I' It rat ANNUM INVARIABLY IN ADVANCE.
TOW*A NX)A:
I , . ; s&an fllommn, 3ii!b 23, 1838.
J ytltdtb
■ ry LIFE it IS to have no work
TO DO.
,• who at the anvil toil,
H j „t ;We the ftOUttdiltg Wow,
, a in the burning inn's breast,
Miarki fly to and fro,
I v ±uwei mi.' to the hammer's ring,
And hre's inteiiser glow—
■ re 'tin hard to toil
v the long day through,
,t i. harder -till
f lu> BO Work to do !
q ■ v w'.o till the stubborn noil,
W hard hands guide the plough,
H v .„,l beneath the summer sun,
g ill .iiiriiiiig I'heck and hrow—
H the urse still clings to earth
, r :u "hi n time till now—
H ijt hdt ye feel 'tis hard to toil
H ai . labor all day through,
it is harder still
1 , lijve if work to do !
U who plough the sea's blue fields—
ride the restless wave,
ttlf-c gall i t vessel's keel
I . -a\ owning grave,
| 1 whose hark the wintry winds
I.is fli-rnl* "f fury rave
s' ,i. you feel ti- hard to toil
, - r long h >urs through,
i mrmiier it i- harder still
H Tn have no work to do !
}i ye up m whose fevered cheeks
The he tie glow is bright,
V. mental toil wears out the day
\ id hall" the weary night,
abor for the souls of men,
. umpious of truth and right—
-1 1 1 - ;. _'h ve feel your toil is hard,
i vu Willi this glorious view,
i- h irder still
To have uo work to do !
11 all who labor—all who strive—
Ye Wield a lofty power ;
!).< with your might, do with your strength,
Fill every g"lden hour,
I The glorious privilege to do
1- man's most noble dower—
till, toy > ;r birthright and yourselves,
To your own souls be true !
A wary, wretched life is theirs
Win have no work to do !
Stlttfti (La lt.
.or, Mr. , . r , , r , r-... -pj
dJ& O
Mrh a spring day us it was !—the sky all
- R M l ine, hazy OH the hills, warm with
- ie overhead ; a soft south wind, expres
r >i full of new impulses, blowing up from
- a. and spreading the news of life ail over
:•■wii pastures and leaf-strewn woods. —
recuses in Friend Allis's garden-bed shot
;s of ;.o!d and sapphire from the dark
i : slight long buds nestled under the
a green leafage of the violet-patch ; white
lardy points bristled on the corner that
May was thick with lilies of-the-valley,
■a. >• >ol, and fragrant ; and in a knotty old
t tr e two bluebirds and a robin did
>' duty, singing of summer's procession
me : and we made ready to receive it
in our hearts and garments.
•! ->■]> ,ine Boyle, Letty Allis, and I, Sarah
i M-rsoti, three cousins as we were, sat at the
window of Friend Allis's parlor, pretend
;t i sew, really talking. Mr. Stepel, a Ger
irtl>t, had ju>t left us ; and a litt'e trait
Mis-; J jsepliiiie's, that had occurred during
- all, brought out this observation from
Cii-ui Letty :
•10, how could thee let down thy hair so
"re that man ?"
•lo laughed. "Thee is a little innocent,
• R, WITH your pretty dialect ! Why did I
■ '*N my hair ? For Mr. Stepei to see it,
' course "
fliat is -pry evident," interposed I ; " hut
' i- not so innocent or so wise as to have
ie wondering at your caprices, Jo ; e.\-
' 1. if you please, for her edification."
1 do not pretend to be wise or simple, Sa
: hut I didn't think Cousin Josephine had
Munich vanity."
\ou certainly shall have a prcncher-bon
"!. Letty. How do you know it was vanity,
: dear ? I saw you show Mr Stepel your
"uiiroidery with the serenest satisfaction ; how
i made your crewel cherries, and 1 didn't
I Vmy hair ; which was vain 7"
L-tty was astounded. " Thee has a gift of
speech, certainly, Jo "
I have a gift of honesty, you mean. My
• ,r very handsome, and I knew Mr. Stepel
* I '' admire it with real pleasure, for it is a
color. I took down those curls with quite
y iiple an intention as you brought him that
'' picture of Cole's to see."
