mild. The oxen and cows, owned here by the half-breeds and Indians,

obtain good feed, and are in good condition."[J]

This village of St Mary's is sixty miles down the valley from the Big Hole Pass; yet, though so near, snow seldom falls, and the grass is so verdant that horses and cattle subsist the year round on the natural pasturage.

Lieutenant Mullan says of it: "The fact of the exceedingly mild winters in this valley has been noticed and remarked by all who have ever been in it during the winter season. It is the home of the Flathead Indians, who, through the instrumentality and exertions of the Jesuit priests, have built up a village,--not of logs, but of houses,--where they repair every winter, and, with this valley covered with an abundance of rich and nutritious grass, they live as comfortably as any tribe west of the Rocky Mountains....

"The numerous mountain rivulets, tributary to the Bitter Root River, that run through the valley, afford excellent and abundant mill-seats; and the land bordering these is fertile and productive, and has been found, beyond cavil or doubt, to be well suited to every branch of agriculture. I have seen oats, grown by Mr. John Owen, that are as heavy and as excellent as any I have ever seen in the States; and the same gentleman informs me that he has grown excellent wheat, and that, from his experience while in the mountains, he hesitated not in saying that agriculture might be carried on here in all its numerous branches, and to the exceeding great interest and gain of those engaged in it. The valley and mountain slopes are well timbered with an excellent growth of pine, which is equal, in every respect, to the well-known pine of Oregon. The valley is not only capable of grazing immense bands of stock of every kind, but is also capable of supporting a dense population.

"The provisions of Nature here, therefore, are on no small scale, and of no small importance; and let those who have imagined--as some have been bold to say it--that there exists only one immense bed of mountains at the head-waters of the Missouri to the Cascade Range, turn their attention to this section, and let them contemplate its advantages and resources, and ask themselves, since these things exist, can it be long before public attention shall be attracted and fastened upon this heretofore unknown region?"[K]

CLIMATE OF THE MOUNTAINS.

We have been accustomed to think of the Rocky Mountains as an impassable barrier, as a wild, dreary solitude, where the storms of winter piled the mountain passes with snow. How different the fact! In 1852-53, from the 28th of November to the 10th of January, there were but twelve inches of snow in the pass. The recorded observations during the winter of 1861-62 give the following measurements in the Big Hole Pass: December 4, eighteen inches; January 10, fourteen; January 14, ten; February 16, six; March 21, none.

We have been told that there could be no winter travel across the mountains,--that the snow would lie in drifts fifteen or twenty feet deep; but instead, there is daily communication by teams through the Big Hole Pass every day in the year! The belt of snow is narrow, existing only in the Pass.

Says Lieutenant Mullan, in his late Report on the wagon road: "The snow will offer no great obstacle to travel, with horses or locomotives, from the Missouri to the Columbia."

This able and efficient government officer, in the same Report, says of this section of the country:--

"The trade and travel along the Upper Columbia, where several steamers now ply between busy marts, of themselves attest what magical effects the years have wrought. Besides gold, lead for miles is found along the Kootenay. Red hermatite, iron ore, traces of copper, and plumbago are found along the main Bitter Root. Cinnabar is said to exist along the Hell Gate. Coal is found along the Upper Missouri, and a deposit of cannel coal near the Three Butts, northwest of Fort Benton, is also said to exist. Iron ore has been found on Thompson's farms on the Clark's Fork. Sulphur is found on the Loo Loo Fork, and on the tributaries of the Yellow Stone, and coal oil is said to exist on the Big Horn.... These great mineral deposits must have an ultimate bearing upon the location of the Pacific Railroad, adding, as they will, trade, travel, and wealth to its every mile when built....

"The great depots for building material exist principally in the mountain sections, but the plains on either side are not destitute in that particular. All through the Bitter Root and Rocky Mountains, the finest white and red cedar, white pine, and red fir that I ever have seen are found."[L]

GEOLOGICAL FEATURES.

The geological formation of the heart of the continent promises to open a rich field for scientific exploration and investigation. The Wind River Mountain, which divides the Yellow Stone from the Great Basin, is a marked and distinct geological boundary. From the northern slope flow the tributaries of the Yellow Stone, fed by springs of boiling water, which perceptibly affect the temperature of the region, clothing the valleys with verdure, and making them the winter home of the buffalo,--the favorite hunting-grounds of the Indians,--while the streams which flow from the southern slope of the mountains are alkaline, and, instead of luxuriant vegetation, there are vast regions covered with wild sage and cactus. They run into the Great Salt Lake, and have no outlet to the ocean. A late writer, describing the geological features of that section, says:--

"Upon the great interior desert streams and fuel are almost unknown. Wells must be very deep, and no simple and cheap machinery adequate to drawing up the water is yet invented. Cultivation, to a great extent, must be carried on by irrigation."[M]

Such are the slopes of the mountains which form the rim of the Great Basin, while the valley of the Yellow Stone is literally the land which buds and blossoms like the rose. The Rosebud River is so named because the valley through which it meanders is a garden of roses.

And here, along the head-waters of the Yellow Stone and its tributaries, at the northern deflection of the Wind River chain of mountains, flows a _river of hot wind_, which is not only one of the most remarkable features of the climatology of the continent, but which is destined to have a great bearing upon the civilization of this portion of the continent. St. Joseph in Missouri, in latitude 40°, has the same mean temperature as that at the base of the Rocky Mountains in latitude 47°! The high temperature of the hot boiling springs warms the air which flows northwest along the base of the mountains, sweeping through the Big Hole Pass, the Deer Lodge, Little Blackfoot, and Mullan Pass, giving a delightful winter climate to the valley of the St. Mary's, or Bitter Root. It flows like the Gulf Stream of the Atlantic. Says Captain Mullan: "On its either side, north and south, are walls of cold air, and which are so clearly perceptible that you always detect the river when you are on its shores."[N]

This great river of heat always flowing is sufficient to account for the slight depth of snow in the passes at the head-waters of the Missouri, which have an altitude of six thousand feet. The South Pass has an altitude of seven thousand eight hundred and eighty-nine feet. The passes of the Wasatch Range, on the route to California, are higher by three thousand feet than those at the head-waters of the Missouri, and, not being swept by a stream of hot air, are filled with snows during the winter months. The passes at the head-waters of the Saskatchawan, in the British possessions, though a few hundred feet lower than those at the head-waters of the Missouri, are not reached by the heated Wind River, and are impassable in winter. Even Cadotte's Pass, through which Governor Stevens located the line of the proposed road, is outside of the heat stream, so sharp and perpendicular are its walls.

Captain Mullan says: "From whatsoever cause it arises, it exists as a fact that must for all time enter as an element worthy of every attention in lines of travel and communication from the Eastern plains to the North Pacific."[O]

DISTANCES.

That this line is the natural highway of the continent is evident from other considerations. The distances between the centres of trade and San Francisco, and with Puget Sound, will appear from the following tabular statement:--

APPROXIMATE DISTANCES.

| to San Francisco | to Puget Sound | Difference |------------------|----------------|----------- Chicago | 2,448 miles[P] | 1,906 miles | 542 miles St. Louis | 2,345 " | 1,981 " | 364 " Cincinnati | 2,685 " | 2,200 " | 486 " New York | 3,417 " | 2,892 " | 525 " Boston | 3,484 " | 2,942 " | 542 "

The line to Puget Sound will require no tunnel in the pass of the Rocky Mountains. The approaches of the Big Hole and Deer Lodge in both directions are eminently feasible, requiring little rock excavation, and with no grades exceeding eighty feet per mile.

All of the places east of the latitude of Chicago, and north of the Ohio River, are from three hundred to five hundred and fifty miles nearer the Pacific at Puget Sound than at San Francisco,--due to greater directness of the route and the shortening of longitude. These on both lines are the approximate distances. The distance from Puget Sound to St. Louis is estimated--via Desmoines--on the supposition that the time will come when that line of railway will extend north far enough to intersect with the North Pacific.

COST OF CONSTRUCTION.

The census of 1860 gives thirty thousand miles of railroad in operation, which cost, including land damages, equipment, and all charges of construction, $37,120 per mile. The average cost of fifteen New England roads, including the Boston and Lowell, Boston and Maine, Vermont Central, Western, Eastern, and Boston and Providence, was $36,305 per mile. In the construction of this line, there will be no charge for land damages, and nothing for timber, which exists along nearly the entire line. But as iron and labor command a higher price than when those roads were constructed, there should be a liberal estimate. Lieutenant Mullan, in his late Report upon the Construction of the Wagon Road, discusses the probability of a railroad at length, and with much ability. His highest estimate for any portion of the line is sixty thousand dollars per mile,--an estimate given before civilization made an opening in the wilderness. There is no reason to believe that this line will be any more costly than the average of roads in the United States.

In 1850 there were 7,355 miles of road in operation; in 1860, 30,793; showing that 2,343 miles per annum were constructed by the people of the United States. The following table shows the number of miles built in each year from 1853 to 1856, together with the cost of the same.

Year. Miles. Cost.

1852 2,541 $ 94,000,000 1853 2,748 101,576,000 1854 3,549 125,313,000 1855 2,736 101,232,000 1856 3,578 132,386,000 ----------- Total expenditure for five years, $554,507,000

This exhibit is sufficient to indicate that there need be no question of our financial ability to construct the road.

In 1856, the country had expended $776,000,000 in the construction of railroads, incurring a debt of about $300,000,000. The entire amount of stock and bonds held abroad at that time was estimated at only $81,000,000.[Q]

AID FROM GOVERNMENT.

The desire of the people for the speedy opening of this great national highway is manifested by the action of the government, which, by act of Congress, July 2, 1864, granted the alternate sections of land for twenty miles on each side of the road in aid of the enterprise. The land thus appropriated amounts to forty-seven million acres,--more than is comprised in the States of New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, and New York! If all of these lands were sold at the price fixed by government,--$2.50 per acre,--they would yield $118,000,000,--a sum sufficient to build and equip the road. But years must elapse before these lands can be put upon the market, and the government, undoubtedly, will give the same aid to this road which has already been given to the Central Pacific Road, guaranteeing the bonds or stock of the company, and taking a lien on the road for security. Such bonds would at once command the necessary capital for building the road.

THE WESTERN TERMINUS.

Puget Sound, with its numerous inlets, is a deep indentation of the Pacific coast, one hundred miles north of the Columbia. It has spacious harbors, securely land-locked, with a surrounding country abounding in timber, with exhaustless beds of coal, rich in agricultural resources, and with numerous mill-streams. Nature has stamped it with her seal, and set it apart to be the New England of the Pacific coast.

