Chapter XIV

BREAKING THE ICE.

“So the old clay bank has slipped down again, and the bushes have tumbled into the mud, and the men have piled their lumber over the ashes of my poor home. O Edith! my heart is buried under those boards. Thank you, dear, for going to see it for me.”

Dick wrote: “Which is Mohammed, and which is the mountain? I must see you, and if you cannot come here, I shall go to Seaton, though that would not be easy for me to do now. Besides, I want you to see your namesake. I have not long to stay, for the ship is about ready to start, and we take our cargo in at New York. It would be almost like a soldier deserting his army on the eve of battle for me to go away now. Do come if you can. It seems to me that you must wish to.”

belles-lettres. So far as it went, it was the library of a man of cultivated mind. His life, too, had educated him, and been a perpetual commentary on, or illustration or refutation of, his books. The phenomena of the sea he had studied not merely as a sailor, but as a student of natural history. Whatever culture can be derived from the intelligent visiting of foreign countries, without going into society there, that he had. He had not spent his time about wharves, and ships, and sailors’ boarding-houses. Aside from his own tastes, he never forgot that he was aspiring toward a girl who, if she should visit these lands, would walk in palaces. Therefore, whatever was famous in nature or art in those places, he sought and examined. Many a traveller who fancied himself perfectly cultivated brought away less pleasant and valuable information than this sailor from the cities they had both visited. Moreover, Dick had studied hard to acquire something of the language of every port he stopped at, and was already able to speak French and Italian with ease, if not with elegance. The elegance he did his best to improve by reading the best authors in those languages, and by a few lessons in pronunciation, when he could find time. Therefore, Miss Edith Yorke’s friend and correspondent was by no means one whom she had reason to be ashamed of.

But the Rowans were not the only ones who insisted on Edith’s visiting Boston at this time. Miss Clinton dictated a letter to Mr. Yorke, and Carl, suppressing his laughter, wrote it: “I have sent three times for that girl, and this is my last invitation to her. Why is she not allowed to come? Has she nothing to wear? I enclose a check for a gown and a pair of shoes. When she reaches here, I will give her what she may need to make her decent. Or is it that Amy Yorke is jealous because her own daughters are not invited? If one of them must come as company for Edith, I will pay her passage up, but I don’t want her here. She can go to Hester’s or Alice Mills’s. Melicent has too ridiculous an idea of her own consequence, and Clara is too sharp and impudent. Bird has read me her book, and I think it a very disagreeable book. She had better learn to cook and mend her stockings, and let writing alone.”

“Have you finished?” the old lady asked, as Carl, with pen suspended, looked up from his writing.

“Then sign my name.”

“Shall I write ‘yours respectfully’ or ‘yours affectionately’?” Carl asked, with perfect gravity.

“Neither!” she replied curtly. “Sign my name without any compliment.”

“May I add a few lines for myself?” the young man asked, when he had signed the name as directed. “There is a whole page left.”

“Yes.” The answer was given very softly, and a smile of singular sweetness flitted across the old lady’s face as she looked at the writer. Miss Clinton was very fond of Carl, in a tyrannical, tormenting, selfish way, and liked nothing so much as to have him ask favors of her.

He wrote rapidly a few minutes, and was about closing the letter, when she stopped him. “Read me what you have written,” she said.

Carl blushed slightly, and hesitated. “It was not written to read to you,” he answered.

“No matter, it will be all the more interesting,” she persisted. “Read it! You read mine.”

Carl hesitated yet a moment longer, then, casting his eyes up to the ceiling, read, as if he saw it written, in the painting there, a preposterous eulogy of Miss Clinton, with a minute account of her cat’s health.

“I won’t have it!” she cried out. “Read what you have written there, or give it to me, and Bird shall come and read it. If you were a decent writer, I should have eyes enough left to read it myself.”

Carl dropped his laughing manner. “Miss Bird will write a letter for you,” he said, and was about holding the one he had in the flame of a taper, when she stopped him. “Oh! send it as it is, since you are so stubborn; though I haven’t a doubt that you have written the most dreadful things of me.”

The Yorkes were highly amused by this letter. “You see, Edith, she is a dragon,” her uncle said. “You will have to carry yourself very gingerly.”

“I am not sure that is the best way to keep the peace with her,” Mrs. Yorke remarked. “It would do with some, but she grows more overbearing with indulgence. If she were touched by sweetness and submission, it would be different. I have thought of late years that such persons are benefited by a firm resistance.”

Clara also wrote: “Let mamma come with Edith, and stay at my house, of course. It is really a shame that she has never visited me in the city yet. Come right away, and we will all go back to Seaton together. You should come for poor Carl’s sake, to cheer him up a little, if for nothing else, for he must lead a miserable life with that awful old woman. You would not have believed he could be so patient. Indeed, he would have left long ago, if it had not been for the hope of bringing you all back here again. If he were the only one in question, he would not stay a day.”

Miss Mills also wrote in the same strain, and the result of it all was that the invitations were accepted, with a difference. “I will stop at Miss Clinton’s, since you think it better,” Edith said to her aunt. “But I must see a good deal of the Rowans.”

“Certainly, dear,” Mrs. Yorke replied. “But say as little as possible of the Rowans to Miss Clinton. It will only make her disagreeable. Hester will be happy to see the young man and his mother, and since he is a Catholic, I should think that Alice might be civil to him.”

“Oh! she is very green—very!” was the reply.

Carl sat looking out into the garden, unconscious that his companion was observing him curiously.

“Are you in love with that girl?” she asked after a moment.

Bold and hardened as she was, she started and shrank at the glance he gave her. No words could have been more haughty and repelling.

“Well,” she said pettishly, “you need not look daggers at me, if the question is not to your liking. You are not obliged to answer it.”

He looked out the window again, and said nothing. “She shall learn to keep her claws off me,” he thought.

No one but himself knew what a price Carl Yorke was paying for his expected inheritance. The ceaseless irritation and annoyance, the enforced giving up of his studies, and those literary labors which now seemed to him his vocation, and the constant confinement, were almost more than he could bear. But one thought supported him, and that was that he should some day be able to restore his family to their lost home, and to pursue those plans of his own which their reverses had interrupted.

He was also, not quite unconsciously, gaining something better than gold. He was seeing all the deformity of selfishness, and the unloveliness of that wit whose chief power is to wound. In asking the bitter questions, What is this woman living for? what good does her life do the world? echo had repeated the same questions in his own soul—What are you living for? what good does the world derive from your being in it? What in him and in others had been vices or faults, veiled with a certain decorum so as to look almost like virtues, in this woman’s character were stripped of the veil, and showed in all their native hatefulness. Here, too, were free-thinking and atheism au naturel, without the crown on their brows, the lustre he had fancied their faces radiated, and without their airy grace. He saw a scoffer, and it was as though he saw a devil. He had not the consolation of thinking her really worse than himself, for he could not shut his eyes to the fact that the difference between them had been in manner, not in essence. He had shown more good taste and delicacy, that was all.

“After all,” he thought, as he sat there that day, looking out the window, “however it may be with men, women need religion. I would not trust a woman without it. I will not retract my saying that religion is a strait-jacket, and intended only for those who cannot stand straight without it, but I begin to think that we are all of us partial lunatics.”

“I have heard say that parlor means a place to parle in,” remarked Miss Clinton presently.

“The orioles are building in this tree,” Carl said, quite as though nothing unpleasant had happened.

She tossed her head. What did she care about orioles?

“How blood will show, both good blood and bad,” she said with the air of one who has just discovered a great truth. “Wealth, associates, travel, occupations, education, neither will efface the signature. The original stamp remains in spite of circumstances.”

At the beginning, Carl scented battle, but he assumed an air of great cheerfulness. “You are quite right,” parvenu, Adam, and that still more frightfully new person, his wife, have left an indelible stain upon their progeny. We can see it to this day, faintly in some, more strongly marked in others. And, on the other hand, that prince of the ancien régime, Lucifer—”

“Nonsense!” interrupted Miss Clinton. “I was going to say, if you can stop your most disagreeable and disrespectful mocking—I was going to say that you have some of the Bohemian lounging ways of your father, though you never saw him, and though you have been under the training of Charles Yorke since your babyhood.”

“Do you think I have my father’s ways?” Carl asked, with an air of delight. “How glad I am! No one else ever told me so, and I was afraid I might be all Arnold. My mother is, of course, an angelic lady; but some of her family have had traits which—really—well, I should a little rather not inherit. And so you think me like my father? Thank you!”

“The Arnolds and the Clintons, sir, are families from whom you may be proud to inherit anything!” the old lady cried, beating the table with her fan. “They were among the élite of Boston and New York when this country was a British province. We had colonial governors and judges, sir, when your father’s people were painting signs and door-steps. It is rather late in the day, young man, for you to have to be told what my descent is!”

She stopped, choking with anger.

The young man seemed to be much interested in this recital. “Indeed!” he said, “this is very delightful to know, and it makes such a difference! Though I had always understood that your descent had been very—precipitous!”

