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PPLEMEN
VOL. X--No. 147.
PHILADELPHIA, TUESDAY, DECEMBER 22, 18G8.
TRIPLE SIIEETT1IREE CENTS.
CHRISTMAS COLUMN
A CHRISTMAS CAROL.
JYcm London Society.
They are ringing, they are rluglng,
Oar merry Christmas bull,
Id the village, in the city,
In the dale-church, o'er the fells.
Be our ways of life so varied,
Be our fort ones poor or bright,
Hand in hand with all our brothers,
We are one at least to-night.
Nor the noble in bin mansion,
Nor the sovereign on his throne,
Nor the beggar in his hovel
Will enjoy themselves alone.
We all seek the kindly greeting
Of some dear, familiar face;
We all know that hermit feeling
For to-night is ont of place.
Bnt one night 1 Why not for ever
Should we bind the golden chain
That shows man his poorest fellow
Was not sent to earth in vain I
That each sorrow hath a purpose,
That each gift hath an alloy,
That ever finely balanced
Are the scales of grief and Joy,
Spare a little, then, ye rich ones,
From your laden coffers now;
Bring to poverty a sun-ray,
Bring a smile to sorrow's brow.
Take it gratefully, ye toilers,
Toilers up earth's weary hill;
'Tis a green spot in your desert,
'lis a good sprung from your ill.
Yea I be rioh and poor united,
'Tis most grand in Ileaven'a sight,
And a blessing, not earth's blessing,
Is on all the world to-night 1
ASTLEY II. BAIDW1S.
Andrew Walter's Christmas Eve.
CHAPTER I.
vox porou.
f The whole town said, with scarcely a dis
senting voice, that Andrew Walter's misfor
tunes, and this last misfortune in particular,
were a judgment upon him. For, as the
reader may have noticed, communities have
Titually much less difficulty in peroeiving
disasters to be judgments than they have in
perceiving prosperity to be a Just reward.
One inipht have been disposed to call the
town a village bad it not from time im
memorial returned a member of Parliament.
Bat, in the pride of that distinction, East
Wykeham held itself far above villages.
We are not sure that the East Wykehamites
are yet agreed as to which of th.Jr own sins it
is that has called down the ludgment which
has fallen upon them in the loss of their mem
ber by the new Reform bill. In fact, the
great majority of the pure and incorruptible
consider that by the disfranchisement of their
borough a gross injustice has been done them,
and that they have sustained a definite and
calculable pecuniary loss for which they have
an equitable claim for compensation from the
state.
Should the reader be disposed to ask further.
'what manner of plaoe 1b Flast Wykeham f we
are sorry we cannot say it is pretty well, or
pretty lively, or pretty clean, or indeed pretty
anything, unless we say it is pretty nearly the
embodiment of dullness and stupidity. It is a
plaoe that has fallen out of the track of modern
improvements. When other towns subsoribed
for railways, East Wykeham petitioned against
them, stuck to its canal, and now beholds
with envy the main line that passes at eight
miles distance, and with disgust its own slimy,
weed-grown, deserted wharves. (East Wyke
ham is trying now to get up a branch line.)
When that new-fangled, dangerous explosive
called gas was discovered, East Wykeham
stuck to oil and candles, by which alone to
this night its streets are illuminated. (East
Wykeham is negotiating now for a seoond
hand gasometer, retorts, etc, outgrown at the
neighboring junction.) But it would have to
be a very bad light indeed that would not be
good enough to exhibit the ooutents of the
High street windows, or the grass that grows
down the middle of the High street itself.
The tradesmen, who are much given to
standing at their doors and talking to each
other, chuckle and rej jice over the extremely
small sum it takes to keep their streets in
good repair, and on the whole they don't ob
ject to grass.
' As for society, there are the usual two doo
trrs, two lawyers (one of whom was never
known to have a client), the vicar, two or
three dissenting preachers, two grooers, two
drapers, two tailors, and the rest; in all num
bering a population, according to the last
oensus, of we really cannot say precisely how
few.
At any rate they have never been too few
for the development among themselves of
every known variety of evil speaking and nn
charitableness; nor were they, as we began by
saying, too many to agrea iu the case of
Andrew Walter that his misfortunes were a
judgment upon him, and that to sympathize
with him would be little short of impious.