That portion of the country is to be peopled by farmers, mechanics, and artisans. California is rich in mineral wealth. Her valleys and mountain-slopes yield abundant harvests; but she has few mill-streams, and is dependent upon Oregon and Washington for her coal and lumber. An inferior quality of coal is mined at Mount Diablo in California; but most of the coal consumed in that State is brought from Puget Sound. Hence Nature has fixed the locality of the future manufacturing industry of the Pacific. Puget Sound is nearer than San Francisco, by several hundred miles, to Japan, China, and Australia. It is therefore the natural port of entry and departure for our Pacific trade. It has advantages over San Francisco, not only in being nearer to those countries, but in having coal near at hand, which settles the question of the future steam marine of the Pacific.

Passengers, goods of high cost, and bills of exchange, move on the shortest and quickest lines of travel. No business man takes the way-train in preference to the express. Sailing vessels make the voyage from Puget Sound to Shanghai in from thirty to forty days. Steamers will make it in twenty.

TRADE WITH ASIA.

Far-seeing men in England are looking forward to the time when the trade between that country and the Pacific will be carried on across this continent. Colonel Synge, of the Queen's Royal Engineers, says:--

"America is geographically a connecting link between the continents of Europe and Asia, and not a monstrous barrier between them. It lies in the track of their nearest and best connection; and this fact needs only to be fully recognized to render it in practice what it unquestionably is in the essential points of distance and direction."[R]

Another English writer says:--

"It is believed that the amount of direct traffic which would be created between Australia, China, and Japan, and England, by a railway from Halifax to the Gulf of Georgia, would soon more than cover the interest upon the capital expended.... If the intended railway were connected with a line of steamers plying between Victoria (Puget Sound), Sydney, or New Zealand, mails, quick freight, passengers to and from our colonies in the southern hemisphere, would, for the most part, be secured for this route.

"Vancouver's Island is nearer to Sydney than Panama by nine hundred miles; and, with the exception of the proposed route by a Trans-American railway, the latter is the most expeditious that has been found.

"By this interoceanic communication, the time to New Zealand would be reduced to forty-two, and to Sydney to forty-seven days, being at least ten less than by steam from England via Panama."[S]

Lord Bury says:--

"Our trade [English] in the Pacific Ocean with China and with India must ultimately be carried through our North American possessions. At any rate, our political and commercial supremacy will have utterly departed from us, if we neglect that great and important consideration, and if we fail to carry out to its fullest extent the physical advantages which the country offers to us, and which we have only to stretch out our hands to take advantage of."[T]

Shanghai is rapidly becoming the great commercial emporium of China. It is situated at the mouth of the Yangtse-Kiang, the largest river of Asia, navigable for fifteen hundred miles. Hong-Kong, which has been the English centre in China, is nine hundred and sixty miles farther south.

With a line of railway across this continent, the position of England would be as follows:--

To Shanghai via Suez, 60 days. " " " Puget Sound, 33 "

Mr. Maciff divides the time as follows by the Puget Sound route:--

Southampton to Halifax, 9 days. Halifax to Puget Sound, 6 " Puget Sound to Hong-Kong, 21 " -- 36

The voyage by Suez is made in the Peninsular and Oriental line of steamers. The passage is proverbially comfortless,--through the Red Sea and Persian Gulf, across the Bay of Bengal, through the Straits of Malacca, and up the Chinese coast, under a tropical sun. Bayard Taylor thus describes the trip down the Red Sea:--

"We had a violent head-wind, or rather gale. Yet, in spite of this current of air, the thermometer stood at 85° on deck, and 90° in the cabin. For two or three days we had a temperature of 90° to 95°. This part of the Red Sea is considered to be the hottest portion of the earth's surface. In the summer the air is like that of a furnace, and the bare red mountains glow like heaps of live coals. The steamers at that time almost invariably lose some of their firemen and stewards. Cooking is quite given up."[U]

Bankok, Singapore, and Java can be reached more quickly from England by Puget Sound than by Suez.

Notwithstanding the discomforts of the passage down the Red Sea, the steamers are always overcrowded with passengers, and loaded to their utmost capacity with freight. The French line, the Messageries Imperials de France, has been established, and is fully employed. Both lines pay large dividends.

The growth of the English trade with China during the last sixteen years has been very rapid. Tea has increased 1300 per cent, and silk 950.[V]

The trade between the single port of Shanghai and England and America in the two great staples of export is seen from the following statement of the export of tea and silk from that port from July 1, 1859, to July 1, 1860:--

Tea, lbs. Silk, bales. Great Britain, 31,621,000 19,084 United States, 18,299,000 1,554 Canada, 1,172,000 France, 47,000

The total value of exports from England to China in 1860 was $26,590,000. Says Colonel Sykes:--

"Our trade with China resolves itself into our taking almost exclusively from them teas and raw silk, and their taking from us cotton, cotton yarns, and woollens."[W]

The exports of the United States to the Pacific in 1861 were as follows:--

To China, $5,809,724 Australia, 3,410,000 Islands of the Pacific 484,000 ---------- Total, $9,703,724

By the late treaty between the United States and China, that empire is thrown open to trade; and already a large fleet of American-built steamers is afloat on the gleaming waters of the Yang-tse. Mr. Burlingame, our present Minister, is soon to take his departure for that empire, with instructions to use his utmost endeavor to promote friendly relations between the two countries. That this country is to have an immense trade with China is evident from the fact that no other country can compete with us in the manufacture of coarse cotton goods, which, with cotton at its normal price, will be greatly sought after by the majority of the people of that country, who of necessity are compelled to wear the cheapest clothing.

Shanghai is the silk emporium of the empire. A ton of silk goods is worth from ten to fifteen thousand dollars. Nearly all of the silk is now shipped by the Peninsular and Oriental line, at a charge of $125 to $150 per ton; and notwithstanding these exorbitant rates, Shanghai merchants are compelled to make written application weeks in advance, and accept proportional allotments for shipping. In May, 1863, the screw-steamer Bahama made the trip from Foochow to London in eighty days with a cargo of tea, and obtained sixty dollars per ton, while freights by sailing vessels were but twenty dollars; the shippers being willing to pay forty dollars per ton for forty days' quicker delivery. With the Northern Pacific line constructed, the British importer could receive his Shanghai goods across this continent in fifty days, and at a rate lower than by the Peninsular line.

The route by the Peninsular line runs within eighty miles of the Equator; and the entire voyage is through a tropical climate, which injures the flavor of the tea. Hence the high price of the celebrated "brick tea," brought across the steppes of Russia. The route by Puget Sound is wholly through temperate latitudes, across a smooth and peaceful sea, seldom vexed by storms, and where currents, like the Gulf Stream of Mexico, and favoring trade-winds, may be taken advantage of by vessels plying between that port and the Asiatic coast.

Japan is only four thousand miles distant from Puget Sound. The teas and silks of that country are rapidly coming into market. Coal is found there, and on the island of Formosa, and up the Yang-tse.

CLIMATE

The climate of Puget Sound is thus set forth by an English writer, who has passed several months at Victoria:--

"From October to March we are liable to frequent rains; but this period of damp is ever and anon relieved by prolonged intervals of bright dry weather. In March, winter gives signs of taking its departure, and the warm breath of spring begins to cover the trees with tinted buds and the fields with verdure.... The sensations produced by the aspects of nature in May are indescribably delightful. The freshness of the air, the warbling of birds, the clearness of the sky, the profusion and fragrance of wild roses, the widespread, variegated hues of buttercups and daisies, the islets and violets, together with the distant snow-peaks bursting upon the view, combine in that month to fill the mind with enchantment unequalled out of Paradise. I know gentlemen who have lived in China, Italy, Canada, and England; but, after a residence of some years in Vancouver Island, they entertained a preference for the climate of the colony which approached affectionate enthusiasm."[X]

The climate of the whole section through which the line passes is milder than that of the Grand Trunk line. The lowest degree of temperature in 1853--54 at Quebec was 29 below zero; Montreal, 34; St. Paul, 36; Bitter Root Valley, forty miles from Big Hole Pass, 20.

In 1858 a party of Royal Engineers, under Captain Pallissir, surveyed the country of the Saskatchawan for a line to Puget Sound which should lie wholly within the British possessions. They found a level and fertile country, receding to the very base of the mountains, and a practicable pass, of less altitude than those at the head-waters of the Missouri; but in winter the snow is deep and the climate severe. That section of Canada north of Superior is an unbroken, uninhabitable wilderness. The character of the region is thus set forth by Agassiz. He says:--

"Unless the mines should attract and support a population, one sees not how this region should ever be inhabited. Its stern and northern character is shown in nothing more clearly than in the scarcity of animals. The woods are silent, and as if deserted. One may walk for hours without hearing an animal sound; and when he does, it is of a wild and lonely character.... It is like being transported to the early ages of the earth, when mosses and pines had just begun to cover the primeval rock, and the animals as yet ventured timidly forth into the new world."[Y]

THE FUTURE.

The census returns of the United States indicate that, thirty-four years hence, in the year 1900, the population of this country will exceed one hundred millions. What an outlook! The country a teeming hive of industry; innumerable sails whitening the Western Ocean; unnumbered steamers ploughing its peaceful waters; great cities in the unexplored solitudes of to-day; America the highway of the nations; and New York the banking-house of the world!

This is the age of the people. They are the sovereigns of the future. It is the age of ideas. The people of America stand on the threshold of a new era. We are to come in contact with a people numbering nearly half the population of the globe, claiming a nationality dating back to the time of Moses. A hundred thousand Chinese are in California and Oregon, and every ship sailing into the harbor of San Francisco brings its load of emigrants from Asia. What is to be the effect of this contact with the Orient upon our civilization? What the result of this pouring in of emigrants from every country of the world,--of all languages, manners, customs, nationalities, and religions? Can they be assimilated into a homogeneous mass? These are grave questions, demanding the earnest and careful consideration of every Christian, philanthropist, and patriot. We have fought for existence, and have a name among the nations. But we have still the nation to save. Railroads, telegraphs, steamships, printing-presses, schools, platforms, and pulpits are the agents of modern civilization. Through them we are to secure unity, strength, and national life. Securing these, Asia may send over her millions of idol-worshippers without detriment to ourselves. With these, America is to give life to the long-slumbering Orient.

So ever toward the setting sun the course of empire takes its way,--not the empire of despotism, but of life, liberty,--of civilization and the Christian religion.

FOOTNOTES:

[D] Lewis and Clark's Expedition to the Columbia, Vol. II. p. 392.

[E] Ibid., p. 397.

[F] See Pacific Railroad Report, Vol. I. p. 239.

[G] Idaho: Six Months among the New Gold Diggings, by J. L. Campbell, pp. 15-28.

