the kind o' mourners as takes it deep; that kind don't cry; it's a
+kind o' dry, deep pain; them's the worst to get over it,--sometimes they
+just says nothin', and in about six months they send for you to nuss 'em
+in consumption or somethin'. Now, Mis' Pennel, she can cry and she can
+talk,--well, she'll get over it; but _he_ won't get no support unless
+the Lord reaches right down and lifts him up over the world. I've seen
+that happen sometimes, and I tell you, Ruey, that sort makes powerful
+Christians."
+
+At that moment the old pair entered the door. Zephaniah Pennel came and
+stood quietly by the pillow where the little form was laid, and lifted a
+corner of the blanket. The tiny head was turned to one side, showing the
+soft, warm cheek, and the little hand was holding tightly a morsel of
+the flannel blanket. He stood swallowing hard for a few moments. At last
+he said, with deep humility, to the wise and mighty woman who held her,
+"I'll tell you what it is, Miss Roxy, I'll give all there is in my old
+chest yonder if you'll only make her--live."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+THE KITTRIDGES
+
+
+It did live. The little life, so frail, so unprofitable in every mere
+material view, so precious in the eyes of love, expanded and flowered at
+last into fair childhood. Not without much watching and weariness. Many
+a night the old fisherman walked the floor with the little thing in his
+arms, talking to it that jargon of tender nonsense which fairies bring
+as love-gifts to all who tend a cradle. Many a day the good little old
+grandmother called the aid of gossips about her, trying various
+experiments of catnip, and sweet fern, and bayberry, and other teas of
+rustic reputation for baby frailties.
+
+At the end of three years, the two graves in the lonely graveyard were
+sodded and cemented down by smooth velvet turf, and playing round the
+door of the brown houses was a slender child, with ways and manners so
+still and singular as often to remind the neighbors that she was not
+like other children,--a bud of hope and joy,--but the outcome of a great
+sorrow,--a pearl washed ashore by a mighty, uprooting tempest. They that
+looked at her remembered that her father's eye had never beheld her, and
+her baptismal cup had rested on her mother's coffin.
+
+She was small of stature, beyond the wont of children of her age, and
+moulded with a fine waxen delicacy that won admiration from all eyes.
+Her hair was curly and golden, but her eyes were dark like her mother's,
+and the lids drooped over them in that manner which gives a peculiar
+expression of dreamy wistfulness. Every one of us must remember eyes
+that have a strange, peculiar expression of pathos and desire, as if the
+spirit that looked out of them were pressed with vague remembrances of a
+past, or but dimly comprehended the mystery of its present life. Even
+when the baby lay in its cradle, and its dark, inquiring eyes would
+follow now one object and now another, the gossips would say the child
+was longing for something, and Miss Roxy would still further venture to
+predict that that child always would long and never would know exactly
+what she was after.
+
+That dignitary sits at this minute enthroned in the kitchen corner,
+looking majestically over the press-board on her knee, where she is
+pressing the next year's Sunday vest of Zephaniah Pennel. As she makes
+her heavy tailor's goose squeak on the work, her eyes follow the little
+delicate fairy form which trips about the kitchen, busily and silently
+arranging a little grotto of gold and silver shells and seaweed. The
+child sings to herself as she works in a low chant, like the prattle of
+a brook, but ever and anon she rests her little arms on a chair and
+looks through the open kitchen-door far, far off where the horizon line
+of the blue sea dissolves in the blue sky.
+
+"See that child now, Roxy," said Miss Ruey, who sat stitching beside
+her; "do look at her eyes. She's as handsome as a pictur', but 't ain't
+an ordinary look she has neither; she seems a contented little thing;
+but what makes her eyes always look so kind o' wishful?"
+
+"Wa'n't her mother always a-longin' and a-lookin' to sea, and watchin'
+the ships, afore she was born?" said Miss Roxy; "and didn't her heart
+break afore she was born? Babies like that is marked always. They don't
+know what ails 'em, nor nobody."
+
+"It's her mother she's after," said Miss Ruey.
+
+"The Lord only knows," said Miss Roxy; "but them kind o' children always
+seem homesick to go back where they come from. They're mostly grave and
+old-fashioned like this 'un. If they gets past seven years, why they
+live; but it's always in 'em to long; they don't seem to be really
+unhappy neither, but if anything's ever the matter with 'em, it seems a
+great deal easier for 'em to die than to live. Some say it's the mothers
+longin' after 'em makes 'em feel so, and some say it's them longin'
+after their mothers; but dear knows, Ruey, what anything is or what
+makes anything. Children's mysterious, that's my mind."
+
+"Mara, dear," said Miss Ruey, interrupting the child's steady lookout,
+"what you thinking of?"
+
+"Me want somefin'," said the little one.
+
+"That's what she's always sayin'," said Miss Roxy.
+
+"Me want somebody to pay wis'," continued the little one.
+
+"Want somebody to play with," said old Dame Pennel, as she came in from
+the back-room with her hands yet floury with kneading bread; "sure
+enough, she does. Our house stands in such a lonesome place, and there
+ain't any children. But I never saw such a quiet little thing--always
+still and always busy."
+
+"I'll take her down with me to Cap'n Kittridge's," said Miss Roxy, "and
+let her play with their little girl; she'll chirk her up, I'll warrant.
+She's a regular little witch, Sally is, but she'll chirk her up. It
+ain't good for children to be so still and old-fashioned; children ought
+to be children. Sally takes to Mara just 'cause she's so different."
+
+"Well, now, you may," said Dame Pennel; "to be sure _he_ can't bear her
+out of his sight a minute after he comes in; but after all, old folks
+can't be company for children."
+
+Accordingly, that afternoon, the little Mara was arrayed in a little
+blue flounced dress, which stood out like a balloon, made by Miss Roxy
+in first-rate style, from a French fashion-plate; her golden hair was
+twined in manifold curls by Dame Pennel, who, restricted in her ideas
+of ornamentation, spared, nevertheless, neither time nor money to
+enhance the charms of this single ornament to her dwelling. Mara was her
+picture-gallery, who gave her in the twenty-four hours as many Murillos
+or Greuzes as a lover of art could desire; and as she tied over the
+child's golden curls a little flat hat, and saw her go dancing off along
+the sea-sands, holding to Miss Roxy's bony finger, she felt she had in
+her what galleries of pictures could not buy.
+
+It was a good mile to the one story, gambrel-roofed cottage where lived
+Captain Kittridge,--the long, lean, brown man, with his good wife of the
+great Leghorn bonnet, round, black bead eyes, and psalm-book, whom we
+told you of at the funeral. The Captain, too, had followed the sea in
+his early life, but being not, as he expressed it, "very rugged," in
+time changed his ship for a tight little cottage on the seashore, and
+devoted himself to boat-building, which he found sufficiently lucrative
+to furnish his brown cottage with all that his wife's heart desired,
+besides extra money for knick-knacks when she chose to go up to
+Brunswick or over to Portland to shop.
+
+The Captain himself was a welcome guest at all the firesides round,
+being a chatty body, and disposed to make the most of his foreign
+experiences, in which he took the usual advantages of a traveler. In
+fact, it was said, whether slanderously or not, that the Captain's yarns
+were spun to order; and as, when pressed to relate his foreign
+adventures, he always responded with, "What would you like to hear?" it
+was thought that he fabricated his article to suit his market. In short,
+there was no species of experience, finny, fishy, or aquatic,--no legend
+of strange and unaccountable incident of fire or flood,--no romance of
+foreign scenery and productions, to which his tongue was not competent,
+when he had once seated himself in a double bow-knot at a neighbor's
+evening fireside.
+
+His good wife, a sharp-eyed, literal body, and a vigorous church-member,
+felt some concern of conscience on the score of these narrations; for,
+being their constant auditor, she, better than any one else, could
+perceive the variations and discrepancies of text which showed their
+mythical character, and oftentimes her black eyes would snap and her
+knitting-needles rattle with an admonitory vigor as he went on, and
+sometimes she would unmercifully come in at the end of a narrative
+with,--
+
+"Well, now, the Cap'n's told them ar stories till he begins to b'lieve
+'em himself, I think."
+
+But works of fiction, as we all know, if only well gotten up, have
+always their advantages in the hearts of listeners over plain, homely
+truth; and so Captain Kittridge's yarns were marketable fireside
+commodities still, despite the skepticisms which attended them.
+
+The afternoon sunbeams at this moment are painting the gambrel-roof with
+a golden brown. It is September again, as it was three years ago when
+our story commenced, and the sea and sky are purple and amethystine with
+its Italian haziness of atmosphere.
+
+The brown house stands on a little knoll, about a hundred yards from the
+open ocean. Behind it rises a ledge of rocks, where cedars and hemlocks
+make deep shadows into which the sun shoots golden shafts of light,
+illuminating the scarlet feathers of the sumach, which throw themselves
+jauntily forth from the crevices; while down below, in deep, damp, mossy
+recesses, rise ferns which autumn has just begun to tinge with yellow
+and brown. The little knoll where the cottage stood had on its right
+hand a tiny bay, where the ocean water made up amid picturesque
+rocks--shaggy and solemn. Here trees of the primeval forest, grand and
+lordly, looked down silently into the waters which ebbed and flowed
+daily into this little pool. Every variety of those beautiful evergreens
+which feather the coast of Maine, and dip their wings in the very spray
+of its ocean foam, found here a representative. There were aspiring
+black spruces, crowned on the very top with heavy coronets of cones;
+there were balsamic firs, whose young buds breathe the scent of
+strawberries; there were cedars, black as midnight clouds, and white
+pines with their swaying plumage of needle-like leaves, strewing the
+ground beneath with a golden, fragrant matting; and there were the
+gigantic, wide-winged hemlocks, hundreds of years old, and with long,
+swaying, gray beards of moss, looking white and ghostly under the deep
+shadows of their boughs. And beneath, creeping round trunk and matting
+over stones, were many and many of those wild, beautiful things which
+embellish the shadows of these northern forests. Long, feathery wreaths
+of what are called ground-pines ran here and there in little ruffles of
+green, and the prince's pine raised its oriental feather, with a mimic
+cone on the top, as if it conceived itself to be a grown-up tree. Whole
+patches of partridge-berry wove their evergreen matting, dotted
+plentifully with brilliant scarlet berries. Here and there, the rocks
+were covered with a curiously inwoven tapestry of moss, overshot with
+the exquisite vine of the Linnea borealis, which in early spring rings
+its two fairy bells on the end of every spray; while elsewhere the
+wrinkled leaves of the mayflower wove themselves through and through
+deep beds of moss, meditating silently thoughts of the thousand little
+cups of pink shell which they had it in hand to make when the time of
+miracles should come round next spring.
+
+Nothing, in short, could be more quaintly fresh, wild, and beautiful
+than the surroundings of this little cove which Captain Kittridge had
+thought fit to dedicate to his boat-building operations,--where he had
+set up his tar-kettle between two great rocks above the highest
+tide-mark, and where, at the present moment, he had a boat upon the
+stocks.
+
+Mrs. Kittridge, at this hour, was sitting in her clean kitchen, very
+busily engaged in ripping up a silk dress, which Miss Roxy had engaged
+to come and make into a new one; and, as she ripped, she cast now and
+then an eye at the face of a tall, black clock, whose solemn tick-tock
+was the only sound that could be heard in the kitchen.
+
+By her side, on a low stool, sat a vigorous, healthy girl of six years,
+whose employment evidently did not please her, for her well-marked black
+eyebrows were bent in a frown, and her large black eyes looked surly and
+wrathful, and one versed in children's grievances could easily see what
+the matter was,--she was turning a sheet! Perhaps, happy young female
+reader, you don't know what that is,--most likely not; for in these
+degenerate days the strait and narrow ways of self-denial, formerly
+thought so wholesome for little feet, are quite grass-grown with
+neglect. Childhood nowadays is unceasingly feted and caressed, the
+principal difficulty of the grown people seeming to be to discover what
+the little dears want,--a thing not always clear to the little dears
+themselves. But in old times, turning sheets was thought a most especial
+and wholesome discipline for young girls; in the first place, because it
+took off the hands of their betters a very uninteresting and monotonous
+labor; and in the second place, because it was such a long, straight,
+unending turnpike, that the youthful travelers, once started thereupon,
+could go on indefinitely, without requiring guidance and direction of
+their elders. For these reasons, also, the task was held in special
+detestation by children in direct proportion to their amount of life,
+and their ingenuity and love of variety. A dull child took it tolerably
+well; but to a lively, energetic one, it was a perfect torture.
+
+"I don't see the use of sewing up sheets one side, and ripping up the
+other," at last said Sally, breaking the monotonous tick-tock of the
+clock by an observation which has probably occurred to every child in
+similar circumstances.
+
+"Sally Kittridge, if you say another word about that ar sheet, I'll whip
+you," was the very explicit rejoinder; and there was a snap of Mrs.
+Kittridge's black eyes, that seemed to make it likely that she would
+keep her word. It was answered by another snap from the six-year-old
+eyes, as Sally comforted herself with thinking that when she was a woman
+she'd speak her mind out in pay for all this.
+
+At this moment a burst of silvery child-laughter rang out, and there
+appeared in the doorway, illuminated by the afternoon sunbeams, the
+vision of Miss Roxy's tall, lank figure, with the little golden-haired,
+blue-robed fairy, hanging like a gay butterfly upon the tip of a
+thorn-bush. Sally dropped the sheet and clapped her hands, unnoticed by
+her mother, who rose to pay her respects to the "cunning woman" of the
+neighborhood.
+
+"Well, now, Miss Roxy, I was 'mazin' afraid you wer'n't a-comin'. I'd
+just been an' got my silk ripped up, and didn't know how to get a step
+farther without you."
+
+"Well, I was finishin' up Cap'n Pennel's best pantaloons," said Miss
+Roxy; "and I've got 'em along so, Ruey can go on with 'em; and I told
+Mis' Pennel I must come to you, if 'twas only for a day; and I fetched
+the little girl down, 'cause the little thing's so kind o' lonesome
+like. I thought Sally could play with her, and chirk her up a little."
+
+"Well, Sally," said Mrs. Kittridge, "stick in your needle, fold up your
+sheet, put your thimble in your work-pocket, and then you may take the
+little Mara down to the cove to play; but be sure you don't let her go
+near the tar, nor wet her shoes. D'ye hear?"
+
+"Yes, ma'am," said Sally, who had sprung up in light and radiance, like
+a translated creature, at this unexpected turn of fortune, and
+performed the welcome orders with a celerity which showed how agreeable
+they were; and then, stooping and catching the little one in her arms,
+disappeared through the door, with the golden curls fluttering over her
+own crow-black hair.
+
+The fact was, that Sally, at that moment, was as happy as human creature
+could be, with a keenness of happiness that children who have never been
+made to turn sheets of a bright afternoon can never realize. The sun was
+yet an hour high, as she saw, by the flash of her shrewd, time-keeping
+eye, and she could bear her little prize down to the cove, and collect
+unknown quantities of gold and silver shells, and starfish, and
+salad-dish shells, and white pebbles for her, besides quantities of well
+turned shavings, brown and white, from the pile which constantly was
+falling under her father's joiner's bench, and with which she would make
+long extemporaneous tresses, so that they might play at being mermaids,
+like those that she had heard her father tell about in some of his
+sea-stories.
+
+"Now, railly, Sally, what you got there?" said Captain Kittridge, as he
+stood in his shirt-sleeves peering over his joiner's bench, to watch the
+little one whom Sally had dumped down into a nest of clean white
+shavings. "Wal', wal', I should think you'd a-stolen the big doll I see
+in a shop-window the last time I was to Portland. So this is Pennel's
+little girl?--poor child!"
+
+"Yes, father, and we want some nice shavings."
+
+"Stay a bit, I'll make ye a few a-purpose," said the old man, reaching
+his long, bony arm, with the greatest ease, to the farther part of his
+bench, and bringing up a board, from which he proceeded to roll off
+shavings in fine satin rings, which perfectly delighted the hearts of
+the children, and made them dance with glee; and, truth to say, reader,
+there are coarser and homelier things in the world than a well turned
+shaving.
+
+"There, go now," he said, when both of them stood with both hands full;
+"go now and play; and mind you don't let the baby wet her feet, Sally;
+them shoes o' hern must have cost five-and-sixpence at the very least."
+
+That sunny hour before sundown seemed as long to Sally as the whole seam
+of the sheet; for childhood's joys are all pure gold; and as she ran up
+and down the white sands, shouting at every shell she found, or darted
+up into the overhanging forest for checkerberries and ground-pine, all
+the sorrows of the morning came no more into her remembrance.
+
+The little Mara had one of those sensitive, excitable natures, on which
+every external influence acts with immediate power. Stimulated by the
+society of her energetic, buoyant little neighbor, she no longer seemed
+wishful or pensive, but kindled into a perfect flame of wild delight,
+and gamboled about the shore like a blue and gold-winged fly; while her
+bursts of laughter made the squirrels and blue jays look out
+inquisitively from their fastnesses in the old evergreens. Gradually the
+sunbeams faded from the pines, and the waves of the tide in the little
+cove came in, solemnly tinted with purple, flaked with orange and
+crimson, borne in from a great rippling sea of fire, into which the sun
+had just sunk.
+
+"Mercy on us--them children!" said Miss Roxy.
+
+"_He's_ bringin' 'em along," said Mrs. Kittridge, as she looked out of
+the window and saw the tall, lank form of the Captain, with one child
+seated on either shoulder, and holding on by his head.
+
+The two children were both in the highest state of excitement, but never
+was there a more marked contrast of nature. The one seemed a perfect
+type of well-developed childish health and vigor, good solid flesh and
+bones, with glowing skin, brilliant eyes, shining teeth, well-knit,
+supple limbs,--vigorously and healthily beautiful; while the other
+appeared one of those aerial mixtures of cloud and fire, whose radiance
+seems scarcely earthly. A physiologist, looking at the child, would
+shake his head, seeing one of those perilous organizations, all nerve
+and brain, which come to life under the clear, stimulating skies of
+America, and, burning with the intensity of lighted phosphorus, waste
+themselves too early.
+
+The little Mara seemed like a fairy sprite, possessed with a wild spirit
+of glee. She laughed and clapped her hands incessantly, and when set
+down on the kitchen-floor spun round like a little elf; and that night
+it was late and long before her wide, wakeful eyes could be veiled in
+sleep.
+
+"Company jist sets this 'ere child crazy," said Miss Roxy; "it's jist
+her lonely way of livin'; a pity Mis' Pennel hadn't another child to
+keep company along with her."
+
+"Mis' Pennel oughter be trainin' of her up to work," said Mrs.
+Kittridge. "Sally could oversew and hem when she wa'n't more'n three
+years old; nothin' straightens out children like work. Mis' Pennel she
+just keeps that ar child to look at."
+
+"All children ain't alike, Mis' Kittridge," said Miss Roxy,
+sententiously. "This 'un ain't like your Sally. 'A hen and a bumble-bee
+can't be fetched up alike, fix it how you will!'"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+GRANDPARENTS
+
+
+Zephaniah Pennel came back to his house in the evening, after Miss Roxy
+had taken the little Mara away. He looked for the flowery face and
+golden hair as he came towards the door, and put his hand in his
+vest-pocket, where he had deposited a small store of very choice shells
+and sea curiosities, thinking of the widening of those dark, soft eyes
+when he should present them.
+
+"Where's Mara?" was the first inquiry after he had crossed the
+threshold.
+
+"Why, Roxy's been an' taken her down to Cap'n Kittridge's to spend the
+night," said Miss Ruey. "Roxy's gone to help Mis' Kittridge to turn her
+spotted gray and black silk. We was talking this mornin' whether 'no 't
+would turn, 'cause _I_ thought the spot was overshot, and wouldn't make
+up on the wrong side; but Roxy she says it's one of them ar Calcutty
+silks that has two sides to 'em, like the one you bought Miss Pennel,
+that we made up for her, you know;" and Miss Ruey arose and gave a
+finishing snap to the Sunday pantaloons, which she had been left to
+"finish off,"--which snap said, as plainly as words could say that there
+was a good job disposed of.
+
+Zephaniah stood looking as helpless as animals of the male kind
+generally do when appealed to with such prolixity on feminine details;
+in reply to it all, only he asked meekly,--
+
+"Where's Mary?"
+
+"Mis' Pennel? Why, she's up chamber. She'll be down in a minute, she
+said; she thought she'd have time afore supper to get to the bottom of
+the big chist, and see if that 'ere vest pattern ain't there, and them
+sticks o' twist for the button-holes, 'cause Roxy she says she never see
+nothin' so rotten as that 'ere twist we've been a-workin' with, that
+Mis' Pennel got over to Portland; it's a clear cheat, and Mis' Pennel
+she give more'n half a cent a stick more for 't than what Roxy got for
+her up to Brunswick; so you see these 'ere Portland stores charge up,
+and their things want lookin' after."
+
+Here Mrs. Pennel entered the room, "the Captain" addressing her
+eagerly,--
+
+"How came you to let Aunt Roxy take Mara off so far, and be gone so
+long?"
+
+"Why, law me, Captain Pennel! the little thing seems kind o' lonesome.
+Chil'en want chil'en; Miss Roxy says she's altogether too sort o' still
+and old-fashioned, and must have child's company to chirk her up, and so
+she took her down to play with Sally Kittridge; there's no manner of
+danger or harm in it, and she'll be back to-morrow afternoon, and Mara
+will have a real good time."
+
+"Wal', now, really," said the good man, "but it's 'mazin' lonesome."
+
+"Cap'n Pennel, you're gettin' to make an idol of that 'ere child," said
+Miss Ruey. "We have to watch our hearts. It minds me of the hymn,--
+
+    "'The fondness of a creature's love,
+      How strong it strikes the sense,--
+    Thither the warm affections move,
+      Nor can we call them hence.'"
+
+Miss Ruey's mode of getting off poetry, in a sort of high-pitched
+canter, with a strong thump on every accented syllable, might have
+provoked a smile in more sophisticated society, but Zephaniah listened
+to her with deep gravity, and answered,--
+
+"I'm 'fraid there's truth in what you say, Aunt Ruey. When her mother
+was called away, I thought that was a warning I never should forget; but
+now I seem to be like Jonah,--I'm restin' in the shadow of my gourd, and
+my heart is glad because of it. I kind o' trembled at the prayer meetin'
+when we was a-singin',--
+
+    "'The dearest idol I have known,
+      Whate'er that idol be,
+    Help me to tear it from Thy throne,
+      And worship only Thee.'"
+
+"Yes," said Miss Ruey, "Roxy says if the Lord should take us up short on
+our prayers, it would make sad work with us sometimes."
+
+"Somehow," said Mrs. Pennel, "it seems to me just her mother over again.
+She don't look like her. I think her hair and complexion comes from the
+Badger blood; my mother had that sort o' hair and skin,--but then she
+has ways like Naomi,--and it seems as if the Lord had kind o' given
+Naomi back to us; so I hope she's goin' to be spared to us."
+
+Mrs. Pennel had one of those natures--gentle, trustful, and hopeful,
+because not very deep; she was one of the little children of the world
+whose faith rests on child-like ignorance, and who know not the deeper
+needs of deeper natures; such see only the sunshine and forget the
+storm.
+
+This conversation had been going on to the accompaniment of a clatter of
+plates and spoons and dishes, and the fizzling of sausages, prefacing
+the evening meal, to which all now sat down after a lengthened grace
+from Zephaniah.
+
+"There's a tremendous gale a-brewin'," he said, as they sat at table. "I
+noticed the clouds to-night as I was comin' home, and somehow I felt
+kind o' as if I wanted all our folks snug in-doors."
+
+"Why, law, husband, Cap'n Kittridge's house is as good as ours, if it
+does blow. You never can seem to remember that houses don't run aground
+or strike on rocks in storms."
+
+"The Cap'n puts me in mind of old Cap'n Jeduth Scranton," said Miss
+Ruey, "that built that queer house down by Middle Bay. The Cap'n he
+would insist on havin' on't jist like a ship, and the closet-shelves had
+holes for the tumblers and dishes, and he had all his tables and chairs
+battened down, and so when it came a gale, they say the old Cap'n used
+to sit in his chair and hold on to hear the wind blow."
+
+"Well, I tell you," said Captain, "those that has followed the seas
+hears the wind with different ears from lands-people. When you lie with
+only a plank between you and eternity, and hear the voice of the Lord on
+the waters, it don't sound as it does on shore."
+
+And in truth, as they were speaking, a fitful gust swept by the house,
+wailing and screaming and rattling the windows, and after it came the
+heavy, hollow moan of the surf on the beach, like the wild, angry howl
+of some savage animal just beginning to be lashed into fury.
+
+"Sure enough, the wind is rising," said Miss Ruey, getting up from the
+table, and flattening her snub nose against the window-pane. "Dear me,
+how dark it is! Mercy on us, how the waves come in!--all of a sheet of
+foam. I pity the ships that's comin' on coast such a night."
+
+The storm seemed to have burst out with a sudden fury, as if myriads of
+howling demons had all at once been loosened in the air. Now they piped
+and whistled with eldritch screech round the corners of the house--now
+they thundered down the chimney--and now they shook the door and rattled
+the casement--and anon mustering their forces with wild ado, seemed to
+career over the house, and sail high up into the murky air. The dash of
+the rising tide came with successive crash upon crash like the discharge
+of heavy artillery, seeming to shake the very house, and the spray
+borne by the wind dashed whizzing against the window-panes.
+
+Zephaniah, rising from supper, drew up the little stand that had the
+family Bible on it, and the three old time-worn people sat themselves as
+seriously down to evening worship as if they had been an extensive
+congregation. They raised the old psalm-tune which our fathers called
+"Complaint," and the cracked, wavering voices of the women, with the
+deep, rough bass of the old sea-captain, rose in the uproar of the storm
+with a ghostly, strange wildness, like the scream of the curlew or the
+wailing of the wind:--
+
+    "Spare us, O Lord, aloud we pray,
+      Nor let our sun go down at noon:
+    Thy years are an eternal day,
+      And must thy children die so soon!"
+
+Miss Ruey valued herself on singing a certain weird and exalted part
+which in ancient days used to be called counter, and which wailed and
+gyrated in unimaginable heights of the scale, much as you may hear a
+shrill, fine-voiced wind over a chimney-top; but altogether, the deep
+and earnest gravity with which the three filled up the pauses in the
+storm with their quaint minor key, had something singularly impressive.
+When the singing was over, Zephaniah read to the accompaniment of wind
+and sea, the words of poetry made on old Hebrew shores, in the dim, gray
+dawn of the world:--
+
+"The voice of the Lord is upon the waters; the God of glory thundereth;
+the Lord is upon many waters. The voice of the Lord shaketh the
+wilderness; the Lord shaketh the wilderness of Kadesh. The Lord sitteth
+upon the floods, yea, the Lord sitteth King forever. The Lord will give
+strength to his people; yea, the Lord will bless his people with peace."
+
+How natural and home-born sounded this old piece of Oriental poetry in
+the ears of the three! The wilderness of Kadesh, with its great cedars,
+was doubtless Orr's Island, where even now the goodly fellowship of
+black-winged trees were groaning and swaying, and creaking as the breath
+of the Lord passed over them.
+
+And the three old people kneeling by their smouldering fireside, amid
+the general uproar, Zephaniah began in the words of a prayer which Moses
+the man of God made long ago under the shadows of Egyptian pyramids:
+"Lord, thou hast been our dwelling-place in all generations. Before the
+mountains were brought forth, or ever thou hadst formed the earth and
+the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God."
+
+We hear sometimes in these days that the Bible is no more inspired of
+God than many other books of historic and poetic merit. It is a fact,
+however, that the Bible answers a strange and wholly exceptional purpose
+by thousands of firesides on all shores of the earth; and, till some
+other book can be found to do the same thing, it will not be surprising
+if a belief of its Divine origin be one of the ineffaceable ideas of the
+popular mind. It will be a long while before a translation from Homer or
+a chapter in the Koran, or any of the beauties of Shakespeare, will be
+read in a stormy night on Orr's Island with the same sense of a Divine
+presence as the Psalms of David, or the prayer of Moses, the man of God.
+
+Boom! boom! "What's that?" said Zephaniah, starting, as they rose up
+from prayer. "Hark! again, that's a gun,--there's a ship in distress."
+
+"Poor souls," said Miss Ruey; "it's an awful night!"
+
+The captain began to put on his sea-coat.
+
+"You ain't a-goin' out?" said his wife.
+
+"I must go out along the beach a spell, and see if I can hear any more
+of that ship."
+
+"Mercy on us; the wind'll blow you over!" said Aunt Ruey.
+
+"I rayther think I've stood wind before in my day," said Zephaniah, a
+grim smile stealing over his weather-beaten cheeks. In fact, the man
+felt a sort of secret relationship to the storm, as if it were in some
+manner a family connection--a wild, roystering cousin, who drew him out
+by a rough attraction of comradeship.
+
+"Well, at any rate," said Mrs. Pennel, producing a large tin lantern
+perforated with many holes, in which she placed a tallow candle, "take
+this with you, and don't stay out long."
+
+The kitchen door opened, and the first gust of wind took off the old
+man's hat and nearly blew him prostrate. He came back and shut the
+door. "I ought to have known better," he said, knotting his
+pocket-handkerchief over his head, after which he waited for a momentary
+lull, and went out into the storm.
+
+Miss Ruey looked through the window-pane, and saw the light go twinkling
+far down into the gloom, and ever and anon came the mournful boom of
+distant guns.
+
+"Certainly there is a ship in trouble somewhere," she said.
+
+"He never can be easy when he hears these guns," said Mrs. Pennel; "but
+what can he do, or anybody, in such a storm, the wind blowing right on
+to shore?"
+
+"I shouldn't wonder if Cap'n Kittridge should be out on the beach, too,"
+said Miss Ruey; "but laws, he ain't much more than one of these 'ere old
+grasshoppers you see after frost comes. Well, any way, there _ain't_
+much help in man if a ship comes ashore in such a gale as this, such a
+dark night too."
+
+"It's kind o' lonesome to have poor little Mara away such a night as
+this is," said Mrs. Pennel; "but who would a-thought it this afternoon,
+when Aunt Roxy took her?"
+
+"I 'member my grandmother had a silver cream-pitcher that come ashore
+in a storm on Mare P'int," said Miss Ruey, as she sat trotting her
+knitting-needles. "Grand'ther found it, half full of sand, under a knot
+of seaweed way up on the beach. It had a coat of arms on it,--might have
+belonged to some grand family, that pitcher; in the Toothacre family
+yet."
+
+"I remember when I was a girl," said Mrs. Pennel, "seeing the hull of a
+ship that went on Eagle Island; it run way up in a sort of gully between
+two rocks, and lay there years. They split pieces off it sometimes to
+make fires, when they wanted to make a chowder down on the beach."
+
+"My aunt, Lois Toothacre, that lives down by Middle Bay," said Miss
+Ruey, "used to tell about a dreadful blow they had once in time of the
+equinoctial storm; and what was remarkable, she insisted that she heard
+a baby cryin' out in the storm,--she heard it just as plain as could
+be."
+
+"Laws a-mercy," said Mrs. Pennel, nervously, "it was nothing but the
+wind,--it always screeches like a child crying; or maybe it was the
+seals; seals will cry just like babes."
+
+"So they told her; but no,--she insisted she knew the difference,--it
+_was_ a baby. Well, what do you think, when the storm cleared off, they
+found a baby's cradle washed ashore sure enough!"
+
+"But they didn't find any baby," said Mrs. Pennel, nervously.
+
+"No; they searched the beach far and near, and that cradle was all they
+found. Aunt Lois took it in--it was a very good cradle, and she took it
+to use, but every time there came up a gale, that ar cradle would rock,
+rock, jist as if somebody was a-sittin' by it; and you could stand
+across the room and see there wa'n't nobody there."
+
+"You make me all of a shiver," said Mrs. Pennel.
+
+This, of course, was just what Miss Ruey intended, and she went on:--
+
+"Wal', you see they kind o' got used to it; they found there wa'n't no
+harm come of its rockin', and so they didn't mind; but Aunt Lois had a
+sister Cerinthy that was a weakly girl, and had the janders. Cerinthy
+was one of the sort that's born with veils over their faces, and can see
+sperits; and one time Cerinthy was a-visitin' Lois after her second baby
+was born, and there came up a blow, and Cerinthy comes out of the
+keepin'-room, where the cradle was a-standin', and says, 'Sister,' says
+she, 'who's that woman sittin' rockin' the cradle?' and Aunt Lois says
+she, 'Why, there ain't nobody. That ar cradle always will rock in a
+gale, but I've got used to it, and don't mind it.' 'Well,' says
+Cerinthy, 'jist as true as you live, I just saw a woman with a silk gown
+on, and long black hair a-hangin' down, and her face was pale as a
+sheet, sittin' rockin' that ar cradle, and she looked round at me with
+her great black eyes kind o' mournful and wishful, and then she stooped
+down over the cradle.' 'Well,' says Lois, 'I ain't goin' to have no such
+doin's in my house,' and she went right in and took up the baby, and the
+very next day she jist had the cradle split up for kindlin'; and that
+night, if you'll believe, when they was a-burnin' of it, they heard,
+jist as plain as could be, a baby scream, scream, screamin' round the
+house; but after that they never heard it no more."
+
+"I don't like such stories," said Dame Pennel, "'specially to-night,
+when Mara's away. I shall get to hearing all sorts of noises in the
+wind. I wonder when Cap'n Pennel will be back."
+
+And the good woman put more wood on the fire, and as the tongues of
+flame streamed up high and clear, she approached her face to the
+window-pane and started back with half a scream, as a pale, anxious
+visage with sad dark eyes seemed to approach her. It took a moment or
+two for her to discover that she had seen only the reflection of her own
+anxious, excited face, the pitchy blackness without having converted the
+window into a sort of dark mirror.
+
+Miss Ruey meanwhile began solacing herself by singing, in her
+chimney-corner, a very favorite sacred melody, which contrasted oddly
+enough with the driving storm and howling sea:--
+
+    "Haste, my beloved, haste away,
+    Cut short the hours of thy delay;
+    Fly like the bounding hart or roe,
+    Over the hills where spices grow."
+
+The tune was called "Invitation,"--one of those profusely florid in
+runs, and trills, and quavers, which delighted the ears of a former
+generation; and Miss Ruey, innocently unconscious of the effect of old
+age on her voice, ran them up and down, and out and in, in a way that
+would have made a laugh, had there been anybody there to notice or to
+laugh.
+
+"I remember singin' that ar to Mary Jane Wilson the very night she
+died," said Aunt Ruey, stopping. "She wanted me to sing to her, and it
+was jist between two and three in the mornin'; there was jist the least
+red streak of daylight, and I opened the window and sat there and sung,
+and when I come to 'over the hills where spices grow,' I looked round
+and there was a change in Mary Jane, and I went to the bed, and says she
+very bright, 'Aunt Ruey, the Beloved has come,' and she was gone afore I
+could raise her up on her pillow. I always think of Mary Jane at them
+words; if ever there was a broken-hearted crittur took home, it was
+her."
+
+At this moment Mrs. Pennel caught sight through the window of the gleam
+of the returning lantern, and in a moment Captain Pennel entered,
+dripping with rain and spray.
+
+"Why, Cap'n! you're e'en a'most drowned," said Aunt Ruey.
+
+"How long have you been gone? You must have been a great ways," said
+Mrs. Pennel.
+
+"Yes, I have been down to Cap'n Kittridge's. I met Kittridge out on the
+beach. We heard the guns plain enough, but couldn't see anything. I went
+on down to Kittridge's to get a look at little Mara."
+
+"Well, she's all well enough?" said Mrs. Pennel, anxiously.
+
+"Oh, yes, well enough. Miss Roxy showed her to me in the trundle-bed,
+'long with Sally. The little thing was lying smiling in her sleep, with
+her cheek right up against Sally's. I took comfort looking at her. I
+couldn't help thinking: 'So he giveth his beloved sleep!'"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+FROM THE SEA
+
+
+During the night and storm, the little Mara had lain sleeping as quietly
+as if the cruel sea, that had made her an orphan from her birth, were
+her kind-tempered old grandfather singing her to sleep, as he often
+did,--with a somewhat hoarse voice truly, but with ever an undertone of
+protecting love. But toward daybreak, there came very clear and bright
+into her childish mind a dream, having that vivid distinctness which
+often characterizes the dreams of early childhood.
+
+She thought she saw before her the little cove where she and Sally had
+been playing the day before, with its broad sparkling white beach of
+sand curving round its blue sea-mirror, and studded thickly with gold
+and silver shells. She saw the boat of Captain Kittridge upon the
+stocks, and his tar-kettle with the smouldering fires flickering under
+it; but, as often happens in dreams, a certain rainbow vividness and
+clearness invested everything, and she and Sally were jumping for joy at
+the beautiful things they found on the beach.
+
+Suddenly, there stood before them a woman, dressed in a long white
+garment. She was very pale, with sweet, serious dark eyes, and she led
+by the hand a black-eyed boy, who seemed to be crying and looking about
+as for something lost. She dreamed that she stood still, and the woman
+came toward her, looking at her with sweet, sad eyes, till the child
+seemed to feel them in every fibre of her frame. The woman laid her hand
+on her head as if in blessing, and then put the boy's hand in hers, and
+said, "Take him, Mara, he is a playmate for you;" and with that the
+little boy's face flashed out into a merry laugh. The woman faded away,
+and the three children remained playing together, gathering shells and
+pebbles of a wonderful brightness. So vivid was this vision, that the
+little one awoke laughing with pleasure, and searched under her pillows
+for the strange and beautiful things that she had been gathering in
+dreamland.
+
+"What's Mara looking after?" said Sally, sitting up in her trundle-bed,
+and speaking in the patronizing motherly tone she commonly used to her
+little playmate.
+
+"All gone, pitty boy--all gone!" said the child, looking round
+regretfully, and shaking her golden head; "pitty lady all gone!"
+
+"How queer she talks!" said Sally, who had awakened with the project of
+building a sheet-house with her fairy neighbor, and was beginning to
+loosen the upper sheet and dispose the pillows with a view to this
+species of architecture. "Come, Mara, let's make a pretty house!" she
+said.
+
+"Pitty boy out dere--out dere!" said the little one, pointing to the
+window, with a deeper expression than ever of wishfulness in her eyes.
+
+"Come, Sally Kittridge, get up this minute!" said the voice of her
+mother, entering the door at this moment; "and here, put these clothes
+on to Mara, the child mustn't run round in her best; it's strange, now,
+Mary Pennel never thinks of such things."
+
+Sally, who was of an efficient temperament, was preparing energetically
+to second these commands of her mother, and endue her little neighbor
+with a coarse brown stuff dress, somewhat faded and patched, which she
+herself had outgrown when of Mara's age; with shoes, which had been
+coarsely made to begin with, and very much battered by time; but, quite
+to her surprise, the child, generally so passive and tractable, opposed
+a most unexpected and desperate resistance to this operation. She began
+to cry and to sob and shake her curly head, throwing her tiny hands out
+in a wild species of freakish opposition, which had, notwithstanding, a
+quaint and singular grace about it, while she stated her objections in
+all the little English at her command.
+
+"Mara don't want--Mara want pitty boo des--and _pitty_ shoes."
+
+"Why, was ever anything like it?" said Mrs. Kittridge to Miss Roxy, as
+they both were drawn to the door by the outcry; "here's this child won't
+have decent every-day clothes put on her,--she must be kept dressed up
+like a princess. Now, that ar's French calico!" said Mrs. Kittridge,
+holding up the controverted blue dress, "and that ar never cost a cent
+under five-and-sixpence a yard; it takes a yard and a half to make it,
+and it must have been a good day's work to make it up; call that
+three-and-sixpence more, and with them pearl buttons and thread and all,
+that ar dress never cost less than a dollar and seventy-five, and here
+she's goin' to run out every day in it!"
+
+"Well, well!" said Miss Roxy, who had taken the sobbing fair one in her
+lap, "you know, Mis' Kittridge, this 'ere's a kind o' pet lamb, an
+old-folks' darling, and things be with her as they be, and we can't make
+her over, and she's such a nervous little thing we mustn't cross her."
+Saying which, she proceeded to dress the child in her own clothes.
+
+"If you had a good large checked apron, I wouldn't mind putting that on
+her!" added Miss Roxy, after she had arrayed the child.
+
+"Here's one," said Mrs. Kittridge; "that may save her clothes some."
+
+Miss Roxy began to put on the wholesome garment; but, rather to her
+mortification, the little fairy began to weep again in a most
+heart-broken manner.
+
+"Don't want che't apon."
+
+"Why don't Mara want nice checked apron?" said Miss Roxy, in that extra
+cheerful tone by which children are to be made to believe they have
+mistaken their own mind.
+
+"Don't want it!" with a decided wave of the little hand; "I's too pitty
+to wear che't apon."
+
+"Well! well!" said Mrs. Kittridge, rolling up her eyes, "did I ever! no,
+I never did. If there ain't depraved natur' a-comin' out early. Well, if
+she says she's pretty now, what'll it be when she's fifteen?"
+
+"She'll learn to tell a lie about it by that time," said Miss Roxy, "and
+say she thinks she's horrid. The child _is_ pretty, and the truth comes
+uppermost with her now."
+
+"Haw! haw! haw!" burst with a great crash from Captain Kittridge, who
+had come in behind, and stood silently listening during this
+conversation; "that's musical now; come here, my little maid, you _are_
+too pretty for checked aprons, and no mistake;" and seizing the child in
+his long arms, he tossed her up like a butterfly, while her sunny curls
+shone in the morning light.
+
+"There's one comfort about the child, Miss Kittridge," said Aunt Roxy:
+"she's one of them that dirt won't stick to. I never knew her to stain
+or tear her clothes,--she always come in jist so nice."
+
+"She ain't much like Sally, then!" said Mrs. Kittridge. "That girl'll
+run through more clothes! Only last week she walked the crown out of my
+old black straw bonnet, and left it hanging on the top of a
+blackberry-bush."
+
+"Wal', wal'," said Captain Kittridge, "as to dressin' this 'ere
+child,--why, ef Pennel's a mind to dress her in cloth of gold, it's none
+of our business! He's rich enough for all he wants to do, and so let's
+eat our breakfast and mind our own business."
+
+After breakfast Captain Kittridge took the two children down to the
+cove, to investigate the state of his boat and tar-kettle, set high
+above the highest tide-mark. The sun had risen gloriously, the sky was
+of an intense, vivid blue, and only great snowy islands of clouds, lying
+in silver banks on the horizon, showed vestiges of last night's storm.
+The whole wide sea was one glorious scene of forming and dissolving
+mountains of blue and purple, breaking at the crest into brilliant
+silver. All round the island the waves were constantly leaping and
+springing into jets and columns of brilliant foam, throwing themselves
+high up, in silvery cataracts, into the very arms of the solemn
+evergreen forests which overhung the shore.
+
+The sands of the little cove seemed harder and whiter than ever, and
+were thickly bestrewn with the shells and seaweed which the upturnings
+of the night had brought in. There lay what might have been fringes and
+fragments of sea-gods' vestures,--blue, crimson, purple, and orange
+seaweeds, wreathed in tangled ropes of kelp and sea-grass, or lying
+separately scattered on the sands. The children ran wildly, shouting as
+they began gathering sea-treasures; and Sally, with the air of an
+experienced hand in the business, untwisted the coils of rosy seaweed,
+from which every moment she disengaged some new treasure, in some rarer
+shell or smoother pebble.
+
+Suddenly, the child shook out something from a knotted mass of
+sea-grass, which she held up with a perfect shriek of delight. It was a
+bracelet of hair, fastened by a brilliant clasp of green, sparkling
+stones, such as she had never seen before. She redoubled her cries of
+delight, as she saw it sparkle between her and the sun, calling upon her
+father.
+
+"Father! father! do come here, and see what I've found!"
+
+He came quickly, and took the bracelet from the child's hand; but, at
+the same moment, looking over her head, he caught sight of an object
+partially concealed behind a projecting rock. He took a step forward,
+and uttered an exclamation,--
+
+"Well, well! sure enough! poor things!"
+
+There lay, bedded in sand and seaweed, a woman with a little boy clasped
+in her arms! Both had been carefully lashed to a spar, but the child was
+held to the bosom of the woman, with a pressure closer than any knot
+that mortal hands could tie. Both were deep sunk in the sand, into which
+had streamed the woman's long, dark hair, which sparkled with glittering
+morsels of sand and pebbles, and with those tiny, brilliant, yellow
+shells which are so numerous on that shore.
+
+The woman was both young and beautiful. The forehead, damp with
+ocean-spray, was like sculptured marble,--the eyebrows dark and decided
+in their outline; but the long, heavy, black fringes had shut down, as a
+solemn curtain, over all the history of mortal joy or sorrow that those
+eyes had looked upon. A wedding-ring gleamed on the marble hand; but the
+sea had divorced all human ties, and taken her as a bride to itself.
+And, in truth, it seemed to have made to her a worthy bed, for she was
+all folded and inwreathed in sand and shells and seaweeds, and a great,
+weird-looking leaf of kelp, some yards in length, lay twined around her
+like a shroud. The child that lay in her bosom had hair, and face, and
+eyelashes like her own, and his little hands were holding tightly a
+portion of the black dress which she wore.
+
+"Cold,--cold,--stone dead!" was the muttered exclamation of the old
+seaman, as he bent over the woman.
+
+"She must have struck her head there," he mused, as he laid his finger
+on a dark, bruised spot on her temple. He laid his hand on the child's
+heart, and put one finger under the arm to see if there was any
+lingering vital heat, and then hastily cut the lashings that bound the
+pair to the spar, and with difficulty disengaged the child from the cold
+clasp in which dying love had bound him to a heart which should beat no
+more with mortal joy or sorrow.
+
+Sally, after the first moment, had run screaming toward the house, with
+all a child's forward eagerness, to be the bearer of news; but the
+little Mara stood, looking anxiously, with a wishful earnestness of
+face.
+
+"Pitty boy,--pitty boy,--come!" she said often; but the old man was so
+busy, he scarcely regarded her.
+
+"Now, Cap'n Kittridge, do tell!" said Miss Roxy, meeting him in all
+haste, with a cap-border stiff in air, while Dame Kittridge exclaimed,--
+
+"Now, you don't! Well, well! didn't I say that was a ship last night?
+And what a solemnizing thought it was that souls might be goin' into
+eternity!"
+
+"We must have blankets and hot bottles, right away," said Miss Roxy, who
+always took the earthly view of matters, and who was, in her own person,
+a personified humane society. "Miss Kittridge, you jist dip out your
+dishwater into the smallest tub, and we'll put him in. Stand away, Mara!
+Sally, you take her out of the way! We'll fetch this child to, perhaps.
+I've fetched 'em to, when they's seemed to be dead as door-nails!"
+
+"Cap'n Kittridge, you're sure the woman's dead?"
+
+"Laws, yes; she had a blow right on her temple here. There's no bringing
+her to till the resurrection."
+
+"Well, then, you jist go and get Cap'n Pennel to come down and help you,
+and get the body into the house, and we'll attend to layin' it out by
+and by. Tell Ruey to come down."
+
+Aunt Roxy issued her orders with all the military vigor and precision of
+a general in case of a sudden attack. It was her habit. Sickness and
+death were her opportunities; where they were, she felt herself at home,
+and she addressed herself to the task before her with undoubting faith.
+
+Before many hours a pair of large, dark eyes slowly emerged from under
+the black-fringed lids of the little drowned boy,--they rolled dreamily
+round for a moment, and dropped again in heavy languor.
+
+The little Mara had, with the quiet persistence which formed a trait in
+her baby character, dragged stools and chairs to the back of the bed,
+which she at last succeeded in scaling, and sat opposite to where the
+child lay, grave and still, watching with intense earnestness the
+process that was going on. At the moment when the eyes had opened, she
+stretched forth her little arms, and said, eagerly, "Pitty boy,
+come,"--and then, as they closed again, she dropped her hands with a
+sigh of disappointment. Yet, before night, the little stranger sat up in
+bed, and laughed with pleasure at the treasures of shells and pebbles
+which the children spread out on the bed before him.
+
+He was a vigorous, well-made, handsome child, with brilliant eyes and
+teeth, but the few words that he spoke were in a language unknown to
+most present. Captain Kittridge declared it to be Spanish, and that a
+call which he most passionately and often repeated was for his mother.
+But he was of that happy age when sorrow can be easily effaced, and the
+efforts of the children called forth joyous smiles. When his playthings
+did not go to his liking, he showed sparkles of a fiery, irascible
+spirit.
+
+The little Mara seemed to appropriate him in feminine fashion, as a
+chosen idol and graven image. She gave him at once all her slender stock
+of infantine treasures, and seemed to watch with an ecstatic devotion
+his every movement,--often repeating, as she looked delightedly around,
+"Pitty boy, come."
+
+She had no words to explain the strange dream of the morning; it lay in
+her, struggling for expression, and giving her an interest in the
+new-comer as in something belonging to herself. Whence it came,--whence
+come multitudes like it, which spring up as strange, enchanted flowers,
+every now and then in the dull, material pathway of life,--who knows? It
+may be that our present faculties have among them a rudimentary one,
+like the germs of wings in the chrysalis, by which the spiritual world
+becomes sometimes an object of perception; there may be natures in which
+the walls of the material are so fine and translucent that the spiritual
+is seen through them as through a glass darkly. It may be, too, that the
+love which is stronger than death has a power sometimes to make itself
+heard and felt through the walls of our mortality, when it would plead
+for the defenseless ones it has left behind. All these things _may_
+be,--who knows?
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"There," said Miss Roxy, coming out of the keeping-room at sunset; "I
+wouldn't ask to see a better-lookin' corpse. That ar woman was a sight
+to behold this morning. I guess I shook a double handful of stones and
+them little shells out of her hair,--now she reely looks beautiful.
+Captain Kittridge has made a coffin out o' some cedar-boards he happened
+to have, and I lined it with bleached cotton, and stuffed the pillow
+nice and full, and when we come to get her in, she reely will look
+lovely."
+
+"I s'pose, Mis' Kittridge, you'll have the funeral to-morrow,--it's
+Sunday."
+
+"Why, yes, Aunt Roxy,--I think everybody must want to improve such a
+dispensation. Have you took little Mara in to look at the corpse?"
+
+"Well, no," said Miss Roxy; "Mis' Pennel's gettin' ready to take her
+home."
+
+"I think it's an opportunity we ought to improve," said Mrs. Kittridge,
+"to learn children what death is. I think we can't begin to solemnize
+their minds too young."
+
+At this moment Sally and the little Mara entered the room.
+
+"Come here, children," said Mrs. Kittridge, taking a hand of either one,
+and leading them to the closed door of the keeping-room; "I've got
+somethin' to show you."
+
+The room looked ghostly and dim,--the rays of light fell through the
+closed shutter on an object mysteriously muffled in a white sheet.
+
+Sally's bright face expressed only the vague curiosity of a child to see
+something new; but the little Mara resisted and hung back with all her
+force, so that Mrs. Kittridge was obliged to take her up and hold her.
+
+She folded back the sheet from the chill and wintry form which lay so
+icily, lonely, and cold. Sally walked around it, and gratified her
+curiosity by seeing it from every point of view, and laying her warm,
+busy hand on the lifeless and cold one; but Mara clung to Mrs.
+Kittridge, with eyes that expressed a distressed astonishment. The good
+woman stooped over and placed the child's little hand for a moment on
+the icy forehead. The little one gave a piercing scream, and struggled
+to get away; and as soon as she was put down, she ran and hid her face
+in Aunt Roxy's dress, sobbing bitterly.
+
+"That child'll grow up to follow vanity," said Mrs. Kittridge; "her
+little head is full of dress now, and she hates anything serious,--it's
+easy to see that."
+
+The little Mara had no words to tell what a strange, distressful chill
+had passed up her arm and through her brain, as she felt that icy cold
+of death,--that cold so different from all others. It was an impression
+of fear and pain that lasted weeks and months, so that she would start
+out of sleep and cry with a terror which she had not yet a sufficiency
+of language to describe.
+
+"You seem to forget, Mis' Kittridge, that this 'ere child ain't rugged
+like our Sally," said Aunt Roxy, as she raised the little Mara in her
+arms. "She was a seven-months' baby, and hard to raise at all, and a
+shivery, scary little creature."
+
+"Well, then, she ought to be hardened," said Dame Kittridge. "But Mary
+Pennel never had no sort of idea of bringin' up children; 'twas jist so
+with Naomi,--the girl never had no sort o' resolution, and she just died
+for want o' resolution,--that's what came of it. I tell ye, children's
+got to learn to take the world as it is; and 'tain't no use bringin' on
+'em up too tender. Teach 'em to begin as they've got to go out,--that's
+my maxim."
+
+"Mis' Kittridge," said Aunt Roxy, "there's reason in all things, and
+there's difference in children. 'What's one's meat's another's pison.'
+You couldn't fetch up Mis' Pennel's children, and she couldn't fetch up
+your'n,--so let's say no more 'bout it."
+
+"I'm always a-tellin' my wife that ar," said Captain Kittridge; "she's
+always wantin' to make everybody over after her pattern."
+
+"Cap'n Kittridge, I don't think _you_ need to speak," resumed his wife.
+"When such a loud providence is a-knockin' at _your_ door, I think you'd
+better be a-searchin' your own heart,--here it is the eleventh hour, and
+you hain't come into the Lord's vineyard yet."
+
+"Oh! come, come, Mis' Kittridge, don't twit a feller afore folks," said
+the Captain. "I'm goin' over to Harpswell Neck this blessed minute after
+the minister to 'tend the funeral,--so we'll let _him_ preach."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+THE SEEN AND THE UNSEEN
+
+
+Life on any shore is a dull affair,--ever degenerating into commonplace;
+and this may account for the eagerness with which even a great calamity
+is sometimes accepted in a neighborhood, as affording wherewithal to
+stir the deeper feelings of our nature. Thus, though Mrs. Kittridge was
+by no means a hard-hearted woman, and would not for the world have had a
+ship wrecked on her particular account, yet since a ship had been
+wrecked and a body floated ashore at her very door, as it were, it
+afforded her no inconsiderable satisfaction to dwell on the details and
+to arrange for the funeral.
+
+It was something to talk about and to think of, and likely to furnish
+subject-matter for talk for years to come when she should go out to tea
+with any of her acquaintances who lived at Middle Bay, or Maquoit, or
+Harpswell Neck. For although in those days,--the number of light-houses
+being much smaller than it is now,--it was no uncommon thing for ships
+to be driven on shore in storms, yet this incident had undeniably more
+that was stirring and romantic in it than any within the memory of any
+tea-table gossip in the vicinity. Mrs. Kittridge, therefore, looked
+forward to the funeral services on Sunday afternoon as to a species of
+solemn fete, which imparted a sort of consequence to her dwelling and
+herself. Notice of it was to be given out in "meeting" after service,
+and she might expect both keeping-room and kitchen to be full. Mrs.
+Pennel had offered to do her share of Christian and neighborly
+kindness, in taking home to her own dwelling the little boy. In fact, it
+became necessary to do so in order to appease the feelings of the little
+Mara, who clung to the new acquisition with most devoted fondness, and
+wept bitterly when he was separated from her even for a few moments.
+Therefore, in the afternoon of the day when the body was found, Mrs.
+Pennel, who had come down to assist, went back in company with Aunt Ruey
+and the two children.
+
+The September evening set in brisk and chill, and the cheerful fire that
+snapped and roared up the ample chimney of Captain Kittridge's kitchen
+was a pleasing feature. The days of our story were before the advent of
+those sullen gnomes, the "air-tights," or even those more sociable and
+cheery domestic genii, the cooking-stoves. They were the days of the
+genial open kitchen-fire, with the crane, the pot-hooks, and
+trammels,--where hissed and boiled the social tea-kettle, where steamed
+the huge dinner-pot, in whose ample depths beets, carrots, potatoes, and
+turnips boiled in jolly sociability with the pork or corned beef which
+they were destined to flank at the coming meal.
+
+On the present evening, Miss Roxy sat bolt upright, as was her wont, in
+one corner of the fireplace, with her spectacles on her nose, and an
+unwonted show of candles on the little stand beside her, having resumed
+the task of the silk dress which had been for a season interrupted. Mrs.
+Kittridge, with her spectacles also mounted, was carefully and warily
+"running-up breadths," stopping every few minutes to examine her work,
+and to inquire submissively of Miss Roxy if "it will do?"
+
+Captain Kittridge sat in the other corner busily whittling on a little
+boat which he was shaping to please Sally, who sat on a low stool by his
+side with her knitting, evidently more intent on what her father was
+producing than on the evening task of "ten bouts," which her mother
+exacted before she could freely give her mind to anything on her own
+account. As Sally was rigorously sent to bed exactly at eight o'clock,
+it became her to be diligent if she wished to do anything for her own
+amusement before that hour.
+
+And in the next room, cold and still, was lying that faded image of
+youth and beauty which the sea had so strangely given up. Without a
+name, without a history, without a single accompaniment from which her
+past could even be surmised,--there she lay, sealed in eternal silence.
+
+"It's strange," said Captain Kittridge, as he whittled away,--"it's very
+strange we don't find anything more of that ar ship. I've been all up
+and down the beach a-lookin'. There was a spar and some broken bits of
+boards and timbers come ashore down on the beach, but nothin' to speak
+of."
+
+"It won't be known till the sea gives up its dead," said Miss Roxy,
+shaking her head solemnly, "and there'll be a great givin' up then, I'm
+a-thinkin'."
+
+"Yes, indeed," said Mrs. Kittridge, with an emphatic nod.
+
+"Father," said Sally, "how many, many things there must be at the bottom
+of the sea,--so many ships are sunk with all their fine things on board.
+Why don't people contrive some way to go down and get them?"
+
+"They do, child," said Captain Kittridge; "they have diving-bells, and
+men go down in 'em with caps over their faces, and long tubes to get the
+air through, and they walk about on the bottom of the ocean."
+
+"Did you ever go down in one, father?"
+
+"Why, yes, child, to be sure; and strange enough it was, to be sure.
+There you could see great big sea critters, with ever so many eyes and
+long arms, swimming right up to catch you, and all you could do would be
+to muddy the water on the bottom, so they couldn't see you."
+
+"I never heard of that, Cap'n Kittridge," said his wife, drawing herself
+up with a reproving coolness.
+
+"Wal', Mis' Kittridge, you hain't heard of everything that ever
+happened," said the Captain, imperturbably, "though you _do_ know a
+sight."
+
+"And how does the bottom of the ocean look, father?" said Sally.
+
+"Laws, child, why trees and bushes grow there, just as they do on land;
+and great plants,--blue and purple and green and yellow, and lots of
+great pearls lie round. I've seen 'em big as chippin'-birds' eggs."
+
+"Cap'n Kittridge!" said his wife.
+
+"I have, and big as robins' eggs, too, but them was off the coast of
+Ceylon and Malabar, and way round the Equator," said the Captain,
+prudently resolved to throw his romance to a sufficient distance.
+
+"It's a pity you didn't get a few of them pearls," said his wife, with
+an indignant appearance of scorn.
+
+"I did get lots on 'em, and traded 'em off to the Nabobs in the interior
+for Cashmere shawls and India silks and sich," said the Captain,
+composedly; "and brought 'em home and sold 'em at a good figure, too."
+
+"Oh, father!" said Sally, earnestly, "I wish you had saved just one or
+two for us."
+
+"Laws, child, I wish now I had," said the Captain, good-naturedly. "Why,
+when I was in India, I went up to Lucknow, and Benares, and round, and
+saw all the Nabobs and Biggums,--why, they don't make no more of gold
+and silver and precious stones than we do of the shells we find on the
+beach. Why, I've seen one of them fellers with a diamond in his turban
+as big as my fist."
+
+"Cap'n Kittridge, what are you telling?" said his wife once more.
+
+"Fact,--as big as my fist," said the Captain, obdurately; "and all the
+clothes he wore was jist a stiff crust of pearls and precious stones. I
+tell you, he looked like something in the Revelations,--a real New
+Jerusalem look he had."
+
+"I call that ar talk wicked, Cap'n Kittridge, usin' Scriptur' that ar
+way," said his wife.
+
+"Why, don't it tell about all sorts of gold and precious stones in the
+Revelations?" said the Captain; "that's all I meant. Them ar countries
+off in Asia ain't like our'n,--stands to reason they shouldn't be;
+them's Scripture countries, and everything is different there."
+
+"Father, didn't you ever get any of those splendid things?" said Sally.
+
+"Laws, yes, child. Why, I had a great green ring, an emerald, that one
+of the princes giv' me, and ever so many pearls and diamonds. I used to
+go with 'em rattlin' loose in my vest pocket. I was young and gay in
+them days, and thought of bringin' of 'em home for the gals, but somehow
+I always got opportunities for swappin' of 'em off for goods and sich.
+That ar shawl your mother keeps in her camfire chist was what I got for
+one on 'em."
+
+"Well, well," said Mrs. Kittridge, "there's never any catchin' you,
+'cause you've been where we haven't."
+
+"You've caught me once, and that ought'r do," said the Captain, with
+unruffled good-nature. "I tell you, Sally, your mother was the
+handsomest gal in Harpswell in them days."
+
+"I should think you was too old for such nonsense, Cap'n," said Mrs.
+Kittridge, with a toss of her head, and a voice that sounded far less
+inexorable than her former admonition. In fact, though the old Captain
+was as unmanageable under his wife's fireside _regime_ as any brisk old
+cricket that skipped and sang around the hearth, and though he hopped
+over all moral boundaries with a cheerful alertness of conscience that
+was quite discouraging, still there was no resisting the spell of his
+inexhaustible good-nature.
+
+By this time he had finished the little boat, and to Sally's great
+delight, began sailing it for her in a pail of water.
+
+"I wonder," said Mrs. Kittridge, "what's to be done with that ar child.
+I suppose the selectmen will take care on't; it'll be brought up by the
+town."
+
+"I shouldn't wonder," said Miss Roxy, "if Cap'n Pennel should adopt it."
+
+"You don't think so," said Mrs. Kittridge. "'Twould be taking a great
+care and expense on their hands at their time of life."
+
+"I wouldn't want no better fun than to bring up that little shaver,"
+said Captain Kittridge; "he's a bright un, I promise you."
+
+"You, Cap'n Kittridge! I wonder you can talk so," said his wife. "It's
+an awful responsibility, and I wonder you don't think whether or no
+you're fit for it."
+
+"Why, down here on the shore, I'd as lives undertake a boy as a
+Newfoundland pup," said the Captain. "Plenty in the sea to eat, drink,
+and wear. That ar young un may be the staff of their old age yet."
+
+"You see," said Miss Roxy, "I think they'll adopt it to be company for
+little Mara; they're bound up in her, and the little thing pines bein'
+alone."
+
+"Well, they make a real graven image of that ar child," said Mrs.
+Kittridge, "and fairly bow down to her and worship her."
+
+"Well, it's natural," said Miss Roxy. "Besides, the little thing is
+cunnin'; she's about the cunnin'est little crittur that I ever saw, and
+has such enticin' ways."
+
+The fact was, as the reader may perceive, that Miss Roxy had been thawed
+into an unusual attachment for the little Mara, and this affection was
+beginning to spread a warming element though her whole being. It was as
+if a rough granite rock had suddenly awakened to a passionate
+consciousness of the beauty of some fluttering white anemone that
+nestled in its cleft, and felt warm thrills running through all its
+veins at every tender motion and shadow. A word spoken against the
+little one seemed to rouse her combativeness. Nor did Dame Kittridge
+bear the child the slightest ill-will, but she was one of those
+naturally care-taking people whom Providence seems to design to perform
+the picket duties for the rest of society, and who, therefore, challenge
+everybody and everything to stand and give an account of themselves.
+Miss Roxy herself belonged to this class, but sometimes found herself so
+stoutly overhauled by the guns of Mrs. Kittridge's battery, that she
+could only stand modestly on the defensive.
+
+One of Mrs. Kittridge's favorite hobbies was education, or, as she
+phrased it, the "fetchin' up" of children, which she held should be
+performed to the letter of the old stiff rule. In this manner she had
+already trained up six sons, who were all following their fortunes upon
+the seas, and, on this account, she had no small conceit of her
+abilities; and when she thought she discerned a lamb being left to frisk
+heedlessly out of bounds, her zeal was stirred to bring it under proper
+sheepfold regulations.
+
+"Come, Sally, it's eight o'clock," said the good woman.
+
+Sally's dark brows lowered over her large, black eyes, and she gave an
+appealing look to her father.
+
+"Law, mother, let the child sit up a quarter of an hour later, jist for
+once."
+
+"Cap'n Kittridge, if I was to hear to you, there'd never be no rule in
+this house. Sally, you go 'long this minute, and be sure you put your
+knittin' away in its place."
+
+The Captain gave a humorous nod of submissive good-nature to his
+daughter as she went out. In fact, putting Sally to bed was taking away
+his plaything, and leaving him nothing to do but study faces in the
+coals, or watch the fleeting sparks which chased each other in flocks
+up the sooty back of the chimney.
+
+It was Saturday night, and the morrow was Sunday,--never a very pleasant
+prospect to the poor Captain, who, having, unfortunately, no spiritual
+tastes, found it very difficult to get through the day in compliance
+with his wife's views of propriety, for he, alas! soared no higher in
+his aims.
+
+"I b'lieve, on the hull, Polly, I'll go to bed, too," said he, suddenly
+starting up.
+
+"Well, father, your clean shirt is in the right-hand corner of the upper
+drawer, and your Sunday clothes on the back of the chair by the bed."
+
+The fact was that the Captain promised himself the pleasure of a long
+conversation with Sally, who nestled in the trundle-bed under the
+paternal couch, to whom he could relate long, many-colored yarns,
+without the danger of interruption from her mother's sharp,
+truth-seeking voice.
+
+A moralist might, perhaps, be puzzled exactly what account to make of
+the Captain's disposition to romancing and embroidery. In all real,
+matter-of-fact transactions, as between man and man, his word was as
+good as another's, and he was held to be honest and just in his
+dealings. It was only when he mounted the stilts of foreign travel that
+his paces became so enormous. Perhaps, after all, a rude poetic and
+artistic faculty possessed the man. He might have been a humbler phase
+of the "mute, inglorious Milton." Perhaps his narrations required the
+privileges and allowances due to the inventive arts generally. Certain
+it was that, in common with other artists, he required an atmosphere of
+sympathy and confidence in which to develop himself fully; and, when
+left alone with children, his mind ran such riot, that the bounds
+between the real and unreal became foggier than the banks of
+Newfoundland.
+
+The two women sat up, and the night wore on apace, while they kept
+together that customary vigil which it was thought necessary to hold
+over the lifeless casket from which an immortal jewel had recently been
+withdrawn.
+
+"I re'lly did hope," said Mrs. Kittridge, mournfully, "that this 'ere
+solemn Providence would have been sent home to the Cap'n's mind; but he
+seems jist as light and triflin' as ever."
+
+"There don't nobody see these 'ere things unless they's effectually
+called," said Miss Roxy, "and the Cap'n's time ain't come."
+
+"It's gettin' to be t'ward the eleventh hour," said Mrs. Kittridge, "as
+I was a-tellin' him this afternoon."
+
+"Well," said Miss Roxy, "you know
+
+    "'While the lamp holds out to burn,
+    The vilest sinner may return.'"
+
+"Yes, I know that," said Mrs. Kittridge, rising and taking up the
+candle. "Don't you think, Aunt Roxy, we may as well give a look in there
+at the corpse?"
+
+It was past midnight as they went together into the keeping-room. All
+was so still that the clash of the rising tide and the ticking of the
+clock assumed that solemn and mournful distinctness which even tones
+less impressive take on in the night-watches. Miss Roxy went
+mechanically through with certain arrangements of the white drapery
+around the cold sleeper, and uncovering the face and bust for a moment,
+looked critically at the still, unconscious countenance.
+
+"Not one thing to let us know who or what she is," she said; "that boy,
+if he lives, would give a good deal to know, some day."
+
+"What is it one's duty to do about this bracelet?" said Mrs. Kittridge,
+taking from a drawer the article in question, which had been found on
+the beach in the morning.
+
+"Well, I s'pose it belongs to the child, whatever it's worth," said Miss
+Roxy.
+
+"Then if the Pennels conclude to take him, I may as well give it to
+them," said Mrs. Kittridge, laying it back in the drawer.
+
+Miss Roxy folded the cloth back over the face, and the two went out into
+the kitchen. The fire had sunk low--the crickets were chirruping
+gleefully. Mrs. Kittridge added more wood, and put on the tea-kettle
+that their watching might be refreshed by the aid of its talkative and
+inspiring beverage. The two solemn, hard-visaged women drew up to each
+other by the fire, and insensibly their very voices assumed a tone of
+drowsy and confidential mystery.
+
+"If this 'ere poor woman was hopefully pious, and could see what was
+goin' on here," said Mrs. Kittridge, "it would seem to be a comfort to
+her that her child has fallen into such good hands. It seems a'most a
+pity she couldn't know it."
+
+"How do you know she don't?" said Miss Roxy, brusquely.
+
+"Why, you know the hymn," said Mrs. Kittridge, quoting those somewhat
+saddusaical lines from the popular psalm-book:--
+
+    "'The living know that they must die,
+    But all the dead forgotten lie--
+    _Their memory and their senses gone,
+    Alike unknowing and unknown_.'"
+
+"Well, I don't know 'bout that," said Miss Roxy, flavoring her cup of
+tea; "hymn-book ain't Scriptur', and I'm pretty sure that ar ain't true
+always;" and she nodded her head as if she could say more if she chose.
+
+Now Miss Roxy's reputation of vast experience in all the facts relating
+to those last fateful hours, which are the only certain event in every
+human existence, caused her to be regarded as a sort of Delphic oracle
+in such matters, and therefore Mrs. Kittridge, not without a share of
+the latent superstition to which each human heart must confess at some
+hours, drew confidentially near to Miss Roxy, and asked if she had
+anything particular on her mind.
+
+"Well, Mis' Kittridge," said Miss Roxy, "I ain't one of the sort as
+likes to make a talk of what I've seen, but mebbe if I was, I've seen
+some things _as_ remarkable as anybody. I tell you, Mis' Kittridge,
+folks don't tend the sick and dyin' bed year in and out, at all hours,
+day and night, and not see some remarkable things; that's my opinion."
+
+"Well, Miss Roxy, did you ever see a sperit?"
+
+"I won't say as I have, and I won't say as I haven't," said Miss Roxy;
+"only as I have seen some remarkable things."
+
+There was a pause, in which Mrs. Kittridge stirred her tea, looking
+intensely curious, while the old kitchen-clock seemed to tick with one
+of those fits of loud insistence which seem to take clocks at times when
+all is still, as if they had something that they were getting ready to
+say pretty soon, if nobody else spoke.
+
+But Miss Roxy evidently had something to say, and so she began:--
+
+"Mis' Kittridge, this 'ere's a very particular subject to be talkin'
+of. I've had opportunities to observe that most haven't, and I don't
+care if I jist say to you, that I'm pretty sure spirits that has left
+the body do come to their friends sometimes."
+
+The clock ticked with still more _empressement_, and Mrs. Kittridge
+glared through the horn bows of her glasses with eyes of eager
+curiosity.
+
+"Now, you remember Cap'n Titcomb's wife, that died fifteen years ago
+when her husband had gone to Archangel; and you remember that he took
+her son John out with him--and of all her boys, John was the one she
+was particular sot on."
+
+"Yes, and John died at Archangel; I remember that."
+
+"Jes' so," said Miss Roxy, laying her hand on Mrs. Kittridge's; "he died
+at Archangel the very day his mother died, and jist the hour, for the
+Cap'n had it down in his log-book."
+
+"You don't say so!"