Miss Clinton glared at him, unable to utter a word, and seemed only just able to restrain herself from throwing her snuff-box at him.

He rose wearily, and went out of the room, having half a mind to run away altogether.

But ah! who met him at the door, bringing sunshine and peace in her fair face, holding out two dear little hands, and scattering with a word all his annoyance?

“Dear Carl,” Edith said, “are you really glad to see me—really glad?”

“How could you imagine such a thing?” he replied.

“Then I will go back to Seaton again. Good-by!”

She took a step toward the street-door, only a step, both her hands being strongly held.

“You forget, then, silvern speech and golden silence,” the young man said.

“No,” she replied. “But solid silver is better than airy gold. If people say kind things to you, then you are sure, and have something to remember; but looks fade, and you can think that you mistake, or mistook. Oh! I like silence, Carl, but it must be a silence that follows after speech. That is the sole golden silence.”

“I am glad to see your face and hear your voice once more, Edith,” he said seriously. “I have many a time longed for both.”

“Dear Carl!” she exclaimed. “But what is that I hear? Is it a parrot?”

Carl laughed. “Hush! It is Miss Clinton. She is calling out to know who has come. We will go in and see her.”

Miss Clinton had one pleasant expression, and that was a smile, when she was so delighted by something out of herself as to forget herself.

“I’m sure that is a golden silence,” Carl said, laughing. “But what do you think of her, aunt? She likes to have people speak first, and look afterward.”

“You are welcome, dear!” the old lady said softly, and extended her hand, but without leaning forward. To take it, therefore, Edith had to come very near, and was drawn gently down to the footstool by Miss Clinton’s chair.

The old lady took off the girl’s hat, and dropped it on to the carpet, then studied her face with delight. She loosened one of the braids of hair wound around her head, and held it out to a sunbeam to see the sparkle of it. She pushed it back from the face. “Did you ever see such ears?” she said to Carl. “They are rose-leaves! There must be a large pearl hung in each. She drew her finger along the smooth curve of the brows. “A great artist and physiognomist once told me that such brows show a fine nature. Broken brows, he said, indicate eccentricities of character, brows bent toward the nose a tyrannical disposition, heavy brows reserve and silence, but this long, smooth brow versatility and grace. Read Lavater if you want to know all about eyebrows.” She took the cheek, now glowing with blushes, in the hollow of her hand, and held the eyelids down to admire the lashes. “They make the eyes look three shades darker than they really are. But what color are the eyes? They are no color. Did you ever see a shaded forest spring, Carl? These eyes are as limpid.”

“Oh! please don’t!” the girl begged, trying to hide her face.

“My dear, I shall call you Eugénie, and shall adore you,” Miss Clinton continued. “I hope they have not told you horrible stories about me, or that, if they have, you will not believe them. People are fond of saying that I am sharp, but I quote Victor Hugo to them, ‘La rose du Bengale, pour être sans épines, est aussi sans parfum.’ A character without any sharpness would be like an ocean without salt. Temper sweetens. When any person is recommended to me as of a very mild and placid position, never getting angry, I always say, Keep that person out of my sight! Yes, I shall call you Eugénie. I dislike the Edith on account of old Mrs. Yorke. She and I always quarrelled, dear. We were what some one has called ‘intimate enemies.’ But I don’t mean to quarrel with her grand-daughter. You have your father’s eyes and hair, Eugénie, but your mother’s features. I hope you have not her disposition. She was too positive, and, besides, she ran away with another woman’s beau.”

Edith drew back, and stood up, turning to Carl.

“There! she is angry the first thing,” the old lady cried. “No danger of anybody’s thinking her sans épines. Take her down to get some breakfast, Carl.”

“Dick Rowan is here,” Edith said, as the two went down-stairs; “and he is a Catholic; and he has a new ship which he has named for me.”

There was no reply. They were going through the shady entry, and, if the young man frowned at the news, the frown was not seen.

“Aunt Amy has gone to Hester’s,” Edith went on. “She got over the journey nicely, and wants

Later, while the young traveller was resting in the chamber assigned her, a visitor entered gently, unannounced. “I thought I might come, dear,” Miss Mills said.

Edith raised herself, and eagerly held out her arms. The lady embraced her tenderly, then dropped, rather than sat down, in a chair by the bed. She looked with a strange mingling of feelings on this child of her lost lover. When she recognized the tint of his hair and eyes in Edith’s, she bent toward her with yearning love; but then appeared some trait of the mother—a turn of the head, a smile unconsciously proud, an exquisitely fine outline of feature; and, at sight of it, that wounded heart shrank back as from a deadly enemy. The interview was friendly, and even tender, and engagements were made for future meetings; but the lady was glad to get away. The sight of Robert Yorke’s child had wakened all the sleeping past, and for a time the years that had intervened since her parting with him faded like a mist. Since that day, more than one power, at first pride, later religion, had strengthened her, had raised up new hopes and new joys; but they were not the sweet human hopes and joys that every man and woman looks naturally for; they were those born of struggle and self-denial. She had lived truly and nobly, but she was human; and to-day her humanity rose, and swept over her like a flood.

Miss Mills locked herself into her room, and for once gave herself up to regret. It was no ordinary affection which she mourned. It had entered her heart silently, and been welcomed like an angel visitant; it had been held sacred. She had watched it with awe and delight as it grew, that strange, beautiful, terrible power! How complex it had become, entering into every feeling, every interest! How it had changed and given a new meaning to life, and a new idea and comprehension of herself!

Then, when it had got to seem that she alone was not a complete being, but only about to become perfect—then destruction came.

If the foundation merely of an edifice be overthrown, there is hope that it may be rebuilt; but destruction overtaking when the topmost height is almost attained is destruction indeed.

In the evening a knock was heard at the chamber door, which she had all day refused to open, a note was pushed under the door, and a servant waited outside for her to read it. She rose wearily, lighted the gas, and glanced over the lines. “I am sorry you have headache, sorry for you and for me. Edith is talking with Mr. Rowan, and I am, consequently, de trop. There is no one I care to see to-night but you. Send me word if you are better.”

“Tell him to wait,” she ordered, and, hastily dressing for a walk, went down. The front parlor was not lighted, but she saw him sitting by a window there. “Come out!” she said. “I wanted to go to the chapel, and you are just in time.”

Scarcely a word was spoken as they went through the streets together. They entered the chapel, and turned aside into a shady corner. Carl sat,

“Jesus, lover of my soul.”

“Alice,” Carl whispered, “that is enough to break one’s heart!”

Her tears broke forth afresh. “No, Carl, it is enough to heal a heart already broken.” She listened, and looking toward the altar, repeated over and over,

“Other refuge have I none.”

The solitude and quiet were soothing to both—the sense of a divine presence more than soothing to her who had faith in it.

They had not been there long when a gentleman came up the aisle with a firm, but light step, passed by without noticing them, and knelt down just before them. Carl sat and gazed at him in astonishment. That Dick Rowan should outwardly and publicly conform to the church, for Edith’s sake, was not surprising, but that he should come privately to the chapel to pray was inexplicable. Could it be that a brave, manly fellow like this could sincerely believe?

Utterly unconscious of observation, the sailor knelt there motionless, with his face hidden in his hands, and when Carl’s companion whispered to him, and they both went out, that figure had not stirred.

Edith Yorke’s friend began at once to show her what was notable in the city; but, as often happens, what they considered worth seeing disappointed the neophyte, and what they passed without notice she would fain have paused to look at. Inexperienced persons who have read much usually overestimate the magnitude of the wonders they have not seen. What young traveller, entering for the first time a city, ever found its houses as palatial, its streets as superb, its monuments as grand, as fancy had pictured them?

“Everything looks so much smaller and more shabby,” Edith confessed privately to Dick Rowan. “Trees and waters are finer than any pictures of them that I have seen, and faces that speak and smile are more beautiful than any painted ones. Only some pictures of Italian scenes delight me. Now, Dick, please do not be shocked when I tell you that I quite long to stop and look at the organ-grinders and their monkeys, and to gaze in at the shop windows. But I can’t, you know, for that would make Carl and Hester and Miss Mills ashamed of me.”

The result of this confidence was that, dressed to attract as little attention as possible, these two friends set the others aside, and went on long tramps together. They paid not much attention to the finer sights, but dived into all sorts of byways. They looked in at shop windows, at birds and shells and jewels, and more than one shopkeeper was smilingly pleased to display his best wares at the young lady’s shy request, though informed beforehand that she did not mean to buy. They watched the organ-grinders and their monkeys to their hearts’ content; they amused themselves with the gamins, and held various conversations with them; they were bountiful to street-beggars. Ragged urchins were astonished by showers of candy that seemed to descend from heaven on their heads, poor little weeping outcasts were asked to tell their griefs, and listened to with tender sympathy, tears perhaps rising into one pair of eyes that looked at them. Sometimes a wretched pauper, walking with downcast face through the street, felt something touch his hand and leave a bit of money there, and looked up to see a lady and gentleman just passing, and

“Oh! immensely!” Dick replies. “I have chests of gold. Give away as much as you wish to.”