If he bad not sown the wind, they argued,
he would not have reaped the whirlwind. If
he had brought up hU boy better, aa they, for
example, had each of them brought up theirs
(and as he, having only one boy, surely might
have done), ha would not then have been
lamenting the lad's loss at sea.
It was an established axiom at Etst Wyke
ham that going to sea was about equivalent to
oing to penal servitude. And though a
encb of magistrates may be found here and
there to give a man three weeks' hard labor
fcr ploking up an apple, no one gets -penal
seivitude if he has done absolutely nothing to
deserve it. Andrew Walter, a man living on
his own land, had sent his only son to sea,
the excuse being that the toy 1 ad a liking (or
It, and had no taste for farming. But East
Wykeham knew better than to set any value
on such an exouse as this. A lad living in an
inland county clearly had no right to have a
taste for the sea. To have such a taste showed
a natural depravity of character, whioh a Jadi
oious father would have subdued with the
proper number of stripes. And as he had not
subdued it, it was only in the nature of things
that he should hear in due time that the ship,
the 'All is Well,' had gone down with all
hands, and Bhonld see himself left without
the one who should have been the prop of his
age, and the help of his motherless youog
daughters after he should have gone.
Neither were the townsfolk pitiful as re
garded that matter of the bond. He had
much better have never learned to write at
all than show such fatal facility in writing
his name. What matter that it was his own
brother for whom he had become bound
Likely enough the brother might have paid
his debts, and everybody had their due, if he
had had his health. But ho had never known
what health was for years-a puny, sickly
young man who never ought to have got
married; and as a matter of course he LM.
die d deeply Involved in his mill, and leaving
wife and family quite unprovided for, whom
people did say Andrew Walter had maintained
ever since his brother's death, which, if true,
was clearly reckless extravagance. Could
any one wonder, reckoning up the loss he had
on his brother's death, the expense ever, since
of maintaining the family, the'eost of his son's
vessel, and of the valuable cargo with which
he had freighted her, tht all these things
together had found the end of his resources ?
The latest report, indeed, was that he had
just failed to effect a farther mortgage on his
property; that the present mortgagee, who
had given notice to foreclose at the end of the
present quarter, could not be pacified or paid,
ind that there must be a sale.
'And so,' concluded Mr. Botley, the grocer,
to Mr. Skinner, the draper (each of whom
had a bill of a few shillings against poor
Andrew Walter) 'and so it is one makes bad
debt?, and loses one's money by other folks'
fault, as doesn't care to work so hard for it.'
'Just so, said Mr. Skinner.
'And no doubt we shall have our fine gentle
man here in a few days,' remarked Mr. Botley
igair, 'to offer us half a crown in the pound.'
'And,' said Skinner, 'if he comes I shall be
sure to give him a piece of my mind; I shall
be sure to do it.'
CHAPTER II.
IN TIME OF TROUBLE.
Andrew Walter's house pleasantly over
looked the town, both house and inmates being
happily litted above their neighbors' spite and
unfriendliness. Though not to be too hard
upon the town we will bear in mind that it
it is not always the people who say the un
kindest words who do the unkindest deeds,
and will hope that East Wykeham, too, should
Andrew Walter ever have to ask it for bread,
will at least not give him a stone.
If, as the winter day closed in, the reader
could have walked up the well-kept gravelled
path, defended by choice shrubs, and could
have stood at the bright window, whoaep&uea
Hashed beneath the firelight, this is what he
would have Been inside as snug a room as ke
could wish to look upon.
First, a man somewhat past the middle age,
wed knit and sinewy, with a face kindly and
pleasant, though not without lines of care, and
at present full of perplexity, lie sits with his
elbow on his knee, and his chin upon his
hand, looking steadily into the tire, in whioh
he does not seem to read any clear answer to
the question he is asking. This is Andrew
Walter.
Next, a girl of about eighteen, but looking
older and us if a premature responsibility had
sobered her merry face. She eits at a table
which is covered with evergreens, and is busy
stitching ivy leaves on Btrips of cardboard
which in a little while will be shaped into
letters. This is Maggie, Andrew 'b eldest
daughter.