+
+"Yes, I do. Well, now," said Miss Roxy, sinking her voice, "this 'ere
+was remarkable. Mis' Titcomb was one of the fearful sort, tho' one of
+the best women that ever lived. Our minister used to call her 'Mis'
+Muchafraid'--you know, in the 'Pilgrim's Progress'--but he was satisfied
+with her evidences, and told her so; she used to say she was 'afraid of
+the dark valley,' and she told our minister so when he went out, that ar
+last day he called; and his last words, as he stood with his hand on the
+knob of the door, was 'Mis' Titcomb, the Lord will find ways to bring
+you thro' the dark valley.' Well, she sunk away about three o'clock in
+the morning. I remember the time, 'cause the Cap'n's chronometer watch
+that he left with her lay on the stand for her to take her drops by. I
+heard her kind o' restless, and I went up, and I saw she was struck with
+death, and she looked sort o' anxious and distressed.
+
+"'Oh, Aunt Roxy,' says she, 'it's so dark, who will go with me?' and in
+a minute her whole face brightened up, and says she, 'John is going with
+me,' and she jist gave the least little sigh and never breathed no
+more--she jist died as easy as a bird. I told our minister of it next
+morning, and he asked if I'd made a note of the hour, and I told him I
+had, and says he, 'You did right, Aunt Roxy.'"
+
+"What did he seem to think of it?"
+
+"Well, he didn't seem inclined to speak freely. 'Miss Roxy,' says he,
+'all natur's in the Lord's hands, and there's no saying why he uses this
+or that; them that's strong enough to go by faith, he lets 'em, but
+there's no saying what he won't do for the weak ones.'"
+
+"Wa'n't the Cap'n overcome when you told him?" said Mrs. Kittridge.
+
+"Indeed he was; he was jist as white as a sheet."
+
+Miss Roxy now proceeded to pour out another cup of tea, and having mixed
+and flavored it, she looked in a weird and sibylline manner across it,
+and inquired,--
+
+"Mis' Kittridge, do you remember that ar Mr. Wadkins that come to
+Brunswick twenty years ago, in President Averill's days?"
+
+"Yes, I remember the pale, thin, long-nosed gentleman that used to sit
+in President Averill's pew at church. Nobody knew who he was, or where
+he came from. The college students used to call him Thaddeus of Warsaw.
+Nobody knew who he was but the President, 'cause he could speak all the
+foreign tongues--one about as well as another; but the President he knew
+his story, and said he was a good man, and he used to stay to the
+sacrament regular, I remember."
+
+"Yes," said Miss Roxy, "he used to live in a room all alone, and keep
+himself. Folks said he was quite a gentleman, too, and fond of reading."
+
+"I heard Cap'n Atkins tell," said Mrs. Kittridge, "how they came to take
+him up on the shores of Holland. You see, when he was somewhere in a
+port in Denmark, some men come to him and offered him a pretty good sum
+of money if he'd be at such a place on the coast of Holland on such a
+day, and take whoever should come. So the Cap'n he went, and sure enough
+on that day there come a troop of men on horseback down to the beach
+with this man, and they all bid him good-by, and seemed to make much of
+him, but he never told 'em nothin' on board ship, only he seemed kind o'
+sad and pinin'."
+
+"Well," said Miss Roxy; "Ruey and I we took care o' that man in his
+last sickness, and we watched with him the night he died, and there was
+something quite remarkable."
+
+"Do tell now," said Mrs. Kittridge.
+
+"Well, you see," said Miss Roxy, "he'd been low and poorly all day, kind
+o' tossin' and restless, and a little light-headed, and the Doctor said
+he thought he wouldn't last till morning, and so Ruey and I we set up
+with him, and between twelve and one Ruey said she thought she'd jist
+lop down a few minutes on the old sofa at the foot of the bed, and I
+made me a cup of tea like as I'm a-doin' now, and set with my back to
+him."
+
+"Well?" said Mrs. Kittridge, eagerly.
+
+"Well, you see he kept a-tossin' and throwin' off the clothes, and I
+kept a-gettin' up to straighten 'em; and once he threw out his arms, and
+something bright fell out on to the pillow, and I went and looked, and
+it was a likeness that he wore by a ribbon round his neck. It was a
+woman--a real handsome one--and she had on a low-necked black dress, of
+the cut they used to call Marie Louise, and she had a string of pearls
+round her neck, and her hair curled with pearls in it, and very wide
+blue eyes. Well, you see, I didn't look but a minute before he seemed to
+wake up, and he caught at it and hid it in his clothes. Well, I went and
+sat down, and I grew kind o' sleepy over the fire; but pretty soon I
+heard him speak out very clear, and kind o' surprised, in a tongue I
+didn't understand, and I looked round."
+
+Miss Roxy here made a pause, and put another lump of sugar into her tea.
+
+"Well?" said Mrs. Kittridge, ready to burst with curiosity.
+
+"Well, now, I don't like to tell about these 'ere things, and you
+mustn't never speak about it; but as sure as you live, Polly Kittridge,
+I see that ar very woman standin' at the back of the bed, right in the
+partin' of the curtains, jist as she looked in the pictur'--blue eyes
+and curly hair and pearls on her neck, and black dress."
+
+"What did you do?" said Mrs. Kittridge.
+
+"Do? Why, I jist held my breath and looked, and in a minute it kind o'
+faded away, and I got up and went to the bed, but the man was gone. He
+lay there with the pleasantest smile on his face that ever you see; and
+I woke up Ruey, and told her about it."
+
+Mrs. Kittridge drew a long breath. "What do you think it was?"
+
+"Well," said Miss Roxy, "I know what I think, but I don't think best to
+tell. I told Doctor Meritts, and he said there were more things in
+heaven and earth than folks knew about--and so I think."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Meanwhile, on this same evening, the little Mara frisked like a
+household fairy round the hearth of Zephaniah Pennel.
+
+The boy was a strong-limbed, merry-hearted little urchin, and did full
+justice to the abundant hospitalities of Mrs. Pennel's tea-table; and
+after supper little Mara employed herself in bringing apronful after
+apronful of her choicest treasures, and laying them down at his feet.
+His great black eyes flashed with pleasure, and he gamboled about the
+hearth with his new playmate in perfect forgetfulness, apparently, of
+all the past night of fear and anguish.
+
+When the great family Bible was brought out for prayers, and little Mara
+composed herself on a low stool by her grandmother's side, he, however,
+did not conduct himself as a babe of grace. He resisted all Miss Ruey's
+efforts to make him sit down beside her, and stood staring with his
+great, black, irreverent eyes during the Bible-reading, and laughed out
+in the most inappropriate manner when the psalm-singing began, and
+seemed disposed to mingle incoherent remarks of his own even in the
+prayers.
+
+"This is a pretty self-willed youngster," said Miss Ruey, as they rose
+from the exercises, "and I shouldn't think he'd been used to religious
+privileges."
+
+"Perhaps not," said Zephaniah Pennel; "but who can say but what this
+providence is a message of the Lord to us--such as Pharaoh's daughter
+sent about Moses, 'Take this child, and bring him up for me'?"
+
+"I'd like to take him, if I thought I was capable," said Mrs. Pennel,
+timidly. "It seems a real providence to give Mara some company; the poor
+child pines so for want of it."
+
+"Well, then, Mary, if you say so, we will bring him up with our little
+Mara," said Zephaniah, drawing the child toward him. "May the Lord bless
+him!" he added, laying his great brown hands on the shining black curls
+of the child.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+MOSES
+
+
+Sunday morning rose clear and bright on Harpswell Bay. The whole sea was
+a waveless, blue looking-glass, streaked with bands of white, and
+flecked with sailing cloud-shadows from the skies above. Orr's Island,
+with its blue-black spruces, its silver firs, its golden larches, its
+scarlet sumachs, lay on the bosom of the deep like a great many-colored
+gem on an enchanted mirror. A vague, dreamlike sense of rest and Sabbath
+stillness seemed to brood in the air. The very spruce-trees seemed to
+know that it was Sunday, and to point solemnly upward with their dusky
+fingers; and the small tide-waves that chased each other up on the
+shelly beach, or broke against projecting rocks, seemed to do it with a
+chastened decorum, as if each blue-haired wave whispered to his brother,
+"Be still--be still."
+
+Yes, Sunday it was along all the beautiful shores of Maine--netted in
+green and azure by its thousand islands, all glorious with their
+majestic pines, all musical and silvery with the caresses of the
+sea-waves, that loved to wander and lose themselves in their numberless
+shelly coves and tiny beaches among their cedar shadows.
+
+Not merely as a burdensome restraint, or a weary endurance, came the
+shadow of that Puritan Sabbath. It brought with it all the sweetness
+that belongs to rest, all the sacredness that hallows home, all the
+memories of patient thrift, of sober order, of chastened yet intense
+family feeling, of calmness, purity, and self-respecting dignity which
+distinguish the Puritan household. It seemed a solemn pause in all the
+sights and sounds of earth. And he whose moral nature was not yet enough
+developed to fill the blank with visions of heaven was yet wholesomely
+instructed by his weariness into the secret of his own spiritual
+poverty.
+
+Zephaniah Pennel, in his best Sunday clothes, with his hard visage
+glowing with a sort of interior tenderness, ministered this morning at
+his family-altar--one of those thousand priests of God's ordaining that
+tend the sacred fire in as many families of New England. He had risen
+with the morning star and been forth to meditate, and came in with his
+mind softened and glowing. The trance-like calm of earth and sea found a
+solemn answer with him, as he read what a poet wrote by the sea-shores
+of the Mediterranean, ages ago: "Bless the Lord, O my soul. O Lord my
+God, thou art very great; thou art clothed with honor and majesty. Who
+coverest thyself with light as with a garment: who stretchest out the
+heavens like a curtain: who layeth the beams of his chambers in the
+waters: who maketh the clouds his chariot: who walketh upon the wings of
+the wind. The trees of the Lord are full of sap; the cedars of Lebanon,
+which he hath planted; where the birds make their nests; as for the
+stork, the fir-trees are her house. O Lord, how manifold are thy works!
+in wisdom hast thou made them all."
+
+Ages ago the cedars that the poet saw have rotted into dust, and from
+their cones have risen generations of others, wide-winged and grand. But
+the words of that poet have been wafted like seed to our days, and
+sprung up in flowers of trust and faith in a thousand households.
+
+"Well, now," said Miss Ruey, when the morning rite was over, "Mis'
+Pennel, I s'pose you and the Cap'n will be wantin' to go to the meetin',
+so don't you gin yourse'ves a mite of trouble about the children, for
+I'll stay at home with 'em. The little feller was starty and fretful in
+his sleep last night, and didn't seem to be quite well."
+
+"No wonder, poor dear," said Mrs. Pennel; "it's a wonder children can
+forget as they do."
+
+"Yes," said Miss Ruey; "you know them lines in the 'English Reader,'--
+
+    'Gay hope is theirs by fancy led,
+      Least pleasing when possessed;
+    The tear forgot as soon as shed,
+      The sunshine of the breast.'
+
+Them lines all'ys seemed to me affectin'."
+
+Miss Ruey's sentiment was here interrupted by a loud cry from the
+bedroom, and something between a sneeze and a howl.
+
+"Massy! what is that ar young un up to!" she exclaimed, rushing into the
+adjoining bedroom.
+
+There stood the young Master Hopeful of our story, with streaming eyes
+and much-bedaubed face, having just, after much labor, succeeded in
+making Miss Ruey's snuff-box fly open, which he did with such force as
+to send the contents in a perfect cloud into eyes, nose, and mouth. The
+scene of struggling and confusion that ensued cannot be described. The
+washings, and wipings, and sobbings, and exhortings, and the sympathetic
+sobs of the little Mara, formed a small tempest for the time being that
+was rather appalling.
+
+"Well, this 'ere's a youngster that's a-goin' to make work," said Miss
+Ruey, when all things were tolerably restored. "Seems to make himself at
+home first thing."
+
+"Poor little dear," said Mrs. Pennel, in the excess of loving-kindness,
+"I hope he will; he's welcome, I'm sure."
+
+"Not to my snuff-box," said Miss Ruey, who had felt herself attacked in
+a very tender point.
+
+"He's got the notion of lookin' into things pretty early," said Captain
+Pennel, with an indulgent smile.
+
+"Well, Aunt Ruey," said Mrs. Pennel, when this disturbance was somewhat
+abated, "I feel kind o' sorry to deprive you of your privileges to-day."
+
+"Oh! never mind me," said Miss Ruey, briskly. "I've got the big Bible,
+and I can sing a hymn or two by myself. My voice ain't quite what it
+used to be, but then I get a good deal of pleasure out of it." Aunt
+Ruey, it must be known, had in her youth been one of the foremost
+leaders in the "singers' seats," and now was in the habit of speaking of
+herself much as a retired _prima donna_ might, whose past successes were
+yet in the minds of her generation.
+
+After giving a look out of the window, to see that the children were
+within sight, she opened the big Bible at the story of the ten plagues
+of Egypt, and adjusting her horn spectacles with a sort of sideway twist
+on her little pug nose, she seemed intent on her Sunday duties. A moment
+after she looked up and said, "I don't know but I must send a message by
+you over to Mis' Deacon Badger, about a worldly matter, if 'tis Sunday;
+but I've been thinkin', Mis' Pennel, that there'll have to be clothes
+made up for this 'ere child next week, and so perhaps Roxy and I had
+better stop here a day or two longer, and you tell Mis' Badger that
+we'll come to her a Wednesday, and so she'll have time to have that new
+press-board done,--the old one used to pester me so."
+
+"Well, I'll remember," said Mrs. Pennel.
+
+"It seems a'most impossible to prevent one's thoughts wanderin'
+Sundays," said Aunt Ruey; "but I couldn't help a-thinkin' I could get
+such a nice pair o' trousers out of them old Sunday ones of the Cap'n's
+in the garret. I was a-lookin' at 'em last Thursday, and thinkin' what a
+pity 'twas you hadn't nobody to cut down for; but this 'ere young un's
+going to be such a tearer, he'll want somethin' real stout; but I'll try
+and put it out of my mind till Monday. Mis' Pennel, you'll be sure to
+ask Mis' Titcomb how Harriet's toothache is, and whether them drops
+cured her that I gin her last Sunday; and ef you'll jist look in a
+minute at Major Broad's, and tell 'em to use bayberry wax for his
+blister, it's so healin'; and do jist ask if Sally's baby's eye-tooth
+has come through yet."
+
+"Well, Aunt Ruey, I'll try to remember all," said Mrs. Pennel, as she
+stood at the glass in her bedroom, carefully adjusting the respectable
+black silk shawl over her shoulders, and tying her neat bonnet-strings.
+
+"I s'pose," said Aunt Ruey, "that the notice of the funeral'll be gin
+out after sermon."
+
+"Yes, I think so," said Mrs. Pennel.
+
+"It's another loud call," said Miss Ruey, "and I hope it will turn the
+young people from their thoughts of dress and vanity,--there's Mary Jane
+Sanborn was all took up with gettin' feathers and velvet for her fall
+bonnet. I don't think I shall get no bonnet this year till snow comes.
+My bonnet's respectable enough,--don't you think so?"
+
+"Certainly, Aunt Ruey, it looks very well."
+
+"Well, I'll have the pork and beans and brown-bread all hot on table
+agin you come back," said Miss Ruey, "and then after dinner we'll all go
+down to the funeral together. Mis' Pennel, there's one thing on my
+mind,--what you goin' to call this 'ere boy?"
+
+"Father and I've been thinkin' that over," said Mrs. Pennel.
+
+"Wouldn't think of giv'n him the Cap'n's name?" said Aunt Ruey.
+
+"He must have a name of his own," said Captain Pennel. "Come here,
+sonny," he called to the child, who was playing just beside the door.
+
+The child lowered his head, shook down his long black curls, and looked
+through them as elfishly as a Skye terrier, but showed no inclination to
+come.
+
+"One thing he hasn't learned, evidently," said Captain Pennel, "and that
+is to mind."
+
+"Here!" he said, turning to the boy with a little of the tone he had
+used of old on the quarter-deck, and taking his small hand firmly.
+
+The child surrendered, and let the good man lift him on his knee and
+stroke aside the clustering curls; the boy then looked fixedly at him
+with his great gloomy black eyes, his little firm-set mouth and bridled
+chin,--a perfect little miniature of proud manliness.
+
+"What's your name, little boy?"
+
+The great eyes continued looking in the same solemn quiet.
+
+"Law, he don't understand a word," said Zephaniah, putting his hand
+kindly on the child's head; "our tongue is all strange to him. Kittridge
+says he's a Spanish child; may be from the West Indies; but nobody
+knows,--we never shall know his name."
+
+"Well, I dare say it was some Popish nonsense or other," said Aunt Ruey;
+"and now he's come to a land of Christian privileges, we ought to give
+him a good Scripture name, and start him well in the world."
+
+"Let's call him Moses," said Zephaniah, "because we drew him out of the
+water."
+
+"Now, did I ever!" said Miss Ruey; "there's something in the Bible to
+fit everything, ain't there?"
+
+"I like Moses, because I had a brother of that name," said Mrs. Pennel.
+
+The child had slid down from his protector's knee, and stood looking
+from one to the other gravely while this discussion was going on. What
+change of destiny was then going on for him in this simple formula of
+adoption, none could tell; but, surely, never orphan stranded on a
+foreign shore found home with hearts more true and loving.
+
+"Well, wife, I suppose we must be goin'," said Zephaniah.
+
+About a stone's throw from the open door, the little fishing-craft lay
+courtesying daintily on the small tide-waves that came licking up the
+white pebbly shore. Mrs. Pennel seated herself in the end of the boat,
+and a pretty placid picture she was, with her smooth, parted hair, her
+modest, cool, drab bonnet, and her bright hazel eyes, in which was the
+Sabbath calm of a loving and tender heart. Zephaniah loosed the sail,
+and the two children stood on the beach and saw them go off. A pleasant
+little wind carried them away, and back on the breeze came the sound of
+Zephaniah's Sunday-morning psalm:--
+
+    "Lord, in the morning thou shalt hear
+      My voice ascending high;
+    To thee will I direct my prayer,
+      To thee lift up mine eye.
+
+    "Unto thy house will I resort.
+      To taste thy mercies there;
+    I will frequent thy holy court,
+      And worship in thy fear."
+
+The surface of the glassy bay was dotted here and there with the white
+sails of other little craft bound for the same point and for the same
+purpose. It was as pleasant a sight as one might wish to see.
+
+Left in charge of the house, Miss Ruey drew a long breath, took a
+consoling pinch of snuff, sang "Bridgewater" in an uncommonly high key,
+and then began reading in the prophecies. With her good head full of the
+"daughter of Zion" and the house of Israel and Judah, she was recalled
+to terrestrial things by loud screams from the barn, accompanied by a
+general flutter and cackling among the hens.
+
+Away plodded the good soul, and opening the barn-door saw the little boy
+perched on the top of the hay-mow, screaming and shrieking,--his face
+the picture of dismay,--while poor little Mara's cries came in a more
+muffled manner from some unexplored lower region. In fact, she was found
+to have slipped through a hole in the hay-mow into the nest of a very
+domestic sitting-hen, whose clamors at the invasion of her family
+privacy added no little to the general confusion.
+
+The little princess, whose nicety as to her dress and sensitiveness as
+to anything unpleasant about her pretty person we have seen, was lifted
+up streaming with tears and broken eggs, but otherwise not seriously
+injured, having fallen on the very substantial substratum of hay which
+Dame Poulet had selected as the foundation of her domestic hopes.
+
+"Well, now, did I ever!" said Miss Ruey, when she had ascertained that
+no bones were broken; "if that ar young un isn't a limb! I declare for't
+I pity Mis' Pennel,--she don't know what she's undertook. How upon 'arth
+the critter managed to get Mara on to the hay, I'm sure I can't
+tell,--that ar little thing never got into no such scrapes before."
+
+Far from seeming impressed with any wholesome remorse of conscience, the
+little culprit frowned fierce defiance at Miss Ruey, when, after having
+repaired the damages of little Mara's toilet, she essayed the good old
+plan of shutting him into the closet. He fought and struggled so
+fiercely that Aunt Ruey's carroty frisette came off in the skirmish, and
+her head-gear, always rather original, assumed an aspect verging on the
+supernatural. Miss Ruey thought of Philistines and Moabites, and all the
+other terrible people she had been reading about that morning, and came
+as near getting into a passion with the little elf as so good-humored
+and Christian an old body could possibly do. Human virtue is frail, and
+every one has some vulnerable point. The old Roman senator could not
+control himself when his beard was invaded, and the like sensitiveness
+resides in an old woman's cap; and when young master irreverently clawed
+off her Sunday best, Aunt Ruey, in her confusion of mind, administered a
+sound cuff on either ear.
+
+Little Mara, who had screamed loudly through the whole scene, now
+conceiving that her precious new-found treasure was endangered, flew at
+poor Miss Ruey with both little hands; and throwing her arms round her
+"boy," as she constantly called him, she drew him backward, and looked
+defiance at the common enemy. Miss Ruey was dumb-struck.
+
+"I declare for't, I b'lieve he's bewitched her," she said, stupefied,
+having never seen anything like the martial expression which now gleamed
+from those soft brown eyes. "Why, Mara dear,--putty little Mara."
+
+But Mara was busy wiping away the angry tears that stood on the hot,
+glowing cheeks of the boy, and offering her little rosebud of a mouth to
+kiss him, as she stood on tiptoe.
+
+"Poor boy,--no kie,--Mara's boy," she said; "Mara love boy;" and then
+giving an angry glance at Aunt Ruey, who sat much disheartened and
+confused, she struck out her little pearly hand, and cried, "Go way,--go
+way, naughty!"
+
+The child jabbered unintelligibly and earnestly to Mara, and she seemed
+to have the air of being perfectly satisfied with his view of the case,
+and both regarded Miss Ruey with frowning looks. Under these peculiar
+circumstances, the good soul began to bethink her of some mode of
+compromise, and going to the closet took out a couple of slices of cake,
+which she offered to the little rebels with pacificatory words.
+
+Mara was appeased at once, and ran to Aunt Ruey; but the boy struck the
+cake out of her hand, and looked at her with steady defiance. The little
+one picked it up, and with much chippering and many little feminine
+manoeuvres, at last succeeded in making him taste it, after which
+appetite got the better of his valorous resolutions,--he ate and was
+comforted; and after a little time, the three were on the best possible
+footing. And Miss Ruey having smoothed her hair, and arranged her
+frisette and cap, began to reflect upon herself as the cause of the
+whole disturbance. If she had not let them run while she indulged in
+reading and singing, this would not have happened. So the toilful good
+soul kept them at her knee for the next hour or two, while they looked
+through all the pictures in the old family Bible.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The evening of that day witnessed a crowded funeral in the small rooms
+of Captain Kittridge. Mrs. Kittridge was in her glory. Solemn and
+lugubrious to the last degree, she supplied in her own proper person the
+want of the whole corps of mourners, who generally attract sympathy on
+such occasions. But what drew artless pity from all was the unconscious
+orphan, who came in, led by Mrs. Pennel by the one hand, and with the
+little Mara by the other.
+
+The simple rite of baptism administered to the wondering little creature
+so strongly recalled that other scene three years before, that Mrs.
+Pennel hid her face in her handkerchief, and Zephaniah's firm hand shook
+a little as he took the boy to offer him to the rite. The child received
+the ceremony with a look of grave surprise, put up his hand quickly and
+wiped the holy drops from his brow, as if they annoyed him; and
+shrinking back, seized hold of the gown of Mrs. Pennel. His great
+beauty, and, still more, the air of haughty, defiant firmness with which
+he regarded the company, drew all eyes, and many were the whispered
+comments.
+
+"Pennel'll have his hands full with that ar chap," said Captain
+Kittridge to Miss Roxy.
+
+Mrs. Kittridge darted an admonitory glance at her husband, to remind him
+that she was looking at him, and immediately he collapsed into
+solemnity.
+
+The evening sunbeams slanted over the blackberry bushes and mullein
+stalks of the graveyard, when the lonely voyager was lowered to the rest
+from which she should not rise till the heavens be no more. As the
+purple sea at that hour retained no trace of the ships that had furrowed
+its waves, so of this mortal traveler no trace remained, not even in
+that infant soul that was to her so passionately dear.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+THE MINISTER
+
+
+Mrs. Kittridge's advantages and immunities resulting from the shipwreck
+were not yet at an end. Not only had one of the most "solemn
+providences" known within the memory of the neighborhood fallen out at
+her door,--not only had the most interesting funeral that had occurred
+for three or four years taken place in her parlor, but she was still
+further to be distinguished in having the minister to tea after the
+performances were all over. To this end she had risen early, and taken
+down her best china tea-cups, which had been marked with her and her
+husband's joint initials in Canton, and which only came forth on high
+and solemn occasions. In view of this probable distinction, on Saturday,
+immediately after the discovery of the calamity, Mrs. Kittridge had
+found time to rush to her kitchen, and make up a loaf of pound-cake and
+some doughnuts, that the great occasion which she foresaw might not find
+her below her reputation as a forehanded housewife.
+
+It was a fine golden hour when the minister and funeral train turned
+away from the grave. Unlike other funerals, there was no draught on the
+sympathies in favor of mourners--no wife, or husband, or parent, left a
+heart in that grave; and so when the rites were all over, they turned
+with the more cheerfulness back into life, from the contrast of its
+freshness with those shadows into which, for the hour, they had been
+gazing.
+
+The Rev. Theophilus Sewell was one of the few ministers who preserved
+the costume of a former generation, with something of that imposing
+dignity with which, in earlier times, the habits of the clergy were
+invested. He was tall and majestic in stature, and carried to advantage
+the powdered wig and three-cornered hat, the broad-skirted coat,
+knee-breeches, high shoes, and plated buckles of the ancient costume.
+There was just a sufficient degree of the formality of olden times to
+give a certain quaintness to all he said and did. He was a man of a
+considerable degree of talent, force, and originality, and in fact had
+been held in his day to be one of the most promising graduates of
+Harvard University. But, being a good man, he had proposed to himself no
+higher ambition than to succeed to the pulpit of his father in
+Harpswell.
+
+His parish included not only a somewhat scattered seafaring population
+on the mainland, but also the care of several islands. Like many other
+of the New England clergy of those times, he united in himself numerous
+different offices for the benefit of the people whom he served. As there
+was neither lawyer nor physician in the town, he had acquired by his
+reading, and still more by his experience, enough knowledge in both
+these departments to enable him to administer to the ordinary wants of a
+very healthy and peaceable people.
+
+It was said that most of the deeds and legal conveyances in his parish
+were in his handwriting, and in the medical line his authority was only
+rivaled by that of Miss Roxy, who claimed a very obvious advantage over
+him in a certain class of cases, from the fact of her being a woman,
+which was still further increased by the circumstance that the good man
+had retained steadfastly his bachelor estate. "So, of course," Miss Roxy
+used to say, "poor man! what could he know about a woman, you know?"
+
+This state of bachelorhood gave occasion to much surmising; but when
+spoken to about it, he was accustomed to remark with gallantry, that he
+should have too much regard for any lady whom he could think of as a
+wife, to ask her to share his straitened circumstances. His income,
+indeed, consisted of only about two hundred dollars a year; but upon
+this he and a very brisk, cheerful maiden sister contrived to keep up a
+thrifty and comfortable establishment, in which everything appeared to
+be pervaded by a spirit of quaint cheerfulness.
+
+In fact, the man might be seen to be an original in his way, and all the
+springs of his life were kept oiled by a quiet humor, which sometimes
+broke out in playful sparkles, despite the gravity of the pulpit and the
+awfulness of the cocked hat. He had a placid way of amusing himself with
+the quaint and picturesque side of life, as it appeared in all his
+visitings among a very primitive, yet very shrewd-minded people.
+
+There are those people who possess a peculiar faculty of mingling in the
+affairs of this life as spectators as well as actors. It does not, of
+course, suppose any coldness of nature or want of human interest or
+sympathy--nay, it often exists most completely with people of the
+tenderest human feeling. It rather seems to be a kind of distinct
+faculty working harmoniously with all the others; but he who possesses
+it needs never to be at a loss for interest or amusement; he is always a
+spectator at a tragedy or comedy, and sees in real life a humor and a
+pathos beyond anything he can find shadowed in books.
+
+Mr. Sewell sometimes, in his pastoral visitations, took a quiet pleasure
+in playing upon these simple minds, and amusing himself with the odd
+harmonies and singular resolutions of chords which started out under his
+fingers. Surely he had a right to something in addition to his limited
+salary, and this innocent, unsuspected entertainment helped to make up
+the balance for his many labors.
+
+His sister was one of the best-hearted and most unsuspicious of the
+class of female idolaters, and worshiped her brother with the most
+undoubting faith and devotion--wholly ignorant of the constant amusement
+she gave him by a thousand little feminine peculiarities, which struck
+him with a continual sense of oddity. It was infinitely diverting to him
+to see the solemnity of her interest in his shirts and stockings, and
+Sunday clothes, and to listen to the subtle distinctions which she would
+draw between best and second-best, and every-day; to receive her
+somewhat prolix admonition how he was to demean himself in respect of
+the wearing of each one; for Miss Emily Sewell was a gentlewoman, and
+held rigidly to various traditions of gentility which had been handed
+down in the Sewell family, and which afforded her brother too much quiet
+amusement to be disturbed. He would not have overthrown one of her
+quiddities for the world; it would be taking away a part of his capital
+in existence.
+
+Miss Emily was a trim, genteel little person, with dancing black eyes,
+and cheeks which had the roses of youth well dried into them. It was
+easy to see that she had been quite pretty in her days; and her neat
+figure, her brisk little vivacious ways, her unceasing good-nature and
+kindness of heart, still made her an object both of admiration and
+interest in the parish. She was great in drying herbs and preparing
+recipes; in knitting and sewing, and cutting and contriving; in saving
+every possible snip and chip either of food or clothing; and no less
+liberal was she in bestowing advice and aid in the parish, where she
+moved about with all the sense of consequence which her brother's
+position warranted.
+
+The fact of his bachelorhood caused his relations to the female part of
+his flock to be even more shrouded in sacredness and mystery than is
+commonly the case with the great man of the parish; but Miss Emily
+delighted to act as interpreter. She was charmed to serve out to the
+willing ears of his parish from time to time such scraps of information
+as regarded his life, habits, and opinions as might gratify their ever
+new curiosity. Instructed by her, all the good wives knew the difference
+between his very best long silk stocking and his second best, and how
+carefully the first had to be kept under lock and key, where he could
+not get at them; for he was understood, good as he was, to have
+concealed in him all the thriftless and pernicious inconsiderateness of
+the male nature, ready at any moment to break out into unheard-of
+improprieties. But the good man submitted himself to Miss Emily's rule,
+and suffered himself to be led about by her with an air of half
+whimsical consciousness.
+
+Mrs. Kittridge that day had felt the full delicacy of the compliment
+when she ascertained by a hasty glance, before the first prayer, that
+the good man had been brought out to her funeral in all his very best
+things, not excepting the long silk stockings, for she knew the
+second-best pair by means of a certain skillful darn which Miss Emily
+had once shown her, which commemorated the spot where a hole had been.
+The absence of this darn struck to Mrs. Kittridge's heart at once as a
+delicate attention.
+
+"Mis' Simpkins," said Mrs. Kittridge to her pastor, as they were seated
+at the tea-table, "told me that she wished when you were going home that
+you would call in to see Mary Jane; she couldn't come out to the funeral
+on account of a dreffle sore throat. I was tellin' on her to gargle it
+with blackberry-root tea--don't you think that is a good gargle, Mr.
+Sewell?"
+
+"Yes, I think it a very good gargle," replied the minister, gravely.
+
+"Ma'sh rosemary is the gargle that I always use," said Miss Roxy; "it
+cleans out your throat so."
+
+"Marsh rosemary is a very excellent gargle," said Mr. Sewell.
+
+"Why, brother, don't you think that rose leaves and vitriol is a good
+gargle?" said little Miss Emily; "I always thought that you liked rose
+leaves and vitriol for a gargle."
+
+"So I do," said the imperturbable Mr. Sewell, drinking his tea with the
+air of a sphinx.
+
+"Well, now, you'll have to tell which on 'em will be most likely to cure
+Mary Jane," said Captain Kittridge, "or there'll be a pullin' of caps,
+I'm thinkin'; or else the poor girl will have to drink them all, which
+is generally the way."
+
+"There won't any of them cure Mary Jane's throat," said the minister,
+quietly.
+
+"Why, brother!" "Why, Mr. Sewell!" "Why, you don't!" burst in different
+tones from each of the women.
+
+"I thought you said that blackberry-root tea was good," said Mrs.
+Kittridge.
+
+"I understood that you 'proved of ma'sh rosemary," said Miss Roxy,
+touched in her professional pride.
+
+"And I am sure, brother, that I have heard you say, often and often,
+that there wasn't a better gargle than rose leaves and vitriol," said
+Miss Emily.
+
+"You are quite right, ladies, all of you. I think these are all good
+gargles--excellent ones."
+
+"But I thought you said that they didn't do any good?" said all the
+ladies in a breath.
+
+"No, they don't--not the least in the world," said Mr. Sewell; "but they
+are all excellent gargles, and as long as people must have gargles, I
+think one is about as good as another."
+
+"Now you have got it," said Captain Kittridge.
+
+"Brother, you do say the strangest things," said Miss Emily.
+
+"Well, I must say," said Miss Roxy, "it is a new idea to me, long as
+I've been nussin', and I nussed through one season of scarlet fever
+when sometimes there was five died in one house; and if ma'sh rosemary
+didn't do good then, I should like to know what did."
+
+"So would a good many others," said the minister.
+
+"Law, now, Miss Roxy, you mus'n't mind him. Do you know that I believe
+he says these sort of things just to hear us talk? Of course he wouldn't
+think of puttin' his experience against yours."
+
+"But, Mis' Kittridge," said Miss Emily, with a view of summoning a less
+controverted subject, "what a beautiful little boy that was, and what a
+striking providence that brought him into such a good family!"
+
+"Yes," said Mrs. Kittridge; "but I'm sure I don't see what Mary Pennel
+is goin' to do with that boy, for she ain't got no more government than
+a twisted tow-string."
+
+"Oh, the Cap'n, he'll lend a hand," said Miss Roxy, "it won't be easy
+gettin' roun' him; Cap'n bears a pretty steady hand when he sets out to
+drive."
+
+"Well," said Miss Emily, "I do think that bringin' up children is the
+most awful responsibility, and I always wonder when I hear that any one
+dares to undertake it."
+
+"It requires a great deal of resolution, certainly," said Mrs.
+Kittridge; "I'm sure I used to get a'most discouraged when my boys was
+young: they was a reg'lar set of wild ass's colts," she added, not
+perceiving the reflection on their paternity.
+
+But the countenance of Mr. Sewell was all aglow with merriment, which
+did not break into a smile.
+
+"Wal', Mis' Kittridge," said the Captain, "strikes me that you're
+gettin' pussonal."
+
+"No, I ain't neither," said the literal Mrs. Kittridge, ignorant of the
+cause of the amusement which she saw around her; "but you wa'n't no help
+to me, you know; you was always off to sea, and the whole wear and tear
+on't came on me."
+
+"Well, well, Polly, all's well that ends well; don't you think so, Mr.
+Sewell?"
+
+"I haven't much experience in these matters," said Mr. Sewell, politely.
+
+"No, indeed, that's what he hasn't, for he never will have a child round
+the house that he don't turn everything topsy-turvy for them," said Miss
+Emily.
+
+"But I was going to remark," said Mr. Sewell, "that a friend of mine
+said once, that the woman that had brought up six boys deserved a seat
+among the martyrs; and that is rather my opinion."
+
+"Wal', Polly, if you git up there, I hope you'll keep a seat for me."
+
+"Cap'n Kittridge, what levity!" said his wife.
+
+"I didn't begin it, anyhow," said the Captain.
+
+Miss Emily interposed, and led the conversation back to the subject.
+"What a pity it is," she said, "that this poor child's family can never
+know anything about him. There may be those who would give all the world
+to know what has become of him; and when he comes to grow up, how sad he
+will feel to have no father and mother!"
+
+"Sister," said Mr. Sewell, "you cannot think that a child brought up by
+Captain Pennel and his wife would ever feel as without father and
+mother."
+
+"Why, no, brother, to be sure not. There's no doubt he will have
+everything done for him that a child could. But then it's a loss to lose
+one's real home."
+
+"It may be a gracious deliverance," said Mr. Sewell--"who knows? We may
+as well take a cheerful view, and think that some kind wave has drifted
+the child away from an unfortunate destiny to a family where we are
+quite sure he will be brought up industriously and soberly, and in the
+fear of God."
+
+"Well, I never thought of that," said Miss Roxy.
+
+Miss Emily, looking at her brother, saw that he was speaking with a
+suppressed vehemence, as if some inner fountain of recollection at the
+moment were disturbed. But Miss Emily knew no more of the deeper parts
+of her brother's nature than a little bird that dips its beak into the
+sunny waters of some spring knows of its depths of coldness and shadow.
+
+"Mis' Pennel was a-sayin' to me," said Mrs. Kittridge, "that I should
+ask you what was to be done about the bracelet they found. We don't know
+whether 'tis real gold and precious stones, or only glass and pinchbeck.
+Cap'n Kittridge he thinks it's real; and if 'tis, why then the question
+is, whether or no to try to sell it, or keep it for the boy agin he
+grows up. It may help find out who and what he is."
+
+"And why should he want to find out?" said Mr. Sewell. "Why should he
+not grow up and think himself the son of Captain and Mrs. Pennel? What
+better lot could a boy be born to?"
+
+"That may be, brother, but it can't be kept from him. Everybody knows
+how he was found, and you may be sure every bird of the air will tell
+him, and he'll grow up restless and wanting to know. Mis' Kittridge,
+have you got the bracelet handy?"
+
+The fact was, little Miss Emily was just dying with curiosity to set her
+dancing black eyes upon it.
+
+"Here it is," said Mrs. Kittridge, taking it from a drawer.
+
+It was a bracelet of hair, of some curious foreign workmanship. A green
+enameled serpent, studded thickly with emeralds and with eyes of ruby,
+was curled around the clasp. A crystal plate covered a wide flat braid
+of hair, on which the letters "D.M." were curiously embroidered in a
+cipher of seed pearls. The whole was in style and workmanship quite
+different from any jewelry which ordinarily meets one's eye.
+
+But what was remarkable was the expression in Mr. Sewell's face when
+this bracelet was put into his hand. Miss Emily had risen from table and
+brought it to him, leaning over him as she did so, and he turned his
+head a little to hold it in the light from the window, so that only she
+remarked the sudden expression of blank surprise and startled
+recognition which fell upon it. He seemed like a man who chokes down an
+exclamation; and rising hastily, he took the bracelet to the window, and
+standing with his back to the company, seemed to examine it with the
+minutest interest. After a few moments he turned and said, in a very
+composed tone, as if the subject were of no particular interest,--
+
+"It is a singular article, so far as workmanship is concerned. The value
+of the gems in themselves is not great enough to make it worth while to
+sell it. It will be worth more as a curiosity than anything else. It
+will doubtless be an interesting relic to keep for the boy when he grows
+up."
+
+"Well, Mr. Sewell, you keep it," said Mrs. Kittridge; "the Pennels told
+me to give it into your care."
+
+"I shall commit it to Emily here; women have a native sympathy with
+anything in the jewelry line. She'll be sure to lay it up so securely
+that she won't even know where it is herself."
+
+"Brother!"
+
+"Come, Emily," said Mr. Sewell, "your hens will all go to roost on the
+wrong perch if you are not at home to see to them; so, if the Captain
+will set us across to Harpswell, I think we may as well be going."
+
+"Why, what's your hurry?" said Mrs. Kittridge.
+
+"Well," said Mr. Sewell, "firstly, there's the hens; secondly, the pigs;
+and lastly, the cow. Besides I shouldn't wonder if some of Emily's
+admirers should call on her this evening,--never any saying when Captain
+Broad may come in."
+
+"Now, brother, you are too bad," said Miss Emily, as she bustled about
+her bonnet and shawl. "Now, that's all made up out of whole cloth.
+Captain Broad called last week a Monday, to talk to you about the pews,
+and hardly spoke a word to me. You oughtn't to say such things, 'cause
+it raises reports."
+
+"Ah, well, then, I won't again," said her brother. "I believe, after
+all, it was Captain Badger that called twice."
+
+"Brother!"
+
+"And left you a basket of apples the second time."
+
+"Brother, you know he only called to get some of my hoarhound for
+Mehitable's cough."
+
+"Oh, yes, I remember."
+
+"If you don't take care," said Miss Emily, "I'll tell where you call."
+
+"Come, Miss Emily, you must not mind him," said Miss Roxy; "we all know
+his ways."
+
+And now took place the grand leave-taking, which consisted first of the
+three women's standing in a knot and all talking at once, as if their
+very lives depended upon saying everything they could possibly think of
+before they separated, while Mr. Sewell and Captain Kittridge stood
+patiently waiting with the resigned air which the male sex commonly
+assume on such occasions; and when, after two or three "Come, Emily's,"
+the group broke up only to form again on the door-step, where they were
+at it harder than ever, and a third occasion of the same sort took place
+at the bottom of the steps, Mr. Sewell was at last obliged by main force
+to drag his sister away in the middle of a sentence.
+
+Miss Emily watched her brother shrewdly all the way home, but all traces
+of any uncommon feeling had passed away; and yet, with the restlessness
+of female curiosity, she felt quite sure that she had laid hold of the
+end of some skein of mystery, could she only find skill enough to unwind
+it.
+
+She took up the bracelet, and held it in the fading evening light, and
+broke into various observations with regard to the singularity of the
+workmanship. Her brother seemed entirely absorbed in talking with
+Captain Kittridge about the brig Anna Maria, which was going to be
+launched from Pennel's wharf next Wednesday. But she, therefore,
+internally resolved to lie in wait for the secret in that confidential
+hour which usually preceded going to bed. Therefore, as soon as she had
+arrived at their quiet dwelling, she put in operation the most seducing
+little fire that ever crackled and snapped in a chimney, well knowing
+that nothing was more calculated to throw light into any hidden or
+concealed chamber of the soul than that enlivening blaze, which danced
+so merrily on her well-polished andirons, and made the old chintz sofa
+and the time-worn furniture so rich in remembrances of family comfort.
+
+She then proceeded to divest her brother of his wig and his dress-coat,
+and to induct him into the flowing ease of a study-gown, crowning his
+well-shaven head with a black cap, and placing his slippers before the
+corner of a sofa nearest the fire. She observed him with satisfaction
+sliding into his seat, and then she trotted to a closet with a glass
+door in the corner of the room, and took down an old, quaintly-shaped
+silver cup, which had been an heirloom in their family, and was the only
+piece of plate which their modern domestic establishment could boast;
+and with this, down cellar she tripped, her little heels tapping lightly
+on each stair, and the hum of a song coming back after her as she sought
+the cider-barrel. Up again she came, and set the silver cup, with its
+clear amber contents, down by the fire, and then busied herself in
+making just the crispest, nicest square of toast to be eaten with it;
+for Miss Emily had conceived the idea that some little ceremony of this
+sort was absolutely necessary to do away all possible ill effects from a
+day's labor, and secure an uninterrupted night's repose. Having done
+all this, she took her knitting-work, and stationed herself just
+opposite to her brother.
+
+It was fortunate for Miss Emily that the era of daily journals had not
+yet arisen upon the earth, because if it had, after all her care and
+pains, her brother would probably have taken up the evening paper, and
+holding it between his face and her, have read an hour or so in silence;
+but Mr. Sewell had not this resort. He knew perfectly well that he had
+excited his sister's curiosity on a subject where he could not gratify
+it, and therefore he took refuge in a kind of mild, abstracted air of
+quietude which bid defiance to all her little suggestions.
+
+After in vain trying every indirect form, Miss Emily approached the
+subject more pointedly. "I thought that you looked very much interested
+in that poor woman to-day."
+
+"She had an interesting face," said her brother, dryly.
+
+"Was it like anybody that you ever saw?" said Miss Emily.
+
+Her brother did not seem to hear her, but, taking the tongs, picked up
+the two ends of a stick that had just fallen apart, and arranged them so
+as to make a new blaze.
+
+Miss Emily was obliged to repeat her question, whereat he started as one
+awakened out of a dream, and said,--
+
+"Why, yes, he didn't know but she did; there were a good many women with
+black eyes and black hair,--Mrs. Kittridge, for instance."
+
+"Why, I don't think that she looked like Mrs. Kittridge in the least,"
+said Miss Emily, warmly.
+
+"Oh, well! I didn't say she did," said her brother, looking drowsily at
+his watch; "why, Emily, it's getting rather late."
+
+"What made you look so when I showed you that bracelet?" said Miss
+Emily, determined now to push the war to the heart of the enemy's
+country.
+
+"Look how?" said her brother, leisurely moistening a bit of toast in his
+cider.
+
+"Why, I never saw anybody look more wild and astonished than you did for
+a minute or two."
+
+"I did, did I?" said her brother, in the same indifferent tone. "My dear
+child, what an active imagination you have. Did you ever look through a
+prism, Emily?"
+
+"Why, no, Theophilus; what do you mean?"
+
+"Well, if you should, you would see everybody and everything with a nice
+little bordering of rainbow around them; now the rainbow isn't on the
+things, but in the prism."
+
+"Well, what's that to the purpose?" said Miss Emily, rather bewildered.
+
+"Why, just this: you women are so nervous and excitable, that you are
+very apt to see your friends and the world in general with some coloring
+just as unreal. I am sorry for you, childie, but really I can't help you
+to get up a romance out of this bracelet. Well, good-night, Emily; take
+good care of yourself and go to bed;" and Mr. Sewell went to his room,
+leaving poor Miss Emily almost persuaded out of the sight of her own
+eyes.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+LITTLE ADVENTURERS
+
+
+The little boy who had been added to the family of Zephaniah Pennel and
+his wife soon became a source of grave solicitude to that mild and
+long-suffering woman. For, as the reader may have seen, he was a
+resolute, self-willed little elf, and whatever his former life may have
+been, it was quite evident that these traits had been developed without
+any restraint.
+
+Mrs. Pennel, whose whole domestic experience had consisted in rearing
+one very sensitive and timid daughter, who needed for her development
+only an extreme of tenderness, and whose conscientiousness was a law
+unto herself, stood utterly confounded before the turbulent little
+spirit to which her loving-kindness had opened so ready an asylum, and
+she soon discovered that it is one thing to take a human being to bring
+up, and another to know what to do with it after it is taken.
+
+The child had the instinctive awe of Zephaniah which his manly nature
+and habits of command were fitted to inspire, so that morning and
+evening, when he was at home, he was demure enough; but while the good
+man was away all day, and sometimes on fishing excursions which often
+lasted a week, there was a chronic state of domestic warfare--a
+succession of skirmishes, pitched battles, long treaties, with divers
+articles of capitulation, ending, as treaties are apt to do, in open
+rupture on the first convenient opportunity.
+
+Mrs. Pennel sometimes reflected with herself mournfully, and with many
+self-disparaging sighs, what was the reason that young master somehow
+contrived to keep her far more in awe of him than he was of her. Was she
+not evidently, as yet at least, bigger and stronger than he, able to
+hold his rebellious little hands, to lift and carry him, and to shut him
+up, if so she willed, in a dark closet, and even to administer to him
+that discipline of the birch which Mrs. Kittridge often and forcibly
+recommended as the great secret of her family prosperity? Was it not her
+duty, as everybody told her, to break his will while he was young?--a
+duty which hung like a millstone round the peaceable creature's neck,
+and weighed her down with a distressing sense of responsibility.
+
+Now, Mrs. Pennel was one of the people to whom self-sacrifice is
+constitutionally so much a nature, that self-denial for her must have
+consisted in standing up for her own rights, or having her own way when
+it crossed the will and pleasure of any one around her. All she wanted
+of a child, or in fact of any human creature, was something to love and
+serve. We leave it entirely to theologians to reconcile such facts with
+the theory of total depravity; but it is a fact that there are a
+considerable number of women of this class. Their life would flow on
+very naturally if it might consist only in giving, never in
+withholding--only in praise, never in blame--only in acquiescence, never
+in conflict; and the chief comfort of such women in religion is that it
+gives them at last an object for love without criticism, and for whom
+the utmost degree of self-abandonment is not idolatry, but worship.
+
+Mrs. Pennel would gladly have placed herself and all she possessed at
+the disposition of the children; they might have broken her china, dug
+in the garden with her silver spoons, made turf alleys in her best room,
+drummed on her mahogany tea-table, filled her muslin drawer with their
+choicest shells and seaweed; only Mrs. Pennel knew that such kindness
+was no kindness, and that in the dreadful word responsibility, familiar
+to every New England mother's ear, there lay an awful summons to deny
+and to conflict where she could so much easier have conceded.
+
+She saw that the tyrant little will would reign without mercy, if it
+reigned at all; and ever present with her was the uneasy sense that it
+was her duty to bring this erratic little comet within the laws of a
+well-ordered solar system,--a task to which she felt about as competent
+as to make a new ring for Saturn. Then, too, there was a secret feeling,
+if the truth must be told, of what Mrs. Kittridge would think about it;
+for duty is never more formidable than when she gets on the cap and gown
+of a neighbor; and Mrs. Kittridge, with her resolute voice and
+declamatory family government, had always been a secret source of
+uneasiness to poor Mrs. Pennel, who was one of those sensitive souls who
+can feel for a mile or more the sphere of a stronger neighbor. During
+all the years that they had lived side by side, there had been this
+shadowy, unconfessed feeling on the part of poor Mrs. Pennel, that Mrs.
+Kittridge thought her deficient in her favorite virtue of "resolution,"
+as, in fact, in her inmost soul she knew she was;--but who wants to have
+one's weak places looked into by the sharp eyes of a neighbor who is
+strong precisely where we are weak? The trouble that one neighbor may
+give to another, simply by living within a mile of one, is incredible;
+but until this new accession to her family, Mrs. Pennel had always been
+able to comfort herself with the idea that the child under her
+particular training was as well-behaved as any of those of her more
+demonstrative friend. But now, all this consolation had been put to
+flight; she could not meet Mrs. Kittridge without most humiliating
+recollections.
+
+On Sundays, when those sharp black eyes gleamed upon her through the
+rails of the neighboring pew, her very soul shrank within her, as she
+recollected all the compromises and defeats of the week before. It
+seemed to her that Mrs. Kittridge saw it all,--how she had ingloriously
+bought peace with gingerbread, instead of maintaining it by rightful
+authority,--how young master had sat up till nine o'clock on divers
+occasions, and even kept little Mara up for his lordly pleasure.
+
+How she trembled at every movement of the child in the pew, dreading
+some patent and open impropriety which should bring scandal on her
+government! This was the more to be feared, as the first effort to
+initiate the youthful neophyte in the decorums of the sanctuary had
+proved anything but a success,--insomuch that Zephaniah Pennel had been
+obliged to carry him out from the church; therefore, poor Mrs. Pennel
+was thankful every Sunday when she got her little charge home without
+any distinct scandal and breach of the peace.
+
+But, after all, he was such a handsome and engaging little wretch,
+attracting all eyes wherever he went, and so full of saucy drolleries,
+that it seemed to Mrs. Pennel that everything and everybody conspired to
+help her spoil him. There are two classes of human beings in this world:
+one class seem made to give love, and the other to take it. Now Mrs.
+Pennel and Mara belonged to the first class, and little Master Moses to
+the latter.
+
+It was, perhaps, of service to the little girl to give to her delicate,
+shrinking, highly nervous organization the constant support of a
+companion so courageous, so richly blooded, and highly vitalized as the
+boy seemed to be. There was a fervid, tropical richness in his air that
+gave one a sense of warmth in looking at him, and made his Oriental name
+seem in good-keeping. He seemed an exotic that might have waked up under
+fervid Egyptian suns, and been found cradled among the lotus blossoms of
+old Nile; and the fair golden-haired girl seemed to be gladdened by his
+companionship, as if he supplied an element of vital warmth to her
+being. She seemed to incline toward him as naturally as a needle to a
+magnet.
+
+The child's quickness of ear and the facility with which he picked up
+English were marvelous to observe. Evidently, he had been somewhat
+accustomed to the sound of it before, for there dropped out of his
+vocabulary, after he began to speak, phrases which would seem to betoken
+a longer familiarity with its idioms than could be equally accounted for
+by his present experience. Though the English evidently was not his
+native language, there had yet apparently been some effort to teach it
+to him, although the terror and confusion of the shipwreck seemed at
+first to have washed every former impression from his mind.
+
+But whenever any attempt was made to draw him to speak of the past, of
+his mother, or of where he came from, his brow lowered gloomily, and he
+assumed that kind of moody, impenetrable gravity, which children at
+times will so strangely put on, and which baffle all attempts to look
+within them. Zephaniah Pennel used to call it putting up his
+dead-lights. Perhaps it was the dreadful association of agony and terror
+connected with the shipwreck, that thus confused and darkened the mirror
+of his mind the moment it was turned backward; but it was thought wisest
+by his new friends to avoid that class of subjects altogether--indeed,
+it was their wish that he might forget the past entirely, and remember
+them as his only parents.
+
+Miss Roxy and Miss Ruey came duly, as appointed, to initiate the young
+pilgrim into the habiliments of a Yankee boy, endeavoring, at the same
+time, to drop into his mind such seeds of moral wisdom as might make the
+internal economy in time correspond to the exterior. But Miss Roxy
+declared that "of all the children that ever she see, he beat all for
+finding out new mischief,--the moment you'd make him understand he
+mustn't do one thing, he was right at another."
+
+One of his exploits, however, had very nearly been the means of cutting
+short the materials of our story in the outset.
+
+It was a warm, sunny afternoon, and the three women, being busy together
+with their stitching, had tied a sun-bonnet on little Mara, and turned
+the two loose upon the beach to pick up shells. All was serene, and
+quiet, and retired, and no possible danger could be apprehended. So up
+and down they trotted, till the spirit of adventure which ever burned in
+the breast of little Moses caught sight of a small canoe which had been
+moored just under the shadow of a cedar-covered rock. Forthwith he
+persuaded his little neighbor to go into it, and for a while they made
+themselves very gay, rocking it from side to side.
+
+The tide was going out, and each retreating wave washed the boat up and
+down, till it came into the boy's curly head how beautiful it would be
+to sail out as he had seen men do,--and so, with much puffing and
+earnest tugging of his little brown hands, the boat at last was loosed
+from her moorings and pushed out on the tide, when both children laughed
+gayly to find themselves swinging and balancing on the amber surface,
+and watching the rings and sparkles of sunshine and the white pebbles
+below. Little Moses was glorious,--his adventures had begun,--and with a
+fairy-princess in his boat, he was going to stretch away to some of the
+islands of dreamland. He persuaded Mara to give him her pink sun-bonnet,
+which he placed for a pennon on a stick at the end of the boat, while he
+made a vehement dashing with another, first on one side of the boat and
+then on the other,--spattering the water in diamond showers, to the
+infinite amusement of the little maiden.
+
+Meanwhile the tide waves danced them out and still outward, and as they
+went farther and farther from shore, the more glorious felt the boy. He
+had got Mara all to himself, and was going away with her from all grown
+people, who wouldn't let children do as they pleased,--who made them sit
+still in prayer-time, and took them to meeting, and kept so many things
+which they must not touch, or open, or play with. Two white sea-gulls
+came flying toward the children, and they stretched their little arms in
+welcome, nothing doubting but these fair creatures were coming at once
+to take passage with them for fairy-land. But the birds only dived and
+shifted and veered, turning their silvery sides toward the sun, and
+careering in circles round the children. A brisk little breeze, that
+came hurrying down from the land, seemed disposed to favor their
+unsubstantial enterprise,--for your winds, being a fanciful, uncertain
+tribe of people, are always for falling in with anything that is
+contrary to common sense. So the wind trolled them merrily along,
+nothing doubting that there might be time, if they hurried, to land
+their boat on the shore of some of the low-banked red clouds that lay in
+the sunset, where they could pick up shells,--blue and pink and
+purple,--enough to make them rich for life. The children were all
+excitement at the rapidity with which their little bark danced and
+rocked, as it floated outward to the broad, open ocean; at the blue,
+freshening waves, at the silver-glancing gulls, at the floating,
+white-winged ships, and at vague expectations of going rapidly
+somewhere, to something more beautiful still. And what is the happiness
+of the brightest hours of grown people more than this?
+
+"Roxy," said Aunt Ruey innocently, "seems to me I haven't heard nothin'
+o' them children lately. They're so still, I'm 'fraid there's some
+mischief."
+
+"Well, Ruey, you jist go and give a look at 'em," said Miss Roxy. "I
+declare, that boy! I never know what he will do next; but there didn't
+seem to be nothin' to get into out there but the sea, and the beach is
+so shelving, a body can't well fall into that."
+
+Alas! good Miss Roxy, the children are at this moment tilting up and
+down on the waves, half a mile out to sea, as airily happy as the
+sea-gulls; and little Moses now thinks, with glorious scorn, of you and
+your press-board, as of grim shadows of restraint and bondage that shall
+never darken his free life more.
+
+Both Miss Roxy and Mrs. Pennel were, however, startled into a paroxysm
+of alarm when poor Miss Ruey came screaming, as she entered the door,--
+
+"As sure as you're alive, them chil'en are off in the boat,--they're out
+to sea, sure as I'm alive! What shall we do? The boat'll upset, and the
+sharks'll get 'em."
+
+Miss Roxy ran to the window, and saw dancing and courtesying on the blue
+waves the little pinnace, with its fanciful pink pennon fluttered gayly
+by the indiscreet and flattering wind.
+
+Poor Mrs. Pennel ran to the shore, and stretched her arms wildly, as if
+she would have followed them across the treacherous blue floor that
+heaved and sparkled between them.
+
+"Oh, Mara, Mara! Oh, my poor little girl! Oh, poor children!"
+
+"Well, if ever I see such a young un as that," soliloquized Miss Roxy
+from the chamber-window; "there they be, dancin' and giggitin' about;
+they'll have the boat upset in a minit, and the sharks are waitin' for
+'em, no doubt. _I_ b'lieve that ar young un's helped by the Evil
+One,--not a boat round, else I'd push off after 'em. Well, I don't see
+but we must trust in the Lord,--there don't seem to be much else to
+trust to," said the spinster, as she drew her head in grimly.
+
+To say the truth, there was some reason for the terror of these most
+fearful suggestions; for not far from the place where the children
+embarked was Zephaniah's fish-drying ground, and multitudes of sharks
+came up with every rising tide, allured by the offal that was here
+constantly thrown into the sea. Two of these prowlers, outward-bound
+from their quest, were even now assiduously attending the little boat,
+and the children derived no small amusement from watching their motions
+in the pellucid water,--the boy occasionally almost upsetting the boat
+by valorous plunges at them with his stick. It was the most exhilarating
+and piquant entertainment he had found for many a day; and little Mara
+laughed in chorus at every lunge that he made.
+
+What would have been the end of it all, it is difficult to say, had not
+some mortal power interfered before they had sailed finally away into
+the sunset. But it so happened, on this very afternoon, Rev. Mr. Sewell
+was out in a boat, busy in the very apostolic employment of catching
+fish, and looking up from one of the contemplative pauses which his
+occupation induced, he rubbed his eyes at the apparition which presented
+itself. A tiny little shell of a boat came drifting toward him, in which
+was a black-eyed boy, with cheeks like a pomegranate and lustrous
+tendrils of silky dark hair, and a little golden-haired girl, white as a
+water-lily, and looking ethereal enough to have risen out of the
+sea-foam. Both were in the very sparkle and effervescence of that
+fanciful glee which bubbles up from the golden, untried fountains of
+early childhood. Mr. Sewell, at a glance, comprehended the whole, and at
+once overhauling the tiny craft, he broke the spell of fairy-land, and
+constrained the little people to return to the confines, dull and
+dreary, of real and actual life.
+
+Neither of them had known a doubt or a fear in that joyous trance of
+forbidden pleasure which shadowed with so many fears the wiser and more
+far-seeing heads and hearts of the grown people; nor was there enough
+language yet in common between the two classes to make the little ones
+comprehend the risk they had run. Perhaps so do our elder brothers, in
+our Father's house, look anxiously out when we are sailing gayly over
+life's sea,--over unknown depths,--amid threatening monsters,--but want
+words to tell us why what seems so bright is so dangerous.
+
+Duty herself could not have worn a more rigid aspect than Miss Roxy, as
+she stood on the beach, press-board in hand; for she had forgotten to
+lay it down in the eagerness of her anxiety. She essayed to lay hold of
+the little hand of Moses to pull him from the boat, but he drew back,
+and, looking at her with a world of defiance in his great eyes, jumped
+magnanimously upon the beach. The spirit of Sir Francis Drake and of
+Christopher Columbus was swelling in his little body, and was he to be
+brought under by a dry-visaged woman with a press-board? In fact,
+nothing is more ludicrous about the escapades of children than the utter
+insensibility they feel to the dangers they have run, and the light
+esteem in which they hold the deep tragedy they create.
+
+That night, when Zephaniah, in his evening exercise, poured forth most
+fervent thanksgivings for the deliverance, while Mrs. Pennel was sobbing
+in her handkerchief, Miss Roxy was much scandalized by seeing the young
+cause of all the disturbance sitting upon his heels, regarding the
+emotion of the kneeling party with his wide bright eyes, without a wink
+of compunction.
+
+"Well, for her part," she said, "she hoped Cap'n Pennel would be blessed
+in takin' that ar boy; but she was sure she didn't see much that looked
+like it now."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The Rev. Mr. Sewell fished no more that day, for the draught from
+fairy-land with which he had filled his boat brought up many thoughts
+into his mind, which he pondered anxiously.
+
+"Strange ways of God," he thought, "that should send to my door this
+child, and should wash upon the beach the only sign by which he could be
+identified. To what end or purpose? Hath the Lord a will in this
+matter, and what is it?"
+
+So he thought as he slowly rowed homeward, and so did his thoughts work
+upon him that half way across the bay to Harpswell he slackened his oar
+without knowing it, and the boat lay drifting on the purple and
+gold-tinted mirror, like a speck between two eternities. Under such
+circumstances, even heads that have worn the clerical wig for years at
+times get a little dizzy and dreamy. Perhaps it was because of the
+impression made upon him by the sudden apparition of those great dark
+eyes and sable curls, that he now thought of the boy that he had found
+floating that afternoon, looking as if some tropical flower had been
+washed landward by a monsoon; and as the boat rocked and tilted, and the
+minister gazed dreamily downward into the wavering rings of purple,
+orange, and gold which spread out and out from it, gradually it seemed
+to him that a face much like the child's formed itself in the waters;
+but it was the face of a girl, young and radiantly beautiful, yet with
+those same eyes and curls,--he saw her distinctly, with her thousand
+rings of silky hair, bound with strings of pearls and clasped with
+strange gems, and she raised one arm imploringly to him, and on the
+wrist he saw the bracelet embroidered with seed pearls, and the letters
+D.M. "Ah, Dolores," he said, "well wert thou called so. Poor Dolores! I
+cannot help thee."
+
+"What am I dreaming of?" said the Rev. Mr. Sewell. "It is my Thursday
+evening lecture on Justification, and Emily has got tea ready, and here
+I am catching cold out on the bay."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+SEA TALES
+
+
+Mr. Sewell, as the reader may perhaps have inferred, was of a nature
+profoundly secretive. It was in most things quite as pleasant for him to
+keep matters to himself, as it was to Miss Emily to tell them to
+somebody else. She resembled more than anything one of those trotting,
+chattering little brooks that enliven the "back lot" of many a New
+England home, while he was like one of those wells you shall sometimes
+see by a deserted homestead, so long unused that ferns and lichens
+feather every stone down to the dark, cool water.
+
+Dear to him was the stillness and coolness of inner thoughts with which
+no stranger intermeddles; dear to him every pendent fern-leaf of memory,
+every dripping moss of old recollection; and though the waters of his
+soul came up healthy and refreshing enough when one really must have
+them, yet one had to go armed with bucket and line and draw them
+up,--they never flowed. One of his favorite maxims was, that the only
+way to keep a secret was never to let any one suspect that you have one.
+And as he had one now, he had, as you have seen, done his best to baffle
+and put to sleep the feminine curiosity of his sister.
+
+He rather wanted to tell her, too, for he was a good-natured brother,
+and would have liked to have given her the amount of pleasure the
+confidence would have produced; but then he reflected with dismay on the
+number of women in his parish with whom Miss Emily was on tea-drinking
+terms,--he thought of the wondrous solvent powers of that beverage in
+whose amber depths so many resolutions yea, and solemn vows, of utter
+silence have been dissolved like Cleopatra's pearls. He knew that an
+infusion of his secret would steam up from every cup of tea Emily should
+drink for six months to come, till gradually every particle would be
+dissolved and float in the air of common fame. No; it would not do.
+
+You would have thought, however, that something was the matter with Mr.
+Sewell, had you seen him after he retired for the night, after he had so
+very indifferently dismissed the subject of Miss Emily's inquiries. For
+instead of retiring quietly to bed, as had been his habit for years at
+that hour, he locked his door, and then unlocked a desk of private
+papers, and emptied certain pigeon-holes of their contents, and for an
+hour or two sat unfolding and looking over old letters and papers; and
+when all this was done, he pushed them from him, and sat for a long time
+buried in thoughts which went down very, very deep into that dark and
+mossy well of which we have spoken.
+
+Then he took a pen and wrote a letter, and addressed it to a direction
+for which he had searched through many piles of paper, and having done
+so, seemed to ponder, uncertainly, whether to send it or not. The
+Harpswell post-office was kept in Mr. Silas Perrit's store, and the
+letters were every one of them carefully and curiously investigated by
+all the gossips of the village, and as this was addressed to St.
+Augustine in Florida, he foresaw that before Sunday the news would be in
+every mouth in the parish that the minister had written to so and so in
+Florida, "and what do you s'pose it's about?"
+
+"No, no," he said to himself, "that will never do; but at all events
+there is no hurry," and he put back the papers in order, put the letter
+with them, and locking his desk, looked at his watch and found it to be
+two o'clock, and so he went to bed to think the matter over.
+
+Now, there may be some reader so simple as to feel a portion of Miss
+Emily's curiosity. But, my friend, restrain it, for Mr. Sewell will
+certainly, as we foresee, become less rather than more communicative on
+this subject, as he thinks upon it. Nevertheless, whatever it be that he
+knows or suspects, it is something which leads him to contemplate with
+more than usual interest this little mortal waif that has so strangely
+come ashore in his parish. He mentally resolves to study the child as
+minutely as possible, without betraying that he has any particular
+reason for being interested in him.
+
+Therefore, in the latter part of this mild November afternoon, which he
+has devoted to pastoral visiting, about two months after the funeral, he
+steps into his little sail-boat, and stretches away for the shores of
+Orr's Island. He knows the sun will be down before he reaches there; but
+he sees, in the opposite horizon, the spectral, shadowy moon, only
+waiting for daylight to be gone to come out, calm and radiant, like a
+saintly friend neglected in the flush of prosperity, who waits patiently
+to enliven our hours of darkness.
+
+As his boat-keel grazed the sands on the other side, a shout of laughter
+came upon his oar from behind a cedar-covered rock, and soon emerged
+Captain Kittridge, as long and lean and brown as the Ancient Mariner,
+carrying little Mara on one shoulder, while Sally and little Moses
+Pennel trotted on before.
+
+It was difficult to say who in this whole group was in the highest
+spirits. The fact was that Mrs. Kittridge had gone to a tea-drinking
+over at Maquoit, and left the Captain as housekeeper and general
+overseer; and little Mara and Moses and Sally had been gloriously
+keeping holiday with him down by the boat-cove, where, to say the truth,
+few shavings were made, except those necessary to adorn the children's
+heads with flowing suits of curls of a most extraordinary effect. The
+aprons of all of them were full of these most unsubstantial specimens of
+woody treasure, which hung out in long festoons, looking of a yellow
+transparency in the evening light. But the delight of the children in
+their acquisitions was only equaled by that of grown-up people in
+possessions equally fanciful in value.
+
+The mirth of the little party, however, came to a sudden pause as they
+met the minister. Mara clung tight to the Captain's neck, and looked out
+slyly under her curls. But the little Moses made a step forward, and
+fixed his bold, dark, inquisitive eyes upon him. The fact was, that the
+minister had been impressed upon the boy, in his few visits to the
+"meeting," as such a grand and mysterious reason for good behavior, that
+he seemed resolved to embrace the first opportunity to study him close
+at hand.
+
+"Well, my little man," said Mr. Sewell, with an affability which he
+could readily assume with children, "you seem to like to look at me."
+
+"I do like to look at you," said the boy gravely, continuing to fix his
+great black eyes upon him.
+
+"I see you do, my little fellow."
+
+"Are you the Lord?" said the child, solemnly.
+
+"Am I what?"
+
+"The Lord," said the boy.
+
+"No, indeed, my lad," said Mr. Sewell, smiling. "Why, what put that into
+your little head?"
+
+"I thought you were," said the boy, still continuing to study the pastor
+with attention. "Miss Roxy said so."
+
+"It's curious what notions chil'en will get in their heads," said
+Captain Kittridge. "They put this and that together and think it over,
+and come out with such queer things."
+
+"But," said the minister, "I have brought something for you all;" saying
+which he drew from his pocket three little bright-cheeked apples, and
+gave one to each child; and then taking the hand of the little Moses in
+his own, he walked with him toward the house-door.
+
+Mrs. Pennel was sitting in her clean kitchen, busily spinning at the
+little wheel, and rose flushed with pleasure at the honor that was done
+her.
+
+"Pray, walk in, Mr. Sewell," she said, rising, and leading the way
+toward the penetralia of the best room.
+
+"Now, Mrs. Pennel, I am come here for a good sit-down by your
+kitchen-fire, this evening," said Mr. Sewell. "Emily has gone out to sit
+with old Mrs. Broad, who is laid up with the rheumatism, and so I am
+turned loose to pick up my living on the parish, and you must give me a
+seat for a while in your kitchen corner. Best rooms are always cold."
+
+"The minister's right," said Captain Kittridge. "When rooms ain't much
+set in, folks never feel so kind o' natural in 'em. So you jist let me
+put on a good back-log and forestick, and build up a fire to tell
+stories by this evening. My wife's gone out to tea, too," he said, with
+an elastic skip.
+
+And in a few moments the Captain had produced in the great cavernous
+chimney a foundation for a fire that promised breadth, solidity, and
+continuance. A great back-log, embroidered here and there with tufts of
+green or grayish moss, was first flung into the capacious arms of the
+fireplace, and a smaller log placed above it. "Now, all you young uns go
+out and bring in chips," said the Captain. "There's capital ones out to
+the wood-pile."
+
+Mr. Sewell was pleased to see the flash that came from the eyes of
+little Moses at this order, how energetically he ran before the others,
+and came with glowing cheeks and distended arms, throwing down great
+white chips with their green mossy bark, scattering tufts on the floor.
+"Good," said he softly to himself, as he leaned on the top of his
+gold-headed cane; "there's energy, ambition, muscle;" and he nodded his
+head once or twice to some internal decision.
+
+"There!" said the Captain, rising out of a perfect whirlwind of chips
+and pine kindlings with which in his zeal he had bestrown the wide,
+black stone hearth, and pointing to the tongues of flame that were
+leaping and blazing up through the crevices of the dry pine wood which
+he had intermingled plentifully with the more substantial fuel,--"there,
+Mis' Pennel, ain't I a master-hand at a fire? But I'm really sorry I've
+dirtied your floor," he said, as he brushed down his pantaloons, which
+were covered with bits of grizzly moss, and looked on the surrounding
+desolations; "give me a broom, I can sweep up now as well as any woman."
+
+"Oh, never mind," said Mrs. Pennel, laughing, "I'll sweep up."
+
+"Well, now, Mis' Pennel, you're one of the women that don't get put out
+easy; ain't ye?" said the Captain, still contemplating his fire with a
+proud and watchful eye.