One blind man gone astray long remembered how a soft hand took one of his, and a firm hand the other, and his two guides led him home, inquiring into his misfortune by the way, and commiserating him more tenderly than brother or sister ever had.

“It is so sad to have all the beautiful world shut out,” said the sweet voice out of the dark. “But one might, I think, see heavenly things the more plainly.”

The poor man never lost himself afterward, but he looked blindly, and listened to hear once more those two voices, and to feel the clasp of those two hands, one soft as charity, the other strong as faith. And since they never came to him again, to his imprisoned soul it seemed as though heavenly visitants had led him, and spoken sacred words for him to remember. These two young creatures, out of the happy world of the rich and prosperous, were not afraid of soiling their hands or their clothes, and did not look on the poor as they did on the paving-stones.

“O Dick!” Edith said in one of those walks, “I do not wonder that the Lord could not stay in heaven when he saw the misery of earth, and knew that there was no comfort even in another world for it. What a trial it must have been for him to sit above there, and hear all the cries of pain that went up, and see all the weeping faces that were raised. Why, Dick, it seems to me that if I could see and know at once all the suffering there is to-day in this one city, it would kill me. I wish we could do something besides play, as we do. Perhaps we ought to work all our lives for the wretched, you and I; who can tell?”

“Yes!” the young man replied slowly, and was silent a moment, thinking. “That idea comes into my mind sometimes,” he added. “I always fancy that the poor and the wicked look at me in an asking way, differently from what they do to others, as if they expected me to do something for them. It may be only because they see how I look at them. I never see one but I think, How should I feel if that were my father or my mother? But I don’t know what great work I could do. My life seems mapped out.”

Sometimes their expeditions were merrier. They went to the Back Bay lands, then not filled in, and stood so close to the railroad tracks that the passing trains blew in their faces. “I like strength and force,” Edith said; “and I like the wind in my face. It would be pleasant to ride in a car with an open front, and the engine on behind. Does it not seem like that in a ship at sea, Dick?”

“Better than that,” he answered, his eyes brightening. “For at sea you have a clear track, and can fly on without stopping or turning out for anything.”

“Now, let’s go and see that large building,” the girl said. “Isn’t it fine to go about in this way? You are Haroun-al-Raschid, and I am anybody, and we are exploring our capital. We are, perhaps, invisible. Stop a minute. There are fishes in this ditch. I am going to catch one with a crooked pin.”

They looked at the large building, Chickering’s piano-forte factory, and Dick described foreign buildings to his companion, and described so

One morning they went to Mass to receive communion together. The morning was lovely, the spring green all freshness, the birds singing, the sun stealing goldenly through a faint mist. Edith rose happy, and everything added to her happiness. It was delightful to have some one to go to Mass with. It only now occurred to her that she had been lonely in her religion.

“I hope that I shall make a good communion,” she said to herself, as she began to dress. “What should I do? Let me think! If I had a house of my own, rather a poor little place, and some one I loved and honored were coming to visit me, I should first make my house clean. Then I should adorn it all I could, and prepare a little feast. I have no servant, I will say, and must do everything myself. I am rather glad of that, for I can show my good-will so. I will not mind getting on my knees to scrub out the darkest corners. But I must let in light to see where to cleanse. Come, Holy Spirit! enlighten my soul, and let no darkness remain where a sin can hide itself. Then comes my confession; but what poor things confessions are! I wish I could say, I accuse myself of having broken all the ten commandments of God, and the six commandments of the church, and of having committed the seven deadly sins, and every sin that could be committed, and each a thousand times over. Then I should be sure to get them all in. But Father Rasle says that, if our dispositions are good, the sins we forget, or do not understand, are included and forgiven with those we confess. As when a woman sweeps her room, she sweeps out, perhaps, some things she does not see. Well, say that my house is clean, what have I to adorn it with?” She paused with the brush half-drawn through her hair, and the first sunbeams, shining in her face, shone on gathering tears. She recollected herself, and went on with her dressing. “Such a bare reception! Nothing to offer! How about faith, hope, and charity? I believe everything, I could believe a thousand times more; but even the devils believe, Father Rasle says. I don’t know whether I hope in the right way. Hope is a hard virtue to manage. Do I love him? Yes! Even though I do wrong, still I love him. It is no sign that you do not love a person, even if you do things to vex him. What good work can I do to-day? I will read Miss Clinton to sleep, and let Bird go out. That will be something, because I would rather go out myself. And I will ask Miss Clinton if I may read a paper to her. That will be awfully hard, for she will stare at me, and then laugh in that way that makes me want to run out of the room. And I will—yes—no—will I? Yes, I will try to kiss her, if I possibly can. She would be pleased; but I shouldn’t be. Those will be like little daisies at the doorstep when he comes in. But my house is bare yet. If only I had some pain to offer!”

Her eyes chanced to fall on a coil of picture-cord, and the sight of it gave her a new and startling thought. She paused a moment, then, rising, pulled her curtains close, opened the

Sobbing, half-fainting, she rose after a while, and hid the precious pencil, with which she had painted a picture for the wall of her little reception-room.

“I must put on something extra, so that the blood shall not show through my dress,” she said; but, looking to wipe away the blood, behold! not a drop was there, but only long welts of red and white crossing her fair shoulders.

Edith hid her face, with a feeling of utter humiliation and grief. She had been agonizing under the blows which had produced only a few marks, and yet fancying that she imitated him whose flesh had been torn by the lash, and whose blood had flowed in streams. “I can do nothing, nothing! I am silly and presumptuous,” were the thoughts with which she finished her preparation to go out.

But, trivial as her penance had been, it brought humility, and a deeper sense of the sufferings of our Lord.

A servant who was washing the steps as Edith went out, smiled gratefully to the pleasant greeting of the young lady, and looked after her as she went down the street. The servants, all Catholics, were very proud and fond of this young Catholic in their Protestant household.

“Since I cannot do anything,” Edith pursued, as she walked on toward the church, “I will ask the Blessed Virgin and St. Joseph to come first, and be in my house when the Lord shall enter. He will be pleased to find them there. Then, when the time comes, I will go and meet him at the door; but how dreadfully ashamed I shall be! I shall not dare to look up, but I shall say, ‘Welcome, Lord!’ and kneel down, and kiss his feet. Then, if there is anything more to be done, he will do it, for I can do nothing. How odd it is that I should feel so ashamed at having him come to me, and yet should want him to come! I wouldn’t put it off for anything.”

Dick was waiting inside the chapel-door for her. He pointed her to a confessional, then took his place near the altar. When it came time for communion, they knelt side by side, but retired again to different seats.

How long Edith knelt there she did not know. She had covered her face with her hands, shutting out the sight of all about her, and her soul had entered a new scene. There was a simple, small room, bare save for two vague, luminous presences, one at either side, lighting the place. There was an open door, with vines

The tinkling of a bell awoke her as from a sound sleep—a flicker, as of flames in the wind, moved those heavenly lines of receding faces, and Edith lifted her head, and recollected where she was, seeming to be suddenly transported back there from a distance. The priest was carrying the host away from the altar of the chapel up to the church. He held the sacred burden clasped closely to his breast, and bent his head slightly toward it. He looked at it as he walked, yet chose his steps with care. He wrapped around it the golden veil, of which the fringe glistened like fire as he moved. No mother could carry a sleeping infant more tenderly.

Edith stretched out her hands, with a momentary feeling of bereavement, for the Lord was going away. “Oh! take my heart with thee!” she prayed.

The lights disappeared, the sound of the bell grew fainter up the stairs, and ceased. She sighed, then smiled again, and became aware of Dick sitting at the furthest end of the bench, and waiting for her. They went out by separate aisles, and met at the door.

“I would like to have followed up into the church, and waited till he was at rest again, and seen where they lay him,” Edith said after a while.

Dick smiled quietly, and said nothing. He was looking quite pale, but bright. She made no comment on his looks, thinking that the communion was the cause of his emotion.

They went to the public gardens before going home. It was very lovely there. The mists of the morning had slowly gathered themselves into detached clouds, and they scarcely moved, the air was so still. The trees and the many pink flowers about glistened with dew.

Edith began to love her quietude, and grow merry, but with an angelic merriment. “Do you think that the Lord came down to the garden only at evening?” she asked. “I think he came at early morning, unless he stayed all night—morning is so beautiful! How alive everything is! You can almost see eyes in the flowers. See the swans on the water. They float like clouds in the sky. Fancy a pink swan in a large blue lake, throwing up sprays as white as snow over his bosom! Do you think that the earth was any more beautiful when it was first made? Is it not lovely now?”

There was no answer in words, but the young man’s eyes, glancing about, were eloquent, and his smile was one of peaceful delight.

“Come,” the girl said, “let’s play that this is really the Garden of Eden, and that you and I are just taking our first walk in it, wondering over everything. Let us look at ourselves in the water, and see if we are as beautiful as all the rest.”

