 CHAPTER XI. Mr. Carson's Intentions Revealed O Mary, canst thou wreck his peace, what for thy sake would gladly die? Or canst thou break that heart of his whose only fault is loving thee? Burns. I can like of the wealth I must confess, yet more I prize the man though moneyless. I am not of their humour yet, that can for title or estate affect a man, or of myself one body dain to make with him I loathe for his possession's sake. Withers Fidelia. Barton returned home after his encounter with Esther, uneasy and dissatisfied. He had said no more than he had been planning to say for years, in case she was ever thrown in his way, in the character in which he felt certain he should meet her. He believed she deserved it all, and yet he now wished he had not said it. Her look as she asked for mercy haunted him through his broken and disordered sleep. Her form as he last saw her, lying prostrate in helplessness, would not be banished from his dreams. He sat up in bed to try and dispel the vision. Now, too late, his conscience smote him with harshness. It would have been all very well, he thought, to have said what he did if he had added some kind words at last. He wondered if his dead wife was conscious of that night's occurrence, and he hoped not. For with her love of Esther he believed it would in bitter heaven to have seen her so degraded and repulsed. For he now recalled her humility, her tacit acknowledgment of her lost character, and he began to marvel if there was power in the religion he had often heard of to turn her from her ways. He felt that no earthly power that he knew of could do it. But there glimmered on his darkness the idea that religion might save her. Still, where to find her again? In the wilderness of a large town, where to meet with an individual of so little value or note to any? And evening after evening he paced the same streets in which he had heard those footsteps following him, peering under every fantastic, discreditable bonnet in the hopes of once more meeting Esther and addressing her in a far different manner from what he had done before. But he returned night after night, disappointed in his search, and at last gave it up in despair and tried to recall his angry feelings toward her in order to find relief from his present self-reproach. He often looked at Mary, and wished she were not so like her aunt, for the very bodily likeness seemed to suggest the possibility of a similar likeness in their fate, and then this idea enraged his irritable mind and he became suspicious and anxious about Mary's conduct. Now hitherto she had been so remarkably free from all control and almost from all inquiry concerning her actions that she did not brook this change in her father's behaviour very well. Just when she was yielding more than ever to Mr. Carson's desire of frequent meetings, it was hard to be so questioned concerning her hours of leaving off work, whether she had come straight home, etc. She could not tell lies, though she could conceal much if she were not questioned. So she took refuge in obstinate silence, alleging as a reason for it her indignation of being so cross-examined. This did not add to the good feeling between father and daughter, and yet they dearly loved each other, and in the minds of each one principal reason for maintaining such behaviour as displeased the other was believing that this conduct would ensure that person's happiness. Her father now began to wish Mary was married, then this terrible superstitious fear suggested by her likeness to Esther would be done away with. He felt that he could not resume the reins he had once slackened, but with a husband it would be different. If Jem Wilson would marry her, with his character for steadiness and talent, but he was afraid Mary had slighted him, he came so seldom now to the house. He would ask her. Mary, what's come over thee in Jem Wilson? You were great friends at one time. Oh, folks say he's going to be married to Molly Gibson. Of course, courting takes up a deal of time, answered Mary, as indifferently as she could. Thou's played thy cards badly, then, replied her father in a surly tone, and one time he were desperate fond of thee, or I'm much mistaken. Much fonder of thee than thou deservedest. That's as people think, said Mary Pertley, for she remembered that the very morning before she had met Mr. Carson, who had sighed and swore and protested all manner of tender vows that she was the loveliest, sweetest, best, et cetera. And when she had seen him afterwards riding with one of his beautiful sisters, had he not evidently pointed her out, as in some way or other an object worthy of attention and interest, and then lingered behind his sister's horse for a moment, to kiss his hand repeatedly? So as for Jem Wilson, she could whistle him down the wind. But her father was not in the mood to put up with pertness, and he upbraided her with the loss of Jem Wilson till she had to bite her lips till the blood came, in order to keep down the angry words that would rise in her heart. At last her father left the house, and then she might give way to her passionate tears. It so happened that Jem, after much anxious thought, had determined that day to put his fortune to the touch to win or lose all. He was in a condition to maintain a wife and comfort. It was true his mother and aunt must form part of the household, but such is not an uncommon case among the poor, and if there were the advantages of previous friendship between the parties, it was not, he thought, an obstacle to matrimony. Both mother and aunt, he believed, would welcome Mary. And oh, what a certainty of happiness the idea that welcome implied! He had been absent and abstracted all day long with the thought of the coming event of the evening. He almost smiled at himself for his care in washing and dressing in preparation for his visit to Mary, as if one waistcoat or another could decide his fate in so passionately a momentous thing. He believed he only delayed before his little-looking glass for cowardice, for absolute fear of a girl. He would try not to think so much about the affair, and he thought the more. Poor Jem, it is not an auspicious moment for thee. Come in, said Mary, as someone knocked at the door while she sat sadly at her sewing, trying to earn a few pence by working over hours at some morning. Jem entered, looking more awkward and abashed than he had ever done before. Yet here was Mary all alone, just as he had hoped to find her. She did not ask him to take a chair, but after standing a minute or two he sat down near her. "'Is your father home, Mary?' said he, by way of making an opening, for she seemed determined to keep silence and went on stitching away. "'No, he's gone to his union, I suppose.' Another silence. "'It was no use waiting,' thought Jem. The subject would never be led to by any talk he could think of in his anxious, fluttered state. He had better begin at once. "'Mary,' said he, and the unusual tone of his voice made her look up for an instant. But in that same time she understood from his countenance what was coming, and her heart beat so suddenly and violently that she could hardly sit still. Yet one thing she was sure of. Nothing he could say should make her have him. She would show them all who would be glad to have her. She was not yet calm after her father's irritating speeches, yet her eyes fell veiled before that passionate look fixed upon her. "'Dear Mary, for how dear you are I cannot rightly tell you in words. It's no new story I'm going to speak about. You must have seen and known it long. For since we were boy and girl I have loved you above father and mother and all, and all I've thought on by day and dreamt on by night has been something in which you've had a share. I'd no way of keeping you for long, and I scorned to try and tie you down. And I lived in terror lest someone else should take you to himself. But now, Mary, I'm foreman in the works, and—Dear Mary, listen, as she and her unbearable agitation stood up and turned away from him. He rose to and came nearer, trying to take hold of her hand, but this she would not allow. She was bracing herself up to refuse him for once and for all. And now, Mary, I have a home to offer you, and a heart as true as ever a man had to love you and cherish you. We shall never be rich folk, I dare say, but if a loving heart and a strong right arm can shield you from sorrow or from want, mine shall do it. I cannot speak as I would like. My love won't let itself be put into words, but, oh, darling, say you'll believe me and that you'll be mine. She could not speak at once. Her words would not come. Mary, they say silence gives consent. Is it so, he whispered. Now or never the effort must be made. No, it does not with me. Her voice was calm, although she trembled from head to foot. I will always be your friend, Gem, but I can never be your wife. Not my wife, said he mournfully. Oh, Mary, think a while. You cannot be my friend if you will not be my wife. At least I can never be content to be only your friend. Do, think a while. If you say no, you will make me a hopeless desperate. It's no love of yesterday. It has made the very groundwork of all that people call good in me. I don't know what I shall be if you won't have me. And, Mary, think how glad your father would be. It may sound vain, but he's told me more than once how much he should like to see us too married. Gem intended this for a powerful argument, but in Mary's present mood it told against him more than anything, for it suggested the false and foolish idea that her father, in his evident anxiety to promote her marriage with Gem, had been speaking to him on the subject with some degree of solicitation. I tell you, Gem, it cannot be. Once and for all I will never marry you. And is this the end of all my hopes and fears? The end of my life, I may say, for it is the end of all worth living for. His agitation rose and carried him into passion. Mary, you'll hear maybe of me as a drunkard, maybe as a thief, maybe as a murderer. Remember, when all are speaking ill of me, you will have no right to blame me, for it's your cruelty that will have made me what I feel I shall become. You won't even say you'll try and like me, will you, Mary? said he. Suddenly changing his tone from threatening to spare, to fond, passionate and treaty, as he took her hand and held it forcibly between both of his while he tried to catch a glimpse of her averted face. She was silent, but it was from deep and violent emotion. He could not bear to wait. He would not hope to be dashed away again. He rather, in his bitterness of heart, chose the certainty of despair, and before she could resolve what to answer, he flung away her hand and rushed out of the house. Gem! Gem! cried she, with faint and choking voice. It was too late. He left street after street behind him with his almost winged speed, as he sought the fields where he might give way unobserved to all the deep despair he felt. It was scarcely ten minutes since he had entered the house, and found Mary at comparative peace. And now she lay half across the dresser, her head hidden in her hands, and every part of her body shaking with the violence of her sobs. She could not have told at first, if you had asked her, and she could have commanded voice enough to answer. Why she was in such agonized grief? It was too sudden for her to analyze or think upon it. She only felt that by her own doing her life would be hereafter blank and dreary. By and by her sorrow exhausted her body by its power, and she seemed to have no strength left for crying. She sat down, and now thoughts crowded on her mind. One little hour ago, and all was still unsaid, and she had her fate in her own power. And yet how long ago had she determined to say pretty much what she did if the occasion ever offered? It was as if two people were arguing