Chapter VII

AN UNEXPECTED PROPOSAL.

The next morning coffee was brought to the bed-rooms at the first peep of dawn, and when the little party went out for their walk the sun had only just begun to set the sea-line on fire.

They stepped for a moment into the Franciscan church next door, then went down the road leading past it to the Campagna. Fresh and sweet the morning air touched them as they sauntered along—not the morning breeze of New England, simple in associations as the breath of a newly-created being, but like the breath of one, immortally beautiful, about whom Calliope, Clio, and Erato have circled in their stately dance through the unfading centuries. Not only every spot of earth, but every waft of air, was haunted.

Mr. Vane stopped them presently with a silent gesture, and pointed to a near height, where a solitary cloud, softly resplendent in all its beautiful undulations, was slowly and loathly detaching itself to float upward and disappear in the sky, as if the door of a sapphire palace had opened to receive it. “Is it Diana?” he whispered.

“The Jew has touched nature with a pen of fire,” the Signora said as they walked on again; “but the pagan has dominated, and still in a certain sense possesses that beautiful realm. If, as Milton sings, ‘the parting genius was with sighing rent’ from tree and grove at the birth of Christ, its ghost still St. Francis of Assisi, calling the birds his sisters. Blessed Fra Egidio made the flowers bear witness, as when he proved the miraculous motherhood of the Virgin to the doubting Predicatore. At each of the three strokes of his staff in the road, following his three assertions of Our Lady’s purity, up sprang a beautiful lily. Our Lord set the example in his reference to the lilies of the field: they toiled not, neither did they spin, yet the Creator had arrayed them as Solomon in all his glory was never arrayed. Did he talk to his mother about the flowers, I wonder? When the boat was tossed by a tempest, he spoke to the waves, as to living Pg 301 creatures, saying, ‘Peace, be still!’ Do spirits troublesome and troubled take shape, or, stretching their invisible hands, catch the shapes of nature as weapons, and lash with foam or strike with lightning? We cannot know, and we need not know; and we must not assert. It is not, however, forbidden to fancy. Nature may serve as the playground wherein our imagination and fancy shall exercise themselves and prepare our minds for the wonders of the spiritual life. Fancy and imagination are as really a part of ourselves, and as truly and wisely given by God, as reason and will. They are the sweet little enticements inviting us to fly off

as the bird-mother coaxes her young to try its wings in little flights from twig to twig before it soars into the heavens. No, it is not forbidden to the fancy to play around the mysterious life that makes the bud swell into the flower and the seed grow into the lofty tree, so long as we see all in God, and see in God the Trinity, and, in the aspiring flame of created adoring spirits, behold Maria Santissima as the white point that touches the foot of the throne.”

The Signora had been speaking slowly and dreamily, pausing now and then; but at the last, growing earnest, had, as it were, waked herself, and become aware that she was talking aloud and was listened to.

Smiling, and blushing too a little, “Scusino!” she said. “I cannot help it. I preach as the sparks fly upward.”

“I speak for a seat in your meeting-house for the rest of my life,” Mr. Vane replied promptly.

“Apropos of meeting-houses,” she said, “what do you think of

This villa was a strange, deserted-looking place just above the Campagna. Nothing in it flourished but the four cypresses, which rose to a magnificent height, their huge cones sloping at the top to a feather so slender that it was always tipped to one side. Stern, dark, and drawn close together, they looked down on the place as if they had cursed it and were waiting to see the consummation of its ruin. All their shadows were full of a multitudinous grit of cicali voices that sounded like the sharp grating together of teeth. At their feet stood the house, half-alive, half-dead, hidden from the street by the walls it was not high enough to overlook. It was like the upper part of a house that the earth had half swallowed. At each side of the door stood a statue dressed in some antique fashion, hat on head and sword on thigh. They might have been two men who were petrified there long before. At each side of the gate, inside, a stone dog, petrified too, in the act of starting up with open jaws, crumbled in a blind rage, as if a paralyzed life yet dwelt under the lichen-covered fragments, and struggled to pour forth its arrested anger.

A little farther on was another decaying villa, where green moss and grasses grew all over the steps, half hid the paving-stones of the court, and choked the fountain dry. The house, once a gay and noble mansion, had now got its shutters decently closed over the sightless windows, and resigned itself to desolation. The long, dim avenues had a damp, unhealthy breath, and not a flower was to be seen.

They went in and seated themselves Pg 302 on the steps, where the shadow of the house, covering a verdant square in the midst of the sunshine, looked like a block of verd-antique set in gold.

“It reminds me of the funeral we went to in St. Peter’s,” Mr. Vane said, glancing about the sombre place, and over the walls into the outside splendor. “The mournful pageant looked as small in that bright temple as this villa in the landscape.”

The two girls gathered grasses and leaves and bits of moss, binding them into tiny bouquets to keep as mementos, and Bianca made a sketch of the two villas. They talked but little, and, in that silent and quiescent mood, perceived far more clearly the character and influence of the scene—the melancholy that was not without terror; the proud beauty that survived neglect and decay, and might at any time burst into a triumphant loveliness, if but some one should care to call forth the power hidden there; the dainty graces that would not thrust themselves forward, but waited to be sought. Yet it needed that summer and sunshine should be all about to keep the sadness from being oppressive. With those cheering influences so near and so dominantly larger, the touch of melancholy became a luxury, like a scattering of snow in wine.

Isabel came back to the steps from her ramble about the place, and found her father and the Signora sitting there with no appearance of having uttered a word since she left them.

“It is just the time to read something I found and brought with me from Rome,” she said. “I tucked it into my note-book, see, and something at this moment reminded me of it. Bianca was saying that if the place should be sprinkled with holy

At Benediction.

The Signora rose rather hastily. “If we are going to Monte Compatri this afternoon, we have no time to linger about reading rhymes,” she said.

They went out into the sunshine, already burning hot, and stole along, one by one, in the shadow of the high wall, walking over crowds of little pale, pink morning-glories, that crept humbly on the ground, not knowing themselves to be vines with a power to rise and climb to the height of a man, any more than dear Hans Andersen’s ugly duck knew that he was a swan, though at one point they might have seen, through an opening in the stonework, better-instructed morning-glories climbing hedge and shrub, and blowing out a rhythmic joy through their great white trumpets far up in the air. The greatest pride or aspiration these little creatures seemed capable of was when, now and then, one grew, breath by breath, over some small obstacle in its path, and bloomed

They entered the shaded avenue that circles the lower part of the town, and saw the beautiful city climbing on the one hand, and the beautiful Campagna spread out on the other; passed the little wooden chalet where Garibaldi was holding his court—a wooden house is such a wonder in Italy!—and the public garden, sweet with the infantine breath and bright with the infantine hues of countless petunias, and at length found refuge in Villa Torlonia.

Thick and dark, the lofty trees knit their branches over the seats where the travellers sat and looked at the grand fountain-front, with its stone eagle and rows of huge stone vases along the top, and its beautiful cascade and basin in the centre. At either side this cascade, in the ten or twelve niches, tall stone vases overflowed with wild-flowers that had once overflowed with water, the masks above still holding between their dry lips the pipes from which the sunny streams had sprung. Far above could be seen, in the rich green gloom of overarching trees, cascade after cascade dancing down the steep slope, and, farther yet, the top of a great column of water that marked the uppermost fountain.

“It is too late to go up now,” the Signora said; “but you can see the way. It goes round in a circling avenue, or up the steps that are at each side of the ten cascades. I think there are ten. But the steps at the right are constantly wet with the spray, and covered with ferns and moss. You go up at the left, which the sun sometimes touches, and which is always dry. Below here, too, there are two ways of going up, either by Pg 304 the parting avenues or by the little dark door you see beside the cascade. That door leads through a dim passage, where the walls are all a green tremble with maidenhair fern growing as thick as feathers on a bird, and up a little dim winding stair that brings you out beside the stone eagle there. I gathered one of those ferns once that was half a yard long. You see they build palaces here for waters as well as for princes.”

The day went by like a dream, steeped in dazzling light, embalmed with the odors of flowers growing in a luxuriance and beauty new to their northern eyes, sprinkled over with a ceaseless fountain-spray, sung through by countless larks, and made magnificent by palace after palace, and by constantly-recurring and incomparable views. For many a year to come they would remember the honey-snow of the orange-trees and the clustered flames of the pomegranates; they would compare their rose-bushes with the tree which, in one of these gardens, held its tea-roses nodding over their heads, nor love their own shyer gardens the less, indeed; and in their trim walks, and loath and delicate blooming, they would sometimes think with longing of the careless profusion of the land where the best of nature and the best of art dwelt together in the familiar and graceful intercourse of daily life.

An hour before sunset they were again in their carriage, and, after a short drive, found themselves following the long loops of the road that lead leisurely up the side of Monte Compatri, through the rich woods, through the pure and exquisitely invigorating air, with all the world unrolling itself again before their eyes in a view almost equal to that of Tusculum.