[H] Pacific Railroad Report, Vol. I. p. 130.

[I] Ibid., Vol. XII. p. 169.

[J] Governor Stevens's Report of the Pacific Railroad Survey.

[K] Pacific Railroad Survey. Lieutenant Mullan's Report.

[L] Lieutenant Mullan's Report on the Construction of Wagon Road from Fort Benton to Walla-Walla, p. 45.

[M] New York Tribune, December 2, 1865, correspondence of "A. D. R."

[N] Report of Captain Mullan, p. 54.

[O] Report of Captain Mullan, p. 54.

[P] Hall's Guide,--via Omaha, Denver, and Salt Lake.

[Q] Report of the Secretary of the Treasury, 1857.

[R] Paper read before the British North American Association, July 21, 1864.

[S] Vancouver's Island and British Columbia, Maciff, p. 343.

[T] Speech by Lord Bury, quoted by Maciff.

[U] India, China, and Japan, p. 23.

[V] Statistical Journal, 1862.

[W] Statistical Journal, 1862, p. 15.

[X] Vancouver and British Columbia, Maciff, p. 179.

[Y] Agassiz, Lake Superior, p. 124.

IN THE SEA.

The salt wind blows upon my cheek As it blew a year ago, When twenty boats were crushed among The rocks of Norman's Woe. 'Twas dark then; 't is light now, And the sails are leaning low.

In dreams, I pull the sea-weed o'er, And find a face not his, And hope another tide will be More pitying than this: The wind turns, the tide turns,-- They take what hope there is.

My life goes on as thine would go, With all its sweetness spilled: My God, why should one heart of two Beat on, when one is stilled? Through heart-wreck, or home-wreck, Thy happy sparrows build.

Though boats go down, men build anew, Whatever winds may blow; If blight be in the wheat one year, We trust again and sow, Though grief comes, and changes The sunshine into snow.

Some have their dead, where, sweet and soon, The summers bloom and go: The sea withholds my dead,--I walk The bar when tides are low, And wonder the grave-grass Can have the heart to grow!

Flow on, O unconsenting sea, And keep my dead below; Though night--O utter night!--my soul, Delude thee long, I know, Or Life comes or Death comes, God leads the eternal flow.

THE CHIMNEY-CORNER FOR 1866.

III.

IS WOMAN A WORKER?

"Papa, do you see what the Evening Post says of your New-Year's article on Reconstruction?" said Jennie, as we were all sitting in the library after tea.

"I have not seen it."

"Well, then, the charming writer, whoever he is, takes up for us girls and women, and maintains that no work of any sort ought to be expected of us; that our only mission in life is to be beautiful, and to refresh and elevate the spirits of men by being so. If I get a husband, my mission is to be always becomingly dressed, to display most captivating toilettes, and to be always in good spirits,--as, under the circumstances, I always should be,--and thus 'renew his spirits' when he comes in weary with the toils of life. Household cares are to be far from me: they destroy my cheerfulness and injure my beauty.

"He says that the New England standard of excellence as applied to woman has been a mistaken one; and, in consequence, though the girls are beautiful, the matrons are faded, overworked, and uninteresting; and that such a state of society tends to immorality, because, when wives are no longer charming, men are open to the temptation to desert their firesides, and get into mischief generally. He seems particularly to complain of your calling ladies who do nothing the 'fascinating _lazzaroni_ of the parlor and boudoir.'"

"There was too much truth back of that arrow not to wound," said Theophilus Thoro, who was ensconced, as usual, in his dark corner, whence he supervises our discussions.

"Come, Mr. Thoro, we won't have any of your bitter moralities," said Jennie; "they are only to be taken as the invariable bay-leaf which Professor Blot introduces into all his recipes for soups and stews,--a little elegant bitterness, to be kept tastefully in the background. You see now, papa, I should like the vocation of being beautiful. It would just suit me to wear point-lace and jewelry, and to have life revolve round me, as some beautiful star, and feel that I had nothing to do but shine and refresh the spirits of all gazers, and that in this way I was truly useful, and fulfilling the great end of my being; but alas for this doctrine! all women have not beauty. The most of us can only hope not to be called ill-looking, and, when we get ourselves up with care, to look fresh and trim and agreeable; which fact interferes with the theory."

"Well, for my part," said young Rudolph, "I go for the theory of the beautiful. If ever I marry, it is to find an asylum for ideality. I don't want to make a culinary marriage or a business partnership. I want a being whom I can keep in a sphere of poetry and beauty, out of the dust and grime of every-day life."

"Then," said Mr. Theophilus, "you must either be a rich man in your own right, or your fair ideal must have a handsome fortune of her own."

"I never will marry a rich wife," quoth Rudolph. "My wife must be supported by me, not I by her."

Rudolph is another of the _habitués_ of our chimney-corner, representing the order of young knighthood in America, and his dreams and fancies, if impracticable, are always of a kind to make every one think him a good fellow. He who has no romantic dreams at twenty-one will be a horribly dry peascod at fifty; therefore it is that I gaze reverently at all Rudolph's chateaus in Spain, which want nothing to complete them except solid earth to stand on.

"And pray," said Theophilus, "how long will it take a young lawyer or physician, starting with no heritage but his own brain, to create a sphere of poetry and beauty in which to keep his goddess? How much a year will be necessary, as the English say, to _do_ this garden of Eden, whereinto shall enter only the poetry of life?"

"I don't know. I haven't seen it near enough to consider. It is because I know the difficulty of its attainment that I have no present thoughts of marriage. Marriage is to me in the bluest of all blue distances,--far off, mysterious, and dreamy as the Mountains of the Moon or sources of the Nile. It shall come only when I have secured a fortune that shall place my wife above all necessity of work or care."

"I desire to hear from you," said Theophilus, "when you have found the sum that will keep a woman from care. I know of women now inhabiting palaces, waited on at every turn by servants, with carriages, horses, jewels, laces, cashmeres, enough for princesses, who are eaten up by care. One lies awake all night on account of a wrinkle in the waist of her dress; another is dying because no silk of a certain inexpressible shade is to be found in New York; a third has had a dress sent home, which has proved such a failure that life seems no longer worth having. If it were not for the consolations of religion, one doesn't know what would become of her. The fact is, that care and labor are as much correlated to human existence as shadow is to light; there is no such thing as excluding them from any mortal lot. You may make a canary-bird or a gold-fish live in absolute contentment without a care or labor, but a human being you cannot. Human beings are restless and active in their very nature, and will do something, and that something will prove a care, a labor, and a fatigue, arrange it how you will. As long as there is anything to be desired and not yet attained, so long its attainment will be attempted; so long as that attainment is doubtful or difficult, so long will there be care and anxiety. When boundless wealth releases woman from every family care, she immediately makes herself a new set of cares in another direction, and has just as many anxieties as the most toilful housekeeper, only they are of a different kind. Talk of labor, and look at the upper classes in London or in New York in the fashionable season. Do any women work harder? To rush from crowd to crowd all night, night after night, seeing what they are tired of, making the agreeable over an abyss of inward yawning, crowded, jostled, breathing hot air, and crushed in halls and stairways, without a moment of leisure for months and months, till brain and nerve and sense reel, and the country is longed for as a period of resuscitation and relief! Such is the release from labor and fatigue brought by wealth. The only thing that makes all this labor at all endurable is, that it is utterly and entirely useless, and does not good to any one in creation; this alone makes it genteel, and distinguishes it from the vulgar toils of a housekeeper. These delicate creatures, who can go to three or four parties a night for three months, would be utterly desolate if they had to watch one night in a sick-room; and though they can exhibit any amount of physical endurance and vigor in crowding into assembly rooms, and breathe tainted air in an opera-house with the most martyr-like constancy, they could not sit one half-hour in the close room where the sister of charity spends hours in consoling the sick or aged poor."

"Mr. Theophilus is quite at home now," said Jennie; "only start him on the track of fashionable life, and he takes the course like a hound. But hear, now, our champion of the Evening Post:--

"'The instinct of women to seek a life of repose, their eagerness to attain the life of elegance, does not mean contempt for labor, but it is the confession of unfitness for labor. Women were not intended to work,--not because work is ignoble, but because it is as disastrous to the beauty of a woman as is friction to the bloom and softness of a flower. Woman is to be kept in the garden of life; she is to rest, to receive, to praise; she is to be kept from the workshop world, where innocence is snatched with rude hands, and softness is blistered into unsightliness or hardened into adamant. No social truth is more in need of exposition and illustration than this one; and, above all, the people of New England need to know it, and, better, they need to believe it.

"'It is therefore with regret that we discover Christopher Crowfield applying so harshly, and, as we think, so indiscriminatingly, the theory of work to women, and teaching a society made up of women sacrificed in the workshops of the state, or to the dust-pans and kitchens of the house, that women must work, ought to work, and are dishonored if they do not work; and that a woman committed to the drudgery of a household is more creditably employed than when she is charming, fascinating, irresistible, in the parlor or boudoir. The consequence of this fatal mistake is manifest throughout New England,--in New England, where the girls are all beautiful and the wives and mothers faded, disfigured, and without charm or attractiveness. The moment a girl marries in New England she is apt to become a drudge, or a lay figure on which to exhibit the latest fashions. She never has beautiful hands, and she would not have a beautiful face if a utilitarian society could "apply" her face to anything but the pleasure of the eye. Her hands lose their shape and softness after childhood, and domestic drudgery destroys her beauty of form and softness and bloom of complexion after marriage. To correct, or rather to break up, this despotism of household cares, or of work, over woman, American society must be taught that women will inevitably fade and deteriorate, unless it insures repose and comfort to them. It must be taught that reverence for beauty is the normal condition, while the theory of work, applied to women, is disastrous alike to beauty and morals. Work, when it is destructive to men or women, is forced and unjust.

"'All the great masculine or creative epochs have been distinguished by spontaneous work on the part of men, and universal reverence and care for beauty. The praise of work, and sacrifice of women to this great heartless devil of work, belong only to, and are the social doctrine of, a mechanical age and a utilitarian epoch. And if the New England idea of social life continues to bear so cruelly on woman, we shall have a reaction somewhat unexpected and shocking.'"

"Well now, say what you will," said Rudolph, "you have expressed my idea of the conditions of the sex. Woman was not made to work; she was made to be taken care of by man. All that is severe and trying, whether in study or in practical life, is and ought to be in its very nature essentially the work of the male sex. The value of woman is precisely the value of those priceless works of art for which we build museums,--which we shelter and guard as the world's choicest heritage; and a lovely, cultivated, refined woman, thus sheltered, and guarded, and developed, has a worth that cannot be estimated by any gross, material standard. So I subscribe to the sentiments of Miss Jennie's friend without scruple."

