Chapter VI · BOADICEA.

Within a few weeks came a letter from Mrs. Rowan to Edith. It is not natural for people to write in their own way—that comes with education and practice; but this letter breathed the writer's very self. It radiated a timid distress. She had surprising news to tell. Instead of being in a tenement of her own, among plain people whom she would feel at ease with, she was installed as housekeeper in what seemed to her a very magnificent establishment. Mr. Williams, her employer, was an importing merchant, and his family consisted of a daughter, eighteen years of age, and an awful sister-in-law who lived in the next street, but visited his house at all hours of day or evening, superintending minutely his domestic arrangements. This gentleman knew Major Cleaveland well, and had for many years had business relations with Captain Cary. Indeed, it was their sailor friend who had procured the situation for her, and insisted on her taking it. She had refused as long as she could, but Dick himself joining against her, she had finally yielded. Mr. Williams was very kind. He had assured her that he did not want a city housekeeper, but some quiet, honest countrywoman to be in the house with his daughter, and see that the servants did not rob him.

At the conclusion of this letter, Mrs. Rowan added that Dick sent his respects, at which Edith's heart sank with disappointment. Where was the hearty affection, the eager remembrance she had looked for?

The child would have been less indignant had she known what pains Dick was really taking for her sake. He had searched out, and borrowed or bought all the printed correspondence of famous letter-writers that were to be had for love or money, and was studying them as models. He had also invested extravagantly in stationery, and was striving to bend his clear, clerkly penmanship to something more elegant and gentlemanlike. Even while she was accusing him of forgetfulness, he was carefully copying his tenth letter to her.

But still, Edith was not to blame, though she was mistaken. Affection has no right to be silent.

After a few days, however, came his farewell before sailing for the East. Over this note, Edith shed bitter tears, as much for the manner as for the matter of it. For Dick, with an eye to Mrs. Yorke as a reader, had composed a very dignified epistle after the manner of Doctor Johnson. Poor Dick! who could have written the most eloquent letter in the world, if he had poured his heart out freely and simply.

The child had scant time allowed her for mourning, for her studies began immediately. The family were all her teachers, and she began at once with music and languages. The common branches were taught indirectly. Geography she learned by looking out on the maps places mentioned in their reading or conversation. History she learned chiefly through biography. For arithmetic, some one gave her every day a problem to solve. She added up household expenses, measured land, laid out garden-beds, weighed and measured for cooking. Her study was all living: not a dead fact got into her mind. She read a great deal besides, travels, all that she could find relating to the sea, and poetry. As her mind became interested, she settled once more into harmony with herself, and her feelings grew quiet. The impression left by Dick's strange behavior after their parting faded away, and she remembered only his last fervent protestation: "I'll climb, Edith, I'll climb!" How it was to be, and what it really meant, she knew not; but the old faith in him came back. "What Dick said he'd do, he always did."

She associated him with all she read or heard of foreign lands and waters. He had sailed through phosphorescent seas by night, under wide-eyed stars, while the waves tossed in fire from his prow, and trailed in fire in his wake. He had lain in the warm southern ocean, where the tides are born, had held his breath during that pause when all the waters of the earth hang balanced, and swung his cap as he felt the first soft pulse of the infant tidal wave that was to grow till its rim should cast a wreath of foam on every shore from the North Pole to the South. Palms and the banyan-tree, pines almost huge enough to tip the earth over, each in turn had shaded his head. His venturesome feet had trod the desert and the jungle. Jews and Moslems had looked after him as he sauntered through their crowded bazaars—the bright-eyed, laughing sailor-boy! Norsemen had smiled as they saw his hair blown back and his face kindled by the tempest. It was always Dick to the fore of everything.

On one of those spring mornings, Carl, wandering through the woods, came out into the road in front of an old school-house that stood at the edge of the village. The door was open, and showed a crowd of children at their studies inside. On the green in front of the door lay a log, and on the log sat a deplorable-looking little man. He was neither young nor old, but seemed to be stranded on some bleak age which time had forgotten. His clothes were gentlemen's clothes cut down and patched. A hat that was too large for him reached from his forehead to his neck. It was not crushed, but it was shabby, and drooped sorrowfully in the brim. His hair was thin and long, and patted down. Tears rolled over his miserable face as he sat and looked in at the children saying their lessons in a long class. He did not cover his face in weeping, but lifted his eyebrows, wiped the tears occasionally, and continued to gaze.