He smiled at the childish fancy, took the hand she offered him, and went with her over the water. The swans passed by, and sent ripples over their mirror, but it was clear enough to give back the image of a

“Adam,” said the woman, “thou art more stately than the palm, and thine eyes have beams like the sun. Let us praise the Creator who hath formed thee in his own image!”

Dick’s hand and voice trembled, his face grew red in the water, then grew pale. “Eve,” he said, “thou art whiter and more graceful than the swan, and, while thou art speaking, the birds listen. I praise him who has given thee to me to be mine alone and for ever—my mate in this world and in the next.”

Speaking, his light clasp grew tight on her hand.

The face and throat that had shown swan-white in the water grew rose-red, then disappeared as Edith started back.

“How could I look forward to anything else, Edith?” the young man exclaimed desperately. “I have never dreamed of any other life. I have worked, and studied, and hoped for you. What! will you turn away from me now, for the first time? God have mercy on me!”

She did not utter a word at first. She was too much confounded. It was to her as though the friend she had so long known had been suddenly snatched from her side, and a stranger like, and yet unlike, him put in his place. This man with the pallid face and trembling voice was not Dick Rowan. She wanted to get away from him. But after a step or two she turned back again.

“Who would have thought it?” she said, looking at him anxiously, as though half hoping that the whole was a jest.

“Who would have thought anything else?” he replied, taking courage.

She turned away again, but he walked on beside her. It was too late to withdraw. Having spoken, he must say all.

“I think you were the only person who did not see what I lived for,” he said.

“But it is nonsense!” she exclaimed.

“We have always known each other. We are like brother and sister. Is it only strangers who marry?” he asked.

“Marry! Fie! I never thought of such a thing!” she said angrily.

“Won’t you please think of it now, Edith?” he asked, in a voice so gentle and controlled that it recalled her own self-possession. “This has been the great thought of my life. It made me ambitious, for your sake. I am a Catholic, thank God! and a sincere one, but it was love of you that led me to study and think on that subject. When my life hangs in the balance, I am sure you will at least stop to think, dear.”

She looked at him, but he did not return her glance. His eyes were fixed on the ground, and it really seemed as though his life did hang in the balance.

“I’d like to stop and talk about it a little while, Dick,” she said. “Sit here. Now, be reasonable, and I will not be cross again. Forgive me! I was so surprised, you know; for I have been studying all my life, and never thought about this. Now, it seems to me, Dick, that I shall never want to be married to any one whatever. I shall live with Aunt Amy, and, when she is dead, I will go into a convent, or, if I should have money, will do something for the poor, perhaps. If you want to have me with you, some time I can go on a voyage in your ship, and you can always

He smiled faintly.

“Oh! thank you!” she said, greatly relieved.

“Has any one else ever spoken to you in this way, Edith?” he asked, looking at her searchingly.

“Oh! no,” she answered with decision. “I am not at all engaged, or anything like it. No one ever cared anything about me. And I hope you are satisfied now, Dick. It is very well for people to marry who are afraid of losing each other; but we can live close by when we grow old, or perhaps in the same house.”

“I have disturbed and troubled you, Edith,” the young man said after awhile, “but I could not help it. There must be a beginning to everything, and I had to make a beginning of this. I don’t expect you to treat it seriously now, but I want you to think of it. It seemed right that I should speak, or some one else might speak while I am gone, and take you away from me.”

“But I should never think of having any one else, if you want me,” she replied with perfect conviction. “I may not ever marry at all, but, if I do, you will have the first chance.”

Dick Rowan’s whole face caught fire. “Why, darling!” he exclaimed joyfully, “do you mean that?”

She was astonished and pleased at the effect of her words, “Truly,” she answered. “You know very little of me if you do not know that I have always considered myself to belong more to you than to any one else.”

They had now reached Miss Clinton’s door, and there they parted without more words.

But Edith’s indecision was of shorter duration than either she or her friend had anticipated. The subject was so foreign to her thoughts that at first she had comprehended nothing, and had received Dick Rowan’s avowal in a most childish manner. But a few hours’ consideration had set the whole in a different light. She went down to Hester’s as soon as dinner was over, and asked for her aunt. Mrs. Yorke was in her own room, writing a letter, and she only glanced up with a smile as her niece entered.

“All well at Miss Clinton’s?” she asked, folding the letter.

“Yes, very well.”

“Anything new?”

“Miss Clinton told me last night that her will is made, leaving everything to Carl, and that, if I marry to suit her, I am to have her jewels, shawls, and laces. I do not want them, though I would rather have fresh new things for myself, if they are not so rich.”

“Whom does she wish you to marry?” Mrs. Yorke asked, directing her letter.

“She did not say,” Edith replied in a constrained voice, looking down.

Mrs. Yorke glanced at her niece, then put her arm out and drew her close. “You have something to tell me, dear,” she said.

Edith began to tremble. “Yes, Aunt Amy. Dick Rowan has been talking to me this morning, and, if you and Uncle Charles are willing, and if I should ever marry any one, I am going to marry him.”

Mrs. Yorke’s brows contracted slightly, rather with anxiety than displeasure. “Dear child, are you sure of yourself?” she asked. “One may have a very great affection for a person, and not be willing to marry him. Don’t be hasty. Take time to think of it till he shall come back again. If you promise, you may regret it. I must say, dear, I think it selfish of him to speak so when you have seen

Edith raised her head from her aunt’s shoulder. “Oh! Dick isn’t selfish, and he only asked me to think of it, and to know that he wanted me.”

It was useless to oppose. After a little more talk, Mrs. Yorke promised to consent if both were of the same mind after a year. “And now, Edith, I have concluded to start for home to-morrow, and I want to see Carl right away.”

She did not say that she had only come to this conclusion since Edith had entered her room.

“And I also wish to see Mr. Rowan,” she added. “Did he not mean to consult me?”

“Oh! yes,” Edith said eagerly. “He is coming up this evening; and, Aunt Amy”—very hesitatingly—“don’t let me be married for a great while, till I am twenty-five, at least. Of course,” looking up quickly, as if some doubt had been expressed—“of course, I think the world of him, and don’t wish to marry any one else; but I cannot, cannot hurry.”

Mrs. Yorke had a long conversation with her niece’s lover, that evening, and laid down the law rather severely to him. No one but Edith, herself, and Mr. Yorke were to know of his proposal. “I do not wish her to be talked about, and assigned to any one, when nothing is decided,” she said. “It is for that purpose that I am taking her away so soon, to prevent talk. If, when you come home next year, she wishes it, and nothing has happened to raise any new objection, I shall not oppose you.”

He sat a moment silent. He asked nothing better than he had got; but his proud spirit rebelled at the manner in which the promise was given. He was tolerated because they could not help themselves.

“Do you agree to that?” she asked, after waiting a moment.

“Certainly!” he replied. “I forgot to say so, and to thank you, because, excuse me! I was thinking how much poorer an offering is a man’s whole heart and faithful allegiance than a full purse.”

“If you had millions, it would make no difference, Mr. Rowan,” Mrs. Yorke said hastily, her color rising. “If I am not cordial in welcoming you into this relation, my reasons are not mercenary, nor—” her manner softened—“nor because I do not respect and like you.”

She held her hand out to him. He bent gallantly over it, murmured a word of thanks, and took leave without saying any more.

He was willing, almost glad, that Edith should go home. He welcomed any stir and progress in events which would seem to pass the time more quickly along. Let him get over his year of probation, and, during it, be separated from her, if they chose. Her doubt and trouble in their new relations troubled him. When he should come again, all would be settled. He was full of hope and triumph, and far removed from jealousy. She had said that she should not think of marrying any one but him; and what Edith said was as sure as sunrise.

(IN MEMORIAM.)

A CONVERT.

1856.

(These lines express the feelings of one, now at rest, who was loved and honored by all who knew him—including, probably, those who cast him off.)

THE LIQUEFACTION OF THE BLOOD OF ST. JANUARIUS.

NO. II.

St. Januarius first seen by men? It is not easy to answer the question. Some Neapolitan writers have maintained that it occurred probably on the very day when the remains of the sainted bishop were first solemnly transferred to Naples. For then, naturally and as a matter of course, the vials of the blood must have been brought into close proximity with the relics of the head. And this proximity, now intentionally brought about at each exposition, seems to be ordinarily the necessary and sufficient condition for the occurrence of the liquefaction. Others, however, prefer to be guided by positive historical evidence, and have come to a different conclusion. There is in existence a life of the saint written in or near Naples, about the year 920. It combines historical accounts and later legends, and evidently omits nothing which the writer thought would promote veneration toward the saint. It is diffuse on the subject of miracles. There is also in existence a panegyric of the saint, written perhaps half a century earlier still. No mention whatever is made in either of them of this Liquefaction. We may, therefore, conclude that in the year 920 it was not known. Four hundred and fifty years later, it was known, and had been known so long as to be reputed of ancient standing. About 1380, Lupus dello Specchio wrote the life of St. Peregrine of Scotland, who came to Naples about the year 1100, and died there probably about 1130. In that life it is St. Peregrine came to witness this celebrated and continual miracle—quotidianum et insigne miraculum. Now, it may well be that the author, writing about two hundred and fifty years after the death of St. Peregrine, had access to documents and evidences clearly establishing this fact, although such documents do not now exist, five hundred years later, or, at least, have not as yet been exhumed from some dusty library, where they may be lying unnoticed. Or, on the contrary, it may possibly be that in 1380 Lupus believed that the miracle, so regular in its occurrence at his day, had regularly occurred since the year of the translation of the body, and took it as a matter of course that St. Peregrine had witnessed it; and so put that down among the facts of his life. But this, even though a harsh criticism, and one we think unwarranted, if not excluded, by the words of the life, would imply at least that, in 1380, the Liquefaction had occurred for so long a time that men had ordinarily lost the memory of its commencement.

