Chapter IV

“In the cold, damp earth we laid her,
When the forest cast its leaf,
And we sighed, that one so beautiful
Should have a lot so brief.”

“So, Madam, you refuse—my boy is dying, and he yearns to look once more on the poor girl who would have been his wife in a single week.”

It was but a few days after her interview with Mr. Mosier, that Malina heard these words issue from her mother’s parlor, as she was passing through the hall, from the chamber where she had just left Phebe striving to beguile her weary thoughts with a book. The door was ajar, and there was a power in the words which made her start and listen. It was a deep, manly voice, that of an aged person, but entreaty, tenderness and something almost like resentment, combined to render it startling and pathetic. Malina held her breath, and, drawing a step nearer, looked through the door.

An aged man was standing before her mother, he held a cane without resting on it, and a broad brimmed hat was in his left hand; firm and erect he stood in the quiet room, the gray hair sweeping back from his forehead, and his plain dress giving him the look of a patriarch; his face was agitated, but so full of benevolence that Malina loved the old man before she guessed who he was. Violent passions could seldom have passed over those mild features, still they were disturbed as he spoke, and the good old man was evidently struggling with strong and bitter emotions. There was something in the grasp of his hand on the cane, and in his dignified bearing, which awed the sympathy it excited.

Mrs. Gray was sitting in her easy chair, looking rather earnestly at the old man. She had been engaged in knitting when he entered, but had laid the work on a little round stand by her side, and seemed rather anxious to take it up again; but she was too punctilious for that, and very blandly requested her visitor to resume the seat from which he had risen. “No, I have not time to sit down, every minute is worth years to me now—my only son is dying, and I am absent from his side.” The old man now paused, his chin began to quiver, and turning away his face, he strove to conceal the tears that broke into his eyes from the calm and heartless woman who sat gazing upon him.

“Madam,” he said, but his voice was broken, and his hand shook till the hat fell from his grasp to the floor. “Madam, I beseech you, think better of this! My boy cannot live forty-eight hours; the doctors told me so before I left him. But I came from his bed side, when each lost moment was as a drop of blood wrung from my heart, thinking that you might refuse any messenger but his father. You are a woman and should feel for him, and here I gave up five whole hours of this precious time that he might look on the face of that poor girl before he dies; and his mother—you have had children sleeping against your heart, madam—do you think his mother would not find it a comfort if the soul of her only child could go up to heaven from her bosom where he nestled in his first infancy? Do you think she has no woman’s yearning wish for the last embrace, the last endearing word? She loves the boy better than her own soul, and he is dying before her eyes—but she gave him up. When she saw that he moaned for the presence of one who had become dearer than his own mother, she bade me come hither and bring the girl that her first born might die in the arms he loved best—think, woman, every moment I spend in talking here is wrung from the death bed of a child that was all on earth that two old people had to love and hope for. I must depart, but let _her_ go with me.”

The old man unconsciously clasped his hands as he spoke, and tears fell like rain over his withered cheeks.

Mrs. Gray glanced at him with something of wonder in her face, and extending out her hand, took up the knitting work as if to end the conference.

“And can you still refuse!” exclaimed the old man.

“It would not be proper,” replied Mrs. Gray, quietly unscrewing the top of her silver knitting case, “besides, Phebe is not well enough to ride so far even if she desired it, and the fever may be contagious.”

“If I could talk with the young lady I am sure she _would_ desire it,” said the old man, almost humbly, for his heart grew heavy at the thought of returning to the death bed of his son with his errand unaccomplished. “Leave it to her good feelings, madam, and if they plead against me I will depart and trouble you no more.”

Neither the pleading voice, nor the agony of over-wrought feelings with which the unhappy father spoke, reached the heart of Mrs. Gray. While the old man stood before her, trembling beneath the burden of his grief, she placed her needle in its sheath, twisted the worsted over her finger, and went through the intricacies of a seam stitch before even her eyes were lifted toward him.