Next, another girl, some four years younger,
wonderfully like her sister, but more like her
father. She, too, is busy constructing, with
wire and string to help, a long rope or ropes
of leafy green. Thid is Edith, the second
daughter.
Last, the Mite; as Andrew often calls her,
sadly, 'the widower's mite.' She is a wee
maiden of only six years old, but persuades
herself she, too, is usefully busy, with needle
and thread, making a necklace of the scarlet
holly-berries, ller name is Lucy.
The girls, it is to be notioed, are all in black,
seemingly of the newest and deepest; and
there seems to be but li'.tle speaking amongst
them.
One could not look upon the man without
feeling that he was a man of strong passions
and allectious; nor on the girls without feeling
they were all in all to each other and to him.
Until within the last year the current of his
life had flowed smoothly and prosperously,
lie had had but one great sorrow the loss of
his wife; and that sorrow having befallen him
when his little maid was born, had been soft
ened by time, though not (and not to be) for
gotten. Now, however, he was indeed in
troubled waters. That town's talk about
money matters and an impracticable mort
gagee was in the main correct. He had, in
one way or other, lost nearly all he had. And
at his time of life it waa hard to have to devise
plans of keeping the wolf from the door. All
kinds of pecuniary loss, loss of position, loss
of comforts and luxuries, were, nevertheless,
but deprivations of things he might hope to
win back again; or, failing that, he could face
the want of them with, manly fortitude and
resignation.
The one loss to which he could not bring
himself to be submissive (being loss of that
whioh no strength of arm or activity of brain
could ever briug him back agaiu) was the
loss of his boy. 'The sea, indeed, tthall give
up its dead,' he said to himself, 'but not
to me.'
lie took from his pooket-book and read once
more the account, cut out from a Calcutta
newspaper, of the great catastrophe in the
llooghly which had bereaved him. It gave, as
far as was known, the names of all vessels
lost, with the port to which they belonged, the
captain's Bame, and a brief description ot the
nature ef the damage in each case. The entry
in which he was interested read thus :
A'nne vf
11 U Weil
Of it-hat Name of, Name of
Jrt
Not
kuown.
Owner, i Cnit tin R, murks.
Sot
ku.wo.
J. K.
VVatler.
O ev wnd
orgU All lout,
Now his son James had sailed from England
not for Calcutta bat Hong Kong, and it was
clear he must have encountered such terrible
weather as had first driven him far out of his
course, and, at the last, compelled him to run
for the llooghly, just at the time when that
river was a vortex of destruction to every
craft that entered it.
In addition to the partioulara got from the
newspapers, he had obtained, through the
consular agency, this further information:
The evidence on which the name of the cap
tain had been published as 'supposed J. E.
Walter' was that, entangled amongst the
wreck of the 'AH is Well' had been found a
portion of a captain's coat, in the breast-pocket
of which had been found several papers, all of
which were quite illegible exoept one empty
envelope, the address of. which had been de
ciphered as 'Captain J. E. Walter, the "All is
Well," Cape Town.' The English postmarks
were 'East Wykeham and 'London,' date
illegible. This envelope Andrew Walter had
procured to be forwarded to him, aud had
found the handwriting upon it to be his own.
After seeing which he hail given up all the
faint hope to which he had clung, and had
treasured this old envelope as the last link of
communication which he knew to have paused
betwee n(i his Bn.
Restoring the piece of newspaper and ths
envelope to his pocket-book, he lit a oandle,
left the girls at their work, and went into aii
adjoining room. Leaning against the wall was
a package wrapped iu matting,' small, but
somewhat heavy. The contents, when, un
wrapped and placed upon the table, proved to
be a plain, white marble slab, bearing this in
scription: ' Iu remembrance of
Jamks KmvAKii W'altf.k
(only son of Andrew Y niter, ot tbls place), who
wbh drowned In the Klvcr Hong lily, ifougul.
curing llie groat hurricane of latH AgeJ 'ii
yearn, ltev. xxl, 1.'
lie had chosen to append this reference to a
text oi Scripture, rather than the text itself.
Those who cared to turn np the passage in
their Bibles, as they sat in church, would see
that the comfert he found in it wa3 in keeping
before him the thought that though hereafter
there should be a new heaveu, and a new
earth, there should be 'no more sea.'