Maraldus the Carthusian, who accompanied his abbot Rudolph to the coronation of Roger, King of Sicily, as historiographer, tells us in his Chronicon—or perhaps his continuator—how, in 1140, Roger visited Naples, and how there he venerated the relics of the head and of the blood of St. Januarius. The Liquefaction is not mentioned in so many words. But these relics would not have been singled out from all others in the city, and made so prominent, without some special reason—a reason, perhaps, so well known and so obvious that it did not occur to the writer to state it explicitly, any more than to say that the king venerated the relics in the daytime and not at night.

The learned and critical Bollandists, who have carefully weighed all that can be said on this question, incline to hold that the Liquefaction commenced somewhere between the years 900 and 1000. Prior to the century between those years, St. Januarius had been ranked among the minor patrons of the church of Naples. After that century, he holds the most prominent place and rank in their calendar. This change is unusual and important, and must have been based on some sufficient reason. The most probable one under the circumstances—if not the only one that can be assigned—is that during that century the Liquefactions became known. The contemporary records of Naples for that time were very few; for it was a period of incessant warrings, devastations, and tumults. Those that did exist probably perished in the not unfrequent destruction of the monastic libraries. Still, some venerable manuscript may even yet come to light, telling us how on some festival day, or day of supplication, the relics were all on the altar, the vials of the blood near to the head; how some of the crowd that prayed before the altar saw that the blood in the vial had become liquid; how the wonderful thing was spoken of and seen by many; how, on other occasions, it occurred again and again; until at last it came to be regularly looked for, as a part, and the most wonderful part, of the celebration.

After 1400, the notices of the Liquefaction are more frequent. Æneas Sylvius Piccolomini (afterwards Pope Pius II.) gives an account of VIII. into Italy, mentions his visiting Naples in 1495, and his witnessing and examining this miracle of the Liquefaction.

In 1470, Angelo Catone, a physician of Salerno, who devoted the later years of his life to literature and to travelling, has written a brief but clear account of it. Picus de la Mirandola, the wonder of his age, has also left his testimony as an eye-witness.

It is needless to say that, since the invention of printing and the multiplication of books, we have numberless accounts of it from travellers and authors, in Latin, Italian, German, Polish, English, French, Spanish, and every language of Europe.

Ever since September, 1659—ten years after the opening of the new Tesoro chapel—an official diary has been kept in it, recording day by day the expositions of the relics; in what state and condition the blood was found when extracted from the armoire, or closet; after the lapse of what length of time the change, if any, occurred; what was its course and character; in what condition the blood was, when safely replaced in its closet in the evening; and, generally, any other facts of the day which the officers charged with this duty deemed worthy of note.

There are also printed forms in blank to the same effect, which one of them fills out and signs in the sacristy attached to the Tesoro, and distributes each day of exposition to those who desire them. We have several in our possession.

Another diary is kept in the archiepiscopal archives. It was commenced long before that of the Tesoro. We had an opportunity of looking over it. Down to the year 1526, it seems to be made up from previous documents and extracts from various authors. In 1526, it assumes the character of an original diary. Here and there come intervals during which it appears not to have been regularly kept on. These omissions would be supplied from other sources, when, after a time, the diary would be resumed. From 1632 it is complete. We have before us a manuscript abstract of it, from which we will quote hereafter.

The church of Naples celebrates three festivals of St. Januarius each year; the feast proper of the saint, commemorating his martyrdom; the feast of the translation, commemorating the transfer of his body from Marcian to Naples; and the feast of the patronage, a votive one of thanksgiving. We take them up in the order of time as they occur each year.

I. The first Sunday of May is the feast of the translation. On the preceding Saturday—the vigil, as it is termed—a solemn procession, during the forenoon, bears the bust containing the relics of the head of the saint from the cathedral to the church of Santa Chiara, or St. Clare. In the afternoon, another more imposing procession conveys the reliquary of the blood to the same church, in which the liquefaction is then looked for. About sunset, both relics are borne back in procession to the cathedral and Tesoro chapel, and at the proper hour are duly locked up. On the next day, Sunday, they are brought out, first to the altar of the Tesoro chapel, and thence, after a couple of hours, to the high altar of the cathedral. In the afternoon, at the appointed hour, they are again brought back to the Tesoro chapel, and are duly replaced in their closet, or armoire. The same is repeated on Monday, and on each succeeding day of the octave up to the following Sunday, inclusive. Thus, for this nine successive days of exposition. And, inasmuch as in the mind of the church the vigil, the feast, and the octave are all united together, as the celebration of one festival in a more solemn form, so we naturally look on those nine expositions not as isolated and distinct, one from the other, but as in some way connected together and united to compose a single group.

The feast and its vigil are found in ancient calendars of the church of Naples. The octave was added about the year 1646, on the occasion of completing and consecrating the new Tesoro chapel, the work and the pride of the city. The processions on the vigil were at first directed to such churches as the ecclesiastical authorities might from time to time select, to meet the convenience or the wishes of the faithful. In 1337, eight special churches were designated to which in an established order of succession the processions would thereafter go in turn each year. In 1526, it was stipulated between the city authorities and the archbishop that they should instead go in turn to six municipal halls, or seggie, as the Neapolitans styled them, belonging to as many civic bodies or corporations, which united, in some complex and ancient way, in the municipal government of the city: that is, to the chapels or churches attached to these seggie. This regulation was strictly followed until the year 1800. The old mediæval usages and liberties had by that time become weakened or had died out under the influence of modern centralization. The several old civic corporations of Naples, if they existed at all, existed only in name. The halls or seggie had lost their original importance and standing. A new regulation seemed necessary. From 1800 down, the procession of the vigil has gone each year to the church of Santa Chiara.

II. On the 19th of September occurs the Feast of St. Januarius, the chief or proper festival of the saint, commemorating his life of virtue and his glorious death by martyrdom under Diocletian. It is traced back to the earliest martyrologies and calendars of the church; even those of the Greek schismatic church have preserved it. In Naples, St. Januarius being the patron saint of the city, this festival is, of course, one of high rank, and has an octave. Opening on the nineteenth, and closing on the twenty-sixth of September, it gives each year eight days more, on each one of which the relics are brought forth about 9 A.M., and are placed on the main altar of the Tesoro chapel, and, about 11 A.M., are carried thence out to the high altar of the cathedral, whence again in the evening they are regularly brought back to the Tesoro chapel, to be replaced for the night in their proper closets. On each day, the liquefaction is looked for. The reason already given in the case of the May octave applies here also. These eight days of exposition are not eight isolated or distinct days, without any connection. They should rather be looked on as forming a second group.

III. On the 16th of December is celebrated the feast of the Patronage of St. Januarius. This is a single day festival in annual thanksgiving for many favors received, and especially for the preservation of Naples, two centuries and a half ago, from the fate of Herculaneum and Pompeii.

Naples lies almost under the shadow of Mount Vesuvius, that terrible volcano which, after slumbering peacefully for an unknown number of ages, renewed its fearful and destructive A.D. 79, 203, 462, 512, and more than fifty times since. The burning gas or the smoke from its crater has risen miles into the air, and has spread like a dark cloud scores of miles on one side or the other. It has thrown up stones, which fell in showers of lapilli ten miles away. Its ashes have been borne to Tunis and Algiers in Africa, and to Tuscany, to Illyria, and to Greece in other directions. Once they clouded the sky and filled the air even in Constantinople. Streams of molten lava have flowed down its sides, filling valleys that were broad and deep, and sending in advance a sulphurous atmosphere and a glowing heat which destroyed all animal and vegetable life, even before the fiery stream itself touched plant, tree, or animal. They roll on slowly, but so inflexible and irresistible that no work or art of man can stay the movement or control its course. Everything in its path is doomed to utter destruction. Resina, between Naples and the mountain, has been destroyed and rebuilt, it is said, seven times; Torre del Greco, near by, nine times. Other places have perished as did Herculaneum and Pompeii. On every side of the mountain, so fair to look on when peaceful, so terrible in its wrath, one may follow for miles on miles these ancient currents, radiating from the centre. Here the hard, dark rock rings, as iron would, under your horse’s hoof. There, what was once a death-bearing stream of lava has been covered by time with a rich soil, on which vines and olives flourish. By the shore, you may see where they reached the water, and have added leagues of rough volcanic rock to the land.