, *'°" phine was right, — partly, at least. Her
-was perfect ; its tint the exact line of a
''' chestnut skin, with golden lights, and
' a dows of deep brown ; not a tinge of red
■•"'iied it as auburn ; ami the light broke on
I -altering waves as it does on the sea, tip-
N THE undulations with sunshine, and scat-
IMYS of gold through the long, loose
AND across the curve of massive coil, that
"•' d almost too heavy lor her proud and
" ■'ito head to bear. Mr. Stepel was ex
'L Y enthusiastic about its beauty, and Jo
""'I as if IT LAD BEEN a wig. Sometimes I
this peculiar hair was an expression
!L ' R uwn peculiar character.
S | "'TV said truly that Jo had a gift of speech ;
' * DIE, LAVING had Her say about the hair,
RINSED the matter, with 110 uneasy recurring
'? AND took up a book from the table, de-
W JRIH G S 'IE was tired of her seam ; — she al-
W | * AS SEW ' N B • Frweutljr she
it, Jo v said I.
BY U is ' Jaue Eyre,' with Letty Allis's
name on the blank leaf. That is what I call
an anachronism, spiritually. What do you
think about the book, Letty ?" and she, turn
ing her lithe figure round in the great chair
toward the little Quakeress, whose pretty red
head and apple-blossom of a face bloomed out
of her grey attire and prim collar with a cer
tain fascinating contrast.
" I think it has a very good moral tenden
cy, Cousin Jo."
The clear, hazel eyes flashed a most amused
commeut at me.
" Well, what do you call the moral, Letty ?"
" Why,—l should think,—l do not quite
know that the moral is stated, Josephine—
hut I think thee will allow it was a great tri
umph of principle for Jane Eyre to leave Mr
Rochester when she discovered that he was
married."
Jo flung herself impatiently in the chair, and
began an harangue.
" That is a true world's judgment ! And
you, you innocent little Quaker girl ! think it
is the height of virtue not to elope with a mar
ried man, who has entirely and deliberately de
ceived you, and adds to the wrong of deceit
the insult of proposing an elopement ! Tri
umph of principle ! I should call it the result
of common decency, rather, —a thing that the
instinct of any woman would compel her to do.
My only wonder is how Jane Eyre could con
tinue to love him."
" My dear young friend," said I, rather
grimly, " when a woman loves a man, it is apt,
I regret to say, to become a fact, not a theo
ry ; and facts are stubborn things, you know.
It is not easy to set aside a real affection."
" I know that, ma'am," retorted Jo, in a
slightly sarcastic tone ; " it is a painful truth:
still, I do think a deliberate deceit practiced
on me by any man would decapitate any love
I had for him, quite inevitably."
" So it might, in your case," replied I ; "for
you never will love a man, only your idea of
one. You will go on enjoying your mighty
theories and dreams till suddenly the juice of
that ' little western flower ' drips on your eye
lids, and then I shall have the pleasure of see
ing you caress ' the fair large ears ' of some
donkey, and hang rapturously upon its brav,
till you perhaps discover that he has pretend
ed, on your account solely, to like roses, when
he has a natural proclivity to thistles ; and
then, pitiable child ! you will discover what
you have been caressing and—l spare you con
clusions ; only, for my part, I pity the ani
mal ! Now Jane Eyre was a highly practi
cal person ; she knew the man she loved was
only a man, and rather a bad specimen at that;
she was properly indignant at this further de
velopment of his nature, but reflecting in cool
blood, afterward, that it was only his natuie.
and finding it proper and legal to marry him,
she did so, to the great satisfaction of herself
and the public. You would have made a new
ideal of St. John Rivers, who was infinitely
the best material of the two, and possibly gone
on to your dying day in the belief that his
cold and hard soul was only the adamant of
the seraph, enc< uraged in that belief by his
real and high principle,—a thing that went
for sounding brass with that worldlywi.se little
philosopher, Jane, because it did not act more
practically on his inborn traits."
" Bah !" said Josephine. " when did you
turn gypsy, Sally ? You ought to sell dn.'c
keripea, and make your fortune. Why don't
you unfold Letty's fate ?"
" No," said I, laughing. " Don't you know
that the afflatus always exhausts the priestess?