the matter, that mournful desponding communion between her former self and her present self. Herself a day, an hour ago, and herself now. For we have every one of us felt how a very few minutes of the months and years called life will sometimes suffice to place all time past and future in an entirely new light. We'll make us see the vanity, or the criminality of the bygone, and so change the aspect of the coming time that we look with loathing on the very thing we have most desired. A few moments may change our character for life by giving a totally different direction to our aims and energies. To return to Mary, her plan had been, as we all know, to marry Mr. Carson, and the occurrence an hour ago was only a preliminary step. True. But it had unveiled her heart to her. It had convinced her that she loved Jem above all persons or things. But Jem was a poor mechanic, with a mother and an aunt to keep, a mother too who had shown her pretty clearly that she did not desire her for a daughter-in-law, while Mr. Carson was rich and prosperous and gay, and she believed would place her in all circumstances of ease and luxury where want would never come. What were these hollow vanities to her now she had discovered the passionate secret of her soul? She felt as if she almost hated Mr. Carson, who had decoyed her with his baubles. She now saw how vain, how nothing to her would be all the gayities and pumps, all joys and pleasures unless she might share them with Jem. Yes. With him she had harshly rejected so short a time ago. If he were poor she loved him all the better. If his mother did think her unworthy of him, what was it but the truth, as she now owned, with bitter penitence? She had hitherto been walking in groped light towards a precipice. But in the clear revelation of that past hour she saw her danger, and turned away resolutely and for ever. That was some comfort. I mean her clear perception of what she ought not to do, of what no luring temptation should ever again induce her to hearken to. How she could best undo the wrongs she had done to Jem and herself by refusing his love was another anxious question. She wearyed herself by proposing plans and rejecting them. She was roused to a consciousness of the time by hearing the neighbouring church clock strike twelve. Her father, she knew, might be expected home any minute, and she was in no mood for a meeting with him. So she hastily gathered up her work and went to her own little bedroom leaving him to let himself in. She put out her candle that her father might not see its light under the door and sat down on her bed to think. But again, turning things over in her mind again and again, she could only determine at once to put an end to all further communication with Mr. Carson in the most decided way she could, maidenly modesty, and true love is ever modest, seemed to oppose every plan she could think of for showing Jem how much she repented her decision against him and how dearly she had discovered that she loved him. She came to the unusual wisdom of resolving to do nothing but strive to be patient and to improve circumstances as they might turn up. Surely if Jem knew of her remaining unmarried he would try his fortune again. He would never be content with one rejection. She believed she could not in his place. She had been very wrong. But now she would endeavor to do right and have womanly patience until he saw her changed and repentant mind in her natural actions, even if she had to wait for years. It was no more than now it was easy to look forward to, as a penance for her giddy flirting on the one hand, and her cruel mistake concerning her feelings on the other. So anticipating a happy ending in the course of her love, however distant it might be, she fell asleep just as the earliest factory bells were ringing. She had sunk down in her clothes, and her sleep was unrefreshing. She wakened up shivery and chill in body and sorrow-stricken in mind, though she could not at first rightly tell the cause of her depression. She recalled the events of the night before, and still resolved to adhere to the determinations she had then formed. But patience seemed a far more difficult virtue this morning. She hastened downstairs in her earnest, sad desire to do right. Now took much pains to secure a comfortable though scanty breakfast for her father, and when he dawdled into the room in an evidently irritable temper, she bore all with the gentleness of penitence, till at last her mild answers turned away wrath. She loathed the idea of meeting Sally Leadbitter at her daily work. Yet it must be done. And she tried to nerve herself for the encounter, and to make it at once understood that having determined to give up having anything further to do with Mr. Carson, she considered the bond of intimacy broken between them. But Sally was not the person to let these resolutions be carried into effect too easily. She soon became aware of the present state of Mary's feelings, but she thought they merely arose from the changeableness of girlhood, and that the time would come when Mary would thank her for almost forcing her to keep up her meetings and communications with her rich lover. So when two days had passed over in rather too marked avoidance of Sally on Mary's part, and when the former was made aware by Mr. Carson's complaints, that Mary was not keeping her appointments with him, and that unless he detained her by force, he had no chance of obtaining a word as she passed him in the street on her rapid walk home. She resolved to compel Mary to what she called her own good. She took no notice during the third day of Mary's avoidance as they sat at work. She rather seemed to acquiesce in the coolness of their intercourse. She put away her sewing early and went home to her mother, who she said was more ailing than usual. The other girls soon followed her example, and Mary, casting a rapid glance up and down the street as she stood last on Miss Simmons' doorstep, darted homewards in hopes of avoiding the person whom she was fast learning to dread. That night she was safe from any encounter on her road, and she arrived at home which she found as she expected, empty, for she knew it was a club night which her father would not miss. She sat down to recover breath and to still her heart which panted more from nervousness than from overexertion, although she had walked so quickly. Then she arose, and taking off her bonnet her eye caught the form of Sally Leadbitter, passing the window with a lingering step and looking into the darkness with all her might, as if to ascertain if Mary were returned. In an instant she repast and knocked at the house door, but without awaiting an answer she entered. Well, Mary dear, knowing well how little dear Mary considered her just then, it's so difficult to get any comfortable talk at Miss Simmons, I thought I'd just step up and see you at home. I understood from what you said your mother was ailing, and that you wanted to be with her, replied Mary in no welcoming tone. I, but mother's better now, said the unabashed Sally. Your father's out, I suppose, looking round as well as she could, for Mary made no haste to perform the hospitable offices of striking a match and lighting a candle. Yes, he's out, said Mary shortly, and busying herself at last about the candle, without ever asking her visitor to sit down. So much the better, answered Sally. For to tell you the truth, Mary, I've a friend at the end of the road as is anxious to come and see you at home, since you're grown so particular as not to like to speak to him in the street. He'll be here directly. Oh, Sally, don't let him in, said Mary, speaking at last heartily, and running to the door she would have fastened it, but Sally held her hands, laughing meanwhile at her distress. Oh, please, Sally, struggling, dear Sally, don't let him come here. The neighbors will so talk, and father will go mad if he hears. He'll kill me, Sally. He will. Besides, I don't love him. I never did. Oh, let me go, as footsteps approached. And then, as they passed the house, and seemed to give her a respite, she continued, Do, Sally, dear Sally, go and tell him I don't love him, and that I don't want to have anything more to do with him. It was very wrong, I dare say, keeping company with him at all. But I'm very sorry if I've led him to think too much of me, and I don't want him to think any more. Will you tell him this, Sally? And I'll do anything for you if you will. I'll tell you what I'll do, said Sally, in a more relenting mood. I'll go back with you to where he's waiting for us, or rather I should say where I told him to wait for a quarter of an hour, till I see it if your father was at home. And if I didn't come back in that time, he said he'd come here and break the door open but he'd see you. Oh, let us go, let us go, said Mary, feeling that the interview must be, and had better be anywhere than at home, where her father might return at any minute. She snatched up her bonnet, and was at the end of the court in an instant. But then, not knowing whether to turn to the right or to the left, she was obliged to wait for Sally, who came leisurely up, and put her arm through Mary's with a kind of decided hold, intended to prevent the possibility of her changing her mind and turning back. But this, under the circumstances, was quite different to Mary's plan. She had wondered more than once if she must not have another interview with Mr. Carson, and had then determined, while she expressed her resolution, that it should be the final one, to tell him how sorry she was if she had thoughtlessly given him false hopes. For Beatt remembered she had the innocence and the ignorance to believe his intentions honourable, and he, feeling that at any price he must have her, only that he would obtain her as cheaply as he could, had never un-deceived her. While Sally Ledbitter laughed in her sleeve at them both, and wondered how it would all end, whether Mary would gain her point of marriage, with her sly affection of believing such to be Mr. Carson's intention in courting her. Not very far from the end of the street, into which the court where Mary lived opened, they met Mr. Carson. His hat a good deal slouched over his face, as if afraid of being recognised. He turned when he saw them coming and led the way without uttering a word, although they were close behind, to a street of half-finished houses. The length of the walk gave Mary time to recoil from the interview which was to follow, but even if her own resolve to go through with it had failed, there was the steady grasp of Sally Ledbitter which she could not evade without an absolute struggle. At last he stopped in the shelter and concealment of a wooden fence, put up to keep the building rubbish from intruding on the foot-pavement. Inside this fence a minute afterwards the girls were standing by him, Mary now returning Sally's detaining grasp with interest, for she had determined on the way to make her a witness, willing or unwilling, to the ensuing conversation. But Sally's curiosity led her to be a very passive prisoner in Mary's hold. With more freedom than he had ever used before, Mr. Carson put his arm firmly round Mary's waist in spite of her indignant resistance. Nay, nay, you little witch! Now I've caught you, I shall keep you prisoner. Tell me now what has made you run away from me so fast these few days. Tell me, you sweet little coquette. Mary ceased struggling, but turned, so as to be almost opposite to him while she spoke out calmly and boldly. Mr. Carson, I want to speak to you once and for all. Since I met you last Monday evening, I have made up my mind to have nothing more to do with you. I know I've been wrong in leading you to think I liked you. But I believe I didn't rightly know my own mind, and I humbly beg your pardon, sir, if I've led you to think too much