Naples has often been violently shaken, and sometimes seriously injured; has often been in imminent peril, but never was utterly destroyed. This brilliant capital, uniting in herself all that Italian taste admires of beauty and luxury—“Vedi Napoli, e muori”—lives with a sword of Damocles ever suspended over her. Each night as they retire the Neapolitans may shudder if they cast a thought on the possible horrors of the night they have entered on or what the morrow may bring them.

But men become callous even to such dangers as these, when often threatened and seldom felt. We can conceive how thoroughly all thought of them had died out in 1631, when Vesuvius, in a long unbroken sleep of one hundred and ninety-four years, had allowed six generations of Neapolitans to grow up and pass to their graves without any experience of its power. Earthquakes, explosions, flames, smoke, and streams of fire were all forgotten. Towns and villages, and gardens and vineyards, were dotting the base of the mountain or climbing its pleasant and fertile slopes. And among the many charming scenes in the neighborhood of Naples, there were then none more sweet and charming than those of the narrow tract between the city and Mount Vesuvius.

So it was on the morning of Tuesday, the 16th of December, 1631. Yet fair as was the scene on which the sun rose that day, it was to be greatly changed ere night. Early in the morning, the citizens were startled and somewhat alarmed by a very perceptible tremulousness of the earth under their feet. It increased in violence as the hours rolled on, and the atmosphere too, December though it was, became sultry and close. The inhabitants of the beautiful villas and the farmers and country laborers, who had felt the trembling of the earth and A.M. a cry of affright went up from the city and the country, as suddenly the mountain shook and roared as if in agony. All eyes turned to the summit of Vesuvius, only yesterday so fair and green. A huge turbid column of smoke was seen swiftly springing upward from its cone toward the sky. High up, it spread out like the top of a mighty pine or palm. The lightning flashed through this rolling, surging, ever-increasing mass as it rapidly expanded on every side. By 11 A.M., Naples lay under the dark and fearful cloud which shut out the heavens and darkened the day. The incessant trembling of the earth was perceptibly increasing in violence. Men felt that they were at the beginning of they knew not what terrible tragedy, before which they felt themselves utterly powerless.

The ever-open churches were soon crowded with fear-stricken suppliants. The cardinal archbishop at once directed religious services to be commenced in them all, and to be continued without intermission. In the hours of the afternoon there would be a procession through the streets near the cathedral, in which the relics of St. Januarius would be borne. Men prayed to be spared from the impending doom. The trembling earth might open to swallow them; the tottering houses might fall and crush them; or the mountain, whose sullen roar, like that of an angry monster, they heard amid and above all other sounds, might destroy them in some other more fearful way. They prayed and did penance, like the Ninivites of old. They sought to prepare their souls for the death which might come to many of them.

To the gloom and horrors of the dark cloud of smoke, spread as a funeral pall over the city, was added, later in the day, a pouring rain. The water came down heated and charged with volcanic ashes. Night arrived, more terrible than the day. The continuous trembling of the earth had indeed ceased; but, instead, there came sharp, quick shocks of earthquake, four or five of them every hour, vastly increasing the danger of those who remained in their houses. Out-of-doors was the pouring rain and the intense darkness, rendered more fearful by the intermittent electric flashings of the cloud overhead. The few oil-lamps in the streets gave little light; some had not been lighted, others had been extinguished. The narrow streets sounded with shrieks of alarm and prayers for mercy. They were filled with those who chose rather the darkness, the rain, and the mud under foot, than the danger within their own chambers. And all through the city might be descried entire families grouped together, and, by the light of torches or lanterns, making their way to some church—for, all through the terrible hours of that long night, the churches still remained open and thronged, and the services still continued. Day came at length, if the dim, misty light could be called day. It brought no relief beyond its saddening twilight. All hearts were depressed and filled with gloomy forebodings. All felt that only by the mercy of God could they be rescued.

At 10 A.M. there came two shocks of earthquake severer than any that had preceded them. The waters of the bay twice receded, leaving a portion of the harbor bare, and twice rolled back furiously, rushing over the piers and quays, and passing into Portici and Resina, near the mountain, or, rather, on its lower slope, were seen quickly to perish. Portions of Torre del Greco and of Torre dell’Annunziata shared the same fate. It seemed to the affrighted Neapolitans, as they looked on the fiery streams pouring onward, resistless and inflexible, in their course of destruction, that death was coming to them by fire, more terrible far than death by water or by earthquake.

Meanwhile, the hour at last arrived fixed for this day’s procession. The archbishop was to take part in it, and would himself bear the reliquary of the blood of St. Januarius. The clergy of the city would precede and accompany him, and the municipal authorities would walk in procession behind. Thousands were in the cathedral and would follow after, and tens of thousands crowded the streets through which its route lay. A common feeling filled all hearts alike; they prayed earnestly, if ever they did—for their lives, and their homes, their all was at stake.

The rain had ceased, but the dark cloud still hung overhead, and the ashes were still falling, and the air was close and sulphurous. As the procession issued from the cathedral, and while the archbishop stood yet in the square in front of it, a blaze of sunlight beamed around. The sun itself they did not see, but his beams found some rift in the mass of smoke surging overhead, and struggled through, throwing, for a few moments, a glow of golden effulgence down on the cathedral and the square, and the groups that stood or knelt within it. The effect was electric. “It is a miracle! our prayers are heard!” was the cry that burst from the multitude. In a few moments the light was gone; but, with cheered and hopeful hearts, the procession moved on through the crowded streets to the gate of the city, looking directly towards Vesuvius and the advancing streams of lava. Here an altar had been prepared in the open air, psalms were chanted, prayers and litanies succeeded, and the archbishop, ascending the steps of the altar, stood on the platform, and, holding aloft the reliquary of the blood, made with it the sign of the cross towards the blazing mountain, and all prayed that God, through the intercession of their great patron saint, would avert the dreaded and dreadful calamity.

Ere the archbishop descended from the altar, all were aware that an east wind had sprung up, and that the smoke and cinders and ashes were being blown away over the sea. The mountain grew calmer, and at once ceased to pour forth such immense supplies of molten lava. The dreaded stream, no longer fed from the copious fount, soon slackened its movement—ceased to advance towards them—and, before their eyes, was seen to grow cold, and solid, and dark. When that procession, on its return, reached the cathedral, the sun was shining brightly and cheerfully. Well might they close with a solemn Te Deum, for Naples was saved. Outside of the city, five thousand men, women, and children had perished, and ruin was spread everywhere; within the city, not one building had fallen, not one life had been lost.

The eruption continued for some

Therefore, in 1632, and in each year since, the sixteenth of December has been a memorable and a sacred day for Naples. It became the festival of the Patrocinio, or Patronage of St. Januarius. For a century and a half, it was kept as a religious holy-day of strictest obligation. But the sense of gratitude dies out equally with the sense of dangers from which we escaped in the distant past. Whether this was the cause, or whether it was deemed proper to yield to the so-called industrial notions that have prevailed in more modern times, we cannot say; but, for three-quarters of a century back, if we err not, this festival in Naples ranks only as one of devotion. For a number of years, its celebration was even transferred to the Sunday following. In 1858, it was transferred back to the day itself, and is now celebrated invariably on the sixteenth of December. On that day, the relics are taken from their closet and borne to the altar of the Tesoro, and thence to the high altar of the cathedral. After Mass, and the recitation of a portion of the divine office, they are borne in solemn procession through several streets in the vicinity of the cathedral, and, on the return, are brought again to the high altar, where there is the exposition of the relics with the usual prayers; and the liquefaction is looked for for the eighteenth regular time each year.

If the weather be rainy, the procession goes merely through the aisles and nave of the large cathedral and back to the high altar.

This feast has taken the place of another single-day festival, formerly celebrated on the fourteenth of January, and now merged in this votive feast a month earlier.

Beyond these ordinary and regularly established expositions, other special or extraordinary ones have been occasionally allowed, sometimes at the request of distinguished strangers, who visited Naples mostly in winter, and could not wait for the recurrence of the regular festival; sometimes to allow learned and scientific men, earnest in the cause of religion, to examine the liquefaction more closely and quietly than they could do amid the concourse of so many thousands on the regular days; and, sometimes, for special and urgent reasons of devotion or public need, as was that of December 16, 1631, of which we have just given the account. These extraordinary expositions were more frequent and more easily allowed two or three centuries ago than in later years. In fact, the latest one of which we can find any record occurred in 1702. Pope Pius IX. himself, during his exile in Gaeta, near Naples, waited for a regular day—September 20, 1849—to witness the liquefaction.

On a number of religious festivals during the year, it is customary to take out the bust of St. Januarius, containing the relics of his head, and to place it, with other relics of the saints kept in the cathedral, on the altar. To do this, it is, of course, necessary that the city delegate with his keys should be in attendance, and should co-operate with the canon or clergyman sent by the archbishop with his keys. Together they open the closet in which, under two locks, is kept the bust, and which, our readers will remember, is built in the massive masonry wall of the Tesoro chapel, immediately behind its main altar, and adjoining the similar closet in which is preserved the reliquary hard. However, as to the number of such minor examinations, we apprehend that we should speak with some hesitation. There may have been many more of which we have not just now at hand sufficient information.