“You must recollect, Mr. Mosier,” she said, “Phebe is not at present engaged to your son, and even if she were, I do not think it would be exactly correct for her to visit him. I am sorry for the young gentleman, very; I will see that our new minister mentions his case in prayer next Sabbath; we all feel for him—but he would not be advised. Indeed—”

Here Mrs. Gray dropped a stitch, and paused while it was looped up again. When she raised her eyes, the face of her auditor was stern, and as calm as her own. The tears had dropped from his cheek, his hands were both grasping the head of his cane, and if that pharisaical woman could have shrunk from any thing, the solemn and reproving eyes which dwelt on her face would have kindled the most generous blood of her heart into blushes of shame. But it is hard to wring the die of shame from a self-righteous heart. Mrs. Gray believed herself to be acting in a most Christian-like spirit, in still retaining the heartless civility of her manner toward the poor old man whom her own cruelty had bereaved. Her heart was entombed in the self-conceit of its own sanctity, like dust in the marble of a sarcophagus.

“Woman,” said the old man, and this time his voice was firm, and thrillingly solemn; “you have no heart. You are a mother, and should know how much worse than death it is to see the child whom you have loved and cherished, and woven in your very heart-strings, perishing before your eyes. Oh, how proud we were of that boy! how his poor mother loved him! what a day it was when she and I walked up the broad aisle of that old meeting-house yonder, and saw him standing in the pulpit—a minister of the gospel. We had prayed for that sight—toiled and slaved for it—and were so happy—so very happy. He is on his death bed now. Woman, _you_ have sent him there—you, who were a mother, thought nothing of smiting a sister woman through the heart—you, a professor of religion, can do murder more subtle and cruel than that which cleaves a man through the brain, and look calm and speak softly, nay, smilingly refuse the last dying request of your victim. Woman, I will not curse you—that right rests with the high God of Heaven, who looketh down upon the murder you have done, not as man looketh, not as the law looketh—before _him_, shall you be arraigned, and that cold heart shall be made to shudder at the depth of its own crime—_he_ will be thine accuser—he, thy victim, who was so gentle, so sweet tempered, that thoughts of revenge never entered his heart. In a few short hours he will stand in the broad light of Heaven, sent there untimely; and even as Abel bear witness against his brother, he shall bear witness against thee! The Almighty may not place his mark upon thy brow—the law may not brand thee—but one who can wring the life from a human being by silent and moral cruelty, is not less a murderer than the man who smites his brother to the heart with a poniard!”

Mrs. Gray was at length moved—for the solemn and stern energy of that pale old man might have startled the dead from their graves—the knitting dropped from her hands, her eyes darkled with terror, and her face turned white as a corpse beneath the snowy lace and the black and false hair that shaded it. She would have spoken, but the pallid lips trembled without uttering a sound, while the hands which rested in her lap began to shiver, as she strove to lift them and motion him away.

The old man left her where she sat, and went into the hall; but his feelings had been too cruelly outraged, and there his strength gave way; he sunk helplessly to a settee, and covering his face with his hands, wept like a child.

Malina had left the hall and stood in her sister’s chamber. Phebe was dressed and seated by the window, pondering over the pages of a book, though she had not turned a leaf that day. She did not raise her eyes when the door opened, but seemed unconscious of a second person.

“Come with me,” said Malina, grasping the hand which lay in her sister’s lap, with fingers that clung to it like ice. “Come!”

There was something in Malina’s face that frightened her companion from the apathy that had for days settled on her spirits. She arose, without a word, and was led down stairs, and into the hall. It was empty. Old Mr. Mosier had departed, and the front door was left open behind him.

“Phebe,” said Malina Gray, in a faint whisper, “_he_ is dying, and has sent for you—his father sat there, but a moment since. Our mother has refused that you should see him. He is pining to die with his head against your heart. Sister, will you go?”

“I will plead with her—kneel to her,” said Phebe Gray, and opening the parlor door, she entered alone.

Malina paused an instant, and turning through a side door, passed across a small clover lot, toward the stables. A horse stood cropping the white blossoms in a corner of the field. She looked around for some one to help her, but the men were all away on the upper farm—so she drew toward the gentle animal, and beckoning with her hand, uttered a few coaxing words, and persuaded him toward the stables. He bent his neck while her trembling hands placed the bit in his mouth, which was yet half full of fragrant grass, and turned his head to watch her, as she girded the saddle to his back. When she tied him to the garden fence, and entered the house again, he followed her with his eyes, and, with a short neigh, fell to tearing with his mouth the honeysuckle vines that crept along the fence.

As Malina entered the hall she saw Phebe gliding up stairs toward their room; she was walking feebly, and held by the bannister as she went. When the sisters stood within the chamber together, Phebe sunk to a chair, while Malina looked earnestly in her face, and uttered a single sentence—

“Will you go?”