of me. For an instant he was surprised. The next, vanity came to his aid, and convinced him that she could only be joking. He young, agreeable, rich, handsome. No! She was only showing a little womanly fondness for coquettting. You're a darling little rascal to go on in this way, humbly begging my pardon if you've made me think too much of you, as if you didn't know I think of you from morning till night. But you want to be told it again and again, do you? No, indeed, sir, I don't. I would far lifeer that you should say you would never think of me again than that you should speak of me in this way. For indeed, sir, I never was more in earnest than I am when I say to-night is the last night I will ever speak to you. Last night you sweet little equivocator, but not last day. Ha! Mary, I've caught you, have I? As she, puzzled by his perseverance and thinking her joking, hesitated in what form she could now put her meaning. I mean, sir, she said sharply, that I will never speak to you again at any time after to-night. And what's made this change, Mary, he said, seriously enough now? Have I done anything to offend you? added he earnestly. No, sir, she answered gently, but yet firmly. I cannot tell you exactly why I've changed my mind, but I shall not alter it again. And as I said before, I beg your pardon if I've done wrong by you. And now, sir, if you please, good night. But I do not please, you shall not go. What have I done, Mary? Tell me. You must not go without telling me how I have vexed you. What would you have me do? Nothing, sir, but in an agitated tone, oh, let me go. You cannot change my mind. It's quite made up. Oh, sir, why do you hold me so tight? If you will know why I won't have anything more to do with you, it is that I cannot love you. I have tried, and I really cannot. This naive and candid avowal served her but little. He could not understand how it could be true. Some reason lurked behind. He was passionately in love. What should he do to tempt her? A thought struck him. Listen, Mary Nay, I cannot let you go till you have heard me. I do love you dearly, and I won't believe but what you love me a very little, just a very little. Well, if you don't like to own it, never mind. I only want now to tell you how much I love you, by what I am ready to give up for you. You know, or perhaps you are not fully aware, how little my father and mother would like me to marry you. So angry would they be, and so much ridicule should I have to brave, that, of course, I have never thought of it till now. I thought we could be happy enough without marriage. Deep sank those words into Mary's heart. But now, if you like, I'll get a license tomorrow morning, nay, to-night, and I'll marry you in defiance of all the world rather than give you up. In a year or two my father will forgive me, and meanwhile you shall have every luxury money can purchase, and every charm that love can devise to make your life happy. After all, my mother was but a factory girl. This was said to himself as if to reconcile himself to this bold step. Now, Mary, you see how willing I am, to sacrifice a good deal for you. I even offer you marriage to satisfy your little ambitious heart. So now, won't you say you can love me a little, little bit? He pulled her towards him. To his surprise, she still resisted. Yes, though all she had pictured to herself for so many months in being the wife of Mr. Carson was now within her grasp, she resisted. His speech had given her but one feeling, that of exceeding great relief. For she had dreaded, now she knew what true love was, to think of the attachment she might have created. The deep feeling her flirting conduct might have called out. She had loaded herself with reproaches for the misery she might have caused. It was a relief to gather that the attachment was of that low despicable kind, which can plan to seduce the object of its affection, that the feeling she had caused was shallow enough, for it only pretended to embrace self, at the expense of the misery, the ruin of one falsely termed beloved. She need not be penitent to such a plotter, that was the relief. I am obliged to you, sir, for telling me what you have. You may think I am a fool, but I did think you meant to marry me all along, and yet thinking so, I felt I could not love you. Still, I felt sorry I had gone so far in keeping company with you. Now, sir, I tell you, if I had loved you before, I don't think I should have loved you, now you have told me you meant to ruin me, for that's the plain English of not meaning to marry me till just this minute. I said I was sorry and humbly begged your pardon. That was before I knew what you were. Now I scorn you, sir, for plotting to ruin a poor girl. Good night. And with a wrench, for which she had reserved all her strength, she flew off like a bolt. They heard her flying footsteps echo down the quiet street. The next sound was Sally's laugh, which graded on Mr. Carson's ears and keenly irritated him. And what do you find so amusing, Sally, asked he. Oh, sir, I beg your pardon. I humbly beg your pardon, as Mary says. But I can't help laughing to think how she's outwitted us. She was going to have said outwitted you, but changed the pronoun. Why, Sally, had you any idea she was going to fly out in this style? No, I hadn't, to be sure. But if you did think of marrying her, why, if I may be so bold as to ask, did you go and tell her you had no thought of doing otherwise by her? That was what put her up at last. Why, I had repeatedly before led her to infer that marriage was not my object. I never dreamed she could have been so foolish as to have mistaken me, little provoking romance or though she be. So I naturally wished her to know what a sacrifice of prejudice of myself in short I was willing to make for her sake. Yet I don't think she was aware of it after all. I believe I might have any lady in Manchester if I liked, and yet I was willing and ready to marry a poor dressmaker. Don't you understand me now? And don't you see what a sacrifice I was making to humor her and all to no avail? Sally was silent, and so he went on. My father would have forgiven any temporary connection far sooner than my marrying one so far beneath me in rank. I thought you said, sir, your mother was a factory girl, remarked Sally rather maliciously. Yes, yes, but then my father was not in much such a station. At any rate, there was not the disparity there is between Mary and me. Another pause. Then you mean to give her up, sir? She made no bones of saying she gave you up. No, I do not mean to give her up whatever you and she may please to think. I am more in love with her than ever, even for this charming, capricious abolition of hers. She'll come round you may depend upon it. Women always do. They always have second thoughts and find out that they are best in casting off a lover. Mind I don't say I shall offer her the same terms again. With a few more words of no importance the Allies parted. End of CHAPTER XI. Mr. Carson's intentions revealed. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. CHAPTER XII. Old Alice's Baron. I loved him not and yet now he is gone. I feel I am alone. I checked him while he spoke, yet could he speak, alas I would not check. For reasons not to love him once I sought, and worried all my thought. W. S. Landor. And now Mary had, as she thought, dismissed both her lovers. But they looked on their dismissals with very different eyes. He who loved her with all his heart and with all his soul, considered his rejection final. He did not comfort himself with the idea, which would have proved so well founded in his case, that women have second thoughts about casting off their lovers. He had too much respect for his own hardiness of love to believe himself unworthy of Mary. That mock humble conceit did not enter his head. He thought he did not hit Mary's fancy, and though that may sound a trivial everyday expression, yet the reality of it cut him to the heart. Wild visions of enlistment, of drinking himself into forgetfulness, of becoming desperate in some way or another, entered his mind. But then the thought of his mother stood like an angel with a drawn sword in the way to sin. For you know, he was the only son of his mother, and she was a widow, and he waited on him for daily bread. So he could not squander away health and time, which were to him money wherewith to support her failing years. He went to his work accordingly, to all outward semblance just as usual, but with a heavy, heavy heart within. Mr. Carson, as we have seen, persevered in considering Mary's rejection of him as merely a charming caprice. If she were at work, Sally Leadbitter was sure to slip a passionately loving note into her hand, and then so skilfully move away from her side, that Mary could not all at once return it without making some sensation among the work women. She was even forced to take several home with her. But after reading one, she determined on her plan. She made no great resistance to receiving them from Sally, but kept them unopened, and occasionally returned them in a blank half sheet of paper. But far worse than this was the being so constantly waylaid as she went home by her persevering lover, who had been so long acquainted with all her habits that she found it difficult to evade him. Late or early, she was never certain of being free from him. Go this way or that, he might come up some cross-street when she had just congratulated herself on evading him for that day. He could not have taken a sureer mode of making himself odious to her. And all this time Jim Wilson never came. Not to see her, that she did not expect, but to see her father. To, she did not know what, but she had hoped he would have come on some excuse just to see if she hadn't changed her mind. He never came. Then she grew weary and impatient, and her spirits sank. The persecution of the one lover and the neglect of the other oppressed her sorely. She could not now sit quietly through the evening at her work, or if she kept by a strong effort from pacing up and down the room, she felt as if she must sing to keep off thought while she sewed, and her songs were the maddest, merriest she could think of. Barbara Allen and such sorrowful ditties did well enough for happy times, but now she required all the aid that could be derived from external excitement to keep down the impulse of grief. And her father too, he was a great anxiety to her, he looked so changed and so ill. Yet he would not acknowledge to any ailment. She knew that be it as late as it would, she never left off work until, if the poor servants paid her pretty regularly for the odd jobs of mending she did for them, she had earned a few pints enough for one good meal for her father on the next day. But very frequently all she could do in the morning after her late sitting up at night was to run with the work home and receive the money from the person for whom it was done. She could not stay often to make purchases of food but gave up the money at once to her father's eager clutch, sometimes prompted by a savage hunger it is true, but more frequently by a craving for opium. On the whole he was not so hungry as his daughter, for it was a long fast from the one o'clock dinner hour at Miss Simmons to the clothes of Mary's vigil, which was often extended to midnight. She was young, and had not yet learned to bear, climbing. One evening, as she sang a merry song over her work, stopping occasionally to sigh, the blind Margaret came groping in. It had been one of Mary's additional sorrows that her friend had been absent from home, accompanying the lecturer on music in his round among the manufacturing towns of Yorkshire and Lancashire. Her grandfather, too, had seen this a good time for going his expeditions in search of specimens, so that the house had been shut up for several