The father called the girls in for a minute
to look at the slab, and they real the in
scription silently and tearfully. Then he
covered it up again, and they went back.
The stone had been worked elsewhere and
sent home to him that he night himself (as
he had wishtd) superintend its erection over
his own pew. Thus, he and his daughters
had each a duty in church to-morrow his, to
go early with the mason and put up this
stone; theirs, to go later and help the vicar's
wife to affix the Christmas decorations; for
the morrow was the eve of Christmas Day.
And, moreover, there wai one little chaplet of
cypress and yew which Maggie and Edith had
prepared to hang upon their brother's monu
ment. 'I remember, said Andrew, 'teaching him
all about India, and the Ganges, and this very
Hooghly itself, years and year3 ago; little
thinking ah ! little thinking.'
The girls only shook their heads gently anl
sighed.
And I doubt and fiar it was my teaching
him so much geography that filled him full of
longing to Bee the world, and th ways of
Htrange people, and first made him impatient
of this dull place.'
'Impatient of it, but never of us, papa. Let
ub be thankful for that,' said Maggie.
'Tired of us? No, Indeed,' said the father
with proud affection. 'I have known some
sad days, and I doubt there are more in store
for all of us; but the saddest day of all would
be that on which I should think my children
were tired of their father or each other.'
A little band had stolen into his as he spoke
and a little mouth had been upturned to kins
him, while two other faces had turned to him
with looks more eloquent than words.
He took the young child upon his knee,
and wound her curls about his rough, strong
fingers, as he spoke again. 'And J won't say
that he was wrong to choose the sea. Could
any lad have done better at it than he has
done ? Would not his masters have made
him captain at twenty-one of their own vessel
if I had not bought him a ship myself, and
freighted it ?'
'.And he never once,' said Edith, 'spant a
holiday anywhere but here.'
'I wonder if it was the name that did it,'
pondered Andrew, who was not without his
superstitions. 'I wonder if I tempted Pro
vidence when I would call the ship no other
name than "All is Well!" '
'The shlpB that went down in the storm that
day had names of all kinds,' said Miggle, 'and
one name had as little protection iu it as an
other.' There, a3 the outer darkness deepened, they
Bat by the fire and talked. The little one ou
Andrew's knee.
It seemed a transition almost from night to
day when they passed from talk of the lost
boy to talk of the mere loss of money, so much
had the greater trouble exceeded the less.
But it was not till Maggie had peeped over her
father's arm iuto the small face and said 'she's
asleep,' that they spoke, quite freely of their
pecuniary difficulties. The father had taken
his elder girls wholly iuto his confidence,
knowing that he could trust them. And they
seeing themselves so trusted were cheerfully
making the least of all difficulties.
The Bolicitor through whom all Andrew's
money transactions had hitherto beeu arranged
was an old schoolfellow of his, whose prohity
and kindness of heart he had long kuown. His
position was rather that of an ialiunte and
affectionate family friend than a legal adviser,
iiut the letters of this friend, which had of
late been many, had, in spite of all his wishes
to serve, come to be looked on almost with
dread. Their appearance aud their priiu little
teal were well kuown by all the family. Even
little Lucy knew so well that these letters
were different from other letters, that she had
a way of propping them up and lecturing them
seriously before they were opened, aud some
liweE even went the length of whipping them
very severely, with a view to impressing upon
them that they really must be good and try to
please papa when he opened them. A mole
of treatment which had aa yet produced, to her
regret, no salutary effect.
Andrew had written to this friend a few
days before, making some final suggestions
towards the renewal of the mortgage, and
though he had but the faintest hope of the
reply being snoh as he could wish, his heart
sickened that he had got no reply at all.
To-morrow there will surely be a letter,
he t aid; 'and if there ia I shall quite dread to
read it.'
For indeed it depended on this letter
whether they should stay in their old home,
or go out at once into the world and seek
another.
'But now, Maggie,' he said, 'aa this may be
the last Christmas we shall have here, we
must not keep it quite like a oommon day,
even though we cannot keep it as we used to
do. Put on your bonnet and go into the town
with me. Poor little Mite, how soundly she
deeps; see, she has not waked by my patting
her on Edie's knee.'