“She has forbidden it,” replied Phebe, faintly.

“Will you go?” said Malina, once more.

“I dare not disobey her!” Phebe spoke with difficulty, and clasping both hands over her face, moaned as if in pain, for the struggle within her heart was terrible.

When Phebe became sufficiently composed to look up, her sister was gone. She was glad to be alone, and creeping toward the bed, knelt down and prayed.

Malina had snatched a bonnet and shawl from the bed while her sister’s face was concealed, and gliding down stairs into the open air, she mounted the horse and rode away.

It was sunset as the poor girl came slowly over the old bridge, and rode by our house. I was playing in the front yard, and ran out to meet her—but all at once she drew the bridle tight, and the spirited horse sprung forward on the way before my childish voice could be heard. The gloom of coming night lay heavily amid the pine boughs, as the young girl rode under them, and when she dashed up the road, and disappeared over Fall’s Hill, both horse and rider were for one moment displayed in bold relief against a pile of crimson and golden clouds which lay heaped in the horizon. When she disappeared, it seemed, to my infant fancy, as if the gates of heaven had unfolded to receive her.

The night came on clear, and lighted both by moon and stars, the solitary traveler still kept the road, accompanied only by her spirited animal, and the shadow which seemed gliding along the dewy green-sward by her side, like a silent guardian. It was late in the evening when the horse checked himself at the fence before a red farm-house, with a sloping roof, and two large trees embowering it with foliage.

It seemed like supernatural instinct in the animal, for he had only been there once before, and Malina, in the tumult of her thoughts, scarcely knew where she wished to stop. There was a light twinkling through the thick leaves of a tree bough that dropped over one of the front windows, but it was very faint, and seemed forcing itself through the folds of a window curtain. Malina grasped the horn of her saddle, and dropping feebly down to the green-sward, moved toward the house. There was a foot-path which led to the front door—she followed this, and found herself in a dark entry, with a narrow stream of light falling through the entrance to an inner room. The sound of a faint, wandering voice, and of smothered sobs, stole from the room. Malina breathed heavily as she touched the door, and glided into the room. It was indeed the chamber of death. A solitary candle burned on the table, amid glasses and vials, sending forth just sufficient light to reveal an old fashioned tent bed, with its white drapery sweeping to the floor, and its heavy fringes hanging motionless, as if they had been cut from marble. At the foot of this bed knelt an old man; his hands were clasped beneath his face, and the long gray hair swept thickly over them, as he prayed. A female stood between Malina and the bed; she was bending over the pillows which were heaped high upon it, and though the poor girl could not see her face, she _felt_ that it was _his_ mother. She moved, and the sound of her footstep on the sanded floor made the old lady lift her head, and Malina saw his face once more. Oh, how white and changed it was! The damp, black hair fell heavily over his forehead, shadows lay about the closed eyelids, and there was an expression about the mouth, which was not a smile, and yet seemed deathly and sweet. His head was raised high with pillows, and though he seemed to sleep, the breath came painfully from his lips, and with a struggle that constantly disturbed the linen which lay in waves across his breast.

Malina stood upright in the dim light, motionless as a thing of marble, her eyes fixed on the dying man, and unconscious, in the force of her grief, that to all in the room, save him who saw her not, she was a stranger, and had intruded into the sanctuary of private grief.

It mattered not; Malina’s step had been mistaken for that of a woman from the kitchen, and no one knew that the wretched young creature was there.

There was a motion of the bed clothes, a faint murmur, and the dying man opened his eyes—those large, eloquent eyes that Malina had thought upon so often, and so thrillingly. There was a mist upon them now, but through it broke a soft and strange light, heavenly and beautiful. The old lady bent her ear, and listened to the faint murmur, which seemed dying on his lips.

“My father—when will he come back?—it is late!”

The sound was very faint, but the old man had heard it amid the strong agony of his prayer. He arose, and moving round the bed, bent over his son. A light, almost preternatural, came to the eyes of that dying man, and with a sudden effort he found voice to speak.

“My father,” he said, “thank God—you have returned in time. Where is she?”

“My son,” said the old man, in a voice which he vainly strove to render calm, “in a little time she will meet you in heaven—but she is not here.”