You may tell Letty's fortune, or mine, if you
will ; but my power is gone."
" I can tell yours easily, O Sibyl !" replied
she. " You will never marry, neither for real
nor ideal. You should have fallen in love in
the orthodox way, when you were seventeen.
You are adaptive enough to have moulded
yourself into any nature that yon loved, and
constant enough to have clung to it through
good and evil. You would have been a model
wife, and a blessed mother. But now—you
are too old my dear ; you have seen too much;
you have not hardened yourself, but you have
learned to see too keenly into other people.
You don't respect ram, 'except exceptions';
and you have seen so much matrimony that is
harsh and unloveable, that you dread it ; and
vet Don't look at me that way, Sarah ! I
shall cry !—My dear ! my darling ! I did not
mean to hurt you—l am a perfect fool !—I)o
please look at me with your old sweet eyes
again!— How could I"
" Look at Letty," said I, succeeding at last
in a laugh. And really Letty was comical to
look at ; she was regarding Josephine and me
with her eyes wide open like two blue larkspur
flowers, her little red lips apart, and her whole
prettv surface face quite full of astonishment.
" Wasn't that a nice little tableau, Letty ?"
said Josephine, with preternatural coolness.—-
" You looked so sleepy, I thought I'd wake
you up with a hit of a scene from ' Lara Abou
kir, the Pirate Chief ;' you know we have a
great deal of private theatricals at Baltimore;
vou should see me in that play as Flashmoria,
the Bandit's Bride."
Letty rubbed her left eye a little, as if to
see whether she was sleepy or not, and look
ed grave ; for ine, the laugh came easily enough
now. Jo saw she had not quite succeeded, so
i she turned the current another way.
" Shall I tell your fortune now, Letty ?
Are yon fjnite waked up ?" said she.
" No, thee needn't, Cousin Jo ; thee don't
tell very good ones, I think."
"No, I>etty, she shall not vex yonr head
with nonsense. I think your fate is patient. ;
you will grow on a little longer like a pink
china-aster, safe in the garden, and in due time
marry some good Friend, —Thomas Dugdale,
very possibly,—and live a tranquil lite here in
Slepington till you arrive at a preacher bon
net, und speak in meeting, as dear Aunt Allis
did liefore yon."
Letty turned pale with rage. I did not
think her blonde temperament held such pas
sion.
"I won't ! I won't! I never will!" she cried
out. "I hate Thomas Dugdale, Sarah ! Thee
ought to know better about me ! thee knows
i cannot endure him, the old thing !"
This climax was too much for Jo. M itb
PUBLISHED EVERY THURSDAY AT TOWANDA, BRADFORD COUNTY, PA., BY E. O'MEARA GOODRICH.
" REGARDLESS OF DENUNCIATION FROM ANY QUARTER."
raised brows and a round mouth, she hud
been on the point of whistling ever since Let
ter began—it was an old, naughty trick of hers;
but now she laughed outright.
" No sort of inspiration left, Sallv ! I must
patch up Letty's late myself. Flatter not
yourself that she is going to be a good girl
and marry in meeting : not she ! If there's a
wild, scatter-brained, handsome, dissipated,
godless youth in all Slepington, it is on him
that testy little heart will fix, —and think him
not only a hero, but a prodigy of genius.—
Friend A1 lis will break her heart over Letty ;
but I'd bet a pack of gloves, that in three years
you'll see that juvenile Quakeress in a scarlet
satin hat and feather, with a blue shawl, and
green dress, on the arm of a fast young man
with black hair, and a cigar in his mouth."
" Why ! where did thee ever see him, Jo
sey ?" exclaimed Letty, now rosy with quick
blushes.
The question was irresistible. Jo and I
burst into a peal of laughter that woke Friend
Allis from her nap, and, bringing her into the
parlor, forced us to recover our gravity ; and
presently Jo and I took leave.
Letty was an orphan, and lived with her
cousin, Friend Allis. I, too, was alone ; but
I kept a tiny house in Slepington, part of
which I rented, and Jo was visiting me.