As the door closed gently on them, however,
up sprang little Loo and drew aside the cur
tain, peeping after them, and laughing.
'I've never been asleep a minute, Edie,' she
raid, 'only pretending.'
Whereupon Edie having first assumed what
the supposed would be the appropriate man
ner of a lady of about fourscore, talked down
to the young deceiver from that great eleva
tion, in an impressive way, and having rung
for Martha, inexorably told that maid to take
her off to bed.
Then she herself set to work again with
lufy fingers amongst her holly leaves, her
ivy and laurel, until she had got length
enough, as the thought, of bright green rope.
After which she gave the finishing touches to
Maggie's letters, and fixing a white table cover
ugainst the piano, pinned them on it, the
acred monogram
to try their effect Against the clean white linen
of the communion table. Last of all, making
haste, the swept away her greenery aud had
a cheerful, homely supper on the table when
father and Maggie came in with the heavy
nigut-iime Hanging on tnem.
'1 hey had made the little purchases for the
Christmas Bay, buying on a humbler scale
than usual, and, as Maggie told her, had sent
to the widow's house at the mill exaotly the
same as they had bought for themselves, for
Andrew's dainties would have had no relish
had he thought those who were so near to
him, and had been so dear to his dead brother,
did not chare in them.
CHAPTER III.
'ALL IS WELL.'
Next morrdng Lucy was up earl v, and the
f eascn being one of those mild and open ones
which have of late taken tne place ot the se
verer CLnstuiases of our fathers, she ran out
and amused herself, as children like to do, by
digging.
;ihe place sue chose lor digging was just in
side the garden gate, where bhe was aoous
touied to wait on line mornings to get the let
ters from the post office.
The garden gate was not quite visible from
any oi the windows of the house, the path
being curved; but Edie running out betimes
(for they were all early risers) found the
child busy there. She had exoavated a very
neat little grave, aad waa just giving the
finishing touches to her work.
'Who are you goiDg to bury to-day, Loo?'
the asked.
'Oh, I know,' said the child, 'yoti go
idong. It's not you; it's a wickeder than you.'
'1 see the poetniaa coming round the cor
ner,' said Ed.e; -run in aa soon as you get
Ibn IctteTS;' aud Loho left her.
In another minute the chill hal the letters
from the postman somefot!'' or live; and in
an instant (as soon as his back was turned)
had selected the wicked one (the London let
ter with the prim little seal, which she ha 1 so
often whipped in vain), had pitched it into
the little grave, deftly filled in the earth, and
made all smooth above it, then ran into the
house with the rest of the letters, out of
breath.
'Nothing again,' said Andrew, as he turned
them over. 'But I doubt no news is not good
news this time. Franklin would have writ
ten, I am sure, if he had had anything to
write which would do us good. Sure you
have not dropped any letters, Loo?' Bat
when he looked round he found the child had
slipped out of the room, and nothing more
was said when she returned.
Neither he nor the girls indeed made any
mention of the letter which had been ex
pected, or of the subject to whioh it should
have referred; but that subject weighed not
the less heavily on all of them.
To each of them it wa8 clear now that in
this matter of the mortgage nothing could be
done, that the money mubt be paid, and that
to pay it there must be a sale, and they must
leave the dear old house. As they passed
irom room to room that morning, or from
walk to walk in the garden, a feeling grew
upon them all that they were taking farewell
looks of all. And aa the girls decorated the
piotures -and mirrors with the Christmas
holly, they thought sadly that when Christ
mas came again other hands would cut the
thrubs aud trim the rooms for other people.
Happily those duties which lay nearest to
each of them were sufficient iu great measure
to distract their minds from dwelling too much
upon the future. Let come what would to
morrow, to-day had its own work waiting for
each of them.
While the girls were busied therefore about
their household morning work, doubly diligent
that they might hurry to the churoh, Andrew
Walter went with the maxon aud saw the me
morial he had provided for his son erected
over his own pew.
This did not occupy htm long, and he was
soon at home again, walking briskly in his
fields, perhaps hoping to find in weariuess of
limb some rent for over-anxiety of spirit.