We have spoken of the official diary of the Tesoro chapel, commencing in 1659, and of the archiepiscopal diary, commencing as a diary in 1526, and both continuing, the latter with some lacunæ in its earlier portions, down to the present time. Of course, different hands have penned its pages as years rolled on; and it is curious and amusing to note their differences of character as shown in their styles. Even in so plain a matter as recording, day after day and year after year, the state and condition of the blood when extracted from its closet, the occurrence and character of the liquefaction, the prominent or important facts of each day, and in what condition the blood was when replaced at night in its closet—points which it was the duty of all to record—personal traits are unwittingly manifested. One writer evidently was fond of ecclesiastical ceremonies, and he is exact in recording the character of the High Mass and of the processions: who and how many walked in them, how many altars were erected on the route through the streets, etc. Another was more of a courtier, and he carefully mentions the presence of cardinals, viceroys, ambassadors, princes, and eminent personages. A third was devoted to prayer, and his entries breathe his spirit of devotion in many a pious ejaculation. One tells you of a new musical Te Deum that was sung. Another had a painter’s eye, and never fails to name, with minute precision, the varying shades of color seen in the blood. Another still, with more of a mathematical turn, is equally exact in setting forth to the very minute the times of the liquefactions which he records; while others, again, performed their duty in a more perfunctory style.

On the whole, these diaries are to us most interesting and unique, as well for the length of time they cover, and the evident sincerity and earnestness of the writers in stating faithfully what they saw—sometimes to their own astonishment or sorrow, sometimes with joy—as also for the wonderful character of the facts themselves which are recorded.

Of the archiepiscopal diary, we possess a manuscript abstract, kindly written out for us. From its pages we have made a summary of all the expositions of the blood of St. Januarius at Naples from the year 1648 to 1860, which we present to our readers in tabular form. We group them together in octaves, for the reasons already given, and because in that form several peculiarities are clearly seen which, perhaps, otherwise would disappear.

We give, first, three tables for the ampulla from its closet until the liquefaction was seen to commence. After enumerating the instances in which the time is clearly determinable, another line indicates the times when the liquefaction is set down as gradual, sometimes because the time was not clearly seen, sometimes, perhaps, because the recording was perfunctory. We add another line, embracing the various occasions when the diary either omits recording or indicating the time, or does so, vaguely or in such terms as “regular, very regular, promptly, punctually, most punctually, without unusual delay, without anything new.” We subjoin to this table other lines, showing on what days and how often the blood remained always fluid; or always fluid with a hard floating lump; or always hard; or always full, and so full that liquefaction was not detected. A third table, similarly arranged, will show in what condition the blood was when locked up at night in its closet. We also give three similar tables for the feast and octave of September, and similar accounts for the December festival and for the extraordinary expositions.

May, 1648, to May, 1860, inclusive—213 Years.

TABLE I.

State of Blood at the Opening of the Closet.

May.Satur.Sun.Mon.Tues.Wed.Thur.Fri.Satur.Sun.

Very hard2—112— 222

Hard156119207203168139123113113

Soft481325376

Liquid, with hard lump4074———1———

Hard and full3——169131517

Full———43356687573

Liquid 812412341—

TABLE II.

Times of the Liquefactions.

May.Satur.Sun.Mon.Tues.Wed.Thur.Fri.Satur.Sun.

Under 10 minutes886785442723181616

Under 30 ”492863734646443537

Under 60 ”1898364225191713

Under 2 hours5421565117

Under 5 ”17——22233

Over 5 ”1—1———224

Gradual140———1———

Vague or omitted264554555452515356

Always liquid, with hard lump171———————

Always full———43356687573

Always hard1————————

Always liquid612——43312

TABLE III.

State of the Blood when Locked Up at Night.

May.Satur.Sun.Mon.Tues.Wed.Thur.Fri.Satur.Sun.

Liquid131203204174145130122121130

Liquid, with hard lump77104——————

Liquid and full——535332521148

Full———43356687573

Soft3———1——1—

Hard2———12111

Hard and full——————111

These tables present the course of the expositions for two hundred and thirteen times each of the nine days, in all, 1,917 expositions. They do not set forth the changes in color, in frothing and ebullition, in minor increases or diminutions of volume, and in occasional hardenings, of all which we shall treat further on.

From September, 1648, to September, 1860—212 Years.

TABLE I.

State of the Blood on Opening the Closet.

September.19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26

Hard117191190191187189191195

Hard and full, (probable)24———————

Hard and full58————211

Soft1—1——11—

Full——11222

Liquid1221202023181714

TABLE II.

Times of the Liquefactions.

September.1920212223242526

Under 10 minutes3532625959515155

Under 30 ” 64101787678837984

Under 60 ” 1924172110182115

Under 2 hours 19454 8 4 8 7

Under 5 ” 27—— 1 1 2 2—

Over 5 ” 13———————

Vague or omitted2330283032353335

Always liquid 1221212022181714

Always full —— 1 1 2 1 1 2

TABLE III.

State of the Blood when Locked Up at Night.

September.1920212223242526

Liquid 212211211210206208209202

Liquid and full— 1 — 1 3 3 2 8

Always full — — 1 1 2 1 1 2

Hard — — — — 1 — — —

These tables give two hundred and twelve expositions for each day, and thus for the whole group a second aggregate of 1,696 expositions. They do not, any more than the preceding ones, give an account of the changes to which the blood is subject, in color, frothing, or minor increase or decrease of volume. These points will be considered in their proper place.

The festival of the patronage on the 16th of December, established in 1632, has been celebrated 228 times down to 1860.

I. On opening the closet or safe the blood was found as follows:

Very hard,2

Hard,214

Soft,1

Hard and full,10

Liquid,1-228

II. The variations as to times of liquefaction were as follows:

Immediately or under half-hour,26

Under 1 hour,29

” 2 ”41

” 5 ”42

Over 5 hours,26

Always hard,43

” full,3

” liquid,1

Vague or omitted,17-228

III. The condition of the blood, when put up, was as follows:

Liquid,131

” with lump,46

Soft,5

Hard as found,43

Full,3-228

The extraordinary expositions were 43 in number. Of these 20 may be grouped with the December exposition, having occurred in the months of November, December, January, and February.

The blood was found: Very hard, 1; hard, 13; soft, 5; and liquid, 1. The times of liquefaction were: Under 10 minutes, 15 times; under 30 minutes, 1; under 5 hours, 1; remaining liquid, 1. Of course, on all the 20 days it was put up liquid.

Nineteen days may be in the same way connected with the May celebration, as they are distributed through the months of March, April, May, and June.

The blood was found: Very hard, 1; hard, 13; soft, 4; liquid, 1. The times of the liquefaction were: Under 10 minutes, 10 times; under 30 minutes, 3; under 60 minutes, 1; under 2 hours, 1; under 5 hours, 1; time not indicated in the diary, 2; and it remained liquid, 1. On every occasion it was put up in a liquid condition.

Four other times there were extraordinary expositions in July and September. Twice the blood was found hard and liquefied within half an hour each time, and twice it was found liquid.

Nineteen instances are recorded in which for various reasons the closet was opened and the reliquary seen in its place. Four times the blood was found very hard; six times it was hard; twice it was soft; four times it was liquid, and three times the condition is not recorded.

These tables present an aggregate of no less than 3,884 expositions

The writer of the diary says on this point, A.D. 1773: “When the vial is full, some signs are at times observed indicative of a liquefaction, chiefly a wave-like motion when the vial is moved. But as this can only be seen from the rear (that is, as the light shines on it or through it from the opposite side), and only on close inspection and by practised eyes, and is not visible to ordinary observers standing in front, it is not here noted down as a liquefaction.” In the diary of the Tesoro chapel, which we cannot now consult, they are probably recorded as liquefactions.

The next largest class of exceptions consists of the 171 cases in which the blood was found liquid in the morning, and was replaced in the closet in the evening still in a liquid condition. We should observe that not unfrequently in such cases the fluid mass became congealed or even hard during the day and liquefied again. Even when this does not happen, there are so many other and frequent changes as to color, to frothing, or to ebullition, and to change of volume by increase or decrease, that, even without the occurrence of liquefaction, the fluid blood presents many wonderful characteristics. Thus in our synopsis we have counted the octave of September, 1659, as presenting seven days during which the blood was found and remained liquid. The diary, taking up that octave day by day, states, that on the 19th of September the blood was found liquid, and, the reliquary being placed near the bust, there commenced an ebullition of the blood marked with froth. This continued, off and on, during the day. On the 20th the blood was again found liquid, and the ebullition and the frothing were repeatedly renewed as on the preceding day. On the 21st the blood was a third time found liquid, and on this day the ebullition was more continuous and violent. The 22d and the 23d and the 24th were marked by the same phases. The blood was always found liquid, and each day the ebullition was repeatedly resumed and sometimes was violent. On the 26th the blood was found in a soft or jelly-like state. It soon liquefied entirely, and during the day became covered with froth. The 26th—the eighth and last day—was like the first. The blood was again found liquid, and the ebullition was resumed, yet more moderately.