"The great trouble in settling all these society questions," said I, "lies in the gold-washing,--the cradling I think the miners call it. If all the quartz were in one stratum and all the gold in another, it would save us a vast deal of trouble. In the ideas of Jennie's friend of the Evening Post there is a line of truth and a line of falsehood so interwoven and threaded together that it is impossible wholly to assent or dissent. So with your ideas, Rudolph, there is a degree of truth in them, but there is also a fallacy.

"It is a truth, that woman as a sex ought not to do the hard work of the world, either social, intellectual, or moral. There are evidences in her physiology that this was not intended for her, and our friend of the Evening Post is right in saying that any country will advance more rapidly in civilization and refinement where woman is thus sheltered and protected. And I think, furthermore, that there is no country in the world where women _are_ so much considered and cared for and sheltered, in every walk of life, as in America. In England and France,--all over the continent of Europe, in fact,--the other sex are deferential to women only from some presumption of their social standing, or from the fact of acquaintanceship; but among strangers, and under circumstances where no particular rank or position can be inferred, a woman travelling in England or France is jostled and pushed to the wall, and left to take her own chance, precisely as if she were not a woman. Deference to delicacy and weakness, the instinct of protection, does not appear to characterize the masculine population of any other quarter of the world so much as that of America. In France, _les Messieurs_ will form a circle round the fire in the receiving-room of a railroad station, and sit, tranquilly smoking their cigars, while ladies who do not happen to be of their acquaintance are standing shivering at the other side of the room. In England, if a lady is incautiously booked for an outside place on a coach, in hope of seeing the scenery, and the day turns out hopelessly rainy, no gentleman in the coach below ever thinks of offering to change seats with her, though it pour torrents. In America, the roughest backwoods steamboat or canal-boat captain always, as a matter of course, considers himself charged with the protection of the ladies. '_Place aux dames_' is written in the heart of many a shaggy fellow who could not utter a French word any more than could a buffalo. It is just as I have before said,--women are the recognized aristocracy, the _only_ aristocracy, of America; and, so far from regarding this fact as objectionable, it is an unceasing source of pride in my country.

"That kind of knightly feeling towards woman which reverences her delicacy, her frailty, which protects and cares for her, is, I think, the crown of manhood; and without it a man is only a rough animal. But our fair aristocrats and their knightly defenders need to be cautioned lest they lose their position, as many privileged orders have before done, by an arrogant and selfish use of power.

"I have said that the vices of aristocracy are more developed among women in America than among men, and that, while there are no men in the Northern States who are not ashamed of living a merely idle life of pleasure, there are many women who make a boast of helplessness and ignorance in woman's family duties which any man would be ashamed to make with regard to man's duties, as if such helplessness and ignorance were a grace and a charm.

"There are women who contentedly live on, year after year, a life of idleness, while the husband and father is straining every nerve, growing prematurely old and gray, abridged of almost every form of recreation or pleasure,--all that he may keep them in a state of careless ease and festivity. It may be very fine, very generous, very knightly, in the man who thus toils at the oar that his princesses may enjoy their painted voyages; but what is it for the women?

"A woman is a moral being,--an immortal soul,--before she is a woman; and as such she is charged by her Maker with some share of the great burden of _work_ which lies on the world.

"Self-denial, the bearing of the cross, are stated by Christ as indispensable conditions to the entrance into his kingdom, and no exception is made for man or woman. Some task, some burden, some cross, each one must carry; and there must be something done in every true and worthy life, not as amusement, but as duty,--not as play, but as earnest _work_,--and no human being can attain to the Christian standard without this.

"When Jesus Christ took a towel and girded himself, poured water into a basin, and washed his disciples' feet, he performed a significant and sacramental act, which no man or woman should ever forget. If wealth and rank and power absolve from the services of life, then certainly were Jesus Christ absolved, as he says,--'Ye call me Master, and Lord. If I, then, your Lord and Master, have washed your feet, ye also ought to wash one another's feet. For I have given you an example, that ye should do as I have done to you.'

"Let a man who seeks to make a terrestrial paradise for the woman of his heart,--to absolve her from all care, from all labor,--to teach her to accept and to receive the labor of others without any attempt to offer labor in return,--consider whether he is not thus going directly against the fundamental idea of Christianity,--taking the direct way to make his idol selfish and exacting, to rob her of the highest and noblest beauty of womanhood.

"In that chapter of the Bible where the relation between man and woman is stated, it is thus said, with quaint simplicity:--'It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an _help meet_ for him.' Woman the _helper_ of man, not his toy,--not a picture, not a statue, not a work of art, but a HELPER, a doer,--such is the view of the Bible and the Christian religion.

"It is not necessary that women should work physically or morally to an extent which impairs beauty. In France, where woman is harnessed with an ass to the plough which her husband drives,--where she digs, and wields the pick-axe,--she becomes prematurely hideous; but in America, where woman reigns as queen in every household, she may surely be a good and thoughtful housekeeper, she may have physical strength exercised in lighter domestic toils, not only without injuring her beauty, but with manifest advantage to it. Almost every growing young girl would be the better in health, and therefore handsomer, for two hours of active housework daily; and the habit of usefulness thereby gained would be an equal advantage to her moral development. The labors of modern, well-arranged houses are not in any sense severe; they are as gentle as any kind of exercise that can be devised, and they bring into play muscles that ought to be exercised to be healthily developed.

"The great danger to the beauty of American women does not lie, as the writer of the Post contends, in an overworking of the physical system which shall stunt and deform; on the contrary, American women of the comfortable classes are in danger of a loss of physical beauty from the entire deterioration of the muscular system for want of exercise. Take the life of any American girl in one of our large towns, and see what it is. We have an educational system of public schools which for intellectual culture is a just matter of pride to any country. From the time that the girl is seven years old, her first thought, when she rises in the morning, is to eat her breakfast and be off to her school. There really is no more time than enough to allow her to make that complete toilet which every well-bred female ought to make, and to take her morning meal before her school begins. She returns at noon with just time to eat her dinner, and the afternoon session begins. She comes home at night with books, slate, and lessons enough to occupy her evening. What time is there for teaching her any household work, for teaching her to cut or fit or sew, or to inspire her with any taste for domestic duties? Her arms have no exercise; her chest and lungs, and all the complex system of muscles which are to be perfected by quick and active movement, are compressed while she bends over book and slate and drawing-board; while the ever-active brain is kept all the while going at the top of its speed. She grows up spare, thin, and delicate; and while the Irish girl, who sweeps the parlors, rubs the silver, and irons the muslins, is developing a finely rounded arm and bust, the American girl has a pair of bones at her sides, and a bust composed of cotton padding, the work of a skilful dressmaker. Nature, who is no respecter of persons, gives to Colleen Bawn, who uses her arms and chest, a beauty which perishes in the gentle, languid Edith, who does nothing but study and read."

"But is it not a fact," said Rudolph, "as stated by our friend of the Post, that American matrons are perishing, and their beauty and grace all withered, from overwork?"

"It is," said my wife; "but why? It is because they are brought up without vigor or muscular strength, without the least practical experience of household labor, or those means of saving it which come by daily practice; and then, after marriage, when physically weakened by maternity, embarrassed by the care of young children, they are often suddenly deserted by every efficient servant, and the whole machinery of a complicated household left in their weak, inexperienced hands. In the country, you see a household perhaps made void some fine morning by Biddy's sudden departure, and nobody to make the bread, or cook the steak, or sweep the parlors, or do one of the complicated offices of a family, and no bakery, cookshop, or laundry to turn to for alleviation. A lovely, refined home becomes in a few hours a howling desolation; and then ensues a long season of breakage, waste, distraction, as one wild Irish immigrant after another introduces the style of Irish cottage life into an elegant dwelling.

"Now suppose I grant to the Evening Post that woman ought to rest, to be kept in the garden of life, and all that, how is this to be done in a country where a state of things like this is the commonest of occurrences? And is it any kindness or reverence to woman, to educate her for such an inevitable destiny by a life of complete physical delicacy and incapacity? Many a woman who has been brought into these cruel circumstances would willingly exchange all her knowledge of German and Italian, and all her graceful accomplishments, for a good physical development, and some respectable _savoir faire_ in ordinary life.

"Moreover, American matrons are overworked because some unaccountable glamour leads them to continue to bring up their girls in the same inefficient physical habits which resulted in so much misery to themselves. Housework as they are obliged to do it, untrained, untaught, exhausted, and in company with rude, dirty, unkempt foreigners, seems to them a degradation which they will spare to their daughters. The daughter goes on with her schools and accomplishments, and leads in the family the life of an elegant little visitor during all those years when a young girl might be gradually developing and strengthening her muscles in healthy household work. It never occurs to her that she can or ought to fill any of these domestic gaps into which her mother always steps; and she comforts herself with the thought, 'I don't know how; I can't; I haven't the strength. I _cant'_ sweep; it blisters my hands. If I should stand at the ironing-table an hour, I should be ill for a week. As to cooking, I don't know anything about it.' And so, when the cook, or the chambermaid, or nurse, or all together, vacate the premises, it is the mamma who is successively cook, and chambermaid, and nurse; and this is the reason why matrons fade and are overworked.

"Now, Mr. Rudolph, do you think a woman any less beautiful or interesting because she is a fully developed physical being,--because her muscles have been rounded and matured into strength, so that she can meet the inevitable emergencies of life without feeling them to be distressing hardships? If there be a competent, well-trained servant to sweep and dust the parlor, and keep all the machinery of the house in motion, she may very properly select her work out of the family, in some form of benevolent helpfulness; but when the inevitable evil hour comes, which is likely to come first or last in every American household, is a woman any less an elegant woman because her love of neatness, order, and beauty leads her to make vigorous personal exertions to keep her own home undefiled? For my part, I think a disorderly, ill-kept home, a sordid, uninviting table, has driven more husbands from domestic life than the unattractiveness of any overworked woman. So long as a woman makes her home harmonious and orderly, so long as the hour of assembling around the family table is something to be looked forward to as a comfort and a refreshment, a man cannot see that the good house fairy, who by some magic keeps everything so delightfully, has either a wrinkle or a gray hair.

"Besides," said I, "I must tell you, Rudolph, what you fellows of twenty-one are slow to believe; and that is, that the kind of ideal paradise you propose in marriage is, in the very nature of things, an impossibility,--that the familiarities of every-day life between two people who keep house together must and will destroy it. Suppose you are married to Cytherea herself, and the next week attacked with a rheumatic fever. If the tie between you is that of true and honest love, Cytherea will put on a gingham wrapper, and with her own sculptured hands wring out the flannels which shall relieve your pains; and she will be no true woman if she do not prefer to do this to employing any nurse that could be hired. True love ennobles and dignifies the material labors of life; and homely services rendered for love's sake have in them a poetry that is immortal.