As lor the fine old chnrob, when the bright
hUtlight poured iu through the many-oolored
window panes, and tell on the sweet patient
.aces of tbefle girls as they wreathed the
pulpit, the communion rails, and the grand
columns of the nave as they decked the holy
table itself with living green aud scarlet, and
expended all their loving Ingenuity and taste
in the decoration of the quaint old rood soreen,
it was by no means a place of gloom. Even
i he time-btained monuments upon the walls
the ancient knight and lady still uplifting
stony hands in 6ileut prayer the grotesque
laces of the corbels all seemed to wear a
blighter, tenderer aspect under the influence
of the Christmas green. The old deal stone
and the young animated faces seemed alike
touched with a new aud deeper expression
under the influence of the gracious season and
the work that in itself was surely a sort of
worship.
As column after colnmn waa finished, and
arch after arch showed its rich free outline in
blight green; as one after the other the branch
ing candelabra grew into graceful bushes of leaf
and fiuit, the sun sank down and the shadows
crept out. Tnen when all was finished, aud
'the old sexton with one solitary candle was
sweeping up the scattered fragments from the
floor, the vicar's wife and the rest of those
who had been at work shook hands and
parted.
When all the rest had gone, however,
Maggie and her sisters stayed behind. . And
with them stayed their cousin Minnie, frem
the mill, a girl of about Maggie's own age,
who mourned for the lost sailor lad with a
bitterness that waa intensified by thinking that
she had let him go when last they parted with
her love still nnconfessed.
The girls sat for a while all silent in the
family pew. Maggie held little Lucy in her
arms, and Edith rested with her head on Min
nie's knee. The moon rose and poured its
light with a glory of crimson aud gold full on
them acd on the new marble slab, beneath
which Maggie sat with her face buried on the
young child's shoulder.
It was Minnie who was organist at the
church, and being there she must needs play
over one of the anthems of the morrow. Elith
went with her to blow the bellows. For a
while Maggie continued to Bit with bowed
head, still weeping, but soothed and calmed
by the strains.
The hymn waa 'Hark, the herald angels
sinp ;' and as the player forgot Ler sorrow
more and more in the exultation of the musio
as the notea swelled more and more Jubllaut
filling the chuTch with grand old melody, the
little voice ot Lucy rose in Maggie's ear sing
ing the well-known words, and Maggie herself
unconsciously joined ia them and lilted up her
head.
There in front of her, clearly defined by the
moon, stood her brother the dead brother
who had been lost at sea. Maggie neither
ecreamed nor fainted. He had been so entirely
present in her mind she had aa yet been so
wholly unable to think of him as anything but
the bright, cheerful brother of all her life
that to see him there seemed at first only
natural. Then in a moment, however, the
recollection of all that had befallen in the last
mournful months flashed up. No fear came
with the recollection; only an intense surprise.
Why should she fear, if even this were the
spirit of her much-loved brother f She clasped
the little child (whose face was turned away)
more closely to her, and leaning forwards iu
the pew, she shaded her eyes from the moon
and looked steadily and earnestly into the face.
The hands and arms of the figure came for
ward, stretching towards her in the pew. A
voice came from the figure: 'Maggie, it is I;'
and in an instant another voice the voice of
Lucy ecreamed, 'Oh, Maggie 1 that is Jamie I
my own brother Jamie 1' and the child sprang
from Maggie's knee, and was in his arms.
'A lid why should I have thought anything
too hard for Ood J Why should I not have
had faith that he who raised Lazarus would
raise my brother too ? Neither Martha nor
Mary sorrowed more for their brother than I
for mine.'
The word3 did not shape themselves; but
this, in all it3 fulness, was the thought that in
a moment of time had passed through Maggie's
mind. Then she was also in her brother's
arms. For indeed it was he and none other,
alive ard well.
Meanwhile the music had ceased, losa be
cause the player had been interrupted by
any noise than by reason of that subtle in
stinct which bo often telU na, we know not
how, that something wonderful and strange,
in which we have an interest and a share, is
happening near at hand.
One moment more and Edith aud Minnie
also were clinging to him, sobbing for joy, and
the secret of Minnie's heart was a secret from
him no longer.
They tl) sat down for awhile and looked at
each other with an exultation strangely min
gled with doubt. Joy was so much stronger
than curiosity that none of them thought of
asking any questions. It was enough that he
was restored to them: it mattered not how.