As we walked home, along the quiet street
overhung with willows and sycamores, 1 said
to her, " Jo, how came you to know Letty's
secret ?'L
" My dear, I did not know it any more than
you ; but I drew the inference of her tastes
and lier character She is excitable, —-even pas
sionate ; but her formal training has allowed
no scope for either trait, and suppression has
but concentrated them. She really pines for
some excitement ; what, then, could be more
natural than that her fancy should light upon
some person utterly diverse from what she is
used to see ? That is simple enough. I hit
upon the black hair on the same principle,
' like in difference.' The cigar seemed wonder
ful to the half-frightened, all-amazed child ; i
but who ever has seen a fast young man with
out a cigar ?"
" I am afraid it is Henry Maiden," said I,
meditatively ; " he is all you describe, but he
is also radically bad ; besides, having been in
the Mexican war, he will have the prestige of
a hero to Letty. llow can the poor girl be
undeceived before it is quite too late ?"
" What do you want to undeceive her for,
Sally ? Do you suppose that will prevent her
marrying Mr. Maiden?"
11 1 should think so, most certainly !"
" Not in the least. If you want Letty to
marry him, just judiciously oppose it. Go to
her, and say you come as a friend to tell her
Mr. Maiden's faults, and the result will be,
she will hate you, and be deeper in love with
him than ever "
" You don't give her credit for common
sense, Jo."
" Just so much as any girl of her age has in
love. Did you ever know a woman who give
up a man she loved because she was warned ,
against him ?—or ever if she knew his charac
ter well, herself ? I don't know but there are
women who could do it, from sheer religious :
principles. I believe you might, Sarah. It
would be a hard struggle, and wear you to a
shadow in mind and body : but you have a
conscience, and, for a woman with a heart as
soft as pudding, the nio.->t thoroughly rigid
streak of duty in you ; none of which Letty
has to depend on. No ; if you want to save
her, take her away from Slepington ; take her
to Saratoga, to Newport, to Washington ;
turn her small head with gayety : she is pret
ty enough lo have a dozen lovers at any wa
tering place ; it is only propinquity that favors
Mr. Maiden here."
" I can t do that. Josephine. I have not the
means, and Miss His would not have the will,
even if she believed in your prescription."
" Then Letty must stay here and bide her
time. You believe in a special Providence,
Sarah, don't von ?"
" Yes, of course I do."
" Then cannot you leave her to that, care ?
Circumstances do not work for you. Perhaps
it is best that she should marry him, suffer,
live, love, and be refined by fire "
My 1 icart sunk at the prospect of these pos
sibilities. .Josephine put her arm round me.
" Sally," said she, in her softest tone, " I srriev
ed you, dear, this afternoon. I did not mean
to. 1 grieved myself most. Please forgive me?"
" I havn't anything to forgive, Jo," said I.
" What von said to nie was true, painfully
true, and, being so, for a moment pained nie.
I should have been much happier to lie mar
ried, I know ; but. uow I daren't think of it.
I have lost a great deal. I have
' 1< st my place,
M'l sweet, safe corner by the household lire.
Behind the heads of children ;'
and yet I do not know that I have not gained
a little. It is something, Jo, to know that, I
am not in the power of a bad, or even an ill
tempered man. I can sit by my lire and know
that no one will come home to fret at ine, —
that 1 shall encounter no cold looks, no sneers,
no bursts of anger, no snarl of stinginess, no
contempt of my opinion and advice. I know
that now men treat me with respect and at
tention, such as wives rarely, if ever receive
from them. Sensitive and fastidious as I am,
I do not know whether my gain is not. to me,
greater than my loss. I know it ought not to
be so, —that it argues a vicious, uu unchris
tian, almost an uncivilized state of society ;
but that does not affect the facts."
'• You frighten me, Sarah. I cannot be
lieve this is always true of men and their
wives."
" Neither is it. Some men are good and
kind and gentle, gentle-men, even in their fami
lies ; and every woman believes the man she
is to marry is that exception. Jo, —bend your
ear down closer, I thought once 1 knew such
a man, —and, —dear, — I loved him."
" My darling !—but, Sarah, why "
" Because, as you said, Josey, I was too
old ; I had seen too much ; I would not give
wav to any impulse. 1 bent my soul to know
him : I rang the metal on more than one stone,
and every time it rang false. I knew, if I
married him I should live and die a wretched
woman. Was it not better to live alone ?"
" But, Sarah, —if he loved you ?"