“Prepare to be stared at,” the Signora said, as they took their way up the Via Lunga. “We are the only ladies in the town whose headgear is not a handkerchief; and as for Mr. Vane, they are very likely to take him for Prince Borghese. And, come to think of it,” she said, looking at him attentively, “you are very much like the prince, Mr. Vane.”

The gentleman smiled quietly, without answering. He recollected what the Signora had forgotten—that she had once expressed the greatest admiration for Prince Borghese. He took the lady’s parasol and travelling-bag from her hand, and offered his arm, which the steep way and her fatigue made acceptable, and the two girls followed, searching on every side with bright and curious eyes, and murmuring little exclamations to each other. The irregular stone houses, so near each other, face to face, that one could easily toss a ball from window to window across the street, were quite vacant, except for pigeons that flew in at the windows, or a cat that might be seen sleeping on a chair or window-ledge, or, perhaps, for a few hens searching for crumbs. The families were all out of doors. In one little corner portico sat a handsome woman, with her dark hair beautifully plaited, and a bright handkerchief laid over her massive shoulders. Her hands were folded in her lap, and she sat smiling, chatting with a neighbor now and Pg 305 then, and enjoying a conscious queenship of the place. At either side of her was a young girl, slim, dark, and bright, a mere slip of the mother. These girls kept their eyes cast down, and appeared to think only of their knitting. On the next step was Carlin’s group. Further on, a young mother steadied her year-old child between her knees and a chair, while she darned a stocking. One perceived that the whole and snowy-white stockings worn even by the poorest were not kept in order without constant care and labor. Near by, an old woman with a distaff spun flax, and entertained a company of men with her lively talk. This antique goddess was, perhaps, the wit of the place. She was, however, in no manner allied to the graces; for the thin gray hair gathered tightly with a comb to the top of her head, and entirely uncovered, and the white kerchief knotted round her neck, instead of being draped in the becoming Italian fashion, showed that she had long since ceased to hold by even the shadow of a personal charm. Outside the door of a little café, the only one in the place, half a dozen men sat at tables, drinking coffee and smoking, while on the door-step a man with a furnace and rotary stove, and a basket of charcoal beside him, roasted coffee to keep up the supply, lazily turning the crank while he listened to the gossip going on at the tables. On a neighboring step were gathered several women in a little sewing-circle. To these came a woman up the street, bearing on her head a tub covered over with nodding fern-leaves, which she set down on the wide top of the balustrade. The circle suspended their work while the woman displayed a sample of her wares—twelve frogs

“Poor frogs!” said Isabel. “They look like little white babies.”

They were very poor little babies indeed, thin and small as spiders.

The frog-merchant, nothing disconcerted, laid aside her first sample and displayed another. “Oh! those are better,” the women cried, and immediately began to chaffer about the price.

Children swarmed everywhere. The close little town was as full of them as the shoe where the old woman we all know so well dwelt with her tribe of young ones. It did not need a powerful imagination to picture the place boiling over like a pot some day, with a many-colored froth of bambini down the mountain-side. It was out of the question that there should be room for the rising generation to stay in the town when they should have become a risen generation; for they were six or seven in a family, and already the houses were full.

“Perhaps one of them will go to America, and set up on some sidewalk a furnace for roasting chestnuts,” Bianca said. “And perhaps, some day, ten or fifteen years hence, we may stop and ask such a person what part of Italy he came from, and he will answer, ‘From Monte Compatri’; and we will say, ‘Ah! we have been there, at such a time; and perhaps it was you we saw playing in Via Lunga or in the piazza?’ and he will brighten an instant, and then, all at once, begin to cry. And Isabel will almost cry for him, and will give him her best handkerchief to wipe his tears away, perhaps wiping them for him; and I will buy all his chestnuts, which will be cold by the time we get home, and papa will slip some Pg 306 money into his hand, and ask him if he wants work to do, and we will all tell him where we live, and to come to us if he should get into trouble. And then we will go home and talk for all the rest of the day about nothing but Italy, and that day we went up Monte Compatri. And Isabel will insist that she recognizes the fellow perfectly, and try to coax papa to take him for a gardener or something.”

“And then,” resumed Mr. Vane, continuing the story, “we shall have the lazy vagabond coming to us every day begging, and we shall miss things out of the room where he is left alone a few minutes, and Isabel will give him my clothes, till I shall have nothing left to wear.”

“Meantime, what will the Signora be doing?” that lady demanded, finding herself left out. “Is she to have no part?”

She did not see the pleasant glance that fell on her from the eyes of the gentleman at her side. She was looking down, a little hurt, she hardly knew why. For was it not a matter understood that her home was in Italy, and theirs in America?

“Why, you,” said Isabel—“you will be in Casa Ottant’Otto, thousands of miles away, and we shall be writing you all about it.”

“Not so!” Mr. Vane said. “She will be with us at the time, I think, and will correct all our mistakes, and reward all our well-doing with her approbation.”

“There, that sounds comfortable,” the lady said, smiling. “I was really feeling neglected and left out in the cold.”

They had come to the street that encircles the town, and on the outside of which a row of houses hangs on the mountain-edge. In one of these they were to spend the night, and, as she spoke, the Signora looked

Mr. Vane spoke rather hastily in answer to her remark, and apparently for her ear alone. “If you should be outside, the cold will then be inside the circle,” he said. “It is you who are to choose.”

“Oh! thank you,” she replied lightly. “And now mind the steps. They are rather dark.”

The street from which they entered this house was so narrow, and the houses so joined, that they seemed to be still in the heart of the town; but when they had passed the dusky stairs, and entered the long, low sala at the head of them, they found the place like a nest in a tree-top. The mountain-side dropped sheer from under the very windows, and the view swept round from Rome and the sea to Palestrina and the mountains.

In this sala the whole family of the padrone had assembled to welcome and stare at the strangers before giving the room up to their use. A dozen or so smiling faces, full of good-will and curiosity, clustered about without the slightest sign of any thought that they might be intruding, or that there was to be any limit to the free use of their eyes. An old woman leaning on a cane muttered unintelligible blessings and made innumerable little bows right and left, a hale young matron talked and welcomed, a servant smiled unceasingly, a young girl with a baby in her arms asked abrupt questions in a loud voice, and children of all ages filled up the gaps.

The young ladies resigned their clothes to examination, and began shyly petting the little ones, and the Signora gave orders for their entertainment. While she was talking the servant and two of the Pg 307 boys ran skurrying out of the room and presently returned with an air of great pride, bearing in their hands beautiful white pigeons, which they caressed while displaying.

The young ladies admired them and smoothed their snowy plumage, without being in the least aware why they had been brought.

“They are for our dinner to-morrow,” the Signora remarked with great composure.

There was a little duet of dismayed exclamations. “I thought they were family pets!” Bianca said, recoiling.

“And so they are, my dear,” was the reply. “They pet them up to the moment of killing them, and praise while they are eating them. Their fondness never ceases. And now let us take off our bonnets and have supper.”

The room was long, low, and paved with coarse red bricks. The ceiling, crossed by several large beams, was papered in compartments representing squares of blue sky with light clouds floating over, and a bird or two here and there in the space, and the flowery walls were nearly hidden by great presses holding linen, by sideboards laden with dishes, and by the high backs of patriarchal old chairs, very picturesque to look at and very penitential to sit in.

All the centre of this room was taken up by a long table, at one end of which their supper was speedily prepared. There was bread, as good as could be had in Rome, and such a salad as could scarcely be had in any city, the oil as sweet as cream, and the lettuce so crisp and delicate that it could be almost powdered between the hands. Just as they sat down a large decanter of gold-colored wine, ice-cold from the grotto, was placed before them. For in these little

They sat down merrily, only one of the family remaining to wait on them, the others hovering about the door, and watching the faces of their guests as they ate, to see how the food pleased them.

“Papa,” said Isabel, pointing to a plate before her, on which a small onion shone like silver, “do you recognize that vegetable?”

“I recognose it,” replied Mr. Vane, who would sometimes play upon words.

“Well, I propose that we agree to divide it in four parts, each a little larger than the last, the largest for you, the smallest for Bianca, and that we all eat our portions, and so find no fault with each other.”

Bianca instantly declined the invitation, and blushed deeply when they rallied her on her daintiness.

“These onions are very delicate and sweet,” the Signora said. “I used to avoid them, till one day I received a call from a personage of the most dignified position and unexceptionable manners, from whose breath I perceived, in the course of the conversation, that he had been eating these little onions. But the faint odor that reached me as he spoke was as though a rose and an onion had been grafted together. Since then I have eaten without scruple.”

But Bianca still declined, still blushing. Why? Was it that her affection for the friend ever tenderly remembered had so consecrated her to him that nothing but what was sweetest and purest must touch where his image was enshrined, whether he were present or absent? She was quite extreme enough in her sensitive delicacy for such a thought.