At last he pointed to the new marble above
the pew, and said, with a shaking voice
'Oh l what giief it haa been to you. We
must have that down to-night.'
'It went up only this morning,' said Maggie.
'Then you have not get the letter this morn
ing,' he asked, 'whioh was cent to tell you of
my coming, and ail auout it r indeed i am
bure you have not.'
'No,' said Maggie.
'It was enclosed from London by Mr.
Franklin.'
'In a blue envelope with a little red seal,'
said Lucy; 'and I buried it in the garden,
be cause those letters have always been naughty,
and vexed papa.'
In spite of all, what could they do but laugh
at the child's explanation 1 even were it only
to make her lift up her head again aud be less
ashamed of her guilt.
'The letter was to tell you how this sad, sad
mistake has arisen, and to say that Mr. Frank
lin and I were coming down to spend, as we
tball find it, the happiest Christmas we have
ever known. You were to send and meet us
at the Junotion, aud we were to have been
with you two hours ago, if we had not had to
walk.'
And have you seen father f ' the girls asked
'Ne; he was not ia the house. So I have
left his old friend there, while I sought you
and him. The orgau was playing aa I came
to the church door, and that told me where
totindjou. But let us muke haste home to
bim.'
Andrew Walter waa at home when they
arrived, and had heard from the old lawyer
tie story of his son's return; but had as yet
nvt succeeded rn convincing himself that the
grt-at joy was teal. Not, indeed, until he had
the jourg man iu his arms did he fully be
lieve it or dare to bay, awe-stricicen
'The sea has given up Its dead given up its
dead even to lue.'
We will not dwell upon that meeting of
lather and son, neither oi whom had ever
known what it was to doubt or mistrust, or
waver in hia affection for the other. There
are some moments of bliss so unalloyed, so
great, and so beyond the force of mere lan
guage, that only the human heart (which
responds alike in high and low, when the
great master hand of Nature sweeps the
i hordf j can oonceive tueir periectnesa.
To cive the necessary facts aa briellv as i03
bible, this ' was how the circumstantial evi
dence ly which the young captain bad been
declared to be dead, and hia ship lost, was
thown to be worthless.
Innocent of plagiarism aa Andrew Walter
had thought himself iu choosing for his vessel
the name 'All Is Well,' there was really
another ship afloat, Bailing from a German
Lort, but owned by an Englixh master, which
ore the same name. When James Walter
failed into the harbor of Cape Town, he was
amazed to read the name of his own craft as
bavins arrived a week earlier from the liiltio.
ALd having found out that this namesake of
hia vessel was still in port, he was notlorg
before he Bought her out and made acquaint
ance with her captain. The two vessels Bailed
afterwards from Cape Town on the same day,
Captain Jaoobson bound for Caloutta, he him
self for Hong Kong. Before parting they
had got to like eaoh other, and promised
teat on getting into port they would write
and let each other know what sort of voyage
they had. Walter distinctly remembered
writing hia own address in penoil in
ride an envelope which had contained
his father's letter received at Cape Town, and
giving this to Jacobscn. The next he heard
of Lis poor friend was that his vessel and he
were lost in the Hooghly. This he learnt
from an Indian newspaper somewhere in
China, and saw that the captain was supposed
to be himself, though how they had got hia
name he had never known till now. He had
instantly written home to allay the feara of hia
family; but by a strange fatality the mail steamer
whii h bore his letter proved to be that very
one which struck in the Red Sea, and whose
nags were lost, contrary winds had made
his voyage home a long one. and he had ar
rived in London only the day before. Then
when he called on their old friend, Mr. Frank
lin, he had, to his utter sorrow, learnt that he
waa sun counted amongst the dead, and that
these other troubles had fallen on them be
sides. Mr. franklin had advised him not to
come home that first nieht. but to write
first, enclosing under hia own envelope, the
handwriting on which would help to save
them from the shock of so sudden a lov. And
this waa the letter which Mixs Lucy had so
dexterously buried, and which, by the aid of
a lantern and that youne lady to point out the
grave, they now exhumed.