Carl was one of the last persons in the world to intrude on another, or allow any intrusion on himself, but after a moment's hesitation he ventured to approach this pitiful little figure, and ask what ailed him.

The man showed no surprise on being addressed, but poured out his grief at once. His name was Joseph Patten, he was poor and had a large family, and was obliged to receive town help. As a condition of that help, he must give up one of his children to be bound out to work, or adopted into a family. The parents were allowed to choose which child they would part with, and "Joe," as he was called by everybody, was now trying to make up his mind. His story was told in a whimpering voice, and with many tears, and the listener was quite as much provoked to laugh as to weep.

"It isn't easy to part with your own flesh and blood, sir," said Joe. "There's Sally, my oldest girl, named for her marm. She helps about the house. My wife couldn't get along without Sally. The next one is Joseph. He's named for me; and I don't want to give up the child that's named for myself, sir. Then John, he's got the rickets, and is used to be fed and taken care of. You couldn't expect a man to send away a child that's got the rickets, and let him drop all his food before he gets it to his mouth. Then Betsey, she's named for my mother. How am I going to send away the child that's named for my own mother, when she's dead and gone, and let her live among strangers? Jane, she's homesick; she cries if she is out of her marm's sight a minute. She'd cry herself to death if she was to be carried off. Then there's Jackson, named for General Jackson. You don't suppose I could give away a child that's named for General Jackson! And George Washington, named for the father of his country. Why, I could do without any of 'em sooner than I could without George Washington. And Paul, he's named for the 'postle Paul. It would be a sin and a shame to give away a boy that's named for the 'postle Paul. And Polly, she's the baby. You can't give a baby away from its own mother."

There had been several other children who had died, chiefly from unwholesome little fevers, to which they seemed addicted.

Carl was unable to assist the man in his choice; but he comforted him somewhat by promising to visit his family soon, and left him weeping, and gazing through the door at his children.

That same afternoon Carl and Melicent went out to visit Joe Patten's family. It had occurred to the young woman that she might be able to train one of the pauper's boys for a house-servant, and thus benefit them and her own family at the same time.

The Pattens lived directly back of the Yorkes' place, about half a mile farther into the woods, and their house had no communication with the public ways save by a cart-road. Joe's sole income was derived from the sale of little snags of wood that he hauled into the village, and exchanged for groceries. In Seaton wood was a drug in the market. A man must cut his beech and maple into clear split logs, and season it well, if he expected to get two dollars a cord for it.

The walk through the woods was a pleasant one, for nature was stirring all alive about them. This nature was no Delilah of the tropics, and to one who loved a bold and gorgeous beauty it was poor. But for those who like to seek beauty in her shyer, hidden ways, it had a delicate and subtle charm. The profuse snowy bloom of wild-cherries showed in a cloud here and there against the red or salmon-colored flowers of maples and oaks. Silver birches glimmered through their shining foliage, like subsiding nymphs, and the tassels of the larch swung out their brown and gold. Violets blue and white opened thickly in wet places, sisterhoods of snowdrops stood with their drooping heads tenderly streaked with pink, little knubbles of land were covered thickly with old and young checkerberry—"ivry-leaves" the children called them, drops of gum oozed through the rough bark of spruce and hemlock, brooks rushed frothing past, and birds were returning to their nests or building new ones.

Soon they heard sounds of human life through the forest quiet, the loud voice of a scolding woman and a confused babel of children's voices.

Carl smiled mockingly. "A troop of dryads, probably," he remarked.

Suddenly they came out close to a small log-house that stood in an irregular clearing; and now the scolding and the babel were plain to be heard.