Pg 308 Supper over, they went out into a loggia attached to their sala and overhanging the steep mountainside, and watched the sun go down over the sea. The globe of fire had already touched the water-line, that by day showed only like a line of purple cloud, and kindled it to an intense lustre; and, as they looked, there was half a sun above the horizon, and another half visible as though seen through the transparent edge of the world over which it disappeared; then, without diminishing, it dropped out of sight, leaving an ineffable, silent glory over the scene. The fire of the sea faded to a faint gold, the rosy violet of the Campagna changed to a deep purple, and Earth, raising her shadowy hands, put aside the curtaining light of day, and looked out at the stars.

The sisters withdrew presently, and left the two elders to admire the beauties of nature at their leisure. Isabel, screened off in one corner of the sala, made voluminous notes of her experiences, and planned a wonderful story, into which they should all be woven. Seated on a footstool, with a brass lamp hanging to the back of a chair near her, and her writing on her knees, she saw one character after another emerge from the shades and take form and individuality before her eyes, as if they grew there independent of her will. They spoke and moved of themselves, and she only looked and listened. Now and then some trait, some feature, some word, was such as she had seen in real life, but these people were not portraits, though they might have such resemblances, and even might have been suggested by persons she had known. The shades grew more and more alive, gathering into substance. Stone walls built themselves up silently and with a

O precious gift of the magical lamp! which, at a touch, calls about its possessor all that men wish, and work, and strive for of earthly good, without the pain or responsibilities of earthly possession; which gives the rose without its thorn, the wine without its lees, the friend without the doubt, the triumph without disappointment! Happy they who, when what we call real life presses too hard or becomes too dull, can put it aside for the time, and enter a world of their own, for ever beautiful and satisfying, who, walking the common street, see things unseen of common eyes, and for whom many a beauty smiles under an ugly mask.

Bianca was in no such exalted mood of fancy, but, withdrawn to the chamber she was to occupy with the Signora, was lifting the holier eyes of faith, and, with childlike simplicity and confidence, laying all her heart open to God, sending up her petitions for earthly happiness on a cloud of the Acts, said after her own manner: “O my God! I believe in thee, I hope in thee, I love thee, I thank thee, and I am sorry for having offended Pg 309 thee”; and then, as a thought or wish more earthly thrust itself forward, presenting it, unafraid and undoubting. Living and dead, friends and strangers, the poor, and those who had no one to pray for them—all were remembered by this tender heart; but ever, like the refrain of a song, came back the petition, “Bless, and guard from all ill of soul or body, him who is so much more to me than all other men, and, if it be thy will, give him to me for a friend and companion as long as I shall live.”

The two in the balcony, left to themselves, were talking quietly, having no mind to separate. The Signora found in the society of Mr. Vane a pleasure altogether new to her—the pleasure of being able to depend on some one. It was only now, when she was surrounded with a constant, friendly care, that she became aware how unprotected and unhelped her former life had been, and how sweet was that repose which the protected enjoy. Besides, Mr. Vane’s care was of a particularly agreeable kind. It did not, by watching and seizing on opportunities of serving, suggest the existence of an emotional care which might change to neglect, but was simply a calm readiness, which assumed, as a matter of course, that it should help when help was needed.

“I shall never be sufficiently thankful for having been led to make this European journey,” Mr. Vane said after a little silence. “It has done me good in many ways, and promises more even than it has performed as yet.”

“I am glad you say thankful instead of glad,” the Signora said, smiling. “Perhaps, too, I should say, I am thankful you say so.”

He thought a moment before speaking, and recollected that only

“It is better so,” was the reply. “We strengthen a true feeling when we give it utterance. Besides, we may thus communicate it to others.”

“One of my causes of thankfulness,” he resumed, “is that my daughters should be associated with you. I wish you could make them more like yourself, and I am sure that their admiration and affection for you will lead them naturally to imitate you and to receive your instructions willingly. They have been to me a source of great anxiety, and I feel myself utterly incapable of directing them; for, while I wish them to be modest and womanly, on the one hand, I as certainly wish them to be capable of finding in life an object and a happiness which shall not depend on any other person. It would please me to see them well married; but God forbid that an unmarried life should be for them a disappointed life! What I could do for them I have done, but with an immense self-distrust; and I have felt safer when leaving them to themselves than when interfering or seeking to guide them.”

“I should think you had done well both in guiding and in leaving them free,” the lady replied. “Many parents do too much either one way or the other. Does not the result satisfy you so far?”

She was surprised at the emotion Pg 310 with which he spoke, not knowing anything of his married life.

“The result is not yet. Everything depends on their marriage, or their reason for not marrying.” He hesitated, then went on, as if incapable of keeping silence longer on a subject of which he had never spoken: “The fate of their mother is to me a constant warning and a constant pain. In one respect I can save them from that; for I shall never urge them to marry, and shall never oppose any choice of theirs, unless it should be a manifestly bad one. But I cannot guard them from the tyranny of some mistaken sense of duty, or mistaken pride or delicacy which they might conceal from all the world.”

Startled by this half-revelation, his companion kept silence, waiting for him to speak. It was impossible he should not speak after such a beginning.

“I do not know which was the more deeply wronged, I or my poor Bianca,” he said presently. “It all came from the blundering coarseness of parents who overstepped, not their authority—for they never commanded her—but their power to influence, which, with one like her, was quite as strong. Their mistake has taught me to interfere and control less the gentle, silent one than the one who speaks her mind out clearly and loudly. I have always thought that the mother of my daughters had some preference which she never acknowledged. Often, more often than not, these preferences come to nothing and are soon forgotten; but not always. She did not wish to marry me, but she consented without hesitation, and I believed that the slight reserve would vanish with time. Perhaps she believed it too. Her conscience was as pure as snow. She

His voice trembled a little, and he stopped a moment, as if to steady it before going on.

“Was not I wronged too? Was not the unwilling jailer as unfortunate as the unwilling prisoner? I say nothing of my own personal disappointment, though that was great. The mutual confidence, the delightful companionship, the perfect union, to which I had looked forward, and which were my ideal of marriage—where were they? In place of them I never lost the feeling that I had a victim for ever at my side. I felt as if I had been unmanly and cruel; yet the fault was not mine. She gave herself to me in all that she could, yet she was never mine.”

He paused again; yet this time his voice trembled more in resuming than in leaving off his story.

“I rejoiced in her release; and I Pg 311 look forward to no future meeting with her that shall be different from that meeting which we are permitted to look forward to with all the good in heaven. If other husbands and wives expect some closer partnership in heaven, I neither expect nor wish it. I have resigned her absolutely and for ever. I do not think that I am morbid. You should know her peculiar character to understand well how I could be made to feel that crystal wall that always stood between us. I felt it so that I really believe, if the children were not demonstrative in their affection for me, I should not have the courage to show any fondness for them. I used, when they were little ones, to look at them sometimes with a kind of terror when I came home, to see if they would smile brightly, and run to me as if they were glad from the heart to see me. I always waited for them, and, thank God! they never failed me. Duty and submission are there, but a perfect affection makes them almost unnecessary.”

Finishing, he glanced for the first time at his companion, and saw that she was in tears.

“My dear friend!” he exclaimed, “how selfish I have been! Forgive me!”

“No,” she replied gently, wiping her eyes, “you are not selfish. It seems to me that you are one of the least selfish of men. I am glad you have confidence enough in me to tell me such a story, which, I can well believe, you seldom or never speak of. It is quite natural that you should confide it to some one, and you could not expect any one to hear it unmoved.”

What an exquisite moonlight covered the world, and made a

“You are the first person to whom I have ever spoken on this subject, and the only person to whom I could confide it,” Mr. Vane said. “Can you guess why, Signora?”

She looked at him with a startled glance and read his meaning, and, in the first astonishment and confusion, was utterly incapable of replying.

“Shall I tell you why?” he asked.

She rose hastily, blushing and distressed.

“Do not say any more!” she exclaimed, and was on the point of leaving him abruptly, but checked herself, and, turning in the open low window, held out her hand to him. “You have called me friend. Let us remain friends,” she said.

He touched the hand, and released it without a word, and they separated.

Half an hour afterward Bianca’s face peeped out into the moonlight. “Are you still here, papa?” she said, and went to him. “Good-night, dear.”

He embraced her gently, and echoed her good-night, but did not detain her a moment.

“What! papa romancing here all alone?” exclaimed Isabel in her turn. “It isn’t good for your complexion nor for your disposition. Late hours and too much thinking make one sad.”

“Therefore you should go to bed directly,” was his reply.

She kissed him merrily and left him alone.

TO BE CONTINUED.