The two remaining classes, which our tables present as exceptions, will also suffer diminution if accurately examined. There are 44 instances in which the blood was found hard, and continued hard to the end of the exposition. Yet the diary records on several occasions the presence of one or more fluid drops, sometimes of yellowish serum, sometimes of reddish blood, which could be made to run to and fro on the surface of the hardened mass, and continued to be seen for hours, or sometimes even until the close of the day.

As for the 18 other instances in which the blood was found partly liquid and partly solid, the solid part floating as a globe in the fluid portion, and in which the same state of things was seen during the day and lasted until the closing, it must be

No mere tabular summaries, like those presented above, can give the salience which they demand to certain unusual facts and to many ordinary but striking characteristics which should not be overlooked. For this it is necessary to go back to the diaries themselves, and to trustworthy historical notices of the miracle.

On Saturday, May 5, 1526, the vigil of the feast of the translation, the liquefaction is recorded to have taken place as usual in the Seggia Capuana, to which the processions were directed that day. On the next day, the feast, the blood was found hard, and it continued hard during the entire exposition. The octave had not yet been established. It continued hard all through the octave of the succeeding September, as also in January, May, and September of 1527, and again in January, May, and September of 1528, and in January, 1529. The liquefactions were resumed on Saturday, May 1, and continued on the next day, the feast, and regularly during the September celebration. Thus, for nearly three years the blood remained hard and solid, without liquefying at any time.

The Neapolitans connect this unusual fact with the anger of God and his judgments, as manifested in the terrible pestilence which broke out in their city in 1526, and came to an end only in the early months of 1529, after causing 60,000 deaths in the single year 1527, and, together with the war then raging, as many more in the ensuing year 1528.

Again, in 1551, in 1558, and in 1569, there was no liquefaction. On the contrary, for the two years 1556 and 1557, and again for the two years 1599 and 1600, and a third time for the single year 1631, the blood was always found liquid when brought forth for exposition, and never at any time was seen to become solid. Since the last-named year, it has occurred, in ten different years, that the blood was found and continued liquid during the whole of a single octave in a year; but never in both octaves. It never continued hard for an entire octave at any time, although at some few times the liquefaction occurred only on the second, the third, or the fourth day of the celebration; or, on the contrary, it was found and continued liquid for one, two, or three days at the commencement, and was found hard only on the second, third, or fourth morning. At the votive festival of December 16, it has repeatedly remained hard. The table numbers 44 such cases. Of these only 5 occurred in the first 150 years after the institution of the feast; the remaining 39 all occur in the last 78 years. This the Neapolitans explain by the special character of the festival. The other festivals have been instituted in honor of the saint; this one, to show their gratitude as a city for favors received repeatedly through his intercession. Hence, when vice is rife in the city, and especially when sins against religion abound, their professions of gratitude are wanting in the most necessary quality to make them acceptable; and the displeasure of heaven is marked by the withholding of the miraculous liquefaction.

Departures like these from the ordinary course, or any extraordinary

“1732, Dec. 16.—The blood was taken out, hard. Hard it continued until after compline (the afternoon service). The people were waiting for the miracle with great anxiety. Wherefore, instead of taking back the relics (to the Tesoro chapel) at the usual hour, they remained on the high altar (of the cathedral) until after 21 o’clock (2.30 P.M.); and the church being crowded with people, they recited the litanies several times. Rosaries were said, and sermons were preached. But the saint did not yield, which caused great terror; and everybody was weeping. So things were up to 24 o’clock (5.30 P.M.) At that hour, a Capuchin father in the church again stirred up the people to sincere contrition for their sins, and to acts of penance. While they were doing this, all saw that the blood was of a sudden entirely liquefied—a great consolation to all. The Te Deum was sung; and then, only at half-past one of the night (7 P.M.), the relics were taken to the Tesoro chapel.”

“1748, May 7, Tuesday.—The blood was brought out hard. After 16 minutes, it liquefied. During the day it rose so high as to fill the vial completely. From the 8th to the 12th, the vial was always full, and the blood was seen to be one-half black, the other half ash-colored, for which reasons his majesty came a second time to see it, on Sunday afternoon (12th). When the king had left the Tesoro, his eminence returned to pray to the saint to vouchsafe some sign of the miracle before the closing up (it was the last day of the octave). In the meantime the vast crowd strove to melt him by their cries and their tears. His eminence, having made his way out of the chapel with great difficulty, sent for a noble Capuchin, called Father Gregorio of Naples, who, in a most fervent sermon, exhorted the people to acts of faith and of sorrow for their sins. He then commenced reciting with them the Litany of the Blessed Virgin. During the recitation thereof, the blood was seen to sink half a finger, and to commence to move. Who can describe the weeping and the fervor? The Te Deum was sung; and the blood was put up, being at nearly its normal level, of its natural color, and with some froth.”

No wonder the Neapolitans love St. Januarius as their patron saint when he thus yields to their fervent entreaties and prayers what was not granted to the pious curiosity of the king; nor, for this occasion at least, to the prayers of his eminence the cardinal archbishop.

The following briefer entries of our diary breathe the same spirit:

“1714, May 5, Saturday.—The miracle took place at once. On Sunday, after an hour and a half. During this octave, the blood showed a thousand changes, liquefying, hardening, and increasing in volume many times a day, in an unusual manner. God knows what will happen!”

“1718, Sept. 19.—The blood was taken out hard. After a quarter of an hour, it completely liquefied. During all this octave the miracle never delayed as much as an hour. This was truly a happy octave. There were no great changes; only a slight increase in volume.”

It is tantalizing to pore over the diary. At times you almost fancy P.M.) the lump liquefied. The blood was put up, entirely liquid and at its ordinary level.” (Dec., 1771.) You think you see the steps of the process. First the drop of yellowish serum; then a partial liquefaction, leaving a lump of solid matter; this gradually decreasing for three hours and a half, until it entirely disappears, and the whole mass is fluid. If you read the following, you may feel surer that you are on the right track: “The blood came out hard and at its ordinary level. At the end of half an hour, there was seen to run about on the hard mass a particle of serous matter, inclining to a yellowish color. So it stood during the procession, which was outside, through the streets, his eminence the cardinal archbishop taking his place in it. So it was when the reliquary was brought back to the Tesoro. At 23½ o’clock (about 5 P.M.) this serous matter changed into blood. But the mass still remained hard. Words cannot tell with what earnestness and fervor the ecclesiastics and the people continued at prayer. Finally, at 24¼ o’clock (5.45 P.M.) the mass loosened in the vial; and half an hour later, that is, after eight hours and fifty minutes of waiting, the liquefaction took place, a small lump remaining solid and floating. So it was put up.” (Dec., 1768.) Notwithstanding the change of the character of the yellowish serous drop in the last cited instance into red blood, and the great difference of the times when the liquefaction took place, there is a certain degree of correspondence between the two cases—enough perhaps to arrest the attention and excite expectations. But all to no purpose. Such a drop was seen on seven or eight other days, lasting a couple of hours or for the entire day, without any liquefaction following. And in three thousand three hundred and odd cases of liquefaction, we have failed to find a third one in which such a drop is noted to have preceded the liquefaction.

In fact, the modes of liquefaction are as various as we can imagine, and as remarkable as the fact itself. Sometimes the liquefaction occurs or commences at once, with little or no delay. At other times, it is delayed for a quarter or for half an hour, for one, two, or three hours or more. Sometimes, though very rarely, it has been delayed nine or ten hours. All this is clearly seen in the tables.

Not unfrequently the change from solidity to fluidity, whether occurring early or late, has been instantaneous, and for the whole mass at once—in un colpo d’occhio. Sometimes it is gradual, lasting before its completion over many hours; nay, sometimes the ampulla is replaced in the closet for the night before its entire completion, a greater or a smaller portion still remaining solid.

Sometimes the entire mass liquefies; at other times, only a portion. When this is the case, the unliquefied portion generally floats as a solid lump or globe in the liquid part. Sometimes, however, one side of the mass was liquefied; while the other remained solid, and firmly attached

We have already said something of the various degrees of liquefaction. Sometimes the blood is as fluid as water, flowing readily and leaving no coating after it on the glass. And, at other times, it may be somewhat viscous; and, if the reliquary be inclined from side to side, may leave behind a dark or a vermilion film on the inner sides of the ampulla.

There are likewise degrees of hardness. Sometimes the blood is only very viscous and grumous, or jelly-like. In the tables we call it soft. At other times, the diary notes it as hard, duro; very hard, durissimo; or even hard as iron, duro come ferro. When hard, it is attached firmly to the glass ampulla. Yet on two occasions, at least, the hard lump could move within, showing that it was then detached.