"I'll lick you like a sack if you don't bring some dry sticks to get supper with!" cried a woman's voice, and at the same instant a ragged little boy bounded from the door, helped, apparently, by some outward application, and ran for the woods, his bare feet seeming insensible to sticks and stones. Then, all at once, there was silence, and clusters of two-colored heads in the windows, and peeping from the door. The visitors had been discovered. As they approached the door, a large, wild-eyed Boadicea came to meet them, and invited them in with great ceremony and politeness. She had an unwholesome, putty-colored skin and black hair and eyes. In one corner sat Joe, with the baby in his arms, and his hat on his head. This he removed, half-rose, and performed a salution which was more a courtesy than a bow. But he uttered not a word. "In this house clearly,

'Madame d'Acier est le père,'"

thought Carl.

With a sweep of the arm she banished the children all into one corner of the room (the house contained but one room), brought two strip-bottomed chairs, from one of which her husband had meekly fled at her approach, and, dusting them off with her apron, invited her visitors to be seated.

"You must excuse the confusion reigning in my poor mansion," she said with great suavity, and a very good accent. "Children are always disorderly. Sarah!" raising her voice, "bring the besom and sweep up the embers."

Melicent turned a look of dismay on her brother, who was taken with a slight cough. Sarah, otherwise Sally, came bashfully out from behind her father, where she had been crouching on the floor, and swept up the hearth with a brush broom.

The poor woman, anxious to do all honor to her visitors, and, also, to show them that she was above her circumstances, knew no other way than by using the largest words she could think of. Her idea of polite conversation was to make it as little as possible like anything she was accustomed to.

Melicent stated her errand at once, and the mother, with many thanks, and lamentations on her misfortunes, called the little ones forward, and placed them at the lady's disposal. She stopped in her compliments to dart a threatening look toward the door, where the boy who had been "named for the 'postle Paul" stood with his burden of dry sticks. He dropped them instantly, and came forward, and his mother as instantly resumed her smiling face. She could change her expression with remarkable facility.

Melicent fancied this boy at once, and promptly concluded a bargain to give a week's trial to him and his eldest sister. They were to go to "the hall," as Mrs. Patten politely called it, the next day, and begin their training. They would work for their food and clothing, and perhaps, after a while, when she should think them worthy, they might receive wages.

This settled, Miss Yorke and her brother departed, followed by Mrs. Patten's compliments to the door, and stared after by all the children. Joe's only movement on their going was to perform another courtesy like that with which he had received them.

"Poor souls! they are delighted to have their children with us," said Melicent, when they were out of hearing. "But I hope the mother won't come to see them often. Betsey says she is half-crazy."

"I respect her for it!" Carl exclaimed. "You can see that she has some talent and ambition, and that she has read some, though she is absurdly ignorant of the ways of the world. With such a husband, such a troop of children, and such poverty, I repeat I respect her for being crazy. She can't have a person to speak to but her own family, immured in those forest solitudes, as she says."

Mrs. Patten looked after them as long as she could see them, her face glowing with pride. Then she went into her house, went to the fireplace, and withdrew a pair of iron tongs that lay with red-hot tips in the coals there. "There is no need of them now," she said exultingly.

These tongs had been kept red during the last week for the better reception of any town officer who should venture to come for one of her children. Mrs. Patten did not by any means propose to submit tamely. Then she turned tragically, and faced her husband with a look of withering contempt.

"I was meant to be such a lady as that!" she exclaimed, with a grand gesture of the arm in the direction where Melicent Yorke had disappeared. "And yet, I sacrificed my birthright—fool that I was!—to marry you, Joe Patten!"

Joe shrank, and hugged the baby up to him. "I know you did, Sally!" he said deprecatingly—"I know you did!"

"And you never knew enough to appreciate me!" she continued in a tragic tone.

"I know I never did," answered Joe in a trembling voice—"I know it, Sally."

"Learn to respect me, then!" she said, drawing herself up. "Call me Mrs. Patten!"

"Yes, I will, I do, I have," whimpered Joe. "I—"

"Hold your tongue!" commanded his wife. "Paul, bring me those chips." And she proceeded to get supper.

Poor Sally Patten was not nearly so cruel as she appeared. In truth, she had never laid the weight of her hand upon her husband. But, then, he was always afraid she would.

TO BE CONTINUED.