Pg 312

MIVART’S CONTEMPORARY EVOLUTION.[100]

If in our contemporary evolution a great genius should appear, worthy to continue the work of St. Thomas, it would be requisite that he should combine in himself the gifts and acquirements of a metaphysician, a theologian, and a master of natural science. We accentuate strongly the last of these requisites, because we are not so much in need of pure metaphysics and theology, possessing both already in a state of high perfection and completeness, as we are of the mixed science in which the relations of the higher and the lower orders of being, truth and good, are developed and manifested. There have been some men already, since the modern period began, who have combined metaphysical and natural science in a remarkable degree. Such a man was Leibnitz. The famous Jesuit Boscovich was perhaps superior intellectually, as he certainly was morally, even to this prodigy of talent and learning. He was a great mathematician and physicist, a great metaphysician, and a great statesman, besides being eminent in Christian perfection and apostolic zeal. Balmes was a man of a similar stamp, though especially eminent in social science. Among living men a high place belongs to Father Bayma as a metaphysician, mathematician, and physicist, although he has published little under his own name, except Molecular Mechanics. Such men are invaluable at the present time. And for all those who are aiming at a thorough education for important positions in the service of the church and humanity, the conjoined cultivation of these various branches of science, in the due proportion for acquiring what we have called the mixed science, is of the highest importance. We are happy to know that it is not neglected, and is likely to be advanced to a higher and more extensive state of excellence in the near future. One who has the chance of looking over the theses in physics which are prepared for the examinations at Woodstock will be convinced that there is one Catholic seminary, at least, in this country where such matters receive due attention. The articles published from time to time in the Catholic reviews of Europe, as well as an occasional volume from the pen of a Catholic professor, are another evidence of what we have stated. The English hierarchy, aided by the band of gifted and learned priests and laymen who adorn the Catholic Church of England, is distinguishing itself in the promotion of this scientific culture. Dr. Mivart is one of this band. We have, in former numbers, taken occasion to notice several of his works, and express our high estimation of the courage and ability with which he is constantly laboring for the advancement of true, Catholic science. Dr. Mivart’s specialty is natural Pg 313 science; but he is not a mere physicist or scientist. He has the genuine philosophical spirit, and shows in his writings that he has studied to some purpose metaphysics, theology and ethics, history, politics, and belles-lettres. The essays contained in the volume we are at present reviewing were first published in the Contemporary Review, with the exception of the last one, which appeared in the Dublin Review. We propose, at present, to do little more than give an analysis of their contents and of the author’s argument.

The title informs us that his topic of discussion is, “Some great Social Changes.” These social changes, in his idea, are very deep and universal alterations in the social fabric which have been going on during the entire post-mediæval period, are still in progress, and are likely to proceed much further as time goes on. It is in view of their bearing on the perpetuity and action of the Catholic Church that they are considered. In the introductory chapter a general view is taken of their nature, origin, causes and probable development, and the plan to be followed in pursuing the particular scope of the essay is laid down. The second chapter is on Political Evolution. The third presents the three ideals of social organization, which are proposed by as many different classes of political philosophers: 1. The pagan, or monistic. 2. The civic, or that which is based on some maxims of natural right and expediency. 3. The theocratic or mediæval. The fourth chapter treats of Scientific Evolution, the fifth of Philosophical and the sixth of Æsthetic Evolution.

We may as well premise a statement of Dr. Mivart’s idea of evolution [101] A similar idea is laid by Leo at the foundation of his Universal History: “The Christian view of the history of the world takes all facts, not as something new superadded by the power of man to the creative act of God, but only as a further evolution of the facts of creation.”[102] In the introductory chapter Dr. Mivart begins by noting the fact that there are crises or great epochs in this historical evolution, and expressing his conviction that the present is one of these, and particularly marked by being a period of conscious development. As the outcome of the changes occurring in the past, he traces its logical connection with the periods of the French Revolution, the revolt of the sixteenth century, the Renaissance, and the conflict of Philip the Fair with the Holy See. The process of this evolution is designated as a struggle of reviving paganism to reject the domination of mediæval theocracy, which, gradually obtaining success, is likely to be carried to a much further point than it has yet reached. Two questions are proposed for consideration: 1. “The effect on Christianity of the further development Pg 314 of the great movement.” 2. “The probable result of the renewed conflict between such a modified Christianity and a revived paganism.”

In order clearly and fully to understand the author’s method of treating these questions, it is necessary to place and keep distinctly in view with whom he is arguing and on what principles. It is not with professed Christians or Catholics that he primarily intends to discuss these topics, on their principles, but with those who are mere naturalists, and who admit nothing but what is evident or provable by purely scientific and rational arguments. The truth of revelation and the Catholic faith is therefore left on one side, and nothing is taken into consideration except “obvious or admitted tendencies of known natural forces and laws.” It is the author’s purpose to extort from the enemies of revelation and the Catholic Church, by using their own principles and ideas, evidence for the ability of the church to cope with, overcome, and bend to her own superior force of intelligence and will the new and hostile environments, political, scientific, and philosophical, by which she is surrounded. In respect to the political aspect of the question, he argues that, supposing the changes in this order to proceed in their evolution until a complete disintegration of the mediæval, theocratic system is effected, an interior, latent capacity will be evolved in the church, by which she will be integrated and strengthened for a more complete and extensive triumph than was ever before achieved. Briefly, his argument amounts to this: Violent, red-republican, or despotic subversions of the liberty of the masses and social order cannot be lasting. Some kind of Pg 315 effects on Christianity of the greatest amount of anti-theocratic change which can possibly be anticipated,” the author considers that a Catholic may be fairly entitled to express the following conviction: “By the continuance, then, of this evolutionary process, there is plainly to be discerned in the distant future a triumph of the church compared with which that of mediæval Christendom was but a transient adumbration—a triumph brought about by moral means alone, by the slow process of exhortation, example, and individual conviction, after every error has been freely propagated, every denial freely made, and every rival system provided with a free field for its display—a triumph infinitely more glorious than any brought about by the sword, and fulfilling at last the old pre-Christian prophecies of the kingdom of God upon earth.”[103]

One-half of the volume is taken up with the consideration of political evolution and the three political ideals. Nevertheless, the author considers that the questions respecting science and philosophy are much the most important. For, although he concludes from his course of reasoning that political changes will be harmless to the church, and even give her increased strength, coherence, and efficiency, so that a Catholic may reasonably expect for her all that triumph which he thinks her Author has foretold, in spite of such changes; yet, in arguing with an unbeliever, such a ground of confidence cannot be assumed. If the claims of the church to authority, and the dogmatic truth of her doctrine, can be successfully assailed by science and

We anticipate a great revolution in the attitude of what is in common parlance rather incorrectly called “science”—i.e., the complex of various branches of physics—toward the Catholic Church. A hostile attitude is wholly unnatural. Second-class scientists, sciolists in knowledge, men of an imperfect and one-sided culture, are intellectually swamped in the morass of facts, theories, and hypotheses in which they pass their lives. The imperfect beginnings of natural sciences present phases of apparent contradiction to revealed truths. Imperfect theological systems, and opinions which rest on merely human authority, but are erroneously supposed to be revealed doctrines, frequently clash with science, or with scientific hypotheses which are more or less probable or plausible. But there is in genuine natural science, in the methods by which it proceeds, in the spirit which actuates its great masters, something eminently favorable to genuine sacred science and akin to it. The wild, anti-Christian hypotheses which are put forth under the name of science are not unfrequently crushed by the masters in science, even Pg 316 though they are not themselves Christians. Inductive science is modest, calm, impartial, slow, and just, in its procedure. It is like the law in its accepting and examining evidence on all sides of every question. The masters in science who are unbelievers are so in spite of, and not because of, their scientific spirit and method. If they are actively hostile to Christianity, it is because of some false philosophy which is accidentally connected with their science, or by reason of their ignorance of real Christianity. No false system can stand the application of the genuine principles and method of scientific inquiry. It is precisely by that method and those principles that the truth of the Catholic Church is established, corroborated, and confirmed. An amiable friend, a Unitarian minister, once remarked to us that men’s minds were going back, by a circuitous route, to the Catholic Church. This is what Dr. Mivart endeavors to show. Having tried all false routes and traced up all errors to their ending in No-Land, men work back across lots and through thickets to the old travelled road which they abandoned through caprice.

In respect to physical science, Dr. Mivart’s principal line of argument goes to show that it has nothing to do directly with theology, because it is conversant exclusively with “phenomenal conceptions.” Facts as to the coexistences and sequences of phenomena do not furnish the philosophy by which they are to be explained. This philosophy, and the theology which rests on it as its natural basis, have their own distinct sphere. It is only where theology affirms something as a revealed truth respecting facts of this kind—e.g., that the sun revolves around the earth, that creation Pg 317 the great development and wide popularity of physical science must drive many minds into philosophy. Reviving paganism, which is only a return to the old Aryan predilection for pantheistic naturalism, and is theoretically based on ancient philosophical ideas revived in new dresses by modern sophists, can only come into that internecine conflict with Christianity, after which it pants, on the ground of philosophy. Both sides must therefore give themselves to philosophical study and discussion, and they have already begun to do so. The supreme question, therefore, in respect to the movement of contemporary evolution, is the philosophical direction it is likely to take.