"No true-hearted woman can find herself, in real, actual life, unskilled and unfit to minister to the wants and sorrows of those dearest to her, without a secret sense of degradation. The feeling of uselessness is an extremely unpleasant one. Tom Hood, in a very humorous paper, describes a most accomplished schoolmistress, a teacher of all the arts and crafts which are supposed to make up fine gentlewomen, who is stranded in a rude German inn, with her father writhing in the anguish of a severe attack of gastric inflammation. The helpless lady gazes on her suffering parent, longing to help him, and thinking over all her various little store of accomplishments, not one of which bear the remotest relation to the case. She could knit him a bead-purse, or make him a guard-chain, or work him a footstool, or festoon him with cut tissue-paper, or sketch his likeness, or crust him over with alum crystals, or stick him over with little rosettes of red and white wafers; but none of these being applicable to his present case, she sits gazing in resigned imbecility, till finally she desperately resolves to improvise him some gruel, and, after a laborious turn in the kitchen,--after burning her dress and blacking her fingers,--succeeds only in bringing him a bowl of _paste_!

"Not unlike this might be the feeling of many and elegant and accomplished woman, whose education has taught and practised her in everything that woman ought to know, except those identical ones which fit her for the care of a home, for the comfort of a sick-room; and so I say again, that, whatever a woman may be in the way of beauty and elegance, she must have the strength and skill of a _practical worker_, or she is nothing. She is not simply to _be_ the beautiful,--she is to _make_ the beautiful, and preserve it; and she who makes and she who keeps the beautiful must be able _to work_, and to know how to work. Whatever offices of life are performed by women of culture and refinement are thenceforth elevated; they cease to be mere servile toils, and become expressions of the ideas of superior beings. If a true lady makes even a plate of toast, in arranging a _petit souper_ for her invalid friend, she does it as a lady should. She does not cut blundering and uneven slices; she does not burn the edges; she does not deluge it with bad butter, and serve it cold; but she arranges and serves all with an artistic care, with a nicety and delicacy, which make it worth one's while to have a lady friend in sickness.

"And I am glad to hear that Monsieur Blot is teaching classes of New York ladies that cooking is not a vulgar kitchen toil, to be left to blundering servants, but an elegant feminine accomplishment, better worth a woman's learning than crochet or embroidery; and that a well-kept culinary apartment may be so inviting and orderly that no lady need feel her ladyhood compromised by participating in its pleasant toils. I am glad to know that his cooking academy is thronged with more scholars than he can accommodate, and from ladies in the best classes of society.

"Moreover, I am glad to see that in New Bedford, recently, a public course of instruction in the art of bread-making has been commenced by a lady, and that classes of the most respectable young and married ladies in the place are attending them.

"These are steps in the right direction, and show that our fair country-women, with the grand good sense which is their leading characteristic, are resolved to supply whatever in our national life is wanting.

"I do not fear that women of such sense and energy will listen to the sophistries which would persuade them that elegant imbecility and inefficiency are charms of cultivated womanhood or ingredients in the poetry of life. She alone can keep the poetry and beauty of married life who has this poetry in her soul; who with energy and discretion can throw back and out of sight the sordid and disagreeable details which beset all human living, and can keep in the foreground that which is agreeable; who has enough knowledge of practical household matters to make unskilled and rude hands minister to her cultivated and refined tastes, and constitute her skilled brain the guide of unskilled hands. From such a home, with such a mistress, no sirens will seduce a man, even though the hair grow gray, and the merely physical charms of early days gradually pass away. The enchantment that was about her person alone in the days of courtship seems in the course of years to have interfused and penetrated the _home_ which she has created, and which in every detail is only an expression of her personality. Her thoughts, her plans, her provident care, are everywhere; and the _home_ attracts and holds by a thousand ties the heart which before marriage was held by the woman alone."

POOR CHLOE.

A TRUE STORY OF MASSACHUSETTS IN THE OLDEN TIME.

"Let not ambition mock their useful toil, Their homely joys, and destiny obscure; Nor grandeur hear with a disdainful smile The short and simple annals of the poor."

GRAY'S _Elegy_.

It was a long, long time ago, before the flame of gas was seen in the streets, or the sounds of the railroad were heard in the land; so long before, that, had any prophet then living foretold such magical doings, he would have been deemed a fit inhabitant of Bedlam. In those primitive times, the Widow Lawton was considered a rich woman, though her income would not go far toward clothing a city-fashionable in these days. She owned a convenient house on the sea-shore, some twelve or fifteen miles from Cape Ann; she cultivated ten acres of sandy soil, and had a well-tended fish-flake a quarter of a mile long. To own an extensive fish-flake was, in that neighborhood, a sure sign of being well to do in the world. The process of transmuting it into money was slow and circuitous; but those were not fast days. The fish were to be caught, and cleaned, and salted, and spread on the flake, and turned day after day till thoroughly dry. Then they were packed, and sent in vessels to Maryland or Virginia, to be exchanged for flour or tobacco; then the flour and tobacco were sold in foreign ports, and silks, muslins, and other articles of luxury procured with the money.

The Widow Lawton was a notable, stirring woman, and it was generally agreed that no one in that region kept a sharper look-out for the main chance. Nobody sent better fish to market; nobody had such good luck in hiving bees; nobody could spin more knots of yarn in a day, or weave such handsome table-cloths. Great was her store of goodies for the winter. The smoke-house was filled with hams, and the ceiling of the kitchen was festooned with dried apples and pumpkins. In summer, there was a fly-cage suspended from the centre. It was made of bristles, in a sort of basket-work, in which were arranged bits of red, yellow, and green woollen cloth tipped with honey. Flies, deceived by the fair appearance, sipped the honey, and remained glued to the woollen; their black bodies serving to set off the bright colors to advantage. In those days, such a cage was considered a very genteel ornament for a New England kitchen. Rich men sometimes have their coats of arms sketched on the floor in colored crayons, to be effaced in one night by the feet of dancers. The Widow Lawton ornamented her kitchen floor in a manner as ephemeral, though less expensive. Every afternoon it was strewn with white sand from the beach, and marked all over with the broom in a herring-bone pattern; a very suitable coat of arms for the owner of a fish-flake. In the parlor was an ingrained carpet, the admiration and envy of the neighborhood. A large glass was surmounted by a gilded eagle upholding a chain,--prophetic of the principal employment of the bird of freedom for three quarters of a century thereafter. In the Franklin fireplace, tall brass andirons, brightly burnished, gleamed through a feathery forest of asparagus, interspersed with scarlet berries. The high, mahogany case of drawers, grown black with time, and lustrous with much waxing, had innumerable great drawers and little drawers, all resplendent with brass ornaments, kept as bright as new gold.

The Widow was accustomed to say, "It takes a good deal of elbow-grease to keep everything trig and shiny"; and though she was by no means sparing of her own, the neat and thriving condition of the household and the premises was largely owing to the black Chloe, her slave and servant-of-all-work. When Chloe was a babe strapped on her mother's shoulders, they were stolen from Africa and packed in a ship. What became of her mother she knew not. How the Widow Lawton obtained the right to make her work from morning till night, without wages, she never inquired. It had always been so, ever since she could remember, and she had heard the minister say, again and again, that it was an ordination of Providence. She did not know what ordination was, or who Providence was; but she had a vague idea that both were up in the sky, and that she had nothing to do but submit to them. So year after year she patiently cooked meals, and weeded the garden, and cut and dried the apples, and scoured the brasses, and sanded the floor in herring-bone pattern, and tended the fish-flake till the profitable crop of the sea was ready for market. There was a melancholy expression in the eyes of poor, ignorant Chloe, which seemed to indicate that there might be in her soul a fountain that was deep, though it was sealed by the heavy stone of slavery. Carlyle said of a dog that howled at the moon, "He would have been a poet, if he could have found a publisher." And Chloe, though she never thought about the Infinite, was sometimes impressed with a feeling of its mysterious presence, as she walked back and forth tending the fish-flake; with the sad song of the sea forever resounding in her ears, and a glittering orb of light sailing through the great blue arch over her head, and at evening sinking into the waves amid a gorgeous drapery of clouds. When the moon looked on the sea, the sealed fountain within her soul was strangely stirred. The shadow of rocks on the beach, the white sails of fishing-boats glimmering in the distance, the everlasting sighing of the sea, made her think of ghosts; though the oppressive feeling never shaped itself into words, except in the statement, "I'se sort o' feared o' moonlight." So poor Chloe paced her small round upon the earth, as unconscious as the ant in her molehill that she was whirling round among the stars. The extent of her moral development was, that it was her duty to obey her mistress and believe all the minister said. She had often been told that was sufficient for her salvation, and she supposed it was so.

But the dream that takes possession of young hearts came to Chloe also; though in her case it proved merely the shadow of a dream, or a dream of a shadow. On board of one of the sloops that carried fish to Baltimore was a free colored man, named Jim Saunders. The first time she saw him, she thought his large brown eyes were marvellously handsome, and that he had a very pleasant way of speaking to her. She always watched for the ship in which he came, and was very particular to have on a clean apron when she was likely to meet him. She looked at her own eyes in a bit of broken looking-glass, and wondered whether they seemed as handsome to him as his eyes did to her. In her own opinion she had rather pretty eyes, and she was not mistaken; for the Scriptural description, "black, but comely," was applicable to her. Jim never told her so, but she had somehow received an impression that perhaps he thought so. Sometimes he helped her turn the fish on the Flake, and afterward walked with her along the beach, as she wended her way homeward. On such occasions there was a happy sound in the song of the sea, and her heart seemed to dance up in sparkles, like the waves kissed by the sunshine. It was the first free, strong emotion she had ever experienced, and it sent a glow through the cold dulness of her lonely life.

Jim went away on a long voyage. He said perhaps he should be gone two years. The evening before he sailed, he walked with Chloe on the beach; and when he bade her good by, he gave her a pretty little pink shell, with a look that she never forgot. She gazed long after him, and felt flustered when he turned and saw her watching him. As he passed round a rock that would conceal him from her sight, he waved his cap toward her, and she turned homeward, murmuring to herself, "He didn't say nothin'; but he looked just as ef he _wanted_ to say suthin'." On that look the poor hungry heart fed itself. It was the one thing in the world that was her own, that nobody could take from her,--the memory of a look.