'Mine, said Mr. Franklin, 'yon need not
read; for, aa I said, it ia only to tell you the
mortgage business is all settled in a way be
yond all our hopes. The old sinner,- as Boon
as he knew that the money waa ready for
him, or course turned round and was particu
larly anxious not to have it. '
'But aa he haa given notice,' exclaimed
Jamie, 'he shall have it, whether he wants it
or not. And, let me have one more voyage
like this, then we will offer to lend him a little
money ourselves, on equally as good seourity
us he has had.'
For Jamie had disposed of his cargo in the
China seas to unhoped-for advantage, and had
come back freighted, he hoped, with wares
which he could at once dispose of as profitably
in England.
Compared with this resurrection of the dead,
and this recovery of lost wealth, other plea
sures and surprises of that night were trivial.
But nevertheless whan the huge load of
luggage arrived which had been brought in a
cart from the Junction, the unpacking of the
boxes was a eight worth seeing.
Jamie had forgotten nobody. Not to men
tion the quaint monsters in bronze and ivory,
and the piotures from Japan and China which
were fcr no one in particular, there were the
beautiful inlaid and carved work-boxes for
each of the girls (both at home and at the
mill), there was the set f wonderfully-carved
chess-men, and the extraordinary pipe for
father; there was a cage of brilliant birds, and
a dog so small you might almost have called
it microscopic, for the Mite; there woro ondleaa
shawls and silks to adorn the girls, and drive
i he townsfolk wild with envy in short, there
were so many things rich and rare that the
house before half of them were unpacked
wore the look of an oriental bazaar.
'Wsa it,' he almost asked himself, 'was it
the Eolid ground he stood upon, or was it the
air V as he ran with Minnie to her home,
having wrapped her well in some of this new
finery and loaded her and himself with pre
sents for the widow and the children at the
mill.
He could not stay there, nor anywhere. He
hardly gave them all time to kiss him before
he was off again, declaring he had fifty things
to do that night and could not spare a minute
apiece for doing them in. But he did not
leave before he had made them all understand
they had to go to dinner at his father's on the
morrow.
Then to the church, first finding Mr. Stone
mason, who took down the lying monument,
as he declared, with much greater pleasure
than he had put it up. When down, the
vicar, who bad heard the news (aa indeed all
the town had), begged the stone to keep as a
curiosity, and almost dislocated Jamie's arm
by way of expressing his own gladness.
The singers were gathering at the church aa
they came out, for in half an hour they would
begin the peal of Christmas Eve.
Said the vicar 'Now, my men, cannot you
give us one special peal first for the lost one
who is found, and the dead who is alive again?'
Said the sexton, who waa also chief ringer
'We are two men short.'
Said Mr. Botley, the grocer, and Mr. Skin
ner, the draper, who were standing by
We'll take a rope apiece;' for they were ama
teur bellringers, and could pull with a will,
and had forgotten all their fears of half a
crown in the pound from Andrew Walter.
Whereupon he for whom the peal waa
meant, like the coward he was not, took to his
heels and ran home, seeing reason to fear that
if he did not do so he might be carried shoulder-high.
The clear voices of the bells overtook him
nevertheless before he was half-way homer
mid made him turn to look back upon the
daikling town, blessing it and them. For
never since the bells were cast had they seat
foith a heartier peal than that they flung upon
the air that night; Botley and Skinner having
defied their coats and warmed to their work
with mutual emulation.
Mr. Franklin did not make it quite clear to
Lucy either that night or next day what had
made him be so wicked as to write those vexa
tious letteis to papa. But after dinner next
day that is, Christmas Day when that
young lady had almost danced him off his
legs although, for au old gentleman, he did
dance quite wonderfully she so far repeated
of her past severity towards him as to promise
that if he would write often she would neither
whip him in person nor whip his proxy, and
that under no clrcumstanoes wouli Bhe ever
ain bury another of his letters, prematurely.
The organ in the Mormon Temple at Salt
Lake City is said to be "8000 voice power."
Eugenie is Jnnt the leat bit bald, aud
covers the "damned spot" with a frizzle aud
sosette.
Queen Isabella says that if sh'e had kno vn
how nice Paris waa she would have ab lie Ued
years ago.
A Frenchman has composed another opera
of "Komeo aud Juliet."