We arrive, then, at the last topic but one considered by Dr. Mivart—viz., Philosophic Evolution, and the process by which he endeavors to “form a final judgment as to the result of the great conflict between reviving paganism and the Christian church.”

In Dr. Mivart’s opinion—one in which we need not say we most heartily concur—what is needed is a return, “not to a philosophy, but to the philosophy. For if metaphysics are possible, there is not, and never was or will be, more than one philosophy which, properly understood, unites all speculative truths and eliminates all errors: the philosophy of the philosopher—Aristotle.”[104] Moreover, he declares his conviction that evolution will infallibly bring about this return. In his view, scholastic philosophy simply went out of fashion in the same way that mediæval architecture came to be despised as barbarous, and will again resume its sway just as the architectural glories of northern i.e., from the ranks of the devotees of physical science. It would seem that he himself has been led through science to philosophy, and therefore his views and reasonings on the matter have a peculiar interest. He presents two distinct phases of the question. One represents the inability of the anti-Christian scientists to construct a philosophy which may successfully oppose Christianity. The other presents positive tendencies in scientific evolution toward the peripatetic philosophy of the Christian schools. In respect to the first, his line of argument shows that these anti-Christian scientists are at war with each other and can never agree upon any one system; furthermore, that their reasonings end in absolute scepticism, and thus undermine their own foundations. Human nature and common sense invariably cause a reaction against idiotic and suicidal systems of this sort. Even the cultivation of natural science, therefore, must produce a tendency to seek for a satisfactory system of psychology and ontology. And as the philosophy which Des Cartes brought into vogue, ending with the transcendentalism of Kant and his successors, is no better than a philosophy of scepticism, it seems that a return to the mediæval and Grecian school, to Aristotle and St. Pg 318 Thomas, is unavoidable. There is but one other system which holds out the promise of a refuge from materialism and scepticism—that of the Ontologists. This system, however, is too contrary to the spirit and method of the natural sciences to offer any attractions to minds seeking for a synthesis of the spiritual and the material. The exposition of positive tendencies toward Catholic philosophy in the evolutionary processes of modern thought is on too abstruse and extensive a range to admit of being more compendiously treated than it actually is in the author’s text. We will, therefore, content ourselves with quoting his own words, in which he summarily expresses the result of his arguments in his conclusion: “Glancing backward over the course we have traversed, it seems borne in upon us that the logical development of that process which Philip the Fair began is probably advancing, however slowly, to a result very generally unforeseen. But if such result as that here indicated be the probable outcome of philosophical evolution, Christianity has once more evidently nothing whatever to fear from it. A philosophy which as a complement unites in one all other systems will harmonize with a religion which as a complement synthesizes all other religions, and not only religions properly so called, but atheism also. Atheism, pantheism, and pure deism, running their logical course and mutually refuting each other, find an ultimate synthesis in Christianity, as we have before found them to do in nature. Christianity affirms the truth latent in atheism—namely, that God, as He is, is unimaginable and inscrutable by us; in other words, no such God as we can imagine exists. It also affirms the truth in pantheism, that God

“Our investigations have led us to what we might have à priori anticipated—the conclusion that the highest and most intellectual power is that which must ultimately dominate the inferior forces. Neither political nor scientific developments can avail against the necessary consequences of philosophical evolution. No mistake can be greater than that of supposing that philosophy is but a mental luxury for the few. An implicit, unconscious philosophy possesses the mind and influences the conduct of every peasant. Metaphysical doctrines, sooner or later, filter down from the cultured few to the lowest social strata, and become, for good or ill, the very marrow of the bones, first of a school, then of a society, ultimately of a nation. The course of general philosophy, it is here contended, is now returning to its legitimate channel after a divergence of some three centuries’ duration. This return cannot affect prejudicially the Christian church, but must strengthen and aid it; and thus that beneficial action upon it of political and scientific evolution, before represented as probable, will be greatly intensified, and the great movement of the Renaissance hereafter take its place as the manifestly efficient promoter of a new development of the Christian Pg 319 organism such as the first twenty centuries of its life afforded it no opportunity to manifest.”[105]

The author’s last chapter, on Æsthetic Evolution, is a kind of appendix to the essay—which is really concluded with the passage just now quoted—but it is nevertheless an ingenious and elaborate essay in itself. The author begins by remarking that the question of evolution in religion is one which would furnish an interesting subject of inquiry. He then pays a very high but just tribute to the genius of Dr. Newman, whose influence over Dr. Mivart’s mind may be traced in all his writings, as the one who, in his great essay on Development, has elucidated with a master-hand the evolutionary process within the church, and anticipated the doctrines of Spencer, of Darwin, and of Haeckel. With a passing allusion to the great Vatican decree as the culmination of this process and the keystone of the great arch of civil and religious liberty; and to the two distinct though intermixed processes of evolution outside the church, one simply pagan, the other sectarian; and to the process of disruption and dissolution which is tending to carry the adherents of the sects either toward anti-theism or toward the church—the author turns aside to consider a subject closely connected with religious evolution: the probable effect of the great modern movement of contemporary evolution upon Christian art. Most of his remarks are upon architecture, although he touches lightly upon music, painting, and sculpture. In music he appears to give his vote for St. Gregory and Palestrina. In respect to painting and sculpture, Pg 320 not by any means be confined to the upper part of each window, since each window may be all tracery, the stone-work being of such thickness as may combine strength and security with a copious admission of light. The absence of that beautiful but self-contradictory feature, brilliant stained glass, will allow an ample supply of light without too great a sacrifice of wall-space, and without any impairment of stability. Not that the glazing should not be ornamental and artistic; the pieces of glass might be so designed that their lead frame-work may form elegant patterns, while the glass itself, of delicate grays and half-tints, will afford a wide scope for the skilful designer.”[106]

Finally, the author winds up by expressing his belief in a future development of Christian art in language which we condense a little from his concluding pages: “Nullum tempus occurrit ecclesiæ! The ever-fruitful mother of beauty and of truth, of holy aspirations and of good works, has not come to the end of her evolution even in the world of art, and it may be affirmed that there appear to be grounds for thinking that in the whole field of art, music, painting, sculpture, and architecture, our successors may witness a vast, new, complex, and stable artistic integration of a special and distinctly Christian character—a self-consciousness, as it were, in Christian art such as never was before, and which will appropriately serve to externally clothe and embody that vast and magnificent Christian development for which all phases of evolution are preparing the way, and to which Christians may look forward with joy and hope as the [107]

The essay of which we have given an analysis, and all the other works of Dr. Mivart, are well worthy of attentive perusal. Their great merit lies in the fact that they break up new ground and lead the way to investigations in new fields of thought. Of course it could not be expected that subjects so wide-spreading and far-reaching as those which the author has discussed in this volume should be thoroughly and completely handled within so small a compass. Each chapter would require an elaborate volume even for the full elucidation of the author’s own ideas. Whatever difference of opinion may exist in regard to particular views and theories, there is one grand, predominant idea pervading them all, in which Dr. Mivart expresses in his own peculiar way what is a very common belief and expectation of great numbers of the most illustrious champions of the Catholic Church in the present eventful period.

That this is really a great and critical era in the church’s history, and that present changes and events, however painful and unpromising they may be, are preparing the way for one of her grand and decisive triumphs, is a general conviction in the minds of her devoted adherents, the truth of which her most embittered enemies seem to forebode with a dread anticipation. All things created by God have a potentiality in them Pg 321 which is infinite. Much more, the greatest of his works on this earth, the church. The mere observation of what she has done, and of the capabilities which are contained within her, looked at from a purely rational viewing-point, is sufficient for prognosticating a future evolution to which no limits are assignable. A Catholic must, however, look upon her origin, her past action, and her future destiny as belonging to the supernatural order. She has been created to fulfil God’s purpose. That his purpose is the final triumph of good over evil is certain. But, in particulars, we only know how far, how long, and in what way this triumph is decreed to take place on this earthly arena where the church is militant; in so far as the purposes of God are made manifest to us by actual history or by prophecy. The general sense of the most approved interpreters of prophecy in the sacred Scriptures justifies the expectation of some signal triumph of the church on the earth yet to come. There seems to be a presentiment in the hearts of the faithful that it is now drawing near. We have a strong warrant for attributing this presentiment to a secret movement of the Holy Spirit, in the repeated and emphatic utterances of the august and holy Vicar of Christ upon earth, our gloriously reigning Sovereign Pontiff Pius IX. As to the time, the means, the nature, and the duration of this triumph of the Où allons nous!” is the anxious exclamation of Bishop Dupanloup in respect to France, and a similar questioning of the future agitates the minds of men throughout the world. Whoever has any sagacious and well-reasoned answer to this interrogation is, therefore, likely to find eager and interested listeners, and deserves a respectful hearing. Dr. Mivart thinks that he sees the way out of present complications, and discovers signs which herald the advent of a new and long period of human history under the influence of Christianity which will be the culmination of God’s work on the earth. Whatever may be thought by different persons of this horoscope and of the signs in our present sky, all must admit the ingenuity and force of reasoning which the author has displayed, admire his chivalrous and generous spirit, and recognize the great amount of valuable knowledge and genuine truth, both in physics and metaphysics, contained in the volume now reviewed and in Dr. Mivart’s other productions.