" He did not, —not enough to hurt himself;
he could not love anything so much better than
his ease as to suffer, Josey : he was safe. He
thought, or said, he loved nie ; but he was
mistaken."
" Safe, indeed ! he ought to have been shot!"
" Hush, dear!"
There was a long pause. It was as when
you lift a wreck from tlie tranquil sea and let
it fall again to the depths, useless to wave or
shore ; the black and ghastly hulk is covered ;
it is seen 110 more : but the water palpitates
with circling rings, trembles above the grave,
dashes quick and apprehensive billows upon
the sand and is long in regaining its quiet sur
face.
•' I wonder if there ever was a perfect man,"
said Jo, at length, drawing a deep sigh.
" You an American girl, Jo, aud don't think
at once of Washington ?"
" My dear, I am bored to death with Wash- !
ington al Ame.rira.in. A nun !—how dare you
call him a man ?—don't you know be is a myth,
an abstraction, a plaster-of-Paris cast ? Did
you ever hear any human trait of his noticed ?
Weren't you brought up to regard him as a
species of special seraph, a sublime and s'ain
less figure, inseparable from a grand manner
and a scroll ? Did you ever dare suppose he
ate. or drank, or kissed his wife ? You start
ed then at the idea : 1 saw you !"
" You are absurd, Jo. It is true that he is
exactly, among us, what demigods were to the
Greeks, —only less human than they. But <
when I once get my neck out of the school
yoke I do not start at such suggestions as
yours ; I believe he did comport himself as a
man of like passions with others, and was as
far from being a hero to his valcl-de rhumb re
as anybody."
By this time we were at home, and Jo flung
her parasol on the bench in the porch, and sat
down beside it with a gesture of weariness aud
disgust mingled.
" Why will you, of all people, Sarah, quote
that tinkling, superficial trash of a proverb, so
palpably French, when the true reason why a
man is not a hero to his lackey is ouiy because
he is seen with a lackey's eyes,—the sight of a
low, convention-ridden, narrow, uneducated
mind, unable to take a broad enough view to
see that a man is a hero because he is a man,
because he overleaps the level of his life, and
is greater than his race, being one ot them ?
If lie were of the heroic race, what virtue in
being heroic ? it is the assertion of his trivial 1
life that makes his speciality evident, —the
shadow that throws out the bas-relief. We
chatter endlessly about the immense good of
Washington's example : 1 believe its good j
would be more than doubled, could we be made
nationally, to see him as a ' human nature's
daily food,' having mortal and natural wants,
tastes, and infirmities but building with and
over ali, t>y the he'p of God and a good will,
the noble and lofty edifice of a patriot man
hood, a pure life of duty and devo: ion, sublime
for its very strength and simpleuess, heroic be
cause manly and human."
The day had waned, and the sunset lit Jose
phine's excited eyes with fire ; she was not
beautiful, but now, if ever beauty visited her
with a transient caress. She looked up and
met my eyes fixed on her.
" What is it, Sally ?—what do I look like?"
" Very pretty, just now, Jo ; your eyes are 1
bright and your cheek flushed : the sunshine
suits you. 1 admire you to-night."
"I am glad," said she, naively. " I often
wish to be pretty."
" A waste wish, Jo !—and yet I have en
tertained it myself."
" It's not so much matter for you Sarah ;
for people love you. And besides, you have a
certain kind of beauty : your eyes are beau
tiful, —rather too sad, perhaps, but (ine in shape
and tint ; and you have a good head, and a
delicately outlined face. Moreover, you are
picturesque : people look at you, and then look
again—and any way, love you, don't they ?"
" Ft ople are very good to ine, Jo."
" Oh, yes ! we all know that people as a
mass, are kindly,considerate, and unselfish,that
they are given to loving and admiring disagree -
able and ugly people ; in short, that the mil
enium has come. Sally, my dear, you are a
small hypocrite—or else—But I think we won't
establish a nnPual admiration society to-night,
as there is only two of us ; besides, 1 am hun
gry : let us have tea "'
The next day, Josephine left me. As we
walked together toward the landing of the
steamboat, Letty Allis emerged from a green
lane to say good-bye, and down its vista I dis
cerned the handsome, lazy person of Henry
Maiden, but I did not inform Letty of my dis
covery.