Time passed on, and Chloe went her rounds, from house-service to the field, and from field-service to the fish-flake. The Widow Lawton had strongly impressed upon her mind that the Scripture said, "Six days shalt thou work." On the Sabbath no out-door work was carried on, for the Widow was a careful observer of established forms; but there were so many chores to be done inside the house, that Chloe was on her feet most of the day, except when she was dozing in a dark corner of the meeting-house gallery, while the Reverend Mr. Gordonmammon explained the difference between justification and sanctification. Chloe didn't understand it, any more than she did the moaning of the sea; and the continuous sound without significance had the same tendency to lull her to sleep. But she regarded the minister with great awe. It never entered her mind that he belonged to the same species as herself. She supposed God had sent him into the world with special instructions to warn sinners; and that sinners were sent into the world to listen to him and obey him. Her visage lengthened visibly whenever she saw him approaching with his cocked hat and ivory-headed cane. He was something far-off and mysterious to her imagination, like the man in the moon; and it never occurred to her that he might enter as a disturbing element into the narrow sphere of her humble affairs. But so it was destined to be.

The minister was one of the nearest neighbors, and not unfrequently had occasion to negotiate with the Widow Lawton concerning the curing of hams in her smoke-house, or the exchange of pumpkins for dried fish. When their business was transacted, the Widow usually asked him to "stop and take a dish o' tea"; and he was inclined to accept the invitation, for he particularly liked the flavor of her doughnuts and pies. On one of these occasions, he said: "I have another matter of business to speak with you about, Mrs. Lawton,--a matter nearly connected with my temporal interest and convenience. My Tom has taken it into his head that he wants a wife, and he is getting more and more uneasy about it. Last night he strayed off three miles to see Black Dinah. Now if he gets set in that direction, it will make it very inconvenient for me; for it will take him a good deal of time to go back and forth, and I may happen to want him when he is out of the way. But if you would consent to have him marry your Chloe, I could easily summon him if I stood in need of him."

"I can't say it would be altogether convenient," replied Mrs. Lawton. "He'd be coming here often, bringing mud or dust into the house, and he'd be very likely to take Chloe's mind off from her work."

"There need be no trouble on that score," said Mr. Gordonmammon. "I should tell Tom he must never come here except on Saturday evenings, and that he must return early on Sunday morning. My good woman has taught him to be so careful about his feet, that he will bring no mud or dust into your house. His board will cost you nothing for he will come after supper and leave before breakfast; and perhaps you may now and then find it handy for him to do a chore for you."

Notwithstanding these arguments, the Widow still seemed rather disinclined to the arrangement. She feared that some moments of Chloe's time might thereby be lost to her.

The minister rose, and said, with much gravity: "When a pastor devotes his life to the spiritual welfare of his flock, it would seem reasonable that his parishioners should feel some desire to serve his temporal interests in return. But since you are unwilling to accommodate me in this small matter, I will bid you good evening, Mrs. Lawton."

The solemnity of his manner intimidated the Widow, and she hastened to say: "Of course I am always happy to oblige you, Mr. Gordonmammon; and since you have set your mind on Tom's having Chloe, I have no objection to your speaking to her about it."

The minister at once proceeded to the kitchen. Chloe, who was carefully instructed to use up every scrap of time for the benefit of her mistress, had seated herself to braid rags for a carpet, as soon as the tea things were disposed of. The entrance of the minister into her apartment surprised her, for it was very unusual. She rose, made a profound courtesy, and remained standing.

"Sit down, Chloe! sit down!" said he, with a condescending wave of his hand. "I have come to speak to you about an important matter. You have heard me read from the Scriptures that marriage is honorable. You are old enough to be married, Chloe, and it is right and proper you should be married. My Tom wants a wife, and there is nobody I should like so well for him as you. I will go home and send Tom to talk with you about it."

Chloe looked very much frightened, and exclaimed: "Please don't, Massa Gordonmammon, I don't want to be married."

"But it's right and proper you should be married," rejoined the minister; "and Tom wants a wife. It's your duty, Chloe, to do whatever your minister and your mistress tell you to do."

That look from Jim came up as a bright vision before poor Chloe, and she burst into tears.

"I will come again when your mind is in a state more suited to your condition," said the minister. "At present your disposition seems to be rebellious. I will leave you to think of what I have said."

But thinking made Chloe feel still more rebellious. Tom was fat and stupid, with thick lips, and small, dull-looking eyes. He compared very unfavorably with her bright and handsome Jim. She swayed back and forth, and groaned. She thought over all the particulars of that last walk on the beach, and murmured to herself, "He looked jest as ef he _wanted_ to say suthin'."

She thought of Tom and groaned again; and underlying all her confusion of thoughts there was a miserable feeling that, if the minister and her mistress both said she must marry Tom, there was no help for it.

The next day, she slashed and slammed round in an extraordinary manner. She broke a mug and a bowl, and sanded the floor with a general conglomeration of scratches, instead of the neat herring-bone on which she usually prided herself. It was the only way she had to exercise her free-will in its desperate struggle with necessity.

Mrs. Lawton, who never thought of her in any other light than as a machine, did not know what to make of these singular proceedings. "What upon airth ails you?" exclaimed she. "I do believe the gal's gone crazy."

Chloe paused in her harum-scarum sweeping, and said, with a look and tone almost defiant, "I don't _want_ to marry Tom."

"But the minister wants you to marry him," replied Mrs. Lawton, "and you ought to mind the minister."

Chloe did not dare to dispute that assertion, but she dashed her broom round in the sand, in a very rebellious manner.

"Mind what you're about, gal!" exclaimed Mrs. Lawton. "I am not going to put up with such tantrums."

Chloe was acquainted with the weight of her mistress's hand, and she moved the broom round in more systematic fashion; but there was a tempest raging in her soul.

In the course of a few days the minister visited the kitchen again, and found Chloe still averse to his proposition. If his spiritual ear had been delicate, he would have noticed anguish in her pleading tone, when she said: "Please, Massa Gordonmammon, don't say nothin' more 'bout it. I don't _want_ to be married." But his spiritual ear was _not_ delicate; and her voice sounded to him merely as that of a refractory wench, who was behaving in a manner very unseemly and ungrateful in a bondwoman who had been taken from the heathen round about, and brought under the guidance of Christians. He therefore assumed his sternest look when he said: "I supposed you knew it was your duty to obey whatever your minister and your mistress tell you. The Bible says, 'He is the minister of God unto you.' It also says, 'Servants, obey your masters in all things'; and your mistress stands to you in the place of your deceased master. How are you going to account to God for your disobedience to his commands?"

Chloe, half frightened and half rebellious, replied, "I don't think Missis would like it, if you made Missy Katy marry somebody when she said she didn't want to be married."

"Chloe, it is very presumptuous in _you_ to talk in that way," rejoined the minister. "There is no similarity between _your_ condition and that of your young mistress. You are descended from Ham, Chloe; and Ham was accursed of God on account of his sin, and his posterity were ordained to be servants; and the Bible says, 'Servants, obey your masters in all things'; and it says that the minister is a 'minister of God unto you.' You were born among heathen and brought to a land of Gospel privileges; and you ought to be grateful that you have protectors capable of teaching you what to do. Now your mistress wants you to marry Tom, and I want you to marry him; and we expect that you will do as we bid you, without any more words. I will come again, Chloe; though you ought to feel ashamed of yourself for giving your minister so much trouble about such a trifling matter."

Receiving no answer, he returned to the sitting-room to talk with Mrs. Lawton.

Chloe, like most people who are alone much of their time, had a confirmed habit of talking to herself; and her soliloquies were apt to be rather promiscuous and disjointed.

"Trifling matter!" said she. "S'pose it's trifling matter to _you_, Massa Minister. Ugh! S'pose they'll _make_ me. Don't know nothin' 'bout Ham. Never hearn tell o' Ham afore, only ham in the smoke-house. If ham's cussed in the Bible, what fur do folks eat it? Hearn Missis read in the Bible that the Divil went into the swine. Don't see what fur I must marry Tom 'cause Ham was cussed for his sin." She was silent for a while, and, being unable to bring any order out of the chaos of her thoughts, she turned them toward a more pleasant subject. "He didn't say nothin'," murmured she; "but he looked jest as ef he _wanted_ to say suthin'." The tender expression of those great brown eyes came before her again, and she laid her head down on the table and sobbed.

Her protectors, as they styled themselves, never dreamed that she had a heart. In their thoughts she was merely a bondwoman taken from the heathen, and consigned to their keeping for their uses.

Tom made another visit to Dinah, and was out of the way when his master wanted him. This caused the minister to hasten in making his third visit to Chloe. She met him with the same frightened look; and when he asked if she had made up her mind to obey her mistress, she timidly and sadly repeated, "Massa Minister, I don't _want_ to be married."

"You don't want to do your duty; that's what it is, you disobedient wench," said the minister sternly. "I will wrestle with the Lord in prayer for you, that your rebellious heart may be taken away, and a submissive temper given you, more befitting your servile condition."

He spread forth his hands, covered with very long-fingered, dangling black-silk gloves, and lifted his voice in the following petition to the Throne of Grace: "O Lord, we pray thee that this rebellious descendant of Ham, whom thou hast been pleased to place under our protection, may learn that it is her duty to obey thy Holy Word; wherein it is written that I am unto her a minister of God, and that she is to obey her mistress in all things. May she be brought to a proper sense of her duty; and, by submission to her superiors, gain a humble place in thy heavenly kingdom, where the curse inherited from her sinful progenitor may be removed. This we ask in the name of thy Son, our Saviour Jesus Christ, who died that sinners might be redeemed by believing on his name; even sinners who, like this disobedient handmaid, were born in a land of heathens."

He paused and looked at Chloe, who could do nothing but weep. There were many words in the prayer which conveyed to her no meaning; and why she was accursed on account of the sin of Ham remained a perplexing puzzle to her mind. But she felt as if she must, somehow or other, be doing something wicked, or the minister would not come and pray for her in such a solemn manner.

Mr. Gordonmammon, having reiterated his rebukes and expostulations without receiving any answer but tears, called Mrs. Lawton to his assistance. "I have preached to Chloe, and prayed for her," said he; "but she remains stubborn."

"I am surprised at you, Chloe!" exclaimed the Widow. "You have been told a great many times that it is your duty to obey the minister and to obey me; yet you have put him to the trouble of coming three times to talk with you. I sha'n't put up with any more such doings. You must make up your mind once for all to marry Tom. What have you to say about it, you silly wench?"

With a great break-down of sobs, poor Chloe blubbered out, "S'pose I _must_."

They left her alone; and O how dreadfully alone she felt, with the memory of that treasured look, and the thought that, whatever it was Jim wanted to say, he could never say it now!

The next day, soon after dinner, Mrs. Lawton entered the kitchen, and said: "Chloe, the minister has brought Tom. Make haste, and do up your dishes, and put on a clean apron, and come in to be married."