Pg 322

THE DEVIL’S CHRISTMAS GIFT.

Let fastidious and fashionable people say what they will about shanties, there was something in Mike Roony’s humble dwelling that was really attractive. Perched on the top of a broad and lofty rock near the corner of Broadway and Forty-ninth Street, it commanded a magnificent view of the Hudson River and the Sound; and as the only way to reach it was by a flight of steps which Mike had cut in the rock, ’twas known among the neighbors by the name of Gibraltar. Some said Roony was a squatter; that he paid neither tax nor rent for the small piece of Manhattan Island which he occupied. Well, be this as it may, one thing is certain—he always declared his readiness to move when they blasted him out. Nothing grew upon this homestead—not a bush, not a weed, not a blade of grass; it was a little desert, roamed over by a goat, and swept clean by the winds, which made it their romping-ground from every quarter of the compass.

But Mike had a wife who loved flowers, and in the window fronting south stood a flower-pot wherein there bloomed a sweet red rose. Helen—for this was her name—had the true instincts of a lady, albeit her garment was not of silk and she sometimes went barefoot. She kept herself scrupulously neat—for water does not cost anything—and was fairer to behold than the flower she cherished. Born in America, of Irish parents, hers was one of those ideal faces which we not seldom meet with among American

But although Helen knew that she was beautiful, and there was a small mirror in the shanty, she did not waste any time before it, unless, perhaps, of a Sunday morning ere going to High Mass. A true helpmate was this wife in every sense of the word. She arose betimes, no matter how cold the weather might be, to prepare her husband’s breakfast, and, if a button was missing off his coat, always found time to sew it on before he went to his work. The floor of the shanty was daily sprinkled with fresh sand; the pictures on the wall—one of the Blessed Virgin at the foot of the cross, the other of St. Joseph—were never hung awry; you saw no broken panes in the windows; and the faces of her two little children, Michael and Helen, were kept as bright and clean as her own. She never quitted home during her husband’s absence to gossip and talk scandal with other women; and, monotonous as her life may seem, ’twas a happy one. Mike, too, was happy, and no mariner homeward bound ever watched for the beacon-light on his native coast more impatiently than he watched for the light which Helen used to place in the window, whence he might see it from afar as he trudged back from his day’s work. Pg 323 And no matter how hard it might be raining, or snowing, or freezing, at the first glimpse of its welcome rays Mike always burst out into a merry song. In the evening she would read him to sleep with some story from the Catholic Review; then, when his head began to nod, she gently drew the pipe out of his mouth and whispered: “Love, ’tis bed-time.”

Oh! happy were those days—so happy that Helen would sometimes tremble; for surely they could not last for ever—otherwise it would be heaven on earth.

But, sober and inoffensive as Roony was, he was not without enemies; indeed, for very reason of his sobriety and inoffensiveness some hated him. And one evening—Christmas eve—he and his young wife were seated by the stove, talking about the Black-eye Club, whose head-quarters were in a liquor-store close by, and whose members had sworn vengeance on Mike for refusing to join them. “They have threatened to beat me,” he said; “but if they only give me fair play, I’ll be a match for the biggest of ’em.”

“Ay, fair play!” said Helen, shuddering. “Savages like them always take a man unawares, and, like wolves, they hunt in packs.”

“They carry pistols, too,” added Mike, “while I carry nothing but my fists.”

“Well, bad as I feel about it, husband dear, I’d a thousand times rather have you brave the whole villanous gang than see you join them; for now we are so happy.” Here Helen twined her arm round his neck, then, gazing on him with loving eye, she continued: “You have never touched liquor, you do not get into fights, you are so good; and this rock is dearer

“With you any spot would be a paradise,” rejoined Mike; “and I hope to-morrow will be the last Christmas that we’ll go without a turkey and some toys for the children.”

“Oh! I’m sure it will,” said Helen. “But you are right to pay all our debts first; and already the boards which the shanty cost are paid for, and so is the stove, and there is nothing owing except the coal”; then, with a smile: “And I’ve promised a pailful of coal to Mrs. McGowan, who lives on the next rock. You see, poor as we are, we can afford to give something away. Oh! isn’t that sweet?”

“It is indeed,” answered Roony; then, after a pause: “But now tell me, wife, who do you think is going to preach to-morrow?”

“Father H——.”

“Really! Oh! I’m so glad; he always knows when to stop.”

“A good sermon can’t be too long,” said Helen.

“Well, I own it isn’t easy to leave off when once you get a-going. I was a brakeman five years, and know what it is to stop a train of cars. But if I was in the pulpit I’d know how to do it.”

“How?”

“Well, I’d just fix my eye on the sleepiest-looking fellow in the congregation, and the very moment his head began to nod I’d lift up my hand and say, ‘A blessing I wish you all.’” Here Helen laughed, and while she was laughing Mike added: “And I’ve sometimes thought Father H—— kept his eye on me.”

While they were thus chatting by the little stove the northwest wind went howling round the house, and Jack Frost tried his best, his very best, to get in, but did not Pg 324 succeed, not even through the keyhole; for Roony was not sparing of fuel, and the stove-pipe was red hot. Indeed, ’twas rather pleasant to hear the voice of the blast and the rattling of the window-panes; while at times the whole building seemed to rise up off the rock, and then Helen would throw an uneasy glance at her husband, who would grin and say: “It’s well anchored, darling; never fear.” At length the clock struck midnight, and the children, who had been sleeping on their parents’ laps, were taken gently up and put to bed—so gently that their slumber was scarcely broken. Then husband and wife retired too; but, ere placing their heads on the pillow, they knelt and gave thanks to God for the many blessings they had enjoyed since last Christmas. Oh! sweet was the sleep which followed the prayer, and happy were their dreams; and when Christmas morning came, the sun did not rise on a happier home than this one. Scarcely had its rays flashed through the east window when Mike sprang up, and, clapping his hands, shouted: “O Helen, Helen! open your eyes and see what Santa Claus has brought you.”

Obedient to his call, Helen awoke; and sure enough, to her great surprise, discovered one of her stockings dangling from the latch of the door, and there was something in it, but what it might be she had not the least notion, nor her husband either.

“Oh! go quick and see what it is,” she said. “I’m so curious to know.”

Accordingly, Mike went to the stocking; then, plunging his hand into it, drew forth—a bottle, and on it was marked, “Whiskey.”

“Well, I declare,” he said, grinning, as he held it up, “here is

But the wife’s bright look had vanished in a moment when she heard what the bottle contained; and now, in a grave tone, she answered: “No, dear, do not drink my health with that. Thank God! you have never yet touched liquor, so do not begin the bad habit on this sacred day, nor on any other day. Throw the bottle out of doors—do!”

“Well, now, can’t a fellow take just a sip in honor of Santa Claus, who brought it?”

“No, no; the devil brought it. Don’t take even one drop; throw the poison away—quick!”

“Oh! but it’s a bitter cold morning, Nell, and the fire isn’t lit, and a sip of whiskey’ll keep me warm while I make it—only just one sip.”

“Husband, I beg you”—here the wife clasped her hands—“I implore you to get rid of the devil’s gift as quick as possible. I see that you are already tempted. O husband! listen to my voice.”

To calm her—for she seemed much excited—Roony opened the door, and, stepping out into the frosty air, struck the neck of the bottle against the rock, so as to make her believe that it was broken in pieces; but only the neck came off. “Really,” he said within himself, after moistening his lips with a drop, “this doesn’t taste bad; surely a little won’t hurt me.” Then, concealing the bottle in the goat-house, he went back and told his wife what he had never told her before—a lie.

“You broke it! Oh! I’m so glad,” she exclained, “so very glad!” But there was a tear in her eye as she spoke; then, while Mike busied himself kindling the fire, Helen knelt down and remained a good while on her knees.

Pg 325 “Why, Nell, what ails you?” he asked, drawing near her after she had finished the prayer. “This is Christmas morning; let’s be merry.”

“Oh! yes, I must be merry,” she replied, trying to assume a cheerful air. But there was something in her tone which struck Mike as peculiar, and for a moment he blushed. Did she suspect the untruth which he had told? No; her faith in him was unbroken, and she could not account to herself for the heavy weight upon her heart, which even the prayer had not taken away; and now, despite the glorious sunbeams flooding the room and the sweet voices of her children, Helen felt sad. Who had entered their happy home in the stillness of night, and placed that ill-omened gift in her stocking? Might it really be the Evil One? And while she wondered over this mysterious occurrence, she thought of the many families, once happy and well-to-do, who had come to grief and misery through intemperance. Was her own day of trial approaching? What did this Christmas gift portend? “But no, no; I will not be sad; I’ll be cheerful. For Michael’s sake I will,” she said to herself. Then, as the bright look spread over her face, Mike clapped his hands and shouted: “That’s right, my darling. Hurrah!”