A year passed awav, to me with the old mo
notonous routine ; fuil of work, not wanting in
solace ; barren, indeed of household enjoyments
and vicissitudes : solitary, sometimes desolate,
yet peaceful even in monotony. But this new
spring had not come with such serene neglect
to the other two of us three. Against advice,
remonstrances, and entreaty from her good
friends, Letty Allis had married Henry Maiden,
and in attire more tasteful, but quite as far
from Quakerism as Josephine had predicted
beamed upon the inhabitants of Slepington
from the bow-window, or open door, of a cot
tage very ornre indeed ; while the odor of a
tolerable cigar served as Mr. Maiden's expo
nent, wherever he abode. And to Josephine
had come a loss no annual resurection should
repair ; her mother was dead, she too, was
orphaned—for she had never known her fath
er ; her only sister was married far away; and
I kept an o'.d promise iu going to her for a
year's stay at least.
Aunt Boyle's property had consisted chiefly
iu large cotton mills owned by herself and her
twin brother, who dying before her left her all
his own share in tberu. These mills were on a
noisy little river in the western part of Massa
chusetts, —iu a valley, narrow, but picturesque,
and so far above the level of the sea that the
air was keen and pure among the mountains
Mrs. Boyle had removed here from Baltimore,
a few years before her own death, that -ho
might be with her brother through his long
and fatal illness ; and, finding her health im
proved bv change of air, had occupied his
house ever since, until one of tlio-e typhoid fe
vers that invest such river gorges at certain
seasons of the year entered the village aboot
the mills, when, in visiting the sick, she took
the epidemic herself and died. Josephine still
retained the house endeared to her by sad and
glad recollections ; and it was there I found
her, when, after renting the whole of my lit
tle tenement at Slepington, I betook myself to
Valley Mills at her request.
The cottage where she lived was capacious
enough for her wants, and though plain, even
to an air of superciliousness, without, was most
luxurious within, —made to use and live in ;
for Mr. Brown, her uncle, was an Englishman,
and had never a:r ved at that height of iru.>-
atlantic ton which consists in shrouding and
darkening all the pleasant rooms in the house,
and skulking through life in the basement and
attic. Sunshine, cushions, and flowers were
Mr. Brown's personal tastes ; and plenty ot
these characterized the cottage. A green ter
race between hill and river spread out before
the door for lawn and garden, and a tiny con
servatory abutted upon the brink of the ter
race slope, from a bay window in the library,
that opened sidewi.se into this winter garden.
I found Jo more changed than I had expect
e 1 ; this last year of country life had given
strength and elasticity to the tall and slender
figure ; a steady rose of health burned 011 ei
ther check ; and sorrow had subdued and calm
ed her quick spirit.
I was at home directly, and a sweeter sum
nier never glowed and blushed on earth than
that which installed me in the Nook Cottage.
Out of doors the whole country was beautiful,
and attainable ; within, I had continued re
sources in my usual work and in Jo's society ;
for she was one of those persons who never are
uninteresting, never fatiguing ; a certain silent
charm pervaded her conversation, and a sim
plicity quite original startled you continually
in her manner and ways. I liked to watch her
about the house ; dainty and fastidious in the
extreme about some things, utterly careless
about others, yon never knew where or when
either trait would show itself. She was scru
pulous as to the serving of meals for instance
—almost to a fault ; no carelessness, no slight
neglect, was admitted here, and always on the
spotless damask laid with quaint china stood a
tapered vase of white Venice glass, with one,
or two, or three blossoms, sometimes a cluster
of leaves, the spray of a wild vine, or the tas
sellcd branch of a larch tree jewelled with rose
red cones urrangtd therein with an artist's
taste and .-kill ; but perhaps while she sharply
rebuked the maid for a dim spot on her cho
colate pitcher or a grain of sugar spilt on the
salver, her white Indian shawl lay trailed over
the Divan half upon the floor, and her gloves
fluttered on the doorstep till the wind carried
them off to find her parasol hanging in the ho
ueysarkle boughs.
But, happily, it is no one's duty to make
other people uncomfortable by perpetually tiuk
ering at that trait in them which most offends
oar nature ;and 1 thought it more for my good
and hers to learn patience my-elf than under
take to beat her into order ; the result of which
wis peace and good-will that vindicated my
wisdom to myself ; and 1 found her, faults and
all, sufficiently fascinating and lovable.