+
+"Law me!" he exclaimed, glancing through the window, "there's the Cap'n
+a-comin'. I'm jist goin' to give a look at what he's brought in. Come,
+chil'en," and the Captain disappeared with all three of the children at
+his heels, to go down to examine the treasures of the fishing-smack.
+
+Mr. Sewell seated himself cozily in the chimney corner and sank into a
+state of half-dreamy reverie; his eyes fixed on the fairest sight one
+can see of a frosty autumn twilight--a crackling wood-fire.
+
+Mrs. Pennel moved soft-footed to and fro, arraying her tea-table in her
+own finest and pure damask, and bringing from hidden stores her best
+china and newest silver, her choicest sweetmeats and cake--whatever was
+fairest and nicest in her house--to honor her unexpected guest.
+
+Mr. Sewell's eyes followed her occasionally about the room, with an
+expression of pleased and curious satisfaction. He was taking it all in
+as an artistic picture--that simple, kindly hearth, with its mossy logs,
+yet steaming with the moisture of the wild woods; the table so neat, so
+cheery with its many little delicacies, and refinements of appointment,
+and its ample varieties to tempt the appetite; and then the Captain
+coming in, yet fresh and hungry from his afternoon's toil, with the
+children trotting before him.
+
+"And this is the inheritance he comes into," he murmured;
+"healthy--wholesome--cheerful--secure: how much better than hot,
+stifling luxury!"
+
+Here the minister's meditations were interrupted by the entrance of all
+the children, joyful and loquacious. Little Moses held up a string of
+mackerel, with their graceful bodies and elegantly cut fins.
+
+"Just a specimen of the best, Mary," said Captain Pennel. "I thought I'd
+bring 'em for Miss Emily."
+
+"Miss Emily will be a thousand times obliged to you," said Mr. Sewell,
+rising up.
+
+As to Mara and Sally, they were reveling in apronfuls of shells and
+seaweed, which they bustled into the other room to bestow in their
+spacious baby-house.
+
+And now, after due time for Zephaniah to assume a land toilet, all sat
+down to the evening meal.
+
+After supper was over, the Captain was besieged by the children. Little
+Mara mounted first into his lap, and nestled herself quietly under his
+coat--Moses and Sally stood at each knee.
+
+"Come, now," said Moses, "you said you would tell us about the mermen
+to-night."
+
+"Yes, and the mermaids," said Sally. "Tell them all you told me the
+other night in the trundle-bed."
+
+Sally valued herself no little on the score of the Captain's talent as a
+romancer.
+
+"You see, Moses," she said, volubly, "father saw mermen and mermaids a
+plenty of them in the West Indies."
+
+"Oh, never mind about 'em now," said Captain Kittridge, looking at Mr.
+Sewell's corner.
+
+"Why not, father? mother isn't here," said Sally, innocently.
+
+A smile passed round the faces of the company, and Mr. Sewell said,
+"Come, Captain, no modesty; we all know you have as good a faculty for
+telling a story as for making a fire."
+
+"Do tell me what mermen are," said Moses.
+
+"Wal'," said the Captain, sinking his voice confidentially, and hitching
+his chair a little around, "mermen and maids is a kind o' people that
+have their world jist like our'n, only it's down in the bottom of the
+sea, 'cause the bottom of the sea has its mountains and its valleys, and
+its trees and its bushes, and it stands to reason there should be people
+there too."
+
+Moses opened his broad black eyes wider than usual, and looked absorbed
+attention.
+
+"Tell 'em about how you saw 'em," said Sally.
+
+"Wal', yes," said Captain Kittridge; "once when I was to the
+Bahamas,--it was one Sunday morning in June, the first Sunday in the
+month,--we cast anchor pretty nigh a reef of coral, and I was jist
+a-sittin' down to read my Bible, when up comes a merman over the side of
+the ship, all dressed as fine as any old beau that ever ye see, with
+cocked hat and silk stockings, and shoe-buckles, and his clothes were
+sea-green, and his shoe-buckles shone like diamonds."
+
+"Do you suppose they were diamonds, really?" said Sally.
+
+"Wal', child, I didn't ask him, but I shouldn't be surprised, from all I
+know of their ways, if they was," said the Captain, who had now got so
+wholly into the spirit of his fiction that he no longer felt
+embarrassed by the minister's presence, nor saw the look of amusement
+with which he was listening to him in his chimney-corner. "But, as I was
+sayin', he came up to me, and made the politest bow that ever ye see,
+and says he, 'Cap'n Kittridge, I presume,' and says I, 'Yes, sir.' 'I'm
+sorry to interrupt your reading,' says he; and says I, 'Oh, no matter,
+sir.' 'But,' says he, 'if you would only be so good as to move your
+anchor. You've cast anchor right before my front-door, and my wife and
+family can't get out to go to meetin'.'"
+
+"Why, do they go to meeting in the bottom of the sea?" said Moses.
+
+"Law, bless you sonny, yes. Why, Sunday morning, when the sea was all
+still, I used to hear the bass-viol a-soundin' down under the waters,
+jist as plain as could be,--and psalms and preachin'. I've reason to
+think there's as many hopefully pious mermaids as there be folks," said
+the Captain.
+
+"But," said Moses, "you said the anchor was before the front-door, so
+the family couldn't get out,--how did the merman get out?"
+
+"Oh! he got out of the scuttle on the roof," said the Captain, promptly.
+
+"And did you move your anchor?" said Moses.
+
+"Why, child, yes, to be sure I did; he was such a gentleman I wanted to
+oblige him,--it shows you how important it is always to be polite," said
+the Captain, by way of giving a moral turn to his narrative.
+
+Mr. Sewell, during the progress of this story, examined the Captain with
+eyes of amused curiosity. His countenance was as fixed and steady, and
+his whole manner of reciting as matter-of-fact and collected, as if he
+were relating some of the every-day affairs of his boat-building.
+
+"Wal', Sally," said the Captain, rising, after his yarn had proceeded
+for an indefinite length in this manner, "you and I must be goin'. I
+promised your ma you shouldn't be up late, and we have a long walk
+home,--besides it's time these little folks was in bed."
+
+The children all clung round the Captain, and could hardly be persuaded
+to let him go.
+
+When he was gone, Mrs. Pennel took the little ones to their nest in an
+adjoining room.
+
+Mr. Sewell approached his chair to that of Captain Pennel, and began
+talking to him in a tone of voice so low, that we have never been able
+to make out exactly what he was saying. Whatever it might be, however,
+it seemed to give rise to an anxious consultation. "I did not think it
+advisable to tell _any_ one this but yourself, Captain Pennel. It is for
+you to decide, in view of the probabilities I have told you, what you
+will do."
+
+"Well," said Zephaniah, "since you leave it to me, I say, let us keep
+him. It certainly seems a marked providence that he has been thrown upon
+us as he has, and the Lord seemed to prepare a way for him in our
+hearts. I am well able to afford it, and Mis' Pennel, she agrees to it,
+and on the whole I don't think we'd best go back on our steps; besides,
+our little Mara has thrived since he came under our roof. He is, to be
+sure, kind o' masterful, and I shall have to take him off Mis' Pennel's
+hands before long, and put him into the sloop. But, after all, there
+seems to be the makin' of a man in him, and when we are called away, why
+he'll be as a brother to poor little Mara. Yes, I think it's best as 't
+is."
+
+The minister, as he flitted across the bay by moonlight, felt relieved
+of a burden. His secret was locked up as safe in the breast of Zephaniah
+Pennel as it could be in his own.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+BOY AND GIRL
+
+
+Zephaniah Pennel was what might be called a Hebrew of the Hebrews.
+
+New England, in her earlier days, founding her institutions on the
+Hebrew Scriptures, bred better Jews than Moses could, because she read
+Moses with the amendments of Christ.
+
+The state of society in some of the districts of Maine, in these days,
+much resembled in its spirit that which Moses labored to produce in
+ruder ages. It was entirely democratic, simple, grave, hearty, and
+sincere,--solemn and religious in its daily tone, and yet, as to all
+material good, full of wholesome thrift and prosperity. Perhaps, taking
+the average mass of the people, a more healthful and desirable state of
+society never existed. Its better specimens had a simple Doric grandeur
+unsurpassed in any age. The bringing up a child in this state of society
+was a far more simple enterprise than in our modern times, when the
+factious wants and aspirations are so much more developed.
+
+Zephaniah Pennel was as high as anybody in the land. He owned not only
+the neat little schooner, "Brilliant," with divers small fishing-boats,
+but also a snug farm, adjoining the brown house, together with some
+fresh, juicy pasture-lots on neighboring islands, where he raised
+mutton, unsurpassed even by the English South-down, and wool, which
+furnished homespun to clothe his family on all every-day occasions.
+
+Mrs. Pennel, to be sure, had silks and satins, and flowered India
+chintz, and even a Cashmere shawl, the fruits of some of her husband's
+earlier voyages, which were, however, carefully stowed away for
+occasions so high and mighty, that they seldom saw the light. _Not to
+wear best things every day_ was a maxim of New England thrift as little
+disputed as any verse of the catechism; and so Mrs. Pennel found the
+stuff gown of her own dyeing and spinning so respectable for most
+purposes, that it figured even in the meeting-house itself, except on
+the very finest of Sundays, when heaven and earth seemed alike
+propitious. A person can well afford to wear homespun stuff to meeting,
+who is buoyed up by a secret consciousness of an abundance of fine
+things that could be worn, if one were so disposed, and everybody
+respected Mrs. Pennel's homespun the more, because they thought of the
+things she didn't wear.
+
+As to advantages of education, the island, like all other New England
+districts, had its common school, where one got the key of
+knowledge,--for having learned to read, write, and cipher, the young
+fellow of those regions commonly regarded himself as in possession of
+all that a man needs, to help himself to any further acquisitions he
+might desire. The boys then made fishing voyages to the Banks, and those
+who were so disposed took their books with them. If a boy did not wish
+to be bored with study, there was nobody to force him; but if a bright
+one saw visions of future success in life lying through the avenues of
+knowledge, he found many a leisure hour to pore over his books, and work
+out the problems of navigation directly over the element they were meant
+to control.
+
+Four years having glided by since the commencement of our story, we find
+in the brown house of Zephaniah Pennel a tall, well-knit, handsome boy
+of ten years, who knows no fear of wind or sea; who can set you over
+from Orr's Island to Harpswell, either in sail or row-boat, he thinks,
+as well as any man living; who knows every rope of the schooner
+Brilliant, and fancies he could command it as well as "father" himself;
+and is supporting himself this spring, during the tamer drudgeries of
+driving plough, and dropping potatoes, with the glorious vision of being
+taken this year on the annual trip to "the Banks," which comes on after
+planting. He reads fluently,--witness the "Robinson Crusoe," which never
+departs from under his pillow, and Goldsmith's "History of Greece and
+Rome," which good Mr. Sewell has lent him,--and he often brings shrewd
+criticisms on the character and course of Romulus or Alexander into the
+common current of every-day life, in a way that brings a smile over the
+grave face of Zephaniah, and makes Mrs. Pennel think the boy certainly
+ought to be sent to college.
+
+As for Mara, she is now a child of seven, still adorned with long golden
+curls, still looking dreamily out of soft hazel eyes into some unknown
+future not her own. She has no dreams for herself--they are all for
+Moses. For his sake she has learned all the womanly little
+accomplishments which Mrs. Kittridge has dragooned into Sally. She knits
+his mittens and his stockings, and hems his pocket-handkerchiefs, and
+aspires to make his shirts all herself. Whatever book Moses reads,
+forthwith she aspires to read too, and though three years younger, reads
+with a far more precocious insight.
+
+Her little form is slight and frail, and her cheek has a clear
+transparent brilliancy quite different from the rounded one of the boy;
+she looks not exactly in ill health, but has that sort of transparent
+appearance which one fancies might be an attribute of fairies and
+sylphs. All her outward senses are finer and more acute than his, and
+finer and more delicate all the attributes of her mind. Those who
+contend against giving woman the same education as man do it on the
+ground that it would make the woman unfeminine, as if Nature had done
+her work so slightly that it could be so easily raveled and knit over.
+In fact, there is a masculine and a feminine element in all knowledge,
+and a man and a woman put to the same study extract only what their
+nature fits them to see, so that knowledge can be fully orbed only when
+the two unite in the search and share the spoils.
+
+When Moses was full of Romulus and Numa, Mara pondered the story of the
+nymph Egeria--sweet parable, in which lies all we have been saying. Her
+trust in him was boundless. He was a constant hero in her eyes, and in
+her he found a steadfast believer as to all possible feats and exploits
+to which he felt himself competent, for the boy often had privately
+assured her that he could command the Brilliant as well as father
+himself.
+
+Spring had already come, loosing the chains of ice in all the bays and
+coves round Harpswell, Orr's Island, Maquoit, and Middle Bay. The
+magnificent spruces stood forth in their gala-dresses, tipped on every
+point with vivid emerald; the silver firs exuded from their tender
+shoots the fragrance of ripe pineapple; the white pines shot forth long
+weird fingers at the end of their fringy boughs; and even every little
+mimic evergreen in the shadows at their feet was made beautiful by the
+addition of a vivid border of green on the sombre coloring of its last
+year's leaves. Arbutus, fragrant with its clean, wholesome odors, gave
+forth its thousand dewy pink blossoms, and the trailing Linnea borealis
+hung its pendent twin bells round every mossy stump and old rock damp
+with green forest mould. The green and vermilion matting of the
+partridge-berry was impearled with white velvet blossoms, the
+checkerberry hung forth a translucent bell under its varnished green
+leaf, and a thousand more fairy bells, white or red, hung on blueberry
+and huckleberry bushes. The little Pearl of Orr's Island had wandered
+many an hour gathering bouquets of all these, to fill the brown house
+with sweetness when her grandfather and Moses should come in from work.
+
+The love of flowers seemed to be one of her earliest characteristics,
+and the young spring flowers of New England, in their airy delicacy and
+fragility, were much like herself; and so strong seemed the affinity
+between them, that not only Mrs. Pennel's best India china vases on the
+keeping-room mantel were filled, but here stood a tumbler of scarlet
+rock columbine, and there a bowl of blue and white violets, and in
+another place a saucer of shell-tinted crowfoot, blue liverwort, and
+white anemone, so that Zephaniah Pennel was wont to say there wasn't a
+drink of water to be got, for Mara's flowers; but he always said it with
+a smile that made his weather-beaten, hard features look like a rock lit
+up by a sunbeam. Little Mara was the pearl of the old seaman's life,
+every finer particle of his nature came out in her concentrated and
+polished, and he often wondered at a creature so ethereal belonging to
+him--as if down on some shaggy sea-green rock an old pearl oyster should
+muse and marvel on the strange silvery mystery of beauty that was
+growing in the silence of his heart.
+
+But May has passed; the arbutus and the Linnea are gone from the woods,
+and the pine tips have grown into young shoots, which wilt at noon under
+a direct reflection from sun and sea, and the blue sky has that metallic
+clearness and brilliancy which distinguishes those regions, and the
+planting is at last over, and this very morning Moses is to set off in
+the Brilliant for his first voyage to the Banks. Glorious knight he! the
+world all before him, and the blood of ten years racing and throbbing in
+his veins as he talks knowingly of hooks, and sinkers, and bait, and
+lines, and wears proudly the red flannel shirt which Mara had just
+finished for him.
+
+"How I do wish I were going with you!" she says. "I could do something,
+couldn't I--take care of your hooks, or something?"
+
+"Pooh!" said Moses, sublimely regarding her while he settled the collar
+of his shirt, "you're a girl; and what can girls do at sea? you never
+like to catch fish--it always makes you cry to see 'em flop."
+
+"Oh, yes, poor fish!" said Mara, perplexed between her sympathy for the
+fish and her desire for the glory of her hero, which must be founded on
+their pain; "I can't help feeling sorry when they gasp so."
+
+"Well, and what do you suppose you would do when the men are pulling up
+twenty and forty pounder?" said Moses, striding sublimely. "Why, they
+flop so, they'd knock you over in a minute."
+
+"Do they? Oh, Moses, do be careful. What if they should hurt you?"
+
+"Hurt me!" said Moses, laughing; "that's a good one. I'd like to see a
+fish that could hurt me."
+
+"Do hear that boy talk!" said Mrs. Pennel to her husband, as they stood
+within their chamber-door.
+
+"Yes, yes," said Captain Pennel, smiling; "he's full of the matter. I
+believe he'd take the command of the schooner this morning, if I'd let
+him."
+
+The Brilliant lay all this while courtesying on the waves, which kissed
+and whispered to the little coquettish craft. A fairer June morning had
+not risen on the shores that week; the blue mirror of the ocean was all
+dotted over with the tiny white sails of fishing-craft bound on the same
+errand, and the breeze that was just crisping the waters had the very
+spirit of energy and adventure in it.
+
+Everything and everybody was now on board, and she began to spread her
+fair wings, and slowly and gracefully to retreat from the shore. Little
+Moses stood on the deck, his black curls blowing in the wind, and his
+large eyes dancing with excitement,--his clear olive complexion and
+glowing cheeks well set off by his red shirt.
+
+Mrs. Pennel stood with Mara on the shore to see them go. The fair little
+golden-haired Ariadne shaded her eyes with one arm, and stretched the
+other after her Theseus, till the vessel grew smaller, and finally
+seemed to melt away into the eternal blue. Many be the wives and lovers
+that have watched those little fishing-craft as they went gayly out like
+this, but have waited long--too long--and seen them again no more. In
+night and fog they have gone down under the keel of some ocean packet or
+Indiaman, and sunk with brave hearts and hands, like a bubble in the
+mighty waters. Yet Mrs. Pennel did not turn back to her house in
+apprehension of this. Her husband had made so many voyages, and always
+returned safely, that she confidently expected before long to see them
+home again.
+
+The next Sunday the seat of Zephaniah Pennel was vacant in church.
+According to custom, a note was put up asking prayers for his safe
+return, and then everybody knew that he was gone to the Banks; and as
+the roguish, handsome face of Moses was also missing, Miss Roxy
+whispered to Miss Ruey, "There! Captain Pennel's took Moses on his first
+voyage. We must contrive to call round on Mis' Pennel afore long. She'll
+be lonesome."
+
+Sunday evening Mrs. Pennel was sitting pensively with little Mara by the
+kitchen hearth, where they had been boiling the tea-kettle for their
+solitary meal. They heard a brisk step without, and soon Captain and
+Mrs. Kittridge made their appearance.
+
+"Good evening, Mis' Pennel," said the Captain; "I's a-tellin' my good
+woman we must come down and see how you's a-getting along. It's raly a
+work of necessity and mercy proper for the Lord's day. Rather lonesome,
+now the Captain's gone, ain't ye? Took little Moses, too, I see. Wasn't
+at meetin' to-day, so I says, Mis' Kittridge, we'll just step down and
+chirk 'em up a little."
+
+"I didn't really know how to come," said Mrs. Kittridge, as she allowed
+Mrs. Pennel to take her bonnet; "but Aunt Roxy's to our house now, and
+she said she'd see to Sally. So you've let the boy go to the Banks? He's
+young, ain't he, for that?"
+
+"Not a bit of it," said Captain Kittridge. "Why, I was off to the Banks
+long afore I was his age, and a capital time we had of it, too. Golly!
+how them fish did bite! We stood up to our knees in fish before we'd
+fished half an hour."
+
+Mara, who had always a shy affinity for the Captain, now drew towards
+him and climbed on his knee. "Did the wind blow very hard?" she said.
+
+"What, my little maid?"
+
+"Does the wind blow at the Banks?"
+
+"Why, yes, my little girl, that it does, sometimes; but then there ain't
+the least danger. Our craft ride out storms like live creatures. I've
+stood it out in gales that was tight enough, I'm sure. 'Member once I
+turned in 'tween twelve and one, and hadn't more'n got asleep, afore I
+came _clump_ out of my berth, and found everything upside down. And
+'stead of goin' upstairs to get on deck, I had to go right down. Fact
+was, that 'ere vessel jist turned clean over in the water, and come
+right side up like a duck."
+
+"Well, now, Cap'n, I wouldn't be tellin' such a story as that," said his
+helpmeet.
+
+"Why, Polly, what do you know about it? you never was to sea. We did
+turn clear over, for I 'member I saw a bunch of seaweed big as a peck
+measure stickin' top of the mast next day. Jist shows how safe them ar
+little fishing craft is,--for all they look like an egg-shell on the
+mighty deep, as Parson Sewell calls it."
+
+"I was very much pleased with Mr. Sewell's exercise in prayer this
+morning," said Mrs. Kittridge; "it must have been a comfort to you, Mis'
+Pennel."
+
+"It was, to be sure," said Mrs. Pennel.
+
+"Puts me in mind of poor Mary Jane Simpson. Her husband went out, you
+know, last June, and hain't been heard of since. Mary Jane don't really
+know whether to put on mourning or not."
+
+"Law! I don't think Mary Jane need give up yet," said the Captain.
+"'Member one year I was out, we got blowed clear up to Baffin's Bay, and
+got shut up in the ice, and had to go ashore and live jist as we could
+among them Esquimaux. Didn't get home for a year. Old folks had clean
+giv' us up. Don't need never despair of folks gone to sea, for they's
+sure to turn up, first or last."
+
+"But I hope," said Mara, apprehensively, "that grandpapa won't get blown
+up to Baffin's Bay. I've seen that on his chart,--it's a good ways."
+
+"And then there's them 'ere icebergs," said Mrs. Kittridge; "I'm always
+'fraid of running into them in the fog."
+
+"Law!" said Captain Kittridge, "I've met 'em bigger than all the
+colleges up to Brunswick,--great white bears on 'em,--hungry as Time in
+the Primer. Once we came kersmash on to one of 'em, and if the Flying
+Betsey hadn't been made of whalebone and injer-rubber, she'd a-been
+stove all to pieces. Them white bears, they was so hungry, that they
+stood there with the water jist runnin' out of their chops in a perfect
+stream."
+
+"Oh, dear, dear," said Mara, with wide round eyes, "what will Moses do
+if they get on the icebergs?"
+
+"Yes," said Mrs. Kittridge, looking solemnly at the child through the
+black bows of her spectacles, "we can truly say:--
+
+    "'Dangers stand thick through all the ground,
+        To push us to the tomb,'
+
+as the hymn-book says."
+
+The kind-hearted Captain, feeling the fluttering heart of little Mara,
+and seeing the tears start in her eyes, addressed himself forthwith to
+consolation. "Oh, never you mind, Mara," he said, "there won't nothing
+hurt 'em. Look at me. Why, I've been everywhere on the face of the
+earth. I've been on icebergs, and among white bears and Indians, and
+seen storms that would blow the very hair off your head, and here I am,
+dry and tight as ever. You'll see 'em back before long."
+
+The cheerful laugh with which the Captain was wont to chorus his
+sentences sounded like the crackling of dry pine wood on the social
+hearth. One would hardly hear it without being lightened in heart; and
+little Mara gazed at his long, dry, ropy figure, and wrinkled thin face,
+as a sort of monument of hope; and his uproarious laugh, which Mrs.
+Kittridge sometimes ungraciously compared to "the crackling of thorns
+under a pot," seemed to her the most delightful thing in the world.
+
+"Mary Jane was a-tellin' me," resumed Mrs. Kittridge, "that when her
+husband had been out a month, she dreamed she see him, and three other
+men, a-floatin' on an iceberg."
+
+"Laws," said Captain Kittridge, "that's jist what my old mother dreamed
+about me, and 'twas true enough, too, till we got off the ice on to the
+shore up in the Esquimaux territory, as I was a-tellin'. So you tell
+Mary Jane she needn't look out for a second husband _yet_, for that ar
+dream's a sartin sign he'll be back."
+
+"Cap'n Kittridge!" said his helpmeet, drawing herself up, and giving him
+an austere glance over her spectacles; "how often must I tell you that
+there _is_ subjects which shouldn't be treated with levity?"
+
+"Who's been a-treatin' of 'em with levity?" said the Captain. "I'm sure
+I ain't. Mary Jane's good-lookin', and there's plenty of young fellows
+as sees it as well as me. I declare, she looked as pretty as any young
+gal when she ris up in the singers' seats to-day. Put me in mind of you,
+Polly, when I first come home from the Injies."
+
+"Oh, come now, Cap'n Kittridge! we're gettin' too old for that sort o'
+talk."
+
+"We ain't too old, be we, Mara?" said the Captain, trotting the little
+girl gayly on his knee; "and we ain't afraid of icebergs and no sich, be
+we? I tell you they's a fine sight of a bright day; they has millions of
+steeples, all white and glistering, like the New Jerusalem, and the
+white bears have capital times trampin' round on 'em. Wouldn't little
+Mara like a great, nice white bear to ride on, with his white fur, so
+soft and warm, and a saddle made of pearls, and a gold bridle?"
+
+"You haven't seen any little girls ride so," said Mara, doubtfully.
+
+"I shouldn't wonder if I had; but you see, Mis' Kittridge there, she
+won't let me tell all I know," said the Captain, sinking his voice to a
+confidential tone; "you jist wait till we get alone."
+
+"But, you are sure," said Mara, confidingly, in return, "that white
+bears will be kind to Moses?"
+
+"Lord bless you, yes, child, the kindest critturs in the world they be,
+if you only get the right side of 'em," said the Captain.
+
+"Oh, yes! because," said Mara, "I know how good a wolf was to Romulus
+and Remus once, and nursed them when they were cast out to die. I read
+that in the Roman history."
+
+"Jist so," said the Captain, enchanted at this historic confirmation of
+his apocrypha.
+
+"And so," said Mara, "if Moses should happen to get on an iceberg, a
+bear might take care of him, you know."
+
+"Jist so, jist so," said the Captain; "so don't you worry your little
+curly head one bit. Some time when you come down to see Sally, we'll go
+down to the cove, and I'll tell you lots of stories about chil'en that
+have been fetched up by white bears, jist like Romulus and what's his
+name there."
+
+"Come, Mis' Kittridge," added the cheery Captain; "you and I mustn't be
+keepin' the folks up till nine o'clock."
+
+"Well now," said Mrs. Kittridge, in a doleful tone, as she began to put
+on her bonnet, "Mis' Pennel, you must keep up your spirits--it's one's
+duty to take cheerful views of things. I'm sure many's the night, when
+the Captain's been gone to sea, I've laid and shook in my bed, hearin'
+the wind blow, and thinking what if I should be left a lone widow."
+
+"There'd a-been a dozen fellows a-wanting to get you in six months,
+Polly," interposed the Captain. "Well, good-night, Mis' Pennel; there'll
+be a splendid haul of fish at the Banks this year, or there's no truth
+in signs. Come, my little Mara, got a kiss for the dry old daddy? That's
+my good girl. Well, good night, and the Lord bless you."
+
+And so the cheery Captain took up his line of march homeward, leaving
+little Mara's head full of dazzling visions of the land of romance to
+which Moses had gone. She was yet on that shadowy boundary between the
+dreamland of childhood and the real land of life; so all things looked
+to her quite possible; and gentle white bears, with warm, soft fur and
+pearl and gold saddles, walked through her dreams, and the victorious
+curls of Moses appeared, with his bright eyes and cheeks, over
+glittering pinnacles of frost in the ice-land.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+THE ENCHANTED ISLAND
+
+
+June and July passed, and the lonely two lived a quiet life in the brown
+house. Everything was so still and fair--no sound but the coming and
+going tide, and the swaying wind among the pine-trees, and the tick of
+the clock, and the whirr of the little wheel as Mrs. Pennel sat spinning
+in her door in the mild weather. Mara read the Roman history through
+again, and began it a third time, and read over and over again the
+stories and prophecies that pleased her in the Bible, and pondered the
+wood-cuts and texts in a very old edition of AEsop's Fables; and as she
+wandered in the woods, picking fragrant bayberries and gathering
+hemlock, checkerberry, and sassafras to put in the beer which her
+grandmother brewed, she mused on the things that she read till her
+little mind became a tabernacle of solemn, quaint, dreamy forms, where
+old Judean kings and prophets, and Roman senators and warriors, marched
+in and out in shadowy rounds. She invented long dramas and conversations
+in which they performed imaginary parts, and it would not have appeared
+to the child in the least degree surprising either to have met an angel
+in the woods, or to have formed an intimacy with some talking wolf or
+bear, such as she read of in AEsop's Fables.
+
+One day, as she was exploring the garret, she found in an old barrel of
+cast-off rubbish a bit of reading which she begged of her grandmother
+for her own. It was the play of the "Tempest," torn from an old edition
+of Shakespeare, and was in that delightfully fragmentary condition
+which most particularly pleases children, because they conceive a
+mutilated treasure thus found to be more especially their own
+property--something like a rare wild-flower or sea-shell. The pleasure
+which thoughtful and imaginative children sometimes take in reading that
+which they do not and cannot fully comprehend is one of the most common
+and curious phenomena of childhood.
+
+And so little Mara would lie for hours stretched out on the pebbly
+beach, with the broad open ocean before her and the whispering pines and
+hemlocks behind her, and pore over this poem, from which she collected
+dim, delightful images of a lonely island, an old enchanter, a beautiful
+girl, and a spirit not quite like those in the Bible, but a very
+probable one to her mode of thinking. As for old Caliban, she fancied
+him with a face much like that of a huge skate-fish she had once seen
+drawn ashore in one of her grandfather's nets; and then there was the
+beautiful young Prince Ferdinand, much like what Moses would be when he
+was grown up--and how glad she would be to pile up his wood for him, if
+any old enchanter should set him to work!
+
+One attribute of the child was a peculiar shamefacedness and shyness
+about her inner thoughts, and therefore the wonder that this new
+treasure excited, the host of surmises and dreams to which it gave rise,
+were never mentioned to anybody. That it was all of it as much authentic
+fact as the Roman history, she did not doubt, but whether it had
+happened on Orr's Island or some of the neighboring ones, she had not
+exactly made up her mind. She resolved at her earliest leisure to
+consult Captain Kittridge on the subject, wisely considering that it
+much resembled some of his fishy and aquatic experiences.
+
+Some of the little songs fixed themselves in her memory, and she would
+hum them as she wandered up and down the beach.
+
+    "Come unto these yellow sands,
+      And then take hands;
+    Courtsied when you have and kissed
+      The wild waves whist,
+    Foot it featly here and there;
+    And, sweet sprites, the burthen bear."
+
+And another which pleased her still more:--
+
+    "Full fathom five thy father lies;
+      Of his bones are coral made,
+    Those are pearls that were his eyes:
+      Nothing of him that can fade
+    But doth suffer a sea-change
+    Into something rich and strange;
+    Sea-nymphs hourly ring his knell:
+    Hark, now I hear them--ding-dong, bell."
+
+These words she pondered very long, gravely revolving in her little head
+whether they described the usual course of things in the mysterious
+under-world that lay beneath that blue spangled floor of the sea;
+whether everybody's eyes changed to pearl, and their bones to coral, if
+they sunk down there; and whether the sea-nymphs spoken of were the same
+as the mermaids that Captain Kittridge had told of. Had he not said that
+the bell rung for church of a Sunday morning down under the waters?
+
+Mara vividly remembered the scene on the sea-beach, the finding of
+little Moses and his mother, the dream of the pale lady that seemed to
+bring him to her; and not one of the conversations that had transpired
+before her among different gossips had been lost on her quiet, listening
+little ears. These pale, still children that play without making any
+noise are deep wells into which drop many things which lie long and
+quietly on the bottom, and come up in after years whole and new, when
+everybody else has forgotten them.
+
+So she had heard surmises as to the remaining crew of that unfortunate
+ship, where, perhaps, Moses had a father. And sometimes she wondered if
+_he_ were lying fathoms deep with sea-nymphs ringing his knell, and
+whether Moses ever thought about him; and yet she could no more have
+asked him a question about it than if she had been born dumb. She
+decided that she should never show him this poetry--it might make him
+feel unhappy.
+
+One bright afternoon, when the sea lay all dead asleep, and the long,
+steady respiration of its tides scarcely disturbed the glassy
+tranquillity of its bosom, Mrs. Pennel sat at her kitchen-door spinning,
+when Captain Kittridge appeared.
+
+"Good afternoon, Mis' Pennel; how ye gettin' along?"
+
+"Oh, pretty well, Captain; won't you walk in and have a glass of beer?"
+
+"Well, thank you," said the Captain, raising his hat and wiping his
+forehead, "I be pretty dry, it's a fact."
+
+Mrs. Pennel hastened to a cask which was kept standing in a corner of
+the kitchen, and drew from thence a mug of her own home-brewed, fragrant
+with the smell of juniper, hemlock, and wintergreen, which she presented
+to the Captain, who sat down in the doorway and discussed it in
+leisurely sips.
+
+"Wal', s'pose it's most time to be lookin' for 'em home, ain't it?" he
+said.
+
+"I _am_ lookin' every day," said Mrs. Pennel, involuntarily glancing
+upward at the sea.
+
+At the word appeared the vision of little Mara, who rose up like a
+spirit from a dusky corner, where she had been stooping over her
+reading.
+
+"Why, little Mara," said the Captain, "you ris up like a ghost all of a
+sudden. I thought you's out to play. I come down a-purpose arter you.
+Mis' Kittridge has gone shoppin' up to Brunswick, and left Sally a
+'stent' to do; and I promised her if she'd clap to and do it quick, I'd
+go up and fetch you down, and we'd have a play in the cove."
+
+Mara's eyes brightened, as they always did at this prospect, and Mrs.
+Pennel said, "Well, I'm glad to have the child go; she seems so kind o'
+still and lonesome since Moses went away; really one feels as if that
+boy took all the noise there was with him. I get tired myself sometimes
+hearing the clock tick. Mara, when she's alone, takes to her book more
+than's good for a child."
+
+"She does, does she? Well, we'll see about that. Come, little Mara, get
+on your sun-bonnet. Sally's sewin' fast as ever she can, and we're goin'
+to dig some clams, and make a fire, and have a chowder; that'll be nice,
+won't it? Don't you want to come, too, Mis' Pennel?"
+
+"Oh, thank you, Captain, but I've got so many things on hand to do afore
+they come home, I don't really think I can. I'll trust Mara to you any
+day."
+
+Mara had run into her own little room and secured her precious fragment
+of treasure, which she wrapped up carefully in her handkerchief,
+resolving to enlighten Sally with the story, and to consult the Captain
+on any nice points of criticism. Arrived at the cove, they found Sally
+already there in advance of them, clapping her hands and dancing in a
+manner which made her black elf-locks fly like those of a distracted
+creature.
+
+"Now, Sally," said the Captain, imitating, in a humble way, his wife's
+manner, "are you sure you've finished your work well?"
+
+"Yes, father, every stitch on't."
+
+"And stuck in your needle, and folded it up, and put it in the drawer,
+and put away your thimble, and shet the drawer, and all the rest on't?"
+said the Captain.
+
+"Yes, father," said Sally, gleefully, "I've done everything I could
+think of."
+
+"'Cause you know your ma'll be arter ye, if you don't leave everything
+straight."
+
+"Oh, never you fear, father, I've done it all half an hour ago, and I've
+found the most capital bed of clams just round the point here; and you
+take care of Mara there, and make up a fire while I dig 'em. If she
+comes, she'll be sure to wet her shoes, or spoil her frock, or
+something."
+
+"Wal', she likes no better fun now," said the Captain, watching Sally,
+as she disappeared round the rock with a bright tin pan.
+
+He then proceeded to construct an extemporary fireplace of loose stones,
+and to put together chips and shavings for the fire,--in which work
+little Mara eagerly assisted; but the fire was crackling and burning
+cheerily long before Sally appeared with her clams, and so the Captain,
+with a pile of hemlock boughs by his side, sat on a stone feeding the
+fire leisurely from time to time with crackling boughs. Now was the time
+for Mara to make her inquiries; her heart beat, she knew not why, for
+she was full of those little timidities and shames that so often
+embarrass children in their attempts to get at the meanings of things in
+this great world, where they are such ignorant spectators.
+
+"Captain Kittridge," she said at last, "do the mermaids toll any bells
+for people when they are drowned?"
+
+Now the Captain had never been known to indicate the least ignorance on
+any subject in heaven or earth, which any one wished his opinion on; he
+therefore leisurely poked another great crackling bough of green hemlock
+into the fire, and, Yankee-like, answered one question by asking
+another.
+
+"What put that into your curly pate?" he said.
+
+"A book I've been reading says they do,--that is, sea-nymphs do. Ain't
+sea-nymphs and mermaids the same thing?"
+
+"Wal', I guess they be, pretty much," said the Captain, rubbing down his
+pantaloons; "yes, they be," he added, after reflection.
+
+"And when people are drowned, how long does it take for their bones to
+turn into coral, and their eyes into pearl?" said little Mara.
+
+"Well, that depends upon circumstances," said the Captain, who wasn't
+going to be posed; "but let me jist see your book you've been reading
+these things out of."
+
+"I found it in a barrel up garret, and grandma gave it to me," said
+Mara, unrolling her handkerchief; "it's a beautiful book,--it tells
+about an island, and there was an old enchanter lived on it, and he had
+one daughter, and there was a spirit they called Ariel, whom a wicked
+old witch fastened in a split of a pine-tree, till the enchanter got him
+out. He was a beautiful spirit, and rode in the curled clouds and hung
+in flowers,--because he could make himself big or little, you see."
+
+"Ah, yes, I see, to be sure," said the Captain, nodding his head.
+
+"Well, that about sea-nymphs ringing his knell is here," Mara added,
+beginning to read the passage with wide, dilated eyes and great
+emphasis. "You see," she went on speaking very fast, "this enchanter had
+been a prince, and a wicked brother had contrived to send him to sea
+with his poor little daughter, in a ship so leaky that the very rats had
+left it."
+
+"Bad business that!" said the Captain, attentively.
+
+"Well," said Mara, "they got cast ashore on this desolate island, where
+they lived together. But once, when a ship was going by on the sea that
+had his wicked brother and his son--a real good, handsome young
+prince--in it, why then he made a storm by magic arts."
+
+"Jist so," said the Captain; "that's been often done, to my sartin
+knowledge."
+
+"And he made the ship be wrecked, and all the people thrown ashore, but
+there wasn't any of 'em drowned, and this handsome prince heard Ariel
+singing this song about his father, and it made him think he was dead."
+
+"Well, what became of 'em?" interposed Sally, who had come up with her
+pan of clams in time to hear this story, to which she had listened with
+breathless interest.
+
+"Oh, the beautiful young prince married the beautiful young lady," said
+Mara.
+
+"Wal'," said the Captain, who by this time had found his soundings;
+"that you've been a-tellin' is what they call a play, and I've seen 'em
+act it at a theatre, when I was to Liverpool once. I know all about it.
+Shakespeare wrote it, and he's a great English poet."
+
+"But did it ever happen?" said Mara, trembling between hope and fear.
+"Is it like the Bible and Roman history?"
+
+"Why, no," said Captain Kittridge, "not exactly; but things jist like
+it, you know. Mermaids and sich is common in foreign parts, and they has
+funerals for drowned sailors. 'Member once when we was sailing near the
+Bermudas by a reef where the Lively Fanny went down, and I heard a kind
+o' ding-dongin',--and the waters there is clear as the sky,--and I
+looked down and see the coral all a-growin', and the sea-plants a-wavin'
+as handsome as a pictur', and the mermaids they was a-singin'. It was
+beautiful; they sung kind o' mournful; and Jack Hubbard, he would have
+it they was a-singin' for the poor fellows that was a-lyin' there round
+under the seaweed."
+
+"But," said Mara, "did you ever see an enchanter that could make
+storms?"
+
+"Wal', there be witches and conjurers that make storms. 'Member once
+when we was crossin' the line, about twelve o'clock at night, there was
+an old man with a long white beard that shone like silver, came and
+stood at the masthead, and he had a pitchfork in one hand, and a lantern
+in the other, and there was great balls of fire as big as my fist came
+out all round in the rigging. And I'll tell you if we didn't get a blow
+that ar night! I thought to my soul we should all go to the bottom."
+
+"Why," said Mara, her eyes staring with excitement, "that was just like
+this shipwreck; and 'twas Ariel made those balls of fire; he says so; he
+said he 'flamed amazement' all over the ship."
+
+"I've heard Miss Roxy tell about witches that made storms," said Sally.
+
+The Captain leisurely proceeded to open the clams, separating from the
+shells the contents, which he threw into a pan, meanwhile placing a
+black pot over the fire in which he had previously arranged certain
+slices of salt pork, which soon began frizzling in the heat.
+
+"Now, Sally, you peel them potatoes, and mind you slice 'em thin," he
+said, and Sally soon was busy with her work.
+
+"Yes," said the Captain, going on with his part of the arrangement,
+"there was old Polly Twitchell, that lived in that ar old tumble-down
+house on Mure P'int; people used to say she brewed storms, and went to
+sea in a sieve."
+
+"Went in a sieve!" said both children; "why a sieve wouldn't swim!"
+
+"No more it wouldn't, in any Christian way," said the Captain; "but that
+was to show what a great witch she was."
+
+"But this was a good enchanter," said Mara, "and he did it all by a book
+and a rod."
+
+"Yes, yes," said the Captain; "that ar's the gen'l way magicians do,
+ever since Moses's time in Egypt. 'Member once I was to Alexandria, in
+Egypt, and I saw a magician there that could jist see everything you
+ever did in your life in a drop of ink that he held in his hand."
+
+"He could, father!"
+
+"To be sure he could! told me all about the old folks at home; and
+described our house as natural as if he'd a-been there. He used to
+carry snakes round with him,--a kind so p'ison that it was certain death
+to have 'em bite you; but he played with 'em as if they was kittens."
+
+"Well," said Mara, "my enchanter was a king; and when he got through all
+he wanted, and got his daughter married to the beautiful young prince,
+he said he would break his staff, and deeper than plummet sounded he
+would bury his book."
+
+"It was pretty much the best thing he could do," said the Captain,
+"because the Bible is agin such things."
+
+"Is it?" said Mara; "why, he was a real good man."
+
+"Oh, well, you know, we all on us does what ain't quite right sometimes,
+when we gets pushed up," said the Captain, who now began arranging the
+clams and sliced potatoes in alternate layers with sea-biscuit, strewing
+in salt and pepper as he went on; and, in a few moments, a smell,
+fragrant to hungry senses, began to steam upward, and Sally began
+washing and preparing some mammoth clam-shells, to serve as ladles and
+plates for the future chowder.
+
+Mara, who sat with her morsel of a book in her lap, seemed deeply
+pondering the past conversation. At last she said, "What did you mean by
+saying you'd seen 'em act that at a theatre?"
+
+"Why, they make it all seem real; and they have a shipwreck, and you see
+it all jist right afore your eyes."
+
+"And the Enchanter, and Ariel, and Caliban, and all?" said Mara.
+
+"Yes, all on't,--plain as printing."
+
+"Why, that is by magic, ain't it?" said Mara.
+
+"No; they hes ways to jist make it up; but,"--added the Captain, "Sally,
+you needn't say nothin' to your ma 'bout the theatre, 'cause she
+wouldn't think I's fit to go to meetin' for six months arter, if she
+heard on't."
+
+"Why, ain't theatres good?" said Sally.
+
+"Wal', there's a middlin' sight o' bad things in 'em," said the
+Captain, "that I must say; but as long as folks _is_ folks, why, they
+will be _folksy_;--but there's never any makin' women folk understand
+about them ar things."
+
+"I am sorry they are bad," said Mara; "I want to see them."
+
+"Wal', wal'," said the Captain, "on the hull I've seen real things a
+good deal more wonderful than all their shows, and they hain't no
+make-b'lieve to 'em; but theatres is takin' arter all. But, Sally, mind
+you don't say nothin' to Mis' Kittridge."
+
+A few moments more and all discussion was lost in preparations for the
+meal, and each one, receiving a portion of the savory stew in a large
+shell, made a spoon of a small cockle, and with some slices of bread and
+butter, the evening meal went off merrily. The sun was sloping toward
+the ocean; the wide blue floor was bedropped here and there with rosy
+shadows of sailing clouds. Suddenly the Captain sprang up, calling
+out,--
+
+"Sure as I'm alive, there they be!"
+
+"Who?" exclaimed the children.
+
+"Why, Captain Pennel and Moses; don't you see?"
+
+And, in fact, on the outer circle of the horizon came drifting a line of
+small white-breasted vessels, looking like so many doves.
+
+"Them's 'em," said the Captain, while Mara danced for joy.
+
+"How soon will they be here?"
+
+"Afore long," said the Captain; "so, Mara, I guess you'll want to be
+getting hum."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+THE HOME COMING
+
+
+Mrs. Pennel, too, had seen the white, dove-like cloud on the horizon,
+and had hurried to make biscuits, and conduct other culinary
+preparations which should welcome the wanderers home.
+
+The sun was just dipping into the great blue sea--a round ball of
+fire--and sending long, slanting tracks of light across the top of each
+wave, when a boat was moored at the beach, and the minister sprang
+out,--not in his suit of ceremony, but attired in fisherman's garb.
+
+"Good afternoon, Mrs. Pennel," he said. "I was out fishing, and I
+thought I saw your husband's schooner in the distance. I thought I'd
+come and tell you."
+
+"Thank you, Mr. Sewell. I thought I saw it, but I was not certain. Do
+come in; the Captain would be delighted to see you here."
+
+"We miss your husband in our meetings," said Mr. Sewell; "it will be
+good news for us all when he comes home; he is one of those I depend on
+to help me preach."
+
+"I'm sure you don't preach to anybody who enjoys it more," said Mrs.
+Pennel. "He often tells me that the greatest trouble about his voyages
+to the Banks is that he loses so many sanctuary privileges; though he
+always keeps Sunday on his ship, and reads and sings his psalms; but, he
+says, after all, there's nothing like going to Mount Zion."
+
+"And little Moses has gone on his first voyage?" said the minister.
+
+"Yes, indeed; the child has been teasing to go for more than a year.
+Finally the Cap'n told him if he'd be faithful in the ploughing and
+planting, he should go. You see, he's rather unsteady, and apt to be off
+after other things,--very different from Mara. Whatever you give her to
+do, she always keeps at it till it's done."
+
+"And pray, where is the little lady?" said the minister; "is she gone?"
+
+"Well, Cap'n Kittridge came in this afternoon to take her down to see
+Sally. The Cap'n's always so fond of Mara, and she has always taken to
+him ever since she was a baby."
+
+"The Captain is a curious creature," said the minister, smiling.
+
+Mrs. Pennel smiled also; and it is to be remarked that nobody ever
+mentioned the poor Captain's name without the same curious smile.
+
+"The Cap'n is a good-hearted, obliging creature," said Mrs. Pennel, "and
+a master-hand for telling stories to the children."
+
+"Yes, a perfect 'Arabian Nights' Entertainment,'" said Mr. Sewell.
+
+"Well, I really believe the Cap'n believes his own stories," said Mrs.
+Pennel; "he always seems to, and certainly a more obliging man and a
+kinder neighbor couldn't be. He has been in and out almost every day
+since I've been alone, to see if I wanted anything. He would insist on
+chopping wood and splitting kindlings for me, though I told him the
+Cap'n and Moses had left a plenty to last till they came home."
+
+At this moment the subject of their conversation appeared striding along
+the beach, with a large, red lobster in one hand, while with the other
+he held little Mara upon his shoulder, she the while clapping her hands
+and singing merrily, as she saw the Brilliant out on the open blue sea,
+its white sails looking of a rosy purple in the evening light, careering
+gayly homeward.
+
+"There is Captain Kittridge this very minute," said Mrs. Pennel, setting
+down a tea-cup she had been wiping, and going to the door.
+
+"Good evening, Mis' Pennel," said the Captain. "I s'pose you see your
+folks are comin'. I brought down one of these 'ere ready b'iled, 'cause
+I thought it might make out your supper."
+
+"Thank you, Captain; you must stay and take some with us."
+
+"Wal', me and the children have pooty much done our supper," said the
+Captain. "We made a real fust-rate chowder down there to the cove; but
+I'll jist stay and see what the Cap'n's luck is. Massy!" he added, as he
+looked in at the door, "if you hain't got the minister there! Wal', now,
+I come jist as I be," he added, with a glance down at his clothes.
+
+"Never mind, Captain," said Mr. Sewell; "I'm in my fishing-clothes, so
+we're even."
+
+As to little Mara, she had run down to the beach, and stood so near the
+sea, that every dash of the tide-wave forced her little feet to tread an
+inch backward, stretching out her hands eagerly toward the schooner,
+which was standing straight toward the small wharf, not far from their
+door. Already she could see on deck figures moving about, and her sharp
+little eyes made out a small personage in a red shirt that was among the
+most active. Soon all the figures grew distinct, and she could see her
+grandfather's gray head, and alert, active form, and could see, by the
+signs he made, that he had perceived the little blowy figure that stood,
+with hair streaming in the wind, like some flower bent seaward.
+
+And now they are come nearer, and Moses shouts and dances on the deck,
+and the Captain and Mrs. Pennel come running from the house down to the
+shore, and a few minutes more, and all are landed safe and sound, and
+little Mara is carried up to the house in her grandfather's arms, while
+Captain Kittridge stops to have a few moments' gossip with Ben Halliday
+and Tom Scranton before they go to their own resting-places.
+
+Meanwhile Moses loses not a moment in boasting of his heroic exploits to
+Mara.
+
+"Oh, Mara! you've no idea what times we've had! I can fish equal to any
+of 'em, and I can take in sail and tend the helm like anything, and I
+know all the names of everything; and you ought to have seen us catch
+fish! Why, they bit just as fast as we could throw; and it was just
+throw and bite,--throw and bite,--throw and bite; and my hands got
+blistered pulling in, but I didn't mind it,--I was determined no one
+should beat me."
+
+"Oh! did you blister your hands?" said Mara, pitifully.
+
+"Oh, to be sure! Now, you girls think that's a dreadful thing, but we
+men don't mind it. My hands are getting so hard, you've no idea. And,
+Mara, we caught a great shark."
+
+"A shark!--oh, how dreadful! Isn't he dangerous?"
+
+"Dangerous! I guess not. We served him out, I tell you. He'll never eat
+any more people, I tell you, the old wretch!"
+
+"But, poor shark, it isn't his fault that he eats people. He was made
+so," said Mara, unconsciously touching a deep theological mystery.
+
+"Well, I don't know but he was," said Moses; "but sharks that we catch
+never eat any more, I'll bet you."
+
+"Oh, Moses, did you see any icebergs?"
+
+"Icebergs! yes; we passed right by one,--a real grand one."
+
+"Were there any bears on it?"
+
+"Bears! No; we didn't see any."
+
+"Captain Kittridge says there are white bears live on 'em."
+
+"Oh, Captain Kittridge," said Moses, with a toss of superb contempt; "if
+you're going to believe all _he_ says, you've got your hands full."
+
+"Why, Moses, you don't think he tells lies?" said Mara, the tears
+actually starting in her eyes. "I think he is _real_ good, and tells
+nothing but the truth."
+
+"Well, well, you are young yet," said Moses, turning away with an air of
+easy grandeur, "and only a girl besides," he added.
+
+Mara was nettled at this speech. First, it pained her to have her
+child's faith shaken in anything, and particularly in her good old
+friend, the Captain; and next, she felt, with more force than ever she
+did before, the continual disparaging tone in which Moses spoke of her
+girlhood.
+
+"I'm sure," she said to herself, "he oughtn't to feel so about girls and
+women. There was Deborah was a prophetess, and judged Israel; and there
+was Egeria,--she taught Numa Pompilius all his wisdom."
+
+But it was not the little maiden's way to speak when anything thwarted
+or hurt her, but rather to fold all her feelings and thoughts inward, as
+some insects, with fine gauzy wings, draw them under a coat of horny
+concealment. Somehow, there was a shivering sense of disappointment in
+all this meeting with Moses. She had dwelt upon it, and fancied so much,
+and had so many things to say to him; and he had come home so
+self-absorbed and glorious, and seemed to have had so little need of or
+thought for her, that she felt a cold, sad sinking at her heart; and
+walking away very still and white, sat down demurely by her
+grandfather's knee.
+
+"Well, so my little girl is glad grandfather's come," he said, lifting
+her fondly in his arms, and putting her golden head under his coat, as
+he had been wont to do from infancy; "grandpa thought a great deal about
+his little Mara."
+
+The small heart swelled against his. Kind, faithful old grandpa! how
+much more he thought about her than Moses; and yet she had thought so
+much of Moses. And there he sat, this same ungrateful Moses, bright-eyed
+and rosy-cheeked, full of talk and gayety, full of energy and vigor, as
+ignorant as possible of the wound he had given to the little loving
+heart that was silently brooding under her grandfather's
+butternut-colored sea-coat. Not only was he ignorant, but he had not
+even those conditions within himself which made knowledge possible. All
+that there was developed of him, at present, was a fund of energy,
+self-esteem, hope, courage, and daring, the love of action, life, and
+adventure; his life was in the outward and present, not in the inward
+and reflective; he was a true ten-year old boy, in its healthiest and
+most animal perfection. What she was, the small pearl with the golden
+hair, with her frail and high-strung organization, her sensitive nerves,
+her half-spiritual fibres, her ponderings, and marvels, and dreams, her
+power of love, and yearning for self-devotion, our readers may, perhaps,
+have seen. But if ever two children, or two grown people, thus
+organized, are thrown into intimate relations, it follows, from the very
+laws of their being, that one must hurt the other, simply by being
+itself; one must always hunger for what the other has not to give.
+
+It was a merry meal, however, when they all sat down to the tea-table
+once more, and Mara by her grandfather's side, who often stopped what he
+was saying to stroke her head fondly. Moses bore a more prominent part
+in the conversation than he had been wont to do before this voyage, and
+all seemed to listen to him with a kind of indulgence elders often
+accord to a handsome, manly boy, in the first flush of some successful
+enterprise. That ignorant confidence in one's self and one's future,
+which comes in life's first dawn, has a sort of mournful charm in
+experienced eyes, who know how much it all amounts to.
+
+Gradually, little Mara quieted herself with listening to and admiring
+him. It is not comfortable to have any heart-quarrel with one's
+cherished idol, and everything of the feminine nature, therefore, can
+speedily find fifty good reasons for seeing one's self in the wrong and
+one's graven image in the right; and little Mara soon had said to
+herself, without words, that, of course, Moses couldn't be expected to
+think as much of her as she of him. He was handsomer, cleverer, and had
+a thousand other things to do and to think of--he was a boy, in short,
+and going to be a glorious man and sail all over the world, while she
+could only hem handkerchiefs and knit stockings, and sit at home and
+wait for him to come back. This was about the _resume_ of life as it
+appeared to the little one, who went on from the moment worshiping her
+image with more undivided idolatry than ever, hoping that by and by he
+would think more of her.
+
+Mr. Sewell appeared to study Moses carefully and thoughtfully, and
+encouraged the wild, gleeful frankness which he had brought home from
+his first voyage, as a knowing jockey tries the paces of a high-mettled
+colt.
+
+"Did you get any time to read?" he interposed once, when the boy stopped
+in his account of their adventures.
+
+"No, sir," said Moses; "at least," he added, blushing very deeply, "I
+didn't feel like reading. I had so much to do, and there was so much to
+see."
+
+"It's all new to him now," said Captain Pennel; "but when he comes to
+being, as I've been, day after day, with nothing but sea and sky, he'll
+be glad of a book, just to break the sameness."
+
+"Laws, yes," said Captain Kittridge; "sailor's life ain't all
+apple-pie, as it seems when a boy first goes on a summer trip with his
+daddy--not by no manner o' means."
+
+"But," said Mara, blushing and looking very eagerly at Mr. Sewell,
+"Moses has read a great deal. He read the Roman and the Grecian history
+through before he went away, and knows all about them."
+
+"Indeed!" said Mr. Sewell, turning with an amused look towards the tiny
+little champion; "do you read them, too, my little maid?"
+
+"Yes, indeed," said Mara, her eyes kindling; "I have read them a great
+deal since Moses went away--them and the Bible."
+
+Mara did not dare to name her new-found treasure--there was something so
+mysterious about that, that she could not venture to produce it, except
+on the score of extreme intimacy.
+
+"Come, sit by me, little Mara," said the minister, putting out his hand;
+"you and I must be friends, I see."
+
+Mr. Sewell had a certain something of mesmeric power in his eyes which
+children seldom resisted; and with a shrinking movement, as if both
+attracted and repelled, the little girl got upon his knee.
+
+"So you like the Bible and Roman history?" he said to her, making a
+little aside for her, while a brisk conversation was going on between
+Captain Kittridge and Captain Pennel on the fishing bounty for the year.
+
+"Yes, sir," said Mara, blushing in a very guilty way.
+
+"And which do you like the best?"
+
+"I don't know, sir; I sometimes think it is the one, and sometimes the
+other."
+
+"Well, what pleases you in the Roman history?"
+
+"Oh, I like that about Quintus Curtius."
+
+"Quintus Curtius?" said Mr. Sewell, pretending not to remember.
+
+"Oh, don't you remember him? why, there was a great gulf opened in the
+Forum, and the Augurs said that the country would not be saved unless
+some one would offer himself up for it, and so he jumped right in, all
+on horseback. I think that was grand. I should like to have done that,"
+said little Mara, her eyes blazing out with a kind of starry light which
+they had when she was excited.
+
+"And how would you have liked it, if you had been a Roman girl, and
+Moses were Quintus Curtius? would you like to have him give himself up
+for the good of the country?"
+
+"Oh, no, no!" said Mara, instinctively shuddering.
+
+"Don't you think it would be very grand of him?"
+
+"Oh, yes, sir."
+
+"And shouldn't we wish our friends to do what is brave and grand?"
+
+"Yes, sir; but then," she added, "it would be so dreadful _never_ to see
+him any more," and a large tear rolled from the great soft eyes and fell
+on the minister's hand.
+
+"Come, come," thought Mr. Sewell, "this sort of experimenting is too
+bad--too much nerve here, too much solitude, too much pine-whispering
+and sea-dashing are going to the making up of this little piece of
+workmanship."
+
+"Tell me," he said, motioning Moses to sit by him, "how _you_ like the
+Roman history."
+
+"I like it first-rate," said Moses. "The Romans were such smashers, and
+beat everybody; nobody could stand against them; and I like Alexander,
+too--I think he was splendid."
+
+"True boy," said Mr. Sewell to himself, "unreflecting brother of the
+wind and the sea, and all that is vigorous and active--no precocious
+development of the moral here."
+
+"Now you have come," said Mr. Sewell, "I will lend you another book."
+
+"Thank you, sir; I love to read them when I'm at home--it's so still
+here. I should be dull if I didn't."
+
+Mara's eyes looked eagerly attentive. Mr. Sewell noticed their hungry
+look when a book was spoken of.
+
+"And you must read it, too, my little girl," he said.
+
+"Thank you, sir," said Mara; "I always want to read everything Moses
+does."
+
+"What book is it?" said Moses.
+
+"It is called Plutarch's 'Lives,'" said the minister; "it has more
+particular accounts of the men you read about in history."
+
+"Are there any lives of women?" said Mara.
+
+"No, my dear," said Mr. Sewell; "in the old times, women did not get
+their lives written, though I don't doubt many of them were much better
+worth writing than the men's."
+
+"I should like to be a great general," said Moses, with a toss of his
+head.
+
+"The way to be great lies through books, now, and not through battles,"
+said the minister; "there is more done with pens than swords; so, if you
+want to do anything, you must read and study."
+
+"Do you think of giving this boy a liberal education?" said Mr. Sewell
+some time later in the evening, after Moses and Mara were gone to bed.
+
+"Depends on the boy," said Zephaniah. "I've been up to Brunswick, and
+seen the fellows there in the college. With a good many of 'em, going to
+college seems to be just nothing but a sort of ceremony; they go because
+they're sent, and don't learn anything more'n they can help. That's what
+I call waste of time and money."
+
+"But don't you think Moses shows some taste for reading and study?"
+
+"Pretty well, pretty well!" said Zephaniah; "jist keep him a little
+hungry; not let him get all he wants, you see, and he'll bite the
+sharper. If I want to catch cod, I don't begin with flingin' over a
+barrel o' bait. So with the boys, jist bait 'em with a book here and a
+book there, and kind o' let 'em feel their own way, and then, if nothin'
+will do but a fellow must go to college, give in to him--that'd be _my_
+way."
+
+"And a very good one, too!" said Mr. Sewell. "I'll see if I can't bait
+my hook, so as to make Moses take after Latin this winter. I shall have
+plenty of time to teach him."
+
+"Now, there's Mara!" said the Captain, his face becoming phosphorescent
+with a sort of mild radiance of pleasure as it usually was when he spoke
+of her; "she's real sharp set after books; she's ready to fly out of her
+little skin at the sight of one."
+
+"That child thinks too much, and feels too much, and knows too much for
+her years!" said Mr. Sewell. "If she were a boy, and you would take her
+away cod-fishing, as you have Moses, the sea-winds would blow away some
+of the thinking, and her little body would grow stout, and her mind less
+delicate and sensitive. But she's a woman," he said, with a sigh, "and
+they are all alike. We can't do much for them, but let them come up as
+they will and make the best of it."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+THE NATURAL AND THE SPIRITUAL
+
+
+"Emily," said Mr. Sewell, "did you ever take much notice of that little
+Mara Lincoln?"
+
+"No, brother; why?"
+
+"Because I think her a very uncommon child."
+
+"She is a pretty little creature," said Miss Emily, "but that is all I
+know; modest--blushing to her eyes when a stranger speaks to her."
+
+"She has wonderful eyes," said Mr. Sewell; "when she gets excited, they
+grow so large and so bright, it seems almost unnatural."
+
+"Dear me! has she?" said Miss Emily, in a tone of one who had been
+called upon to do something about it. "Well?" she added, inquiringly.
+
+"That little thing is only seven years old," said Mr. Sewell; "and she
+is thinking and feeling herself all into mere spirit--brain and nerves
+all active, and her little body so frail. She reads incessantly, and
+thinks over and over what she reads."
+
+"Well?" said Miss Emily, winding very swiftly on a skein of black silk,
+and giving a little twitch, every now and then, to a knot to make it
+subservient.
+
+It was commonly the way when Mr. Sewell began to talk with Miss Emily,
+that she constantly answered him with the manner of one who expects some
+immediate, practical proposition to flow from every train of thought.
+Now Mr. Sewell was one of the reflecting kind of men, whose thoughts
+have a thousand meandering paths, that lead nowhere in particular. His
+sister's brisk little "Well's?" and "Ah's!" and "Indeed's!" were
+sometimes the least bit in the world annoying.
+
+"What is to be done?" said Miss Emily; "shall we speak to Mrs. Pennel?"
+
+"Mrs. Pennel would know nothing about her."
+
+"How strangely you talk!--who should, if she doesn't?"
+
+"I mean, she wouldn't understand the dangers of her case."
+
+"Dangers! Do you think she has any disease? She seems to be a healthy
+child enough, I'm sure. She has a lovely color in her cheeks."
+
+Mr. Sewell seemed suddenly to become immersed in a book he was reading.
+
+"There now," said Miss Emily, with a little tone of pique, "that's the
+way you always do. You begin to talk with me, and just as I get
+interested in the conversation, you take up a book. It's too bad."
+
+"Emily," said Mr. Sewell, laying down his book, "I think I shall begin
+to give Moses Pennel Latin lessons this winter."
+
+"Why, what do you undertake that for?" said Miss Emily. "You have enough
+to do without that, I'm sure."
+
+"He is an uncommonly bright boy, and he interests me."
+
+"Now, brother, you needn't tell me; there is some mystery about the
+interest you take in that child, _you know_ there is."
+
+"I am fond of children," said Mr. Sewell, dryly.
+
+"Well, but you don't take as much interest in other boys. I never heard
+of your teaching any of them Latin before."
+
+"Well, Emily, he is an uncommonly interesting child, and the
+providential circumstances under which he came into our neighborhood"--
+
+"Providential fiddlesticks!" said Miss Emily, with heightened color,
+"_I_ believe you knew that boy's mother."
+
+This sudden thrust brought a vivid color into Mr. Sewell's cheeks. To be
+interrupted so unceremoniously, in the midst of so very proper and
+ministerial a remark, was rather provoking, and he answered, with some
+asperity,--
+
+"And suppose I had, Emily, and supposing there were any painful subject
+connected with this past event, you might have sufficient forbearance
+not to try to make me speak on what I do not wish to talk of."
+
+Mr. Sewell was one of your gentle, dignified men, from whom Heaven
+deliver an inquisitive female friend! If such people would only get
+angry, and blow some unbecoming blast, one might make something of them;
+but speaking, as they always do, from the serene heights of immaculate
+propriety, one gets in the wrong before one knows it, and has nothing
+for it but to beg pardon. Miss Emily had, however, a feminine resource:
+she began to cry--wisely confining herself to the simple eloquence of
+tears and sobs. Mr. Sewell sat as awkwardly as if he had trodden on a
+kitten's toe, or brushed down a china cup, feeling as if he were a
+great, horrid, clumsy boor, and his poor little sister a martyr.
+
+"Come, Emily," he said, in a softer tone, when the sobs subsided a
+little.
+
+But Emily didn't "come," but went at it with a fresh burst. Mr. Sewell
+had a vision like that which drowning men are said to have, in which all
+Miss Emily's sisterly devotions, stocking-darnings, account-keepings,
+nursings and tendings, and infinite self-sacrifices, rose up before him:
+and there she was--crying!
+
+"I'm sorry I spoke harshly, Emily. Come, come; that's a good girl."
+
+"I'm a silly fool," said Miss Emily, lifting her head, and wiping the
+tears from her merry little eyes, as she went on winding her silk.
+
+"Perhaps he will tell me now," she thought, as she wound.
+
+But he didn't.
+
+"What I was going to say, Emily," said her brother, "was, that I thought
+it would be a good plan for little Mara to come sometimes with Moses;
+and then, by observing her more particularly, you might be of use to
+her; her little, active mind needs good practical guidance like yours."
+
+Mr. Sewell spoke in a gentle, flattering tone, and Miss Emily was
+flattered; but she soon saw that she had gained nothing by the whole
+breeze, except a little kind of dread, which made her inwardly resolve
+never to touch the knocker of his fortress again. But she entered into
+her brother's scheme with the facile alacrity with which she usually
+seconded any schemes of his proposing.
+
+"I might teach her painting and embroidery," said Miss Emily, glancing,
+with a satisfied air, at a framed piece of her own work which hung over
+the mantelpiece, revealing the state of the fine arts in this country,
+as exhibited in the performances of well-instructed young ladies of that
+period. Miss Emily had performed it under the tuition of a celebrated
+teacher of female accomplishments. It represented a white marble
+obelisk, which an inscription, in legible India ink letters, stated to
+be "Sacred to the memory of Theophilus Sewell," etc. This obelisk stood
+in the midst of a ground made very green by an embroidery of different
+shades of chenille and silk, and was overshadowed by an embroidered
+weeping-willow. Leaning on it, with her face concealed in a plentiful
+flow of white handkerchief, was a female figure in deep mourning,
+designed to represent the desolate widow. A young girl, in a very black
+dress, knelt in front of it, and a very lugubrious-looking young man,
+standing bolt upright on the other side, seemed to hold in his hand one
+end of a wreath of roses, which the girl was presenting, as an
+appropriate decoration for the tomb. The girl and gentleman were, of
+course, the young Theophilus and Miss Emily, and the appalling grief
+conveyed by the expression of their faces was a triumph of the pictorial
+art.
+
+Miss Emily had in her bedroom a similar funeral trophy, sacred to the
+memory of her deceased mother,--besides which there were, framed and
+glazed, in the little sitting-room, two embroidered shepherdesses
+standing with rueful faces, in charge of certain animals of an uncertain
+breed between sheep and pigs. The poor little soul had mentally resolved
+to make Mara the heiress of all the skill and knowledge of the arts by
+which she had been enabled to consummate these marvels.
+
+"She is naturally a lady-like little thing," she said to herself, "and
+if I know anything of accomplishments, she shall have them."
+
+Just about the time that Miss Emily came to this resolution, had she
+been clairvoyant, she might have seen Mara sitting very quietly, busy in
+the solitude of her own room with a little sprig of partridge-berry
+before her, whose round green leaves and brilliant scarlet berries she
+had been for hours trying to imitate, as appeared from the scattered
+sketches and fragments around her. In fact, before Zephaniah started on
+his spring fishing, he had caught her one day very busy at work of the
+same kind, with bits of charcoal, and some colors compounded out of wild
+berries; and so out of his capacious pocket, after his return, he drew a
+little box of water-colors and a lead-pencil and square of India-rubber,
+which he had bought for her in Portland on his way home.
+
+Hour after hour the child works, so still, so fervent, so
+earnest,--going over and over, time after time, her simple, ignorant
+methods to make it "look like," and stopping, at times, to give the true
+artist's sigh, as the little green and scarlet fragment lies there
+hopelessly, unapproachably perfect. Ignorantly to herself, the hands of
+the little pilgrim are knocking at the very door where Giotto and
+Cimabue knocked in the innocent child-life of Italian art.
+
+"Why won't it look round?" she said to Moses, who had come in behind
+her.
+
+"Why, Mara, did you do these?" said Moses, astonished; "why, how well
+they are done! I should know in a minute what they were meant for."
+
+Mara flushed up at being praised by Moses, but heaved a deep sigh as she
+looked back.
+
+"It's so pretty, that sprig," she said; "if I only could make it just
+like"--
+
+"Why, nobody expects _that_," said Moses, "it's like enough, if people
+only know what you mean it for. But come, now, get your bonnet, and come
+with me in the boat. Captain Kittridge has just brought down our new
+one, and I'm going to take you over to Eagle Island, and we'll take our
+dinner and stay all day; mother says so."
+
+"Oh, how nice!" said the little girl, running cheerfully for her
+sun-bonnet.
+
+At the house-door they met Mrs. Pennel, with a little closely covered
+tin pail.
+
+"Here's your dinner, children; and, Moses, mind and take good care of
+her."
+
+"Never fear _me_ mother, I've been to the Banks; there wasn't a man
+there could manage a boat better than I could."
+
+"Yes, grandmother," said Mara, "you ought to see how strong his arms
+are; I believe he will be like Samson one of these days if he keeps
+on."
+
+So away they went. It was a glorious August forenoon, and the sombre
+spruces and shaggy hemlocks that dipped and rippled in the waters were
+penetrated to their deepest recesses with the clear brilliancy of the
+sky,--a true northern sky, without a cloud, without even a softening
+haze, defining every outline, revealing every minute point, cutting with
+sharp decision the form of every promontory and rock, and distant
+island.
+
+The blue of the sea and the blue of the sky were so much the same, that
+when the children had rowed far out, the little boat seemed to float
+midway, poised in the centre of an azure sphere, with a firmament above
+and a firmament below. Mara leaned dreamily over the side of the boat,
+and drew her little hands through the waters as they rippled along to
+the swift oars' strokes, and she saw as the waves broke, and divided and
+shivered around the boat, a hundred little faces, with brown eyes and
+golden hair, gleaming up through the water, and dancing away over
+rippling waves, and thought that so the sea-nymphs might look who came
+up from the coral caves when they ring the knell of drowned people.
+Moses sat opposite to her, with his coat off, and his heavy black curls
+more wavy and glossy than ever, as the exercise made them damp with
+perspiration.
+
+Eagle Island lay on the blue sea, a tangled thicket of
+evergreens,--white pine, spruce, arbor vitae, and fragrant silver firs. A
+little strip of white beach bound it, like a silver setting to a gem.
+And there Moses at length moored his boat, and the children landed. The
+island was wholly solitary, and there is something to children quite
+delightful in feeling that they have a little lonely world all to
+themselves. Childhood is itself such an enchanted island, separated by
+mysterious depths from the mainland of nature, life, and reality.
+
+Moses had subsided a little from the glorious heights on which he
+seemed to be in the first flush of his return, and he and Mara, in
+consequence, were the friends of old time. It is true he thought himself
+quite a man, but the manhood of a boy is only a tiny masquerade,--a
+fantastic, dreamy prevision of real manhood. It was curious that Mara,
+who was by all odds the most precociously developed of the two, never
+thought of asserting herself a woman; in fact, she seldom thought of
+herself at all, but dreamed and pondered of almost everything else.