Chloe's first impulse was to run away; but she had nowhere to run. She was recognized as the property of her mistress, and wherever she went she would be sure to be sent back. She washed the dishes so slowly that Mrs. Lawton came again to say the minister was waiting. Chloe merely replied, "Yes, missis." But when the door closed after her, she muttered to herself: "_Let_ him wait. I didn't ax him to come here plaguing me about the cuss o' Ham. Don't know nothin' 'bout Ham. Never hearn tell 'bout him afore."

Again her mistress came to summon her, and this time in a somewhat angry mood. "Have you got lead tied to your heels, you lazy wench?" said she. "How many times must I tell you the minister's waiting?" And she emphasized the question with a smart box on the ear.

Like a cowardly soldier driven up to the cannon's mouth by bayonets, Chloe put on a clean apron, and went to the sitting-room. When the minister told Tom to stand up, she did not even look at him; and he, on his part, seemed very much frightened. After a brief form of words had been repeated, they were told that they were husband and wife. Then the bridegroom was ordered to go to ploughing, and the bride was sent to the fish-flake.

Two witnesses were present at this dismal wedding beside Mrs. Lawton. One was the Widow's daughter, a girl of seventeen, whom Chloe called "Missy Katy." The other was Sukey Larkin, who lived twenty miles off, but occasionally came to visit an aunt in the neighborhood. Both the young girls were dressed in their best; for they were going to a quilting-party, where they expected to meet many beaux. But Catherine Lawton's best was very superior to Sukey Larkin's. Her gown was of a more wonderful pattern than had been seen in that region. It had been brought from London, in exchange for tobacco. Sukey had heard of it, and had stopped at the Widow Lawton's to make sure of seeing it, in case Catharine did not wear it to the quilting-party. Though she had heard much talk about it, it surpassed her expectations, and made her very discontented with her own gown of India-cotton, dotted all over with red spots, like barley-corns. The fabric of Catharine's dress was fine, thick linen, covered with pictures, like a fancifully illustrated volume of Natural History. Butterflies of all sizes and colors were fluttering over great baskets of flowers, birds were swinging on blossoming vines, bees were hovering round their hives, and doves were billing and cooing on the roof of their cots. One of the beaux in the neighborhood expressed his admiration of it by saying "It beats all natur'." It was made in bodice-fashion, with a frill of fine linen nicely crimped; and the short, tight sleeves were edged just above the elbow with a similar frill.

Sukey had before envied Catharine the possession of a gold necklace; but that grew dim before the glory of this London gown. She repeated several times that it was the handsomest thing she ever saw, and that it was remarkably becoming. But at the quilting-party the bitterness of her spirit betrayed itself in such remarks as these: "Folks wonder where the Widow Lawton gets money to set herself up so much above other folks. But she knows how to drive a bargain. She can skin a flint, and tan the hide. She makes a fool of Catharine, dressing her up like a London doll. I wonder who she expects is going to marry her, if she brings her up with such extravagant notions."

"Mr. Gordonmammon thinks a deal of the Widow Lawton," said the hostess of the quilting-party.

"Yes, I know he does," replied Sukey. "If he was a widower, I guess they'd be the town's talk. Some folks think he goes there full often enough. He brought his Tom there to-day to marry Chloe. I wonder the Widow could spare her time to be married,--though, to be sure, it didn't take long, for the minister made a mighty short prayer."

Poor Chloe! Thus they dismissed a subject which gave her a life-long heart-ache. There was no honey in her bridal moon. She told Tom several times she wished he would stay at home; but he was so perseveringly good-natured, there was no possibility of quarrelling with him. By degrees, she began to find his visits on Saturday evening rather more entertaining than talking to herself.

"I wouldn't mind bein' so druv wi' work," said Tom, "ef I could live like white folks do when _they_ gits married. I duz more work than them as has a cabin o' their own, an' keeps a cow and a pig. But black folks don't seem to git no good o' their work."

"Massa Minister says it's 'cause God cussed Ham," replied Chloe. "I thought 'twas wicked to cuss, but Massa Minister says Ham was cussed in the Bible. Ef I could have some o' the fish I clean and dry, I could sen' to Lunnun for a gownd; but Missy Katy she gits all the gownds, 'cause Ham was cussed in the Bible. I don't know nothin' 'bout it; seems drefful queer."

"Massa tole me I mus' work for nothin', 'cause Ham was cussed," rejoined Tom. "But it seems like Ham cussed some black folks _worse_ nor others. There's Jim Saunders, he's a nigger, too; but he gits his feed and six dollars a month."

The words were like a stab to Chloe. She dropped half a needleful of stitches in her knitting, and told Tom she wished he'd hold his tongue, for he kept up such a jabbering that he made all her stitches run down. Tom, thus silenced, soon fell asleep. She glanced at him as he sat snoring by her side, and contrasted him with the genteel figure and handsome features that had been so indelibly photographed on her memory by the sunbeams of love. Tears dropped fast on her knitting-work; but when Tom woke up, she spoke kindly, and tried to atone for her ill-temper. Time, which gradually reconciles us to all things, produced the same effect on her as on others. When the minister asked her, six months afterward, how she and Tom were getting along, she replied, "I's got used to him."

Yet life seemed more dreary to her than it did before she had that brief experience of a free feeling. She never thought of that look without longing to know what it was Jim wanted to say. But, as months passed on, the tantalizing vision came less frequently, and at the end of a year Chloe experienced the second happy emotion of her life. When she looked upon her babe, a great fountain of love leaped up in her heart. She was never too tired to wait upon little Tommy; and if his cries disturbed her deep sleep, she folded the helpless little creature to her bosom, with the feeling that he was better than rest. She was accustomed to carry him to the fish-flake in a big basket, and lay him on a bed of dry leaves, with her apron for an awning. As she paced backwards and forwards at her daily toil, it was a perpetual entertainment to see him lying there sucking his thumbs. But that was nothing compared with the joy of nursing him. When his hunger was partially satisfied, he would stop to smile in his mother's face; and Chloe had never seen anything so beautiful as that baby smile. As he lay on her lap, laughing and cooing, there was something in the expression of his eyes that reminded her of the look she could never forget. He had taken the picture from her soul, and brought it with him to the outer world; but as he lay there, playing with his toes, he knew no more about his mother's heart than did the Rev. Mr. Gordonmammon.

One balmy day in June, she was sitting on a rock by the sea-shore, nursing her babe, pinching his little plump cheeks, and chirruping to make him smile, when she heard the sound of footsteps. She looked up, and saw Jim approaching. Her heart jumped into her throat. She felt very hot, and then very cold. When Jim came near enough to look upon the babe, he stopped an instant, said, in a constrained way, "How d' ye, Chloe," then turned and walked quickly away. She gazed after him so wistfully that for a few moments the cooing of her babe was disregarded. "'Pears like he was affronted," she murmured, at last; and the big tears dropped slowly. Little Tommy had a fit that night; for, by the strange interfusion of spirit into all forms of matter, the quick revulsion of the blood in his mother's heart passed into his nourishment, and convulsed his body, as her soul had been convulsed.

But the disturbance passed away, and Chloe's life rolled on in its accustomed grooves. Tommy grew strong enough to run by her side when she went to the beach. Hour after hour he busied himself with pebbles and shells, every now and then bringing her his treasures, and calling out, "Pooty!" When he held out a shell, and looked at her with his great brown eyes, it stirred up memories; but the pain was gone from them. Her heart was no longer famished; it was filled with little Tommy.

This engrossing love was not agreeable to the Widow Lawton. If less was accomplished in a day than usual, she would often exclaim, "That brat takes up too much of your time." And not unfrequently Chloe was compelled to go to the beach and leave Tommy fastened up in the kitchen; though this was never done without some outcries on his part, and some suppressed mutterings on hers.

On one of these occasions, Sukey Larkin came to make a call. When Mrs. Lawton saw her at the gate, she said to her daughter, "How long do you suppose she'll be in the house before she asks to see your silk gown?"

Catharine smiled and kept on spinning flax till her visitor entered.

"Good morning, Sukey," said Mrs. Lawton. "I didn't know you was about in these parts."

"I come yesterday to do some business for mother," replied Sukey, "and I'm going back in an hour. But I thought I would just run in to see you, Catharine. Aunt says you're going to Jane Horton's wedding. Are you going to wear your new silk?"

"So you've heard about the new silk?" said Mrs. Lawton.

"To be sure I have," rejoined Sukey. "Everybody's talking about it. Do show it to me, Catharine; that's a dear."

The dress was brought forth from its envelope of white linen. It was a very lustrous silk, changeable between rose-color and apple-green, and the delicate hues glanced beautifully in the sunlight.

Sukey was in raptures, and exclaimed, "I don't wonder Mr. Gordonmammon said Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like Catharine, when she went to the great party at Cape Ann. I do declare, you've got lace at the elbows and round the neck!" She heaved a deep sigh when the dress was refolded; and after a moment's silence said, "I wish mother had a fish-flake, and knew how to manage as well as you do, Mrs. Lawton; then she could trade round with the sloops and get me a silk gown."

"O, I dare say you will have one some time or other," rejoined Catharine.

"No, I shall never have one, if I live to be a hundred years old," replied Sukey. "I wasn't born with a silver spoon in my mouth, like some folks."

"I wonder what Tommy's doing in the kitchen," said Mrs. Lawton. "He's generally about some mischief when he's so still. I declare I'd as lief have a colt in the house as that little nigger." She looked into the kitchen and added, "He's sound asleep on the floor."

"If he's so much trouble to you," said Sukey, "I wish you'd give him to me. I always thought I should like to have a nigger."

"You may have him if you want him," replied Mrs. Lawton. "He's nothing but a pester, and he takes up a quarter part of Chloe's time. But you'd better take him before she gets home, for she'll make a fuss; and if he wakes up he'll cry."

Sukey had a plan in her mind, suggested by the sight of the silk gown, and she was eager to get possession of little Tommy. She said her horse was tackled to the wagon, all ready to start for home, and there was some straw in the bottom of it. The vehicle was soon at the widow's door, and by careful management the child was placed on the straw without waking; though Catharine said she heard him cry before the wagon was out of sight.

Chloe hurried through her work on the beach, and came home at a quick pace; for she was longing to see her darling, and she had some misgivings as to how he was treated in her absence. She opened the kitchen-door with the expectation that Tommy would spring toward her, as usual, exclaiming, "Mammy! mammy!" The disappointment gave her a chill, and she ran out to call him. When no little voice responded to the call, she went to the sitting-room and said, "Missis, have you seen Tommy?"