A year passed away serenely ; and when
spring came again, Josephine refused to let me
leave her. Our life was quiet enough,but with
such beautiful nature, and plenty to do, we
were not lonely—less so because Jo's hands
were as open as her heart, and to her, all tlie
sick and poor looked, not only for help, but for
the rarer consclation for living sympathy and
counsel. Her shrewd common sense, her prac
tical capacity, her kindly, cheerful face, her
power of appreciating a position of want and
perplexity and seeing the best way out of it,
and, above all, her deep, and fervent religious
feeling, made her an invaluable friend to just
that c ass who most need her.
In the course of this spring we gained an
addition to our society, in the person of Mr.
Waring,the son of a gentleman who had bought
the mills at Mrs. Boylcs death, but who had
hitherto conducted them by an overseer. He
had recently bought a little island in the mid
dle of the liver, just below the dam, and pro
posed erecting a new mill upon it ; but as the
Tunxis (the Indian name of our river) was lia
ble to rapid and destructive freshets, the mill
required a deep and secure foundation and a
lower story of stone.
This implied c ome skilful engineering, and
Mr. Arthur Waring, having studied this sub
ject fully abroad came home from Boston and
took up his abode at Valley Mills village. Of
cou r se, we being his only hope of society in the
place, he made our acquaintance eerly. I rather
liked him ; his manner was good, his percep
tions acute, his tastes refined, and lie had a cer
tain strength of will that gave him force to a
character otherwise common-place. Josephine
I liked liira at once ; she laid his shyness and
brusqneri, which were only the expressions of a
dominent self consciousness, to genuine modes
ty. lie was depressed and moody, because lie
was bored for want of acquaintance, and miss
ed the adulation and caresses that he leceived
at home as an only child ; hut Jo's swift im
agination painted this as the trait of a rellec
! tive and melancholy nature disgusted with the
! world, and pitied him accordingly ; a mild way
of misanthropic speech that is apt to invest
young men, added to 'his delusion : and, with
all the energy of her sweet, earnest disposition
Josephine undertook his education —undertook
to teach him faith und hope and charity, to set
his wayward soul, to renovate his bitter opin
ions, to make him a better and happier man.
It is a well-known (act in the philosophy of
the human mind,that it is apt to gain more by
imparting than receiving ; and since philosophy
where it becomes fact, does not mercifully ad
just its results to circumstances ; but rushes
on in implacable grooves, and clears its own
track of whatever lies thereon by the summa
ry process of crushing it to dust, it did not
pause now for the pure intention and tender
heart which in teaching another love lo men,
and learnt far better than her pnpil.
VOL. XIX. —NO. 8.
Mr. Waring was but a man ; lie did not lore
Josephine—he admired her ; lie loved nothing
but himself, his quiet,his pleasure and while she
ministered to either, he regared her with a
species of affection that put on the mask of a
diviner passion and nsed its langnage. A thou
sand little things showed the man fully to me,
u cool spectator ; but she who needed most
the discerning eye regarded this gay bubble as
if it had keen a jewel.
Perhaps I blame him too severely.for it was
against the very heart of my heart that he sin
ned ; possibly I do not allow for the tempta
tion it was to a young man,quite alone in a to m
try village, without resources, and accustomed
to the flatterynnd caresses of a devoted mother
to find himself agreeable in the eye of a noble
and loveable woman. Possibly, in his place,a
better man might have sought her society,
drawn her out of her reserve for his own de
lectation, confided in her,worked upon her pie
ty, claimed her care, played on her simplicity
an I ignorance of t'ie world, crept into her heart
and won its strength of emotion and its gener
ous affection, —in short, made to love her,with
out saying so, honestly and openly. Vet
there are some men who have done it, and
even yet,while I try to regard Arthur Waring
with Christian charity, I feel that I cannot
trust him that I do not respect him—that, if
I dared despise anything God has made, my
first contempt would light upon liitn.
In the autumn, while all this was going on,
1 received a painful and wretched letter from
Lettv Maidei), begging inc to come to her. I
could not resist such an appeal ; and one of
Josephine's little neices' having come to spend
the winter with her, I hurried to Skpington,
—not, 1 am sure, in the least regretted by Mr.