+
+"I declare," said Moses, looking up into a thick-branched, rugged old
+hemlock, which stood all shaggy, with heavy beards of gray moss drooping
+from its branches, "there's an eagle's nest up there; I mean to go and
+see." And up he went into the gloomy embrace of the old tree, crackling
+the dead branches, wrenching off handfuls of gray moss, rising higher
+and higher, every once in a while turning and showing to Mara his
+glowing face and curly hair through a dusky green frame of boughs, and
+then mounting again. "I'm coming to it," he kept exclaiming.
+
+Meanwhile his proceedings seemed to create a sensation among the
+feathered house-keepers, one of whom rose and sailed screaming away into
+the air. In a moment after there was a swoop of wings, and two eagles
+returned and began flapping and screaming about the head of the boy.
+
+Mara, who stood at the foot of the tree, could not see clearly what was
+going on, for the thickness of the boughs; she only heard a great
+commotion and rattling of the branches, the scream of the birds, and the
+swooping of their wings, and Moses's valorous exclamations, as he seemed
+to be laying about him with a branch which he had broken off.
+
+At last he descended victorious, with the eggs in his pocket. Mara stood
+at the foot of the tree, with her sun-bonnet blown back, her hair
+streaming, and her little arms upstretched, as if to catch him if he
+fell.
+
+"Oh, I was so afraid!" she said, as he set foot on the ground.
+
+"Afraid? Pooh! Who's afraid? Why, you might know the old eagles couldn't
+beat me."
+
+"Ah, well, I know how strong you are; but, you know, I couldn't help it.
+But the poor birds,--do hear 'em scream. Moses, don't you suppose they
+feel bad?"
+
+"No, they're only mad, to think they couldn't beat me. I beat them just
+as the Romans used to beat folks,--I played their nest was a city, and I
+spoiled it."
+
+"I shouldn't want to spoil cities!" said Mara.
+
+"That's 'cause you are a girl,--I'm a man, and men always like war; I've
+taken one city this afternoon, and mean to take a great many more."
+
+"But, Moses, do you think war is right?"
+
+"Right? why, yes, to be sure; if it ain't, it's a pity; for it's all
+that has ever been done in this world. In the Bible, or out, certainly
+it's right. I wish I had a gun now, I'd stop those old eagles'
+screeching."
+
+"But, Moses, we shouldn't want any one to come and steal all our things,
+and then shoot us."
+
+"How long you do think about things!" said Moses, impatient at her
+pertinacity. "I am older than you, and when I tell you a thing's right,
+you ought to believe it. Besides, don't you take hens' eggs every day,
+in the barn? How do you suppose the hens like that?"
+
+This was a home-thrust, and for the moment threw the little casuist off
+the track. She carefully folded up the idea, and laid it away on the
+inner shelves of her mind till she could think more about it. Pliable as
+she was to all outward appearances, the child had her own still,
+interior world, where all her little notions and opinions stood up crisp
+and fresh, like flowers that grow in cool, shady places. If anybody too
+rudely assailed a thought or suggestion she put forth, she drew it back
+again into this quiet inner chamber, and went on. Reader, there are
+some women of this habit; and there is no independence and pertinacity
+of opinion like that of these seemingly soft, quiet creatures, whom it
+is so easy to silence, and so difficult to convince. Mara, little and
+unformed as she yet was, belonged to the race of those spirits to whom
+is deputed the office of the angel in the Apocalypse, to whom was given
+the golden rod which measured the New Jerusalem. Infant though she was,
+she had ever in her hands that invisible measuring-rod, which she was
+laying to the foundations of all actions and thoughts. There may,
+perhaps, come a time when the saucy boy, who now steps so superbly, and
+predominates so proudly in virtue of his physical strength and daring,
+will learn to tremble at the golden measuring-rod, held in the hand of a
+woman.
+
+"Howbeit, that is not first which is spiritual, but that which is
+natural." Moses is the type of the first unreflecting stage of
+development, in which are only the out-reachings of active faculties,
+the aspirations that tend toward manly accomplishments. Seldom do we
+meet sensitiveness of conscience or discriminating reflection as the
+indigenous growth of a very vigorous physical development. Your true
+healthy boy has the breezy, hearty virtues of a Newfoundland dog, the
+wild fullness of life of the young race-colt. Sentiment, sensibility,
+delicate perceptions, spiritual aspirations, are plants of later growth.
+
+But there are, both of men and women, beings born into this world in
+whom from childhood the spiritual and the reflective predominate over
+the physical. In relation to other human beings, they seem to be
+organized much as birds are in relation to other animals. They are the
+artists, the poets, the unconscious seers, to whom the purer truths of
+spiritual instruction are open. Surveying man merely as an animal, these
+sensitively organized beings, with their feebler physical powers, are
+imperfect specimens of life. Looking from the spiritual side, they seem
+to have a noble strength, a divine force. The types of this latter class
+are more commonly among women than among men. Multitudes of them pass
+away in earlier years, and leave behind in many hearts the anxious
+wonder, why they came so fair only to mock the love they kindled. They
+who live to maturity are the priests and priestesses of the spiritual
+life, ordained of God to keep the balance between the rude but absolute
+necessities of physical life and the higher sphere to which that must at
+length give place.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+LESSONS
+
+
+Moses felt elevated some inches in the world by the gift of a new Latin
+grammar, which had been bought for him in Brunswick. It was a step
+upward in life; no graduate from a college ever felt more ennobled.
+
+"Wal', now, I tell ye, Moses Pennel," said Miss Roxy, who, with her
+press-board and big flat-iron, was making her autumn sojourn in the
+brown house, "I tell ye Latin ain't just what you think 'tis, steppin'
+round so crank; you must remember what the king of Israel said to
+Benhadad, king of Syria."
+
+"I don't remember; what did he say?"
+
+"I remember," said the soft voice of Mara; "he said, 'Let not him that
+putteth on the harness boast as him that putteth it off.'"
+
+"Good for you, Mara," said Miss Roxy; "if some other folks read their
+Bibles as much as you do, they'd know more."
+
+Between Moses and Miss Roxy there had always been a state of sub-acute
+warfare since the days of his first arrival, she regarding him as an
+unhopeful interloper, and he regarding her as a grim-visaged,
+interfering gnome, whom he disliked with all the intense, unreasoning
+antipathy of childhood.
+
+"I hate that old woman," he said to Mara, as he flung out of the door.
+
+"Why, Moses, what for?" said Mara, who never could comprehend hating
+anybody.
+
+"I do hate her, and Aunt Ruey, too. They are two old scratching cats;
+they hate me, and I hate them; they're always trying to bring me down,
+and I won't be brought down."
+
+Mara had sufficient instinctive insight into the feminine role in the
+domestic concert not to adventure a direct argument just now in favor of
+her friends, and therefore she proposed that they should sit down
+together under a cedar hard by, and look over the first lesson.
+
+"Miss Emily invited me to go over with you," she said, "and I should
+like so much to hear you recite."
+
+Moses thought this very proper, as would any other male person, young or
+old, who has been habitually admired by any other female one. He did not
+doubt that, as in fishing and rowing, and all other things he had
+undertaken as yet, he should win himself distinguished honors.
+
+"See here," he said; "Mr. Sewell told me I might go as far as I liked,
+and I mean to take all the declensions to begin with; there's five of
+'em, and I shall learn them for the first lesson; then I shall take the
+adjectives next, and next the verbs, and so in a fortnight get into
+reading."
+
+Mara heaved a sort of sigh. She wished she had been invited to share
+this glorious race; but she looked on admiring when Moses read, in a
+loud voice, "Penna, pennae, pennae, pennam," etc.
+
+"There now, I believe I've got it," he said, handing Mara the book; and
+he was perfectly astonished to find that, with the book withdrawn, he
+boggled, and blundered, and stumbled ingloriously. In vain Mara softly
+prompted, and looked at him with pitiful eyes as he grew red in the face
+with his efforts to remember.
+
+"Confound it all!" he said, with an angry flush, snatching back the
+book; "it's more trouble than it's worth."
+
+Again he began the repetition, saying it very loud and plain; he said it
+over and over till his mind wandered far out to sea, and while his
+tongue repeated "penna, pennae," he was counting the white sails of the
+fishing-smacks, and thinking of pulling up codfish at the Banks.
+
+"There now, Mara, try me," he said, and handed her the book again; "I'm
+sure I _must_ know it now."
+
+But, alas! with the book the sounds glided away; and "penna" and
+"pennam" and "pennis" and "pennae" were confusedly and indiscriminately
+mingled. He thought it must be Mara's fault; she didn't read right, or
+she told him just as he was going to say it, or she didn't tell him
+right; or was he a fool? or had he lost his senses?
+
+That first declension has been a valley of humiliation to many a sturdy
+boy--to many a bright one, too; and often it is, that the more full of
+thought and vigor the mind is, the more difficult it is to narrow it
+down to the single dry issue of learning those sounds. Heinrich Heine
+said the Romans would never have found time to conquer the world, if
+they had had to learn their own language; but that, luckily for them,
+they were born into the knowledge of what nouns form their accusatives
+in "um."
+
+Long before Moses had learned the first declension, Mara knew it by
+heart; for her intense anxiety for him, and the eagerness and zeal with
+which she listened for each termination, fixed them in her mind.
+Besides, she was naturally of a more quiet and scholar-like turn than
+he,--more intellectually developed. Moses began to think, before that
+memorable day was through, that there was some sense in Aunt Roxy's
+quotation of the saying of the King of Israel, and materially to
+retrench his expectations as to the time it might take to master the
+grammar; but still, his pride and will were both committed, and he
+worked away in this new sort of labor with energy.
+
+It was a fine, frosty November morning, when he rowed Mara across the
+bay in a little boat to recite his first lesson to Mr. Sewell.
+
+Miss Emily had provided a plate of seed-cake, otherwise called cookies,
+for the children, as was a kindly custom of old times, when the little
+people were expected. Miss Emily had a dim idea that she was to do
+something for Mara in her own department, while Moses was reciting his
+lesson; and therefore producing a large sampler, displaying every form
+and variety of marking-stitch, she began questioning the little girl, in
+a low tone, as to her proficiency in that useful accomplishment.
+
+Presently, however, she discovered that the child was restless and
+uneasy, and that she answered without knowing what she was saying. The
+fact was that she was listening, with her whole soul in her eyes, and
+feeling through all her nerves, every word Moses was saying. She knew
+all the critical places, where he was likely to go wrong; and when at
+last, in one place, he gave the wrong termination, she involuntarily
+called out the right one, starting up and turning towards them. In a
+moment she blushed deeply, seeing Mr. Sewell and Miss Emily both looking
+at her with surprise.
+
+"Come here, pussy," said Mr. Sewell, stretching out his hand to her.
+"Can you say this?"
+
+"I believe I could, sir."
+
+"Well, try it."
+
+She went through without missing a word. Mr. Sewell then, for curiosity,
+heard her repeat all the other forms of the lesson. She had them
+perfectly.
+
+"Very well, my little girl," he said, "have you been studying, too?"
+
+"I heard Moses say them so often," said Mara, in an apologetic manner,
+"I couldn't help learning them."
+
+"Would you like to recite with Moses every day?"
+
+"Oh, yes, sir, so much."
+
+"Well, you shall. It is better for him to have company."
+
+Mara's face brightened, and Miss Emily looked with a puzzled air at her
+brother.
+
+"So," she said, when the children had gone home, "I thought you wanted
+me to take Mara under my care. I was going to begin and teach her some
+marking stitches, and you put her up to studying Latin. I don't
+understand you."
+
+"Well, Emily, the fact is, the child has a natural turn for study, that
+no child of her age ought to have; and I have done just as people always
+will with such children; there's no sense in it, but I wanted to do it.
+You can teach her marking and embroidery all the same; it would break
+her little heart, now, if I were to turn her back."
+
+"I do not see of what use Latin can be to a woman."
+
+"Of what use is embroidery?"
+
+"Why, that is an accomplishment."
+
+"Ah, indeed!" said Mr. Sewell, contemplating the weeping willow and
+tombstone trophy with a singular expression, which it was lucky for Miss
+Emily's peace she did not understand. The fact was, that Mr. Sewell had,
+at one period of his life, had an opportunity of studying and observing
+minutely some really fine works of art, and the remembrance of them
+sometimes rose up to his mind, in the presence of the _chefs-d'oeuvre_
+on which his sister rested with so much complacency. It was a part of
+his quiet interior store of amusement to look at these bits of Byzantine
+embroidery round the room, which affected him always with a subtle sense
+of drollery.
+
+"You see, brother," said Miss Emily, "it is far better for women to be
+accomplished than learned."
+
+"You are quite right in the main," said Mr. Sewell, "only you must let
+me have my own way just for once. One can't be consistent always."
+
+So another Latin grammar was bought, and Moses began to feel a secret
+respect for his little companion, that he had never done before, when
+he saw how easily she walked through the labyrinths which at first so
+confused him. Before this, the comparison had been wholly in points
+where superiority arose from physical daring and vigor; now he became
+aware of the existence of another kind of strength with which he had not
+measured himself. Mara's opinion in their mutual studies began to assume
+a value in his eyes that her opinions on other subjects had never done,
+and she saw and felt, with a secret gratification, that she was becoming
+more to him through their mutual pursuit. To say the truth, it required
+this fellowship to inspire Moses with the patience and perseverance
+necessary for this species of acquisition. His active, daring
+temperament little inclined him to patient, quiet study. For anything
+that could be done by two hands, he was always ready; but to hold hands
+still and work silently in the inner forces was to him a species of
+undertaking that seemed against his very nature; but then he would do
+it--he would not disgrace himself before Mr. Sewell, and let a girl
+younger than himself outdo him.
+
+But the thing, after all, that absorbed more of Moses's thoughts than
+all his lessons was the building and rigging of a small schooner, at
+which he worked assiduously in all his leisure moments. He had dozens of
+blocks of wood, into which he had cut anchor moulds; and the melting of
+lead, the running and shaping of anchors, the whittling of masts and
+spars took up many an hour. Mara entered into all those things readily,
+and was too happy to make herself useful in hemming the sails.
+
+When the schooner was finished, they built some ways down by the sea,
+and invited Sally Kittridge over to see it launched.
+
+"There!" he said, when the little thing skimmed down prosperously into
+the sea and floated gayly on the waters, "when I'm a man, I'll have a
+big ship; I'll build her, and launch her, and command her, all myself;
+and I'll give you and Sally both a passage in it, and we'll go off to
+the East Indies--we'll sail round the world!"
+
+None of the three doubted the feasibility of this scheme; the little
+vessel they had just launched seemed the visible prophecy of such a
+future; and how pleasant it would be to sail off, with the world all
+before them, and winds ready to blow them to any port they might wish!
+
+The three children arranged some bread and cheese and doughnuts on a
+rock on the shore, to represent the collation that was usually spread in
+those parts at a ship launch, and felt quite like grown people--acting
+life beforehand in that sort of shadowy pantomime which so delights
+little people. Happy, happy days--when ships can be made with a
+jack-knife and anchors run in pine blocks, and three children together
+can launch a schooner, and the voyage of the world can all be made in
+one sunny Saturday afternoon!
+
+"Mother says you are going to college," said Sally to Moses.
+
+"Not I, indeed," said Moses; "as soon as I get old enough, I'm going up
+to Umbagog among the lumberers, and I'm going to cut real, splendid
+timber for my ship, and I'm going to get it on the stocks, and have it
+built to suit myself."
+
+"What will you call her?" said Sally.
+
+"I haven't thought of that," said Moses.
+
+"Call her the Ariel," said Mara.
+
+"What! after the spirit you were telling us about?" said Sally.
+
+"Ariel is a pretty name," said Moses. "But what is that about a spirit?"
+
+"Why," said Sally, "Mara read us a story about a ship that was wrecked,
+and a spirit called Ariel, that sang a song about the drowned
+mariners."
+
+Mara gave a shy, apprehensive glance at Moses, to see if this allusion
+called up any painful recollections.
+
+No; instead of this, he was following the motions of his little schooner
+on the waters with the briskest and most unconcerned air in the world.
+
+"Why didn't you ever show me that story, Mara?" said Moses.
+
+Mara colored and hesitated; the real reason she dared not say.
+
+"Why, she read it to father and me down by the cove," said Sally, "the
+afternoon that you came home from the Banks; I remember how we saw you
+coming in; don't you, Mara?"
+
+"What have you done with it?" said Moses.
+
+"I've got it at home," said Mara, in a faint voice; "I'll show it to
+you, if you want to see it; there are such beautiful things in it."
+
+That evening, as Moses sat busy, making some alterations in his darling
+schooner, Mara produced her treasure, and read and explained to him the
+story. He listened with interest, though without any of the extreme
+feeling which Mara had thought possible, and even interrupted her once
+in the middle of the celebrated--
+
+    "Full fathom five thy father lies,"
+
+by asking her to hold up the mast a minute, while he drove in a peg to
+make it rake a little more. He was, evidently, thinking of no drowned
+father, and dreaming of no possible sea-caves, but acutely busy in
+fashioning a present reality; and yet he liked to hear Mara read, and,
+when she had done, told her that he thought it was a pretty--quite a
+pretty story, with such a total absence of recognition that the story
+had any affinities with his own history, that Mara was quite astonished.
+
+She lay and thought about him hours, that night, after she had gone to
+bed; and he lay and thought about a new way of disposing a pulley for
+raising a sail, which he determined to try the effect of early in the
+morning.
+
+What was the absolute truth in regard to the boy? Had he forgotten the
+scenes of his early life, the strange catastrophe that cast him into his
+present circumstances? To this we answer that all the efforts of Nature,
+during the early years of a healthy childhood, are bent on effacing and
+obliterating painful impressions, wiping out from each day the sorrows
+of the last, as the daily tide effaces the furrows on the seashore. The
+child that broods, day after day, over some fixed idea, is so far forth
+not a healthy one. It is Nature's way to make first a healthy animal,
+and then develop in it gradually higher faculties. We have seen our two
+children unequally matched hitherto, because unequally developed. There
+will come a time, by and by in the history of the boy, when the haze of
+dreamy curiosity will steam up likewise from his mind, and vague
+yearnings, and questionings, and longings possess and trouble him, but
+it must be some years hence.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Here for a season we leave both our child friends, and when ten years
+have passed over their heads,--when Moses shall be twenty, and Mara
+seventeen,--we will return again to tell their story, for then there
+will be one to tell. Let us suppose in the interval, how Moses and Mara
+read Virgil with the minister, and how Mara works a shepherdess with
+Miss Emily, which astonishes the neighborhood,--but how by herself she
+learns, after divers trials, to paint partridge, and checkerberry, and
+trailing arbutus,--how Moses makes better and better ships, and Sally
+grows up a handsome girl, and goes up to Brunswick to the high
+school,--how Captain Kittridge tells stories, and Miss Roxy and Miss
+Ruey nurse and cut and make and mend for the still rising
+generation,--how there are quiltings and tea-drinkings and prayer
+meetings and Sunday sermons,--how Zephaniah and Mary Pennel grow old
+gradually and graciously, as the sun rises and sets, and the eternal
+silver tide rises and falls around our little gem, Orr's Island.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+SALLY
+
+
+"Now, where's Sally Kittridge! There's the clock striking five, and
+nobody to set the table. Sally, I say! Sally!"
+
+"Why, Mis' Kittridge," said the Captain, "Sally's gone out more'n an
+hour ago, and I expect she's gone down to Pennel's to see Mara; 'cause,
+you know, she come home from Portland to-day."
+
+"Well, if she's come home, I s'pose I may as well give up havin' any
+good of Sally, for that girl fairly bows down to Mara Lincoln and
+worships her."
+
+"Well, good reason," said the Captain. "There ain't a puttier creature
+breathin'. I'm a'most a mind to worship her myself."
+
+"Captain Kittridge, you ought to be ashamed of yourself, at your age,
+talking as you do."
+
+"Why, laws, mother, I don't feel my age," said the frisky Captain,
+giving a sort of skip. "It don't seem more'n yesterday since you and I
+was a-courtin', Polly. What a life you did lead me in them days! I think
+you kep' me on the anxious seat a pretty middlin' spell."
+
+"I do wish you wouldn't talk so. You ought to be ashamed to be triflin'
+round as you do. Come, now, can't you jest tramp over to Pennel's and
+tell Sally I want her?"
+
+"Not I, mother. There ain't but two gals in two miles square here, and I
+ain't a-goin' to be the feller to shoo 'em apart. What's the use of
+bein' gals, and young, and putty, if they can't get together and talk
+about their new gownds and the fellers? That ar's what gals is for."
+
+"I do wish you wouldn't talk in that way before Sally, father, for her
+head is full of all sorts of vanity now; and as to Mara, I never did see
+a more slack-twisted, flimsy thing than she's grown up to be. Now
+Sally's learnt to do something, thanks to me. She can brew, and she can
+make bread and cake and pickles, and spin, and cut, and make. But as to
+Mara, what does she do? Why, she paints pictur's. Mis' Pennel was
+a-showin' on me a blue-jay she painted, and I was a-thinkin' whether she
+could brile a bird fit to be eat if she tried; and she don't know the
+price of nothin'," continued Mrs. Kittridge, with wasteful profusion of
+negatives.
+
+"Well," said the Captain, "the Lord makes some things jist to be looked
+at. Their work is to be putty, and that ar's Mara's sphere. It never
+seemed to me she was cut out for hard work; but she's got sweet ways and
+kind words for everybody, and it's as good as a psalm to look at her."
+
+"And what sort of a wife'll she make, Captain Kittridge?"
+
+"A real sweet, putty one," said the Captain, persistently.
+
+"Well, as to beauty, I'd rather have our Sally any day," said Mrs.
+Kittridge; "and she looks strong and hearty, and seems to be good for
+use."
+
+"So she is, so she is," said the Captain, with fatherly pride. "Sally's
+the very image of her ma at her age--black eyes, black hair, tall and
+trim as a spruce-tree, and steps off as if she had springs in her heels.
+I tell you, the feller'll have to be spry that catches her. There's two
+or three of 'em at it, I see; but Sally won't have nothin' to say to
+'em. I hope she won't, yet awhile."
+
+"Sally is a girl that has as good an eddication as money can give,"
+said Mrs. Kittridge. "If I'd a-had her advantages at her age, I should
+a-been a great deal more'n I am. But we ha'n't spared nothin' for Sally;
+and when nothin' would do but Mara must be sent to Miss Plucher's school
+over in Portland, why, I sent Sally too--for all she's our seventh
+child, and Pennel hasn't but the one."
+
+"You forget Moses," said the Captain.
+
+"Well, he's settin' up on his own account, I guess. They did talk o'
+giving him college eddication; but he was so unstiddy, there weren't no
+use in trying. A real wild ass's colt he was."
+
+"Wal', wal', Moses was in the right on't. He took the cross-lot track
+into life," said the Captain. "Colleges is well enough for your smooth,
+straight-grained lumber, for gen'ral buildin'; but come to fellers
+that's got knots, and streaks, and cross-grains, like Moses Pennel, and
+the best way is to let 'em eddicate 'emselves, as he's a-doin'. He's cut
+out for the sea, plain enough, and he'd better be up to Umbagog, cuttin'
+timber for his ship, than havin' rows with tutors, and blowin' the roof
+off the colleges, as one o' them 'ere kind o' fellers is apt to when he
+don't have work to use up his steam. Why, mother, there's more gas got
+up in them Brunswick buildin's, from young men that are spilin' for hard
+work, than you could shake a stick at! But Mis' Pennel told me yesterday
+she was 'spectin' Moses home to-day."
+
+"Oho! that's at the bottom of Sally's bein' up there," said Mrs.
+Kittridge.
+
+"Mis' Kittridge," said the Captain, "I take it you ain't the woman as
+would expect a daughter of your bringin' up to be a-runnin' after any
+young chap, be he who he may," said the Captain.
+
+Mrs. Kittridge for once was fairly silenced by this home-thrust;
+nevertheless, she did not the less think it quite possible, from all
+that she knew of Sally; for although that young lady professed great
+hardness of heart and contempt for all the young male generation of her
+acquaintance, yet she had evidently a turn for observing their
+ways--probably purely in the way of philosophical inquiry.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+EIGHTEEN
+
+
+In fact, at this very moment our scene-shifter changes the picture. Away
+rolls the image of Mrs. Kittridge's kitchen, with its sanded floor, its
+scoured rows of bright pewter platters, its great, deep fireplace, with
+wide stone hearth, its little looking-glass with a bit of asparagus
+bush, like a green mist, over it. _Exeunt_ the image of Mrs. Kittridge,
+with her hands floury from the bread she has been moulding, and the dry,
+ropy, lean Captain, who has been sitting tilting back in a
+splint-bottomed chair,--and the next scene comes rolling in. It is a
+chamber in the house of Zephaniah Pennel, whose windows present a blue
+panorama of sea and sky. Through two windows you look forth into the
+blue belt of Harpswell Bay, bordered on the farther edge by Harpswell
+Neck, dotted here and there with houses, among which rises the little
+white meeting-house, like a mother-bird among a flock of chickens. The
+third window, on the other side of the room, looks far out to sea, where
+only a group of low, rocky islands interrupts the clear sweep of the
+horizon line, with its blue infinitude of distance.
+
+The furniture of this room, though of the barest and most frigid
+simplicity, is yet relieved by many of those touches of taste and fancy
+which the indwelling of a person of sensibility and imagination will
+shed off upon the physical surroundings. The bed was draped with a white
+spread, embroidered with a kind of knotted tracery, the working of which
+was considered among the female accomplishments of those days, and over
+the head of it was a painting of a bunch of crimson and white trillium,
+executed with a fidelity to Nature that showed the most delicate gifts
+of observation. Over the mantelpiece hung a painting of the Bay of
+Genoa, which had accidentally found a voyage home in Zephaniah Pennel's
+sea-chest, and which skillful fingers had surrounded with a frame
+curiously wrought of moss and sea-shells. Two vases of India china stood
+on the mantel, filled with spring flowers, crowfoot, anemones, and
+liverwort, with drooping bells of the twin-flower. The looking-glass
+that hung over the table in one corner of the room was fancifully webbed
+with long, drooping festoons of that gray moss which hangs in such
+graceful wreaths from the boughs of the pines in the deep forest shadows
+of Orr's Island. On the table below was a collection of books: a whole
+set of Shakespeare which Zephaniah Pennel had bought of a Portland
+bookseller; a selection, in prose and verse, from the best classic
+writers, presented to Mara Lincoln, the fly-leaf said, by her sincere
+friend, Theophilus Sewell; a Virgil, much thumbed, with an old, worn
+cover, which, however, some adroit fingers had concealed under a coating
+of delicately marbled paper;--there was a Latin dictionary, a set of
+Plutarch's Lives, the Mysteries of Udolpho, and Sir Charles Grandison,
+together with Edwards on the Affections, and Boston's Fourfold
+State;--there was an inkstand, curiously contrived from a sea-shell,
+with pens and paper in that phase of arrangement which betokened
+frequency of use; and, lastly, a little work-basket, containing a long
+strip of curious and delicate embroidery, in which the needle yet
+hanging showed that the work was in progress.
+
+By a table at the sea-looking window sits our little Mara, now grown to
+the maturity of eighteen summers, but retaining still unmistakable signs
+of identity with the little golden-haired, dreamy, excitable, fanciful
+"Pearl" of Orr's _Island_.
+
+She is not quite of a middle height, with something beautiful and
+child-like about the moulding of her delicate form. We still see those
+sad, wistful, hazel eyes, over which the lids droop with a dreamy
+languor, and whose dark lustre contrasts singularly with the golden hue
+of the abundant hair which waves in a thousand rippling undulations
+around her face. The impression she produces is not that of paleness,
+though there is no color in her cheek; but her complexion has everywhere
+that delicate pink tinting which one sees in healthy infants, and with
+the least emotion brightens into a fluttering bloom. Such a bloom is on
+her cheek at this moment, as she is working away, copying a bunch of
+scarlet rock-columbine which is in a wine-glass of water before her;
+every few moments stopping and holding her work at a distance, to
+contemplate its effect. At this moment there steps behind her chair a
+tall, lithe figure, a face with a rich Spanish complexion, large black
+eyes, glowing cheeks, marked eyebrows, and lustrous black hair arranged
+in shining braids around her head. It is our old friend, Sally
+Kittridge, whom common fame calls the handsomest girl of all the region
+round Harpswell, Maquoit, and Orr's Island. In truth, a wholesome,
+ruddy, blooming creature she was, the sight of whom cheered and warmed
+one like a good fire in December; and she seemed to have enough and to
+spare of the warmest gifts of vitality and joyous animal life. She had a
+well-formed mouth, but rather large, and a frank laugh which showed all
+her teeth sound--and a fortunate sight it was, considering that they
+were white and even as pearls; and the hand that she laid upon Mara's at
+this moment, though twice as large as that of the little artist, was yet
+in harmony with her vigorous, finely developed figure.
+
+"Mara Lincoln," she said, "you are a witch, a perfect little witch, at
+painting. How you can make things look so like, I don't see. Now, I
+could paint the things we painted at Miss Plucher's; but then, dear me!
+they didn't look at all like flowers. One needed to write under them
+what they were made for."
+
+"Does this look like to you, Sally?" said Mara. "I wish it would to me.
+Just see what a beautiful clear color that flower is. All I can do, I
+can't make one like it. My scarlet and yellows sink dead into the
+paper."
+
+"Why, I think your flowers are wonderful! You are a real genius, that's
+what you are! I am only a common girl; I can't do things as you can."
+
+"You can do things a thousand times more useful, Sally. I don't pretend
+to compare with you in the useful arts, and I am only a bungler in
+ornamental ones. Sally, I feel like a useless little creature. If I
+could go round as you can, and do business, and make bargains, and push
+ahead in the world, I should feel that I was good for something; but
+somehow I can't."
+
+"To be sure you can't," said Sally, laughing. "I should like to see you
+try it."
+
+"Now," pursued Mara, in a tone of lamentation, "I could no more get into
+a carriage and drive to Brunswick as you can, than I could fly. I can't
+drive, Sally--something is the matter with me; and the horses always
+know it the minute I take the reins; they always twitch their ears and
+stare round into the chaise at me, as much as to say, 'What! you there?'
+and I feel sure they never will mind me. And then how you can make those
+wonderful bargains you do, I can't see!--you talk up to the clerks and
+the men, and somehow you talk everybody round; but as for me, if I only
+open my mouth in the humblest way to dispute the price, everybody puts
+me down. I always tremble when I go into a store, and people talk to me
+just as if I was a little girl, and once or twice they have made me buy
+things that I knew I didn't want, just because they will talk me down."
+
+"Oh, Mara, Mara," said Sally, laughing till the tears rolled down her
+cheeks, "what do _you_ ever go a-shopping for?--of course you ought
+always to send me. Why, look at this dress--real India chintz; do you
+know I made old Pennywhistle's clerk up in Brunswick give it to me just
+for the price of common cotton? You see there was a yard of it had got
+faded by lying in the shop-window, and there were one or two holes and
+imperfections in it, and you ought to have heard the talk I made! I
+abused it to right and left, and actually at last I brought the poor
+wretch to believe that he ought to be grateful to me for taking it off
+his hands. Well, you see the dress I've made of it. The imperfections
+didn't hurt it the least in the world as I managed it,--and the faded
+breadth makes a good apron, so you see. And just so I got that red
+spotted flannel dress I wore last winter. It was moth-eaten in one or
+two places, and I made them let me have it at half-price;--made exactly
+as good a dress. But after all, Mara, I can't trim a bonnet as you can,
+and I can't come up to your embroidery, nor your lace-work, nor I can't
+draw and paint as you can, and I can't sing like you; and then as to all
+those things you talk with Mr. Sewell about, why they're beyond my
+depth,--that's all I've got to say. Now, you are made to have poetry
+written to you, and all that kind of thing one reads of in novels.
+Nobody would ever think of writing poetry to me, now, or sending me
+flowers and rings, and such things. If a fellow likes me, he gives me a
+quince, or a big apple; but, then, Mara, there ain't any fellows round
+here that are fit to speak to."
+
+"I'm sure, Sally, there always is a train following you everywhere, at
+singing-school and Thursday lecture."
+
+"Yes--but what do I care for 'em?" said Sally, with a toss of her head.
+"Why they follow me, I don't see. I don't do anything to make 'em, and I
+tell 'em all that they tire me to death; and still they will hang
+round. What is the reason, do you suppose?"
+
+"What can it be?" said Mara, with a quiet kind of arch drollery which
+suffused her face, as she bent over her painting.
+
+"Well, you know I can't bear fellows--I think they are hateful."
+
+"What! even Tom Hiers?" said Mara, continuing her painting.
+
+"Tom Hiers! Do you suppose I care for him? He would insist on waiting on
+me round all last winter, taking me over in his boat to Portland, and up
+in his sleigh to Brunswick; but I didn't care for him."
+
+"Well, there's Jimmy Wilson, up at Brunswick."
+
+"What! that little snip of a clerk! You don't suppose I care for him, do
+you?--only he almost runs his head off following me round when I go up
+there shopping; he's nothing but a little dressed-up yard-stick! I never
+saw a fellow yet that I'd cross the street to have another look at. By
+the by, Mara, Miss Roxy told me Sunday that Moses was coming down from
+Umbagog this week."
+
+"Yes, he is," said Mara; "we are looking for him every day."
+
+"You must want to see him. How long is it since you saw him?"
+
+"It is three years," said Mara. "I scarcely know what he is like now. I
+was visiting in Boston when he came home from his three-years' voyage,
+and he was gone into the lumbering country when I came back. He seems
+almost a stranger to me."
+
+"He's pretty good-looking," said Sally. "I saw him on Sunday when he was
+here, but he was off on Monday, and never called on old friends. Does he
+write to you often?"
+
+"Not very," said Mara; "in fact, almost never; and when he does, there
+is so little in his letters."
+
+"Well, I tell you, Mara, you must not expect fellows to write as girls
+can. They don't do it. Now, our boys, when they write home, they tell
+the latitude and longitude, and soil and productions, and such things.
+But if you or I were only there, don't you think we should find
+something more to say? Of course we should,--fifty thousand little
+things that they never think of."
+
+Mara made no reply to this, but went on very intently with her painting.
+A close observer might have noticed a suppressed sigh that seemed to
+retreat far down into her heart. Sally did not notice it.
+
+What was in that sigh? It was the sigh of a long, deep, inner history,
+unwritten and untold--such as are transpiring daily by thousands, and of
+which we take no heed.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+REBELLION
+
+
+We have introduced Mara to our readers as she appears in her seventeenth
+year, at the time when she is expecting the return of Moses as a young
+man of twenty; but we cannot do justice to the feelings which are roused
+in her heart by this expectation, without giving a chapter or two to
+tracing the history of Moses since we left him as a boy commencing the
+study of the Latin grammar with Mr. Sewell. The reader must see the
+forces that acted upon his early development, and what they have made of
+him.
+
+It is common for people who write treatises on education to give forth
+their rules and theories with a self-satisfied air, as if a human being
+were a thing to be made up, like a batch of bread, out of a given number
+of materials combined by an infallible recipe. Take your child, and do
+thus and so for a given number of years, and he comes out a thoroughly
+educated individual.
+
+But in fact, education is in many cases nothing more than a blind
+struggle of parents and guardians with the evolutions of some strong,
+predetermined character, individual, obstinate, unreceptive, and seeking
+by an inevitable law of its being to develop itself and gain free
+expression in its own way. Captain Kittridge's confidence that he would
+as soon undertake a boy as a Newfoundland pup, is good for those whose
+idea of what is to be done for a human being are only what would be done
+for a dog, namely, give food, shelter, and world-room, and leave each to
+act out his own nature without let or hindrance.
+
+But everybody takes an embryo human being with some plan of one's own
+what it shall do or be. The child's future shall shape out some darling
+purpose or plan, and fulfill some long unfulfilled expectation of the
+parent. And thus, though the wind of every generation sweeps its hopes
+and plans like forest-leaves, none are whirled and tossed with more
+piteous moans than those which come out green and fresh to shade the
+happy spring-time of the cradle. For the temperaments of children are
+often as oddly unsuited to parents as if capricious fairies had been
+filling cradles with changelings.
+
+A meek member of the Peace Society, a tender, devout, poetical
+clergyman, receives an heir from heaven, and straightway devotes him to
+the Christian ministry. But lo! the boy proves a young war-horse,
+neighing for battle, burning for gunpowder and guns, for bowie-knives
+and revolvers, and for every form and expression of physical force;--he
+might make a splendid trapper, an energetic sea-captain, a bold, daring
+military man, but his whole boyhood is full of rebukes and disciplines
+for sins which are only the blind effort of the creature to express a
+nature which his parent does not and cannot understand. So again, the
+son that was to have upheld the old, proud merchant's time-honored firm,
+that should have been mighty in ledgers and great upon 'Change, breaks
+his father's heart by an unintelligible fancy for weaving poems and
+romances. A father of literary aspirations, balked of privileges of
+early education, bends over the cradle of his son with but one idea.
+This child shall have the full advantages of regular college-training;
+and so for years he battles with a boy abhorring study, and fitted only
+for a life of out-door energy and bold adventure,--on whom Latin forms
+and Greek quantities fall and melt aimless and useless, as snow-flakes
+on the hide of a buffalo. Then the secret agonies,--the long years of
+sorrowful watchings of those gentler nurses of humanity who receive the
+infant into their bosom out of the void unknown, and strive to read its
+horoscope through the mists of their prayers and tears!--what
+perplexities,--what confusion! Especially is this so in a community
+where the moral and religious sense is so cultivated as in New England,
+and frail, trembling, self-distrustful mothers are told that the shaping
+and ordering not only of this present life, but of an immortal destiny,
+is in their hands.
+
+On the whole, those who succeed best in the rearing of children are the
+tolerant and easy persons who instinctively follow nature and accept
+without much inquiry whatever she sends; or that far smaller class, wise
+to discern spirits and apt to adopt means to their culture and
+development, who can prudently and carefully train every nature
+according to its true and characteristic ideal.
+
+Zephaniah Pennel was a shrewd old Yankee, whose instincts taught him
+from the first, that the waif that had been so mysteriously washed out
+of the gloom of the sea into his family, was of some different class and
+lineage from that which might have filled a cradle of his own, and of a
+nature which he could not perfectly understand. So he prudently watched
+and waited, only using restraint enough to keep the boy anchored in
+society, and letting him otherwise grow up in the solitary freedom of
+his lonely seafaring life.
+
+The boy was from childhood, although singularly attractive, of a moody,
+fitful, unrestful nature,--eager, earnest, but unsteady,--with varying
+phases of imprudent frankness and of the most stubborn and unfathomable
+secretiveness. He was a creature of unreasoning antipathies and
+attractions. As Zephaniah Pennel said of him, he was as full of hitches
+as an old bureau drawer. His peculiar beauty, and a certain electrical
+power of attraction, seemed to form a constant circle of protection and
+forgiveness around him in the home of his foster-parents; and great as
+was the anxiety and pain which he often gave them, they somehow never
+felt the charge of him as a weariness.
+
+We left him a boy beginning Latin with Mr. Sewell in company with the
+little Mara. This arrangement progressed prosperously for a time, and
+the good clergyman, all whose ideas of education ran through the halls
+of a college, began to have hopes of turning out a choice scholar. But
+when the boy's ship of life came into the breakers of that narrow and
+intricate channel which divides boyhood from manhood, the difficulties
+that had always attended his guidance and management wore an intensified
+form. How much family happiness is wrecked just then and there! How many
+mothers' and sisters' hearts are broken in the wild and confused
+tossings and tearings of that stormy transition! A whole new nature is
+blindly upheaving itself, with cravings and clamorings, which neither
+the boy himself nor often surrounding friends understand.
+
+A shrewd observer has significantly characterized the period as the time
+when the boy wishes he were dead, and everybody else wishes so too. The
+wretched, half-fledged, half-conscious, anomalous creature has all the
+desires of the man, and none of the rights; has a double and triple
+share of nervous edge and intensity in every part of his nature, and no
+definitely perceived objects on which to bestow it,--and, of course, all
+sorts of unreasonable moods and phases are the result.
+
+One of the most common signs of this period, in some natures, is the
+love of contradiction and opposition,--a blind desire to go contrary to
+everything that is commonly received among the older people. The boy
+disparages the minister, quizzes the deacon, thinks the school-master an
+ass, and doesn't believe in the Bible, and seems to be rather pleased
+than otherwise with the shock and flutter that all these announcements
+create among peaceably disposed grown people. No respectable hen that
+ever hatched out a brood of ducks was more puzzled what to do with them
+than was poor Mrs. Pennel when her adopted nursling came into this
+state. Was he a boy? an immortal soul? a reasonable human being? or only
+a handsome goblin sent to torment her?
+
+"What shall we do with him, father?" said she, one Sunday, to Zephaniah,
+as he stood shaving before the little looking-glass in their bedroom.
+"He can't be governed like a child, and he won't govern himself like a
+man."
+
+Zephaniah stopped and strapped his razor reflectively.
+
+"We must cast out anchor and wait for day," he answered. "Prayer is a
+long rope with a strong hold."
+
+It was just at this critical period of life that Moses Pennel was drawn
+into associations which awoke the alarm of all his friends, and from
+which the characteristic willfulness of his nature made it difficult to
+attempt to extricate him.
+
+In order that our readers may fully understand this part of our history,
+we must give some few particulars as to the peculiar scenery of Orr's
+Island and the state of the country at this time.
+
+The coast of Maine, as we have elsewhere said, is remarkable for a
+singular interpenetration of the sea with the land, forming amid its
+dense primeval forests secluded bays, narrow and deep, into which
+vessels might float with the tide, and where they might nestle unseen
+and unsuspected amid the dense shadows of the overhanging forest.
+
+At this time there was a very brisk business done all along the coast of
+Maine in the way of smuggling. Small vessels, lightly built and swift of
+sail, would run up into these sylvan fastnesses, and there make their
+deposits and transact their business so as entirely to elude the
+vigilance of government officers.
+
+It may seem strange that practices of this kind should ever have
+obtained a strong foothold in a community peculiar for its rigid
+morality and its orderly submission to law; but in this case, as in many
+others, contempt of law grew out of weak and unworthy legislation. The
+celebrated embargo of Jefferson stopped at once the whole trade of New
+England, and condemned her thousand ships to rot at the wharves, and
+caused the ruin of thousands of families.
+
+The merchants of the country regarded this as a flagrant, high-handed
+piece of injustice, expressly designed to cripple New England commerce,
+and evasions of this unjust law found everywhere a degree of sympathy,
+even in the breasts of well-disposed and conscientious people. In
+resistance to the law, vessels were constantly fitted out which ran upon
+trading voyages to the West Indies and other places; and although the
+practice was punishable as smuggling, yet it found extensive connivance.
+From this beginning smuggling of all kinds gradually grew up in the
+community, and gained such a foothold that even after the repeal of the
+embargo it still continued to be extensively practiced. Secret
+depositories of contraband goods still existed in many of the lonely
+haunts of islands off the coast of Maine. Hid in deep forest shadows,
+visited only in the darkness of the night, were these illegal stores of
+merchandise. And from these secluded resorts they found their way, no
+one knew or cared to say how, into houses for miles around.
+
+There was no doubt that the practice, like all other illegal ones, was
+demoralizing to the community, and particularly fatal to the character
+of that class of bold, enterprising young men who would be most likely
+to be drawn into it.
+
+Zephaniah Pennel, who was made of a kind of straight-grained,
+uncompromising oaken timber such as built the Mayflower of old, had
+always borne his testimony at home and abroad against any violations of
+the laws of the land, however veiled under the pretext of righting a
+wrong or resisting an injustice, and had done what he could in his
+neighborhood to enable government officers to detect and break up these
+unlawful depositories. This exposed him particularly to the hatred and
+ill-will of the operators concerned in such affairs, and a plot was laid
+by a few of the most daring and determined of them to establish one of
+their depositories on Orr's Island, and to implicate the family of
+Pennel himself in the trade. This would accomplish two purposes, as they
+hoped,--it would be a mortification and defeat to him,--a revenge which
+they coveted; and it would, they thought, insure his silence and
+complicity for the strongest reasons.
+
+The situation and characteristics of Orr's Island peculiarly fitted it
+for the carrying out of a scheme of this kind, and for this purpose we
+must try to give our readers a more definite idea of it.
+
+The traveler who wants a ride through scenery of more varied and
+singular beauty than can ordinarily be found on the shores of any land
+whatever, should start some fine clear day along the clean sandy road,
+ribboned with strips of green grass, that leads through the flat
+pitch-pine forests of Brunswick toward the sea. As he approaches the
+salt water, a succession of the most beautiful and picturesque lakes
+seems to be lying softly cradled in the arms of wild, rocky forest
+shores, whose outlines are ever changing with the windings of the road.
+
+At a distance of about six or eight miles from Brunswick he crosses an
+arm of the sea, and comes upon the first of the interlacing group of
+islands which beautifies the shore. A ride across this island is a
+constant succession of pictures, whose wild and solitary beauty entirely
+distances all power of description. The magnificence of the evergreen
+forests,--their peculiar air of sombre stillness,--the rich
+intermingling ever and anon of groves of birch, beech, and oak, in
+picturesque knots and tufts, as if set for effect by some skillful
+landscape-gardener,--produce a sort of strange dreamy wonder; while the
+sea, breaking forth both on the right hand and the left of the road into
+the most romantic glimpses, seems to flash and glitter like some strange
+gem which every moment shows itself through the framework of a new
+setting. Here and there little secluded coves push in from the sea,
+around which lie soft tracts of green meadow-land, hemmed in and guarded
+by rocky pine-crowned ridges. In such sheltered spots may be seen neat
+white houses, nestling like sheltered doves in the beautiful solitude.
+
+When one has ridden nearly to the end of Great Island, which is about
+four miles across, he sees rising before him, from the sea, a bold
+romantic point of land, uplifting a crown of rich evergreen and forest
+trees over shores of perpendicular rock. This is Orr's Island.
+
+It was not an easy matter in the days of our past experience to guide a
+horse and carriage down the steep, wild shores of Great Island to the
+long bridge that connects it with Orr's. The sense of wild seclusion
+reaches here the highest degree; and one crosses the bridge with a
+feeling as if genii might have built it, and one might be going over it
+to fairy-land. From the bridge the path rises on to a high granite
+ridge, which runs from one end of the island to the other, and has been
+called the Devil's Back, with that superstitious generosity which seems
+to have abandoned all romantic places to so undeserving an owner.
+
+By the side of this ridge of granite is a deep, narrow chasm, running a
+mile and a half or two miles parallel with the road, and veiled by the
+darkest and most solemn shadows of the primeval forest. Here scream the
+jays and the eagles, and fish-hawks make their nests undisturbed; and
+the tide rises and falls under black branches of evergreen, from which
+depend long, light festoons of delicate gray moss. The darkness of the
+forest is relieved by the delicate foliage and the silvery trunks of
+the great white birches, which the solitude of centuries has allowed to
+grow in this spot to a height and size seldom attained elsewhere.
+
+It was this narrow, rocky cove that had been chosen by the smuggler
+Atkinson and his accomplices as a safe and secluded resort for their
+operations. He was a seafaring man of Bath, one of that class who always
+prefer uncertain and doubtful courses to those which are safe and
+reputable. He was possessed of many of those traits calculated to make
+him a hero in the eyes of young men; was dashing, free, and frank in his
+manners, with a fund of humor and an abundance of ready anecdote which
+made his society fascinating; but he concealed beneath all these
+attractions a character of hard, grasping, unscrupulous selfishness, and
+an utter destitution of moral principle.
+
+Moses, now in his sixteenth year, and supposed to be in a general way
+doing well, under the care of the minister, was left free to come and go
+at his own pleasure, unwatched by Zephaniah, whose fishing operations
+often took him for weeks from home. Atkinson hung about the boy's path,
+engaging him first in fishing or hunting enterprises; plied him with
+choice preparations of liquor, with which he would enhance the hilarity
+of their expeditions; and finally worked on his love of adventure and
+that impatient restlessness incident to his period of life to draw him
+fully into his schemes. Moses lost all interest in his lessons, often
+neglecting them for days at a time--accounting for his negligence by
+excuses which were far from satisfactory. When Mara would expostulate
+with him about this, he would break out upon her with a fierce
+irritation. Was he always going to be tied to a girl's apron-string? He
+was tired of study, and tired of old Sewell, whom he declared an old
+granny in a white wig, who knew nothing of the world. He wasn't going to
+college--it was altogether too slow for him--he was going to see life
+and push ahead for himself.
+
+Mara's life during this time was intensely wearing. A frail, slender,
+delicate girl of thirteen, she carried a heart prematurely old with the
+most distressing responsibility of mature life. Her love for Moses had
+always had in it a large admixture of that maternal and care-taking
+element which, in some shape or other, qualities the affection of woman
+to man. Ever since that dream of babyhood, when the vision of a pale
+mother had led the beautiful boy to her arms, Mara had accepted him as
+something exclusively her own, with an intensity of ownership that
+seemed almost to merge her personal identity with his. She felt, and
+saw, and enjoyed, and suffered in him, and yet was conscious of a higher
+nature in herself, by which unwillingly he was often judged and
+condemned. His faults affected her with a kind of guilty pain, as if
+they were her own; his sins were borne bleeding in her heart in silence,
+and with a jealous watchfulness to hide them from every eye but hers.
+She busied herself day and night interceding and making excuses for him,
+first to her own sensitive moral nature, and then with everybody around,
+for with one or another he was coming into constant collision. She felt
+at this time a fearful load of suspicion, which she dared not express to
+a human being.
+
+Up to this period she had always been the only confidant of Moses, who
+poured into her ear without reserve all the good and the evil of his
+nature, and who loved her with all the intensity with which he was
+capable of loving anything. Nothing so much shows what a human being is
+in moral advancement as the quality of his love. Moses Pennel's love was
+egotistic, exacting, tyrannical, and capricious--sometimes venting
+itself in expressions of a passionate fondness, which had a savor of
+protecting generosity in them, and then receding to the icy pole of
+surly petulance. For all that, there was no resisting the magnetic
+attraction with which in his amiable moods he drew those whom he liked
+to himself.
+
+Such people are not very wholesome companions for those who are
+sensitively organized and predisposed to self-sacrificing love. They
+keep the heart in a perpetual freeze and thaw, which, like the American
+northern climate, is so particularly fatal to plants of a delicate
+habit. They could live through the hot summer and the cold winter, but
+they cannot endure the three or four months when it freezes one day and
+melts the next,--when all the buds are started out by a week of genial
+sunshine, and then frozen for a fortnight. These fitful persons are of
+all others most engrossing, because you are always sure in their good
+moods that they are just going to be angels,--an expectation which no
+number of disappointments seems finally to do away. Mara believed in
+Moses's future as she did in her own existence. He was going to do
+something great and good,--that she was certain of. He would be a
+splendid man! Nobody, she thought, knew him as she did; nobody could
+know how good and generous he was _sometimes_, and how frankly he would
+confess his faults, and what noble aspirations he had!
+
+But there was no concealing from her watchful sense that Moses was
+beginning to have secrets from her. He was cloudy and murky; and at some
+of the most harmless inquiries in the world, would flash out with a
+sudden temper, as if she had touched some sore spot. Her bedroom was
+opposite to his; and she became quite sure that night after night, while
+she lay thinking of him, she heard him steal down out of the house
+between two and three o'clock, and not return till a little before
+day-dawn. Where he went, and with whom, and what he was doing, was to
+her an awful mystery,--and it was one she dared not share with a human
+being. If she told her kind old grandfather, she feared that any
+inquiry from him would only light as a spark on that inflammable spirit
+of pride and insubordination that was rising within him, and bring on an
+instantaneous explosion. Mr. Sewell's influence she could hope little
+more from; and as to poor Mrs. Pennel, such communications would only
+weary and distress her, without doing any manner of good. There was,
+therefore, only that one unfailing Confidant--the Invisible Friend to
+whom the solitary child could pour out her heart, and whose inspirations
+of comfort and guidance never fail to come again in return to true
+souls.
+
+One moonlight night, as she lay thus praying, her senses, sharpened by
+watching, discerned a sound of steps treading under her window, and then
+a low whistle. Her heart beat violently, and she soon heard the door of
+Moses's room open, and then the old chamber-stairs gave forth those
+inconsiderate creaks and snaps that garrulous old stairs always will
+when anybody is desirous of making them accomplices in a night-secret.
+Mara rose, and undrawing her curtain, saw three men standing before the
+house, and saw Moses come out and join them. Quick as thought she threw
+on her clothes and wrapping her little form in a dark cloak, with a
+hood, followed them out. She kept at a safe distance behind them,--so
+far back as just to keep them in sight. They never looked back, and
+seemed to say but little till they approached the edge of that deep belt
+of forest which shrouds so large a portion of the island. She hurried
+along, now nearer to them lest they should be lost to view in the deep
+shadows, while they went on crackling and plunging through the dense
+underbrush.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+THE TEMPTER
+
+
+It was well for Mara that so much of her life had been passed in wild
+forest rambles. She looked frail as the rays of moonbeam which slid down
+the old white-bearded hemlocks, but her limbs were agile and supple as
+steel; and while the party went crashing on before, she followed with
+such lightness that the slight sound of her movements was entirely lost
+in the heavy crackling plunges of the party. Her little heart was
+beating fast and hard; but could any one have seen her face, as it now
+and then came into a spot of moonshine, they might have seen it fixed in
+a deadly expression of resolve and determination. She was going after
+_him_--no matter where; she was resolved to know who and what it was
+that was leading him away, as her heart told her, to no good. Deeper and
+deeper into the shadows of the forest they went, and the child easily
+kept up with them.
+
+Mara had often rambled for whole solitary days in this lonely wood, and
+knew all its rocks and dells the whole three miles to the long bridge at
+the other end of the island. But she had never before seen it under the
+solemn stillness of midnight moonlight, which gives to the most familiar
+objects such a strange, ghostly charm. After they had gone a mile into
+the forest, she could see through the black spruces silver gleams of the
+sea, and hear, amid the whirr and sway of the pine-tops, the dash of the
+ever restless tide which pushed up the long cove. It was at the full, as
+she could discern with a rapid glance of her practiced eye, expertly
+versed in the knowledge of every change of the solitary nature around.
+
+And now the party began to plunge straight down the rocky ledge of the
+Devil's Back, on which they had been walking hitherto, into the deep
+ravine where lay the cove. It was a scrambling, precipitous way, over
+perpendicular walls of rock, whose crevices furnished anchoring-places
+for grand old hemlocks or silver-birches, and whose rough sides,
+leathery with black flaps of lichen, were all tangled and interlaced
+with thick netted bushes. The men plunged down laughing, shouting, and
+swearing at their occasional missteps, and silently as moonbeam or
+thistledown the light-footed shadow went down after them.
+
+She suddenly paused behind a pile of rock, as, through an opening
+between two great spruces, the sea gleamed out like a sheet of
+looking-glass set in a black frame. And here the child saw a small
+vessel swinging at anchor, with the moonlight full on its slack sails,
+and she could hear the gentle gurgle and lick of the green-tongued waves
+as they dashed under it toward the rocky shore.
+
+Mara stopped with a beating heart as she saw the company making for the
+schooner. The tide is high; will they go on board and sail away with him
+where she cannot follow? What could she do? In an ecstasy of fear she
+kneeled down and asked God not to let him go,--to give her at least one
+more chance to save him.
+
+For the pure and pious child had heard enough of the words of these men,
+as she walked behind them, to fill her with horror. She had never before
+heard an oath, but there came back from these men coarse, brutal tones
+and words of blasphemy that froze her blood with horror. And Moses was
+going with them! She felt somehow as if they must be a company of fiends
+bearing him to his ruin.
+
+For some time she kneeled there watching behind the rock, while Moses
+and his companions went on board the little schooner. She had no
+feeling of horror at the loneliness of her own situation, for her
+solitary life had made every woodland thing dear and familiar to her.
+She was cowering down, on a loose, spongy bed of moss, which was all
+threaded through and through with the green vines and pale pink blossoms
+of the mayflower, and she felt its fragrant breath streaming up in the
+moist moonlight. As she leaned forward to look through a rocky crevice,
+her arms rested on a bed of that brittle white moss she had often
+gathered with so much admiration, and a scarlet rock-columbine, such as
+she loved to paint, brushed her cheek,--and all these mute fair things
+seemed to strive to keep her company in her chill suspense of
+watchfulness. Two whippoorwills, from a clump of silvery birches, kept
+calling to each other in melancholy iteration, while she stayed there
+still listening, and knowing by an occasional sound of laughing, or the
+explosion of some oath, that the men were not yet gone. At last they all
+appeared again, and came to a cleared place among the dry leaves, quite
+near to the rock where she was concealed, and kindled a fire which they
+kept snapping and crackling by a constant supply of green resinous
+hemlock branches.
+
+The red flame danced and leaped through the green fuel, and leaping
+upward in tongues of flame, cast ruddy bronze reflections on the old
+pine-trees with their long branches waving with boards of white
+moss,--and by the firelight Mara could see two men in sailor's dress
+with pistols in their belts, and the man Atkinson, whom she had
+recollected as having seen once or twice at her grandfather's. She
+remembered how she had always shrunk from him with a strange instinctive
+dislike, half fear, half disgust, when he had addressed her with that
+kind of free admiration which men of his class often feel themselves at
+liberty to express to a pretty girl of her early age. He was a man that
+might have been handsome, had it not been for a certain strange
+expression of covert wickedness. It was as if some vile evil spirit,
+walking, as the Scriptures say, through dry places, had lighted on a
+comely man's body, in which he had set up housekeeping, making it look
+like a fair house abused by an unclean owner.
+
+As Mara watched his demeanor with Moses, she could think only of a
+loathsome black snake that she had once seen in those solitary
+rocks;--she felt as if his handsome but evil eye were charming him with
+an evil charm to his destruction.
+
+"Well, Mo, my boy," she heard him say,--slapping Moses on the
+shoulder,--"this is something like. We'll have a 'tempus,' as the
+college fellows say,--put down the clams to roast, and I'll mix the
+punch," he said, setting over the fire a tea-kettle which they brought
+from the ship.
+
+After their preparations were finished, all sat down to eat and drink.
+Mara listened with anxiety and horror to a conversation such as she
+never heard or conceived before. It is not often that women hear men
+talk in the undisguised manner which they use among themselves; but the
+conversation of men of unprincipled lives, and low, brutal habits,
+unchecked by the presence of respectable female society, might well
+convey to the horror-struck child a feeling as if she were listening at
+the mouth of hell. Almost every word was preceded or emphasized by an
+oath; and what struck with a death chill to her heart was, that Moses
+swore too, and seemed to show that desperate anxiety to seem _au fait_
+in the language of wickedness, which boys often do at that age, when
+they fancy that to be ignorant of vice is a mark of disgraceful
+greenness. Moses evidently was bent on showing that he was not
+green,--ignorant of the pure ear to which every such word came like the
+blast of death.
+
+He drank a great deal, too, and the mirth among them grew furious and
+terrific. Mara, horrified and shocked as she was, did not, however, lose
+that intense and alert presence of mind, natural to persons in whom
+there is moral strength, however delicate be their physical frame. She
+felt at once that these men were playing upon Moses; that they had an
+object in view; that they were flattering and cajoling him, and leading
+him to drink, that they might work out some fiendish purpose of their
+own. The man called Atkinson related story after story of wild
+adventure, in which sudden fortunes had been made by men who, he said,
+were not afraid to take "the short cut across lots." He told of
+piratical adventures in the West Indies,--of the fun of chasing and
+overhauling ships,--and gave dazzling accounts of the treasures found on
+board. It was observable that all these stories were told on the line
+between joke and earnest,--as frolics, as specimens of good fun, and
+seeing life, etc.
+
+At last came a suggestion,--What if they should start off together some
+fine day, "just for a spree," and try a cruise in the West Indies, to
+see what they could pick up? They had arms, and a gang of fine,
+whole-souled fellows. Moses had been tied to Ma'am Pennel's apron-string
+long enough. And "hark ye," said one of them, "Moses, they say old
+Pennel has lots of dollars in that old sea-chest of his'n. It would be a
+kindness to him to invest them for him in an adventure."
+
+Moses answered with a streak of the boy innocence which often remains
+under the tramping of evil men, like ribbons of green turf in the middle
+of roads:--
+
+"You don't know Father Pennel,--why, he'd no more come into it than"--
+
+A perfect roar of laughter cut short this declaration, and Atkinson,
+slapping Moses on the back, said,--
+
+"By ----, Mo! you are the jolliest green dog! I shall die a-laughing of
+your innocence some day. Why, my boy, can't you see? Pennel's money can
+be invested without asking him."
+
+"Why, he keeps it locked," said Moses.
+
+"And supposing you pick the lock?"
+
+"Not I, indeed," said Moses, making a sudden movement to rise.
+
+Mara almost screamed in her ecstasy, but she had sense enough to hold
+her breath.
+
+"Ho! see him now," said Atkinson, lying back, and holding his sides
+while he laughed, and rolled over; "you can get off anything on that
+muff,--any hoax in the world,--he's so soft! Come, come, my dear boy,
+sit down. I was only seeing how wide I could make you open those great
+black eyes of your'n,--that's all."
+
+"You'd better take care how you joke with me," said Moses, with that
+look of gloomy determination which Mara was quite familiar with of old.
+It was the rallying effort of a boy who had abandoned the first outworks
+of virtue to make a stand for the citadel. And Atkinson, like a prudent
+besieger after a repulse, returned to lie on his arms.
+
+He began talking volubly on other subjects, telling stories, and singing
+songs, and pressing Moses to drink.
+
+Mara was comforted to see that he declined drinking,--that he looked
+gloomy and thoughtful, in spite of the jokes of his companions; but she
+trembled to see, by the following conversation, how Atkinson was
+skillfully and prudently making apparent to Moses the extent to which he
+had him in his power. He seemed to Mara like an ugly spider skillfully
+weaving his web around a fly. She felt cold and faint; but within her
+there was a heroic strength.
+
+She was not going to faint; she would make herself bear up. She was
+going to do something to get Moses out of this snare,--but what? At last
+they rose.
+
+"It is past three o'clock," she heard one of them say.
+
+"I say, Mo," said Atkinson, "you must make tracks for home, or you won't
+be in bed when Mother Pennel calls you."
+
+The men all laughed at this joke, as they turned to go on board the
+schooner.
+
+When they were gone, Moses threw himself down and hid his face in his
+hands. He knew not what pitying little face was looking down upon him
+from the hemlock shadows, what brave little heart was determined to save
+him. He was in one of those great crises of agony that boys pass through
+when they first awake from the fun and frolic of unlawful enterprises to
+find themselves sold under sin, and feel the terrible logic of evil
+which constrains them to pass from the less to greater crime. He felt
+that he was in the power of bad, unprincipled, heartless men, who, if he
+refused to do their bidding, had the power to expose him. All he had
+been doing would come out. His kind old foster-parents would know it.
+Mara would know it. Mr. Sewell and Miss Emily would know the secrets of
+his life that past month. He felt as if they were all looking at him
+now. He had disgraced himself,--had sunk below his education,--had been
+false to all his better knowledge and the past expectations of his
+friends, living a mean, miserable, dishonorable life,--and now the
+ground was fast sliding from under him, and the next plunge might be
+down a precipice from which there would be no return. What he had done
+up to this hour had been done in the roystering, inconsiderate
+gamesomeness of boyhood. It had been represented to himself only as
+"sowing wild oats," "having steep times," "seeing a little of life," and
+so on; but this night he had had propositions of piracy and robbery made
+to him, and he had not dared to knock down the man that made them,--had
+not dared at once to break away from his company. He must meet him
+again,--must go on with him, or--he groaned in agony at the thought.
+
+It was a strong indication of that repressed, considerate habit of mind
+which love had wrought in the child, that when Mara heard the boy's sobs
+rising in the stillness, she did not, as she wished to, rush out and
+throw her arms around his neck and try to comfort him.
+
+But she felt instinctively that she must not do this. She must not let
+him know that she had discovered his secret by stealing after him thus
+in the night shadows. She knew how nervously he had resented even the
+compassionate glances she had cast upon him in his restless, turbid
+intervals during the past few weeks, and the fierceness with which he
+had replied to a few timid inquiries. No,--though her heart was breaking
+for him, it was a shrewd, wise little heart, and resolved not to spoil
+all by yielding to its first untaught impulses. She repressed herself as
+the mother does who refrains from crying out when she sees her
+unconscious little one on the verge of a precipice.
+
+When Moses rose and moodily began walking homeward, she followed at a
+distance. She could now keep farther off, for she knew the way through
+every part of the forest, and she only wanted to keep within sound of
+his footsteps to make sure that he was going home. When he emerged from
+the forest into the open moonlight, she sat down in its shadows and
+watched him as he walked over the open distance between her and the
+house. He went in; and then she waited a little longer for him to be
+quite retired. She thought he would throw himself on the bed, and then
+she could steal in after him. So she sat there quite in the shadows.
+
+The grand full moon was riding high and calm in the purple sky, and
+Harpswell Bay on the one hand, and the wide, open ocean on the other,
+lay all in a silver shimmer of light. There was not a sound save the
+plash of the tide, now beginning to go out, and rolling and rattling
+the pebbles up and down as it came and went, and once in a while the
+distant, mournful intoning of the whippoorwill. There were silent lonely
+ships, sailing slowly to and fro far out to sea, turning their fair
+wings now into bright light and now into shadow, as they moved over the
+glassy stillness. Mara could see all the houses on Harpswell Neck and
+the white church as clear as in the daylight. It seemed to her some
+strange, unearthly dream.
+
+As she sat there, she thought over her whole little life, all full of
+one thought, one purpose, one love, one prayer, for this being so
+strangely given to her out of that silent sea, which lay so like a still
+eternity around her,--and she revolved again what meant the vision of
+her childhood. Did it not mean that she was to watch over him and save
+him from some dreadful danger? That poor mother was lying now silent and
+peaceful under the turf in the little graveyard not far off, and _she_
+must care for her boy.
+
+A strong motherly feeling swelled out the girl's heart,--she felt that
+she _must_, she would, somehow save that treasure which had so
+mysteriously been committed to her. So, when she thought she had given
+time enough for Moses to be quietly asleep in his room, she arose and
+ran with quick footsteps across the moonlit plain to the house.
+
+The front-door was standing wide open, as was always the innocent
+fashion in these regions, with a half-angle of moonlight and shadow
+lying within its dusky depths. Mara listened a moment,--no sound: he had
+gone to bed then. "Poor boy," she said, "I hope he is asleep; how he
+must feel, poor fellow! It's all the fault of those dreadful men!" said
+the little dark shadow to herself, as she stole up the stairs past his
+room as guiltily as if she were the sinner. Once the stairs creaked, and
+her heart was in her mouth, but she gained her room and shut and bolted
+the door. She kneeled down by her little white bed, and thanked God
+that she had come in safe, and then prayed him to teach her what to do
+next. She felt chilly and shivering, and crept into bed, and lay with
+her great soft brown eyes wide open, intently thinking what she should
+do.
+
+Should she tell her grandfather? Something instinctively said No; that
+the first word from him which showed Moses he was detected would at once
+send him off with those wicked men. "He would never, never bear to have
+this known," she said. Mr. Sewell?--ah, that was worse. She herself
+shrank from letting him know what Moses had been doing; she could not
+bear to lower him so much in his eyes. He could not make allowances, she
+thought. He is good, to be sure, but he is so old and grave, and doesn't
+know how much Moses has been tempted by these dreadful men; and then
+perhaps he would tell Miss Emily, and they never would want Moses to
+come there any more.
+
+"What shall I do?" she said to herself. "I must get somebody to help me
+or tell me what to do. I can't tell grandmamma; it would only make her
+ill, and she wouldn't know what to do any more than I. Ah, I know what I
+will do,--I'll tell Captain Kittridge; he was always so kind to me; and
+he has been to sea and seen all sorts of men, and Moses won't care so
+much perhaps to have him know, because the Captain is such a funny man,
+and don't take everything so seriously. Yes, that's it. I'll go right
+down to the cove in the morning. God will bring me through, I know He
+will;" and the little weary head fell back on the pillow asleep. And as
+she slept, a smile settled over her face, perhaps a reflection from the
+face of her good angel, who always beholdeth the face of our Father in
+Heaven.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+A FRIEND IN NEED
+
+
+Mara was so wearied with her night walk and the agitation she had been
+through, that once asleep she slept long after the early breakfast hour
+of the family. She was surprised on awaking to hear the slow old clock
+downstairs striking eight. She hastily jumped up and looked around with
+a confused wonder, and then slowly the events of the past night came
+back upon her like a remembered dream. She dressed herself quickly, and
+went down to find the breakfast things all washed and put away, and Mrs.
+Pennel spinning.
+
+"Why, dear heart," said the old lady, "how came you to sleep so?--I
+spoke to you twice, but I could not make you hear."
+
+"Has Moses been down, grandma?" said Mara, intent on the sole thought in
+her heart.
+
+"Why, yes, dear, long ago,--and cross enough he was; that boy does get
+to be a trial,--but come, dear, I've saved some hot cakes for you,--sit
+down now and eat your breakfast."
+
+Mara made a feint of eating what her grandmother with fond officiousness
+would put before her, and then rising up she put on her sun-bonnet and
+started down toward the cove to find her old friend.
+
+The queer, dry, lean old Captain had been to her all her life like a
+faithful kobold or brownie, an unquestioning servant of all her gentle
+biddings. She dared tell him anything without diffidence or
+shamefacedness; and she felt that in this trial of her life he might
+have in his sea-receptacle some odd old amulet or spell that should be
+of power to help her. Instinctively she avoided the house, lest Sally
+should see and fly out and seize her. She took a narrow path through the
+cedars down to the little boat cove where the old Captain worked so
+merrily ten years ago, in the beginning of our story, and where she
+found him now, with his coat off, busily planing a board.
+
+"Wal', now,--if this 'ere don't beat all!" he said, looking up and
+seeing her; "why, you're looking after Sally, I s'pose? She's up to the
+house."
+
+"No, Captain Kittridge, I'm come to see _you_."
+
+"You _be_?" said the Captain, "I swow! if I ain't a lucky feller. But
+what's the matter?" he said, suddenly observing her pale face and the
+tears in her eyes. "Hain't nothin' bad happened,--hes there?"
+
+"Oh! Captain Kittridge, something dreadful; and nobody but you can help
+me."
+
+"Want to know, now!" said the Captain, with a grave face. "Well, come
+here, now, and sit down, and tell me all about it. Don't you cry,
+there's a good girl! Don't, now."
+
+Mara began her story, and went through with it in a rapid and agitated
+manner; and the good Captain listened in a fidgety state of interest,
+occasionally relieving his mind by interjecting "Do tell, now!" "I
+swan,--if that ar ain't too bad."
+
+"That ar's rediculous conduct in Atkinson. He ought to be talked to,"
+said the Captain, when she had finished, and then he whistled and put a
+shaving in his mouth, which he chewed reflectively.
+
+"Don't you be a mite worried, Mara," he said. "You did a great deal
+better to come to me than to go to Mr. Sewell or your grand'ther either;
+'cause you see these 'ere wild chaps they'll take things from me they
+wouldn't from a church-member or a minister. Folks mustn't pull 'em up
+with _too_ short a rein,--they must kind o' flatter 'em off. But that ar
+Atkinson's too rediculous for anything; and if he don't mind, I'll serve
+him out. I know a thing or two about him that I shall shake over his
+head if he don't behave. Now I don't think so much of smugglin' as some
+folks," said the Captain, lowering his voice to a confidential tone. "I
+reely don't, now; but come to goin' off piratin',--and tryin' to put a
+young boy up to robbin' his best friends,--why, there ain't no kind o'
+sense in that. It's p'ison mean of Atkinson. I shall tell him so, and I
+shall talk to Moses."