weeks. Oh, Margaret, Margaret, how glad I am to see you. Take care. There, now, you're all right. That's father's chair. Sit down. She kissed her over and over again. It seems like the beginning of brighter times to see you again, Margaret. Bless you. And how well you look. Doctors always send ailing folk for change of air, and you know I've had plenty of that same lately. You've been quite a traveller for sure. Tell us all about it, do, Margaret. Where have you been to, first place? Alas, that would take a long time to tell. Half for the world, I sometimes think. Bolton and Burry, and Outam and Halifax, and—but Mary, guess who I saw there? Maybe you know though, so it's not fair guessing. No, I do not. Tell me, Margaret, for I cannot abide waiting and guessing. Well, one night as I were going from my lodgings with the help on a lad as belonged to the landlady, to find the room where I were to sing, I heard a cough before me, walking along. Thinks I, that's Jim Wilson's cough, for I'm much mistaken. Next time came a sneeze and cough, and then I was certain. First I hesitated whether I should speak, thinking if it were a stranger he'd maybe think me forward. But I knew blind folks must not be nash about using their tongues, so says I. Jim Wilson is at you, and sure enough it was, and nobody else. Did you know he ran Halifax, Mary? Footnote, forward, forward. End of footnote. No, she answered, faintly and sadly, for Halifax was all the same to her heart as the antipodes, equally inaccessible by humble penitent looks and maidenly tokens of love. Well, he's there, however, he's putting up an engine for some folks there for his master. He's doing well, for he's getting four or five men under him. We two or three meetings, and he told me all about his invention for doing away with the crank or summit. His masters bought it from him, and taken out a patent, and Jim's a gentleman for life with the money his master get him. But you'll have heard all this, Mary. No, she had not. Well, I thought it all happened before he left Manchester, and then, of course, you'd have known. But maybe it were all settled after he got to Halifax. However, he's gotten two or three hundred pounds for his invention. But what's up with you, Mary? You're sadly out of sorts. You've never been quarreling with Jim, surely? Now Mary cried outright. She was weak in body and unhappy in mind, and the time was come when she might have the relief of telling her grief. She could not bring herself to confess how much of her sorrow was caused by her having been vain and foolish. She hoped that need never be known, and she could not bear to think of it. Oh, Margaret, do you know Jim came here one night when I were put out in Cross? Oh, dear, dear, I could bite my tongue out when I think on it. And he told me how he loved me, and I thought I did not love him, and I told him I didn't. And Margaret, he believed me and went away so sad and so angry, and now I'd do anything I would indeed. Her sobs choked the end of her sentence. Margaret looked at her with sorrow but with hope, for she had no doubt in her own mind that it was only a temporary estrangement. Tell me, Margaret, said Mary, taking her apron down from her eyes and looking at Margaret with eager anxiety. What can I do to bring him back to me? Should I write to him? No, replied her friend. That would not do. Men are so queer, they like to have an accordion to themselves. But I did not mean to write him a courting letter, said Mary, someone indignantly. If you wrote it all, it would be to give him a hint you'd taken the roux, and would be very glad to have him now. I believe now he'd rather find that out himself. But he won't try, said Mary, sighing. How can he find it out when he's at Halifax? If he's a will, he's a way, depend upon it. And you would not have him if he's not a will to you, Mary. No, dear, changing her tone from the somewhat hard way in which sensible people too often speak, to the soft accents of tenderness which come with such peculiar grace from them. You must just wait and be patient. You may depend upon it. All will end well, and better than if you meddle than it now. But it's so hard to be patient, pleaded Mary. Aye, dear, being patient is the hardest work we, any of us, have to do through life, I take it. Waiting is far more difficult than doing. I've known that about my sight, and many a one has known it in watching the sick. But it's one of God's lessons we all must learn one way or another. After a pause. Have you been to see his mother of late? No, not for some weeks. When last I went she was so frabbit with me that I really thought she'd wished I'd keep away. Footnote. Frabbit. Ill-tempered. End of footnote. If I were you, I'd go. Jim will hear on it, and it will do you far more good in his mind than writing a letter, which after all you would find a tough piece of work when you came to settle to it. It would be hard to say neither too much nor too little, but I must be going. Grandfather is at home, and it's our first night together, and he must not be sitting wanting me any longer. She rose up from her seat but still delayed going. Mary, I've somewhat else I want to say to you, and I don't rightly know how to begin. You see, grandfather and I know what bad times is, and we know your father is out of work, and I'm getting more money than I can well manage. And dear, would you just take this little gold and pay me back in good times? The tears stood in Margaret's eyes as she spoke. Dear Margaret, we're not so bad pressed as that. The thought of her father and his ill looks and his one meal a day rushed upon Mary. And yet, dear, if it would not put you out of your way, I would rather work hard to make it up to you. But would not your grandfather be vexed? Not he, Wench. It were more his thought than mine, and we have gotten ever so many more at home, so don't hurry yourself about paying. It's hard to be blind to be sure, else money comes in so easily now to what it used to do, and it's downright pleasure to earn it, for I do so like singing. I wish I could sing, said Mary, looking at the sovereign. Some has one kind of gifts and some another. Many's the time when I could see that I long for your beauty, Mary. We're like children, ever wanting what we Hannah got. But now I must say just one more word. Remember, if you're sore pressed for money, we shall take it very unkind if you do not let us know. Goodbye to ye. In spite of her blindness she hurried away, anxious to rejoin her grandfather, and desirous also to escape from Mary's expressions of gratitude. Her visit had done Mary good in many ways. It had strengthened her patience and her hope. It had given her confidence in Margaret's sympathy, and last, and really least in comforting power, of so little value or silver and gold, a comparison to love, that gift in everyone's power to bestow, came the consciousness of the money value of the sovereign she held in her hand, the many things it might purchase. First of all came the thought of the comfortable supper for her father that very night, and acting instantly upon the idea, she set off in hopes that all the provision shops might not yet be closed, although it was so late. That night the cottage shone with unusual light and fire gleam, and the father and daughter sat down to a meal they thought almost extravagant. It was so long since they had had enough to eat. Food gives heart, say the Lancashire people, and the next day Mary made time to go and call on Mrs. Wilson, according to Margaret's advice. She found her quite alone, and more gracious than she had been the last time Mary had visited her. Alice was gone out, she said. She would just step up to the post office, all for no earthly use, for it were to ask if they hadn't a letter lying there for her from her foster son, Will Wilson, the sailor lad. What made her think there were a letter, asked Mary? Why, you see, a neighbor has, as been in Liverpool, told us Will's ship were come in. Now he said last time he were in Liverpool he'd have come to a scene Alice, but his ship had but a week holiday, and hard work for the men in that time, too. So Alice makes sure he'll come this, and has had her hand behind her ear at every noise in the street thinking it were him. And today she were neither to have nor to hold, but off she would go to the post and see if he hadn't sent her a line to the old house near you. I tried to get her to give up going, for let alone her deafness she's getting so dark she cannot see five yards before her. But no, she would go, poor old body. I did not know her sight failed her. She used to have good eyes enough when she lived near us. I, but it's gone lately a good deal. Would you never ask after Jim? Anxious to get in a word on the subject nearest her heart. No, replied Mary, blushing scarlet. How is he? I cannot just say how he is seeing he's at Halifax, but he were very well when he wrote last Tuesday. Hanyu heard of his good luck. Rather to her disappointment, Mary owned she had heard of the sum his master had paid him for his invention. Well, and did not Margaret tell you what he'd done with it? It's just like him, though, near to say a word about it. Why, when he were paid, what does he do but get his master to help him to buy an income for me and Alice? He had her name put down for her life, but poor thing shall not belong to the fore, I'm thinking. She sadly failed of late. And so, Mary, you see, were two ladies of property. It's a matter of twenty pound a year, they tell me. I wish the twins had lived, bless them, said she, dropping a few tears. They should have had the best of schooling and their belly fulls of food. I suppose they're better off in heaven, only I should so like to see them. Mary's heart filled with love at this new proof of Jim's goodness, but she could not talk about it. She took Jane Wilson's hand and pressed it with affection and then turned the subject to will, her sailor nephew. Jane was a little bit sorry, but her prosperity had made her gentler and she did not resent what she felt at Mary's indifference to Jim and his merits. He's been in Africa in that neighborhood, I believe. He's a fine chap, but he's not getting Jim's hair. His has too much of the red in it. He sent Alice, but maybe she told you, a matter of five pound when he were over before, but that were not to an income, you know. It's not everyone that can get a hundred or two at a time, said Mary. No, no, that's true enough. There's not many of one like Jim. That's Alice's step, said she, hasting to open the door to her sister-in-law. Alice looked weary and sad and dusty. The weariness in the dust would not have been noticed either by her or the others if it had not been for the sadness. No letters, said Mrs. Wilson. No, none. I must just wait another day to hear from my lad. It's very dreary work waiting, said Alice. Margaret's words came into Mary's mind. Everyone has their time in kind of waiting. If I but knew he were safe and not drowned, spoke Alice. If I but knew he were drowned, I would ask Grace to say, Thy will be done. It's the waiting. It's hard work to be patient to all of us, said Mary. I know I find it so, but I did not know one so good as you did, Alice. I shall not think so badly of myself for being a bit impatient. Now I've heard you say you find it difficult. The idea of reproach to Alice was the last in Mary's mind, and Alice knew it was. Nevertheless, she said, Then my dear, I beg your pardon, and God's pardon too, if I've weakened your faith by showing you how feeble mine was. Half our life's spent in waiting, and it ill becomes one like me, with so many mercies to grumble. I'll try and put a bridal oar in my tongue, and my thoughts too. She spoke in a humble and gentle voice like one asking forgiveness. Come, Alice, interposed Mrs. Wilson, don't fret yourself for error, trifle wrong, said hearer