Waring, who had begun to look at me with un
easy and sometimes defiant eyes.
I found a miserable household here. Mr,
Maiden had in no way reformed. When did
nvur.age e\er reform a had man ? On the
contrary, he was more dissipated than ever;
and whenever he cume home, the welcome that
waite 1 for himwas one little calculated to make
home pleasant ; for Lctty's quick tunper blaz
ed up in reproach and reviling that drew out
worse recrimination ; and even the little, wail
ing, feeble baby, that filled Lucy's arms and
consoled her in his absence, was only further
cause of strife between her and her husband.
Often, as I came down the street and saw the
pretty outside of the cottage,waving with creep
ers, and hedged about with thorns, whose gay
berries decked it as for a festival,l thought of
what a good old preacher among the Friends
once said to me : "Sarah, thee will live to find
shows are often seems ; thee sees many a quiet
h jusp, with gay w nlows, that is hell inside."
1 soon found that i must stay all winter at
Slepington. I had a hard task before me—to
try and teach Letty that she had no right to
neglect her own duty because her husband ig
nored his. Put six mouths of continual drop
ping seemed to wear a tiny channel of percep
tion : and my presence, as well as the efforts
we made together to preserve order, if not se
renity, in the house, restored a certain dim hope
to Lctty's mind, and I began to see that the
" purification by fire was doing its work,iu slow
pain, but to a sure end."
Selfish as it was, I cannot say that I felt
sorry to return to Jo, who wrote for me in
April, urgi> g me to come as soon as I cou'd,
for Mr. Waring had fallen from the mill-wall
and broken his leg, and the workmen, in their
confusion had carried him to her house, and she
wanted me to help her. I learned, on reach
ing Valley Mills, that the new building on the
Island had been completed far enough to re
sist a heavy freshet, that had swept away part
of the first story, where the mortar was not
yet hardened ; and it was in traversing these
wet stones to ascertain the extent of the dam
age.that Mr. Waring had slipped, and unable
to recover bin footing, fallen on a heap of
stones and received his injury.
My first question to Josephine was, " where
is Mr. W a ring's mother ?"
" lie could not send for her, Sally," said
die, " because she is not well, and he fared to
startle Iter.'*
" I I'm !" said I, very earthly.
Josephine looked at me with innocent grave
eyes—dear,simple child ! —and yet,for anybody
lint herself she would have been sufficiently dis
cerning. This love seemed to have remodelled
her nature, to have taken from her all the ser
pent's wisdom, to have destroyed her common
s-nse, and distorted her view of everything in
which Arthur Waring was concerned. She had
certainly got on very fast in my absence. 1 had
returned too late.
1 had little to do with the care of the in
valid : that devolved on Jo ; my offers of scr
v ce were kindly received, but always declined.
Nobody could read li ra as well as Miss Poy'e.
Nobody else understood his moods, his humors,
his whims ; she knew his tastes with ominous
exactness. It was she who arranged his meals
on the salver with such care and grace, nay
even cooked them at times : for Jo believed
like a rational woman, that intellect and culti
vation increase one's capacity for every office,
that a woman of intelligence should be able to
excel an ignorant servant in every household
du'y, bv just so much as she excels her in mind,
in fact this was a pleasant life to two persons
but harassing enough for me. Had 1 been
confident of Arthur Waring's integrity, I sho'd
have regarded him with friendly and cordial
I interest : but 1 had every reason to distrust
him. I perceived he had so far insinuatul
himself into Jo's confidence that his whole ar
tillery of expressive looks, broken sentences,
even caresses, were received by her with entire
good faith ; lint when 1 asked her seriously
if I was to regard Mr. Waring as her lover,
she burst into indignant denial, colored scar
! let, and was half inclined to be angry with me,
though a certain tremulous key, into which her
usually usually sweet and steady voice broke
while she declared he bud never spoken to her
of love, it was only friendship, witnessed
against her that she was apprehensive and,
] perhaps vi.-iled with a tinge of that causeless
shame which even in a pure and good woman
! conventionality constrains, when she has lov
ed a man liefore he says in plain English, " I
love you,' though evert act and look and tone