+
+"Oh! I'm afraid to have you," said Mara, apprehensively.
+
+"Why, chickabiddy," said the old Captain, "you don't understand me. I
+ain't goin' at him with no sermons,--I shall jest talk to him this way:
+Look here now, Moses, I shall say, there's Badger's ship goin' to sail
+in a fortnight for China, and they want likely fellers aboard, and I've
+got a hundred dollars that I'd like to send on a venture; if you'll take
+it and go, why, we'll share the profits. I shall talk like that, you
+know. Mebbe I sha'n't let him know what I know, and mebbe I shall; jest
+tip him a wink, you know; it depends on circumstances. But bless you,
+child, these 'ere fellers ain't none of 'em 'fraid o' me, you see,
+'cause they know I know the ropes."
+
+"And can you make that horrid man let him alone?" said Mara, fearfully.
+
+"Calculate I can. 'Spect if I's to tell Atkinson a few things I know,
+he'd be for bein' scase in our parts. Now, you see, I hain't minded
+doin' a small bit o' trade now and then with them ar fellers myself; but
+this 'ere," said the Captain, stopping and looking extremely disgusted,
+"why, it's contemptible, it's rediculous!"
+
+"Do you think I'd better tell grandpapa?" said Mara.
+
+"Don't worry your little head. I'll step up and have a talk with Pennel,
+this evening. He knows as well as I that there is times when chaps must
+be seen to, and no remarks made. Pennel knows that ar. Why, now, Mis'
+Kittridge thinks our boys turned out so well all along of her bringin'
+up, and I let her think so; keeps her sort o' in spirits, you see. But
+Lord bless ye, child, there's been times with Job, and Sam, and Pass,
+and Dass, and Dile, and all on 'em finally, when, if I hadn't jest
+pulled a rope here and turned a screw there, and said nothin' to nobody,
+they'd a-been all gone to smash. I never told Mis' Kittridge none o'
+their didos; bless you, 'twouldn't been o' no use. I never told _them_,
+neither; but I jest kind o' worked 'em off, you know; and they's all
+putty 'spectable men now, as men go, you know; not like Parson Sewell,
+but good, honest mates and ship-masters,--kind o' middlin' people, you
+know. It takes a good many o' sich to make up a world, d'ye see."
+
+"But oh, Captain Kittridge, did any of them use to swear?" said Mara, in
+a faltering voice.
+
+"Wal', they did, consid'able," said the Captain;--then seeing the
+trembling of Mara's lip, he added,--
+
+"Ef you could a-found this 'ere out any other way, it's most a pity
+you'd a-heard him; 'cause he wouldn't never have let out afore you. It
+don't do for gals to hear the fellers talk when they's alone, 'cause
+fellers,--wal', you see, fellers will be fellers, partic'larly when
+they're young. Some on 'em, they never gits over it all their lives
+finally."
+
+"But oh! Captain Kittridge, that talk last night was so dreadfully
+wicked! and Moses!--oh, it was dreadful to hear him!"
+
+"Wal', yes, it was," said the Captain, consolingly; "but don't you cry,
+and don't you break your little heart. I expect he'll come all right,
+and jine the church one of these days; 'cause there's old Pennel, he
+prays,--fact now, I think there's consid'able in some people's prayers,
+and he's one of the sort. And you pray, too; and I'm quite sure the good
+Lord _must_ hear you. I declare sometimes I wish you'd jest say a good
+word to Him for me; I should like to get the hang o' things a little
+better than I do, somehow, I reely should. I've gi'n up swearing years
+ago. Mis' Kittridge, she broke me o' that, and now I don't never go
+further than 'I vum' or 'I swow,' or somethin' o' that sort; but you see
+I'm old;--Moses is young; but then he's got eddication and friends, and
+he'll come all right. Now you jest see ef he don't!"
+
+This miscellaneous budget of personal experiences and friendly
+consolation which the good Captain conveyed to Mara may possibly make
+you laugh, my reader, but the good, ropy brown man was doing his best to
+console his little friend; and as Mara looked at him he was almost
+glorified in her eyes--he had power to save Moses, and he would do it.
+She went home to dinner that day with her heart considerably lightened.
+She refrained, in a guilty way, from even looking at Moses, who was
+gloomy and moody.
+
+Mara had from nature a good endowment of that kind of innocent hypocrisy
+which is needed as a staple in the lives of women who bridge a thousand
+awful chasms with smiling, unconscious looks, and walk, singing and
+scattering flowers, over abysses of fear, while their hearts are dying
+within them.
+
+She talked more volubly than was her wont with Mrs. Pennel, and with her
+old grandfather; she laughed and seemed in more than usual spirits, and
+only once did she look up and catch the gloomy eye of Moses. It had that
+murky, troubled look that one may see in the eye of a boy when those
+evil waters which cast up mire and dirt have once been stirred in his
+soul. They fell under her clear glance, and he made a rapid, impatient
+movement, as if it hurt him to be looked at. The evil spirit in boy or
+man cannot bear the "touch of celestial temper;" and the sensitiveness
+to eyebeams is one of the earliest signs of conscious, inward guilt.
+
+Mara was relieved, as he flung out of the house after dinner, to see the
+long, dry figure of Captain Kittridge coming up and seizing Moses by the
+button. From the window she saw the Captain assuming a confidential air
+with him; and when they had talked together a few moments, she saw Moses
+going with great readiness after him down the road to his house.
+
+In less than a fortnight, it was settled Moses was to sail for China,
+and Mara was deep in the preparations for his outfit. Once she would
+have felt this departure as the most dreadful trial of her life. Now it
+seemed to her a deliverance for him, and she worked with a cheerful
+alacrity, which seemed to Moses more than was proper, considering _he_
+was going away.
+
+For Moses, like many others of his sex, boy or man, had quietly settled
+in his own mind that the whole love of Mara's heart was to be his, to
+have and to hold, to use and to draw on, when and as he liked. He
+reckoned on it as a sort of inexhaustible, uncounted treasure that was
+his own peculiar right and property, and therefore he felt abused at
+what he supposed was a disclosure of some deficiency on her part.
+
+"You seem to be very glad to be rid of me," he said to her in a bitter
+tone one day, as she was earnestly busy in her preparations.
+
+Now the fact was, that Moses had been assiduously making himself
+disagreeable to Mara for the fortnight past, by all sorts of unkind
+sayings and doings; and he knew it too; yet he felt a right to feel very
+much abused at the thought that she could possibly want him to be going.
+If she had been utterly desolate about it, and torn her hair and sobbed
+and wailed, he would have asked what she could be crying about, and
+begged not to be bored with scenes; but as it was, this cheerful
+composure was quite unfeeling.
+
+Now pray don't suppose Moses to be a monster of an uncommon species. We
+take him to be an average specimen of a boy of a certain kind of
+temperament in the transition period of life. Everything is chaos
+within; the flesh lusteth against the spirit, and the spirit against the
+flesh, and "light and darkness, and mind and dust, and passion and pure
+thoughts, mingle and contend," without end or order. He wondered at
+himself sometimes that he could say such cruel things as he did to his
+faithful little friend--to one whom, after all, he did love and trust
+before all other human beings.
+
+There is no saying why it is that a man or a boy, not radically
+destitute of generous comprehensions, will often cruelly torture and
+tyrannize over a woman whom he both loves and reveres, who stands in his
+soul in his best hours as the very impersonation of all that is good and
+beautiful. It is as if some evil spirit at times possessed him, and
+compelled him to utter words which were felt at the moment to be mean
+and hateful. Moses often wondered at himself, as he lay awake nights,
+how he could have said and done the things he had, and felt miserably
+resolved to make it up somehow before he went away; but he did not.
+
+He could not say, "Mara, I have done wrong," though he every day meant
+to do it, and sometimes sat an hour in her presence, feeling murky and
+stony, as if possessed by a dumb spirit; then he would get up and fling
+stormily out of the house.
+
+Poor Mara wondered if he really would go without one kind word. She
+thought of all the years they had been together, and how he had been her
+only thought and love. What had become of her brother?--the Moses that
+once she used to know--frank, careless, not ill-tempered, and who
+sometimes seemed to love her and think she was the best little girl in
+the world? Where was he gone to--this friend and brother of her
+childhood, and would he never come back?
+
+At last came the evening before his parting; the sea-chest was all made
+up and packed; and Mara's fingers had been busy with everything, from
+more substantial garments down to all those little comforts and nameless
+conveniences that only a woman knows how to improvise. Mara thought
+certainly she should get a few kind words, as Moses looked it over. But
+he only said, "All right;" and then added that "there was a button off
+one of the shirts." Mara's busy fingers quickly replaced it, and Moses
+was annoyed at the tear that fell on the button. What was she crying for
+now? He knew very well, but he felt stubborn and cruel. Afterwards he
+lay awake many a night in his berth, and acted this last scene over
+differently. He took Mara in his arms and kissed her; he told her she
+was his best friend, his good angel, and that he was not worthy to kiss
+the hem of her garment; but the next day, when he thought of writing a
+letter to her, he didn't, and the good mood passed away. Boys do not
+acquire an ease of expression in letter-writing as early as girls, and a
+voyage to China furnished opportunities few and far between of sending
+letters.
+
+Now and then, through some sailing ship, came missives which seemed to
+Mara altogether colder and more unsatisfactory than they would have done
+could she have appreciated the difference between a boy and a girl in
+power of epistolary expression; for the power of really representing
+one's heart on paper, which is one of the first spring flowers of early
+womanhood, is the latest blossom on the slow-growing tree of manhood. To
+do Moses justice, these seeming cold letters were often written with a
+choking lump in his throat, caused by thinking over his many sins
+against his little good angel; but then that past account was so long,
+and had so much that it pained him to think of, that he dashed it all
+off in the shortest fashion, and said to himself, "One of these days
+when I see her I'll make it all up."
+
+No man--especially one that is living a rough, busy, out-of-doors
+life--can form the slightest conception of that veiled and secluded life
+which exists in the heart of a sensitive woman, whose sphere is narrow,
+whose external diversions are few, and whose mind, therefore, acts by a
+continual introversion upon itself. They know nothing how their careless
+words and actions are pondered and turned again in weary, quiet hours of
+fruitless questioning. What did he mean by this? and what did he intend
+by that?--while he, the careless buffalo, meant nothing, or has
+forgotten what it was, if he did. Man's utter ignorance of woman's
+nature is a cause of a great deal of unsuspected cruelty which he
+practices toward her.
+
+Mara found one or two opportunities of writing to Moses; but her letters
+were timid and constrained by a sort of frosty, discouraged sense of
+loneliness; and Moses, though he knew he had no earthly right to expect
+this to be otherwise, took upon him to feel as an abused individual,
+whom nobody loved--whose way in the world was destined to be lonely and
+desolate. So when, at the end of three years, he arrived suddenly at
+Brunswick in the beginning of winter, and came, all burning with
+impatience, to the home at Orr's Island, and found that Mara had gone to
+Boston on a visit, he resented it as a personal slight.
+
+He might have inquired why she should expect him, and whether her whole
+life was to be spent in looking out of the window to watch for him. He
+might have remembered that he had warned her of his approach by no
+letter. But no. "Mara didn't care for him--she had forgotten all about
+him--she was having a good time in Boston, just as likely as not with
+some train of admirers, and he had been tossing on the stormy ocean, and
+she had thought nothing of it." How many things he had meant to say! He
+had never felt so good and so affectionate. He would have confessed all
+the sins of his life to her, and asked her pardon--and she wasn't there!
+
+Mrs. Pennel suggested that he might go to Boston after her.
+
+No, he was not going to do that. He would not intrude on her pleasures
+with the memory of a rough, hard-working sailor. He was alone in the
+world, and had his own way to make, and so best go at once up among
+lumbermen, and cut the timber for the ship that was to carry Caesar and
+his fortunes.
+
+When Mara was informed by a letter from Mrs. Pennel, expressed in the
+few brief words in which that good woman generally embodied her
+epistolary communications, that Moses had been at home, and gone to
+Umbagog without seeing her, she felt at her heart only a little closer
+stricture of cold, quiet pain, which had become a habit of her inner
+life.
+
+"He did not love her--he was cold and selfish," said the inner voice.
+And faintly she pleaded, in answer, "He is a man--he has seen the
+world--and has so much to do and think of, no wonder."
+
+In fact, during the last three years that had parted them, the great
+change of life had been consummated in both. They had parted boy and
+girl; they would meet man and woman. The time of this meeting had been
+announced.
+
+And all this is the history of that sigh, so very quiet that Sally
+Kittridge never checked the rattling flow of her conversation to observe
+it.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+THE BEGINNING OF THE STORY
+
+
+We have in the last three chapters brought up the history of our
+characters to the time when our story opens, when Mara and Sally
+Kittridge were discussing the expected return of Moses. Sally was
+persuaded by Mara to stay and spend the night with her, and did so
+without much fear of what her mother would say when she returned; for
+though Mrs. Kittridge still made bustling demonstrations of authority,
+it was quite evident to every one that the handsome grown-up girl had
+got the sceptre into her own hands, and was reigning in the full
+confidence of being, in one way or another, able to bring her mother
+into all her views.
+
+So Sally stayed--to have one of those long night-talks in which girls
+delight, in the course of which all sorts of intimacies and confidences,
+that shun the daylight, open like the night-blooming cereus in strange
+successions. One often wonders by daylight at the things one says very
+naturally in the dark.
+
+So the two girls talked about Moses, and Sally dilated upon his
+handsome, manly air the one Sunday that he had appeared in Harpswell
+meeting-house.
+
+"He didn't know me at all, if you'll believe it," said Sally. "I was
+standing with father when he came out, and he shook hands with him, and
+looked at me as if I'd been an entire stranger."
+
+"I'm not in the least surprised," said Mara; "you're grown so and
+altered."
+
+"Well, now, you'd hardly know him, Mara," said Sally. "He is a man--a
+real man; everything about him is different; he holds up his head in
+such a proud way. Well, he always did that when he was a boy; but when
+he speaks, he has such a deep voice! How boys do alter in a year or
+two!"
+
+"Do you think I have altered much, Sally?" said Mara; "at least, do you
+think _he_ would think so?"
+
+"Why, Mara, you and I have been together so much, I can't tell. We don't
+notice what goes on before us every day. I really should like to see
+what Moses Pennel will think when he sees you. At any rate, he can't
+order you about with such a grand air as he used to when you were
+younger."
+
+"I think sometimes he has quite forgotten about me," said Mara.
+
+"Well, if I were you, I should put him in mind of myself by one or two
+little ways," said Sally. "I'd plague him and tease him. I'd lead him
+such a life that he couldn't forget me,--that's what I would."
+
+"I don't doubt you would, Sally; and he might like you all the better
+for it. But you know that sort of thing isn't my way. People must act in
+character."
+
+"Do you know, Mara," said Sally, "I always thought Moses was hateful in
+his treatment of you? Now I'd no more marry that fellow than I'd walk
+into the fire; but it would be a just punishment for his sins to have to
+marry me! Wouldn't I serve him out, though!"
+
+With which threat of vengeance on her mind Sally Kittridge fell asleep,
+while Mara lay awake pondering,--wondering if Moses would come
+to-morrow, and what he would be like if he did come.
+
+The next morning as the two girls were wiping breakfast dishes in a room
+adjoining the kitchen, a step was heard on the kitchen-floor, and the
+first that Mara knew she found herself lifted from the floor in the
+arms of a tall dark-eyed young man, who was kissing her just as if he
+had a right to. She knew it must be Moses, but it seemed strange as a
+dream, for all she had tried to imagine it beforehand.
+
+He kissed her over and over, and then holding her off at arm's length,
+said, "Why, Mara, you have grown to be a beauty!"
+
+"And what was she, I'd like to know, when you went away, Mr. Moses?"
+said Sally, who could not long keep out of a conversation. "She was
+handsome when you were only a great ugly boy."
+
+"Thank you, Miss Sally!" said Moses, making a profound bow.
+
+"Thank me for what?" said Sally, with a toss.
+
+"For your intimation that I am a handsome young man now," said Moses,
+sitting with his arm around Mara, and her hand in his.
+
+And in truth he was as handsome now for a man as he was in the promise
+of his early childhood. All the oafishness and surly awkwardness of the
+half-boy period was gone. His great black eyes were clear and confident:
+his dark hair clustering in short curls round his well-shaped head; his
+black lashes, and fine form, and a certain confident ease of manner, set
+him off to the greatest advantage.
+
+Mara felt a peculiar dreamy sense of strangeness at this brother who was
+not a brother,--this Moses so different from the one she had known. The
+very tone of his voice, which when he left had the uncertain cracked
+notes which indicate the unformed man, were now mellowed and settled.
+Mara regarded him shyly as he talked, blushed uneasily, and drew away
+from his arm around her, as if this handsome, self-confident young man
+were being too familiar. In fact, she made apology to go out into the
+other room to call Mrs. Pennel.
+
+Moses looked after her as she went with admiration. "What a little woman
+she has grown!" he said, naively.
+
+"And what did you expect she would grow?" said Sally. "You didn't expect
+to find her a girl in short clothes, did you?"
+
+"Not exactly, Miss Sally," said Moses, turning his attention to her;
+"and some other people are changed too."
+
+"Like enough," said Sally, carelessly. "I should think so, since
+somebody never spoke a word to one the Sunday he was at meeting."
+
+"Oh, you remember that, do you? On my word, Sally"--
+
+"Miss Kittridge, if you please, sir," said Sally, turning round with the
+air of an empress.
+
+"Well, then, Miss Kittridge," said Moses, making a bow; "now let me
+finish my sentence. I never dreamed who you were."
+
+"Complimentary," said Sally, pouting.
+
+"Well, hear me through," said Moses; "you had grown so handsome, Miss
+Kittridge."
+
+"Oh! that indeed! I suppose you mean to say I was a fright when you
+left?"
+
+"Not at all--not at all," said Moses; "but handsome things may grow
+handsomer, you know."
+
+"I don't like flattery," said Sally.
+
+"I never flatter, Miss Kittridge," said Moses.
+
+Our young gentleman and young lady of Orr's Island went through with
+this customary little lie of civilized society with as much gravity as
+if they were practicing in the court of Versailles,--she looking out
+from the corner of her eye to watch the effect of her words, and he
+laying his hand on his heart in the most edifying gravity. They
+perfectly understood one another.
+
+But, says the reader, seems to me Sally Kittridge does all the talking!
+So she does,--so she always will,--for it is her nature to be bright,
+noisy, and restless; and one of these girls always overcrows a timid and
+thoughtful one, and makes her, for the time, seem dim and faded, as does
+rose color when put beside scarlet.
+
+Sally was a born coquette. It was as natural for her to want to flirt
+with every man she saw, as for a kitten to scamper after a pin-ball.
+Does the kitten care a fig for the pin-ball, or the dry leaves, which
+she whisks, and frisks, and boxes, and pats, and races round and round
+after? No; it's nothing but kittenhood; every hair of her fur is alive
+with it. Her sleepy green eyes, when she pretends to be dozing, are full
+of it; and though she looks wise a moment, and seems resolved to be a
+discreet young cat, let but a leaf sway--off she goes again, with a
+frisk and a rap. So, though Sally had scolded and flounced about Moses's
+inattention to Mara in advance, she contrived even in this first
+interview to keep him talking with nobody but herself;--not because she
+wanted to draw him from Mara, or meant to; not because she cared a pin
+for him; but because it was her nature, as a frisky young cat. And Moses
+let himself be drawn, between bantering and contradicting, and jest and
+earnest, at some moments almost to forget that Mara was in the room.
+
+She took her sewing and sat with a pleased smile, sometimes breaking
+into the lively flow of conversation, or eagerly appealed to by both
+parties to settle some rising quarrel.
+
+Once, as they were talking, Moses looked up and saw Mara's head, as a
+stray sunbeam falling upon the golden hair seemed to make a halo around
+her face. Her large eyes were fixed upon him with an expression so
+intense and penetrative, that he felt a sort of wincing uneasiness.
+"What makes you look at me so, Mara?" he said, suddenly.
+
+A bright flush came in her cheek as she answered, "I didn't know I was
+looking. It all seems so strange to me. I am trying to make out who and
+what you are."
+
+"It's not best to look too deep," Moses said, laughing, but with a
+slight shade of uneasiness.
+
+When Sally, late in the afternoon, declared that she must go home, she
+couldn't stay another minute, Moses rose to go with her.
+
+"What are you getting up for?" she said to Moses, as he took his hat.
+
+"To go home with you, to be sure."
+
+"Nobody asked you to," said Sally.
+
+"I'm accustomed to asking myself," said Moses.
+
+"Well, I suppose I must have you along," said Sally. "Father will be
+glad to see you, of course."
+
+"You'll be back to tea, Moses," said Mara, "will you not? Grandfather
+will be home, and want to see you."
+
+"Oh, I shall be right back," said Moses, "I have a little business to
+settle with Captain Kittridge."
+
+But Moses, however, did stay at tea with Mrs. Kittridge, who looked
+graciously at him through the bows of her black horn spectacles, having
+heard her liege lord observe that Moses was a smart chap, and had done
+pretty well in a money way.
+
+How came he to stay? Sally told him every other minute to go; and then
+when he had got fairly out of the door, called him back to tell him that
+there was something she had heard about him. And Moses of course came
+back; wanted to know what it was; and couldn't be told, it was a secret;
+and then he would be ordered off, and reminded that he promised to go
+straight home; and then when he got a little farther off she called
+after him a second time, to tell him that he would be very much
+surprised if he knew how she found it out, etc., etc.,--till at last tea
+being ready, there was no reason why he shouldn't have a cup. And so it
+was sober moonrise before Moses found himself going home.
+
+"Hang that girl!" he said to himself; "don't she know what she's about,
+though?"
+
+There our hero was mistaken. Sally never did know what she was
+about,--had no plan or purpose more than a blackbird; and when Moses was
+gone laughed to think how many times she had made him come back.
+
+"Now, confound it all," said Moses, "I care more for our little Mara
+than a dozen of her; and what have I been fooling all this time
+for?--now Mara will think I don't love her."
+
+And, in fact, our young gentleman rather set his heart on the sensation
+he was going to make when he got home. It is flattering, after all, to
+feel one's power over a susceptible nature; and Moses, remembering how
+entirely and devotedly Mara had loved him all through childhood, never
+doubted but he was the sole possessor of uncounted treasure in her
+heart, which he could develop at his leisure and use as he pleased. He
+did not calculate for one force which had grown up in the meanwhile
+between them,--and that was the power of womanhood. He did not know the
+intensity of that kind of pride, which is the very life of the female
+nature, and which is most vivid and vigorous in the most timid and
+retiring.
+
+Our little Mara was tender, self-devoting, humble, and religious, but
+she was woman after all to the tips of her fingers,--quick to feel
+slights, and determined with the intensest determination, that no man
+should wrest from her one of those few humble rights and privileges,
+which Nature allows to woman. Something swelled and trembled in her when
+she felt the confident pressure of that bold arm around her waist,--like
+the instinct of a wild bird to fly. Something in the deep, manly voice,
+the determined, self-confident air, aroused a vague feeling of defiance
+and resistance in her which she could scarcely explain to herself. Was
+he to assume a right to her in this way without even asking? When he
+did not come to tea nor long after, and Mrs. Pennel and her grandfather
+wondered, she laughed, and said gayly,--
+
+"Oh, he knows he'll have time enough to see me. Sally seems more like a
+stranger."
+
+But when Moses came home after moonrise, determined to go and console
+Mara for his absence, he was surprised to hear the sound of a rapid and
+pleasant conversation, in which a masculine and feminine voice were
+intermingled in a lively duet. Coming a little nearer, he saw Mara
+sitting knitting in the doorway, and a very good-looking young man
+seated on a stone at her feet, with his straw hat flung on the ground,
+while he was looking up into her face, as young men often do into pretty
+faces seen by moonlight. Mara rose and introduced Mr. Adams of Boston to
+Mr. Moses Pennel.
+
+Moses measured the young man with his eye as if he could have shot him
+with a good will. And his temper was not at all bettered as he observed
+that he had the easy air of a man of fashion and culture, and learned by
+a few moments of the succeeding conversation, that the acquaintance had
+commenced during Mara's winter visit to Boston.
+
+"I was staying a day or two at Mr. Sewell's," he said, carelessly, "and
+the night was so fine I couldn't resist the temptation to row over."
+
+It was now Moses's turn to listen to a conversation in which he could
+bear little part, it being about persons and places and things
+unfamiliar to him; and though he could give no earthly reason why the
+conversation was not the most proper in the world,--yet he found that it
+made him angry.
+
+In the pauses, Mara inquired, prettily, how he found the Kittridges, and
+reproved him playfully for staying, in despite of his promise to come
+home. Moses answered with an effort to appear easy and playful, that
+there was no reason, it appeared, to hurry on her account, since she
+had been so pleasantly engaged.
+
+"That is true," said Mara, quietly; "but then grandpapa and grandmamma
+expected you, and they have gone to bed, as you know they always do
+after tea."
+
+"They'll keep till morning, I suppose," said Moses, rather gruffly.
+
+"Oh yes; but then as you had been gone two or three months, naturally
+they wanted to see a little of you at first."
+
+The stranger now joined in the conversation, and began talking with
+Moses about his experiences in foreign parts, in a manner which showed a
+man of sense and breeding. Moses had a jealous fear of people of
+breeding,--an apprehension lest they should look down on one whose life
+had been laid out of the course of their conventional ideas; and
+therefore, though he had sufficient ability and vigor of mind to acquit
+himself to advantage in this conversation, it gave him all the while a
+secret uneasiness. After a few moments, he rose up moodily, and saying
+that he was very much fatigued, he went into the house to retire.
+
+Mr. Adams rose to go also, and Moses might have felt in a more Christian
+frame of mind, had he listened to the last words of the conversation
+between him and Mara.
+
+"Do you remain long in Harpswell?" she asked.
+
+"That depends on circumstances," he replied. "If I do, may I be
+permitted to visit you?"
+
+"As a friend--yes," said Mara; "I shall always be happy to see you."
+
+"No more?"
+
+"No more," replied Mara.
+
+"I had hoped," he said, "that you would reconsider."
+
+"It is impossible," said she; and soft voices can pronounce that word,
+_impossible_, in a very fateful and decisive manner.
+
+"Well, God bless you, then, Miss Lincoln," he said, and was gone.
+
+Mara stood in the doorway and saw him loosen his boat from its moorings
+and float off in the moonlight, with a long train of silver sparkles
+behind.
+
+A moment after Moses was looking gloomily over her shoulder.
+
+"Who is that puppy?" he said.
+
+"He is not a puppy, but a very fine young man," said Mara.
+
+"Well, that very fine young man, then?"
+
+"I thought I told you. He is a Mr. Adams of Boston, and a distant
+connection of the Sewells. I met him when I was visiting at Judge
+Sewell's in Boston."
+
+"You seemed to be having a very pleasant time together?"
+
+"We were," said Mara, quietly.
+
+"It's a pity I came home as I did. I'm sorry I interrupted you," said
+Moses, with a sarcastic laugh.
+
+"You didn't interrupt us; he had been here almost two hours."
+
+Now Mara saw plainly enough that Moses was displeased and hurt, and had
+it been in the days of her fourteenth summer, she would have thrown her
+arms around his neck, and said, "Moses, I don't care a fig for that man,
+and I love you better than all the world." But this the young lady of
+eighteen would not do; so she wished him good-night very prettily, and
+pretended not to see anything about it.
+
+Mara was as near being a saint as human dust ever is; but--she was a
+woman saint; and therefore may be excused for a little gentle
+vindictiveness. She was, in a merciful way, rather glad that Moses had
+gone to bed dissatisfied, and rather glad that he did not know what she
+might have told him--quite resolved that he should not know at present.
+Was he to know that she liked nobody so much as him? Not he, unless he
+loved her more than all the world, and said so first. Mara was resolved
+upon that. He might go where he liked--flirt with whom he liked--come
+back as late as he pleased; never would she, by word or look, give him
+reason to think she cared.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+DESIRES AND DREAMS
+
+
+Moses passed rather a restless and uneasy night on his return to the
+home-roof which had sheltered his childhood. All his life past, and all
+his life expected, seemed to boil and seethe and ferment in his
+thoughts, and to go round and round in never-ceasing circles before him.
+
+Moses was _par excellence_ proud, ambitious, and willful. These words,
+generally supposed to describe positive vices of the mind, in fact are
+only the overaction of certain very valuable portions of our nature,
+since one can conceive all three to raise a man immensely in the scale
+of moral being, simply by being applied to right objects. He who is too
+proud even to admit a mean thought--who is ambitious only of ideal
+excellence--who has an inflexible will only in the pursuit of truth and
+righteousness--may be a saint and a hero.
+
+But Moses was neither a saint nor a hero, but an undeveloped chaotic
+young man, whose pride made him sensitive and restless; whose ambition
+was fixed on wealth and worldly success; whose willfulness was for the
+most part a blind determination to compass his own points, with the
+leave of Providence or without. There was no God in his estimate of
+life--and a sort of secret unsuspected determination at the bottom of
+his heart that there should be none. He feared religion, from a
+suspicion which he entertained that it might hamper some of his future
+schemes. He did not wish to put himself under its rules, lest he might
+find them in some future time inconveniently strict.
+
+With such determinations and feelings, the Bible--necessarily an
+excessively uninteresting book to him--he never read, and satisfied
+himself with determining in a general way that it was not worth reading,
+and, as was the custom with many young men in America at that period,
+announced himself as a skeptic, and seemed to value himself not a little
+on the distinction. Pride in skepticism is a peculiar distinction of
+young men. It takes years and maturity to make the discovery that the
+power of faith is nobler than the power of doubt; and that there is a
+celestial wisdom in the ingenuous propensity to trust, which belongs to
+honest and noble natures. Elderly skeptics generally regard their
+unbelief as a misfortune.
+
+Not that Moses was, after all, without "the angel in him." He had a good
+deal of the susceptibility to poetic feeling, the power of vague and
+dreamy aspiration, the longing after the good and beautiful, which is
+God's witness in the soul. A noble sentiment in poetry, a fine scene in
+nature, had power to bring tears in his great dark eyes, and he had,
+under the influence of such things, brief inspired moments in which he
+vaguely longed to do, or be, something grand or noble. But this,
+however, was something apart from the real purpose of his life,--a sort
+of voice crying in the wilderness,--to which he gave little heed.
+Practically, he was determined with all his might, to have a good time
+in this life, whatever another might be,--if there were one; and that he
+would do it by the strength of his right arm. Wealth he saw to be the
+lamp of Aladdin, which commanded all other things. And the pursuit of
+wealth was therefore the first step in his programme.
+
+As for plans of the heart and domestic life, Moses was one of that very
+common class who had more desire to be loved than power of loving. His
+cravings and dreams were not for somebody to be devoted to, but for
+somebody who should be devoted to him. And, like most people who
+possess this characteristic, he mistook it for an affectionate
+disposition.
+
+Now the chief treasure of his heart had always been his little sister
+Mara, chiefly from his conviction that he was the one absorbing thought
+and love of her heart. He had never figured life to himself otherwise
+than with Mara at his side, his unquestioning, devoted friend. Of course
+he and his plans, his ways and wants, would always be in the future, as
+they always had been, her sole thought. These sleeping partnerships in
+the interchange of affection, which support one's heart with a basis of
+uncounted wealth, and leave one free to come and go, and buy and sell,
+without exaction or interference, are a convenience certainly, and the
+loss of them in any way is like the sudden breaking of a bank in which
+all one's deposits are laid.
+
+It had never occurred to Moses how or in what capacity he should always
+stand banker to the whole wealth of love that there was in Mara's heart,
+and what provision he should make on his part for returning this
+incalculable debt. But the interview of this evening had raised a new
+thought in his mind. Mara, as he saw that day, was no longer a little
+girl in a pink sun-bonnet. She was a woman,--a little one, it is true,
+but every inch a woman,--and a woman invested with a singular poetic
+charm of appearance, which, more than beauty, has the power of awakening
+feeling in the other sex.
+
+He felt in himself, in the experience of that one day, that there was
+something subtle and veiled about her, which set the imagination at
+work; that the wistful, plaintive expression of her dark eyes, and a
+thousand little shy and tremulous movements of her face, affected him
+more than the most brilliant of Sally Kittridge's sprightly sallies.
+Yes, there would be people falling in love with her fast enough, he
+thought even here, where she is as secluded as a pearl in an
+oyster-shell,--it seems means were found to come after her,--and then
+all the love of her heart, that priceless love, would go to another.
+
+Mara would be absorbed in some one else, would love some one else, as he
+knew she could, with heart and soul and mind and strength. When he
+thought of this, it affected him much as it would if one were turned out
+of a warm, smiling apartment into a bleak December storm. What should he
+do, if that treasure which he had taken most for granted in all his
+valuations of life should suddenly be found to belong to another? Who
+was this fellow that seemed so free to visit her, and what had passed
+between them? Was Mara in love with him, or going to be? There is no
+saying how the consideration of this question enhanced in our hero's
+opinion both her beauty and all her other good qualities.
+
+Such a brave little heart! such a good, clear little head! and such a
+pretty hand and foot! She was always so cheerful, so unselfish, so
+devoted! When had he ever seen her angry, except when she had taken up
+some childish quarrel of his, and fought for him like a little Spartan?
+Then she was pious, too. She was born religious, thought our hero, who,
+in common with many men professing skepticism for their own particular
+part, set a great value on religion in that unknown future person whom
+they are fond of designating in advance as "my wife." Yes, Moses meant
+his wife should be pious, and pray for him, while he did as he pleased.
+
+"Now there's that witch of a Sally Kittridge," he said to himself; "I
+wouldn't have such a girl for a wife. Nothing to her but foam and
+frisk,--no heart more than a bobolink! But isn't she amusing? By George!
+isn't she, though?"
+
+"But," thought Moses, "it's time I settled this matter who is to be my
+wife. I won't marry till I'm rich,--that's flat. My wife isn't to rub
+and grub. So at it I must go to raise the wind. I wonder if old Sewell
+really does know anything about my parents. Miss Emily would have it
+that there was some mystery that he had the key of; but I never could
+get any thing from him. He always put me off in such a smooth way that I
+couldn't tell whether he did or he didn't. But, now, supposing I have
+relatives, family connections, then who knows but what there may be
+property coming to me? That's an idea worth looking after, surely."
+
+There's no saying with what vividness ideas and images go through one's
+wakeful brain when the midnight moon is making an exact shadow of your
+window-sash, with panes of light, on your chamber-floor. How vividly we
+all have loved and hated and planned and hoped and feared and desired
+and dreamed, as we tossed and turned to and fro upon such watchful,
+still nights. In the stillness, the tide upon one side of the Island
+replied to the dash on the other side in unbroken symphony, and Moses
+began to remember all the stories gossips had told him of how he had
+floated ashore there, like a fragment of tropical seaweed borne landward
+by a great gale. He positively wondered at himself that he had never
+thought of it more, and the more he meditated, the more mysterious and
+inexplicable he felt. Then he had heard Miss Roxy once speaking
+something about a bracelet, he was sure he had; but afterwards it was
+hushed up, and no one seemed to know anything about it when he inquired.
+But in those days he was a boy,--he was nobody,--now he was a young man.
+He could go to Mr. Sewell, and demand as his right a fair answer to any
+questions he might ask. If he found, as was quite likely, that there was
+nothing to be known, his mind would be thus far settled,--he should
+trust only to his own resources.
+
+So far as the state of the young man's finances were concerned, it
+would be considered in those simple times and regions an auspicious
+beginning of life. The sum intrusted to him by Captain Kittridge had
+been more than doubled by the liberality of Zephaniah Pennel, and Moses
+had traded upon it in foreign parts with a skill and energy that brought
+a very fair return, and gave him, in the eyes of the shrewd, thrifty
+neighbors, the prestige of a young man who was marked for success in the
+world.
+
+He had already formed an advantageous arrangement with his grandfather
+and Captain Kittridge, by which a ship was to be built, which he should
+command, and thus the old Saturday afternoon dream of their childhood be
+fulfilled. As he thought of it, there arose in his mind a picture of
+Mara, with her golden hair and plaintive eyes and little white hands,
+reigning as a fairy queen in the captain's cabin, with a sort of wish to
+carry her off and make sure that no one else ever should get her from
+him.
+
+But these midnight dreams were all sobered down by the plain
+matter-of-fact beams of the morning sun, and nothing remained of
+immediate definite purpose except the resolve, which came strongly upon
+Moses as he looked across the blue band of Harpswell Bay, that he would
+go that morning and have a talk with Mr. Sewell.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+MISS EMILY
+
+
+Miss Roxy Toothache was seated by the window of the little keeping-room
+where Miss Emily Sewell sat on every-day occasions. Around her were the
+insignia of her power and sway. Her big tailor's goose was heating
+between Miss Emily's bright brass fire-irons; her great pin-cushion was
+by her side, bristling with pins of all sizes, and with broken needles
+thriftily made into pins by heads of red sealing-wax, and with needles
+threaded with all varieties of cotton, silk, and linen; her scissors
+hung martially by her side; her black bombazette work-apron was on; and
+the expression of her iron features was that of deep responsibility, for
+she was making the minister a new Sunday vest!
+
+The good soul looks not a day older than when we left her, ten years
+ago. Like the gray, weather-beaten rocks of her native shore, her strong
+features had an unchangeable identity beyond that of anything fair and
+blooming. There was of course no chance for a gray streak in her stiff,
+uncompromising mohair frisette, which still pushed up her cap-border
+bristlingly as of old, and the clear, high winds and bracing atmosphere
+of that rough coast kept her in an admirable state of preservation.
+
+Miss Emily had now and then a white hair among her soft, pretty brown
+ones, and looked a little thinner; but the round, bright spot of bloom
+on each cheek was there just as of yore,--and just as of yore she was
+thinking of her brother, and filling her little head with endless
+calculations to keep him looking fresh and respectable, and his
+housekeeping comfortable and easy, on very limited means. She was now
+officiously and anxiously attending on Miss Roxy, who was in the midst
+of the responsible operation which should conduce greatly to this end.
+
+"Does that twist work well?" she said, nervously; "because I believe
+I've got some other upstairs in my India box."
+
+Miss Roxy surveyed the article; bit a fragment off, as if she meant to
+taste it; threaded a needle and made a few cabalistical stitches; and
+then pronounced, _ex cathedra_, that it would do. Miss Emily gave a sigh
+of relief. After buttons and tapes and linings, and various other items
+had been also discussed, the conversation began to flow into general
+channels.
+
+"Did you know Moses Pennel had got home from Umbagog?" said Miss Roxy.
+
+"Yes. Captain Kittridge told brother so this morning. I wonder he
+doesn't call over to see us."
+
+"Your brother took a sight of interest in that boy," said Miss Roxy. "I
+was saying to Ruey, this morning, that if Moses Pennel ever did turn out
+well, he ought to have a large share of the credit."
+
+"Brother always did feel a peculiar interest in him; it was such a
+strange providence that seemed to cast in his lot among us," said Miss
+Emily.
+
+"As sure as you live, there he is a-coming to the front door," said Miss
+Roxy.
+
+"Dear me," said Miss Emily, "and here I have on this old faded chintz.
+Just so sure as one puts on any old rag, and thinks nobody will come,
+company is sure to call."
+
+"Law, I'm sure I shouldn't think of calling him company," said Miss
+Roxy.
+
+A rap at the door put an end to this conversation, and very soon Miss
+Emily introduced our hero into the little sitting-room, in the midst of
+a perfect stream of apologies relating to her old dress and the
+littered condition of the sitting-room, for Miss Emily held to the
+doctrine of those who consider any sign of human occupation and
+existence in a room as being disorder--however reputable and respectable
+be the cause of it.
+
+"Well, really," she said, after she had seated Moses by the fire, "how
+time does pass, to be sure; it don't seem more than yesterday since you
+used to come with your Latin books, and now here you are a grown man! I
+must run and tell Mr. Sewell. He will be so glad to see you."
+
+Mr. Sewell soon appeared from his study in morning-gown and slippers,
+and seemed heartily responsive to the proposition which Moses soon made
+to him to have some private conversation with him in his study.
+
+"I declare," said Miss Emily, as soon as the study-door had closed upon
+her brother and Moses, "what a handsome young man he is! and what a
+beautiful way he has with him!--so deferential! A great many young men
+nowadays seem to think nothing of their minister; but he comes to seek
+advice. Very proper. It isn't every young man that appreciates the
+privilege of having elderly friends. I declare, what a beautiful couple
+he and Mara Lincoln would make! Don't Providence seem in a peculiar way
+to have designed them for each other?"
+
+"I hope not," said Miss Roxy, with her grimmest expression.
+
+"You don't! Why not?"
+
+"I never liked him," said Miss Roxy, who had possessed herself of her
+great heavy goose, and was now thumping and squeaking it emphatically on
+the press-board. "She's a thousand times too good for Moses
+Pennel,"--thump. "I ne'er had no faith in him,"--thump. "He's dreffle
+unstiddy,"--thump. "He's handsome, but he knows it,"--thump. "He won't
+never love nobody so much as he does himself,"--thump, _fortissimo con
+spirito_.
+
+"Well, really now, Miss Roxy, you mustn't always remember the sins of
+his youth. Boys must sow their wild oats. He was unsteady for a while,
+but now everybody says he's doing well; and as to his knowing he's
+handsome, and all that, I don't see as he does. See how polite and
+deferential he was to us all, this morning; and he spoke so handsomely
+to you."
+
+"I don't want none of his politeness," said Miss Roxy, inexorably; "and
+as to Mara Lincoln, she might have better than him any day. Miss Badger
+was a-tellin' Captain Brown, Sunday noon, that she was very much admired
+in Boston."
+
+"So she was," said Miss Emily, bridling. "I never reveal secrets, or I
+might tell something,--but there has been a young man,--but I promised
+not to speak of it, and I sha'n't."
+
+"If you mean Mr. Adams," said Miss Roxy, "you needn't worry about
+keepin' that secret, 'cause that ar was all talked over atween meetin's
+a-Sunday noon; for Mis' Kittridge she used to know his aunt Jerushy, her
+that married Solomon Peters, and Mis' Captain Badger she says that he
+has a very good property, and is a professor in the Old South church in
+Boston."
+
+"Dear me," said Miss Emily, "how things do get about!"
+
+"People will talk, there ain't no use trying to help it," said Miss
+Roxy; "but it's strongly borne in on my mind that it ain't Adams, nor 't
+ain't Moses Pennel that's to marry her. I've had peculiar exercises of
+mind about that ar child,--well I have;" and Miss Roxy pulled a large
+spotted bandanna handkerchief out of her pocket, and blew her nose like
+a trumpet, and then wiped the withered corners of her eyes, which were
+humid as some old Orr's Island rock wet with sea-spray.
+
+Miss Emily had a secret love of romancing. It was one of the
+recreations of her quiet, monotonous life to build air-castles, which
+she furnished regardless of expense, and in which she set up at
+housekeeping her various friends and acquaintances, and she had always
+been bent on weaving a romance on the history of Mara and Moses Pennel.
+The good little body had done her best to second Mr. Sewell's attempts
+toward the education of the children. It was little busy Miss Emily who
+persuaded honest Zephaniah and Mary Pennel that talents such as Mara's
+ought to be cultivated, and that ended in sending her to Miss Plucher's
+school in Portland. There her artistic faculties were trained into
+creating funereal monuments out of chenille embroidery, fully equal to
+Miss Emily's own; also to painting landscapes, in which the ground and
+all the trees were one unvarying tint of blue-green; and also to
+creating flowers of a new and particular construction, which, as Sally
+Kittridge remarked, were pretty, but did not look like anything in
+heaven or earth. Mara had obediently and patiently done all these
+things; and solaced herself with copying flowers and birds and
+landscapes as near as possible like nature, as a recreation from these
+more dignified toils.
+
+Miss Emily also had been the means of getting Mara invited to Boston,
+where she saw some really polished society, and gained as much knowledge
+of the forms of artificial life as a nature so wholly and strongly
+individual could obtain. So little Miss Emily regarded Mara as her
+godchild, and was intent on finishing her up into a romance in real
+life, of which a handsome young man, who had been washed ashore in a
+shipwreck, should be the hero.
+
+What would she have said could she have heard the conversation that was
+passing in her brother's study? Little could she dream that the mystery,
+about which she had timidly nibbled for years, was now about to be
+unrolled;--but it was even so. But, upon what she does not see, good
+reader, you and I, following invisibly on tiptoe, will make our
+observations.
+
+When Moses was first ushered into Mr. Sewell's study, and found himself
+quite alone, with the door shut, his heart beat so that he fancied the
+good man must hear it. He knew well what he wanted and meant to say, but
+he found in himself all that shrinking and nervous repugnance which
+always attends the proposing of any decisive question.
+
+"I thought it proper," he began, "that I should call and express my
+sense of obligation to you, sir, for all the kindness you showed me when
+a boy. I'm afraid in those thoughtless days I did not seem to appreciate
+it so much as I do now."
+
+As Moses said this, the color rose in his cheeks, and his fine eyes grew
+moist with a sort of subdued feeling that made his face for the moment
+more than usually beautiful.
+
+Mr. Sewell looked at him with an expression of peculiar interest, which
+seemed to have something almost of pain in it, and answered with a
+degree of feeling more than he commonly showed,--
+
+"It has been a pleasure to me to do anything I could for you, my young
+friend. I only wish it could have been more. I congratulate you on your
+present prospects in life. You have perfect health; you have energy and
+enterprise; you are courageous and self-reliant, and, I trust, your
+habits are pure and virtuous. It only remains that you add to all this
+that fear of the Lord which is the beginning of wisdom."
+
+Moses bowed his head respectfully, and then sat silent a moment, as if
+he were looking through some cloud where he vainly tried to discover
+objects.
+
+Mr. Sewell continued, gravely,--
+
+"You have the greatest reason to bless the kind Providence which has
+cast your lot in such a family, in such a community. I have had some
+means in my youth of comparing other parts of the country with our New
+England, and it is my opinion that a young man could not ask a better
+introduction into life than the wholesome nurture of a Christian family
+in our favored land."
+
+"Mr. Sewell," said Moses, raising his head, and suddenly looking him
+straight in the eyes, "do you know anything of my family?"
+
+The question was so point-blank and sudden, that for a moment Mr. Sewell
+made a sort of motion as if he dodged a pistol-shot, and then his face
+assumed an expression of grave thoughtfulness, while Moses drew a long
+breath. It was out,--the question had been asked.
+
+"My son," replied Mr. Sewell, "it has always been my intention, when you
+had arrived at years of discretion, to make you acquainted with all that
+I know or suspect in regard to your life. I trust that when I tell you
+all I do know, you will see that I have acted for the best in the
+matter. It has been my study and my prayer to do so."
+
+Mr. Sewell then rose, and unlocking the cabinet, of which we have before
+made mention, in his apartment, drew forth a very yellow and time-worn
+package of papers, which he untied. From these he selected one which
+enveloped an old-fashioned miniature case.
+
+"I am going to show you," he said, "what only you and my God know that I
+possess. I have not looked at it now for ten years, but I have no doubt
+that it is the likeness of your mother."
+
+Moses took it in his hand, and for a few moments there came a mist over
+his eyes,--he could not see clearly. He walked to the window as if
+needing a clearer light.
+
+What he saw was a painting of a beautiful young girl, with large
+melancholy eyes, and a clustering abundance of black, curly hair. The
+face was of a beautiful, clear oval, with that warm brunette tint in
+which the Italian painters delight. The black eyebrows were strongly
+and clearly defined, and there was in the face an indescribable
+expression of childish innocence and shyness, mingled with a kind of
+confiding frankness, that gave the picture the charm which sometimes
+fixes itself in faces for which we involuntarily make a history. She was
+represented as simply attired in a white muslin, made low in the neck,
+and the hands and arms were singularly beautiful. The picture, as Moses
+looked at it, seemed to stand smiling at him with a childish grace,--a
+tender, ignorant innocence which affected him deeply.
+
+"My young friend," said Mr. Sewell, "I have written all that I know of
+the original of this picture, and the reasons I have for thinking her
+your mother.
+
+"You will find it all in this paper, which, if I had been providentially
+removed, was to have been given you in your twenty-first year. You will
+see in the delicate nature of the narrative that it could not properly
+have been imparted to you till you had arrived at years of
+understanding. I trust when you know all that you will be satisfied with
+the course I have pursued. You will read it at your leisure, and after
+reading I shall be happy to see you again."
+
+Moses took the package, and after exchanging salutations with Mr.
+Sewell, hastily left the house and sought his boat.
+
+When one has suddenly come into possession of a letter or paper in which
+is known to be hidden the solution of some long-pondered secret, of the
+decision of fate with regard to some long-cherished desire, who has not
+been conscious of a sort of pain,--an unwillingness at once to know what
+is therein? We turn the letter again and again, we lay it by and return
+to it, and defer from moment to moment the opening of it. So Moses did
+not sit down in the first retired spot to ponder the paper. He put it
+in the breast pocket of his coat, and then, taking up his oars, rowed
+across the bay. He did not land at the house, but passed around the
+south point of the Island, and rowed up the other side to seek a
+solitary retreat in the rocks, which had always been a favorite with him
+in his early days.
+
+The shores of the Island, as we have said, are a precipitous wall of
+rock, whose long, ribbed ledges extend far out into the sea. At high
+tide these ledges are covered with the smooth blue sea quite up to the
+precipitous shore. There was a place, however, where the rocky shore
+shelved over, forming between two ledges a sort of grotto, whose smooth
+floor of shells and many-colored pebbles was never wet by the rising
+tide. It had been the delight of Moses when a boy, to come here and
+watch the gradual rise of the tide till the grotto was entirely cut off
+from all approach, and then to look out in a sort of hermit-like
+security over the open ocean that stretched before him. Many an hour he
+had sat there and dreamed of all the possible fortunes that might be
+found for him when he should launch away into that blue smiling
+futurity.
+
+It was now about half-tide, and Moses left his boat and made his way
+over the ledge of rocks toward his retreat. They were all shaggy and
+slippery with yellow seaweeds, with here and there among them wide
+crystal pools, where purple and lilac and green mosses unfolded their
+delicate threads, and thousands of curious little shell-fish were
+tranquilly pursuing their quiet life. The rocks where the pellucid water
+lay were in some places crusted with barnacles, which were opening and
+shutting the little white scaly doors of their tiny houses, and drawing
+in and out those delicate pink plumes which seem to be their nerves of
+enjoyment. Moses and Mara had rambled and played here many hours of
+their childhood, amusing themselves with catching crabs and young
+lobsters and various little fish for these rocky aquariums, and then
+studying at their leisure their various ways. Now he had come hither a
+man, to learn the secret of his life.
+
+Moses stretched himself down on the clean pebbly shore of the grotto,
+and drew forth Mr. Sewell's letter.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI
+
+DOLORES
+
+
+Mr. Sewell's letter ran as follows:--
+
+MY DEAR YOUNG FRIEND,--It has always been my intention when you arrived
+at years of maturity to acquaint you with some circumstances which have
+given me reason to conjecture your true parentage, and to let you know
+what steps I have taken to satisfy my own mind in relation to these
+conjectures. In order to do this, it will be necessary for me to go back
+to the earlier years of my life, and give you the history of some
+incidents which are known to none of my most intimate friends. I trust I
+may rely on your honor that they will ever remain as secrets with you.
+
+I graduated from Harvard University in ----. At the time I was suffering
+somewhat from an affection of the lungs, which occasioned great alarm to
+my mother, many of whose family had died of consumption. In order to
+allay her uneasiness, and also for the purpose of raising funds for the
+pursuit of my professional studies, I accepted a position as tutor in
+the family of a wealthy gentleman at St. Augustine, in Florida.
+
+I cannot do justice to myself,--to the motives which actuated me in the
+events which took place in this family, without speaking with the most
+undisguised freedom of the character of all the parties with whom I was
+connected.
+
+Don Jose Mendoza was a Spanish gentleman of large property, who had
+emigrated from the Spanish West Indies to Florida, bringing with him an
+only daughter, who had been left an orphan by the death of her mother
+at a very early age. He brought to this country a large number of
+slaves;--and shortly after his arrival, married an American lady: a
+widow with three children. By her he had four other children. And thus
+it will appear that the family was made up of such a variety of elements
+as only the most judicious care could harmonize. But the character of
+the father and mother was such that judicious care was a thing not to be
+expected of either.
+
+Don Jose was extremely ignorant and proud, and had lived a life of the
+grossest dissipation. Habits of absolute authority in the midst of a
+community of a very low moral standard had produced in him all the worst
+vices of despots. He was cruel, overbearing, and dreadfully passionate.
+His wife was a woman who had pretensions to beauty, and at times could
+make herself agreeable, and even fascinating, but she was possessed of a
+temper quite as violent and ungoverned as his own.
+
+Imagine now two classes of slaves, the one belonging to the mistress,
+and the other brought into the country by the master, and each animated
+by a party spirit and jealousy;--imagine children of different
+marriages, inheriting from their parents violent tempers and stubborn
+wills, flattered and fawned on by slaves, and alternately petted or
+stormed at, now by this parent and now by that, and you will have some
+idea of the task which I undertook in being tutor in this family.
+
+I was young and fearless in those days, as you are now, and the
+difficulties of the position, instead of exciting apprehension, only
+awakened the spirit of enterprise and adventure.
+
+The whole arrangements of the household, to me fresh from the simplicity
+and order of New England, had a singular and wild sort of novelty which
+was attractive rather than otherwise. I was well recommended in the
+family by an influential and wealthy gentleman of Boston, who
+represented my family, as indeed it was, as among the oldest and most
+respectable of Boston, and spoke in such terms of me, personally, as I
+should not have ventured to use in relation to myself. When I arrived, I
+found that two or three tutors, who had endeavored to bear rule in this
+tempestuous family, had thrown up the command after a short trial, and
+that the parents felt some little apprehension of not being able to
+secure the services of another,--a circumstance which I did not fail to
+improve in making my preliminary arrangements. I assumed an air of grave
+hauteur, was very exacting in all my requisitions and stipulations, and
+would give no promise of doing more than to give the situation a
+temporary trial. I put on an air of supreme indifference as to my
+continuance, and acted in fact rather on the assumption that I should
+confer a favor by remaining.
+
+In this way I succeeded in obtaining at the outset a position of more
+respect and deference than had been enjoyed by any of my predecessors. I
+had a fine apartment, a servant exclusively devoted to me, a horse for
+riding, and saw myself treated among the servants as a person of
+consideration and distinction.
+
+Don Jose and his wife both had in fact a very strong desire to retain my
+services, when after the trial of a week or two, it was found that I
+really could make their discordant and turbulent children to some extent
+obedient and studious during certain portions of the day; and in fact I
+soon acquired in the whole family that ascendancy which a well-bred
+person who respects himself, and can keep his temper, must have over
+passionate and undisciplined natures.
+
+I became the receptacle of the complaints of all, and a sort of
+confidential adviser. Don Jose imparted to me with more frankness than
+good taste his chagrins with regard to his wife's indolence,
+ill-temper, and bad management, and his wife in turn omitted no
+opportunity to vent complaints against her husband for similar reasons.
+I endeavored, to the best of my ability, to act a friendly part by both.
+It never was in my nature to see anything that needed to be done without
+trying to do it, and it was impossible to work at all without becoming
+so interested in my work as to do far more than I had agreed to do. I
+assisted Don Jose about many of his affairs; brought his neglected
+accounts into order; and suggested from time to time arrangements which
+relieved the difficulties which had been brought on by disorder and
+neglect. In fact, I became, as he said, quite a necessary of life to
+him.
+
+In regard to the children, I had a more difficult task. The children of
+Don Jose by his present wife had been systematically stimulated by the
+negroes into a chronic habit of dislike and jealousy toward her children
+by a former husband. On the slightest pretext, they were constantly
+running to their father with complaints; and as the mother warmly
+espoused the cause of her first children, criminations and
+recriminations often convulsed the whole family.
+
+In ill-regulated families in that region, the care of the children is
+from the first in the hands of half-barbarized negroes, whose power of
+moulding and assimilating childish minds is peculiar, so that the
+teacher has to contend constantly with a savage element in the children
+which seems to have been drawn in with the mother's milk. It is, in a
+modified way, something the same result as if the child had formed its
+manners in Dahomey or on the coast of Guinea. In the fierce quarrels
+which were carried on between the children of this family, I had
+frequent occasion to observe this strange, savage element, which
+sometimes led to expressions and actions which would seem incredible in
+civilized society.
+
+The three children by Madame Mendoza's former husband were two girls of
+sixteen and eighteen and a boy of fourteen. The four children of the
+second marriage consisted of three boys and a daughter,--the eldest
+being not more than thirteen.
+
+The natural capacity of all the children was good, although, from
+self-will and indolence, they had grown up in a degree of ignorance
+which could not have been tolerated except in a family living an
+isolated plantation life in the midst of barbarized dependents. Savage
+and untaught and passionate as they were, the work of teaching them was
+not without its interest to me. A power of control was with me a natural
+gift; and then that command of temper which is the common attribute of
+well-trained persons in the Northern states, was something so singular
+in this family as to invest its possessor with a certain awe; and my
+calm, energetic voice, and determined manner, often acted as a charm on
+their stormy natures.
+
+But there was one member of the family of whom I have not yet
+spoken,--and yet all this letter is about her,--the daughter of Don Jose
+by his first marriage. Poor Dolores! poor child! God grant she may have
+entered into his rest!
+
+I need not describe her. You have seen her picture. And in the wild,
+rude, discordant family, she always reminded me of the words, "a lily
+among thorns." She was in her nature unlike all the rest, and, I may
+say, unlike any one I ever saw. She seemed to live a lonely kind of life
+in this disorderly household, often marked out as the object of the
+spites and petty tyrannies of both parties. She was regarded with bitter
+hatred and jealousy by Madame Mendoza, who was sure to visit her with
+unsparing bitterness and cruelty after the occasional demonstrations of
+fondness she received from her father. Her exquisite beauty and the
+gentle softness of her manners made her such a contrast to her sisters
+as constantly excited their ill-will. Unlike them all, she was
+fastidiously neat in her personal habits, and orderly in all the little
+arrangements of life.
+
+She seemed to me in this family to be like some shy, beautiful pet
+creature in the hands of rude, unappreciated owners, hunted from quarter
+to quarter, and finding rest only by stealth. Yet she seemed to have no
+perception of the harshness and cruelty with which she was treated. She
+had grown up with it; it was the habit of her life to study peaceable
+methods of averting or avoiding the various inconveniences and
+annoyances of her lot, and secure to herself a little quiet.
+
+It not unfrequently happened, amid the cabals and storms which shook the
+family, that one party or the other took up and patronized Dolores for a
+while, more, as it would appear, out of hatred for the other than any
+real love to her. At such times it was really affecting to see with what
+warmth the poor child would receive these equivocal demonstrations of
+good-will--the nearest approaches to affection which she had ever
+known--and the bitterness with which she would mourn when they were
+capriciously withdrawn again. With a heart full of affection, she
+reminded me of some delicate, climbing plant trying vainly to ascend the
+slippery side of an inhospitable wall, and throwing its neglected
+tendrils around every weed for support.
+
+Her only fast, unfailing friend was her old negro nurse, or Mammy, as
+the children called her. This old creature, with the cunning and
+subtlety which had grown up from years of servitude, watched and waited
+upon the interests of her little mistress, and contrived to carry many
+points for her in the confused household. Her young mistress was her one
+thought and purpose in living. She would have gone through fire and
+water to serve her; and this faithful, devoted heart, blind and
+ignorant though it were, was the only unfailing refuge and solace of the
+poor hunted child.
+
+Dolores, of course, became my pupil among the rest. Like the others, she
+had suffered by the neglect and interruptions in the education of the
+family, but she was intelligent and docile, and learned with a
+surprising rapidity. It was not astonishing that she should soon have
+formed an enthusiastic attachment to me, as I was the only intelligent,
+cultivated person she had ever seen, and treated her with unvarying
+consideration and delicacy. The poor thing had been so accustomed to
+barbarous words and manners that simple politeness and the usages of
+good society seemed to her cause for the most boundless gratitude.
+
+It is due to myself, in view of what follows, to say that I was from the
+first aware of the very obvious danger which lay in my path in finding
+myself brought into close and daily relations with a young creature so
+confiding, so attractive, and so singularly circumstanced. I knew that
+it would be in the highest degree dishonorable to make the slightest
+advances toward gaining from her that kind of affection which might
+interfere with her happiness in such future relations as her father
+might arrange for her. According to the European fashion, I know that
+Dolores was in her father's hands, to be disposed of for life according
+to his pleasure, as absolutely as if she had been one of his slaves. I
+had every reason to think that his plans on this subject were matured,
+and only waited for a little more teaching and training on my part, and
+her fuller development in womanhood, to be announced to her.
+
+In looking back over the past, therefore, I have not to reproach myself
+with any dishonest and dishonorable breach of trust; for I was from the
+first upon my guard, and so much so that even the jealousy my other
+scholars never accused me of partiality. I was not in the habit of
+giving very warm praise, and was in my general management anxious
+rather to be just than conciliatory, knowing that with the kind of
+spirits I had to deal with, firmness and justice went farther than
+anything else. If I approved Dolores oftener than the rest, it was seen
+to be because she never failed in a duty; if I spent more time with her
+lessons, it was because her enthusiasm for study led her to learn longer
+ones and study more things; but I am sure there was never a look or a
+word toward her that went beyond the proprieties of my position.
+
+But yet I could not so well guard my heart. I was young and full of
+feeling. She was beautiful; and more than that, there was something in
+her Spanish nature at once so warm and simple, so artless and yet so
+unconsciously poetic, that her presence was a continual charm. How well
+I remember her now,--all her little ways,--the movements of her pretty
+little hands,--the expression of her changeful face as she recited to
+me,--the grave, rapt earnestness with which she listened to all my
+instructions!
+
+I had not been with her many weeks before I felt conscious that it was
+her presence that charmed the whole house, and made the otherwise
+perplexing and distasteful details of my situation agreeable. I had a
+dim perception that this growing passion was a dangerous thing for
+myself; but was it a reason, I asked, why I should relinquish a position
+in which I felt that I was useful, and when I could do for this lovely
+child what no one else could do? I call her a child,--she always
+impressed me as such,--though she was in her sixteenth year and had the
+early womanly development of Southern climates. She seemed to me like
+something frail and precious, needing to be guarded and cared for; and
+when reason told me that I risked my own happiness in holding my
+position, love argued on the other hand that I was her only friend, and
+that I should be willing to risk something myself for the sake of
+protecting and shielding her. For there was no doubt that my presence in
+the family was a restraint upon the passions which formerly vented
+themselves so recklessly on her, and established a sort of order in
+which she found more peace than she had ever known before.
+
+For a long time in our intercourse I was in the habit of looking on
+myself as the only party in danger. It did not occur to me that this
+heart, so beautiful and so lonely, might, in the want of all natural and
+appropriate objects of attachment, fasten itself on me unsolicited, from
+the mere necessity of loving. She seemed to me so much too beautiful,
+too perfect, to belong to a lot in life like mine, that I could not
+suppose it possible this could occur without the most blameworthy
+solicitation on my part; and it is the saddest and most affecting proof
+to me how this poor child had been starved for sympathy and love, that
+she should have repaid such cold services as mine with such an entire
+devotion. At first her feelings were expressed openly toward me, with
+the dutiful air of a good child. She placed flowers on my desk in the
+morning, and made quaint little nosegays in the Spanish fashion, which
+she gave me, and busied her leisure with various ingenious little
+knick-knacks of fancy work, which she brought me. I treated them all as
+the offerings of a child while with her, but I kept them sacredly in my
+own room. To tell the truth, I have some of the poor little things now.
+
+But after a while I could not help seeing how she loved me; and then I
+felt as if I ought to go; but how could I? The pain to myself I could
+have borne; but how could I leave her to all the misery of her bleak,
+ungenial position? She, poor thing, was so unconscious of what I
+knew,--for I was made clear-sighted by love. I tried the more strictly
+to keep to the path I had marked out for myself, but I fear I did not
+always do it; in fact, many things seemed to conspire to throw us
+together. The sisters, who were sometimes invited out to visit on
+neighboring estates, were glad enough to dispense with the presence and
+attractions of Dolores, and so she was frequently left at home to study
+with me in their absence. As to Don Jose, although he always treated me
+with civility, yet he had such an ingrained and deep-rooted idea of his
+own superiority of position, that I suppose he would as soon have
+imagined the possibility of his daughter's falling in love with one of
+his horses. I was a great convenience to him. I had a knack of governing
+and carrying points in his family that it had always troubled and
+fatigued him to endeavor to arrange,--and that was all. So that my
+intercourse with Dolores was as free and unwatched, and gave me as many
+opportunities of enjoying her undisturbed society, as heart could
+desire.
+
+At last came the crisis, however. After breakfast one morning, Don Jose
+called Dolores into his library and announced to her that he had
+concluded for her a treaty of marriage, and expected her husband to
+arrive in a few days. He expected that this news would be received by
+her with the glee with which a young girl hears of a new dress or of a
+ball-ticket, and was quite confounded at the grave and mournful silence
+in which she received it. She said no word, made no opposition, but went
+out from the room and shut herself up in her own apartment, and spent
+the day in tears and sobs.
+
+Don Jose, who had rather a greater regard for Dolores than for any
+creature living, and who had confidently expected to give great delight
+by the news he had imparted, was quite confounded by this turn of
+things. If there had been one word of either expostulation or argument,
+he would have blazed and stormed in a fury of passion; but as it was,
+this broken-hearted submission, though vexatious, was perplexing. He
+sent for me, and opened his mind, and begged me to talk with Dolores
+and show her the advantages of the alliance, which the poor foolish
+child, he said, did not seem to comprehend. The man was immensely rich,
+and had a splendid estate in Cuba. It was a most desirable thing.
+
+I ventured to inquire whether his person and manners were such as would
+be pleasing to a young girl, and could gather only that he was a man of
+about fifty, who had been most of his life in the military service, and
+was now desirous of making an establishment for the repose of his latter
+days, at the head of which he would place a handsome and tractable
+woman, and do well by her.
+
+I represented that it would perhaps be safer to say no more on the
+subject until Dolores had seen him, and to this he agreed. Madame
+Mendoza was very zealous in the affair, for the sake of getting clear of
+the presence of Dolores in the family, and her sisters laughed at her
+for her dejected appearance. They only wished, they said, that so much
+luck might happen to them. For myself, I endeavored to take as little
+notice as possible of the affair, though what I felt may be conjectured.
+I knew,--I was perfectly certain,--that Dolores loved me as I loved her.
+I knew that she had one of those simple and unworldly natures which
+wealth and splendor could not satisfy, and whose life would lie entirely
+in her affections. Sometimes I violently debated with myself whether
+honor required me to sacrifice her happiness as well as my own, and I
+felt the strongest temptation to ask her to be my wife and fly with me
+to the Northern states, where I did not doubt my ability to make for her
+a humble and happy home.
+
+But the sense of honor is often stronger than all reasoning, and I felt
+that such a course would be the betrayal of a trust; and I determined at
+least to command myself till I should see the character of the man who
+was destined to be her husband.
+
+Meanwhile the whole manner of Dolores was changed. She maintained a
+stony, gloomy silence, performed all her duties in a listless way, and
+occasionally, when I commented on anything in her lessons or exercises,
+would break into little flashes of petulance, most strange and unnatural
+in her. Sometimes I could feel that she was looking at me earnestly, but
+if I turned my eyes toward her, hers were instantly averted; but there
+was in her eyes a peculiar expression at times, such as I have seen in
+the eye of a hunted animal when it turned at bay,--a sort of desperate
+resistance,--which, taken in connection with her fragile form and lovely
+face, produced a mournful impression.
+
+One morning I found Dolores sitting alone in the schoolroom, leaning her
+head on her arms. She had on her wrist a bracelet of peculiar
+workmanship, which she always wore,--the bracelet which was afterwards
+the means of confirming her identity. She sat thus some moments in
+silence, and then she raised her head and began turning this bracelet
+round and round upon her arm, while she looked fixedly before her. At
+last she spoke abruptly, and said,--
+
+"Did I ever tell you that this was _my mother's_ hair? It is my mother's
+hair,--and she was the only one that ever loved me; except poor old
+Mammy, nobody else loves me,--nobody ever will."
+
+"My dear Miss Dolores," I began.
+
+"Don't call me dear," she said; "you don't care for me,--nobody
+does,--papa doesn't, and I always loved him; everybody in the house
+wants to get rid of me, whether I like to go or not. I have always tried
+to be good and do all you wanted, and I should think _you_ might care
+for me a little, but you don't."
+
+"Dolores," I said, "I do care for you more than I do for any one in the
+world; I love you more than my own soul."
+
+These were the very words I never meant to say, but somehow they seemed
+to utter themselves against my will. She looked at me for a moment as if
+she could not believe her hearing, and then the blood flushed her face,
+and she laid her head down on her arms.
+
+At this moment Madame Mendoza and the other girls came into the room in
+a clamor of admiration about a diamond bracelet which had just arrived
+as a present from her future husband. It was a splendid thing, and had
+for its clasp his miniature, surrounded by the largest brilliants.
+
+The enthusiasm of the party even at this moment could not say anything
+in favor of the beauty of this miniature, which, though painted on
+ivory, gave the impression of a coarse-featured man, with a scar across
+one eye.
+
+"No matter for the beauty," said one of the girls, "so long as it is set
+with such diamonds."
+
+"Come, Dolores," said another, giving her the present, "pull off that
+old hair bracelet, and try this on."
+
+Dolores threw the diamond bracelet from her with a vehemence so unlike
+her gentle self as to startle every one.
+
+"I shall not take off my mother's bracelet for a gift from a man I never
+knew," she said. "I hate diamonds. I wish those who like such things
+might have them."
+
+"Was ever anything so odd?" said Madame Mendoza.
+
+"Dolores always was odd," said another of the girls; "nobody ever could
+tell what she would like."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII
+
+HIDDEN THINGS
+
+
+The next day Senor Don Guzman de Cardona arrived, and the whole house
+was in a commotion of excitement. There was to be no school, and
+everything was bustle and confusion. I passed my time in my own room in
+reflecting severely upon myself for the imprudent words by which I had
+thrown one more difficulty in the way of this poor harassed child.
+
+Dolores this day seemed perfectly passive in the hands of her mother and
+sisters, who appeared disposed to show her great attention. She allowed
+them to array her in her most becoming dress, and made no objection to
+anything except removing the bracelet from her arm. "Nobody's gifts
+should take the place of her mother's," she said, and they were obliged
+to be content with her wearing of the diamond bracelet on the other arm.
+
+Don Guzman was a large, plethoric man, with coarse features and heavy
+gait. Besides the scar I have spoken of, his face was adorned here and
+there with pimples, which were not set down in the miniature. In the
+course of the first hour's study, I saw him to be a man of much the same
+stamp as Dolores's father--sensual, tyrannical, passionate. He seemed in
+his own way to be much struck with the beauty of his intended wife, and
+was not wanting in efforts to please her. All that I could see in her
+was the settled, passive paleness of despair. She played, sang,
+exhibited her embroidery and painting, at the command of Madame Mendoza,
+with the air of an automaton; and Don Guzman remarked to her father on
+the passive obedience as a proper and hopeful trait. Once only when he,
+in presenting her a flower, took the liberty of kissing her cheek, did I
+observe the flashing of her eye and a movement of disgust and
+impatience, that she seemed scarcely able to restrain.
+
+The marriage was announced to take place the next week, and a holiday
+was declared through the house. Nothing was talked of or discussed but
+the _corbeille de mariage_ which the bridegroom had brought--the
+dresses, laces, sets of jewels, and cashmere shawls. Dolores never had
+been treated with such attention by the family in her life. She rose
+immeasurably in the eyes of all as the future possessor of such wealth
+and such an establishment as awaited her. Madame Mendoza had visions of
+future visits in Cuba rising before her mind, and overwhelmed her
+daughter-in-law with flatteries and caresses, which she received in the
+same passive silence as she did everything else.