there. See, I put the kettle on, and you in Mary shall have a dish of tea in no time. So she bustled about, and brought out a comfortable looking substantial loaf, and set Mary to cut bread and butter while she rattled out the tea cups. Always a cheerful sound. Just as they were sitting down, there was a knock heard at the door, and without waiting for it to be open from the inside, someone lifted the latch, and in a man's voice asked if one George Wilson lived there. Mrs. Wilson was entering on a long and sorrowful explanation of his having once lived there, but of his having dropped down dead, when Alice, with the instinct of love, for in all usual and common instances, sight and hearing failed to convey impressions to her until long after other people had received them, arose and tottered to the door. My Baron, my own dear Baron, she exclaimed, falling on Will Wilson's neck. You may fancy the hospitable and welcoming commotion that ensued, how Mrs. Wilson laughed and talked and cried altogether if such a thing can be done, and how Mary gazed with wondering pleasure at her old playmate, now a dashing bronze-looking ring-leted sailor, frank and hearty and affectionate. But it was something different from common to see Alice's joy at once more having her foster child with her. She did not speak, for she really could not, but the tears came coursing down her old withered cheeks and dimmed the horn spectacles she had put on in order to pry lovingly into his face. So what with her failing sight and her tear-blinded eyes, she gave up the attempt of learning his face by heart through the medium of that sense and tried another. She passed her sodden, shriveled hands, all trembling with eagerness over his manly face, bent meekly down in order that she might more easily make her strange inspection. At last her soul was satisfied. After tea, Mary, feeling sure there was much to be said on both sides, at which it would be better none should be present, not even an intimate friend like herself, got up to go away. This seemed to arouse Alice from her dreamy consciousness of exceeding happiness, and she hastily followed Mary to the door. There, standing outside with the latch in her hand, she took hold of Mary's arm and spoke nearly the first words she had uttered since her nephew's return. My dear, I shall never forgive myself if my wicked words tonight are any stumbling block in your path. See how the Lord has put coals of fire on my head. O Mary, don't let my being an unbelieving Thomas weaken your faith. Wait patiently on the Lord, whatever your trouble may be. End of Chapter 12. Mary Barton by Elizabeth Gaskell Chapter 13. A Traveller's Tales The mermaid sat upon the rocks all day long, admiring her beauty and combing her locks, and singing a mermaid song. And hear the mermaid song you may as sure as sure can be, if you will but follow the sun all day, and souse with him into the sea. W. S. Landor It was perhaps four or five days after the events mentioned in the last chapter that one evening, as Mary stood lost in reverie at the window, she saw Will Wilson enter the court and came quickly up to her door. She was glad to see him, for he had always been a friend of hers, perhaps too much like her in character ever to become anything nearer or dearer. She opened the door in readiness to receive his frank greeting, which she as frankly returned. Come, Mary, on with bonnet and shawl, or whatever rigging you women require before leaving the house. I'm sent to fetch you, and I can't lose time when I'm under orders. Where am I to go to? asked Mary, as her heart leaped up at the thought of who might be waiting for her. Not very far, replied he, only to old Joe Blaise round the corner there. Aunt would have me come and see these new friends of hers, and then we meant to have come on here to see you and your father, but the old gentleman seems inclined to make a night of it, and have you all there. Where is your father? I want to see him. He must come, too. He's out, but I'll leave word next door for him to follow me. That's to say, if he comes home a-four long, she added, hesitatingly. Is anyone else at Dobe's? No, my Aunt Jane would not come, for some maggot or other, and as for Jim, I don't know what you've all been doing to him, but he's as downhearted a chap as I'd wish to see. He's had his sorrow, sure enough, poor lad, but it's time for him to be shaking off his dull looks and not go moping like a girl. Then he's come for Halifax, is he? asked Mary. Yes, his body's come, but I think he's left his heart behind him. His tongue, I'm sure he has, as we used to say to children, when they would not speak. I try to rouse him up a bit, and I think he likes having me with him, but still he's as gloomy and as dull as can be. It was only yesterday he took me to the works, and Jude had thought us two Quakers as the spirit hadn't moved. All the way down we were so mum. It's a place to craze a man, certainly, such a noisy black hole. There were one or two things worth looking at, the bellows, for instance, or the gale they called the bellows. I could have stood near it a whole day, and if I'd a birth in that place, I should like to be bellows man, if there is such a one. But Jim weren't diverted even with that. He stood as grave as a judge while it blew my hat out of my hand. He's lost all relish for his food, too, which frets my aunt, sadly. Come, Mary, aren't you ready? She had not been able to gather if she were to see Jim at Joe Blaze. But when the door was opened she had once saw and felt he was not there. The evening then would be a blank, at least so she thought for the first five minutes. But she soon forgot her disappointment in the cheerful meeting of old friends, all except herself, with some cause for rejoicing at that very time. Margaret, who would not be idle, was knitting away with her face looking full into the room away from her work. Alice sat meek and patient with her dimmed eyes and gentle look, trying to see and to hear, but never complaining. Indeed, in her inner self she was blessing God for her happiness, for the joy of having her nephew, her child, near her, was far more present to her mind than her deprivations of sight and hearing. Job was in the full glory of host and hostess, too, for by a tacit agreement he had roused himself from his habitual abstraction and had assumed many of Margaret's little household duties. While he moved about he was deep in conversation with the young sailor, trying to extract from him any circumstances connected with the natural history of the different countries he had visited. Oh, if you are fond of grubs and flies and beetles, there's no place for them like Sierra Leone. I wish you'd have some of ours. We had rather too much of a good thing. We drank them with our drink and could scarcely keep from eating them with our food. I never thought any folk could care for such fat green beasts as those, or I would have brought to them by the thousand. A plate full of pea soup would have been full enough for you, I daresay. It were often too full for us. I would have given a good deal for some of them, said Job. Well, I knew folk at home liked some of the queer things one meets with abroad, but I never thought they'd care for them nasty, slimy things. I were always on the lookout for a mermaid, for that I knew were a curiosity. You might have looked long enough, said Job, in an undertone of contempt, which, however, the quick ears of the sailor caught. Not so long, Master, in some latitudes, as you think. It stands to reason to see hereabouts is too cold for mermaids. For women here don't go half-naked on account of climate. But I've been in lands where muslin were too hot to wear on land, and where the sea were more than milk warm, and though I'd never the good luck to see a mermaid in that latitude, I know them that has. Do tell us about it, cried Mary. Who, who, said Job, the naturalist? Both speeches determined Will to go on with his story. What could a fellow who had never been many miles from home know about the wonders of the deep, that he should put him down in that way? Well, it were Jack Harris, our third mate, last voyage, as many and many a time told us all about it. You see, he were becombed off Chatham Island, that is, in the great Pacific, and a warm enough latitude for mermaids, and sharks, and such like perils. So some of the men took the long boat, and pulled for the island, to see what it were like, and when they got near, they heard a puffing, like a creature, come up to take a breath. You've never heard a diver? No? Well, you've heard folks in the asthma, and it were for all the world like that. So they looked around, and what should they see but a mermaid, sitting on a rock, and sunning herself. The water is always warmer when it's rough, you know, so I suppose in the calm she felt it rather chilly, and had come up to warm herself. What was she like? asked Mary breathlessly. Job took his pipe off the chimney-piece, and began to smoke with very audible puffs, as if the story were not worth listening to. Oh, Jack used to say she was all the world as beautiful as any of the wax ladies in the barber shops. Only, Mary, there were one little difference. Her hair was bright grass-green. I should not think that was pretty, said Mary hesitatingly, as if not liking to doubt the perfection of anything belonging to such an acknowledged beauty. Oh, but it is, when you're used to it. I always think when first we get sight of land, there's no color so lovely as grass-green. However, she had green hair sure enough, and were proud enough of it too, for she were combing it out full length when first they saw her. They all thought she were a fair prize, and maybe as good as a whale in ready money. They were whale-fishers, you know. For some folk, think a deal of mermaids, whatever other folk do. This was a hit at Job, who retaliated in a series of sonorous spittings and puffs. So, as I was saying, they pulled towards her, thinking to catch her. She were all the while combing her beautiful hair, and beckoning to them, while with the other hand she held a looking-glass. How many hands had she? asked Job. Two, to be sure, just like any other woman, answered Will indignantly. Oh, I thought you said she beckoned with one hand, and combed her hair with another, and held a looking-glass with her third, said Job, with provoking quietness. No, I didn't. At least, if I did, I meant she did one thing after another, as any one but—here he mumbled a word or two—could understand. Well, Mary, turning very decidedly towards her, when she saw them coming near, whether it were she grew frightened at their fouling pieces, as they had on board for a bitter shooting on the island, or whether it were she were just a fickle jade, as did not rightly know her own mind—which, seeing one half of her was woman, I think myself most probably—but when they were only about two oars' length from the rock where she sat, down she plopped into the water, leaving nothing but her hindern of a fishtail sticking up for a minute, and then that disappeared, too. And did they never see her again? asked Mary. Never so plain! The man who had the second watch one night declared he saw her swimming round the ship, and holding up her glass for him to look in. And then he saw the little cottage near Aver in Wales, where his wife lived, as plain as ever he saw it in life, and his wife standing outside, shading her eyes as if she were looking for him. But Jack Harris gave him no credit, for he said he were always a bit of a romance-er, and besides that were a homesick down-hearted chap. I wish they had caught her, said Mary Musing. They got one thing as belonged to her, replied Will, and that I've often seen with my own eyes, and I reckon it's a sure proof of the truth of their story, for them that wants proof. What was it? asked Margaret, almost