"He a'n't been here," replied Mrs. Lawton, evasively. "Can't you find him?"

The Widow was a regular communicant of the Reverend Mr. Gordonmammon's church; but she was so blinded by slavery that it never occurred to her there was any sin in thus trifling with a mother's feelings. When Chloe had hurried out of the room, she said to her daughter, in a tone of indifference, "One good thing will come of giving Tommy to Sukey Larkin,--she won't come spying about here for one spell; she'll be afraid to face Chloe."

In fact, she herself soon found it rather unpleasant to face Chloe; for the bereaved mother grew so wild with anxiety, that the hardest heart could not remain untouched. "O missis! why didn't you let me take Tommy with me" exclaimed she. "He played with hisself, and wasn't no care to me. I s'pose he was lonesome, and runned down to the beach to look for mammy; an' he's got drownded." With that thought she rushed to the door to go and hunt for him on the sea-shore.

Her mistress held her back with a strong arm, and, finding it impossible to pacify her, she at last said, "Sukey Larkin wanted Tommy, and I told her she might have him; she'll take good care of him."

The unhappy bondwoman gazed at her with an expression of intense misery, which she was never afterward able to forget. "O missis! how _could_ you do it?" she exclaimed; and, sinking upon a chair, she covered her face with her apron.

"Sukey will be good to him," said Mrs. Lawton, in tones more gentle than usual.

"He'll cry for his mammy," sobbed Chloe. "O missis! 't was cruel to take away my little Tommy."

The Widow crept noiselessly out of the room, and left her to wrestle with her grief as she could. She found the minister in the sitting-room, and told him she had given away little Tommy, but that she wouldn't have done it if she had thought Chloe would be so wild about it; for she doubted whether she should get any work out of her for a week to come.

"She'll get over it soon," said the minister. "My cow lowed dismally, and wouldn't eat, when I sold her calf; but she soon got used to doing without it."

It did not occur to him as included within his pastoral duties to pray with the stricken slave; and poor Chloe, oppressed with an unutterable sense of loneliness, retired to her straw pallet, and late in the night sobbed herself to sleep. She woke with a weight on her heart, as if there was somebody dead in the house; and quickly there rushed upon her the remembrance that her darling was gone. A ragged gown of his was hanging on a nail. How she kissed it, and cried over it! Then she took Jim's pink shell from her box, folded them carefully together, and laid them away. No mortal but herself knew what memories were wrapped up with them. She went through the usual routine of housework like a laborer who drags after him a ball and chain. At the appointed time, she wandered forth to the beach with no little voice to chirp music to her as she went. When she saw prints of Tommy's little feet in the sand, she sat down on a stone, and covered her face with her apron. For a long time her sobs and groans mingled with the moan of the sea. She raised her head, and looked inland, in the direction where she supposed Sukey Larkin lived. She revolved in her mind the possibility of going there. But stages were almost unknown in those days; and no wagoner would take her, without consent of her mistress, if she pleaded ever so hard. She thought of running away at midnight; but Mrs. Lawton would be sure to overtake her, and bring her back. Thoughts of what her mistress might do in such a case reminded her that she was neglecting the fish. Like a machine wound up, she began to go her customary rounds; but she had lost so much time that it was late before her task was completed. Then she wandered away to a little heap of moss and pebbles, that Tommy had built the last time they were together on the beach. On a wet rock near by she sat down and cried. Black clouds gathered over her head, a cold northeast wind blew upon her, and the spray sprinkled her naked feet. Still she sat there and cried. Louder and louder whistled the wind; wilder and wilder grew the moan of the sea. She heard the uproar without caring for it. She wished the big waves would come and wash her away.

Meanwhile Mrs. Lawton noticed the gathering darkness, and looked out anxiously for the return of her servant. "What upon airth can have become of her?" said she. "She oughter been home an hour ago."

"I shouldn't wonder if she had set out to go to Sukey Larkin's," replied Catharine.

The Widow had thought of that; she had also thought of the sea; for she had an uneasy remembrance of that look of utter misery when Chloe said, "How _could_ you do it?"

It was Saturday evening; and, according to custom, Tom came to see his wife, all unconscious of the affliction that had befallen them. Mrs. Lawton went out to meet him, and said: "Tom, I wish you would go right down to the beach, and see what has become of Chloe. She a'n't come home yet, and I'm afraid something has happened." She returned to the house, thinking to herself, "If the wench is drowned, where shall I get such another?"

Tom found Chloe still sitting on the wet stone. When he spoke to her, she started, as if from sleep; and her first exclamation was, "O Tom! missis has guv away little Tommy."

It was some time before he could understand what had happened; but when he realized that his child was gone, his strong frame shook with sobs. Little Tommy was the only creature on earth that loved him,--his only treasure, his only plaything. "It's cruel hard," said he.

"O, how little Tommy is crying for mammy!" sobbed Chloe; "and I can't git to him nohow. Oh! oh!"

Tom tried to comfort her, as well as he knew how. Among other things, he suggested running away.

"I've been thinking 'bout that," rejoined Chloe; "but there a'n't nowhere to run to. The white folks has got all the money, and all the hosses, and all the law."

"O, what a cuss that Ham was!" groaned Tom.

"Don't know nothin' 'bout that ole cuss," replied Chloe. "Missis was cruel. What makes God let white folks cruellize black folks so?"

The question was altogether too large for Tom, or anybody else, to answer. After a moment's silence, he said, "P'r'aps Sukey Larkin will come sometimes, and bring little Tommy to see us."

"She shouldn't have him ag'in!" exclaimed Chloe. "I'd scratch her eyes out, if she tried to carry him off ag'in."

The sudden anger roused her from her lethargy; and she rose immediately when Tom reminded her that it was late, and they ought to be going home. Home! how the word seemed to mock her desolation!

Mrs. Lawton was so glad to see her faithful servant alive, and was so averse to receiving another accusing look from those sad eyes, that she forbore to reprimand her for her unwonted tardiness. Chloe spoke no word of explanation, but, after arranging a few things, retired silently to her pallet. She had been accustomed to exercise out of doors in all weathers, but was unused to sitting still in the wet and cold. She was seized with strong shiverings in the night, and continued feverish for some days. Her mistress nursed her, as she would a valuable horse or cow.

In a short time she resumed her customary tasks, but coughed incessantly and moved about slowly and listlessly. Her mistress, annoyed not to have the work going on faster, said to her reproachfully one day, "You got this cold by staying out so late that night."

"Yes, missis," replied Chloe, very sadly. "I shouldn't have stayed out ef little Tommy had been with me."

"What a fuss you make about that little nigger!" exclaimed Mrs. Lawton. "Tommy was my property, and I'd a right to give him away."

"'Twas cruel of you, missis," rejoined Chloe. "Tommy was all the comfort I had; an' I's worked hard for you, missis, many a year."

Mrs. Lawton, unaccustomed to any remonstrance from her bondwoman, seized a switch and shook it threateningly.

But Catherine said, in a low tone: "Don't, mother! She feels bad about little Tommy."

Chloe overheard the words of pity; and the first time she was alone with her young mistress, she said, "Please, Missy Katy, write to Sukey Larkin and ask her to bring little Tommy."

Catharine promised she would; but her mother objected to it, as making unnecessary trouble, and the promise was not fulfilled.

Week after week Chloe looked out upon the road, in hopes of seeing Sukey Larkin's wagon. But Sukey had no thoughts of coming to encounter her entreaties. She was feeding and fatting Tommy, with a view to selling him and buying a silk gown with the money. The little boy cried and moped for some days; but, after the manner of children, he soon became reconciled to his new situation. He ran about in the fields, and gradually forgot the sea, the moss, the pebbles, and mammy's lullaby.

One day Mrs. Lawton said to her daughter, "How that dreadful cough hangs on! I begin to be afraid Chloe's going into a consumption. I hope not; for I don't know where I shall find such another wench to work."

She mentioned her fears to the minister, and he said, "When she gets over worrying about Tommy, she'll pick up her crumbs."

But the only change that came over Chloe was increasing listlessness of mind and fatigue of body. At last, she was unable to rise from her pallet. She lay there looking at her thin hands, and talking to herself, according to her old habit. The words Mrs. Lawton most frequently heard were, "It was cruel of missis to take away little Tommy." Notwithstanding all the clerical arguments she had heard to prove the righteousness of slavery, the moan of the dying mother made her feel uncomfortable. Sometimes the mind of the invalid wandered, and she would hug Tommy's little gown, pat it lovingly, and sing to it the lullaby her baby loved. Sometimes she murmured, "He looked jest as ef he _wanted_ to say suthin'"; and sometimes a smiled lighted up her face, as if she saw some pleasant vision.

The minister came to pray with her, and to talk what he called religion. But it sounded to poor Chloe more than ever like the murmuring of the sea. She turned her face away from him and said nothing. With what little mental strength she had, she rejected the idea that the curse of Ham, whoever he might be, justified the treatment she had received. She had no idea what a heathen was, but she concluded it meant something bad; and she had often told Tom she didn't like to have the minister talk that way, for it sounded like calling her names.

At last the weary one passed away from a world where the doings had all been dark and incomprehensible to her. But her soul was like that of a little child; and Jesus has said, "Of such are the kingdom of heaven." They found under her pillow little Tommy's ragged gown, and a pink shell. Why the shell was there no one could conjecture. The pine box containing her remains was placed across the foot of Mr. Lawton's grave, at whose side his widow would repose when her hour should come. It was the custom to place slaves thus at the feet of their masters, even in the graveyard.

The Reverend Mr. Gordonmammon concluded to buy a young black woman, that Tom might not be again induced to stray off after Dinah; and Tom passively yielded to the second arrangement, as he had to the first.

In two years after Sukey Larkin took possession of little Tommy, she sent him to Virginia to be exchanged for tobacco; with the proceeds of which she bought a gold necklace, and a flashy silk dress, changeable between grass-green and orange; and great was her satisfaction to astonish Catharine Lawton with her splendor the next time they met at a party.

I never heard that poor Chloe's ghost haunted either them or the Widow Lawton. Wherever slavery exerts its baneful influence, it produces the same results,--searing the conscience and blinding the understanding to the most obvious distinctions between right and wrong.

There is no record of little Tommy's fate. He disappeared among "the dark, sad millions," who knew not father or mother, and had no portion in wife or child.

SNOW.

The Summer comes, and the Summer goes. Wild-flowers are fringing the dusty lanes, The sparrows go darting through fragrant rains, And, all of a sudden,--it snows!

Dear Heart! our lives so happily flow, So lightly we heed the flying hours, We only know Winter is gone--by the flowers, We only know Winter is come--by the Snow!

GRIFFITH GAUNT; OR, JEALOUSY.