+
+For my own part, I tried to keep entirely by myself. I remained in my
+room reading, and took my daily rides, accompanied by my servant--seeing
+Dolores only at mealtimes, when I scarcely ventured to look at her. One
+night, however, as I was walking through a lonely part of the garden,
+Dolores suddenly stepped out from the shrubbery and stood before me. It
+was bright moonlight, by which her face and person were distinctly
+shown. How well I remember her as she looked then! She was dressed in
+white muslin, as she was fond of being, but it had been torn and
+disordered by the haste with which she had come through the shrubbery.
+Her face was fearfully pale, and her great, dark eyes had an unnatural
+brightness. She laid hold on my arm.
+
+"Look here," she said, "I saw you and came down to speak with you."
+
+She panted and trembled, so that for some moments she could not speak
+another word. "I want to ask you," she gasped, after a pause, "whether I
+heard you right? Did you say"--
+
+"Yes, Dolores, you did. I did say what I had no right to say, like a
+dishonorable man."
+
+"But is it true? Are you sure it is true?" she said, scarcely seeming to
+hear my words.
+
+"God knows it is," said I despairingly.
+
+"Then why don't you save me? Why do you let them sell me to this
+dreadful man? He don't love me--he never will. Can't you take me away?"
+
+"Dolores, I am a poor man. I cannot give you any of these splendors your
+father desires for you."
+
+"Do you think I care for them? I love you more than all the world
+together. And if you do really love me, why should we not be happy with
+each other?"
+
+"Dolores," I said, with a last effort to keep calm, "I am much older
+than you, and know the world, and ought not to take advantage of your
+simplicity. You have been so accustomed to abundant wealth and all it
+can give, that you cannot form an idea of what the hardships and
+discomforts of marrying a poor man would be. You are unused to having
+the least care, or making the least exertion for yourself. All the world
+would say that I acted a very dishonorable part to take you from a
+position which offers you wealth, splendor, and ease, to one of
+comparative hardship. Perhaps some day you would think so yourself."
+
+While I was speaking, Dolores turned me toward the moonlight, and fixed
+her great dark eyes piercingly upon me, as if she wanted to read my
+soul. "Is that all?" she said; "is that the only reason?"
+
+"I do not understand you," said I.
+
+She gave me such a desolate look, and answered in a tone of utter
+dejection, "Oh, I didn't know, but perhaps _you_ might not want me. All
+the rest are so glad to sell me to anybody that will take me. But you
+really do love me, don't you?" she added, laying her hand on mine.
+
+What answer I made I cannot say. I only know that every vestige of what
+is called reason and common sense left me at that moment, and that there
+followed an hour of delirium in which I--we both were _very_ happy--we
+forgot everything but each other, and we arranged all our plans for
+flight. There was fortunately a ship lying in the harbor of St.
+Augustine, the captain of which was known to me. In course of a day or
+two passage was taken, and my effects transported on board. Nobody
+seemed to suspect us. Everything went on quietly up to the day before
+that appointed for sailing. I took my usual rides, and did everything as
+much as possible in my ordinary way, to disarm suspicion, and none
+seemed to exist. The needed preparations went gayly forward. On the day
+I mentioned, when I had ridden some distance from the house, a messenger
+came post-haste after me. It was a boy who belonged specially to
+Dolores. He gave me a little hurried note. I copy it:--
+
+    "Papa has found all out, and it is dreadful. No one else knows, and
+    he means to kill you when you come back. Do, if you love me, hurry
+    and get on board the ship. I shall never get over it, if evil comes
+    on you for my sake. I shall let them do what they please with me, if
+    God will only save _you_. I will try to be good. Perhaps if I bear
+    my trials well, he will let me die soon. That is all I ask. I love
+    you, and always shall, to death and after.
+
+    DOLORES."
+
+There was the end of it all. I escaped on the ship. I read the marriage
+in the paper. Incidentally I afterwards heard of her as living in Cuba,
+but I never saw her again till I saw her in her coffin. Sorrow and
+death had changed her so much that at first the sight of her awakened
+only a vague, painful remembrance. The sight of the hair bracelet which
+I had seen on her arm brought all back, and I felt sure that my poor
+Dolores had strangely come to sleep her last sleep near me.
+
+Immediately after I became satisfied who you were, I felt a painful
+degree of responsibility for the knowledge. I wrote at once to a friend
+of mine in the neighborhood of St. Augustine, to find out any
+particulars of the Mendoza family. I learned that its history had been
+like that of many others in that region. Don Jose had died in a bilious
+fever, brought on by excessive dissipation, and at his death the estate
+was found to be so incumbered that the whole was sold at auction. The
+slaves were scattered hither and thither to different owners, and Madame
+Mendoza, with her children and remains of fortune, had gone to live in
+New Orleans.
+
+Of Dolores he had heard but once since her marriage. A friend had
+visited Don Guzman's estates in Cuba. He was living in great splendor,
+but bore the character of a hard, cruel, tyrannical master, and an
+overbearing man. His wife was spoken of as being in very delicate
+health,--avoiding society and devoting herself to religion.
+
+I would here take occasion to say that it was understood when I went
+into the family of Don Jose, that I should not in any way interfere with
+the religious faith of the children, the family being understood to
+belong to the Roman Catholic Church. There was so little like religion
+of any kind in the family, that the idea of their belonging to any faith
+savored something of the ludicrous. In the case of poor Dolores,
+however, it was different. The earnestness of her nature would always
+have made any religious form a reality to her. In her case I was glad to
+remember that the Romish Church, amid many corruptions, preserves all
+the essential beliefs necessary for our salvation, and that many holy
+souls have gone to heaven through its doors. I therefore was only
+careful to direct her principal attention to the more spiritual parts of
+her own faith, and to dwell on the great themes which all Christian
+people hold in common.
+
+Many of my persuasion would not have felt free to do this, but my
+liberty of conscience in this respect was perfect. I have seen that if
+you break the cup out of which a soul has been used to take the wine of
+the gospel, you often spill the very wine itself. And after all, these
+forms are but shadows of which the substance is Christ.
+
+I am free to say, therefore, that the thought that your poor mother was
+devoting herself earnestly to religion, although after the forms of a
+church with which I differ, was to me a source of great consolation,
+because I knew that in that way alone could a soul like hers find peace.
+
+I have never rested from my efforts to obtain more information. A short
+time before the incident which cast you upon our shore, I conversed with
+a sea-captain who had returned from Cuba. He stated that there had been
+an attempt at insurrection among the slaves of Don Guzman, in which a
+large part of the buildings and out-houses of the estate had been
+consumed by fire. On subsequent inquiry I learned that Don Guzman had
+sold his estates and embarked for Boston with his wife and family, and
+that nothing had subsequently been heard of him.
+
+Thus, my young friend, I have told you all that I know of those singular
+circumstances which have cast your lot on our shores. I do not expect at
+your time of life you will take the same view of this event that I do.
+You may possibly--very probably will--consider it a loss not to have
+been brought up as you might have been in the splendid establishment of
+Don Guzman, and found yourself heir to wealth and pleasure without
+labor or exertion. Yet I am quite sure in that case that your value as a
+human being would have been immeasurably less. I think I have seen in
+you the elements of passions, which luxury and idleness and the too
+early possession of irresponsible power, might have developed with fatal
+results. You have simply to reflect whether you would rather be an
+energetic, intelligent, self-controlled man, capable of guiding the
+affairs of life and of acquiring its prizes,--or to be the reverse of
+all this, with its prizes bought for you by the wealth of parents. I
+hope mature reflection will teach you to regard with gratitude that
+disposition of the All-Wise, which cast your lot as it has been cast.
+
+Let me ask one thing in closing. I have written for you here many things
+most painful for me to remember, because I wanted you to love and honor
+the memory of your mother. I wanted that her memory should have
+something such a charm for you as it has for me. With me, her image has
+always stood between me and all other women; but I have never even
+intimated to a living being that such a passage in my history ever
+occurred,--no, not even to my sister, who is nearer to me than any other
+earthly creature.
+
+In some respects I am a singular person in my habits, and having once
+written this, you will pardon me if I observe that it will never be
+agreeable to me to have the subject named between us. Look upon me
+always as a friend, who would regard nothing as a hardship by which he
+might serve the son of one so dear.
+
+I have hesitated whether I ought to add one circumstance more. I think I
+will do so, trusting to your good sense not to give it any undue weight.
+
+I have never ceased making inquiries in Cuba, as I found opportunity, in
+regard to your father's property, and late investigations have led me to
+the conclusion that he left a considerable sum of money in the hands of
+a notary, whose address I have, which, if your identity could be proved,
+would come in course of law to you. I have written an account of all the
+circumstances which, in my view, identify you as the son of Don Guzman
+de Cardona, and had them properly attested in legal form.
+
+This, together with your mother's picture and the bracelet, I recommend
+you to take on your next voyage, and to see what may result from the
+attempt. How considerable the sum may be which will result from this, I
+cannot say, but as Don Guzman's fortune was very large, I am in hopes it
+may prove something worth attention.
+
+At any time you may wish to call, I will have all these things ready for
+you.
+
+    I am, with warm regard,
+            Your sincere friend,
+                  THEOPHILUS SEWELL.
+
+When Moses had finished reading this letter, he laid it down on the
+pebbles beside him, and, leaning back against a rock, looked moodily out
+to sea. The tide had washed quite up to within a short distance of his
+feet, completely isolating the little grotto where he sat from all the
+surrounding scenery, and before him, passing and repassing on the blue
+bright solitude of the sea, were silent ships, going on their wondrous
+pathless ways to unknown lands. The letter had stirred all within him
+that was dreamy and poetic: he felt somehow like a leaf torn from a
+romance, and blown strangely into the hollow of those rocks. Something
+too of ambition and pride stirred within him. He had been born an heir
+of wealth and power, little as they had done for the happiness of his
+poor mother; and when he thought he might have had these two wild horses
+which have run away with so many young men, he felt, as young men all
+do, an impetuous desire for their possession, and he thought as so many
+do, "Give them to me, and I'll risk my character,--I'll risk my
+happiness."
+
+The letter opened a future before him which was something to speculate
+upon, even though his reason told him it was uncertain, and he lay there
+dreamily piling one air-castle on another,--unsubstantial as the great
+islands of white cloud that sailed through the sky and dropped their
+shadows in the blue sea.
+
+It was late in the afternoon when he bethought him he must return home,
+and so climbing from rock to rock he swung himself upward on to the
+island, and sought the brown cottage. As he passed by the open window he
+caught a glimpse of Mara sewing. He walked softly up to look in without
+her seeing him. She was sitting with the various articles of his
+wardrobe around her, quietly and deftly mending his linen, singing soft
+snatches of an old psalm-tune.
+
+She seemed to have resumed quite naturally that quiet care of him and
+his, which she had in all the earlier years of their life. He noticed
+again her little hands,--they seemed a sort of wonder to him. Why had he
+never seen, when a boy, how pretty they were? And she had such dainty
+little ways of taking up and putting down things as she measured and
+clipped; it seemed so pleasant to have her handling his things; it was
+as if a good fairy were touching them, whose touch brought back peace.
+But then, he thought, by and by she will do all this for some one else.
+The thought made him angry. He really felt abused in anticipation. She
+was doing all this for him just in sisterly kindness, and likely as not
+thinking of somebody else whom she loved better all the time. It is
+astonishing how cool and dignified this consideration made our hero as
+he faced up to the window. He was, after all, in hopes she might blush,
+and look agitated at seeing him suddenly; but she did not. The foolish
+boy did not know the quick wits of a girl, and that all the while that
+he had supposed himself so sly, and been holding his breath to observe,
+Mara had been perfectly cognizant of his presence, and had been
+schooling herself to look as unconscious and natural as possible. So she
+did,--only saying,--
+
+"Oh, Moses, is that you? Where have you been all day?"
+
+"Oh, I went over to see Parson Sewell, and get my pastoral lecture, you
+know."
+
+"And did you stay to dinner?"
+
+"No; I came home and went rambling round the rocks, and got into our old
+cave, and never knew how the time passed."
+
+"Why, then you've had no dinner, poor boy," said Mara, rising suddenly.
+"Come in quick, you must be fed, or you'll get dangerous and eat
+somebody."
+
+"No, no, don't get anything," said Moses, "it's almost supper-time, and
+I'm not hungry."
+
+And Moses threw himself into a chair, and began abstractedly snipping a
+piece of tape with Mara's very best scissors.
+
+"If you please, sir, don't demolish that; I was going to stay one of
+your collars with it," said Mara.
+
+"Oh, hang it, I'm always in mischief among girls' things," said Moses,
+putting down the scissors and picking up a bit of white wax, which with
+equal unconsciousness, he began kneading in his hands, while he was
+dreaming over the strange contents of the morning's letter.
+
+"I hope Mr. Sewell didn't say anything to make you look so very gloomy,"
+said Mara.
+
+"Mr. Sewell?" said Moses, starting; "no, he didn't; in fact, I had a
+pleasant call there; and there was that confounded old sphinx of a Miss
+Roxy there. Why don't she die? She must be somewhere near a hundred
+years old by this time."
+
+"Never thought to ask her why she didn't die," said Mara; "but I presume
+she has the best of reasons for living."
+
+"Yes, that's so," said Moses; "every old toadstool, and burdock, and
+mullein lives and thrives and lasts; no danger of their dying."
+
+"You seem to be in a charitable frame of mind," said Mara.
+
+"Confound it all! I hate this world. If I could have my own way now,--if
+I could have just what I wanted, and do just as I please exactly, I
+might make a pretty good thing of it."
+
+"And pray what would you have?" said Mara.
+
+"Well, in the first place, riches."
+
+"In the first place?"
+
+"Yes, in the first place, I say; for money buys everything else."
+
+"Well, supposing so," said Mara, "for argument's sake, what would you
+buy with it?"
+
+"Position in society, respect, consideration,--and I'd have a splendid
+place, with everything elegant. I have ideas enough, only give me the
+means. And then I'd have a wife, of course."
+
+"And how much would you pay for her?" said Mara, looking quite cool.
+
+"I'd buy her with all the rest,--a girl that wouldn't look at _me_ as I
+am,--would take me for all the rest, you know,--that's the way of the
+world."
+
+"It is, is it?" said Mara. "I don't understand such matters much."
+
+"Yes; it's the way with all you girls," said Moses; "it's the way you'll
+marry when you do."
+
+"Don't be so fierce about it. I haven't done it yet," said Mara; "but
+now, really, I must go and set the supper-table when I have put these
+things away,"--and Mara gathered an armful of things together, and
+tripped singing upstairs, and arranged them in the drawer of Moses's
+room. "Will his wife like to do all these little things for him as I
+do?" she thought. "It's natural I should. I grew up with him, and love
+him, just as if he were my own brother,--he is all the brother I ever
+had. I love him more than anything else in the world, and this wife he
+talks about could do no more."
+
+"She don't care a pin about me," thought Moses; "it's only a habit she
+has got, and her strict notions of duty, that's all. She is housewifely
+in her instincts, and seizes all neglected linen and garments as her
+lawful prey,--she would do it just the same for her grandfather;" and
+Moses drummed moodily on the window-pane.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII
+
+A COQUETTE
+
+
+The timbers of the ship which was to carry the fortunes of our hero were
+laid by the side of Middle Bay, and all these romantic shores could
+hardly present a lovelier scene. This beautiful sheet of water separates
+Harpswell from a portion of Brunswick. Its shores are rocky and
+pine-crowned, and display the most picturesque variety of outline. Eagle
+Island, Shelter Island, and one or two smaller ones, lie on the glassy
+surface like soft clouds of green foliage pierced through by the
+steel-blue tops of arrowy pine-trees.
+
+There were a goodly number of shareholders in the projected vessel; some
+among the most substantial men in the vicinity. Zephaniah Pennel had
+invested there quite a solid sum, as had also our friend Captain
+Kittridge. Moses had placed therein the proceeds of his recent voyage,
+which enabled him to buy a certain number of shares, and he secretly
+revolved in his mind whether the sum of money left by his father might
+not enable him to buy the whole ship. Then a few prosperous voyages, and
+his fortune was made!
+
+He went into the business of building the new vessel with all the
+enthusiasm with which he used, when a boy, to plan ships and mould
+anchors. Every day he was off at early dawn in his working-clothes, and
+labored steadily among the men till evening. No matter how early he
+rose, however, he always found that a good fairy had been before him and
+prepared his dinner, daintily sometimes adding thereto a fragrant
+little bunch of flowers. But when his boat returned home at evening, he
+no longer saw her as in the days of girlhood waiting far out on the
+farthest point of rock for his return. Not that she did not watch for it
+and run out many times toward sunset; but the moment she had made out
+that it was surely he, she would run back into the house, and very
+likely find an errand in her own room, where she would be so deeply
+engaged that it would be necessary for him to call her down before she
+could make her appearance. Then she came smiling, chatty, always
+gracious, and ready to go or to come as he requested,--the very
+cheerfulest of household fairies,--but yet for all that there was a
+cobweb invisible barrier around her that for some reason or other he
+could not break over. It vexed and perplexed him, and day after day he
+determined to whistle it down,--ride over it rough-shod,--and be as free
+as he chose with this apparently soft, unresistant, airy being, who
+seemed so accessible. Why shouldn't he kiss her when he chose, and sit
+with his arm around her waist, and draw her familiarly upon his
+knee,--this little child-woman, who was as a sister to him? Why, to be
+sure? Had she ever frowned or scolded as Sally Kittridge did when he
+attempted to pass the air-line that divides man from womanhood? Not at
+all. She had neither blushed nor laughed, nor ran away. If he kissed
+her, she took it with the most matter-of-fact composure; if he passed
+his arm around her, she let it remain with unmoved calmness; and so
+somehow he did these things less and less, and wondered why.
+
+The fact is, our hero had begun an experiment with his little friend
+that we would never advise a young man to try on one of these intense,
+quiet, soft-seeming women, whose whole life is inward. He had determined
+to find out whether she loved him before he committed himself to her;
+and the strength of a whole book of martyrs is in women to endure and
+to bear without flinching before they will surrender the gate of this
+citadel of silence. Moreover, our hero had begun his siege with
+precisely the worst weapons.
+
+For on the night that he returned and found Mara conversing with a
+stranger, the suspicion arose in his mind that somehow Mara might be
+particularly interested in him, and instead of asking her, which anybody
+might consider the most feasible step in the case, he asked Sally
+Kittridge.
+
+Sally's inborn, inherent love of teasing was up in a moment. Did she
+know anything of that Mr. Adams? Of course she did,--a young lawyer of
+one of the best Boston families,--a splendid fellow; she wished any such
+luck might happen to her! Was Mara engaged to him? What would he give to
+know? Why didn't he ask Mara? Did he expect her to reveal her friend's
+secrets? Well, she shouldn't,--report said Mr. Adams was well-to-do in
+the world, and had expectations from an uncle,--and didn't Moses think
+he was interesting in conversation? Everybody said what a conquest it
+was for an Orr's Island girl, etc., etc. And Sally said the rest with
+many a malicious toss and wink and sly twinkle of the dimples of her
+cheek, which might mean more or less, as a young man of imaginative
+temperament was disposed to view it. Now this was all done in pure
+simple love of teasing. We incline to think phrenologists have as yet
+been very incomplete in their classification of faculties, or they would
+have appointed a separate organ for this propensity of human nature.
+Certain persons, often the most kind-hearted in the world, and who would
+not give pain in any serious matter, seem to have an insatiable appetite
+for those small annoyances we commonly denominate teasing,--and Sally
+was one of this number.
+
+She diverted herself infinitely in playing upon the excitability of
+Moses,--in awaking his curiosity, and baffling it, and tormenting him
+with a whole phantasmagoria of suggestions and assertions, which played
+along so near the line of probability, that one could never tell which
+might be fancy and which might be fact.
+
+Moses therefore pursued the line of tactics for such cases made and
+provided, and strove to awaken jealousy in Mara by paying marked and
+violent attentions to Sally. He went there evening after evening,
+leaving Mara to sit alone at home. He made secrets with her, and alluded
+to them before Mara. He proposed calling his new vessel the Sally
+Kittridge; but whether all these things made Mara jealous or not, he
+could never determine. Mara had no peculiar gift for acting, except in
+this one point; but here all the vitality of nature rallied to her
+support, and enabled her to preserve an air of the most unperceiving
+serenity. If she shed any tears when she spent a long, lonesome evening,
+she was quite particular to be looking in a very placid frame when Moses
+returned, and to give such an account of the books, or the work, or
+paintings which had interested her, that Moses was sure to be vexed.
+Never were her inquiries for Sally more cordial,--never did she seem
+inspired by a more ardent affection for her.
+
+Whatever may have been the result of this state of things in regard to
+Mara, it is certain that Moses succeeded in convincing the common fame
+of that district that he and Sally were destined for each other, and the
+thing was regularly discussed at quilting frolics and tea-drinkings
+around, much to Miss Emily's disgust and Aunt Roxy's grave satisfaction,
+who declared that "Mara was altogether too good for Moses Pennel, but
+Sally Kittridge would make him stand round,"--by which expression she
+was understood to intimate that Sally had in her the rudiments of the
+same kind of domestic discipline which had operated so favorably in the
+case of Captain Kittridge.
+
+These things, of course, had come to Mara's ears. She had overheard the
+discussions on Sunday noons as the people between meetings sat over
+their doughnuts and cheese, and analyzed their neighbors' affairs, and
+she seemed to smile at them all. Sally only laughed, and declared that
+it was no such thing; that she would no more marry Moses Pennel, or any
+other fellow, than she would put her head into the fire. What did she
+want of any of them? She knew too much to get married,--that she did.
+She was going to have her liberty for one while yet to come, etc., etc.;
+but all these assertions were of course supposed to mean nothing but the
+usual declarations in such cases. Mara among the rest thought it quite
+likely that this thing was yet to be.
+
+So she struggled and tried to reason down a pain which constantly ached
+in her heart when she thought of this. She ought to have foreseen that
+it must some time end in this way. Of course she must have known that
+Moses would some time choose a wife; and how fortunate that, instead of
+a stranger, he had chosen her most intimate friend. Sally was careless
+and thoughtless, to be sure, but she had a good generous heart at the
+bottom, and she hoped she would love Moses at least as well as _she_
+did, and then she would always live with them, and think of any little
+things that Sally might forget.
+
+After all, Sally was so much more capable and efficient a person than
+herself,--so much more bustling and energetic, she would make altogether
+a better housekeeper, and doubtless a better wife for Moses. But then it
+was so hard that he did not tell her about it. Was she not his
+sister?--his confidant for all his childhood?--and why should he shut up
+his heart from her now? But then she must guard herself from being
+jealous,--that would be mean and wicked. So Mara, in her zeal of
+self-discipline, pushed on matters; invited Sally to tea to meet Moses;
+and when she came, left them alone together while she busied herself in
+hospitable cares. She sent Moses with errands and commissions to Sally,
+which he was sure to improve into protracted visits; and in short, no
+young match-maker ever showed more good-will to forward the union of two
+chosen friends than Mara showed to unite Moses and Sally.
+
+So the flirtation went on all summer, like a ship under full sail, with
+prosperous breezes; and Mara, in the many hours that her two best
+friends were together, tried heroically to persuade herself that she was
+not unhappy. She said to herself constantly that she never had loved
+Moses other than as a brother, and repeated and dwelt upon the fact to
+her own mind with a pertinacity which might have led her to suspect the
+reality of the fact, had she had experience enough to look closer. True,
+it was rather lonely, she said, but that she was used to,--she always
+had been and always should be. Nobody would ever love her in return as
+she loved; which sentence she did not analyze very closely, or she might
+have remembered Mr. Adams and one or two others, who had professed more
+for her than she had found herself able to return. That general
+proposition about nobody is commonly found, if sifted to the bottom, to
+have specific relation to somebody whose name never appears in the
+record.
+
+Nobody could have conjectured from Mara's calm, gentle cheerfulness of
+demeanor, that any sorrow lay at the bottom of her heart; she would not
+have owned it to herself.
+
+There are griefs which grow with years, which have no marked
+beginnings,--no especial dates; they are not events, but slow
+perceptions of disappointment, which bear down on the heart with a
+constant and equable pressure like the weight of the atmosphere, and
+these things are never named or counted in words among life's sorrows;
+yet through them, as through an unsuspected inward wound, life, energy,
+and vigor slowly bleed away, and the persons, never owning even to
+themselves the weight of the pressure,--standing, to all appearance,
+fair and cheerful, are still undermined with a secret wear of this inner
+current, and ready to fall with the first external pressure.
+
+There are persons often brought into near contact by the relations of
+life, and bound to each other by a love so close, that they are
+perfectly indispensable to each other, who yet act upon each other as a
+file upon a diamond, by a slow and gradual friction, the pain of which
+is so equable, so constantly diffused through life, as scarcely ever at
+any time to force itself upon the mind as a reality.
+
+Such had been the history of the affection of Mara for Moses. It had
+been a deep, inward, concentrated passion that had almost absorbed
+self-consciousness, and made her keenly alive to all the moody,
+restless, passionate changes of his nature; it had brought with it that
+craving for sympathy and return which such love ever will, and yet it
+was fixed upon a nature so different and so uncomprehending that the
+action had for years been one of pain more than pleasure. Even now, when
+she had him at home with her and busied herself with constant cares for
+him, there was a sort of disturbing, unquiet element in the history of
+every day. The longing for him to come home at night,--the wish that he
+would stay with her,--the uncertainty whether he would or would not go
+and spend the evening with Sally,--the musing during the day over all
+that he had done and said the day before, were a constant interior
+excitement. For Moses, besides being in his moods quite variable and
+changeable, had also a good deal of the dramatic element in him, and put
+on sundry appearances in the way of experiment.
+
+He would feign to have quarreled with Sally, that he might detect
+whether Mara would betray some gladness; but she only evinced concern
+and a desire to make up the difficulty. He would discuss her character
+and her fitness to make a man happy in matrimony in the style that
+young gentlemen use who think their happiness a point of great
+consequence in the creation; and Mara, always cool, and firm, and
+sensible, would talk with him in the most maternal style possible, and
+caution him against trifling with her affections. Then again he would be
+lavish in his praise of Sally's beauty, vivacity, and energy, and Mara
+would join with the most apparently unaffected delight. Sometimes he
+ventured, on the other side, to rally her on some future husband, and
+predict the days when all the attentions which she was daily bestowing
+on him would be for another; and here, as everywhere else, he found his
+little Sphinx perfectly inscrutable. Instinct teaches the grass-bird,
+who hides her eggs under long meadow grass, to creep timidly yards from
+the nest, and then fly up boldly in the wrong place; and a like instinct
+teaches shy girls all kinds of unconscious stratagems when the one
+secret of their life is approached. They may be as truthful in all other
+things as the strictest Puritan, but here they deceive by an infallible
+necessity. And meanwhile, where was Sally Kittridge in all this matter?
+Was her heart in the least touched by the black eyes and long lashes?
+Who can say? Had she a heart? Well, Sally was a good girl. When one got
+sufficiently far down through the foam and froth of the surface to find
+what was in the depths of her nature, there was abundance there of good
+womanly feeling, generous and strong, if one could but get at it.
+
+She was the best and brightest of daughters to the old Captain, whose
+accounts she kept, whose clothes she mended, whose dinner she often
+dressed and carried to him, from loving choice; and Mrs. Kittridge
+regarded her housewifely accomplishments with pride, though she never
+spoke to her otherwise than in words of criticism and rebuke, as in her
+view an honest mother should who means to keep a flourishing sprig of a
+daughter within limits of a proper humility.
+
+But as for any sentiment or love toward any person of the other sex,
+Sally, as yet, had it not. Her numerous admirers were only so many
+subjects for the exercise of her dear delight of teasing, and Moses
+Pennel, the last and most considerable, differed from the rest only in
+the fact that he was a match for her in this redoubtable art and
+science, and this made the game she was playing with him altogether more
+stimulating than that she had carried on with any other of her admirers.
+For Moses could sulk and storm for effect, and clear off as bright as
+Harpswell Bay after a thunder-storm--for effect also. Moses could play
+jealous, and make believe all those thousand-and-one shadowy nothings
+that coquettes, male and female, get up to carry their points with; and
+so their quarrels and their makings-up were as manifold as the
+sea-breezes that ruffled the ocean before the Captain's door.
+
+There is but one danger in play of this kind, and that is, that deep
+down in the breast of every slippery, frothy, elfish Undine sleeps the
+germ of an unawakened soul, which suddenly, in the course of some such
+trafficking with the outward shows and seemings of affection, may wake
+up and make of the teasing, tricksy elf a sad and earnest woman--a
+creature of loves and self-denials and faithfulness unto death--in
+short, something altogether too good, too sacred to be trifled with; and
+when a man enters the game protected by a previous attachment which
+absorbs all his nature, and the woman awakes in all her depth and
+strength to feel the real meaning of love and life, she finds that she
+has played with one stronger than she, at a terrible disadvantage.
+
+Is this mine lying dark and evil under the saucy little feet of our
+Sally? Well, we should not of course be surprised some day to find it
+so.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX
+
+NIGHT TALKS
+
+
+October is come, and among the black glooms of the pine forests flare
+out the scarlet branches of the rock-maple, and the beech-groves are all
+arrayed in gold, through which the sunlight streams in subdued richness.
+October is come with long, bright, hazy days, swathing in purple mists
+the rainbow brightness of the forests, and blending the otherwise gaudy
+and flaunting colors into wondrous harmonies of splendor. And Moses
+Pennel's ship is all built and ready, waiting only a favorable day for
+her launching.
+
+And just at this moment Moses is sauntering home from Captain
+Kittridge's in company with Sally, for Mara has sent him to bring her to
+tea with them. Moses is in high spirits; everything has succeeded to his
+wishes; and as the two walk along the high, bold, rocky shore, his eye
+glances out to the open ocean, where the sun is setting, and the fresh
+wind blowing, and the white sails flying, and already fancies himself a
+sea-king, commanding his own place, and going from land to land.
+
+"There hasn't been a more beautiful ship built here these twenty years,"
+he says, in triumph.
+
+"Oho, Mr. Conceit," said Sally, "that's only because it's yours
+now--your geese are all swans. I wish you could have seen the Typhoon,
+that Ben Drummond sailed in--a real handsome fellow he was. What a pity
+there aren't more like him!"
+
+"I don't enter on the merits of Ben Drummond's beauty," said Moses; "but
+I don't believe the Typhoon was one whit superior to our ship. Besides,
+Miss Sally, I thought you were going to take it under your especial
+patronage, and let me honor it with your name."
+
+"How absurd you always will be talking about that--why don't you call it
+after Mara?"
+
+"After Mara?" said Moses. "I don't want to--it wouldn't be
+appropriate--one wants a different kind of girl to name a ship
+after--something bold and bright and dashing!"
+
+"Thank you, sir, but I prefer not to have my bold and dashing qualities
+immortalized in this way," said Sally; "besides, sir, how do I know that
+you wouldn't run me on a rock the very first thing? When I give my name
+to a ship, it must have an experienced commander," she added,
+maliciously, for she knew that Moses was specially vulnerable on this
+point.
+
+"As you please," said Moses, with heightened color. "Allow me to remark
+that he who shall ever undertake to command the 'Sally Kittridge' will
+have need of all his experience--and then, perhaps, not be able to know
+the ways of the craft."
+
+"See him now," said Sally, with a malicious laugh; "we are getting
+wrathy, are we?"
+
+"Not I," said Moses; "it would cost altogether too much exertion to get
+angry at every teasing thing you choose to say, Miss Sally. By and by I
+shall be gone, and then won't your conscience trouble you?"
+
+"My conscience is all easy, so far as you are concerned, sir; your
+self-esteem is too deep-rooted to suffer much from my poor little
+nips--they produce no more impression than a cat-bird pecking at the
+cones of that spruce-tree yonder. Now don't you put your hand where your
+heart is supposed to be--there's nobody at home there, you know. There's
+Mara coming to meet us;" and Sally bounded forward to meet Mara with all
+those demonstrations of extreme delight which young girls are fond of
+showering on each other.
+
+"It's such a beautiful evening," said Mara, "and we are all in such good
+spirits about Moses's ship, and I told him you must come down and hold
+counsel with us as to what was to be done about the launching; and the
+name, you know, that is to be decided on--are you going to let it be
+called after you?"
+
+"Not I, indeed. I should always be reading in the papers of horrible
+accidents that had happened to the 'Sally Kittridge.'"
+
+"Sally has so set her heart on my being unlucky," said Moses, "that I
+believe if I make a prosperous voyage, the disappointment would injure
+her health."
+
+"She doesn't mean what she says," said Mara; "but I think there are some
+objections in a young lady's name being given to a ship."
+
+"Then I suppose, Mara," said Moses, "that you would not have yours
+either?"
+
+"I would be glad to accommodate you in anything _but_ that," said Mara,
+quietly; but she added, "Why need the ship be named for anybody? A ship
+is such a beautiful, graceful thing, it should have a fancy name."
+
+"Well, suggest one," said Moses.
+
+"Don't you remember," said Mara, "one Saturday afternoon, when you and
+Sally and I launched your little ship down in the cove after you had
+come from your first voyage at the Banks?"
+
+"I do," said Sally. "We called that the Ariel, Mara, after that old torn
+play you were so fond of. That's a pretty name for a ship."
+
+"Why not take that?" said Mara.
+
+"I bow to the decree," said Moses. "The Ariel it shall be."
+
+"Yes; and you remember," said Sally, "Mr. Moses here promised at that
+time that he would build a ship, and take us two round the world with
+him."
+
+Moses's eyes fell upon Mara as Sally said these words with a sort of
+sudden earnestness of expression which struck her. He was really feeling
+very much about something, under all the bantering disguise of his
+demeanor, she said to herself. Could it be that he felt unhappy about
+his prospects with Sally? That careless liveliness of hers might wound
+him perhaps now, when he felt that he was soon to leave her.
+
+Mara was conscious herself of a deep undercurrent of sadness as the time
+approached for the ship to sail that should carry Moses from her, and
+she could not but think some such feeling must possess her mind. In vain
+she looked into Sally's great Spanish eyes for any signs of a lurking
+softness or tenderness concealed under her sparkling vivacity. Sally's
+eyes were admirable windows of exactly the right size and color for an
+earnest, tender spirit to look out of, but just now there was nobody at
+the casement but a slippery elf peering out in tricksy defiance.
+
+When the three arrived at the house, tea was waiting on the table for
+them. Mara fancied that Moses looked sad and preoccupied as they sat
+down to the tea-table, which Mrs. Pennel had set forth festively, with
+the best china and the finest tablecloth and the choicest sweetmeats. In
+fact, Moses did feel that sort of tumult and upheaving of the soul which
+a young man experiences when the great crisis comes which is to plunge
+him into the struggles of manhood. It is a time when he wants sympathy
+and is grated upon by uncomprehending merriment, and therefore his
+answers to Sally grew brief and even harsh at times, and Mara sometimes
+perceived him looking at herself with a singular fixedness of
+expression, though he withdrew his eyes whenever she turned hers to look
+on him. Like many another little woman, she had fixed a theory about
+her friends, into which she was steadily interweaving all the facts she
+saw. Sally _must_ love Moses, because she had known her from childhood
+as a good and affectionate girl, and it was impossible that she could
+have been going on with Moses as she had for the last six months without
+loving him. She must evidently have seen that he cared for her; and in
+how many ways had she shown that she liked his society and him! But then
+evidently she did not understand him, and Mara felt a little womanly
+self-pluming on the thought that _she_ knew him so much better. She was
+resolved that she would talk with Sally about it, and show her that she
+was disappointing Moses and hurting his feelings. Yes, she said to
+herself, Sally has a kind heart, and her coquettish desire to conceal
+from him the extent of her affection ought now to give way to the
+outspoken tenderness of real love.
+
+So Mara pressed Sally with the old-times request to stay and sleep with
+her; for these two, the only young girls in so lonely a neighborhood,
+had no means of excitement or dissipation beyond this occasional
+sleeping together--by which is meant, of course, lying awake all night
+talking.
+
+When they were alone together in their chamber, Sally let down her long
+black hair, and stood with her back to Mara brushing it. Mara sat
+looking out of the window, where the moon was making a wide sheet of
+silver-sparkling water. Everything was so quiet that the restless dash
+of the tide could be plainly heard. Sally was rattling away with her
+usual gayety.
+
+"And so the launching is to come off next Thursday. What shall you
+wear?"
+
+"I'm sure I haven't thought," said Mara.
+
+"Well, I shall try and finish my blue merino for the occasion. What fun
+it will be! I never was on a ship when it was launched, and I think it
+will be something perfectly splendid!"
+
+"But doesn't it sometimes seem sad to think that after all this Moses
+will leave us to be gone so long?"
+
+"What do I care?" said Sally, tossing back her long hair as she brushed
+it, and then stopping to examine one of her eyelashes.
+
+"Sally dear, you often speak in that way," said Mara, "but really and
+seriously, you do yourself great injustice. You could not certainly have
+been going on as you have these six months past with a man you did not
+care for."
+
+"Well, I do care for him, 'sort o','" said Sally; "but is that any
+reason I should break my heart for his going?--that's too much for any
+man."
+
+"But, Sally, you _must_ know that Moses loves you."
+
+"I'm not so sure," said Sally, freakishly tossing her head and laughing.
+
+"If he did not," said Mara, "why has he sought you so much, and taken
+every opportunity to be with you? I'm sure I've been left here alone
+hour after hour, when my only comfort was that it was because my two
+best friends loved each other, as I know they must some time love some
+one better than they do me."
+
+The most practiced self-control must fail some time, and Mara's voice
+faltered on these last words, and she put her hands over her eyes. Sally
+turned quickly and looked at her, then giving her hair a sudden fold
+round her shoulders, and running to her friend, she kneeled down on the
+floor by her, and put her arms round her waist, and looked up into her
+face with an air of more gravity than she commonly used.
+
+"Now, Mara, what a wicked, inconsistent fool I have been! Did you feel
+lonesome?--did you care? I ought to have seen that; but I'm selfish, I
+love admiration, and I love to have some one to flatter me, and run
+after me; and so I've been going on and on in this silly way. But I
+didn't know you cared--indeed, I didn't--you are such a deep little
+thing. Nobody can ever tell what you feel. I never shall forgive myself,
+if you have been lonesome, for you are worth five hundred times as much
+as I am. You really do love Moses. I don't."
+
+"I do love him as a dear brother," said Mara.
+
+"Dear fiddlestick," said Sally. "Love is love; and when a person loves
+all she can, it isn't much use to talk so. I've been a wicked sinner,
+that I have. Love? Do you suppose I would bear with Moses Pennel all his
+ins and outs and ups and downs, and be always putting him before myself
+in everything, as you do? No, I couldn't; I haven't it in me; but you
+have. He's a sinner, too, and deserves to get me for a wife. But, Mara,
+I have tormented him well--there's some comfort in that."
+
+"It's no comfort to me," said Mara. "I see his heart is set on you--the
+happiness of his life depends on you--and that he is pained and hurt
+when you give him only cold, trifling words when he needs real true
+love. It is a serious thing, dear, to have a strong man set his whole
+heart on you. It will do him a great good or a great evil, and you ought
+not to make light of it."
+
+"Oh, pshaw, Mara, you don't know these fellows; they are only playing
+games with us. If they once catch us, they have no mercy; and for one
+here's a child that isn't going to be caught. I can see plain enough
+that Moses Pennel has been trying to get me in love with him, but he
+doesn't love me. No, he doesn't," said Sally, reflectively. "He only
+wants to make a conquest of me, and I'm just the same. I want to make a
+conquest of him,--at least I have been wanting to,--but now I see it's a
+false, wicked kind of way to do as we've been doing."
+
+"And is it really possible, Sally, that you don't love him?" said Mara,
+her large, serious eyes looking into Sally's. "What! be with him so
+much,--seem to like him so much,--look at him as I have seen you
+do,--and not love him!"
+
+"I can't help my eyes; they will look so," said Sally, hiding her face
+in Mara's lap with a sort of coquettish consciousness. "I tell you I've
+been silly and wicked; but he's just the same exactly."
+
+"And you have worn his ring all summer?"
+
+"Yes, and he has worn mine; and I have a lock of his hair, and he has a
+lock of mine; yet I don't believe he cares for them a bit. Oh, his heart
+is safe enough. If he has any, it isn't with me: that I know."
+
+"But if you found it were, Sally? Suppose you found that, after all, you
+were the one love and hope of his life; that all he was doing and
+thinking was for you; that he was laboring, and toiling, and leaving
+home, so that he might some day offer you a heart and home, and be your
+best friend for life? Perhaps he dares not tell you how he really does
+feel."
+
+"It's no such thing! it's no such thing!" said Sally, lifting up her
+head, with her eyes full of tears, which she dashed angrily away. "What
+am I crying for? I hate him. I'm glad he's going away. Lately it has
+been such a trouble to me to have things go on so. I'm really getting to
+dislike him. You are the one he ought to love. Perhaps all this time you
+are the one he does love," said Sally, with a sudden energy, as if a new
+thought had dawned in her mind.
+
+"Oh, no; he does not even love me as he once did, when we were
+children," said Mara. "He is so shut up in himself, so reserved, I know
+nothing about what passes in his heart."
+
+"No more does anybody," said Sally. "Moses Pennel isn't one that says
+and does things straightforward because he feels so; but he says and
+does them to see what _you_ will do. That's his way. Nobody knows why he
+has been going on with me as he has. He has had his own reasons,
+doubtless, as I have had mine."
+
+"He has admired you very much, Sally," said Mara, "and praised you to me
+very warmly. He thinks you are so handsome. I could tell you ever so
+many things he has said about you. He knows as I do that you are a more
+enterprising, practical sort of body than I am, too. Everybody thinks
+you are engaged. I have heard it spoken of everywhere."
+
+"Everybody is mistaken, then, as usual," said Sally. "Perhaps Aunt Roxy
+was in the right of it when she said that Moses would never be in love
+with anybody but himself."
+
+"Aunt Roxy has always been prejudiced and unjust to Moses," said Mara,
+her cheeks flushing. "She never liked him from a child, and she never
+can be made to see anything good in him. I know that he has a deep
+heart,--a nature that craves affection and sympathy; and it is only
+because he is so sensitive that he is so reserved and conceals his
+feelings so much. He has a noble, kind heart, and I believe he truly
+loves you, Sally; it must be so."
+
+Sally rose from the floor and went on arranging her hair without
+speaking. Something seemed to disturb her mind. She bit her lip, and
+threw down the brush and comb violently. In the clear depths of the
+little square of looking-glass a face looked into hers, whose eyes were
+perturbed as if with the shadows of some coming inward storm; the black
+brows were knit, and the lips quivered. She drew a long breath and burst
+out into a loud laugh.
+
+"What _are_ you laughing at now?" said Mara, who stood in her white
+night-dress by the window, with her hair falling in golden waves about
+her face.
+
+"Oh, because these fellows are so funny," said Sally; "it's such fun to
+see their actions. Come now," she added, turning to Mara, "don't look so
+grave and sanctified. It's better to laugh than cry about things, any
+time. It's a great deal better to be made hard-hearted like me, and not
+care for anybody, than to be like you, for instance. The idea of any
+one's being in love is the drollest thing to me. I haven't the least
+idea how it feels. I wonder if I ever shall be in love!"
+
+"It will come to you in its time, Sally."
+
+"Oh, yes,--I suppose like the chicken-pox or the whooping cough," said
+Sally; "one of the things to be gone through with, and rather
+disagreeable while it lasts,--so I hope to put it off as long as
+possible."
+
+"Well, come," said Mara, "we must not sit up all night."
+
+After the two girls were nestled into bed and the light out, instead of
+the brisk chatter there fell a great silence between them. The full
+round moon cast the reflection of the window on the white bed, and the
+ever restless moan of the sea became more audible in the fixed
+stillness. The two faces, both young and fair, yet so different in their
+expression, lay each still on its pillow,--their wide-open eyes gleaming
+out in the shadow like mystical gems. Each was breathing softly, as if
+afraid of disturbing the other. At last Sally gave an impatient
+movement.
+
+"How lonesome the sea sounds in the night," she said. "I wish it would
+ever be still."
+
+"I like to hear it," said Mara. "When I was in Boston, for a while I
+thought I could not sleep, I used to miss it so much."
+
+There was another silence, which lasted so long that each girl thought
+the other asleep, and moved softly, but at a restless movement from
+Sally, Mara spoke again.
+
+"Sally,--you asleep?"
+
+"No,--I thought you were."
+
+"I wanted to ask you," said Mara, "did Moses ever say anything to you
+about me?--you know I told you how much he said about you."
+
+"Yes; he asked me once if you were engaged to Mr. Adams."
+
+"And what did you tell him?" said Mara, with increasing interest.
+
+"Well, I only plagued him. I sometimes made him think you were, and
+sometimes that you were not; and then again, that there was a deep
+mystery in hand. But I praised and glorified Mr. Adams, and told him
+what a splendid match it would be, and put on any little bits of
+embroidery here and there that I could lay hands on. I used to make him
+sulky and gloomy for a whole evening sometimes. In that way it was one
+of the best weapons I had."
+
+"Sally, what does make you love to tease people so?" said Mara.
+
+"Why, you know the hymn says,--
+
+    'Let dogs delight to bark and bite,
+      For God hath made them so;
+    Let bears and lions growl and fight,
+      For 'tis their nature too.'
+
+That's all the account I can give of it."
+
+"But," said Mara, "I never can rest easy a moment when I see I am making
+a person uncomfortable."
+
+"Well, I don't tease anybody but the men. I don't tease father or mother
+or you,--but men are fair game; they are such thumby, blundering
+creatures, and we can confuse them so."
+
+"Take care, Sally, it's playing with edge tools; you may lose your heart
+some day in this kind of game."
+
+"Never you fear," said Sally; "but aren't you sleepy?--let's go to
+sleep."
+
+Both girls turned their faces resolutely in opposite directions, and
+remained for an hour with their large eyes looking out into the moonlit
+chamber, like the fixed stars over Harpswell Bay. At last sleep drew
+softly down the fringy curtains.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX
+
+THE LAUNCH OF THE ARIEL
+
+
+In the plain, simple regions we are describing,--where the sea is the
+great avenue of active life, and the pine forests are the great source
+of wealth,--ship-building is an engrossing interest, and there is no
+fete that calls forth the community like the launching of a vessel. And
+no wonder; for what is there belonging to this workaday world of ours
+that has such a never-failing fund of poetry and grace as a ship? A ship
+is a beauty and a mystery wherever we see it: its white wings touch the
+regions of the unknown and the imaginative; they seem to us full of the
+odors of quaint, strange, foreign shores, where life, we fondly dream,
+moves in brighter currents than the muddy, tranquil tides of every day.
+
+Who that sees one bound outward, with her white breasts swelling and
+heaving, as if with a reaching expectancy, does not feel his own heart
+swell with a longing impulse to go with her to the far-off shores? Even
+at dingy, crowded wharves, amid the stir and tumult of great cities, the
+coming in of a ship is an event that never can lose its interest. But on
+these romantic shores of Maine, where all is so wild and still, and the
+blue sea lies embraced in the arms of dark, solitary forests, the sudden
+incoming of a ship from a distant voyage is a sort of romance. Who that
+has stood by the blue waters of Middle Bay, engirdled as it is by soft
+slopes of green farming land, interchanged here and there with heavy
+billows of forest-trees, or rocky, pine-crowned promontories, has not
+felt that sense of seclusion and solitude which is so delightful? And
+then what a wonder! There comes a ship from China, drifting in like a
+white cloud,--the gallant creature! how the waters hiss and foam before
+her! with what a great free, generous plash she throws out her anchors,
+as if she said a cheerful "Well done!" to some glorious work
+accomplished! The very life and spirit of strange romantic lands come
+with her; suggestions of sandal-wood and spice breathe through the
+pine-woods; she is an oriental queen, with hands full of mystical gifts;
+"all her garments smell of myrrh and cassia, out of the ivory palaces,
+whereby they have made her glad." No wonder men have loved ships like
+birds, and that there have been found brave, rough hearts that in fatal
+wrecks chose rather to go down with their ocean love than to leave her
+in the last throes of her death-agony.
+
+A ship-building, a ship-sailing community has an unconscious poetry ever
+underlying its existence. Exotic ideas from foreign lands relieve the
+trite monotony of life; the ship-owner lives in communion with the whole
+world, and is less likely to fall into the petty commonplaces that
+infest the routine of inland life.
+
+Never arose a clearer or lovelier October morning than that which was to
+start the Ariel on her watery pilgrimage. Moses had risen while the
+stars were yet twinkling over their own images in Middle Bay, to go down
+and see that everything was right; and in all the houses that we know in
+the vicinity, everybody woke with the one thought of being ready to go
+to the launching.
+
+Mrs. Pennel and Mara were also up by starlight, busy over the provisions
+for the ample cold collation that was to be spread in a barn adjoining
+the scene,--the materials for which they were packing into baskets
+covered with nice clean linen cloths, ready for the little sail-boat
+which lay within a stone's throw of the door in the brightening dawn,
+her white sails looking rosy in the advancing light.
+
+It had been agreed that the Pennels and the Kittridges should cross
+together in this boat with their contributions of good cheer.
+
+The Kittridges, too, had been astir with the dawn, intent on their quota
+of the festive preparations, in which Dame Kittridge's housewifely
+reputation was involved,--for it had been a disputed point in the
+neighborhood whether she or Mrs. Pennel made the best doughnuts; and of
+course, with this fact before her mind, her efforts in this line had
+been all but superhuman.
+
+The Captain skipped in and out in high feather,--occasionally pinching
+Sally's cheek, and asking if she were going as captain or mate upon the
+vessel after it was launched, for which he got in return a fillip of his
+sleeve or a sly twitch of his coat-tails, for Sally and her old father
+were on romping terms with each other from early childhood, a thing
+which drew frequent lectures from the always exhorting Mrs. Kittridge.
+
+"Such levity!" she said, as she saw Sally in full chase after his
+retreating figure, in order to be revenged for some sly allusions he had
+whispered in her ear.
+
+"Sally Kittridge! Sally Kittridge!" she called, "come back this minute.
+What are you about? I should think your father was old enough to know
+better."
+
+"Lawful sakes, Polly, it kind o' renews one's youth to get a new ship
+done," said the Captain, skipping in at another door. "Sort o' puts me
+in mind o' that _I_ went out cap'en in when I was jist beginning to
+court you, as somebody else is courtin' our Sally here."
+
+"Now, father," said Sally, threateningly, "what did I tell you?"
+
+"It's really _lemancholy_," said the Captain, "to think how it does
+distress gals to talk to 'em 'bout the fellers, when they ain't thinkin'
+o' nothin' else all the time. They can't even laugh without sayin'
+he-he-he!"
+
+"Now, father, you know I've told you five hundred times that I don't
+care a cent for Moses Pennel,--that he's a hateful creature," said
+Sally, looking very red and determined.
+
+"Yes, yes," said the Captain, "I take that ar's the reason you've ben
+a-wearin' the ring he gin you and them ribbins you've got on your neck
+this blessed minute, and why you've giggled off to singin'-school, and
+Lord knows where with him all summer,--that ar's clear now."
+
+"But, father," said Sally, getting redder and more earnest, "I don't
+care for him really, and I've told him so. I keep telling him so, and he
+will run after me."
+
+"Haw! haw!" laughed the Captain; "he will, will he? Jist so, Sally; that
+ar's jist the way your ma there talked to me, and it kind o' 'couraged
+me along. I knew that gals always has to be read back'ard jist like the
+writin' in the Barbary States."
+
+"Captain Kittridge, will you stop such ridiculous talk?" said his
+helpmeet; "and jist carry this 'ere basket of cold chicken down to the
+landin' agin the Pennels come round in the boat; and you must step spry,
+for there's two more baskets a-comin'."
+
+The Captain shouldered the basket and walked toward the sea with it, and
+Sally retired to her own little room to hold a farewell consultation
+with her mirror before she went.
+
+You will perhaps think from the conversation that you heard the other
+night, that Sally now will cease all thought of coquettish allurement in
+her acquaintance with Moses, and cause him to see by an immediate and
+marked change her entire indifference. Probably, as she stands
+thoughtfully before her mirror, she is meditating on the propriety of
+laying aside the ribbons he gave her--perhaps she will alter that
+arrangement of her hair which is one that he himself particularly
+dictated as most becoming to the character of her face. She opens a
+little drawer, which looks like a flower garden, all full of little
+knots of pink and blue and red, and various fancies of the toilet, and
+looks into it reflectively. She looses the ribbon from her hair and
+chooses another,--but Moses gave her that too, and said, she remembers,
+that when she wore that "he should know she had been thinking of him."
+Sally is Sally yet--as full of sly dashes of coquetry as a tulip is of
+streaks.
+
+"There's no reason I should make myself look like a fright because I
+don't care for him," she says; "besides, after all that he has said, he
+ought to say more,--he ought at least to give me a chance to say no,--he
+_shall_, too," said the gypsy, winking at the bright, elfish face in the
+glass.
+
+"Sally Kittridge, Sally Kittridge," called her mother, "how long will
+you stay prinkin'?--come down this minute."
+
+"Law now, mother," said the Captain, "gals must prink afore such times;
+it's as natural as for hens to dress their feathers afore a
+thunder-storm."
+
+Sally at last appeared, all in a flutter of ribbons and scarfs, whose
+bright, high colors assorted well with the ultramarine blue of her
+dress, and the vivid pomegranate hue of her cheeks. The boat with its
+white sails flapping was balancing and courtesying up and down on the
+waters, and in the stern sat Mara; her shining white straw hat trimmed
+with blue ribbons set off her golden hair and pink shell complexion. The
+dark, even penciling of her eyebrows, and the beauty of the brow above,
+the brown translucent clearness of her thoughtful eyes, made her face
+striking even with its extreme delicacy of tone. She was unusually
+animated and excited, and her cheeks had a rich bloom of that pure deep
+rose-color which flushes up in fair complexions under excitement, and
+her eyes had a kind of intense expression, for which they had always
+been remarkable. All the deep secluded yearning of repressed nature was
+looking out of them, giving that pathos which every one has felt at
+times in the silence of eyes.
+
+"Now bless that ar gal," said the Captain, when he saw her. "Our Sally
+here's handsome, but she's got the real New-Jerusalem look, she
+has--like them in the Revelations that wears the fine linen, clean and
+white."
+
+"Bless you, Captain Kittridge! don't be a-makin' a fool of yourself
+about no girl at your time o' life," said Mrs. Kittridge, speaking under
+her breath in a nipping, energetic tone, for they were coming too near
+the boat to speak very loud.
+
+"Good mornin', Mis' Pennel; we've got a good day, and a mercy it is so.
+'Member when we launched the North Star, that it rained guns all the
+mornin', and the water got into the baskets when we was a-fetchin' the
+things over, and made a sight o' pester."
+
+"Yes," said Mrs. Pennel, with an air of placid satisfaction, "everything
+seems to be going right about this vessel."
+
+Mrs. Kittridge and Sally were soon accommodated with seats, and
+Zephaniah Pennel and the Captain began trimming sail. The day was one of
+those perfect gems of days which are to be found only in the
+jewel-casket of October, a day neither hot nor cold, with an air so
+clear that every distant pine-tree top stood out in vivid separateness,
+and every woody point and rocky island seemed cut out in crystalline
+clearness against the sky. There was so brisk a breeze that the boat
+slanted quite to the water's edge on one side, and Mara leaned over and
+pensively drew her little pearly hand through the water, and thought of
+the days when she and Moses took this sail together--she in her pink
+sun-bonnet, and he in his round straw hat, with a tin dinner-pail
+between them; and now, to-day the ship of her childish dreams was to be
+launched. That launching was something she regarded almost with
+superstitious awe. The ship, built on one element, but designed to have
+its life in another, seemed an image of the soul, framed and fashioned
+with many a weary hammer-stroke in this life, but finding its true
+element only when it sails out into the ocean of eternity. Such was her
+thought as she looked down the clear, translucent depths; but would it
+have been of any use to try to utter it to anybody?--to Sally Kittridge,
+for example, who sat all in a cheerful rustle of bright ribbons beside
+her, and who would have shown her white teeth all round at such a
+suggestion, and said, "Now, Mara, who but you would have thought of
+that?"
+
+But there are souls sent into this world who seem to have always
+mysterious affinities for the invisible and the unknown--who see the
+face of everything beautiful through a thin veil of mystery and sadness.
+The Germans call this yearning of spirit home-sickness--the dim
+remembrances of a spirit once affiliated to some higher sphere, of whose
+lost brightness all things fair are the vague reminders. As Mara looked
+pensively into the water, it seemed to her that every incident of life
+came up out of its depths to meet her. Her own face reflected in a
+wavering image, sometimes shaped itself to her gaze in the likeness of
+the pale lady of her childhood, who seemed to look up at her from the
+waters with dark, mysterious eyes of tender longing. Once or twice this
+dreamy effect grew so vivid that she shivered, and drawing herself up
+from the water, tried to take an interest in a very minute account which
+Mrs. Kittridge was giving of the way to make corn-fritters which should
+taste exactly like oysters. The closing direction about the quantity of
+mace Mrs. Kittridge felt was too sacred for common ears, and therefore
+whispered it into Mrs. Pennel's bonnet with a knowing nod and a look
+from her black spectacles which would not have been bad for a priestess
+of Dodona in giving out an oracle. In this secret direction about the
+_mace_ lay the whole mystery of corn-oysters; and who can say what
+consequences might ensue from casting it in an unguarded manner before
+the world?
+
+And now the boat which has rounded Harpswell Point is skimming across to
+the head of Middle Bay, where the new ship can distinctly be discerned
+standing upon her ways, while moving clusters of people were walking up
+and down her decks or lining the shore in the vicinity. All sorts of
+gossiping and neighborly chit-chat is being interchanged in the little
+world assembling there.
+
+"I hain't seen the Pennels nor the Kittridges yet," said Aunt Ruey,
+whose little roly-poly figure was made illustrious in her best
+cinnamon-colored dyed silk. "There's Moses Pennel a-goin' up that ar
+ladder. Dear me, what a beautiful feller he is! it's a pity he ain't
+a-goin' to marry Mara Lincoln, after all."
+
+"Ruey, do hush up," said Miss Roxy, frowning sternly down from under the
+shadow of a preternatural black straw bonnet, trimmed with huge bows of
+black ribbon, which head-piece sat above her curls like a helmet. "Don't
+be a-gettin' sentimental, Ruey, whatever else you get--and talkin' like
+Miss Emily Sewell about match-makin'; I can't stand it; it rises on my
+stomach, such talk does. As to that ar Moses Pennel, folks ain't so
+certain as they thinks what he'll do. Sally Kittridge may think he's
+a-goin' to have her, because he's been a-foolin' round with her all
+summer, and Sally Kittridge may jist find she's mistaken, that's all."
+
+"Yes," said Miss Ruey, "I 'member when I was a girl my old aunt, Jerushy
+Hopkins, used to be always a-dwellin' on this Scripture, and I've been
+havin' it brought up to me this mornin': 'There are three things which
+are too wonderful for me, yea, four, which I know not: the way of an
+eagle in the air, the way of a serpent upon a rock, the way of a ship in
+the sea, and the way of a man with a maid.' She used to say it as a
+kind o' caution to me when she used to think Abram Peters was bein'
+attentive to me. I've often reflected what a massy it was that ar never
+come to nothin', for he's a poor drunken critter now."
+
+"Well, for my part," said Miss Roxy, fixing her eyes critically on the
+boat that was just at the landing, "I should say the ways of a maid with
+a man was full as particular as any of the rest of 'em. Do look at Sally
+Kittridge now. There's Tom Hiers a-helpin' her out of the boat; and did
+you see the look she gin Moses Pennel as she went by him? Wal', Moses has
+got Mara on his arm anyhow; there's a gal worth six-and-twenty of the
+other. Do see them ribbins and scarfs, and the furbelows, and the way
+that ar Sally Kittridge handles her eyes. She's one that one feller
+ain't never enough for."
+
+Mara's heart beat fast when the boat touched the shore, and Moses and
+one or two other young men came to assist in their landing. Never had he
+looked more beautiful than at this moment, when flushed with excitement
+and satisfaction he stood on the shore, his straw hat off, and his black
+curls blowing in the sea-breeze. He looked at Sally with a look of frank
+admiration as she stood there dropping her long black lashes over her
+bright cheeks, and coquettishly looking out from under them, but she
+stepped forward with a little energy of movement, and took the offered
+hand of Tom Hiers, who was gazing at her too with undisguised rapture,
+and Moses, stepping into the boat, helped Mrs. Pennel on shore, and then
+took Mara on his arm, looking her over as he did so with a glance far
+less assured and direct than he had given to Sally.
+
+"You won't be afraid to climb the ladders, Mara?" said he.
+
+"Not if you help me," she said.
+
+Sally and Tom Hiers had already walked on toward the vessel, she
+ostentatiously chatting and laughing with him. Moses's brow clouded a
+little, and Mara noticed it. Moses thought he did not care for Sally; he
+knew that the little hand that was now lying on his arm was the one he
+wanted, and yet he felt vexed when he saw Sally walk off triumphantly
+with another. It was the dog-in-the-manger feeling which possesses
+coquettes of both sexes. Sally, on all former occasions, had shown a
+marked preference for him, and professed supreme indifference to Tom
+Hiers.
+
+"It's all well enough," he said to himself, and he helped Mara up the
+ladders with the greatest deference and tenderness. "This little woman
+is worth ten such girls as Sally, if one only could get her heart. Here
+we are on our ship, Mara," he said, as he lifted her over the last
+barrier and set her down on the deck. "Look over there, do you see Eagle
+Island? Did you dream when we used to go over there and spend the day
+that you ever would be on _my_ ship, as you are to-day? You won't be
+afraid, will you, when the ship starts?"
+
+"I am too much of a sea-girl to fear on anything that sails in water,"
+said Mara with enthusiasm. "What a splendid ship! how nicely it all
+looks!"
+
+"Come, let me take you over it," said Moses, "and show you my cabin."
+
+Meanwhile the graceful little vessel was the subject of various comments
+by the crowd of spectators below, and the clatter of workmen's hammers
+busy in some of the last preparations could yet be heard like a shower
+of hail-stones under her.
+
+"I hope the ways are well greased," said old Captain Eldritch. "'Member
+how the John Peters stuck in her ways for want of their being greased?"
+
+"Don't you remember the Grand Turk, that keeled over five minutes after
+she was launched?" said the quavering voice of Miss Ruey; "there was
+jist such a company of thoughtless young creatures aboard as there is
+now."
+
+"Well, there wasn't nobody hurt," said Captain Kittridge. "If Mis'
+Kittridge would let me, I'd be glad to go aboard this 'ere, and be
+launched with 'em."
+
+"I tell the Cap'n he's too old to be climbin' round and mixin' with
+young folks' frolics," said Mrs. Kittridge.
+
+"I suppose, Cap'n Pennel, you've seen that the ways is all right," said
+Captain Broad, returning to the old subject.
+
+"Oh yes, it's all done as well as hands can do it," said Zephaniah.
+"Moses has been here since starlight this morning, and Moses has pretty
+good faculty about such matters."
+
+"Where's Mr. Sewell and Miss Emily?" said Miss Ruey. "Oh, there they are
+over on that pile of rocks; they get a pretty fair view there."
+
+Mr. Sewell and Miss Emily were sitting under a cedar-tree, with two or
+three others, on a projecting point whence they could have a clear view
+of the launching. They were so near that they could distinguish clearly
+the figures on deck, and see Moses standing with his hat off, the wind
+blowing his curls back, talking earnestly to the golden-haired little
+woman on his arm.
+
+"It is a launch into life for him," said Mr. Sewell, with suppressed
+feeling.
+
+"Yes, and he has Mara on his arm," said Miss Emily; "that's as it should
+be. Who is that that Sally Kittridge is flirting with now? Oh, Tom
+Hiers. Well! he's good enough for her. Why don't she take him?" said
+Miss Emily, in her zeal jogging her brother's elbow.
+
+"I'm sure, Emily, I don't know," said Mr. Sewell dryly; "perhaps he
+won't be taken."
+
+"Don't you think Moses looks handsome?" said Miss Emily. "I declare
+there is something quite romantic and Spanish about him; don't you think
+so, Theophilus?"
+
+"Yes, I think so," said her brother, quietly looking, externally, the
+meekest and most matter-of-fact of persons, but deep within him a voice
+sighed, "Poor Dolores, be comforted, your boy is beautiful and
+prosperous!"
+
+"There, there!" said Miss Emily, "I believe she is starting."
+
+All eyes of the crowd were now fixed on the ship; the sound of hammers
+stopped; the workmen were seen flying in every direction to gain good
+positions to see her go,--that sight so often seen on those shores, yet
+to which use cannot dull the most insensible.
+
+First came a slight, almost imperceptible, movement, then a swift
+exultant rush, a dash into the hissing water, and the air was rent with
+hurrahs as the beautiful ship went floating far out on the blue seas,
+where her fairer life was henceforth to be.
+
+Mara was leaning on Moses's arm at the instant the ship began to move,
+but in the moment of the last dizzy rush she felt his arm go tightly
+round her, holding her so close that she could hear the beating of his
+heart.
+
+"Hurrah!" he said, letting go his hold the moment the ship floated free,
+and swinging his hat in answer to the hats, scarfs, and handkerchiefs,
+which fluttered from the crowd on the shore. His eyes sparkled with a
+proud light as he stretched himself upward, raising his head and
+throwing back his shoulders with a triumphant movement. He looked like a
+young sea-king just crowned; and the fact is the less wonderful,
+therefore, that Mara felt her heart throb as she looked at him, and that
+a treacherous throb of the same nature shook the breezy ribbons
+fluttering over the careless heart of Sally. A handsome young
+sea-captain, treading the deck of his own vessel, is, in his time and
+place, a prince.
+
+Moses looked haughtily across at Sally, and then passed a half-laughing
+defiant flash of eyes between them. He looked at Mara, who could
+certainly not have known what was in her eyes at the moment,--an
+expression that made his heart give a great throb, and wonder if he saw
+aright: but it was gone a moment after, as all gathered around in a knot
+exchanging congratulations on the fortunate way in which the affair had
+gone off. Then came the launching in boats to go back to the collation
+on shore, where were high merry-makings for the space of one or two
+hours: and thus was fulfilled the first part of Moses Pennel's Saturday
+afternoon prediction.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXI
+
+GREEK MEETS GREEK
+
+
+Moses was now within a day or two of the time of his sailing, and yet
+the distance between him and Mara seemed greater than ever. It is
+astonishing, when two people are once started on a wrong understanding
+with each other, how near they may live, how intimate they may be, how
+many things they may have in common, how many words they may speak, how
+closely they may seem to simulate intimacy, confidence, friendship,
+while yet there lies a gulf between them that neither crosses,--a
+reserve that neither explores.
+
+Like most shy girls, Mara became more shy the more really she understood
+the nature of her own feelings. The conversation with Sally had opened
+her eyes to the secret of her own heart, and she had a guilty feeling as
+if what she had discovered must be discovered by every one else. Yes, it
+was clear she loved Moses in a way that made him, she thought, more
+necessary to her happiness than she could ever be to his,--in a way that
+made it impossible to think of him as wholly and for life devoted to
+another, without a constant inner conflict. In vain had been all her
+little stratagems practiced upon herself the whole summer long, to prove
+to herself that she was glad that the choice had fallen upon Sally. She
+saw clearly enough now that she was not glad,--that there was no woman
+or girl living, however dear, who could come for life between him and
+her, without casting on her heart the shuddering sorrow of a dim
+eclipse.
+
+But now the truth was plain to herself, her whole force was directed
+toward the keeping of her secret. "I may suffer," she thought, "but I
+will have strength not to be silly and weak. Nobody shall know,--nobody
+shall dream it,--and in the long, long time that he is away, I shall
+have strength given me to overcome."
+
+So Mara put on her most cheerful and matter-of-fact kind of face, and
+plunged into the making of shirts and knitting of stockings, and talked
+of the coming voyage with such a total absence of any concern, that
+Moses began to think, after all, there could be no depth to her
+feelings, or that the deeper ones were all absorbed by some one else.
+
+"You really seem to enjoy the prospect of my going away," said he to
+her, one morning, as she was energetically busying herself with her
+preparations.
+
+"Well, of course; you know your career must begin. You must make your
+fortune; and it is pleasant to think how favorably everything is shaping
+for you."
+
+"One likes, however, to be a little regretted," said Moses, in a tone of
+pique.
+
+"A little regretted!" Mara's heart beat at these words, but her
+hypocrisy was well practiced. She put down the rebellious throb, and
+assuming a look of open, sisterly friendliness, said, quite naturally,
+"Why, we shall all miss you, of course."
+
+"Of course," said Moses,--"one would be glad to be missed some other way
+than _of course_."
+
+"Oh, as to that, make yourself easy," said Mara. "We shall all be dull
+enough when you are gone to content the most exacting." Still she spoke,
+not stopping her stitching, and raising her soft brown eyes with a
+frank, open look into Moses's--no tremor, not even of an eyelid.
+
+"You men must have everything," she continued, gayly, "the enterprise,
+the adventure, the novelty, the pleasure of feeling that you are
+something, and can do something in the world; and besides all this, you
+want the satisfaction of knowing that we women are following in chains
+behind your triumphal car!"
+
+There was a dash of bitterness in this, which was a rare ingredient in
+Mara's conversation.
+
+Moses took the word. "And you women sit easy at home, sewing and
+singing, and forming romantic pictures of our life as like its homely
+reality as romances generally are to reality; and while we are off in
+the hard struggle for position and the means of life, you hold your
+hearts ready for the first rich man that offers a fortune ready made."
+
+"The first!" said Mara. "Oh, you naughty! sometimes we try two or
+three."
+
+"Well, then, I suppose this is from one of them," said Moses, flapping
+down a letter from Boston, directed in a masculine hand, which he had
+got at the post-office that morning.
+
+Now Mara knew that this letter was nothing in particular, but she was
+taken by surprise, and her skin was delicate as peach-blossom, and so
+she could not help a sudden blush, which rose even to her golden hair,
+vexed as she was to feel it coming. She put the letter quietly in her
+pocket, and for a moment seemed too discomposed to answer.
+
+"You do well to keep your own counsel," said Moses. "No friend so near
+as one's self, is a good maxim. One does not expect young girls to learn
+it so early, but it seems they do."
+
+"And why shouldn't they as well as young men?" said Mara. "Confidence
+begets confidence, they say."
+
+"I have no ambition to play confidant," said Moses; "although as one who
+stands to you in the relation of older brother and guardian, and just on
+the verge of a long voyage, I might be supposed anxious to know."
+
+"And I have no ambition to be confidant," said Mara, all her spirit
+sparkling in her eyes; "although when one stands to you in the relation
+of an only sister, I might be supposed perhaps to feel some interest to
+be in your confidence."
+
+The words "older brother" and "only sister" grated on the ears of both
+the combatants as a decisive sentence. Mara never looked so pretty in
+her life, for the whole force of her being was awake, glowing and
+watchful, to guard passage, door, and window of her soul, that no
+treacherous hint might escape. Had he not just reminded her that he was
+only an older brother? and what would he think if he knew the
+truth?--and Moses thought the words _only sister_ unequivocal
+declaration of how the matter stood in her view, and so he rose, and
+saying, "I won't detain you longer from your letter," took his hat and
+went out.
+
+"Are you going down to Sally's?" said Mara, coming to the door and
+looking out after him.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Well, ask her to come home with you and spend the evening. I have ever
+so many things to tell her."
+
+"I will," said Moses, as he lounged away.