anxious her grandfather should be convinced. Why in her hurry she left her comb on the rock, and one of the men spied it, so they thought that were better than nothing, and they rode there and took it, and Jack Harris had it on board the John Cropper, and I saw him comb his hair with it every Sunday morning. What was it like? asked Mary eagerly, her imagination running on coral comb studded with pearls. Why, if it had not had such a strange yarn belonging to it, you'd never had noticed it from any other small-tooth comb. I should rather think not, sneered Joe Blay. The sailor bit his lips to keep down his anger against an old man. Margaret felt very uneasy, knowing her grandfather so well, and not daring to guess what caustic remark might come next to irritate the young sailor guest. Mary however was too much interested by the wonders of the deep to perceive the incredulity with which Joe Blay received Wilson's account of the mermaid, and when he left off half offended, and very much inclined not to open his lips again through the evening, she eagerly said, Oh, do tell us something more of what you hear and see on board ship, do will. What's the use, Mary, if folk won't believe one? There are things I saw with my own eyes that some people would pitch and try at, as if I were a baby to be put down by cross-noises. But I'll tell you, Mary, with an emphasis on you, some more of the wonders of the sea, seeing you're not too wise to believe me. I have seen a fish fly. This did stagger Mary. She had heard of mermaids, as signs of ends and a sea-wonders, but never of flying fish. Not so Job. He put down his pipe, and nodding his head as a token of approbation, he said, Aye, aye, young man, now you're speaking truth. Well, now you'll swallow that, old gentleman. You'll credit me when I say I've seen a critter half-fish, half-bird, and you don't credit me when I say there be such beast as mermaids, half-fish, half-woman. To me, one's just as strange as the other. You never saw the mermaid yourself enter post-Margaret gently. But love me, love my dog, was Will Wilson's motto, only his version was, Believe me, believe Jack Harris. And the remark was not so soothing to him as it was intended to have been. It's the ex-Ossidus, one of the Malacopterige Abdominalis," said Job, much interested. Aye, there you go. You're one of them folks as never-nosed beasts unless they're called out of their names. Put them in Sunday clothes, and you know them. But in their work-a-day English you never know not about them. I've met with many of your kidney, and if I'd have known it, I'd have questioned poor Jack's mermaid with some green gibberish of a name, Mermedicus Jack Harrisensis. That's just like their new-fangled words. Do you believe there's such a thing as the Mermedicus, master?" asked Will, enjoying his own joke uncommonly, as most people do. Not I. Tell me about the— Well, said Will, pleased at having excited the old gentleman's faith and credit at last. It were on this last voyage, about a day's sale from Madeira, that one of our men, not Jack Harris, I hope, murmured Job, called me, to see the, what do you call it, flying fish, I say it is. It were twenty feet out of water, and it flew near on to a hundred yards. But I say, old gentleman, I have gotten one dried, and if you'll take it, why, I'll give it to you, only, he added in a lower tone, I wish you'd just give me credit for the Mermedicus. I really believe, if the assuming faith in the story of the Mermed had been made the condition of receiving the flying fish, Job lay sincere man as he was, would have pretended belief he was so much delighted at the idea of possessing the specimen. He won the sailor's heart by getting up to shake both hands in his vehement gratitude, puzzling poor old Alice, who yet smiled through her wonder, for she understood the action to indicate some kindly feeling towards her nephew. Job wanted to prove his gratitude, and was puzzled how to do it. He feared the young man would not appreciate any of his duplicate aeronades, not even the great American Miguel, one of his most precious treasures, or else he would gladly have bestowed any duplicate on the donor of a real dried exocetus. What would he do for him? He could ask Margaret to sing. Other folks, besides her old doting grandfather, thought a deal of her songs. So Margaret began some of her noble old-fashioned songs. She knew no modern music, for which her auditors might have been thankful, but she poured her rich voice out in some of the old kanzanets she had lately learned while accompanying the musical lecturer on his tour. Maria was amused to see how the young sailor set and tranced. Mouth eyes all open in order to catch every breath of sound. His very lids refused to wink, as if afraid in that brief proverbial interval to lose a particle of the rich music that floated through the room. For the first time the idea crossed Mary's mind that it was possible the plain little sensible Margaret, so prim and newer, might have power over the heart of the handsome, deshing, spirited Will Wilson. Job, too, was rapidly changing his opinion of his new guest. The flying fish went a great way, and his undisguised admiration for Margaret's singing carried him still further. It was amusing enough to see these two within the hour so barely civil to each other, endeavouring now to be ultra-agreable. Will, as soon as he had taken breath, a long, deep gasping of admiration after Margaret's song, sidled up to Job and asked him in a sort of doubting tone, "'You wouldn't like a live Manx cat, would you, master?' "'A what?' exclaimed Job. "'I don't know its best name,' said Will humbly, but we call them just Manx cats, they're cats without tails.' Now Job, in all his natural history, had never heard of such animals, so Will continued, "'Because I'm going, afore my joining my ship, to see my mother's friends in the island, and would gladly bring you one, if so be you'd like to have it. They'd look as queer and out of nature as flying fish, or he gulped the words down that should have followed. Especially when you see him walking a rooftop, right again the sky, when a cat, as is a proper cat, is sure to stick her tail stiff out behind, like a slack-rope dancer abalancing. But these cats have no tail, cannot stick it out, which captivates some people uncommonly. If you'll allow me, I'll bring one from this there,' jerking his head at Margaret. Hope assented with grateful curiosity, wishing much to see the tailless phenomenon. "'When are you going to sail?' asked Mary. "'I cannot justly say. Our ship's bound for American expo-age,' they tell me. A mess-mate will let me know when her sailing-day is fixed. But I've got to go to the Isle of Man first. I promised Uncle last time I were in England to go this next time. I may have to hoist the Blue Peter any day. So make much of me while you have me, Mary.' Joe asked him if he had been in America. "'Haven't I? North and South both. This time we're bound to North—Yankee land, as we call it, where Uncle Sam lives.' "'Uncle who?' said Mary. "'Oh, it's a way sailors have of speaking. I only mean I'm going to Boston, U.S.—that's Uncle Sam.' Mary did not understand, so she left him and went to sit by Alice, who could not hear conversation unless expressly addressed to her. She had sat patiently silent the greater part of the night, and now greeted Mary with a quiet smile. "'Where's your father?' asked she. "'I guess he's at his union. He's there most evenings.' Alice shook her head. But whether it were that she did not hear or that she did not quite approve of what she heard, Mary could not make out. She sat silently watching Alice, and regretted over her dimmed and veiled eyes, formerly so bright and speaking. As if Alice understood by some other sense what was passing in Mary's mind, she turned suddenly round and answered Mary's thought. "'You're mourning for me, my dear, and there's no need, Mary. I'm as happy as a child. I sometimes think I am a child, whom the Lord is hushabying to my long sleep. For when I were a nurse-girl, my Mrs. always told me to speak very soft and low, and to darken the room that her little one might go to sleep, and now all the noises are hushed and still to me, and the bonny earth seems dim and dark, and I know it's my father lulling me away to my long sleep. I'm very well content, and you mustn't fret for me. I've had well-nigh every blessing in life I could desire." Mary thought of Alice's long-cherished fond wish to revisit the home of her childhood, so often and often deferred, and now probably never to take place, or if it did, how changed from the fond anticipation of what it was to have been. It would be a mockery to the blind and deaf Alice. The evening came quickly to an end. There was the humble, cheerful meal, and then the bustling Mary farewell, and Mary was once more in the quietness and solitude of her own dinghy, dreary-looking home, her father still out, the fire extinguished, and her evening's task of work lying all undone upon the dresser. But it had been a pleasant little interlude to think upon. It had distracted her attention for a few hours from the pressure of many uneasy thoughts of the dark, heavy, oppressive times when sorrow and want seemed to surround her on every side. Of her father his changed and altered looks, telling her so plainly of broken health and an embittered heart, of the morrow and the morrow beyond that, to be spent in that closed monotonous workroom, with sally-led bidders odious whispers hissing in her ear, and of the hunted look so full of dread, from Miss Simmons' doorstep up and down the street, lest her persecuting lover should be near. For he lay in wait for her with wonderful perseverance, and of late had made himself almost hateful by the unmanly force which he had used to detain her, to listen to him, and the indifference with which he exposed her to the remarks of the passer-spy, any of whom might circulate reports which it would be terrible for her father to hear, and worse than death should they reach Jim Wilson. And all this she had drawn upon herself by her giddy flirting. Oh, how she loathed the recollection of the hot summer evening, when worn out by stitching and sewing, she had loitered homewards with weary languor, and first listened to the voice of the tempter. And Jim Wilson, oh, Jim, Jim, why did you not come to receive some of the modest looks and words of love which marry long to give you, to try and make up for the hasty rejection which you as hastily took to be final, though both mourned over it with many tears. But day after day passed away, and patience seemed of no avail, and Mary's cry was ever the old moan of the moated grange. Why comes he not, she said, I am a weary, a weary, I would that I were dead. CHAPTER XIV GEMS INTERVIEW WITH POUR ESTER Know the temptation ere you judge the crime. Look on this tree, to as green and fair and graceful. Yet now save these few shoots how dry and rotten. There can't not tell the cause. Not long ago, a neighbour oak with which its roots were twined, in falling wrenched them with such cruel force, that though we covered them again with care, its beauty withered, and it pined away. So could we look into the human breast, how oft the fatal blight that meets our view, should we trace down to the torn, bleeding fibres, of a too trusting heart where it was shame for pitying tears to give contempt or blame. STREETWALKS The month was over. The honeymoon to the newly married, the exquisite convalescence to the living mother of a living child. The first dark days of nothingness to the widow and the child bereaved. The term of penance, of hard labour, and of solitary confinement, to the shrinking, shivering, hopeless prisoner. SICK AND IMPRISON AND YOU VISITED ME Shall you or I receive such blessing? I know one who will. An overseer of a foundry, an