And so the early hours went by; and when ten o’clock struck, they set out for St. Paul’s Church, which was about nine blocks off, the mother holding her little boy by the hand, the father carrying little Nell, who was not yet old enough to walk so far. But when they were within a few paces of the church door, Roony stopped and declared that he had forgotten to feed the goat. “Well, dear, it’s too late now,” said Helen. “Nanny can

“O wife! how would you like to miss your breakfast?” rejoined Mike. “Nanny is hungry. I must return.”

“And lose Mass?” she said, with a look of tender reproach. Roony did not answer, but turned on his heel and went away, leaving her too overcome with surprise to utter another word.

The priest was already at the altar when Helen arrived, and the church very full; yet more people continued to push their way in, and ever and anon she would look round to see if her husband were among the late-comers. She tried to keep her thoughts from wandering, but did not succeed. Never had Helen felt so distracted before, and the foreboding of evil which had oppressed her in the early morning now returned and shrouded her in such gloom that she could hardly pray. But, troubled as the poor woman was, no suspicion of the truth had yet entered her mind. She was very innocent, and did not doubt but Mike, having come late, was hidden among the crowd by the door.

At length the service ended; and now she felt quite certain that he would join her. But five minutes elapsed, and then ten—a whole quarter of an hour passed away. The congregation was fast dispersing; still, her husband did not appear. “Oh! where can he be?” she asked herself. “Where can he be?” At every voice that greeted her Helen started; for many knew her and wished her a merry Christmas, and Mrs. McGowan, who had a keen eye, exclaimed: “Why, what ails you, Mrs. Roony?”

How lonesome the wife felt as she plodded homeward! Yet her Pg 326 children were prattling merrily, and the street was full of happy people. She was blind to them all, she was deaf to every word that was spoken, and kept murmuring again and again: “Where can Michael be?”

Finally Helen reached home, and was about to cross the threshold, when suddenly she paused and uttered a cry which might have been heard afar, ’twas so loud and piercing; while little Mike and Nell exclaimed at one breath: “Mamma, look at papa sleeping.”

Yes, there lay their father stretched upon the floor, breathing heavily. But ’twas not the pleasant slumber into which Helen loved to see him fall when he returned weary from a hard day’s work; and after gazing on him a moment with an expression impossible to describe, she buried her face in her hands. Poor thing! well might she weep; and if a feeling of disgust mingled with her grief, may we not forgive her? He was breathing heavily; by his right hand lay an empty bottle with the neck broken off, and the air of the room was tainted with the fumes of liquor.

“Stop! let your father sleep,” she said to her son, who had knelt down and was playfully brushing the hair off his parent’s face. But this precaution was needless; the latter was too deep in his cups to be roused by the touch of the child’s hand, and presently, with a heavy heart, Helen turned away and set to work to prepare the dinner. There was no turkey to cook; still, she had intended to provide a somewhat better repast than ordinary, it being Christmas day. But, alas! she hardly knew what she was doing as she bustled about the stove; and when, by and by, dinner was ready, she tasted not a mouthful herself—all appetite had fled.

It was evening when Roony awoke, and the moment Helen perceived that his eyes were open she began to tremble; for, though she did not doubt but he was sober by this time, she felt as if another man were near her, and not the one whom she had once so honored and trusted. And as he stared at her from the floor, he did indeed appear changed; there was a silly, vacant look on his face, his eyes were bloodshot, and it was almost five minutes before he attempted to rise. Then, without opening his lips, he got up and went out of the house, closing the door behind him with a slam.

“Well, I declare,” he said, tossing away the broken bottle—“I declare I’ve been drunk; and, what’s more, I told a lie and missed Mass. Will she ever forgive me?” Then stamping his foot: “Oh! what a fool I’ve been—what a wicked fool!”

Presently, while he was thus lamenting his sins, the door opened and a voice said: “Come to me, dear; come to me.”

“O Helen!” he cried, turning toward her, “can you forgive me, will you?”

“Come to me,” she repeated, opening wide her arms, but at the same time drawing back a step from the threshold; for curious eyes were watching them from a neighboring rock. Quick Roony flew into the shanty, then, dropping down on his knees, burst into tears. The wife wept too, while little Mike and Nell looked on in childish wonder at the scene.

“But, darling, why do you cry?” he exclaimed presently, rising to his feet. “You’ve done nothing wrong.”

Pg 327 Helen made no response, but brushing the tears away, twined her arms around his neck.

“Well, speak, darling. What have you done to cry?” repeated Roony.

“O Michael!” she answered in faltering accents, “you have been such a good, kind husband to me. We have been so happy together—so very, very happy. God has blest us with two darling children. We might live, perhaps, years and years in this sweet spot; and when at length death parted us, ’twould not be for long—we should meet again in heaven. O Michael! I weep because all this may be changed—because death might part us for ever and ever!”

“No, no, darling, it shall not! It shall not!”

“Well, I will pray with heart and soul, husband dear, that you may not fall a second time. Alas! if the habit of drink once fasten upon you, it may be impossible to shake it off; and intemperance not only ruins many a family, but damns many a soul.” At her own words the wife shuddered and began to weep anew.

“Well, I say never fear. Not another drop of liquor will I touch,” said Mike—“no, not another drop as long as I live.”

“Oh! thank God!” exclaimed Helen, “thank God!”

“Yes, yes, I solemnly promise it. And now, darling, try and forget all about my wickedness to-day, won’t you?”

“Yes, I’ll forget all about it,” she answered. With this Helen began to sing a merry song, in which her husband joined, while the children went romping around the room, and the cricket came out of his tiny hole beneath the stove and chirped merrily too. But although Helen had forgiven him, yet Mike’s

The following day Roony went off to work as usual, and came back in the evening, cheered as usual, too, by the light in the window; and immediately its welcome rays flashed upon him, he exclaimed: “Oh! what a good wife I have. God bless her!”

Ay, Helen is good! Her heart is with you, Mike, wherever you go; and at this very moment she is kneeling by the little beacon, praying that it may guide you safely to her side, and that you may not be tempted to stray into the bar-room on the corner.

But not the next day only, the whole week, Roony was his old, good-natured, hard-working, sober self; and what had marred the joy of Christmas was fast fading from Helen’s memory. But one Saturday evening, as he was trudging homeward with his pocket full of wages, there came over him a sudden craving for spirits; the broken bottle out of which he had taken his maiden drink seemed to rise up before his eyes; the delicious Pg 328 taste of the whiskey was on his lips afresh. In fact, the craving was so very strong, so wholly unexpected, that it startled him, and his heart beat violently.

“Oh! I never thought I should be seized in this way,” he groaned. “How very strange! I can’t resist; yet I must. O Helen! would to God I had not taken that first drink.” The words were scarcely breathed when the beams of the home-light flashed upon him. ’Twas still a good distance off, and the air was muggy and thick, yet it shone brighter than Mike had ever seen it shine before. For about a minute he watched it yearningly; he even quickened his steps and twice groaned, “O Helen!” Then, muttering a curse upon himself, he turned his eyes away from the light, and at the same time, swerving out of the dear home-path, he hurried on to the liquor-saloon.

“Three cheers for Mike Roony!” was the salutation which greeted him from a dozen voices as he entered. “I knew you’d join us afore long,” said the President of the Black-eye Club, advancing and shaking him warmly by the hand; then, motioning to the others, their empty glasses were refilled and the new-comer’s health toasted. Presently Roony wanted to treat; but “No, no,” they all shouted; “’tis our privilege to treat you this evening.” Whereupon the bottle was passed round again; while poor Mike, flattered beyond measure by this unlooked-for reception, thought to himself: “What a fool I was not to join the club long ago!”

And so on they went carousing, and Helen’s husband growing more and more intoxicated, until at length, when he was barely able to stand, a voice exclaimed: “Now, boys, let’s christen him.” Quick as

“Where can he be?” said the anxious wife, seeing that he did not return at the usual hour. “I pray God nothing has happened. The dear fellow came near being killed by a blast last year. O my God! I hope nothing has happened.” After waiting for him awhile, Helen and her young ones took their places at the supper-table; but not a morsel did she eat. A vague fear possessed her. The children spoke, but the mother answered them not; the cricket chirped—she was deaf to its merry song; and every few minutes she would open the door, and look out and listen. But no husband appeared. And now, without him, how everything seemed to change! The rock, the shanty, the pretty rosebush she cherished, even the children whom she loved ten thousand times more than the rose—all appeared different to her eyes; nothing was the same when he who was the corner-stone of home was missing; and Helen realized as never before what a link of adamant bound her heart to his. “Oh! if anything has happened. If he is killed, ’twill kill me too,” she sighed. Then, when little Mike asked, “Where is papa?” she answered, “Coming soon.” And even to speak these words brought her a moment’s peace of mind, and she would try to think of some good cause which might detain him. But the clock went on ticking, and the hour-hand moved further and further toward midnight; still, no husband came. The children were put to bed, and soon were fast asleep; the fire in the stove died out; the cricket became silent; but the wife grew more and more Pg 329 wakeful, while ever and anon she would go to the window and nervously snuff the candle burning there. Then again she would open the door and listen—listen with all her ears; but she heard only the throbbing of her heart and boisterous voices in the direction of the liquor-saloon.