+
+"The thing is clear enough," said Moses to himself. "Why should I make a
+fool of myself any further? What possesses us men always to set our
+hearts precisely on what isn't to be had? There's Sally Kittridge likes
+me; I can see that plainly enough, for all her mincing; and why couldn't
+I have had the sense to fall in love with her? She will make a splendid,
+showy woman. She has talent and tact enough to rise to any position I
+may rise to, let me rise as high as I will. She will always have skill
+and energy in the conduct of life; and when all the froth and foam of
+youth has subsided, she will make a noble woman. Why, then, do I cling
+to this fancy? I feel that this little flossy cloud, this delicate,
+quiet little puff of thistledown, on which I have set my heart, is the
+only thing for me, and that without her my life will always be
+incomplete. I remember all our early life. It was she who sought me, and
+ran after me, and where has all that love gone to? Gone to this fellow;
+that's plain enough. When a girl like her is so comfortably cool and
+easy, it's because her heart is off somewhere else."
+
+This conversation took place about four o'clock in as fine an October
+afternoon as you could wish to see. The sun, sloping westward, turned to
+gold the thousand blue scales of the ever-heaving sea, and soft,
+pine-scented winds were breathing everywhere through the forests, waving
+the long, swaying films of heavy moss, and twinkling the leaves of the
+silver birches that fluttered through the leafy gloom. The moon, already
+in the sky, gave promise of a fine moonlight night; and the wild and
+lonely stillness of the island, and the thoughts of leaving in a few
+days, all conspired to foster the restless excitement in our hero's mind
+into a kind of romantic unrest.
+
+Now, in some such states, a man disappointed in one woman will turn to
+another, because, in a certain way and measure, her presence stills the
+craving and fills the void. It is a sort of supposititious courtship,--a
+saying to one woman, who is sympathetic and receptive, the words of
+longing and love that another will not receive. To be sure it is a game
+unworthy of any true man,--a piece of sheer, reckless, inconsiderate
+selfishness. But men do it, as they do many other unworthy things, from
+the mere promptings of present impulse, and let consequences take care
+of themselves. Moses met Sally that afternoon in just the frame to play
+the lover in this hypothetical, supposititious way, with words and looks
+and tones that came from feelings given to another. And as to Sally?
+Well, for once, Greek met Greek; for although Sally, as we showed her,
+was a girl of generous impulses, she was yet in no danger of immediate
+translation on account of superhuman goodness. In short, Sally had made
+up her mind that Moses should give her a chance to say that precious and
+golden _No_, which should enable her to count him as one of her
+captives,--and then he might go where he liked for all her.
+
+So said the wicked elf, as she looked into her own great eyes in the
+little square of mirror shaded by a misty asparagus bush; and to this
+end there were various braidings and adornings of the lustrous black
+hair, and coquettish earrings were mounted that hung glancing and
+twinkling just by the smooth outline of her glowing cheek,--and then
+Sally looked at herself in a friendly way of approbation, and nodded at
+the bright dimpled shadow with a look of secret understanding. The real
+Sally and the Sally of the looking-glass were on admirable terms with
+each other, and both of one mind about the plan of campaign against the
+common enemy. Sally thought of him as he stood kingly and triumphant on
+the deck of his vessel, his great black eyes flashing confident glances
+into hers, and she felt a rebellious rustle of all her plumage. "No,
+sir," she said to herself, "you don't do it. You shall never find me
+among your slaves,"--"that you know of," added a doubtful voice within
+her. "Never to your knowledge," she said, as she turned away. "I wonder
+if he will come here this evening," she said, as she began to work upon
+a pillow-case,--one of a set which Mrs. Kittridge had confided to her
+nimble fingers. The seam was long, straight, and monotonous, and Sally
+was restless and fidgety; her thread would catch in knots, and when she
+tried to loosen it, would break, and the needle had to be threaded over.
+Somehow the work was terribly irksome to her, and the house looked so
+still and dim and lonesome, and the tick-tock of the kitchen-clock was
+insufferable, and Sally let her work fall in her lap and looked out of
+the open window, far to the open ocean, where a fresh breeze was
+blowing toward her, and her eyes grew deep and dreamy following the
+gliding ship sails. Sally was getting romantic. Had she been reading
+novels? Novels! What can a pretty woman find in a novel equal to the
+romance that is all the while weaving and unweaving about her, and of
+which no human foresight can tell her the catastrophe? It is _novels_
+that give false views of life. Is there not an eternal novel, with all
+these false, cheating views, written in the breast of every beautiful
+and attractive girl whose witcheries make every man that comes near her
+talk like a fool? Like a sovereign princess, she never hears the truth,
+unless it be from the one manly man in a thousand, who understands both
+himself and her. From all the rest she hears only flatteries more or
+less ingenious, according to the ability of the framer. Compare, for
+instance, what Tom Brown says to little Seraphina at the party to-night,
+with what Tom Brown sober says to sober sister Maria _about_ her
+to-morrow. Tom remembers that he was a fool last night, and knows what
+he thinks and always has thought to-day; but pretty Seraphina thinks he
+adores her, so that no matter what she does he will never see a flaw,
+she is sure of that,--poor little puss! She does not know that
+philosophic Tom looks at her as he does at a glass of champagne, or a
+dose of exhilarating gas, and calculates how much it will do for him to
+take of the stimulus without interfering with his serious and settled
+plans of life, which, of course, he doesn't mean to give up for her. The
+one-thousand-and-first man in creation is he that can feel the
+fascination but will not flatter, and that tries to tell to the little
+tyrant the rare word of truth that may save her; he is, as we say, the
+one-thousand-and-first. Well, as Sally sat with her great dark eyes
+dreamily following the ship, she mentally thought over all the
+compliments Moses had paid her, expressed or understood, and those of
+all her other admirers, who had built up a sort of cloud-world around
+her, so that her little feet never rested on the soil of reality. Sally
+was shrewd and keen, and had a native mother-wit in the discernment of
+spirits, that made her feel that somehow this was all false coin; but
+still she counted it over, and it looked so pretty and bright that she
+sighed to think it was not real.
+
+"If it only had been," she thought; "if there were only any truth to the
+creature; he is so handsome,--it's a pity. But I do believe in his
+secret heart he is in love with Mara; he is in love with some one, I
+know. I have seen looks that must come from something real; but they
+were not for me. I have a kind of power over him, though," she said,
+resuming her old wicked look, "and I'll puzzle him a little, and torment
+him. He shall find his match in me," and Sally nodded to a cat-bird that
+sat perched on a pine-tree, as if she had a secret understanding with
+him, and the cat-bird went off into a perfect roulade of imitations of
+all that was going on in the late bird-operas of the season.
+
+Sally was roused from her revery by a spray of goldenrod that was thrown
+into her lap by an invisible hand, and Moses soon appeared at the
+window.
+
+"There's a plume that would be becoming to your hair," he said; "stay,
+let me arrange it."
+
+"No, no; you'll tumble my hair,--what can you know of such things?"
+
+Moses held the spray aloft, and leaned toward her with a sort of quiet,
+determined insistence.
+
+"By your leave, fair lady," he said, wreathing it in her hair, and then
+drawing back a little, he looked at her with so much admiration that
+Sally felt herself blush.
+
+"Come, now, I dare say you've made a fright of me," she said, rising and
+instinctively turning to the looking-glass; but she had too much
+coquetry not to see how admirably the golden plume suited her black
+hair, and the brilliant eyes and cheeks; she turned to Moses again, and
+courtesied, saying "Thank you, sir," dropping her eyelashes with a mock
+humility.
+
+"Come, now," said Moses; "I am sent after you to come and spend the
+evening; let's walk along the seashore, and get there by degrees."
+
+And so they set out; but the path was circuitous, for Moses was always
+stopping, now at this point and now at that, and enacting some of those
+thousand little by-plays which a man can get up with a pretty woman.
+They searched for smooth pebbles where the waves had left
+them,--many-colored, pink and crimson and yellow and brown, all smooth
+and rounded by the eternal tossings of the old sea that had made
+playthings of them for centuries, and with every pebble given and taken
+were things said which should have meant more and more, had the play
+been earnest. Had Moses any idea of offering himself to Sally? No; but
+he was in one of those fluctuating, unresisting moods of mind in which
+he was willing to lie like a chip on the tide of present emotion, and
+let it rise and fall and dash him when it liked; and Sally never had
+seemed more beautiful and attractive to him than that afternoon, because
+there was a shade of reality and depth about her that he had never seen
+before.
+
+"Come on, and let me show you my hermitage," said Moses, guiding her
+along the slippery projecting rocks, all covered with yellow tresses of
+seaweed. Sally often slipped on this treacherous footing, and Moses was
+obliged to hold her up, and instinctively he threw a meaning into his
+manner so much more than ever he had before, that by the time they had
+gained the little cove both were really agitated and excited. He felt
+that temporary delirium which is often the mesmeric effect of a strong
+womanly presence, and she felt that agitation which every woman must
+when a determined hand is striking on the great vital chord of her
+being. When they had stepped round the last point of rock they found
+themselves driven by the advancing tide up into the little lonely
+grotto,--and there they were with no lookout but the wide blue sea, all
+spread out in rose and gold under the twilight skies, with a silver moon
+looking down upon them.
+
+"Sally," said Moses, in a low, earnest whisper, "you love me,--do you
+not?" and he tried to pass his arm around her.
+
+She turned and flashed at him a look of mingled terror and defiance, and
+struck out her hands at him; then impetuously turning away and
+retreating to the other end of the grotto, she sat down on a rock and
+began to cry.
+
+Moses came toward her, and kneeling, tried to take her hand. She raised
+her head angrily, and again repulsed him.
+
+"Go!" she said. "What right had you to say that? What right had you even
+to think it?"
+
+"Sally, you do love me. It cannot but be. You are a woman; you could not
+have been with me as we have and not feel more than friendship."
+
+"Oh, you men!--your conceit passes understanding," said Sally. "You
+think we are born to be your bond slaves,--but for once you are
+mistaken, sir. I _don't_ love you; and what's more, you don't love
+me,--you know you don't; you know that you love somebody else. You love
+Mara,--you know you do; there's no truth in you," she said, rising
+indignantly.
+
+Moses felt himself color. There was an embarrassed pause, and then he
+answered,--
+
+"Sally, why should I love Mara? Her heart is all given to another,--you
+yourself know it."
+
+"I don't know it either," said Sally; "I know it isn't so."
+
+"But you gave me to understand so."
+
+"Well, sir, you put prying questions about what you ought to have asked
+her, and so what was I to do? Besides, I did want to show you how much
+better Mara could do than to take you; besides, I didn't know till
+lately. I never thought she could care much for any man more than I
+could."
+
+"And you think she loves me?" said Moses, eagerly, a flash of joy
+illuminating his face; "do you, really?"
+
+"There you are," said Sally; "it's a shame I have let you know! Yes,
+Moses Pennel, she loves you like an angel, as none of you men deserve to
+be loved,--as you in particular don't."
+
+Moses sat down on a point of rock, and looked on the ground
+discountenanced. Sally stood up glowing and triumphant, as if she had
+her foot on the neck of her oppressor and meant to make the most of it.
+
+"Now what do you think of yourself for all this summer's work?--for what
+you have just said, asking me if I didn't love you? Supposing, now, I
+had done as other girls would, played the fool and blushed, and said
+yes? Why, to-morrow you would have been thinking how to be rid of me! I
+shall save you all that trouble, sir."
+
+"Sally, I own I have been acting like a fool," said Moses, humbly.
+
+"You have done more than that,--you have acted wickedly," said Sally.
+
+"And am I the only one to blame?" said Moses, lifting his head with a
+show of resistance.
+
+"Listen, sir!" said Sally, energetically; "I have played the fool and
+acted wrong too, but there is just this difference between you and me:
+you had nothing to lose, and I a great deal; your heart, such as it was,
+was safely disposed of. But supposing you had won mine, what would you
+have done with it? That was the last thing you considered."
+
+"Go on, Sally, don't spare; I'm a vile dog, unworthy of either of you,"
+said Moses.
+
+Sally looked down on her handsome penitent with some relenting, as he
+sat quite dejected, his strong arms drooping, and his long eyelashes
+cast down.
+
+"I'll be friends with you," she said, "because, after all, I'm not so
+very much better than you. We have both done wrong, and made dear Mara
+very unhappy. But after all, I was not so much to blame as you; because,
+if there had been any reality in your love, I could have paid it
+honestly. I had a heart to give,--I have it now, and hope long to keep
+it," said Sally.
+
+"Sally, you are a right noble girl. I never knew what you were till
+now," said Moses, looking at her with admiration.
+
+"It's the first time for all these six months that we have either of us
+spoken a word of truth or sense to each other. I never did anything but
+trifle with you, and you the same. Now we've come to some plain dry
+land, we may walk on and be friends. So now help me up these rocks, and
+I will go home."
+
+"And you'll not come home with me?"
+
+"Of course not. I think you may now go home and have one talk with Mara
+without witnesses."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXII
+
+THE BETROTHAL
+
+
+Moses walked slowly home from his interview with Sally, in a sort of
+maze of confused thought. In general, men understand women only from the
+outside, and judge them with about as much real comprehension as an
+eagle might judge a canary-bird. The difficulty of real understanding
+intensifies in proportion as the man is distinctively manly, and the
+woman womanly. There are men with a large infusion of the feminine
+element in their composition who read the female nature with more
+understanding than commonly falls to the lot of men; but in general,
+when a man passes beyond the mere outside artifices and unrealities
+which lie between the two sexes, and really touches his finger to any
+vital chord in the heart of a fair neighbor, he is astonished at the
+quality of the vibration.
+
+"I could not have dreamed there was so much in her," thought Moses, as
+he turned away from Sally Kittridge. He felt humbled as well as
+astonished by the moral lecture which this frisky elf with whom he had
+all summer been amusing himself, preached to him from the depths of a
+real woman's heart. What she said of Mara's loving him filled his eyes
+with remorseful tears,--and for the moment he asked himself whether this
+restless, jealous, exacting desire which he felt to appropriate her
+whole life and heart to himself were as really worthy of the name of
+love as the generous self-devotion with which she had, all her life,
+made all his interests her own.
+
+Was he to go to her now and tell her that he loved her, and therefore
+he had teased and vexed her,--therefore he had seemed to prefer another
+before her,--therefore he had practiced and experimented upon her
+nature? A suspicion rather stole upon him that love which expresses
+itself principally in making exactions and giving pain is not exactly
+worthy of the name. And yet he had been secretly angry with her all
+summer for being the very reverse of this; for her apparent cheerful
+willingness to see him happy with another; for the absence of all signs
+of jealousy,--all desire of exclusive appropriation. It showed, he said
+to himself, that there was no love; and now when it dawned on him that
+this might be the very heroism of self-devotion, he asked himself which
+was best worthy to be called love.
+
+"She did love him, then!" The thought blazed up through the smouldering
+embers of thought in his heart like a tongue of flame. She loved him! He
+felt a sort of triumph in it, for he was sure Sally must know, they were
+so intimate. Well, he would go to her, and tell her all, confess all his
+sins, and be forgiven.
+
+When he came back to the house, all was still evening. The moon, which
+was playing brightly on the distant sea, left one side of the brown
+house in shadow. Moses saw a light gleaming behind the curtain in the
+little room on the lower floor, which had been his peculiar sanctum
+during the summer past. He had made a sort of library of it, keeping
+there his books and papers. Upon the white curtain flitted, from time to
+time, a delicate, busy shadow; now it rose and now it stooped, and then
+it rose again--grew dim and vanished, and then came out again. His heart
+beat quick.
+
+Mara was in his room, busy, as she always had been before his
+departures, in cares for him. How many things had she made for him, and
+done and arranged for him, all his life long! things which he had taken
+as much as a matter of course as the shining of that moon. His thought
+went back to the times of his first going to sea,--he a rough, chaotic
+boy, sensitive and surly, and she the ever thoughtful good angel of a
+little girl, whose loving-kindness he had felt free to use and to abuse.
+He remembered that he made her cry there when he should have spoken
+lovingly and gratefully to her, and that the words of acknowledgment
+that ought to have been spoken, never had been said,--remained unsaid to
+that hour. He stooped low, and came quite close to the muslin curtain.
+All was bright in the room, and shadowy without; he could see her
+movements as through a thin white haze. She was packing his sea-chest;
+his things were lying about her, folded or rolled nicely. Now he saw her
+on her knees writing something with a pencil in a book, and then she
+enveloped it very carefully in silk paper, and tied it trimly, and hid
+it away at the bottom of the chest. Then she remained a moment kneeling
+at the chest, her head resting in her hands. A sort of strange, sacred
+feeling came over him as he heard a low murmur, and knew that she felt a
+Presence that he never felt or acknowledged. He felt somehow that he was
+doing her a wrong thus to be prying upon moments when she thought
+herself alone with God; a sort of vague remorse filled him; he felt as
+if she were too good for him. He turned away, and entering the front
+door of the house, stepped noiselessly along and lifted the latch of the
+door. He heard a rustle as of one rising hastily as he opened it and
+stood before Mara. He had made up his mind what to say; but when she
+stood there before him, with her surprised, inquiring eyes, he felt
+confused.
+
+"What, home so soon?" she said.
+
+"You did not expect me, then?"
+
+"Of course not,--not for these two hours; so," she said, looking about,
+"I found some mischief to do among your things. If you had waited as
+long as I expected, they would all have been quite right again, and you
+would never have known."
+
+Moses sat down and drew her toward him, as if he were going to say
+something, and then stopped and began confusedly playing with her
+work-box.
+
+"Now, please don't," said she, archly. "You know what a little old maid
+I am about my things!"
+
+"Mara," said Moses, "people have asked you to marry them, have they
+not?"
+
+"People asked me to marry them!" said Mara. "I hope not. What an odd
+question!"
+
+"You know what I mean," said Moses; "you have had offers of
+marriage--from Mr. Adams, for example."
+
+"And what if I have?"
+
+"You did not accept him, Mara?" said Moses.
+
+"No, I did not."
+
+"And yet he was a fine man, I am told, and well fitted to make you
+happy."
+
+"I believe he was," said Mara, quietly.
+
+"And why were you so foolish?"
+
+Mara was fretted at this question. She supposed Moses had come to tell
+her of his engagement to Sally, and that this was a kind of preface, and
+she answered,--
+
+"I don't know why you call it foolish. I was a true friend to Mr. Adams.
+I saw intellectually that he might have the power of making any
+reasonable woman happy. I think now that the woman will be fortunate who
+becomes his wife; but I did not wish to marry him."
+
+"Is there anybody you prefer to him, Mara?" said Moses.
+
+She started up with glowing cheeks and sparkling eyes.
+
+"You have no right to ask me that, though you are my brother."
+
+"I am not your brother, Mara," said Moses, rising and going toward her,
+"and that is why I ask you. I feel I have a right to ask you."
+
+"I do not understand you," she said, faintly.
+
+"I can speak plainer, then. I wish to put in my poor venture. I love
+you, Mara--not as a brother. I wish you to be my wife, if you will."
+
+While Moses was saying these words, Mara felt a sort of whirling in her
+head, and it grew dark before her eyes; but she had a strong, firm will,
+and she mastered herself and answered, after a moment, in a quiet,
+sorrowful tone, "How can I believe this, Moses? If it is true, why have
+you done as you have this summer?"
+
+"Because I was a fool, Mara,--because I was jealous of Mr.
+Adams,--because I somehow hoped, after all, that you either loved me or
+that I might make you think more of me through jealousy of another. They
+say that love always is shown by jealousy."
+
+"Not true love, I should think," said Mara. "How _could_ you do so?--it
+was cruel to her,--cruel to me."
+
+"I admit it,--anything, everything you can say. I have acted like a fool
+and a knave, if you will; but after all, Mara, I do love you. I know I
+am not worthy of you--never was--never can be; you are in all things a
+true, noble woman, and I have been unmanly."
+
+It is not to be supposed that all this was spoken without accompaniments
+of looks, movements, and expressions of face such as we cannot give, but
+such as doubled their power to the parties concerned; and the "I love
+you" had its usual conclusive force as argument, apology,
+promise,--covering, like charity, a multitude of sins.
+
+Half an hour after, you might have seen a youth and a maiden coming
+together out of the door of the brown house, and walking arm in arm
+toward the sea-beach.
+
+It was one of those wonderfully clear moonlight evenings, when the
+ocean, like a great reflecting mirror, seems to double the brightness of
+the sky,--and its vast expanse lay all around them in its stillness,
+like an eternity of waveless peace. Mara remembered that time in her
+girlhood when she had followed Moses into the woods on just such a
+night,--how she had sat there under the shadows of the trees, and looked
+over to Harpswell and noticed the white houses and the meeting-house,
+all so bright and clear in the moonlight, and then off again on the
+other side of the island where silent ships were coming and going in the
+mysterious stillness. They were talking together now with that
+outflowing fullness which comes when the seal of some great reserve has
+just been broken,--going back over their lives from day to day, bringing
+up incidents of childhood, and turning them gleefully like two children.
+
+And then Moses had all the story of his life to relate, and to tell Mara
+all he had learned of his mother,--going over with all the narrative
+contained in Mr. Sewell's letter.
+
+"You see, Mara, that it was intended that you should be my fate," he
+ended; "so the winds and waves took me up and carried me to the lonely
+island where the magic princess dwelt."
+
+"You are Prince Ferdinand," said Mara.
+
+"And you are Miranda," said he.
+
+"Ah!" she said with fervor, "how plainly we can see that our heavenly
+Father has been guiding our way! How good He is,--and how we must try to
+live for Him,--both of us."
+
+A sort of cloud passed over Moses's brow. He looked embarrassed, and
+there was a pause between them, and then he turned the conversation.
+
+Mara felt pained; it was like a sudden discord; such thoughts and
+feelings were the very breath of her life; she could not speak in
+perfect confidence and unreserve, as she then spoke, without uttering
+them; and her finely organized nature felt a sort of electric
+consciousness of repulsion and dissent. She grew abstracted, and they
+walked on in silence.
+
+"I see now, Mara, I have pained you," said Moses, "but there are a class
+of feelings that you have that I have not and cannot have. No, I cannot
+feign anything. I can understand what religion is in you, I can admire
+its results. I can be happy, if it gives you any comfort; but people are
+differently constituted. I never can feel as you do."
+
+"Oh, don't say never," said Mara, with an intensity that nearly startled
+him; "it has been the one prayer, the one hope, of my life, that you
+might have these comforts,--this peace."
+
+"I need no comfort or peace except what I shall find in you," said
+Moses, drawing her to himself, and looking admiringly at her; "but pray
+for me still. I always thought that my wife must be one of the sort of
+women who pray."
+
+"And why?" said Mara, in surprise.
+
+"Because I need to be loved a great deal, and it is only that kind who
+pray who know how to love really. If you had not prayed for me all this
+time, you never would have loved me in spite of all my faults, as you
+did, and do, and will, as I know you will," he said, folding her in his
+arms, and in his secret heart he said, "Some of this intensity, this
+devotion, which went upward to heaven, will be mine one day. She will
+worship me."
+
+"The fact is, Mara," he said, "I am a child of this world. I have no
+sympathy with things not seen. You are a half-spiritual creature,--a
+child of air; and but for the great woman's heart in you, I should feel
+that you were something uncanny and unnatural. I am selfish, I know; I
+frankly admit, I never disguised it; but I love your religion because it
+makes you love me. It is an incident to that loving, trusting nature
+which makes you all and wholly mine, as I want you to be. I want you all
+and wholly; every thought, every feeling,--the whole strength of your
+being. I don't care if I say it: I would not wish to be second in your
+heart even to God himself!"
+
+"Oh, Moses!" said Mara, almost starting away from him, "such words are
+dreadful; they will surely bring evil upon us."
+
+"I only breathed out my nature, as you did yours. Why should you love an
+unseen and distant Being more than you do one whom you can feel and see,
+who holds you in his arms, whose heart beats like your own?"
+
+"Moses," said Mara, stopping and looking at him in the clear moonlight,
+"God has always been to me not so much like a father as like a dear and
+tender mother. Perhaps it was because I was a poor orphan, and my father
+and mother died at my birth, that He has been so loving to me. I never
+remember the time when I did not feel His presence in my joys and my
+sorrows. I never had a thought of joy and sorrow that I could not say to
+Him. I never woke in the night that I did not feel that He was loving
+and watching me, and that I loved Him in return. Oh, how many, many
+things I have said to Him about you! My heart would have broken years
+ago, had it not been for Him; because, though you did not know it, you
+often seemed unkind; you hurt me very often when you did not mean to.
+His love is so much a part of my life that I cannot conceive of life
+without it. It is the very air I breathe."
+
+Moses stood still a moment, for Mara spoke with a fervor that affected
+him; then he drew her to his heart, and said,--
+
+"Oh, what could ever make you love me?"
+
+"He sent you and gave you to me," she answered, "to be mine in time and
+eternity."
+
+The words were spoken in a kind of enthusiasm so different from the
+usual reserve of Mara, that they seemed like a prophecy. That night, for
+the first time in her life, had she broken the reserve which was her
+very nature, and spoken of that which was the intimate and hidden
+history of her soul.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIII
+
+AT A QUILTING
+
+
+"And so," said Mrs. Captain Badger to Miss Roxy Toothacre, "it seems
+that Moses Pennel ain't going to have Sally Kittridge after all,--he's
+engaged to Mara Lincoln."
+
+"More shame for him," said Miss Roxy, with a frown that made her mohair
+curls look really tremendous.
+
+Miss Roxy and Mrs. Badger were the advance party at a quilting, to be
+holden at the house of Mr. Sewell, and had come at one o'clock to do the
+marking upon the quilt, which was to be filled up by the busy fingers of
+all the women in the parish. Said quilt was to have a bordering of a
+pattern commonly denominated in those parts clam-shell, and this Miss
+Roxy was diligently marking with indigo.
+
+"What makes you say so, now?" said Mrs. Badger, a fat, comfortable,
+motherly matron, who always patronized the last matrimonial venture that
+put forth among the young people.
+
+"What business had he to flirt and gallivant all summer with Sally
+Kittridge, and make everybody think he was going to have her, and then
+turn round to Mara Lincoln at the last minute? I wish I'd been in Mara's
+place."
+
+In Miss Roxy's martial enthusiasm, she gave a sudden poke to her
+frisette, giving to it a diagonal bristle which extremely increased its
+usually severe expression; and any one contemplating her at the moment
+would have thought that for Moses Pennel, or any other young man, to
+come with tender propositions in that direction would have been indeed
+a venturesome enterprise.
+
+"I tell you what 'tis, Mis' Badger," she said, "I've known Mara since
+she was born,--I may say I fetched her up myself, for if I hadn't
+trotted and tended her them first four weeks of her life, Mis' Pennel'd
+never have got her through; and I've watched her every year since; and
+havin' Moses Pennel is the only silly thing I ever knew her to do; but
+you never can tell what a girl will do when it comes to
+marryin',--never!"
+
+"But he's a real stirrin', likely young man, and captain of a fine
+ship," said Mrs. Badger.
+
+"Don't care if he's captain of twenty ships," said Miss Roxy,
+obdurately; "he ain't a professor of religion, and I believe he's an
+infidel, and she's one of the Lord's people."
+
+"Well," said Mrs. Badger, "you know the unbelievin' husband shall be
+sanctified by the believin' wife."
+
+"Much sanctifyin' he'll get," said Miss Roxy, contemptuously. "I don't
+believe he loves her any more than fancy; she's the last plaything, and
+when he's got her, he'll be tired of her, as he always was with anything
+he got ever since. I tell you, Moses Pennel is all for pride and
+ambition and the world; and his wife, when he gets used to her, 'll be
+only a circumstance,--that's all."
+
+"Come, now, Miss Roxy," said Miss Emily, who in her best silk and
+smoothly-brushed hair had just come in, "we must _not_ let you talk so.
+Moses Pennel has had long talks with brother, and he thinks him in a
+very hopeful way, and we are all delighted; and as to Mara, she is as
+fresh and happy as a little rose."
+
+"So I tell Roxy," said Miss Ruey, who had been absent from the room to
+hold private consultations with Miss Emily concerning the biscuits and
+sponge-cake for tea, and who now sat down to the quilt and began to
+unroll a capacious and very limp calico thread-case; and placing her
+spectacles awry on her little pug nose, she began a series of ingenious
+dodges with her thread, designed to hit the eye of her needle.
+
+"The old folks," she continued, "are e'en a'most tickled to
+pieces,--'cause they think it'll jist be the salvation of him to get
+Mara."
+
+"I ain't one of the sort that wants to be a-usin' up girls for the
+salvation of fellers," said Miss Roxy, severely. "Ever since he nearly
+like to have got her eat up by sharks, by giggiting her off in the boat
+out to sea when she wa'n't more'n three years old, I always have
+thought he was a misfortin' in that family, and I think so now."
+
+Here broke in Mrs. Eaton, a thrifty energetic widow of a deceased
+sea-captain, who had been left with a tidy little fortune which
+commanded the respect of the neighborhood. Mrs. Eaton had entered
+silently during the discussion, but of course had come, as every other
+woman had that afternoon, with views to be expressed upon the subject.
+
+"For my part," she said, as she stuck a decisive needle into the first
+clam-shell pattern, "I ain't so sure that all the advantage in this
+match is on Moses Pennel's part. Mara Lincoln is a good little thing,
+but she ain't fitted to help a man along,--she'll always be wantin'
+somebody to help her. Why, I 'member goin' a voyage with Cap'n Eaton,
+when I saved the ship, if anybody did,--it was allowed on all hands.
+Cap'n Eaton wasn't hearty at that time, he was jist gettin' up from a
+fever,--it was when Marthy Ann was a baby, and I jist took her and went
+to sea and took care of him. I used to work the longitude for him and
+help him lay the ship's course when his head was bad,--and when we came
+on the coast, we were kept out of harbor beatin' about nearly three
+weeks, and all the ship's tacklin' was stiff with ice, and I tell you
+the men never would have stood it through and got the ship in, if it
+hadn't been for me. I kept their mittens and stockings all the while
+a-dryin' at my stove in the cabin, and hot coffee all the while
+a-boilin' for 'em, or I believe they'd a-frozen their hands and feet,
+and never been able to work the ship in. That's the way _I_ did. Now
+Sally Kittridge is a great deal more like that than Mara."
+
+"There's no doubt that Sally is smart," said Mrs. Badger, "but then it
+ain't every one can do like you, Mrs. Eaton."
+
+"Oh no, oh no," was murmured from mouth to mouth; "Mrs. Eaton mustn't
+think she's any rule for others,--everybody knows she can do more than
+most people;" whereat the pacified Mrs. Eaton said "she didn't know as
+it was anything remarkable,--it showed what anybody might do, if they'd
+only _try_ and have resolution; but that Mara never had been brought up
+to have resolution, and her mother never had resolution before her, it
+wasn't in any of Mary Pennel's family; she knew their grandmother and
+all their aunts, and they were all a weakly set, and not fitted to get
+along in life,--they were a kind of people that somehow didn't seem to
+know how to take hold of things."
+
+At this moment the consultation was hushed up by the entrance of Sally
+Kittridge and Mara, evidently on the closest terms of intimacy, and more
+than usually demonstrative and affectionate; they would sit together and
+use each other's needles, scissors, thread, and thimbles
+interchangeably, as if anxious to express every minute the most
+overflowing confidence. Sly winks and didactic nods were covertly
+exchanged among the elderly people, and when Mrs. Kittridge entered with
+more than usual airs of impressive solemnity, several of these were
+covertly directed toward her, as a matron whose views in life must have
+been considerably darkened by the recent event.
+
+Mrs. Kittridge, however, found an opportunity to whisper under her
+breath to Miss Ruey what a relief to her it was that the affair had
+taken such a turn. She had felt uneasy all summer for fear of what might
+come. Sally was so thoughtless and worldly, she felt afraid that he
+would lead her astray. She didn't see, for her part, how a professor of
+religion like Mara could make up her mind to such an unsettled kind of
+fellow, even if he did seem to be rich and well-to-do. But then she had
+done looking for consistency; and she sighed and vigorously applied
+herself to quilting like one who has done with the world.
+
+In return, Miss Ruey sighed and took snuff, and related for the
+hundredth time to Mrs. Kittridge the great escape she once had from the
+addresses of Abraham Peters, who had turned out a "poor drunken
+creetur." But then it was only natural that Mara should be interested in
+Moses; and the good soul went off into her favorite verse:--
+
+    "The fondness of a creature's love,
+      How strong it strikes the sense!
+    Thither the warm affections move,
+      Nor can we drive them thence."
+
+In fact, Miss Ruey's sentimental vein was in quite a gushing state, for
+she more than once extracted from the dark corners of the limp calico
+thread-case we have spoken of certain long-treasured _morceaux_ of
+newspaper poetry, of a tender and sentimental cast, which she had laid
+up with true Yankee economy, in case any one should ever be in a
+situation to need them. They related principally to the union of kindred
+hearts, and the joys of reciprocated feeling and the pains of absence.
+Good Miss Ruey occasionally passed these to Mara, with glances full of
+meaning, which caused the poor old thing to resemble a sentimental
+goblin, keeping Sally Kittridge in a perfect hysterical tempest of
+suppressed laughter, and making it difficult for Mara to preserve the
+decencies of life toward her well-intending old friend. The trouble with
+poor Miss Ruey was that, while her body had grown old and crazy, her
+soul was just as juvenile as ever,--and a simple, juvenile soul
+disporting itself in a crazy, battered old body, is at great
+disadvantage. It was lucky for her, however, that she lived in the most
+sacred unconsciousness of the ludicrous effect of her little
+indulgences, and the pleasure she took in them was certainly of the most
+harmless kind. The world would be a far better and more enjoyable place
+than it is, if all people who are old and uncomely could find amusement
+as innocent and Christian-like as Miss Ruey's inoffensive thread-case
+collection of sentimental truisms.
+
+This quilting of which we speak was a solemn, festive occasion of the
+parish, held a week after Moses had sailed away; and so _piquant_ a
+morsel as a recent engagement could not, of course, fail to be served up
+for the company in every variety of garnishing which individual tastes
+might suggest.
+
+It became an ascertained fact, however, in the course of the evening
+festivities, that the minister was serenely approbative of the event;
+that Captain Kittridge was at length brought to a sense of the errors of
+his way in supposing that Sally had ever cared a pin for Moses more than
+as a mutual friend and confidant; and the great affair was settled
+without more ripples of discomposure than usually attend similar
+announcements in more refined society.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIV
+
+FRIENDS
+
+
+The quilting broke up at the primitive hour of nine o'clock, at which,
+in early New England days, all social gatherings always dispersed.
+Captain Kittridge rowed his helpmeet, with Mara and Sally, across the
+Bay to the island.
+
+"Come and stay with me to-night, Sally," said Mara.
+
+"I think Sally had best be at home," said Mrs. Kittridge. "There's no
+sense in girls talking all night."
+
+"There ain't sense in nothin' else, mother," said the Captain. "Next to
+sparkin', which is the Christianist thing I knows on, comes gals' talks
+'bout their sparks; they's as natural as crowsfoot and red columbines
+in the spring, and spring don't come but once a year neither,--and so
+let 'em take the comfort on't. I warrant now, Polly, you've laid awake
+nights and talked about me."
+
+"We've all been foolish once," said Mrs. Kittridge.
+
+"Well, mother, we want to be foolish too," said Sally.
+
+"Well, you and your father are too much for me," said Mrs. Kittridge,
+plaintively; "you always get your own way."
+
+"How lucky that my way is always a good one!" said Sally.
+
+"Well, you know, Sally, you are going to make the beer to-morrow," still
+objected her mother.
+
+"Oh, yes; that's another reason," said Sally. "Mara and I shall come
+home through the woods in the morning, and we can get whole apronfuls of
+young wintergreen, and besides, I know where there's a lot of sassafras
+root. We'll dig it, won't we, Mara?"
+
+"Yes; and I'll come down and help you brew," said Mara. "Don't you
+remember the beer I made when Moses came home?"
+
+"Yes, yes, I remember," said the Captain, "you sent us a couple of
+bottles."
+
+"We can make better yet now," said Mara. "The wintergreen is young, and
+the green tips on the spruce boughs are so full of strength. Everything
+is lively and sunny now."
+
+"Yes, yes," said the Captain, "and I 'spect I know why things do look
+pretty lively to some folks, don't they?"
+
+"I don't know what sort of work you'll make of the beer among you," said
+Mrs. Kittridge; "but you must have it your own way."
+
+Mrs. Kittridge, who never did anything else among her tea-drinking
+acquaintances but laud and magnify Sally's good traits and domestic
+acquirements, felt constantly bound to keep up a faint show of
+controversy and authority in her dealings with her,--the fading remains
+of the strict government of her childhood; but it was, nevertheless,
+very perfectly understood, in a general way, that Sally was to do as she
+pleased; and so, when the boat came to shore, she took the arm of Mara
+and started up toward the brown house.
+
+The air was soft and balmy, and though the moon by which the troth of
+Mara and Moses had been plighted had waned into the latest hours of the
+night, still a thousand stars were lying in twinkling brightness,
+reflected from the undulating waves all around them, and the tide, as it
+rose and fell, made a sound as gentle and soft as the respiration of a
+peaceful sleeper.
+
+"Well, Mara," said Sally, after an interval of silence, "all has come
+out right. You see that it was you whom he loved. What a lucky thing
+for me that I am made so heartless, or I might not be as glad as I am."
+
+"You are not heartless, Sally," said Mara; "it's the enchanted princess
+asleep; the right one hasn't come to waken her."
+
+"Maybe so," said Sally, with her old light laugh. "If I only were sure
+he would make you happy now,--half as happy as you deserve,--I'd forgive
+him his share of this summer's mischief. The fault was just half mine,
+you see, for I witched with him. I confess it. I have my own little
+spider-webs for these great lordly flies, and I like to hear them buzz."
+
+"Take care, Sally; never do it again, or the spider-web may get round
+you," said Mara.
+
+"Never fear me," said Sally. "But, Mara, I wish I felt sure that Moses
+could make you happy. Do you really, now, when you think seriously, feel
+as if he would?"
+
+"I never thought seriously about it," said Mara; "but I know he needs
+me; that I can do for him what no one else can. I have always felt all
+my life that he was to be mine; that he was sent to me, ordained for me
+to care for and to love."
+
+"You are well mated," said Sally. "He wants to be loved very much, and
+you want to love. There's the active and passive voice, as they used to
+say at Miss Plucher's. But yet in your natures you are opposite as any
+two could well be."
+
+Mara felt that there was in these chance words of Sally more than she
+perceived. No one could feel as intensely as she could that the mind and
+heart so dear to her were yet, as to all that was most vital and real in
+her inner life, unsympathizing. To her the spiritual world was a
+reality; God an ever-present consciousness; and the line of this present
+life seemed so to melt and lose itself in the anticipation of a future
+and brighter one, that it was impossible for her to speak intimately and
+not unconsciously to betray the fact. To him there was only the life of
+this world: there was no present God; and from all thought of a future
+life he shrank with a shuddering aversion, as from something ghastly and
+unnatural. She had realized this difference more in the few days that
+followed her betrothal than all her life before, for now first the
+barrier of mutual constraint and misunderstanding having melted away,
+each spoke with an _abandon_ and unreserve which made the acquaintance
+more vitally intimate than ever it had been before. It was then that
+Mara felt that while her sympathies could follow him through all his
+plans and interests, there was a whole world of thought and feeling in
+her heart where his could not follow her; and she asked herself, Would
+it be so always? Must she walk at his side forever repressing the
+utterance of that which was most sacred and intimate, living in a
+nominal and external communion only? How could it be that what was so
+lovely and clear in its reality to her, that which was to her as
+life-blood, that which was the vital air in which she lived and moved
+and had her being, could be absolutely nothing to him? Was it really
+possible, as he said, that God had no existence for him except in a
+nominal cold belief; that the spiritual world was to him only a land of
+pale shades and doubtful glooms, from which he shrank with dread, and
+the least allusion to which was distasteful? and would this always be
+so? and if so, could she be happy?
+
+But Mara said the truth in saying that the question of personal
+happiness never entered her thoughts. She loved Moses in a way that made
+it necessary to her happiness to devote herself to him, to watch over
+and care for him; and though she knew not how, she felt a sort of
+presentiment that it was through her that he must be brought into
+sympathy with a spiritual and immortal life.
+
+All this passed through Mara's mind in the reverie into which Sally's
+last words threw her, as she sat on the door-sill and looked off into
+the starry distance and heard the weird murmur of the sea.
+
+"How lonesome the sea at night always is," said Sally. "I declare, Mara,
+I don't wonder you miss that creature, for, to tell the truth, I do a
+little bit. It was something, you know, to have somebody to come in, and
+to joke with, and to say how he liked one's hair and one's ribbons, and
+all that. I quite got up a friendship for Moses, so that I can feel how
+dull you must be;" and Sally gave a half sigh, and then whistled a tune
+as adroitly as a blackbird.
+
+"Yes," said Mara, "we two girls down on this lonely island need some one
+to connect us with the great world; and he was so full of life, and so
+certain and confident, he seemed to open a way before one out into
+life."
+
+"Well, of course, while he is gone there will be plenty to do getting
+ready to be married," said Sally. "By the by, when I was over to
+Portland the other day, Maria Potter showed me a new pattern for a
+bed-quilt, the sweetest thing you can imagine,--it is called the morning
+star. There is a great star in the centre, and little stars all
+around,--white on a blue ground. I mean to begin one for you."
+
+"I am going to begin spinning some very fine flax next week," said Mara;
+"and have I shown you the new pattern I drew for a counterpane? it is to
+be morning-glories, leaves and flowers, you know,--a pretty idea, isn't
+it?"
+
+And so, the conversation falling from the region of the sentimental to
+the practical, the two girls went in and spent an hour in discussions so
+purely feminine that we will not enlighten the reader further therewith.
+Sally seemed to be investing all her energies in the preparation of the
+wedding outfit of her friend, about which she talked with a constant and
+restless activity, and for which she formed a thousand plans, and
+projected shopping tours to Portland, Brunswick, and even to
+Boston,--this last being about as far off a venture at that time as
+Paris now seems to a Boston belle.
+
+"When you are married," said Sally, "you'll have to take me to live with
+you; that creature sha'n't have you _all_ to himself. I hate men, they
+are so exorbitant,--they spoil all our playmates; and what shall I do
+when _you_ are gone?"
+
+"You will go with Mr.--what's his name?" said Mara.
+
+"Pshaw, I don't know him. I shall be an old maid," said Sally; "and
+really there isn't much harm in that, if one could have company,--if
+somebody or other wouldn't marry all one's friends,--that's lonesome,"
+she said, winking a tear out of her black eyes and laughing. "If I were
+only a young fellow now, Mara, I'd have you myself, and that would be
+just the thing; and I'd shoot Moses, if he said a word; and I'd have
+money, and I'd have honors, and I'd carry you off to Europe, and take
+you to Paris and Rome, and nobody knows where; and we'd live in peace,
+as the story-books say."
+
+"Come, Sally, how wild you are talking," said Mara, "and the clock has
+just struck one; let's try to go to sleep."
+
+Sally put her face to Mara's and kissed her, and Mara felt a moist spot
+on her cheek,--could it be a tear?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXV
+
+THE TOOTHACRE COTTAGE
+
+
+Aunt Roxy and Aunt Ruey Toothacre lived in a little one-story
+gambrel-roofed cottage, on the side of Harpswell Bay, just at the head
+of the long cove which we have already described. The windows on two
+sides commanded the beautiful bay and the opposite shores, and on the
+other they looked out into the dense forest, through whose deep shadows
+of white birch and pine the silver rise and fall of the sea daily
+revealed itself.
+
+The house itself was a miracle of neatness within, for the two thrifty
+sisters were worshipers of soap and sand, and these two tutelary deities
+had kept every board of the house-floor white and smooth, and also every
+table and bench and tub of household use. There was a sacred care over
+each article, however small and insignificant, which composed their
+slender household stock. The loss or breakage of one of them would have
+made a visible crack in the hearts of the worthy sisters,--for every
+plate, knife, fork, spoon, cup, or glass was as intimate with them, as
+instinct with home feeling, as if it had a soul; each defect or spot had
+its history, and a cracked dish or article of furniture received as
+tender and considerate medical treatment as if it were capable of
+understanding and feeling the attention.
+
+It was now a warm, spicy day in June,--one of those which bring out the
+pineapple fragrance from the fir-shoots, and cause the spruce and
+hemlocks to exude a warm, resinous perfume. The two sisters, for a
+wonder, were having a day to themselves, free from the numerous calls
+of the vicinity for twelve miles round. The room in which they were
+sitting was bestrewn with fragments of dresses and bonnets, which were
+being torn to pieces in a most wholesale way, with a view to a general
+rejuvenescence. A person of unsympathetic temperament, and disposed to
+take sarcastic views of life, might perhaps wonder what possible object
+these two battered and weather-beaten old bodies proposed to themselves
+in this process,--whether Miss Roxy's gaunt black-straw helmet, which
+she had worn defiantly all winter, was likely to receive much lustre
+from being pressed over and trimmed with an old green ribbon which that
+energetic female had colored black by a domestic recipe; and whether
+Miss Roxy's rusty bombazette would really seem to the world any fresher
+for being ripped, and washed, and turned, for the second or third time,
+and made over with every breadth in a different situation. Probably
+after a week of efficient labor, busily expended in bleaching, dyeing,
+pressing, sewing, and ripping, an unenlightened spectator, seeing them
+come into the meeting-house, would simply think, "There are those two
+old frights with the same old things on they have worn these fifty
+years." Happily the weird sisters were contentedly ignorant of any such
+remarks, for no duchesses could have enjoyed a more quiet belief in
+their own social position, and their semi-annual spring and fall
+rehabilitation was therefore entered into with the most simple-hearted
+satisfaction.
+
+"I'm a-thinkin', Roxy," said Aunt Ruey, considerately turning and
+turning on her hand an old straw bonnet, on which were streaked all the
+marks of the former trimming in lighter lines, which revealed too
+clearly the effects of wind and weather,--"I'm a-thinkin' whether or no
+this 'ere mightn't as well be dyed and done with it as try to bleach it
+out. I've had it ten years last May, and it's kind o' losin' its
+freshness, you know. I don't believe these 'ere streaks will bleach
+out."
+
+"Never mind, Ruey," said Miss Roxy, authoritatively, "I'm goin' to do
+Mis' Badger's leg'orn, and it won't cost nothin'; so hang your'n in the
+barrel along with it,--the same smoke'll do 'em both. Mis' Badger she
+finds the brimstone, and next fall you can put it in the dye when we do
+the yarn."
+
+"That ar straw is a beautiful straw!" said Miss Ruey, in a plaintive
+tone, tenderly examining the battered old head-piece,--"I braided every
+stroke on it myself, and I don't know as I could do it ag'in. My fingers
+ain't quite so limber as they was! I don't think I shall put green
+ribbon on it ag'in; 'cause green is such a color to ruin, if a body gets
+caught out in a shower! There's these green streaks come that day I left
+my amberil at Captain Broad's, and went to meetin'. Mis' Broad she says
+to me, 'Aunt Ruey, it won't rain.' And says I to her, 'Well, Mis' Broad,
+I'll try it; though I never did leave my amberil at home but what it
+rained.' And so I went, and sure enough it rained cats and dogs, and
+streaked my bonnet all up; and them ar streaks won't bleach out, I'm
+feared."
+
+"How long is it Mis' Badger has had that ar leg'orn?"
+
+"Why, you know, the Cap'n he brought it home when he came from his
+voyage from Marseilles. That ar was when Phebe Ann was born, and she's
+fifteen year old. It was a most elegant thing when he brought it; but I
+think it kind o' led Mis' Badger on to extravagant ways,--for gettin'
+new trimmin' spring and fall so uses up money as fast as new bonnets;
+but Mis' Badger's got the money, and she's got a right to use it if she
+pleases; but if I'd a-had new trimmin's spring and fall, I shouldn't
+a-put away what I have in the bank."
+
+"Have you seen the straw Sally Kittridge is braidin' for Mara Lincoln's
+weddin' bonnet?" said Miss Ruey. "It's jist the finest thing ever you
+did see,--and the whitest. I was a-tellin' Sally that I could do as well
+once myself, but my mantle was a-fallin' on her. Sally don't seem to act
+a bit like a disap'inted gal. She is as chipper as she can be about
+Mara's weddin', and seems like she couldn't do too much. But laws,
+everybody seems to want to be a-doin' for her. Miss Emily was a-showin'
+me a fine double damask tablecloth that she was goin' to give her; and
+Mis' Pennel, she's been a-spinnin' and layin' up sheets and towels and
+tablecloths all her life,--and then she has all Naomi's things. Mis'
+Pennel was talkin' to me the other day about bleachin' 'em out 'cause
+they'd got yellow a-lyin'. I kind o' felt as if 'twas unlucky to be
+a-fittin' out a bride with her dead mother's things, but I didn't like
+to say nothin'."
+
+"Ruey," said Miss Roxy impressively, "I hain't never had but jist one
+mind about Mara Lincoln's weddin',--it's to be,--but it won't be the way
+people think. I hain't nussed and watched and sot up nights sixty years
+for nothin'. I can see beyond what most folks can,--her weddin' garments
+is bought and paid for, and she'll wear 'em, but she won't be Moses
+Pennel's wife,--now you see."
+
+"Why, whose wife will she be then?" said Miss Ruey; "'cause that ar Mr.
+Adams is married. I saw it in the paper last week when I was up to Mis'
+Badger's."
+
+Miss Roxy shut her lips with oracular sternness and went on with her
+sewing.
+
+"Who's that comin' in the back door?" said Miss Ruey, as the sound of a
+footstep fell upon her ear. "Bless me," she added, as she started up to
+look, "if folks ain't always nearest when you're talkin' about 'em. Why,
+Mara; you come down here and catched us in all our dirt! Well now, we're
+glad to see you, if we be," said Miss Ruey.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVI
+
+THE SHADOW OF DEATH
+
+
+It was in truth Mara herself who came and stood in the doorway. She
+appeared overwearied with her walk, for her cheeks had a vivid
+brightness unlike their usual tender pink. Her eyes had, too, a
+brilliancy almost painful to look upon. They seemed like ardent fires,
+in which the life was slowly burning away.
+
+"Sit down, sit down, little Mara," said Aunt Ruey. "Why, how like a
+picture you look this mornin',--one needn't ask you how you do,--it's
+plain enough that you are pretty well."
+
+"Yes, I am, Aunt Ruey," she answered, sinking into a chair; "only it is
+warm to-day, and the sun is so hot, that's all, I believe; but I am very
+tired."
+
+"So you are now, poor thing," said Miss Ruey. "Roxy, where's my
+turkey-feather fan? Oh, here 'tis; there, take it, and fan you, child;
+and maybe you'll have a glass of our spruce beer?"
+
+"Thank you, Aunt Roxy. I brought you some young wintergreen," said Mara,
+unrolling from her handkerchief a small knot of those fragrant leaves,
+which were wilted by the heat.
+
+"Thank you, I'm sure," said Miss Ruey, in delight; "you always fetch
+something, Mara,--always would, ever since you could toddle. Roxy and I
+was jist talkin' about your weddin'. I s'pose you're gettin' things well
+along down to your house. Well, here's the beer. I don't hardly know
+whether you'll think it worked enough, though. I set it Saturday
+afternoon, for all Mis' Twitchell said it was wicked for beer to work
+Sundays," said Miss Ruey, with a feeble cackle at her own joke.
+
+"Thank you, Aunt Ruey; it is excellent, as your things always are. I was
+very thirsty."
+
+"I s'pose you hear from Moses pretty often now," said Aunt Ruey. "How
+kind o' providential it happened about his getting that property; he'll
+be a rich man now; and Mara, you'll come to grandeur, won't you? Well, I
+don't know anybody deserves it more,--I r'ally don't. Mis' Badger was
+a-sayin' so a-Sunday, and Cap'n Kittridge and all on 'em. I s'pose
+though we've got to lose you,--you'll be goin' off to Boston, or New
+York, or somewhere."
+
+"We can't tell what may happen, Aunt Ruey," said Mara, and there was a
+slight tremor in her voice as she spoke.
+
+Miss Roxy, who beyond the first salutations had taken no part in this
+conversation, had from time to time regarded Mara over the tops of her
+spectacles with looks of grave apprehension; and Mara, looking up, now
+encountered one of these glances.
+
+"Have you taken the dock and dandelion tea I told you about?" said the
+wise woman, rather abruptly.
+
+"Yes, Aunt Roxy, I have taken them faithfully for two weeks past."
+
+"And do they seem to set you up any?" said Miss Roxy.
+
+"No, I don't think they do. Grandma thinks I'm better, and grandpa, and
+I let them think so; but Miss Roxy, _can't_ you think of something
+else?"
+
+Miss Roxy laid aside the straw bonnet which she was ripping, and
+motioned Mara into the outer room,--the sink-room, as the sisters called
+it. It was the scullery of their little establishment,--the place where
+all dish-washing and clothes-washing was generally performed,--but the
+boards of the floor were white as snow, and the place had the odor of
+neatness. The open door looked out pleasantly into the deep forest,
+where the waters of the cove, now at high tide, could be seen glittering
+through the trees. Soft moving spots of sunlight fell, checkering the
+feathery ferns and small piney tribes of evergreen which ran in ruffling
+wreaths of green through the dry, brown matting of fallen pine needles.
+Birds were singing and calling to each other merrily from the green
+shadows of the forest,--everything had a sylvan fullness and freshness
+of life. There are moods of mind when the sight of the bloom and
+freshness of nature affects us painfully, like the want of sympathy in a
+dear friend. Mara had been all her days a child of the woods; her
+delicate life had grown up in them like one of their own cool shaded
+flowers; and there was not a moss, not a fern, not an upspringing thing
+that waved a leaf or threw forth a flower-bell, that was not a
+well-known friend to her; she had watched for years its haunts, known
+the time of its coming and its going, studied its shy and veiled habits,
+and interwoven with its life each year a portion of her own; and now she
+looked out into the old mossy woods, with their wavering spots of sun
+and shadow, with a yearning pain, as if she wanted help or sympathy to
+come from their silent recesses.
+
+She sat down on the clean, scoured door-sill, and took off her straw
+hat. Her golden-brown hair was moist with the damps of fatigue, which
+made it curl and wave in darker little rings about her forehead; her
+eyes,--those longing, wistful eyes,--had a deeper pathos of sadness than
+ever they had worn before; and her delicate lips trembled with some
+strong suppressed emotion.
+
+"Aunt Roxy," she said suddenly, "I _must_ speak to somebody. I can't go
+on and keep up without telling some one, and it had better be you,
+because you have skill and experience, and can help me if anybody can.
+I've been going on for six months now, taking this and taking that, and
+trying to get better, but it's of no use. Aunt Roxy, I feel my life
+going,--going just as steadily and as quietly every day as the sand goes
+out of your hour-glass. I want to live,--oh, I never wanted to live so
+much, and I can't,--oh, I know I can't. Can I now,--do you think I can?"
+
+Mara looked imploringly at Miss Roxy. The hard-visaged woman sat down on
+the wash-bench, and, covering her worn, stony visage with her checked
+apron, sobbed aloud.
+
+Mara was confounded. This implacably withered, sensible, dry woman,
+beneficently impassive in sickness and sorrow, weeping!--it was awful,
+as if one of the Fates had laid down her fatal distaff to weep.
+
+Mara sprung up impulsively and threw her arms round her neck.
+
+"Now don't, Aunt Roxy, don't. I didn't think you would feel bad, or I
+wouldn't have told you; but oh, you don't know how hard it is to keep
+such a secret all to one's self. I have to make believe all the time
+that I am feeling well and getting better. I really say what isn't true
+every day, because, poor grandmamma, how could I bear to see her
+distress? and grandpapa,--oh, I wish people didn't love me so! Why
+cannot they let me go? And oh, Aunt Roxy, I had a letter only yesterday,
+and he is so sure we shall be married this fall,--and I know it cannot
+be." Mara's voice gave way in sobs, and the two wept together,--the old
+grim, gray woman holding the soft golden head against her breast with a
+convulsive grasp. "Oh, Aunt Roxy, do you love me, too?" said Mara. "I
+didn't know you did."
+
+"Love ye, child?" said Miss Roxy; "yes, I love ye like my life. I ain't
+one that makes talk about things, but I do; you come into my arms fust
+of anybody's in this world,--and except poor little Hitty, I never loved
+nobody as I have you."
+
+"Ah! that was your sister, whose grave I have seen," said Mara, speaking
+in a soothing, caressing tone, and putting her little thin hand against
+the grim, wasted cheek, which was now moist with tears.
+
+"Jes' so, child, she died when she was a year younger than you be; she
+was not lost, for God took her. Poor Hitty! her life jest dried up like
+a brook in August,--jest so. Well, she was hopefully pious, and it was
+better for her."
+
+"Did she go like me, Aunt Roxy?" said Mara.
+
+"Well, yes, dear; she did begin jest so, and I gave her everything I
+could think of; and we had doctors for her far and near; but _'twasn't
+to be_,--that's all we could say; she was called, and her time was
+come."
+
+"Well, now, Aunt Roxy," said Mara, "at any rate, it's a relief to speak
+out to some one. It's more than two months that I have felt every day
+more and more that there was no hope,--life has hung on me like a
+weight. I have had to _make_ myself keep up, and make myself do
+everything, and no one knows how it has tried me. I am so tired all the
+time, I could cry; and yet when I go to bed nights I can't sleep, I lie
+in such a hot, restless way; and then before morning I am drenched with
+cold sweat, and feel so weak and wretched. I force myself to eat, and I
+force myself to talk and laugh, and it's all pretense; and it wears me
+out,--it would be better if I stopped trying,--it would be better to
+give up and act as weak as I feel; but how can I let them know?"
+
+"My dear child," said Aunt Roxy, "the truth is the kindest thing we can
+give folks in the end. When folks know jest where they are, why they can
+walk; you'll all be supported; you must trust in the Lord. I have been
+more'n forty years with sick rooms and dyin' beds, and I never knew it
+fail that those that trusted in the Lord was brought through."
+
+"Oh, Aunt Roxy, it is so hard for me to give up,--to give up hoping to
+live. There were a good many years when I thought I should love to
+depart,--not that I was really unhappy, but I longed to go to heaven,
+though I knew it was selfish, when I knew how lonesome I should leave my
+friends. But now, oh, life has looked so bright; I have clung to it so;
+I do now. I lie awake nights and pray, and try to give it up and be
+resigned, and I can't. Is it wicked?"
+
+"Well, it's natur' to want to live," said Miss Roxy. "Life is sweet, and
+in a gen'l way we was made to live. Don't worry; the Lord'll bring you
+right when His time comes. Folks isn't always supported jest when they
+want to be, nor _as_ they want to be; but yet they're supported fust and
+last. Ef I was to tell you how as I has hope in your case, I shouldn't
+be a-tellin' you the truth. I hasn't much of any; only all things is
+possible with God. If you could kind o' give it all up and rest easy in
+His hands, and keep a-doin' what you can,--why, while there's life
+there's hope, you know; and if you are to be made well, you will be all
+the sooner."
+
+"Aunt Roxy, it's all right; I know it's all right. God knows best; He
+will do what is best; I know that; but my heart bleeds, and is sore. And
+when I get his letters,--I got one yesterday,--it brings it all back
+again. Everything is going on so well; he says he has done more than all
+he ever hoped; his letters are full of jokes, full of spirit. Ah, he
+little knows,--and how can I tell him?"
+
+"Child, you needn't yet. You can jest kind o' prepare his mind a
+little."
+
+"Aunt Roxy, have you spoken of my case to any one,--have you told what
+you know of me?"
+
+"No, child, I hain't said nothin' more than that you was a little weakly
+now and then."
+
+"I have such a color every afternoon," said Mara. "Grandpapa talks about
+my roses, and Captain Kittridge jokes me about growing so handsome;
+nobody seems to realize how I feel. I have kept up with all the strength
+I had. I have tried to shake it off, and to feel that nothing was the
+matter,--really there is nothing much, only this weakness. This morning
+I thought it would do me good to walk down here. I remember times when I
+could ramble whole days in the woods, but I was so tired before I got
+half way here that I had to stop a long while and rest. Aunt Roxy, if
+you would only tell grandpapa and grandmamma just how things are, and
+what the danger is, and let them stop talking to me about wedding
+things,--for really and truly I am too unwell to keep up any longer."
+
+"Well, child, I will," said Miss Roxy. "Your grandfather will be
+supported, and hold you up, for he's one of the sort as has the secret
+of the Lord,--I remember him of old. Why, the day your father and mother
+was buried he stood up and sung old China, and his face was wonderful to
+see. He seemed to be standin' with the world under his feet and heaven
+opening. He's a master Christian, your grandfather is; and now you jest
+go and lie down in the little bedroom, and rest you a bit, and by and
+by, in the cool of the afternoon, I'll walk along home with you."
+
+Miss Roxy opened the door of a little room, whose white fringy
+window-curtains were blown inward by breezes from the blue sea, and laid
+the child down to rest on a clean sweet-smelling bed with as deft and
+tender care as if she were not a bony, hard-visaged, angular female, in
+a black mohair frisette.
+
+She stopped a moment wistfully before a little profile head, of a kind
+which resembles a black shadow on a white ground. "That was Hitty!" she
+said.
+
+Mara had often seen in the graveyard a mound inscribed to this young
+person, and heard traditionally of a young and pretty sister of Miss
+Roxy who had died very many years before. But the grave was overgrown
+with blackberry-vines, and gray moss had grown into the crevices of the
+slab which served for a tombstone, and never before that day had she
+heard Miss Roxy speak of her. Miss Roxy took down the little black
+object and handed it to Mara. "You can't tell much by that, but she was
+a most beautiful creatur'. Well, it's all best as it is." Mara saw
+nothing but a little black shadow cast on white paper, yet she was
+affected by the perception how bright, how beautiful, was the image in
+the memory of that seemingly stern, commonplace woman, and how of all
+that in her mind's eye she saw and remembered, she could find no outward
+witness but this black block. "So some day my friends will speak of me
+as a distant shadow," she said, as with a sigh she turned her head on
+the pillow.
+
+Miss Roxy shut the door gently as she went out, and betrayed the
+unwonted rush of softer feelings which had come over her only by being
+more dictatorial and commanding than usual in her treatment of her
+sister, who was sitting in fidgety curiosity to know what could have
+been the subject of the private conference.
+
+"I s'pose Mara wanted to get some advice about makin' up her weddin'
+things," said Miss Ruey, with a sort of humble quiver, as Miss Roxy
+began ripping and tearing fiercely at her old straw bonnet, as if she
+really purposed its utter and immediate demolition.
+
+"No she didn't, neither," said Miss Roxy, fiercely. "I declare, Ruey,
+you are silly; your head is always full of weddin's, weddin's,
+weddin's--nothin' else--from mornin' till night, and night till mornin'.
+I tell you there's other things have got to be thought of in this world
+besides weddin' clothes, and it would be well, if people would think
+more o' gettin' their weddin' garments ready for the kingdom of heaven.
+That's what Mara's got to think of; for, mark my words, Ruey, there is
+no marryin' and givin' in marriage for her in this world."
+
+"Why, bless me, Roxy, now you don't say so!" said Miss Ruey; "why I knew
+she was kind o' weakly and ailin', but"--
+
+"Kind o' weakly and ailin'!" said Miss Roxy, taking up Miss Ruey's words
+in a tone of high disgust, "I should rather think she was; and more'n
+that, too: she's marked for death, and that before long, too. It may be
+that Moses Pennel'll never see her again--he never half knew what she
+was worth--maybe he'll know when he's lost her, that's one comfort!"
+
+"But," said Miss Ruey, "everybody has been a-sayin' what a beautiful
+color she was a-gettin' in her cheeks."
+
+"Color in her cheeks!" snorted Miss Roxy; "so does a rock-maple get
+color in September and turn all scarlet, and what for? why, the frost
+has been at it, and its time is out. That's what your bright colors
+stand for. Hain't you noticed that little gravestone cough, jest the
+faintest in the world, and it don't come from a cold, and it hangs on. I
+tell you you can't cheat me, she's goin' jest as Mehitabel went, jest as
+Sally Ann Smith went, jest as Louisa Pearson went. I could count now on
+my fingers twenty girls that have gone that way. Nobody saw 'em goin'
+till they was gone."
+
+"Well, now, I don't think the old folks have the least idea on't," said
+Miss Ruey. "Only last Saturday Mis' Pennel was a-talkin' to me about the
+sheets and tablecloths she's got out a-bleachin'; and she said that the
+weddin' dress was to be made over to Mis' Mosely's in Portland, 'cause
+Moses he's so particular about havin' things genteel."
+
+"Well, Master Moses'll jest have to give up his particular notions,"
+said Miss Roxy, "and come down in the dust, like all the rest on us,
+when the Lord sends an east wind and withers our gourds. Moses Pennel's
+one of the sort that expects to drive all before him with the strong
+arm, and sech has to learn that things ain't to go as they please in the
+Lord's world. Sech always has to come to spots that they can't get over
+nor under nor round, to have their own way, but jest has to give right
+up square."
+
+"Well, Roxy," said Miss Ruey, "how does the poor little thing take it?
+Has she got reconciled?"
+
+"Reconciled! Ruey, how you do ask questions!" said Miss Roxy, fiercely
+pulling a bandanna silk handkerchief out of her pocket, with which she
+wiped her eyes in a defiant manner. "Reconciled! It's easy enough to
+talk, Ruey, but how would you like it, when everything was goin' smooth
+and playin' into your hands, and all the world smooth and shiny, to be
+took short up? I guess you wouldn't be reconciled. That's what I guess."
+
+"Dear me, Roxy, who said I should?" said Miss Ruey. "I wa'n't blamin'
+the poor child, not a grain."
+
+"Well, who said you was, Ruey?" answered Miss Roxy, in the same high
+key.
+
+"You needn't take my head off," said Aunt Ruey, roused as much as her
+adipose, comfortable nature could be. "You've been a-talkin' at me ever
+since you came in from the sink-room, as if I was to blame; and snappin'
+at me as if I hadn't a right to ask civil questions; and I won't stan'
+it," said Miss Ruey. "And while I'm about it, I'll say that you always
+have snubbed me and contradicted and ordered me round. I won't bear it
+no longer."
+
+"Come, Ruey, don't make a fool of yourself at your time of life," said
+Miss Roxy. "Things is bad enough in this world without two lone sisters
+and church-members turnin' agin each other. You must take me as I am,
+Ruey; my bark's worse than my bite, as you know."
+
+Miss Ruey sank back pacified into her usual state of pillowy dependence;
+it was so much easier to be good-natured than to contend. As for Miss
+Roxy, if you have ever carefully examined a chestnut-burr, you will
+remember that, hard as it is to handle, no plush of downiest texture can
+exceed the satin smoothness of the fibres which line its heart. There
+are a class of people in New England who betray the uprising of the
+softer feelings of our nature only by an increase of outward asperity--a
+sort of bashfulness and shyness leaves them no power of expression for
+these unwonted guests of the heart--they hurry them into inner chambers
+and slam the doors upon them, as if they were vexed at their appearance.
+
+Now if poor Miss Roxy had been like you, my dear young lady--if her soul
+had been encased in a round, rosy, and comely body, and looked out of
+tender blue eyes shaded by golden hair, probably the grief and love she
+felt would have shown themselves only in bursts of feeling most graceful
+to see, and engaging the sympathy of all; but this same soul, imprisoned
+in a dry, angular body, stiff and old, and looking out under beetling
+eyebrows, over withered high cheek-bones, could only utter itself by a
+passionate tempest--unlovely utterance of a lovely impulse--dear only to
+Him who sees with a Father's heart the real beauty of spirits. It is our
+firm faith that bright solemn angels in celestial watchings were
+frequent guests in the homely room of the two sisters, and that passing
+by all accidents of age and poverty, withered skins, bony features, and
+grotesque movements and shabby clothing, they saw more real beauty there
+than in many a scented boudoir where seeming angels smile in lace and
+satin.
+
+"Ruey," said Miss Roxy, in a more composed voice, while her hard, bony
+hands still trembled with excitement, "this 'ere's been on my mind a
+good while. I hain't said nothin' to nobody, but I've seen it a-comin'.
+I always thought that child wa'n't for a long life. Lives is run in
+different lengths, and nobody can say what's the matter with some folks,
+only that their thread's run out; there's more on one spool and less on
+another. I thought, when we laid Hitty in the grave, that I shouldn't
+never set my heart on nothin' else--but we can't jest say we will or we
+won't. Ef we are to be sorely afflicted at any time, the Lord lets us
+set our hearts before we know it. This 'ere's a great affliction to me,
+Ruey, but I must jest shoulder my cross and go through with it. I'm
+goin' down to-night to tell the old folks, and to make arrangements so
+that the poor little lamb may have the care she needs. She's been
+a-keepin' up so long, 'cause she dreaded to let 'em know, but this 'ere
+has got to be looked right in the face, and I hope there'll be grace
+given to do it."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVII
+
+THE VICTORY
+
+
+Meanwhile Mara had been lying in the passive calm of fatigue and
+exhaustion, her eyes fixed on the window, where, as the white curtain
+drew inward, she could catch glimpses of the bay. Gradually her eyelids
+fell, and she dropped into that kind of half-waking doze, when the outer
+senses are at rest, and the mind is all the more calm and clear for
+their repose. In such hours a spiritual clairvoyance often seems to lift
+for a while the whole stifling cloud that lies like a confusing mist
+over the problem of life, and the soul has sudden glimpses of things
+unutterable which lie beyond. Then the narrow straits, that look so full
+of rocks and quicksands, widen into a broad, clear passage, and one
+after another, rosy with a celestial dawn, and ringing silver bells of
+gladness, the isles of the blessed lift themselves up on the horizon,
+and the soul is flooded with an atmosphere of light and joy. As the
+burden of Christian fell off at the cross and was lost in the sepulchre,
+so in these hours of celestial vision the whole weight of life's anguish
+is lifted, and passes away like a dream; and the soul, seeing the
+boundless ocean of Divine love, wherein all human hopes and joys and
+sorrows lie so tenderly upholden, comes and casts the one little drop of
+its personal will and personal existence with gladness into that
+Fatherly depth. Henceforth, with it, God and Saviour is no more word of
+mine and thine, for in that hour the child of earth feels himself heir
+of all things: "All things are yours, and ye are Christ's, and Christ is
+God's."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"The child is asleep," said Miss Roxy, as she stole on tiptoe into the
+room when their noon meal was prepared. A plate and knife had been laid
+for her, and they had placed for her a tumbler of quaint old engraved
+glass, reputed to have been brought over from foreign parts, and which
+had been given to Miss Roxy as her share in the effects of the
+mysterious Mr. Swadkins. Tea also was served in some egg-like India
+china cups, which saw the light only on the most high and festive
+occasions.
+
+"Hadn't you better wake her?" said Miss Ruey; "a cup of hot tea would do
+her so much good."
+
+Miss Ruey could conceive of few sorrows or ailments which would not be
+materially better for a cup of hot tea. If not the very elixir of life,
+it was indeed the next thing to it.
+
+"Well," said Miss Roxy, after laying her hand for a moment with great
+gentleness on that of the sleeping girl, "she don't wake easy, and she's
+tired; and she seems to be enjoying it so. The Bible says, 'He giveth
+his beloved sleep,' and I won't interfere. I've seen more good come of
+sleep than most things in my nursin' experience," said Miss Roxy, and
+she shut the door gently, and the two sisters sat down to their noontide
+meal.
+
+"How long the child does sleep!" said Miss Ruey as the old clock struck
+four.
+
+"It was too much for her, this walk down here," said Aunt Roxy. "She's
+been doin' too much for a long time. I'm a-goin' to put an end to that.
+Well, nobody needn't say Mara hain't got resolution. I never see a
+little thing have more. She always did have, when she was the leastest
+little thing. She was always quiet and white and still, but she did
+whatever she sot out to."
+
+At this moment, to their surprise, the door opened, and Mara came in,
+and both sisters were struck with a change that had passed over her. It
+was more than the result of mere physical repose. Not only had every
+sign of weariness and bodily languor vanished, but there was about her
+an air of solemn serenity and high repose that made her seem, as Miss
+Ruey afterwards said, "like an angel jest walked out of the big Bible."