aged man, with hoary hair, who spent his sabbaths for many years in visiting the prisoners and the afflicted in Manchester New Bailey. Not merely advising and comforting, but putting means into their power of regaining the virtue and the peace they had lost, becoming himself their guarantee in obtaining employment, and never deserting those who have once asked help from him. Esther's term of imprisonment was ended. She received a good character in the Governor's books. She had picked her daily quantity of outcome, had never deserved the extra-punishment of the treadmill, and had been civil and decorous in her language. And once more she was out of prison. The door closed behind her with a ponderous clang, and in her desolation she felt as if shut out of home, from the only shelter she could meet with, houseless and penniless as she was, on that dreary day, but it was but for an instant that she stood there doubting. One thought had haunted her both by night and by day, with monomaniacal incessancy. And that thought was how to save Mary, her dead sister's only child, her own little pet in the days of her innocence, from following in the same downward path to vice. To whom could she speak and ask for aid? She shrank from the idea of redressing John Barton again. Her heart sank within her at the remembrance of his fierce repulsing action and far fiercer words. It seemed worse than death to reveal her condition to Mary, else she sometimes thought that this course would be the most terrible, the most efficient warning. She must speak. To that she was soul-compelled. But to whom? She dreaded addressing any of her former female acquaintance, even supposing they had sense, or spirit, or interest enough to undertake her mission. To whom shall the outcast prostitute tell her tale? Who will give her help in the day of need? Hers is the lepersen, an all-stander-loof dreading to be countered unclean. In her wild night-wanderings she had noted the haunts and habits of many a one who little thought of a watcher in the poor forsaken woman. She may easily imagine that a double interest was attached by her to the ways and companionships of those with whom she had been acquainted in the days which, when present, she had considered hardly worked and monotonous, but which now, in retrospection, seemed so happy and unclouded. Accordingly she had, as we have seen, known where to meet with John Barton on that unfortunate night, which had only produced irritation in him, and a month's imprisonment to her. She had also observed that he was still intimate with the Wilsons. She had seen him walking and talking with both father and son, her old friends, too, and she had shed unregarded, unvalued tears when someone had casually told her of George Wilsons' sudden death. It now flashed across her mind that to the son, to Mary's play-fellow, her elder brother in the days of childhood, her tale might be told, and listened to with interest by him, and some mode of action suggested by which Mary might be guarded and saved. All these thoughts had passed through her mind while yet she was in prison. So when she was turned out, her purpose was clear, and she did not feel her desolation of freedom as she would otherwise have done. That night she stationed herself early near the foundry where she knew Jem worked. He stayed later than usual, being detained by some arrangements for the morrow. She grew tired and impatient. Many workmen had come out of the door in the long, dead brick wall, and eagerly had she peered into their faces, deaf to all insult or curse. He must have gone home early. One more turn in the street, and she would go. During that turn, he came out, and in the quiet of that street of workshops and warehouses, she directly heard his steps. How her heart failed her for an instant! But still she was not daunted from her purpose, painful as its fulfilment was sure to be. She laid her hand on his arm. As she expected, after a momentary glance at the person who thus endeavored to detain him, he made an effort to shake it off and pass on. But, trembling as she was, she had provided against this by a firm and unusual grasp. "'You must listen to me, Jem Wilson,' she said, with almost an accent of command. "'Go away, Mrs. I've no what to do with you, either in heartening or talking.' He made another struggle. "'You must listen,' she said again, authoritatively, for Mary Barton's sake. The spell of her name was as potent as that of the mariner's glittering eye. He listened like a three-year child. "'I know you care enough for her to wish to save her from harm.' He interrupted his earnest gaze into her face, with the exclamation, "'And who can you be to know Mary Barton, or to know that she's out to me?' There was a little strife in Esther's mind for an instant, between the shame of acknowledging herself, and the additional weight to her revelation which such acknowledgment would give. Then she spoke. "'Do you remember Esther?' the sister of Jem Barton's wife, the aunt to Mary, and the valentine I sent you last February ten years. "'Yes, I mind her well, but you're not Esther, are you?' She looked again into her face, and seeing that indeed it was his boyhood's friend, he took her hand, and shook it with a cordiality that forgot the present in the past. "'Why, Esther, wherein you've been this many a year? Where, when you've been wondering that we none of us could find you out?' The question was asked thoughtlessly, but answered with fierce earnestness. "'Where have I been? What have I been doing? Why do you torment me with questions like these? Can you not guess? But the story of my life is wanted to give forth to my speech. Afterwards I will tell it to you. Nay, don't change your fickle mind now, and say you don't want to hear it. You must hear it, and I must tell it, and then see after Mary, and take care she doesn't become like me. As she's loving now, so did I love once, one above me far.' She remarked not, in her own absorption, the change in James' breathing, the sudden clutch at the wall which told the fearfully vivid interest he took in what she said. He was so handsome, so kind. Well, the regiment was ordered to Chester. Did I tell you, as an officer? And he could not bear to part from me, nor I from him. So he took me with him. I never thought poor Mary would have taken it so to heart. I always meant to send for her to pay me a visit when I was married, for, mark you, he promised me marriage. They all do. Then came three years of happiness. I suppose I ought not to have been happy, but I was. I had a little girl, too, all the sweetest darling that ever was seen. But I must not think of her, putting her hand wildly up to her forehead, or I shall go mad, I shall. Don't tell me any more about yourself," said James soothingly. What! You're tired already, are you? But I will tell you, as you've asked for it. You shall hear it. I won't recall the agony of the past for nothing. I will have the relief of telling it. Oh, how happy I was! Sinking her voice into a plaintive, childlike manner. It went like a shock through me when one day he came to me and told me he was married to Ireland, and must leave me behind, at Bristol, we then were. Jem muttered some words. She caught their meaning, and her pleading voice continued, Oh, don't abuse him, don't speak a word against him. You don't know how I love him yet, when I'm sunk so low. You don't guess how kind he was. He gave me fifty pounds before we parted, and I knew he could ill-spare it. Don't, Jem, please. As his muttered indignation rose again. For her sake, he ceased. I might have done better with the money, I see now, but I didn't know the value of it then. Formally, I'd earned it easily enough at the factory, and as I had no more sensible ones, I spent it on dress and on eating. While I lived with him, I had it for asking, and fifty pounds would, I thought, go a long way. So I went back to Chester, where I'd been so happy and set up a small-ware shop, and I had a room near. We should have done well, but alas, alas, my little girl fell ill, and I couldn't mind my shop and her too, and things grew worse and worse. I sold my goods anyhow to get money to buy her food and medicine. I wrote over and over again to her father for help, but he must have changed his quarters, for I never got an answer. The landlord seized the few bobbins and tapes I had left, for shop-rent, and the person to whom the mean little room, to which we'd been forced to remove, belonged, threatened to turn us out unless his rent was paid. It had run on so many weeks, and it was winter, cold, bleak winter, and my child was so ill, so ill, and I was starving, and I couldn't bear to see her suffer, and forgot how much better it would be for us to die together. Oh, amones, amones, which money could give the means of relieving! So I went out into the street on January night. Do you think God will punish me for that? She asked, with wild ferments, almost amounting to insanity, and shaking Jem's arm in order to force an answer from him. But before he could shape his heart's sympathy into words, her voice had lost its wildness, and she spoke with the quiet of despair. But it's no matter. I've done that since, which separates us as far as Sunderer, as heaven and hell can be. Her voice rose again to the sharp pitch of agony. My darling, my darling, even after death I may not see thee, my own sweet one. She was so good, like a little angel. What is that text? I don't remember. The text mother used to teach me when I sat on her knee long ago. It begins, blessed of the pure, blessed of the pure in heart, for they shall see God. Aye, that's it. It would break mother's heart if she knew where I am now. It did break Mary's heart, you see. And now I recollect it was about her child. I wanted to see you, Jem. You know Mary Barton, don't you? Said she, trying to collect her thoughts. Yes, Jem knew her. How well his beating heart could testify. Well, there's something to do for her. I forget what heart. Wait a minute. She's so like my little girl," said she, raising her eyes glistening with unshed tears in search of the sympathy of Jem's countenance. He deeply pitted her, but oh how he longed to recall her mind to the subject of Mary and the lover above her in rank and the service to be done for her sake. But he controlled himself to silence. After a while she spoke again and in a calmer voice. When I came to Manchester, for I couldn't stay in Chester after a death, I found you all out very soon, and yet I never thought my poor sister was dead. I suppose I wouldn't think so. I used to watch about the court where John lived, for many and many a night, and gather all I could about them from the neighbour's talk. For I never asked a question. I put this and that together, and followed one, and listened to another. Many is the time I've watched the policeman off his beat, and peeped through the chink of the window-shutter to see the old room, and sometimes Mary or her father sitting up late for some reason or another. I found out Mary went to learn dress-making, and I began to be frightened for her, for it's a bad life for a girl to be out late at night in the streets, and after many an hour of weary work they're ready to follow after any novelty that makes a little change. But I made up my mind, that bad as I was I could watch over Mary, and perhaps keep her from harm. So I used to wait for her at night, and follow her home, often when she little knew anyone was nearer. There was one of her companions I never could abide, and I'm sure that girl is at the bottom of some mischief. By and by Mary's walks homewards were not alone. She was joined soon after she came out by a man, a gentleman. I began to fear for her, for I saw she was light-hearted, and pleased with his attentions, and I thought worse of him for having such long talks with that bold