“Well, I’ll watch and pray till he arrives,” said Helen; then kneeling beside the crib where her children were sleeping, she lifted her thoughts to God. But the many hours she had been awake, the busy day prolonged so far into night, proved at last too much for her; and just as the clock struck one her weary eyes closed and her guardian angel took up the prayer which she left unfinished.

How long Helen slept she did not know; but when she awoke the candle had burned out and the chamber was pitch dark. “Oh! what is the matter? What did I hear? Was it only a dream?” she cried, starting to her feet.

“Come, now, I want my supper!” growled Mike, staggering further into the room. “Where’s my supper?”

Pen cannot describe the wife’s feelings as she groped about for the match-box. And when finally, after letting three or four matches drop out of her quivering fingers, she succeeded in lighting a fresh candle, what a sight did she behold! Was this man scowling at her, with one eye battered and swollen, her own Michael?

“I say, where’s my supper?” he repeated with an oath.

Without uttering a word, but with a sinking of the heart which she had never experienced till now, Helen made haste to kindle a fire and heat up the potatoes and pork which she had laid aside for him

“O husband!” replied Helen, in a voice of sorrowful entreaty, “do not break my heart, I love you so.”

“Break your heart! Ha! ha! that’s a good joke.” Then, glancing up at the clock: “Well, by jingo, Nell, I’d better call this meal breakfast. Why, it’s pretty nigh four, isn’t it?”

Encouraged, perhaps, by the somewhat milder tone in which these last words were spoken, she now approached him, and, bending down, proceeded to examine his wounded eye. “Yes, bathe it for me,” he continued. “But, for all it hurts, I’m deuced proud of it; for it’s the christening mark of the Black-eye Club.”

“Oh! hush, dear. Don’t mention that wicked gang any more,” said the wife. “I hate them; they are fiends.”

“Fiends? Ha, ha! Well, well, hurry up with my breakfast or supper, whichever you choose to call it; then get the scissors and cut off my hair.”

“Let me bathe your poor eye first,” she answered; “then, after you have done eating, ’twill be daylight, and I want you, love, to come to Mass this morning, and to see the priest; we’ll go together. O Michael! dark clouds are lowering over us; come with me to the priest.”

“To the priest? No, indeed! Pg 330 The Black-eye Club have nothing to do with priests.”

“O husband! do not talk so; save yourself before it is too late,” she went on, as she sponged the clotted blood off his cheek.

“I can’t, wife. The craving for spirits is too strong. It all comes, I know, from that one little drink Christmas morning. Now I’m not master of myself; I believe there’s a devil in me.”

A long, shadowy silence followed, during which Helen wept, while ever and anon Roony would say, “It’s no use crying.” While he was at his breakfast she once more begged him to go with her to Mass. But again he refused, saying, “Our club don’t go to Mass; nor must you, until you have trimmed my hair.”

“Why, ’tis short enough,” replied Helen.

“Is it? Look!” And as Mike spoke he clutched a fistful of it, then gave a pull. “Now, don’t you see that some chap might grab me and get my head in ‘chancery’? I want my hair short as pig’s bristles, and well greased too; then I’ll be like an eel, and grab me who can.”

The wife obeyed without a murmur, performing the operation to his entire satisfaction; after which, approaching the crib where her children were sleeping, she gave each a soft kiss, then went off by herself to church.

Helen had never been wanting in devotion; her faith had always been strong. But now, as she took her way along the lonely street, with the morning star still shining in the heavens, she felt as though God were come nearer to her; and all her former prayers were cold compared with the prayers which she offered this morning at the foot of the altar. And when

When Helen entered the shanty she found her husband gone. But little Mike was there, and he looked so like his father; and little Nell was there too. Oh! surely they would not be abandoned. “No, God is with us,” she murmured. “My prayers will be heard, and Michael will one day be what he used to be. Yes, yes! I know it.” As she spoke a radiant look spread over her face; then, making the sign of the cross, she straightway set about her daily duties as if nothing had happened. O blessed Faith! which makest the darkest hour bright; richer, indeed, in gifts than a gold-mine art thou, and stronger than a mountain to lean upon in moments like these!

When evening came round, Helen placed the candle in the window as usual, although she had faint hope that Mike had been at work. And again she set up till a very late hour, keeping the fire burning and taking good care not to fall asleep this time.

It was one o’clock when Roony returned. He was not tipsy, but surly, and when she laid her hand on his arm he flung it away, saying, “Now, I want no preaching and petting; I want my supper.” The poor woman was a little frightened, and waited upon him awhile in silence.

“Yet I must speak,” she murmured; “I must brave his anger. No husband was ever kinder than he, no spouse happier than I have been till now; I must make one more effort to save him from ruin.” With this, she again gently touched his arm and said, “Dear love—”

Pg 331 “D—— your preaching; I won’t listen to it,” he snarled, cutting short her words, and in a voice so loud that it awoke the children. Then, presently, shrugging his shoulders, “Oh! you needn’t whimper. I’m bound to be master here.”

“Have I ever denied your authority?” inquired Helen, looking calmly at him through her tears.

“Oh! hush. Don’t bother me,” continued Roony, lifting up his plate. Then, as if he had changed his mind about throwing it at her, he dashed it into shivers on the floor.

“Alas! what a curse liquor is,” she cried in a tone of passionate energy. “What a terrible curse!”

“Well, I’m not drunk, am I?”

“But you have been drinking; and the poison is in your veins. O Michael! for God’s sake abandon the villanous set you belong to!” Here he clenched his fist. But heedless of the threat she went bravely on: “Think how happy we were, Michael. This bare rock was more lovely than a garden to us. And we have two dear children; look at them yonder! Look at them!”

“I say, woman, go to bed and leave me alone,” thundered Roony, bringing down his huge fist on the table with a thump which made everything in the shanty rattle.

Poor, poor Helen! With a heart torn by anguish, she obeyed. But not a wink of sleep came to her—no, not a wink, and never night seemed longer than this one. But her husband slept like a top, nor opened his eyes until ten the next morning; then, as soon as he was dressed, and without waiting for breakfast, out he went to take a drink.

“Oh! what is coming? What is

The clock had just struck noon when Mike returned, accompanied part of the way by another man, who helped him mount the difficult path which wound up the rock; and Roony needed assistance, for even when he gained the summit he could not walk straight, and fell within a yard of his door. Quick Helen ran to him; for, although his condition filled her with disgust, yet she could not abide the thought of other eyes than hers discovering him thus. “Come in, husband, come in the house,” she said, taking his arm. Scarcely, however, had she got him on his feet again when he caught her by the throat and exclaimed, in the voice of a wild beast, “Ah, ha! now I’m going to beat you.” But in an instant Helen broke loose from him; then rushing back into the shanty, she called her children and bade them hurry out on the rock. The little things obeyed, too innocent to know what the trouble was. Then facing her husband, who was scowling at her from the threshold, “Now enter,” she said, “and beat me if you will. Here, at least, nobody will witness the deed.” Roony staggered in and Helen closed the door.

That evening, after pressing her children many times to her poor bruised heart, Helen went away. She quitted the home where she had once been so happy, and, as she went, she said to herself: “If on my wedding day an angel from heaven had told me this, I should not have believed him.”

But the step she was now taking was all for the best. In his madness Roony had threatened to kill her. “And he might do it,” she Pg 332 sighed, “for when he is intoxicated he doesn’t know what he is doing. And then all his life afterward he would be haunted by remorse. Poor Michael! I believe he still loves me. For his own sake I am going away.”

It was Helen’s intention to seek refuge with a family who dwelt not far off, and for whom she had once done some work. They received her very kindly, and wondered ever so much at the ugly cut under one of her eyes, from which the red drops were still oozing; and her upper lip, too, was cut. But Helen refused to tell who had ill-used her. “Pray, ask no questions,” she said. “Only furnish me with employment; I’ll drudge; I’ll do anything to earn a little money.” Accordingly, they gave her a number of shirts to make; and being a deft hand at needle-work, she was able to gain quite a good livelihood. But it was not for herself that Helen labored, ’twas for those whom she loved better than herself. And every evening, when the stars began to twinkle, she visited her old home, and there, peeping through the window, would watch little Mike and Nell with yearning eyes. And once she saw her husband seated by the stove, eating a piece of the bread and meat which she had left at the door the previous evening.