+
+"Why, dear child, how you have slept, and how bright and rested you
+look," said Miss Ruey.
+
+"I am rested," said Mara; "oh how much! And happy," she added, laying
+her little hand on Miss Roxy's shoulder. "I thank you, dear friend, for
+all your kindness to me. I am sorry I made you feel so sadly; but now
+you mustn't feel so any more, for all is well--yes, all is well. I see
+now that it is so. I have passed beyond sorrow--yes, forever."
+
+Soft-hearted Miss Ruey here broke into audible sobbing, hiding her face
+in her hands, and looking like a tumbled heap of old faded calico in a
+state of convulsion.
+
+"Dear Aunt Ruey, you mustn't," said Mara, with a voice of gentle
+authority. "We mustn't any of us feel so any more. There is no harm
+done, no real evil is coming, only a good which we do not understand. I
+am perfectly satisfied--perfectly at rest now. I was foolish and weak to
+feel as I did this morning, but I shall not feel so any more. I shall
+comfort you all. Is it anything so dreadful for me to go to heaven? How
+little while it will be before you all come to me! Oh, how
+little--little while!"
+
+"I told you, Mara, that you'd be supported in the Lord's time," said
+Miss Roxy, who watched her with an air of grave and solemn attention.
+"First and last, folks allers is supported; but sometimes there is a
+long wrestlin'. The Lord's give you the victory early."
+
+"Victory!" said the girl, speaking as in a deep muse, and with a
+mysterious brightness in her eyes; "yes, that is the word--it _is_ a
+victory--no other word expresses it. Come, Aunt Roxy, we will go home. I
+am not afraid now to tell grandpapa and grandmamma. God will care for
+them; He will wipe away all tears."
+
+"Well, though, you mus'n't think of goin' till you've had a cup of tea,"
+said Aunt Ruey, wiping her eyes. "I've kep' the tea-pot hot by the fire,
+and you must eat a little somethin', for it's long past dinner-time."
+
+"Is it?" said Mara. "I had no idea I had slept so long--how thoughtful
+and kind you are!"
+
+"I do wish I could only do more for you," said Miss Ruey. "I don't seem
+to get reconciled no ways; it seems dreffle hard--dreffle; but I'm glad
+you _can_ feel so;" and the good old soul proceeded to press upon the
+child not only the tea, which she drank with feverish relish, but every
+hoarded dainty which their limited housekeeping commanded.
+
+It was toward sunset before Miss Roxy and Mara started on their walk
+homeward. Their way lay over the high stony ridge which forms the
+central part of the island. On one side, through the pines, they looked
+out into the boundless blue of the ocean, and on the other caught
+glimpses of Harpswell Bay as it lay glorified in the evening light. The
+fresh cool breeze blowing landward brought with it an invigorating
+influence, which Mara felt through all her feverish frame. She walked
+with an energy to which she had long been a stranger. She said little,
+but there was a sweetness, a repose, in her manner contrasting
+singularly with the passionate melancholy which she had that morning
+expressed.
+
+Miss Roxy did not interrupt her meditations. The nature of her
+profession had rendered her familiar with all the changing mental and
+physical phenomena that attend the development of disease and the
+gradual loosening of the silver cords of a present life. Certain
+well-understood phrases everywhere current among the mass of the people
+in New England, strikingly tell of the deep foundations of religious
+earnestness on which its daily life is built. "A triumphant death" was a
+matter often casually spoken of among the records of the neighborhood;
+and Miss Roxy felt that there was a vague and solemn charm about its
+approach. Yet the soul of the gray, dry woman was hot within her, for
+the conversation of the morning had probed depths in her own nature of
+whose existence she had never before been so conscious. The roughest and
+most matter-of-fact minds have a craving for the ideal somewhere; and
+often this craving, forbidden by uncomeliness and ungenial surroundings
+from having any personal history of its own, attaches itself to the
+fortune of some other one in a kind of strange disinterestedness. Some
+one young and beautiful is to live the life denied to them--to be the
+poem and the romance; it is the young mistress of the poor black
+slave--the pretty sister of the homely old spinster--or the clever son
+of the consciously ill-educated father. Something of this unconscious
+personal investment had there been on the part of Miss Roxy in the
+nursling whose singular loveliness she had watched for so many years,
+and on whose fair virgin orb she had marked the growing shadow of a
+fatal eclipse, and as she saw her glowing and serene, with that peculiar
+brightness that she felt came from no earthly presence or influence, she
+could scarcely keep the tears from her honest gray eyes.
+
+When they arrived at the door of the house, Zephaniah Pennel was sitting
+in it, looking toward the sunset.
+
+"Why, reely," he said, "Miss Roxy, we thought you must a-run away with
+Mara; she's been gone a'most all day."
+
+"I expect she's had enough to talk with Aunt Roxy about," said Mrs.
+Pennel. "Girls goin' to get married have a deal to talk about, what with
+patterns and contrivin' and makin' up. But come in, Miss Roxy; we're
+glad to see you."
+
+Mara turned to Miss Roxy, and gave her a look of peculiar meaning. "Aunt
+Roxy," she said, "you must tell them what we have been talking about
+to-day;" and then she went up to her room and shut the door.
+
+Miss Roxy accomplished her task with a matter-of-fact distinctness to
+which her business-like habits of dealing with sickness and death had
+accustomed her, yet with a sympathetic tremor in her voice which
+softened the hard directness of her words. "You can take her over to
+Portland, if you say so, and get Dr. Wilson's opinion," she said, in
+conclusion. "It's best to have all done that can be, though in my mind
+the case is decided."
+
+The silence that fell between the three was broken at last by the sound
+of a light footstep descending the stairs, and Mara entered among them.
+
+She came forward and threw her arms round Mrs. Pennel's neck, and kissed
+her; and then turning, she nestled down in the arms of her old
+grandfather, as she had often done in the old days of childhood, and
+laid her hand upon his shoulder. There was no sound for a few moments
+but one of suppressed weeping; but _she_ did not weep--she lay with
+bright calm eyes, as if looking upon some celestial vision.
+
+"It is not so very sad," she said at last, in a gentle voice, "that I
+should go there; you are going, too, and grandmamma; we are all going;
+and we shall be forever with the Lord. Think of it! think of it!"
+
+Many were the words spoken in that strange communing; and before Miss
+Roxy went away, a calmness of solemn rest had settled down on all. The
+old family Bible was brought forth, and Zephaniah Pennel read from it
+those strange words of strong consolation, which take the sting from
+death and the victory from the grave:--
+
+"And I heard a great voice out of heaven. Behold the tabernacle of God
+is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people;
+and God himself shall be with them and be their God. And God shall wipe
+away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death,
+neither sorrow nor crying, for the former things are passed away."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVIII
+
+OPEN VISION
+
+
+As Miss Roxy was leaving the dwelling of the Pennels, she met Sally
+Kittridge coming toward the house, laughing and singing, as was her
+wont. She raised her long, lean forefinger with a gesture of warning.
+
+"What's the matter now, Aunt Roxy? You look as solemn as a hearse."
+
+"None o' your jokin' now, Miss Sally; there _is_ such a thing as serious
+things in this 'ere world of our'n, for all you girls never seems to
+know it."
+
+"What is the matter, Aunt Roxy?--has anything happened?--is anything the
+matter with Mara?"
+
+"Matter enough. I've known it a long time," said Miss Roxy. "She's been
+goin' down for three months now; and she's got that on her that will
+carry her off before the year's out."
+
+"Pshaw, Aunt Roxy! how lugubriously you old nurses always talk! I hope
+now you haven't been filling Mara's head with any such notions--people
+can be frightened into anything."
+
+"Sally Kittridge, don't be a-talkin' of what you don't know nothin'
+about! It stands to reason that a body that was bearin' the heat and
+burden of the day long before you was born or thought on in this world
+_should_ know a thing or two more'n you. Why, I've laid you on your
+stomach and trotted you to trot up the wind many a day, and I was pretty
+experienced then, and it ain't likely that I'm a-goin' to take sa'ce
+from you. Mara Pennel is a gal as has every bit and grain as much
+resolution and ambition as you have, for all you flap your wings and
+crow so much louder, and she's one of the close-mouthed sort, that don't
+make no talk, and she's been a-bearin' up and bearin' up, and comin' to
+me on the sly for strengthenin' things. She's took camomile and
+orange-peel, and snake-root and boneset, and dash-root and
+dandelion--and there hain't nothin' done her no good. She told me to-day
+she couldn't keep up no longer, and I've been a-tellin' Mis' Pennel and
+her grand'ther. I tell you it has been a solemn time; and if you're
+goin' in, don't go in with none o' your light triflin' ways, 'cause 'as
+vinegar upon nitre is he that singeth songs on a heavy heart,' the
+Scriptur' says."
+
+"Oh, Miss Roxy, do tell me truly," said Sally, much moved. "What do you
+think is the matter with Mara? I've noticed myself that she got tired
+easy, and that she was short-breathed--but she seemed so cheerful. Can
+anything really be the matter?"
+
+"It's consumption, Sally Kittridge," said Miss Roxy, "neither more nor
+less; that ar is the long and the short. They're going to take her over
+to Portland to see Dr. Wilson--it won't do no harm, and it won't do no
+good."
+
+"You seem to be determined she shall die," said Sally in a tone of
+pique.
+
+"Determined, am I? Is it I that determines that the maple leaves shall
+fall next October? Yet I know they will--folks can't help knowin' what
+they know, and shuttin' one's eyes won't alter one's road. I s'pose you
+think 'cause you're young and middlin' good-lookin' that you have
+feelin's and I hasn't; well, you're mistaken, that's all. I don't
+believe there's one person in the world that would go farther or do more
+to save Mara Pennel than I would,--and yet I've been in the world long
+enough to see that livin' ain't no great shakes neither. Ef one is
+hopefully prepared in the days of their youth, why they escape a good
+deal, ef they get took cross-lots into heaven."
+
+Sally turned away thoughtfully into the house; there was no one in the
+kitchen, and the tick of the old clock sounded lonely and sepulchral.
+She went upstairs to Mara's room; the door was ajar. Mara was sitting at
+the open window that looked forth toward the ocean, busily engaged in
+writing. The glow of evening shone on the golden waves of her hair, and
+tinged the pearly outline of her cheek. Sally noticed the translucent
+clearness of her complexion, and the deep burning color and the
+transparency of the little hands, which seemed as if they might transmit
+the light like Sevres porcelain. She was writing with an expression of
+tender calm, and sometimes stopping to consult an open letter that Sally
+knew came from Moses.
+
+So fair and sweet and serene she looked that a painter might have chosen
+her for an embodiment of twilight, and one might not be surprised to see
+a clear star shining out over her forehead. Yet in the tender serenity
+of the face there dwelt a pathos of expression that spoke of struggles
+and sufferings past, like the traces of tears on the face of a restful
+infant that has grieved itself to sleep.
+
+Sally came softly in on tiptoe, threw her arms around her, and kissed
+her, with a half laugh, then bursting into tears, sobbed upon her
+shoulder.
+
+"Dear Sally, what is the matter?" said Mara, looking up.
+
+"Oh, Mara, I just met Miss Roxy, and she told me"--
+
+Sally only sobbed passionately.
+
+"It is very sad to make all one's friends so unhappy," said Mara, in a
+soothing voice, stroking Sally's hair. "You don't know how much I have
+suffered dreading it. Sally, it is a long time since I began to expect
+and dread and fear. My time of anguish was then--then when I first felt
+that it could be possible that I should not live after all. There was a
+long time I dared not even think of it; I could not even tell such a
+fear to myself; and I did far more than I felt able to do to convince
+myself that I was not weak and failing. I have been often to Miss Roxy,
+and once, when nobody knew it, I went to a doctor in Brunswick, but then
+I was afraid to tell him half, lest he should say something about me,
+and it should get out; and so I went on getting worse and worse, and
+feeling every day as if I could not keep up, and yet afraid to lie down
+for fear grandmamma would suspect me. But this morning it was pleasant
+and bright, and something came over me that said I _must_ tell somebody,
+and so, as it was cool and pleasant, I walked up to Aunt Roxy's and told
+her. I thought, you know, that she knew the most, and would feel it the
+least; but oh, Sally, she has such a feeling heart, and loves me so; it
+is strange she should."
+
+"Is it?" said Sally, tightening her clasp around Mara's neck; and then
+with a hysterical shadow of gayety she said, "I suppose you think that
+you are such a hobgoblin that nobody could be expected to do that. After
+all, though, I should have as soon expected roses to bloom in a juniper
+clump as love from Aunt Roxy."
+
+"Well, she does love me," said Mara. "No mother could be kinder. Poor
+thing, she really sobbed and cried when I told her. I was very tired,
+and she told me she would take care of me, and tell grandpapa and
+grandmamma,--_that_ had been lying on my heart as such a dreadful thing
+to do,--and she laid me down to rest on her bed, and spoke so lovingly
+to me! I wish you could have seen her. And while I lay there, I fell
+into a strange, sweet sort of rest. I can't describe it; but since then
+everything has been changed. I wish I could tell any one how I saw
+things then."
+
+"Do try to tell me, Mara," said Sally, "for I need comfort too, if there
+is any to be had."
+
+"Well, then, I lay on the bed, and the wind drew in from the sea and
+just lifted the window-curtain, and I could see the sea shining and hear
+the waves making a pleasant little dash, and then my head seemed to
+swim. I thought I was walking out by the pleasant shore, and everything
+seemed so strangely beautiful, and grandpapa and grandmamma were there,
+and Moses had come home, and you were there, and we were all so happy.
+And then I felt a sort of strange sense that something was coming--some
+great trial or affliction--and I groaned and clung to Moses, and asked
+him to put his arm around me and hold me.
+
+"Then it seemed to be not by our seashore that this was happening, but
+by the Sea of Galilee, just as it tells about it in the Bible, and there
+were fishermen mending their nets, and men sitting counting their money,
+and I saw Jesus come walking along, and heard him say to this one and
+that one, 'Leave all and follow me,' and it seemed that the moment he
+spoke they did it, and then he came to me, and I felt his eyes in my
+very soul, and he said, 'Wilt _thou_ leave _all_ and follow me?' I
+cannot tell now what a pain I felt--what an anguish. I wanted to leave
+all, but my heart felt as if it were tied and woven with a thousand
+threads, and while I waited he seemed to fade away, and I found myself
+then alone and unhappy, wishing that I could, and mourning that I had
+not; and then something shone out warm like the sun, and I looked up,
+and he stood there looking pitifully, and he said again just as he did
+before, 'Wilt thou leave all and follow me?' Every word was so gentle
+and full of pity, and I looked into his eyes and could not look away;
+they drew me, they warmed me, and I felt a strange, wonderful sense of
+his greatness and sweetness. It seemed as if I felt within me cord after
+cord breaking, I felt so free, so happy; and I said, 'I will, I will,
+with all my heart;' and I woke then, so happy, so sure of God's love.
+
+"I saw so clearly how his love is in everything, and these words came
+into my mind as if an angel had spoken them, 'God shall wipe away all
+tears from their eyes.' Since then I cannot be unhappy. I was so myself
+only this morning, and now I wonder that any one can have a grief when
+God is so loving and good, and cares so sweetly for us all. Why, Sally,
+if I could see Christ and hear him speak, I could not be more certain
+that he will make this sorrow such a blessing to us all that we shall
+never be able to thank him enough for it."
+
+"Oh Mara," said Sally, sighing deeply, while her cheek was wet with
+tears, "it is beautiful to hear you talk; but there is one that I am
+sure will not and cannot feel so."
+
+"God will care for him," said Mara; "oh, I am sure of it; He is love
+itself, and He values his love in us, and He never, never would have
+brought such a trial, if it had not been the true and only way to our
+best good. We shall not shed one needless tear. Yes, if God loved us so
+that he spared not his own Son, he will surely give us all the good here
+that we possibly can have without risking our eternal happiness."
+
+"You are writing to Moses, now?" said Sally.
+
+"Yes, I am answering his letter; it is so full of spirit and life and
+hope--but all hope in this world--all, all earthly, as much as if there
+was no God and no world to come. Sally, perhaps our Father saw that I
+could not have strength to live with him and keep my faith. I should be
+drawn by him earthward instead of drawing him heavenward; and so this is
+in mercy to us both."
+
+"And are you telling him the whole truth, Mara?"
+
+"Not all, no," said Mara; "he could not bear it at once. I only tell him
+that my health is failing, and that my friends are seriously alarmed,
+and then I speak as if it were doubtful, in my mind, what the result
+might be."
+
+"I don't think you can make him feel as you do. Moses Pennel has a
+tremendous will, and he never yielded to any one. You bend, Mara, like
+the little blue harebells, and so the storm goes over you; but he will
+stand up against it, and it will wrench and shatter him. I am afraid,
+instead of making him better, it will only make him bitter and
+rebellious."
+
+"He has a Father in heaven who knows how to care for him," said Mara. "I
+am persuaded--I feel certain that he will be blessed in the end; not
+perhaps in the time and way I should have chosen, but in the end. I have
+always felt that he was mine, ever since he came a little shipwrecked
+boy to me--a little girl. And now I have given him up to his Saviour and
+my Saviour--to his God and my God--and I am perfectly at peace. All will
+be well."
+
+Mara spoke with a look of such solemn, bright assurance as made her, in
+the dusky, golden twilight, seem like some serene angel sent down to
+comfort, rather than a hapless mortal just wrenched from life and hope.
+
+Sally rose up and kissed her silently. "Mara," she said, "I shall come
+to-morrow to see what I can do for you. I will not interrupt you now.
+Good-by, dear."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+There are no doubt many, who have followed this history so long as it
+danced like a gay little boat over sunny waters, and who would have
+followed it gayly to the end, had it closed with ringing of
+marriage-bells, who turn from it indignantly, when they see that its
+course runs through the dark valley. This, they say, is an imposition, a
+trick upon our feelings. We want to read only stories which end in joy
+and prosperity.
+
+But have we then settled it in our own mind that there is no such thing
+as a fortunate issue in a history which does not terminate in the way of
+earthly success and good fortune? Are we Christians or heathen? It is
+now eighteen centuries since, as we hold, the "highly favored among
+women" was pronounced to be one whose earthly hopes were all cut off in
+the blossom,--whose noblest and dearest in the morning of his days went
+down into the shadows of death.
+
+Was Mary the highly-favored among women, and was Jesus indeed the
+blessed,--or was the angel mistaken? If they were these, if we are
+Christians, it ought to be a settled and established habit of our souls
+to regard something else as prosperity than worldly success and happy
+marriages. That life is a success which, like the life of Jesus, in its
+beginning, middle, and close, has borne a perfect witness to the truth
+and the highest form of truth. It is true that God has given to us, and
+inwoven in our nature a desire for a perfection and completeness made
+manifest to our senses in this mortal life. To see the daughter bloom
+into youth and womanhood, the son into manhood, to see them marry and
+become themselves parents, and gradually ripen and develop in the
+maturities of middle life, gradually wear into a sunny autumn, and so be
+gathered in fullness of time to their fathers,--such, one says, is the
+programme which God has made us to desire; such the ideal of happiness
+which he has interwoven with our nerves, and for which our heart and our
+flesh crieth out; to which every stroke of a knell is a violence, and
+every thought of an early death is an abhorrence.
+
+But the life of Christ and his mother sets the foot on this lower ideal
+of happiness, and teaches us that there is something higher. His
+ministry began with declaring, "Blessed are they that mourn." It has
+been well said that prosperity was the blessing of the Old Testament,
+and adversity of the New. Christ came to show us a nobler style of
+living and bearing; and so far as he had a personal and earthly life, he
+buried it as a corner-stone on which to erect a new immortal style of
+architecture.
+
+Of his own, he had nothing, neither houses, nor lands, nor family ties,
+nor human hopes, nor earthly sphere of success; and as a human life, it
+was all a sacrifice and a defeat. He was rejected by his countrymen,
+whom the passionate anguish of his love and the unwearied devotion of
+his life could not save from an awful doom. He was betrayed by weak
+friends, prevailed against by slanderers, overwhelmed with an
+ignominious death in the morning of youth, and his mother stood by his
+cross, and she was the only woman whom God ever called highly favored in
+this world.
+
+This, then, is the great and perfect ideal of what God honors. Christ
+speaks of himself as bread to be eaten,--bread, simple, humble,
+unpretending, vitally necessary to human life, made by the bruising and
+grinding of the grain, unostentatiously having no life or worth of its
+own except as it is absorbed into the life of others and lives in them.
+We wished in this history to speak of a class of lives formed on the
+model of Christ, and like his, obscure and unpretending, like his,
+seeming to end in darkness and defeat, but which yet have this
+preciousness and value that the dear saints who live them come nearest
+in their mission to the mission of Jesus. They are made, not for a
+career and history of their own, but to be bread of life to others. In
+every household or house have been some of these, and if we look on
+their lives and deaths with the unbaptized eyes of nature, we shall see
+only most mournful and unaccountable failure, when, if we could look
+with the eye of faith, we should see that their living and dying has
+been bread of life to those they left behind. Fairest of these, and
+least developed, are the holy innocents who come into our households to
+smile with the smile of angels, who sleep in our bosoms, and win us with
+the softness of tender little hands, and pass away like the lamb that
+was slain before they have ever learned the speech of mortals. Not vain
+are even these silent lives of Christ's lambs, whom many an earth-bound
+heart has been roused to follow when the Shepherd bore them to the
+higher pastures. And so the daughter who died so early, whose
+wedding-bells were never rung except in heaven,--the son who had no
+career of ambition or a manly duty except among the angels,--the patient
+sufferers, whose only lot on earth seemed to be to endure, whose life
+bled away drop by drop in the shadows of the sick-room--all these are
+among those whose life was like Christ's in that they were made, not for
+themselves, but to become bread to us.
+
+It is expedient for us that they go away. Like their Lord, they come to
+suffer, and to die; they take part in his sacrifice; their life is
+incomplete without their death, and not till they are gone away does the
+Comforter fully come to us.
+
+It is a beautiful legend which one sees often represented in the
+churches of Europe, that when the grave of the mother of Jesus was
+opened, it was found full of blossoming lilies,--fit emblem of the
+thousand flowers of holy thought and purpose which spring up in our
+hearts from the memory of our sainted dead.
+
+Cannot many, who read these lines, bethink them of such rooms that have
+been the most cheerful places in the family,--when the heart of the
+smitten one seemed the band that bound all the rest together,--and have
+there not been dying hours which shed such a joy and radiance on all
+around, that it was long before the mourners remembered to mourn? Is it
+not a misuse of words to call such a heavenly translation _death_? and
+to call most things that are lived out on this earth _life_?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIX
+
+THE LAND OF BEULAH
+
+
+It is now about a month after the conversation which we have recorded,
+and during that time the process which was to loose from this present
+life had been going on in Mara with a soft, insensible, but steady
+power. When she ceased to make efforts beyond her strength, and allowed
+herself that languor and repose which nature claimed, all around her
+soon became aware how her strength was failing; and yet a cheerful
+repose seemed to hallow the atmosphere around her. The sight of her
+every day in family worship, sitting by in such tender tranquillity,
+with such a smile on her face, seemed like a present inspiration. And
+though the aged pair knew that she was no more for this world, yet she
+was comforting and inspiring to their view as the angel who of old
+rolled back the stone from the sepulchre and sat upon it. They saw in
+her eyes, not death, but the solemn victory which Christ gives over
+death.
+
+Bunyan has no more lovely poem than the image he gives of that land of
+pleasant waiting which borders the river of death, where the chosen of
+the Lord repose, while shining messengers, constantly passing and
+repassing, bear tidings from the celestial shore, opening a way between
+earth and heaven. It was so, that through the very thought of Mara an
+influence of tenderness and tranquillity passed through the whole
+neighborhood, keeping hearts fresh with sympathy, and causing thought
+and conversation to rest on those bright mysteries of eternal joy which
+were reflected on her face.
+
+Sally Kittridge was almost a constant inmate of the brown house, ever
+ready in watching and waiting; and one only needed to mark the
+expression of her face to feel that a holy charm was silently working
+upon her higher and spiritual nature. Those great, dark, sparkling eyes
+that once seemed to express only the brightness of animal vivacity, and
+glittered like a brook in unsympathetic gayety, had in them now
+mysterious depths, and tender, fleeting shadows, and the very tone of
+her voice had a subdued tremor. The capricious elf, the tricksy sprite,
+was melting away in the immortal soul, and the deep pathetic power of a
+noble heart was being born. Some influence sprung of sorrow is necessary
+always to perfect beauty in womanly nature. We feel its absence in many
+whose sparkling wit and high spirits give grace and vivacity to life,
+but in whom we vainly seek for some spot of quiet tenderness and
+sympathetic repose. Sally was, ignorantly to herself, changing in the
+expression of her face and the tone of her character, as she ministered
+in the daily wants which sickness brings in a simple household.
+
+For the rest of the neighborhood, the shelves and larder of Mrs. Pennel
+were constantly crowded with the tributes which one or another sent in
+for the invalid. There was jelly of Iceland moss sent across by Miss
+Emily, and brought by Mr. Sewell, whose calls were almost daily. There
+were custards and preserves, and every form of cake and other
+confections in which the housekeeping talent of the neighbors delighted,
+and which were sent in under the old superstition that sick people must
+be kept eating at all hazards.
+
+At church, Sunday after Sunday, the simple note requested the prayers of
+the church and congregation for Mara Lincoln, who was, as the note
+phrased it, drawing near her end, that she and all concerned might be
+prepared for the great and last change. One familiar with New England
+customs must have remembered with what a plaintive power the reading of
+such a note, from Sunday to Sunday, has drawn the thoughts and
+sympathies of a congregation to some chamber of sickness; and in a
+village church, where every individual is known from childhood to every
+other, the power of this simple custom is still greater.
+
+Then the prayers of the minister would dwell on the case, and thanks
+would be rendered to God for the great light and peace with which he had
+deigned to visit his young handmaid; and then would follow a prayer that
+when these sad tidings should reach a distant friend who had gone down
+to do business on the great waters, they might be sanctified to his
+spiritual and everlasting good. Then on Sunday noons, as the people ate
+their dinners together in a room adjoining the church, all that she said
+and did was talked over and over,--how quickly she had gained the
+victory of submission, the peace of a will united with God's, mixed with
+harmless gossip of the sick chamber,--as to what she ate and how she
+slept, and who had sent her gruel with raisins in it, and who jelly with
+wine, and how she had praised this and eaten that twice with a relish,
+but how the other had seemed to disagree with her. Thereafter would come
+scraps of nursing information, recipes against coughing, specifics
+against short breath, speculations about watchers, how soon she would
+need them, and long legends of other death-beds where the fear of death
+had been slain by the power of an endless life.
+
+Yet through all the gossip, and through much that might have been called
+at other times commonplace cant of religion, there was spread a tender
+earnestness, and the whole air seemed to be enchanted with the fragrance
+of that fading rose. Each one spoke more gently, more lovingly to each,
+for the thought of her.
+
+It was now a bright September morning, and the early frosts had changed
+the maples in the pine-woods to scarlet, and touched the white birches
+with gold, when one morning Miss Roxy presented herself at an early hour
+at Captain Kittridge's.
+
+They were at breakfast, and Sally was dispensing the tea at the head of
+the table, Mrs. Kittridge having been prevailed on to abdicate in her
+favor.
+
+"It is such a fine morning," she said, looking out at the window, which
+showed a waveless expanse of ocean. "I do hope Mara has had a good
+night."
+
+"I'm a-goin' to make her some jelly this very forenoon," said Mrs.
+Kittridge. "Aunt Roxy was a-tellin' me yesterday that she was a-goin'
+down to stay at the house regular, for she needed so much done now."
+
+"It's 'most an amazin' thing we don't hear from Moses Pennel," said
+Captain Kittridge. "If he don't make haste, he may never see her."
+
+"There's Aunt Roxy at this minute," said Sally.
+
+In truth, the door opened at this moment, and Aunt Roxy entered with a
+little blue bandbox and a bundle tied up in a checked handkerchief.
+
+"Oh, Aunt Roxy," said Mrs. Kittridge, "you are on your way, are you? Do
+sit down, right here, and get a cup of strong tea."
+
+"Thank you," said Aunt Roxy, "but Ruey gave me a humming cup before I
+came away."
+
+"Aunt Roxy, have they heard anything from Moses?" said the Captain.
+
+"No, father, I know they haven't," said Sally. "Mara has written to him,
+and so has Mr. Sewell, but it is very uncertain whether he ever got the
+letters."
+
+"It's most time to be a-lookin' for him home," said the Captain. "I
+shouldn't be surprised to see him any day."
+
+At this moment Sally, who sat where she could see from the window, gave
+a sudden start and a half scream, and rising from the table, darted
+first to the window and then to the door, whence she rushed out eagerly.
+
+"Well, what now?" said the Captain.
+
+"I am sure I don't know what's come over her," said Mrs. Kittridge,
+rising to look out.
+
+"Why, Aunt Roxy, do look; I believe to my soul that ar's Moses Pennel!"
+
+And so it was. He met Sally, as she ran out, with a gloomy brow and
+scarcely a look even of recognition; but he seized her hand and wrung it
+in the stress of his emotion so that she almost screamed with the pain.
+
+"Tell me, Sally," he said, "tell me the truth. I dared not go home
+without I knew. Those gossiping, lying reports are always exaggerated.
+They are dreadful exaggerations,--they frighten a sick person into the
+grave; but you have good sense and a hopeful, cheerful temper,--you must
+see and know how things are. Mara is not so very--very"--He held Sally's
+hand and looked at her with a burning eagerness. "Say, what do you think
+of her?"
+
+"We all think that we cannot long keep her with us," said Sally. "And
+oh, Moses, I am so glad you have come."
+
+"It's false,--it must be false," he said, violently; "nothing is more
+deceptive than these ideas that doctors and nurses pile on when a
+sensitive person is going down a little. I know Mara; everything depends
+on the mind with her. I shall wake her up out of this dream. She is not
+to die. She shall not die,--I come to save her."
+
+"Oh, if you could!" said Sally, mournfully.
+
+"It cannot be; it is not to be," he said again, as if to convince
+himself. "No such thing is to be thought of. Tell me, Sally, have you
+tried to keep up the cheerful side of things to her,--have you?"
+
+"Oh, you cannot tell, Moses, how it is, unless you see her. She is
+cheerful, happy; the only really joyous one among us."
+
+"Cheerful! joyous! happy! She does not believe, then, these frightful
+things? I thought she would keep up; she is a brave little thing."
+
+"No, Moses, she does believe. She has given up all hope of life,--all
+wish to live; and oh, she is so lovely,--so sweet,--so dear."
+
+Sally covered her face with her hands and sobbed. Moses stood still,
+looking at her a moment in a confused way, and then he answered,--
+
+"Come, get your bonnet, Sally, and go with me. You must go in and tell
+them; tell her that I am come, you know."
+
+"Yes, I will," said Sally, as she ran quickly back to the house.
+
+Moses stood listlessly looking after her. A moment after she came out of
+the door again, and Miss Roxy behind. Sally hurried up to Moses.
+
+"Where's that black old raven going?" said Moses, in a low voice,
+looking back on Miss Roxy, who stood on the steps.
+
+"What, Aunt Roxy?" said Sally; "why, she's going up to nurse Mara, and
+take care of her. Mrs. Pennel is so old and infirm she needs somebody to
+depend on."
+
+"I can't bear her," said Moses. "I always think of sick-rooms and
+coffins and a stifling smell of camphor when I see her. I never could
+endure her. She's an old harpy going to carry off my dove."
+
+"Now, Moses, you must _not_ talk so. She loves Mara dearly, the poor
+old soul, and Mara loves her, and there is no earthly thing she would
+not do for her. And she knows what to do for sickness better than you or
+I. I have found out one thing, that it isn't mere love and good-will
+that is needed in a sick-room; it needs knowledge and experience."
+
+Moses assented in gloomy silence, and they walked on together the way
+that they had so often taken laughing and chatting. When they came
+within sight of the house, Moses said,--
+
+"Here she came running to meet us; do you remember?"
+
+"Yes," said Sally.
+
+"I was never half worthy of her. I never said half what I ought to," he
+added. "She _must_ live! I must have one more chance."
+
+When they came up to the house, Zephaniah Pennel was sitting in the
+door, with his gray head bent over the leaves of the great family Bible.
+
+He rose up at their coming, and with that suppression of all external
+signs of feeling for which the New Englander is remarkable, simply shook
+the hand of Moses, saying,--
+
+"Well, my boy, we are glad you have come."
+
+Mrs. Pennel, who was busied in some domestic work in the back part of
+the kitchen, turned away and hid her face in her apron when she saw him.
+There fell a great silence among them, in the midst of which the old
+clock ticked loudly and importunately, like the inevitable approach of
+fate.
+
+"I will go up and see her, and get her ready," said Sally, in a whisper
+to Moses. "I'll come and call you."
+
+Moses sat down and looked around on the old familiar scene; there was
+the great fireplace where, in their childish days, they had sat together
+winter nights,--her fair, spiritual face enlivened by the blaze, while
+she knit and looked thoughtfully into the coals; there she had played
+checkers, or fox and geese, with him; or studied with him the Latin
+lessons; or sat by, grave and thoughtful, hemming his toyship sails,
+while he cut the moulds for his anchors, or tried experiments on
+pulleys; and in all these years he could not remember one selfish
+action,--one unlovely word,--and he thought to himself, "I hoped to
+possess this angel as a mortal wife! God forgive my presumption."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XL
+
+THE MEETING
+
+
+Sally found Mara sitting in an easy-chair that had been sent to her by
+the provident love of Miss Emily. It was wheeled in front of her room
+window, from whence she could look out upon the wide expanse of the
+ocean. It was a gloriously bright, calm morning, and the water lay clear
+and still, with scarce a ripple, to the far distant pearly horizon. She
+seemed to be looking at it in a kind of calm ecstasy, and murmuring the
+words of a hymn:--
+
+    "Nor wreck nor ruin there is seen,
+      There not a wave of trouble rolls,
+    But the bright rainbow round the throne
+      Peals endless peace to all their souls."
+
+Sally came softly behind her on tiptoe to kiss her. "Good-morning, dear,
+how do you find yourself?"
+
+"Quite well," was the answer.
+
+"Mara, is not there anything you want?"
+
+"There might be many things; but His will is mine."
+
+"You want to see Moses?"
+
+"Very much; but I shall see him as soon as it is best for us both."
+
+"Mara,--he is come."
+
+The quick blood flushed over the pale, transparent face as a virgin
+glacier flushes at sunrise, and she looked up eagerly. "Come!"
+
+"Yes, he is below-stairs wanting to see you."
+
+She seemed about to speak eagerly, and then checked herself and mused a
+moment. "Poor, poor boy!" she said. "Yes, Sally, let him come at once."
+
+There were a few dazzling, dreamy minutes when Moses first held that
+frail form in his arms, which but for its tender, mortal warmth, might
+have seemed to him a spirit. It was no spirit, but a woman whose heart
+he could feel thrilling against his own; who seemed to him like some
+frail, fluttering bird; but somehow, as he looked into her clear,
+transparent face, and pressed her thin little hands in his, the
+conviction stole over him overpoweringly that she was indeed fading away
+and going from him,--drawn from him by that mysterious, irresistible
+power against which human strength, even in the strongest, has no
+chance.
+
+It is dreadful to a strong man who has felt the influence of his
+strength,--who has always been ready with a resource for every
+emergency, and a weapon for every battle,--when first he meets that
+mighty invisible power by which a beloved life--a life he would give his
+own blood to save--melts and dissolves like smoke before his eyes.
+
+"Oh, Mara, Mara," he groaned, "this is too dreadful, too cruel; it is
+cruel."
+
+"You will think so at first, but not always," she said, soothingly. "You
+will live to see a joy come out of this sorrow."
+
+"Never, Mara, never. I cannot believe that kind of talk. I see no love,
+no mercy in it. Of course, if there is any life after death you will be
+happy; if there is a heaven you will be there; but can this dim,
+unsubstantial, cloudy prospect make you happy in leaving me and giving
+up one's lover? Oh, Mara, you cannot love as I do, or you could not"--
+
+"Moses, I have suffered,--oh, very, very much. It was many months ago
+when I first thought that I must give everything up,--when I thought
+that we must part; but Christ helped me; he showed me his wonderful
+love,--the love that surrounds us all our life, that follows us in all
+our wanderings, and sustains us in all our weaknesses,--and then I felt
+that whatever He wills for us is in love; oh, believe it,--believe it
+for my sake, for your own."
+
+"Oh, I cannot, I cannot," said Moses; but as he looked at the bright,
+pale face, and felt how the tempest of his feelings shook the frail
+form, he checked himself. "I do wrong to agitate you so, Mara. I will
+try to be calm."
+
+"And to pray?" she said, beseechingly.
+
+He shut his lips in gloomy silence.
+
+"Promise me," she said.
+
+"I have prayed ever since I got your first letter, and I see it does no
+good," he answered. "Our prayers cannot alter fate."
+
+"Fate! there is no fate," she answered; "there is a strong and loving
+Father who guides the way, though we know it not. We cannot resist His
+will; but it is all love,--pure, pure love."
+
+At this moment Sally came softly into the room. A gentle air of womanly
+authority seemed to express itself in that once gay and giddy face, at
+which Moses, in the midst of his misery, marveled.
+
+"You must not stay any longer now," she said; "it would be too much for
+her strength; this is enough for this morning."
+
+Moses turned away, and silently left the room, and Sally said to Mara,--
+
+"You must lie down now, and rest."
+
+"Sally," said Mara, "promise me one thing."
+
+"Well, Mara; of course I will."
+
+"Promise to love him and care for him when I am gone; he will be so
+lonely."
+
+"I will do all I can, Mara," said Sally, soothingly; "so now you must
+take a little wine and lie down. You know what you have so often said,
+that all will yet be well with him."
+
+"Oh, I know it, I am sure," said Mara, "but oh, his sorrow shook my very
+heart."
+
+"You must not talk another word about it," said Sally, peremptorily, "Do
+you know Aunt Roxy is coming to see you? I see her out of the window
+this very moment."
+
+And Sally assisted to lay her friend on the bed, and then, administering
+a stimulant, she drew down the curtains, and, sitting beside her, began
+repeating, in a soft monotonous tone, the words of a favorite hymn:--
+
+    "The Lord my shepherd is,
+      I shall be well supplied;
+    Since He is mine, and I am His,
+      What can I want beside?"
+
+Before she had finished, Mara was asleep.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLI
+
+CONSOLATION
+
+
+Moses came down from the chamber of Mara in a tempest of contending
+emotions. He had all that constitutional horror of death and the
+spiritual world which is an attribute of some particularly strong and
+well-endowed physical natures, and he had all that instinctive
+resistance of the will which such natures offer to anything which
+strikes athwart their cherished hopes and plans. To be wrenched suddenly
+from the sphere of an earthly life and made to confront the unclosed
+doors of a spiritual world on the behalf of the one dearest to him, was
+to him a dreary horror uncheered by one filial belief in God. He felt,
+furthermore, that blind animal irritation which assails one under a
+sudden blow, whether of the body or of the soul,--an anguish of
+resistance, a vague blind anger.
+
+Mr. Sewell was sitting in the kitchen,--he had called to see Mara, and
+waited for the close of the interview above. He rose and offered his
+hand to Moses, who took it in gloomy silence, without a smile or word.
+
+"'My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord,'" said Mr.
+Sewell.
+
+"I cannot bear that sort of thing," said Moses abruptly, and almost
+fiercely. "I beg your pardon, sir, but it irritates me."
+
+"Do you not believe that afflictions are sent for our improvement?" said
+Mr. Sewell.
+
+"No! how can I? What improvement will there be to me in taking from me
+the angel who guided me to all good, and kept me from all evil; the one
+pure motive and holy influence of my life? If you call this the
+chastening of a loving father, I must say it looks more to me like the
+caprice of an evil spirit."
+
+"Had you ever thanked the God of your life for this gift, or felt your
+dependence on him to keep it? Have you not blindly idolized the creature
+and forgotten Him who gave it?" said Mr. Sewell.
+
+Moses was silent a moment.
+
+"I cannot believe there is a God," he said. "Since this fear came on me
+I have prayed,--yes, and humbled myself; for I know I have not always
+been what I ought. I promised if he would grant me this one thing, I
+would seek him in future; but it did no good,--it's of no use to pray. I
+would have been good in this way, if she might be spared, and I cannot
+in any other."
+
+"My son, our Lord and Master will have no such conditions from us," said
+Mr. Sewell. "We must submit unconditionally. _She_ has done it, and her
+peace is as firm as the everlasting hills. God's will is a great current
+that flows in spite of us; if we go with it, it carries us to endless
+rest,--if we resist, we only wear our lives out in useless struggles."
+
+Moses stood a moment in silence, and then, turning away without a word,
+hurried from the house. He strode along the high rocky bluff, through
+tangled junipers and pine thickets, till he came above the rocky cove
+which had been his favorite retreat on so many occasions. He swung
+himself down over the cliffs into the grotto, where, shut in by the high
+tide, he felt himself alone. There he had read Mr. Sewell's letter, and
+dreamed vain dreams of wealth and worldly success, now all to him so
+void. He felt to-day, as he sat there and watched the ships go by, how
+utterly nothing all the wealth in the world was, in the loss of that one
+heart. Unconsciously, even to himself, sorrow was doing her ennobling
+ministry within him, melting off in her fierce fires trivial ambitions
+and low desires, and making him feel the sole worth and value of love.
+That which in other days had seemed only as one good thing among many
+now seemed the _only_ thing in life. And he who has learned the
+paramount value of love has taken one step from an earthly to a
+spiritual existence.
+
+But as he lay there on the pebbly shore, hour after hour glided by, his
+whole past life lived itself over to his eye; he saw a thousand actions,
+he heard a thousand words, whose beauty and significance never came to
+him till now. And alas! he saw so many when, on his part, the responsive
+word that should have been spoken, and the deed that should have been
+done, was forever wanting. He had all his life carried within him a
+vague consciousness that he had not been to Mara what he should have
+been, but he had hoped to make amends for all in that future which lay
+before him,--that future now, alas! dissolving and fading away like the
+white cloud-islands which the wind was drifting from the sky. A voice
+seemed saying in his ears, "Ye know that when he would have inherited a
+blessing he was rejected; for he found no place for repentance, though
+he sought it carefully with tears." Something that he had never felt
+before struck him as appalling in the awful fixedness of all past deeds
+and words,--the unkind words once said, which no tears could unsay,--the
+kind ones suppressed, to which no agony of wishfulness could give a past
+reality. There were particular times in their past history that he
+remembered so vividly, when he saw her so clearly,--doing some little
+thing for him, and shyly watching for the word of acknowledgment, which
+he did not give. Some willful wayward demon withheld him at the moment,
+and the light on the little wishful face slowly faded. True, all had
+been a thousand times forgiven and forgotten between them, but it is the
+ministry of these great vital hours of sorrow to teach us that nothing
+in the soul's history ever dies or is forgotten, and when the beloved
+one lies stricken and ready to pass away, comes the judgment-day of
+love, and all the dead moments of the past arise and live again.
+
+He lay there musing and dreaming till the sun grew low in the afternoon
+sky, and the tide that isolated the little grotto had gone far out into
+the ocean, leaving long, low reefs of sunken rocks, all matted and
+tangled with the yellow hair of the seaweed, with little crystal pools
+of salt water between. He heard the sound of approaching footsteps, and
+Captain Kittridge came slowly picking his way round among the shingle
+and pebbles.
+
+"Wal', now, I thought I'd find ye here!" he said: "I kind o' thought I
+wanted to see ye,--ye see."
+
+Moses looked up half moody, half astonished, while the Captain seated
+himself upon a fragment of rock and began brushing the knees of his
+trousers industriously, until soon the tears rained down from his eyes
+upon his dry withered hands.
+
+"Wal', now ye see, I can't help it, darned if I can; knowed her ever
+since she's that high. She's done me good, she has. Mis' Kittridge has
+been pretty faithful. I've had folks here and there talk to me
+consid'able, but Lord bless you, I never had nothin' go to my heart like
+this 'ere--Why to look on her there couldn't nobody doubt but what there
+was somethin' in religion. You never knew half what she did for you,
+Moses Pennel, you didn't know that the night you was off down to the
+long cove with Skipper Atkinson, that 'ere blessed child was a-follerin'
+you, but she was, and she come to me next day to get me to do somethin'
+for you. That was how your grand'ther and I got ye off to sea so quick,
+and she such a little thing then; that ar child was the savin' of ye,
+Moses Pennel."
+
+Moses hid his head in his hands with a sort of groan.
+
+"Wal', wal'," said the Captain, "I don't wonder now ye feel so,--I don't
+see how ye can stan' it no ways--only by thinkin' o' where she's goin'
+to--Them ar bells in the Celestial City must all be a-ringin' for
+her,--there'll be joy that side o' the river I reckon, when she gets
+acrost. If she'd jest leave me a hem o' her garment to get in by, I'd be
+glad; but she was one o' the sort that was jest _made_ to go to heaven.
+She only stopped a few days in our world, like the robins when they's
+goin' south; but there'll be a good many fust and last that'll get into
+the kingdom for love of her. She never said much to me, but she kind o'
+drew me. Ef ever I should get in there, it'll be _she_ led me. But come,
+now, Moses, ye oughtn't fur to be a-settin' here catchin' cold--jest
+come round to our house and let Sally gin you a warm cup o' tea--do
+come, now."
+
+"Thank you, Captain," said Moses, "but I will go home; I must see her
+again to-night."
+
+"Wal', don't let her see you grieve too much, ye know; we must be a
+little sort o' manly, ye know, 'cause her body's weak, if her heart is
+strong."
+
+Now Moses was in a mood of dry, proud, fierce, self-consuming sorrow,
+least likely to open his heart or seek sympathy from any one; and no
+friend or acquaintance would probably have dared to intrude on his
+grief. But there are moods of the mind which cannot be touched or
+handled by one on an equal level with us that yield at once to the
+sympathy of something below. A dog who comes with his great honest,
+sorrowful face and lays his mute paw of inquiry on your knee, will
+sometimes open floodgates of sober feeling, that have remained closed to
+every human touch;--the dumb simplicity and ignorance of his sympathy
+makes it irresistible. In like manner the downright grief of the
+good-natured old Captain, and the child-like ignorance with which he
+ventured upon a ministry of consolation from which a more cultivated
+person would have shrunk away, were irresistibly touching. Moses grasped
+the dry, withered hand and said, "Thank you, thank you, Captain
+Kittridge; you're a true friend."
+
+"Wal', I be, that's a fact, Moses. Lord bless me, I ain't no great--I
+ain't nobody--I'm jest an old last-year's mullein-stalk in the Lord's
+vineyard; but that 'ere blessed little thing allers had a good word for
+me. She gave me a hymn-book and marked some hymns in it, and read 'em to
+me herself, and her voice was jest as sweet as the sea of a warm
+evening. Them hymns come to me kind o' powerful when I'm at my work
+planin' and sawin'. Mis' Kittridge, she allers talks to me as ef I was a
+terrible sinner; and I suppose I be, but this 'ere blessed child, she's
+so kind o' good and innocent, she thinks I'm good; kind o' takes it for
+granted I'm one o' the Lord's people, ye know. It kind o' makes me want
+to be, ye know."
+
+The Captain here produced from his coat-pocket a much worn hymn-book,
+and showed Moses where leaves were folded down. "Now here's this 'ere,"
+he said; "you get her to say it to you," he added, pointing to the
+well-known sacred idyl which has refreshed so many hearts:--
+
+    "There is a land of pure delight
+      Where saints immortal reign;
+    Eternal day excludes the night,
+      And pleasures banish pain.
+
+    "There everlasting spring abides,
+      And never-fading flowers;
+    Death like a narrow sea divides
+      This happy land from ours."
+
+"Now that ar beats everything," said the Captain, "and we must kind o'
+think of it for her, 'cause she's goin' to see all that, and ef it's our
+loss it's her gain, ye know."
+
+"I know," said Moses; "our grief is selfish."
+
+"Jest so. Wal', we're selfish critters, we be," said the Captain; "but
+arter all, 't ain't as ef we was heathen and didn't know where they was
+a-goin' to. We jest ought to be a-lookin' about and tryin' to foller
+'em, ye know."
+
+"Yes, yes, I do know," said Moses; "it's easy to say, but hard to do."
+
+"But law, man, she prays for you; she did years and years ago, when you
+was a boy and she a girl. You know it tells in the Revelations how the
+angels has golden vials full of odors which are the prayers of saints. I
+tell ye Moses, you ought to get into heaven, if no one else does. I
+expect you are pretty well known among the angels by this time. I tell
+ye what 'tis, Moses, fellers think it a mighty pretty thing to be
+a-steppin' high, and a-sayin' they don't believe the Bible, and all that
+ar, so long as the world goes well. This 'ere old Bible--why it's jest
+like yer mother,--ye rove and ramble, and cut up round the world without
+her a spell, and mebbe think the old woman ain't so fashionable as some;
+but when sickness and sorrow comes, why, there ain't nothin' else to go
+back to. Is there, now?"
+
+Moses did not answer, but he shook the hand of the Captain and turned
+away.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLII
+
+LAST WORDS
+
+
+The setting sun gleamed in at the window of Mara's chamber, tinted with
+rose and violet hues from a great cloud-castle that lay upon the smooth
+ocean over against the window. Mara was lying upon the bed, but she
+raised herself upon her elbow to look out.
+
+"Dear Aunt Roxy," she said, "raise me up and put the pillows behind me,
+so that I can see out--it is splendid."
+
+Aunt Roxy came and arranged the pillows, and lifted the girl with her
+long, strong arms, then stooping over her a moment she finished her
+arrangements by softly smoothing the hair from her forehead with a
+caressing movement most unlike her usual precise business-like
+proceedings.
+
+"I love you, Aunt Roxy," said Mara, looking up with a smile.
+
+Aunt Roxy made a strange wry face, which caused her to look harder than
+usual. She was choked with tenderness, and had only this uncomely way of
+showing it.
+
+"Law now, Mara, I don't see how ye can; I ain't nothin' but an old
+burdock-bush; love ain't for me."
+
+"Yes it is too," said Mara, drawing her down and kissing her withered
+cheek, "and you sha'n't call yourself an old burdock. God sees that you
+are beautiful, and in the resurrection everybody will see it."
+
+"I was always homely as an owl," said Miss Roxy, unconsciously speaking
+out what had lain like a stone at the bottom of even her sensible heart.
+"I always had sense to know it, and knew my sphere. Homely folks would
+like to say pretty things, and to have pretty things said to them, but
+they never do. I made up my mind pretty early that my part in the
+vineyard was to have hard work and no posies."
+
+"Well, you will have all the more in heaven; I love you dearly, and I
+like your looks, too. You look kind and true and good, and that's beauty
+in the country where we are going."
+
+Miss Roxy sprang up quickly from the bed, and turning her back began to
+arrange the bottles on the table with great zeal.
+
+"Has Moses come in yet?" said Mara.
+
+"No, there ain't nobody seen a thing of him since he went out this
+morning."
+
+"Poor boy!" said Mara, "it is too hard upon him. Aunt Roxy, please pick
+some roses off the bush from under the window and put in the vases;
+let's have the room as sweet and cheerful as we can. I hope God will let
+me live long enough to comfort him. It is not so very terrible, if one
+would only think so, to cross that river. All looks so bright to me now
+that I have forgotten how sorrow seemed. Poor Moses! he will have a hard
+struggle, but he will get the victory, too. I am very weak to-night, but
+to-morrow I shall feel better, and I shall sit up, and perhaps I can
+paint a little on that flower I was doing for him. We will not have
+things look sickly or deathly. There, Aunt Roxy, he has come in; I hear
+his step."
+
+"I didn't hear it," said Miss Roxy, surprised at the acute senses which
+sickness had etherealized to an almost spirit-like intensity. "Shall I
+call him?"
+
+"Yes, do," said Mara. "He can sit with me a little while to-night."
+
+The light in the room was a strange dusky mingling of gold and gloom,
+when Moses stole softly in. The great cloud-castle that a little while
+since had glowed like living gold from turret and battlement, now dim,
+changed for the most part to a sombre gray, enlivened with a dull glow
+of crimson; but there was still a golden light where the sun had sunk
+into the sea. Moses saw the little thin hand stretched out to him.
+
+"Sit down," she said; "it has been such a beautiful sunset. Did you
+notice it?"
+
+He sat down by the bed, leaning his forehead on his hand, but saying
+nothing.
+
+She drew her fingers through his dark hair. "I am so glad to see you,"
+she said. "It is such a comfort to me that you have come; and I hope it
+will be to you. You know I shall be better to-morrow than I am to-night,
+and I hope we shall have some pleasant days together yet. We mustn't
+reject what little we may have, because it cannot be more."
+
+"Oh, Mara," said Moses, "I would give my life, if I could take back the
+past. I have never been worthy of you; never knew your worth; never made
+you happy. You always lived for me, and I lived for myself. I deserve to
+lose you, but it is none the less bitter."
+
+"Don't say lose. Why must you? I cannot think of losing you. I know I
+shall not. God has given you to me. You will come to me and be mine at
+last. I feel sure of it."
+
+"You don't know me," said Moses.
+
+"Christ does, though," she said; "and He has promised to care for you.
+Yes, you will live to see many flowers grow out of my grave. You cannot
+think so now; but it will be so--believe me."
+
+"Mara," said Moses, "I never lived through such a day as this. It seems
+as if every moment of my life had been passing before me, and every
+moment of yours. I have seen how true and loving in thought and word and
+deed you have been, and I have been doing nothing but take. You have
+given love as the skies give rain, and I have drunk it up like the hot
+dusty earth."
+
+Mara knew in her own heart that this was all true, and she was too real
+to use any of the terms of affected humiliation which many think a kind
+of spiritual court language. She looked at him and answered, "Moses, I
+always knew I loved most. It was my nature; God gave it to me, and it
+was a gift for which I give him thanks--not a merit. I knew you had a
+larger, wider nature than mine,--a wider sphere to live in, and that you
+could not live in your heart as I did. Mine was all thought and feeling,
+and the narrow little duties of this little home. Yours went all round
+the world."
+
+"But, oh Mara--oh, my angel! to think I should lose you when I am just
+beginning to know your worth. I always had a sort of superstitious
+feeling,--a sacred presentiment about you,--that my spiritual life, if
+ever I had any, would come through you. It seemed if there ever was such
+a thing as God's providence, which some folks believe in, it was in
+leading me to you, and giving you to me. And now, to have all
+lashed--all destroyed--It makes me feel as if all was blind chance; no
+guiding God; for if he wanted me to be good, he would spare you."
+
+Mara lay with her large eyes fixed on the now faded sky. The dusky
+shadows had dropped like a black crape veil around her pale face. In a
+few moments she repeated to herself, as if she were musing upon them,
+those mysterious words of Him who liveth and was dead, "Except a corn of
+wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone; if it die, it
+bringeth forth much fruit."
+
+"Moses," she said, "for all I know you have loved me dearly, yet I have
+felt that in all that was deepest and dearest to me, I was alone. You
+did not come near to me, nor touch me where I feel most deeply. If I had
+lived to be your wife, I cannot say but this distance in our spiritual
+nature might have widened. You know, what we live with we get used to;
+it grows an old story. Your love to me might have grown old and worn
+out. If we lived together in the commonplace toils of life, you would
+see only a poor threadbare wife. I might have lost what little charm I
+ever had for you; but I feel that if I die, this will not be. There is
+something sacred and beautiful in death; and I may have more power over
+you, when I seem to be gone, than I should have had living."
+
+"Oh, Mara, Mara, don't say that."
+
+"Dear Moses, it is so. Think how many lovers marry, and how few lovers
+are left in middle life; and how few love and reverence living friends
+as they do the dead. There are only a very few to whom it is given to do
+that."
+
+Something in the heart of Moses told him that this was true. In this one
+day--the sacred revealing light of approaching death--he had seen more
+of the real spiritual beauty and significance of Mara's life than in
+years before, and felt upspringing in his heart, from the deep pathetic
+influence of the approaching spiritual world a new and stronger power of
+loving. It may be that it is not merely a perception of love that we
+were not aware of before, that wakes up when we approach the solemn
+shadows with a friend. It may be that the soul has compressed and
+unconscious powers which are stirred and wrought upon as it looks over
+the borders into its future home,--its loves and its longings so swell
+and beat, that they astonish itself. We are greater than we know, and
+dimly feel it with every approach to the great hereafter. "It doth not
+yet appear what we shall be."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Now, I'll tell you what 'tis," said Aunt Roxy, opening the door, "all
+the strength this 'ere girl spends a-talkin' to-night, will be so much
+taken out o' the whole cloth to-morrow."
+
+Moses started up. "I ought to have thought of that, Mara."
+
+"Ye see," said Miss Roxy, "she's been through a good deal to-day, and
+she must be got to sleep at some rate or other to-night. 'Lord, if he
+sleep he shall do well,' the Bible says, and it's one of my best nussin'
+maxims."
+
+"And a good one, too, Aunt Roxy," said Mara. "Good-night, dear boy; you
+see we must all mind Aunt Roxy."
+
+Moses bent down and kissed her, and felt her arms around his neck.
+
+"Let not your heart be troubled," she whispered. In spite of himself
+Moses felt the storm that had risen in his bosom that morning soothed by
+the gentle influences which Mara breathed upon it. There is a
+sympathetic power in all states of mind, and they who have reached the
+deep secret of eternal rest have a strange power of imparting calm to
+others.
+
+It was in the very crisis of the battle that Christ said to his
+disciples, "_My peace I give unto you_," and they that are made one with
+him acquire like precious power of shedding round them repose, as
+evening flowers shed odors. Moses went to his pillow sorrowful and
+heart-stricken, but bitter or despairing he could not be with the
+consciousness of that present angel in the house.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLIII
+
+THE PEARL
+
+
+The next morning rose calm and bright with that wonderful and mystical
+stillness and serenity which glorify autumn days. It was impossible that
+such skies could smile and such gentle airs blow the sea into one great
+waving floor of sparkling sapphires without bringing cheerfulness to
+human hearts. You must be very despairing indeed, when Nature is doing
+her best, to look her in the face sullen and defiant. So long as there
+is a drop of good in your cup, a penny in your exchequer of happiness, a
+bright day reminds you to look at it, and feel that all is not gone yet.
+
+So felt Moses when he stood in the door of the brown house, while Mrs.
+Pennel was clinking plates and spoons as she set the breakfast-table,
+and Zephaniah Pennel in his shirt-sleeves was washing in the back-room,
+while Miss Roxy came downstairs in a business-like fashion, bringing
+sundry bowls, plates, dishes, and mysterious pitchers from the
+sick-room.
+
+"Well, Aunt Roxy, you ain't one that lets the grass grow under your
+feet," said Mrs. Pennel. "How is the dear child, this morning?"
+
+"Well, she had a better night than one could have expected," said Miss
+Roxy, "and by the time she's had her breakfast, she expects to sit up a
+little and see her friends." Miss Roxy said this in a cheerful tone,
+looking encouragingly at Moses, whom she began to pity and patronize,
+now she saw how real was his affliction.
+
+After breakfast Moses went to see her; she was sitting up in her white
+dressing-gown, looking so thin and poorly, and everything in the room
+was fragrant with the spicy smell of the monthly roses, whose late buds
+and blossoms Miss Roxy had gathered for the vases. She seemed so
+natural, so calm and cheerful, so interested in all that went on around
+her, that one almost forgot that the time of her stay must be so short.
+She called Moses to come and look at her drawings, and paintings of
+flowers and birds,--full of reminders they were of old times,--and then
+she would have her pencils and colors, and work a little on a bunch of
+red rock-columbine, that she had begun to do for him; and she chatted of
+all the old familiar places where flowers grew, and of the old talks
+they had had there, till Moses quite forgot himself; forgot that he was
+in a sick room, till Aunt Roxy, warned by the deepening color on Mara's
+cheeks, interposed her "nussing" authority, that she must do no more
+that day.
+
+Then Moses laid her down, and arranged her pillows so that she could
+look out on the sea, and sat and read to her till it was time for her
+afternoon nap; and when the evening shadows drew on, he marveled with
+himself how the day had gone.
+
+Many such there were, all that pleasant month of September, and he was
+with her all the time, watching her wants and doing her
+bidding,--reading over and over with a softened modulation her favorite
+hymns and chapters, arranging her flowers, and bringing her home wild
+bouquets from all her favorite wood-haunts, which made her sick-room
+seem like some sylvan bower. Sally Kittridge was there too, almost every
+day, with always some friendly offering or some helpful deed of
+kindness, and sometimes they two together would keep guard over the
+invalid while Miss Roxy went home to attend to some of her own more
+peculiar concerns. Mara seemed to rule all around her with calm
+sweetness and wisdom, speaking unconsciously only the speech of heaven,
+talking of spiritual things, not in an excited rapture or wild ecstasy,
+but with the sober certainty of waking bliss. She seemed like one of the
+sweet friendly angels one reads of in the Old Testament, so lovingly
+companionable, walking and talking, eating and drinking, with mortals,
+yet ready at any unknown moment to ascend with the flame of some
+sacrifice and be gone. There are those (a few at least) whose blessing
+it has been to have kept for many days, in bonds of earthly fellowship,
+a perfected spirit in whom the work of purifying love was wholly done,
+who lived in calm victory over sin and sorrow and death, ready at any
+moment to be called to the final mystery of joy.
+
+Yet it must come at last, the moment when heaven claims its own, and it
+came at last in the cottage on Orr's Island. There came a day when the
+room so sacredly cheerful was hushed to a breathless stillness; the bed
+was then all snowy white, and that soft still sealed face, the parted
+waves of golden hair, the little hands folded over the white robe, all
+had a sacred and wonderful calm, a rapture of repose that seemed to say
+"it is done."
+
+They who looked on her wondered; it was a look that sunk deep into every
+heart; it hushed down the common cant of those who, according to country
+custom, went to stare blindly at the great mystery of death,--for all
+that came out of that chamber smote upon their breasts and went away in
+silence, revolving strangely whence might come that unearthly beauty,
+that celestial joy.
+
+Once more, in that very room where James and Naomi Lincoln had lain side
+by side in their coffins, sleeping restfully, there was laid another
+form, shrouded and coffined, but with such a fairness and tender purity,
+such a mysterious fullness of joy in its expression, that it seemed more
+natural to speak of that rest as some higher form of life than of
+death.
+
+Once more were gathered the neighborhood; all the faces known in this
+history shone out in one solemn picture, of which that sweet restful
+form was the centre. Zephaniah Pennel and Mary his wife, Moses and
+Sally, the dry form of Captain Kittridge and the solemn face of his
+wife, Aunt Roxy and Aunt Ruey, Miss Emily and Mr. Sewell; but their
+faces all wore a tender brightness, such as we see falling like a thin
+celestial veil over all the faces in an old Florentine painting. The
+room was full of sweet memories, of words of cheer, words of assurance,
+words of triumph, and the mysterious brightness of that young face
+forbade them to weep. Solemnly Mr. Sewell read,--
+
+"He will swallow up death in victory; and the Lord God will wipe away
+tears from off all faces; and the rebuke of his people shall he take
+away from off all the earth; for the Lord hath spoken it. And it shall
+be said in that day, Lo this is our God; we have waited for him, and he
+will save us; this is the Lord; we have waited for him, we will be glad
+and rejoice in his salvation."
+
+Then the prayer trembled up to heaven with thanksgiving, for the early
+entrance of that fair young saint into glory, and then the same old
+funeral hymn, with its mournful triumph:--
+
+    "Why should we mourn departed friends,
+      Or shake at death's alarms,
+    'Tis but the voice that Jesus sends
+      To call them to his arms."
+
+Then in a few words Mr. Sewell reminded them how that hymn had been sung
+in this room so many years ago, when that frail, fluttering orphan soul
+had been baptized into the love and care of Jesus, and how her whole
+life, passing before them in its simplicity and beauty, had come to so
+holy and beautiful a close; and when, pointing to the calm sleeping face
+he asked, "Would we call her back?" there was not a heart at that moment
+that dared answer, Yes. Even he that should have been her bridegroom
+could not at that moment have unsealed the holy charm, and so they bore
+her away, and laid the calm smiling face beneath the soil, by the side
+of poor Dolores.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"I had a beautiful dream last night," said Zephaniah Pennel, the next
+morning after the funeral, as he opened his Bible to conduct family
+worship.
+
+"What was it?" said Miss Roxy.
+
+"Well, ye see, I thought I was out a-walkin' up and down, and lookin'
+and lookin' for something that I'd lost. What it was I couldn't quite
+make out, but my heart felt heavy as if it would break, and I was
+lookin' all up and down the sands by the seashore, and somebody said I
+was like the merchantman, seeking goodly pearls. I said I had lost my
+pearl--my pearl of great price--and then I looked up, and far off on the
+beach, shining softly on the wet sands, lay my pearl. I thought it was
+Mara, but it seemed a great pearl with a soft moonlight on it; and I was
+running for it when some one said 'hush,' and I looked and I saw _Him_
+a-coming--Jesus of Nazareth, jist as he walked by the sea of Galilee. It
+was all dark night around Him, but I could see Him by the light that
+came from his face, and the long hair was hanging down on his shoulders.
+He came and took up my pearl and put it on his forehead, and it shone
+out like a star, and shone into my heart, and I felt happy; and he
+looked at me steadily, and rose and rose in the air, and melted in the
+clouds, and I awoke so happy, and so calm!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLIV
+
+FOUR YEARS AFTER
+
+
+It was a splendid evening in July, and the sky was filled high with
+gorgeous tabernacles of purple and gold, the remains of a grand
+thunder-shower which had freshened the air and set a separate jewel on
+every needle leaf of the old pines.
+
+Four years had passed since the fair Pearl of Orr's Island had been laid
+beneath the gentle soil, which every year sent monthly tributes of
+flowers to adorn her rest, great blue violets, and starry flocks of
+ethereal eye-brights in spring, and fringy asters, and goldenrod in
+autumn. In those days, the tender sentiment which now makes the
+burial-place a cultivated garden was excluded by the rigid spiritualism
+of the Puritan life, which, ever jealous of that which concerned the
+body, lest it should claim what belonged to the immortal alone, had
+frowned on all watching of graves, as an earthward tendency, and
+enjoined the flight of faith with the spirit, rather than the yearning
+for its cast-off garments.
+
+But Sally Kittridge, being lonely, found something in her heart which
+could only be comforted by visits to that grave. So she had planted
+there roses and trailing myrtle, and tended and watered them; a
+proceeding which was much commented on Sunday noons, when people were
+eating their dinners and discussing their neighbors.
+
+It is possible good Mrs. Kittridge might have been much scandalized by
+it, had she been in a condition to think on the matter at all; but a
+very short time after the funeral she was seized with a paralytic
+shock, which left her for a while as helpless as an infant; and then she
+sank away into the grave, leaving Sally the sole care of the old
+Captain.
+
+A cheerful home she made, too, for his old age, adorning the house with
+many little tasteful fancies unknown in her mother's days; reading the
+Bible to him and singing Mara's favorite hymns, with a voice as sweet as
+the spring blue-bird. The spirit of the departed friend seemed to hallow
+the dwelling where these two worshiped her memory, in simple-hearted
+love. Her paintings, framed in quaint woodland frames of moss and
+pine-cones by Sally's own ingenuity, adorned the walls. Her books were
+on the table, and among them many that she had given to Moses.
+
+"I am going to be a wanderer for many years," he said in parting, "keep
+these for me until I come back."
+
+And so from time to time passed long letters between the two
+friends,--each telling to the other the same story,--that they were
+lonely, and that their hearts yearned for the communion of one who could
+no longer be manifest to the senses. And each spoke to the other of a
+world of hopes and memories buried with her, "Which," each so constantly
+said, "no one could understand but you." Each, too, was firm in the
+faith that buried love must have no earthly resurrection. Every letter
+strenuously insisted that they should call each other brother and
+sister, and under cover of those names the letters grew longer and more
+frequent, and with every chance opportunity came presents from the
+absent brother, which made the little old cottage quaintly suggestive
+with smell of spice and sandal-wood.
+
+But, as we said, this is a glorious July evening,--and you may discern
+two figures picking their way over those low sunken rocks, yellowed with
+seaweed, of which we have often spoken. They are Moses and Sally going
+on an evening walk to that favorite grotto retreat, which has so often
+been spoken of in the course of this history.
+
+Moses has come home from long wanderings. It is four years since they
+parted, and now they meet and have looked into each other's eyes, not as
+of old, when they met in the first giddy flush of youth, but as fully
+developed man and woman. Moses and Sally had just risen from the
+tea-table, where she had presided with a thoughtful housewifery gravity,
+just pleasantly dashed with quaint streaks of her old merry willfulness,
+while the old Captain, warmed up like a rheumatic grasshopper in a fine
+autumn day, chirruped feebly, and told some of his old stories, which
+now he told every day, forgetting that they had ever been heard before.
+Somehow all three had been very happy; the more so, from a shadowy sense
+of some sympathizing presence which was rejoicing to see them together
+again, and which, stealing soft-footed and noiseless everywhere, touched
+and lighted up every old familiar object with sweet memories.
+
+And so they had gone out together to walk; to walk towards the grotto
+where Sally had caused a seat to be made, and where she declared she had
+passed hours and hours, knitting, sewing, or reading.
+
+"Sally," said Moses, "do you know I am tired of wandering? I am coming
+home now. I begin to want a home of my own." This he said as they sat
+together on the rustic seat and looked off on the blue sea.
+
+"Yes, you must," said Sally. "How lovely that ship looks, just coming in
+there."
+
+"Yes, they are beautiful," said Moses abstractedly; and Sally rattled on
+about the difference between sloops and brigs; seeming determined that
+there should be no silence, such as often comes in ominous gaps between
+two friends who have long been separated, and have each many things to
+say with which the other is not familiar.
+
+"Sally!" said Moses, breaking in with a deep voice on one of these
+monologues. "Do you remember some presumptuous things I once said to
+you, in this place?"
+
+Sally did not answer, and there was a dead silence in which they could
+hear the tide gently dashing on the weedy rocks.
+
+"You and I are neither of us what we were then, Sally," said Moses. "We
+are as different as if we were each another person. We have been trained
+in another life,--educated by a great sorrow,--is it not so?"
+
+"I know it," said Sally.
+
+"And why should we two, who have a world of thoughts and memories which
+no one can understand but the other,--why should we, each of us, go on
+alone? If we must, why then, Sally, I must leave you, and I must write
+and receive no more letters, for I have found that you are becoming so
+wholly necessary to me, that if any other should claim you, I could not
+feel as I ought. Must I go?"
+
+Sally's answer is not on record; but one infers what it was from the
+fact that they sat there very late, and before they knew it, the tide
+rose up and shut them in, and the moon rose up in full glory out of the
+water, and still they sat and talked, leaning on each other, till a
+cracked, feeble voice called down through the pine-trees above, like a
+hoarse old cricket,--
+
+"Children, be you there?"
+
+"Yes, father," said Sally, blushing and conscious.
+
+"Yes, all right," said the deep bass of Moses. "I'll bring her back when
+I've done with her, Captain."
+
+"Wal',--wal'; I was gettin' consarned; but I see I don't need to. I hope
+you won't get no colds nor nothin'."
+
+They did not; but in the course of a month there was a wedding at the
+brown house of the old Captain, which everybody in the parish was glad
+of, and was voted without dissent to be just the thing.
+
+Miss Roxy, grimly approbative, presided over the preparations, and all
+the characters of our story appeared, and more, having on their
+wedding-garments. Nor was the wedding less joyful, that all felt the
+presence of a heavenly guest, silent and loving, seeing and blessing
+all, whose voice seemed to say in every heart,--
+
+"He turneth the shadow of death into morning."
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Pearl of Orr's Island, by Harriet Beecher Stowe
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