girl I told you of. But I was laid up for a long time with spit in a blood, and could do nothing. I'm sure it made me worse, thinking about what might be happening to Mary. And when I came out, all was going on as before, only she seemed fonder of him than ever, and, oh, Gemma, father won't listen to me. And it's you that must save Mary. You're like a brother to her, and maybe could give her advice and watch over her. And at any rate, John larkin to you, only is so stern and so cruel. She began to cry a little at the remembrance of his harsh words, but Gemma cut her short by his hoarse, stern inquiry. Who is this spark that Mary loves? Tell me his name. It's young Carson, old Carson's son, that your father worked for. There was a pause. She broke the silence. Oh, Gemma, I'd charge you with the care of her. I suppose it would be murder to kill her, but it would be better for her to die than to live to lead such a life as I do. Do you hear me, Gem? Yes, I hear you. It would be better. Better we were all dead. This was said as if thinking aloud, but he immediately changed his tone and continued, Esther, you may trust my doing all I can for Mary. That I have determined on, and now listen to me. You love the life you lead, else you wouldn't speak of it as you do. Come home with me. Come to my mother. She and my Aunt Alice live together. I'll see that they give you a welcome, and to-morrow I'll see if some honest where-living can't be found for you. Come home with me." She was silent for a minute, and he hoped he had gained his point. Then she said, God bless you, Gem, for the words you've just spoken. Some years ago you might have saved me, though I hope and trust you will yet save Mary. But it's too late now—too late," she added, with accents of deep despair. Still he did not relax his hold. Come home, he said. I tell you, I cannot. I could not lead a virtuous life if I would. I should only disgrace you. If you will know all, said she, as he still seemed inclined to urge her, I must have drink. Such as lived like me could not bear life if they did not drink. It's the only thing to keep us from suicide. If we did not drink, we could not stand the memory of what we have been, and the thought of what we are for a day. If I go without food and without shelter, I must have my dram. Oh, you don't know the awful nights I've had in prison for want of it, said she, shuddering, and glaring round with terrified eyes, as if dreading to see some spiritual creature with dim form nearer. It's so frightful to see them, whispering in tones of wildness, although so low-spoken, there they go round and round my bed the whole night through, my mother, carrying little Annie. I wonder how they got together, and Mary, and all looking at me with their sad, stony eyes. Oh, Gem, it's so terrible. I don't turn back either, but pass behind the head of the bed, and I feel their eyes on me everywhere. If I creep them into the claws, I still see them, and what's worse, is kissing out her word with fright. They see me. Don't speak to me, a lead in a better life. I must have a drink, I cannot pass tonight without a dram, I dare not! Gem was silent from deep sympathy. Oh, could he then do nothing for her? She spoke again, but in a less excited tone, although it was thrillingly honest. You agreed for me. I know it better than if you told me in words, but you can do nothing for me. I have passed hope. You can yet save Mary. You must. She is innocent, except for the great error of loving one above her in station. Gem, you will save her. With heart and soul, though in few words, Gem promised that if Aught Earthly could keep her from falling, he would do it. Then she blessed him, and bade him good night. Stay a minute," said he, as she was on the point of departure. I may want to speak to you again. I'm on nowhere to find you. Where do you live? She laughed strangely. And do you think one sunks her low as I am, as a home? Decent good people have homes. We have none. No. If you want me, come at night, and look at the corners of the streets about here. The colder, the bleaker, the more stormy the night, the more certain you will be to find me. For then, she added, with a plentiful in her voice, it's so cold sleeping in entries and on doorsteps, and I want to drown more than ever. Again she rapidly turned off, and Gem also went on his way. But before he reached the end of the streets, even in the midst of the jealous anguish that filled his heart, his conscience smoked him. He had not done enough to save her. One more effort, and she might have come. Nay, twenty efforts would have been well rewarded by her yielding. He turned back, but she was gone. And the tumult of his other feeling, his self-reproach was deadened for the time. But many and many a day afterwards he bitterly regretted his admission of duty, his weariness of well-doing. Now the great thing was to reach home and solid you. Mary loved another. Oh! How should he bear it? He had thought her rejection of him a hard trial, but that was nothing now. He only remembered it, to be thankful that he had not yielded to the temptation of trying his fate again. Not in actual words, but in a meeting where her manner should tell far more than words. That her sweet smiles, her dainty movements, her pretty household ways, were all to be reserved to gladden another's eyes and heart. And he must live on—that seemed the strangest—but a long life, and he knew men did live long, even with deep-biting sorrow corroding at their hearts, must be spent without Mary. Nay! With the consciousness she was another's. That hell of thought he would reserve for the quiet of his own room, the dead stillness of night. She was on the threshold of home now. He entered. They were the usual faces, the usual sights. He loathed them. And then he cursed himself because he loathed them. His mother's love had taken a cross turn because he had kept the tempting supper she had prepared for him waiting until it was nearly spoilt. Alice, her dulled senses, deadening day by day, sat mutely near the fire, her happiness bounded by the consciousness of the presence of her foster-child, knowing that his voice repeated what was passing to her deaf and ear, that his arm removed each little obstacle to her tottering step. And Will, out of the very kindness of his heart, talked more and more merrily than ever. He saw Jem was downcast, and fancied his rattling might cheer him. At any rate it drowned his aunts' muttered grumblings, and in some measure concealed the blank of the evening. At last bed-time came, and Will withdrew to his neighbouring lodging, and Jain and Alice Wilson had raked the fire and fastened doors and shuttered, and patted upstairs with their tottering footsteps and shrill voices. Jem, too, went to the closet turned his bedroom. There was no bolt to the door, but by one strong effort of his right arm a heavy chest was moved against it, and he could sit down on the side of his bed and think. Every loved another. That idea would rise uppermost in his mind, and had to be combatted in all its forms of pain. It was, perhaps, no great wonder that she should prefer one so much above Jem in the external things of life. But the gentleman, why did he, with his range of choice among the ladies of the land, why did he stoop down to carry off the poor man's darling? With all the glories of the garden at his hand, why did he prefer to cull the wild rose, Jem's own fragrant wild rose? His own? Oh, never now his own, gone for evermore. Then up rose the guilty longing for blood, the frenzy of jealousy, some one should die, who'd rather marry were dead, cold in her grave than that she were another's. A vision of her pale sweet face, with her bright hair all bedabled with gore, seemed to float constantly before his aching eyes. But hers were ever open, and contained in their soft, deadly look, such mute reproach, what had she done to deserve such cruel treatment from him? She had been wooed by one who Jem knew to be handsome, gay, and bright, and she had given him her love. That was all. It was the wooer who should die. Yes, die, knowing the cause of his death. Jem pictured him, and gloated on the picture, lying smitten, yet conscious, and listening to the up-braiding accusation of his murderer. How he had left his own rank, and dared to love a maiden of low degree, and, oh, stinging agony of all, how she, in return, had loved him! Then the other nature spoke up, and bade him remember the anguish he should so prepare for marry. At first he refused to listen to that better voice, or listened only to pervert. He would glory in her wailing grief, he would take pleasure in her desolation of heart. No, he could not, said the still small voice. It would be worse, far worse, to have caused such woe, than it was now to bear his present heavy burden. But it was too heavy, too grievous, to be born, and live. He would slay himself, and the lovers should love on, and the sun shine bright, and he with his burning woeful heart would be at rest. Rest that is reserved for the people of God. Had he not promised, with such earnest purpose of soul as makes words more solemn than oaths, to save Mary from becoming such as Esther, should he shrink from the duties of life into the cowardliness of death? Who would then guard Mary with her love and her innocence? Would it not be a goodly thing to serve her, although she loved him not, to be her preserving angel through the perils of life, and she unconscious all the while? He braced up his soul, and said to himself that with God's help he would be that earthly keeper. And now the mists and the storms seemed clearing away from his path, though it still was full of stinging thorns. Having done the duty nearest to him, of reducing the tumult of his own heart to something like order, the second became more plain before him. Poor Esther's experience had led her, perhaps too hastily, to the conclusion that Mr. Carson's intentions were evil towards Mary. At least she had given no just ground for the fears she entertained that such was the case. It was possible, nay, to Jem's heart very probable, that he might only be too happy to marry her. She was a lady by right of nature, Jem thought, in movement, grace, and spirit. What was birthed to a Manchester manufacturer, many of whom glory and justly too, in being the architects of their own fortunes? And as far as wealth was concerned, judging another by himself, Jem could only imagine it a great privilege to lay it at the feet of the loved one. Harry Carson's mother had been a factory girl, so, after all, what was the great reason for doubting his intentions towards Mary? There might probably be some little awkwardness about the affair at first, Mary's father having such strong prejudices on the one hand, and something of the same kind being likely to exist on the part of Mr. Carson's family. But Jem knew he had power over John Barton's mind, and it would be something to exert that power in promoting Mary's happiness, and to relinquish all thought of self in so doing. Oh, why had Esther chosen him for this office? It was beyond his strength to act rightly. Why had she singled him out? The answer came when he was calm enough to listen for it, because Mary had no other friend capable of the duty required of him, the duty of his brother, as Esther imagined him to be in feeling, from his long friendship, he would be unto her as a brother. As such he ought to assert in Harry Carson's intentions towards her in winning her affections. He would ask him straightforwardly, as became man speaking to man, not concealing, if need were, the interest he felt in Mary. Then, with the resolve to do his duty to the best of his power, peace came into his soul. He had left the windy storm and tempest behind. Two hours before daydorn he fell asleep. End of Chapter 14 of Mary Barton by Elizabeth Clechhorn-Gascall