The invalid had turned his head upon the pillow, with a look of touching eagerness; but it fell back—his eyes closed faintly, and after gasping once or twice, he lay motionless, save the lips, which gave forth broken but beautiful fragments of speech, such as came uppermost in his pure, but wandering mind, for he was delirious now. The last vibrations of his soul were disturbed by disappointment in his sole earthly wish. In the broken murmurs that fell from his lips, Malina heard her own name, and it unlocked the ice which seemed closing round her heart. With a sob that broke to her lips amid a gush of tears, she sprung toward the bed, and falling upon her knees, clasped the pale hand which fell over the bed, and pressed her quivering lips repeatedly upon it, while her voice mingled with the choking grief that shook her whole frame.

“Forgive me! oh, let me stay!” she said, lifting her face to the old woman, but still nervously grasping the dying man’s hand; “I loved him better than she did—better than anybody could—better than my own soul! Let me stay, and die with him! No one asked _me_ to come, but I am here. You will not send me away?”

The voice of Malina Gray was soft and low, like that of her sister; and though broken with grief, it is probable that the dying man was bewildered by the sound. He started from the pillow—a glorious lustre broke through the mist which whelmed his eyes, and as Malina sprang to her feet, his face fell upon her shoulder, and his cold cheek lay against hers. It was very strange—Malina knew that he was dying, but a flash of wild joy thrilled through her heart, and for the first time since she had heard of his illness, a faint color broke into the cheek which pressed his. She laid him gently upon the pillow, and parting the damp hair from his forehead, pressed her lips tremblingly upon it, while her sobs filled the chamber. When the dying man felt the touch of her quivering mouth, a smile stole over his face—again the misty eyes were unclosed, and feebly lifting his arm, he wound it over her neck and drew her to his bosom, while the unformed words he would have spoken were lost amid the dying music of his soul. A moment, and his arm fell softly from Malina’s neck. The young creature lifted her face from his bosom, and looking at his mother, murmured—

“He loved _her_ living—but is he not mine in death?—mine, for ever and ever!”

She turned to lay her face near his heart once more, but there was no color in her lips then. She started, and, with a cold shudder, bent her cheek slowly to his bosom—it pressed heavily, and more heavily, on the cold clay—her limbs relaxed, and she sunk across the bed, senseless as the beautiful corpse which cumbered it.

The gloom of death had shadowed that farm-house two days, and now it was desolate. The kind neighbors who had walked in and out, ministering to grief, no longer broke the solemn hush which pervaded the dwelling. The departed was indeed the departed—for they had borne him over his father’s threshold, and laid him down to sleep in the dark earth. Malina followed him to the grave. She was a stranger, but no one asked why she stood among the mourners, and without their sable vestments. When the aged mother bent over the coffin, and looked upon the dead, the young girl drew to her side, and fixed her eyes upon the cold still face which had never met her glance coldly before. The mother wept, but Malina could not shed a tear, although the solemn and hushed grief upon her face awed even village curiosity.

And now they were alone—the parents, and that poor girl. She was upon her knees—her head was bent, and its redundant hair veiled her face, while the broken hearted young creature begged a blessing from _his mother_ before she went away. The sorrowing woman laid her hands upon the bright tresses which flowed over her lap for a moment, then lifting the suppliant to her bosom, wept over her.

Mr. Mosier, when he heard the sobs of his wife, arose, and clasping his hands over Malina’s head, silently besought a blessing on her. She drew back, and he saw that her face was still calm; so taking her hands in his, he began to persuade and reason with her. She listened, and gazed earnestly in his face as he spoke. At last, tears started to her eyes, and when the old man saw this, big drops began to stream down his own cheek, and the clasp of his hand grew tremulous, as he led her from the room.

As the old man placed Malina in her saddle, he glanced in her face, and a misgiving came to his heart. He questioned himself if it was safe to trust her to the road without protection; but when he proposed accompanying her part of the way, at least, she pleaded against it with startling eagerness, and, thinking of his afflicted wife, he allowed her to depart.

Malina had a secret wish at her heart, which caused it to pant for solitude. Her road lay close by the grave-yard where our young minister was buried, and she yearned to stand once more by his death place, and alone. When she reached the sacred place, she looked to the right and left, timidly, as if her errand had been a wrong one. Her nerves were strung to their utmost tension, and she was morbidly fearful of being seen—every thing was solitary and quiet; the long grass bending to the breeze, as it sighed over the graves, and the soft rustling sound which whispered amid the leaves of a clump of weeping willows, that curtained an entire household that had gone down to sleep together, were all the sounds that fell upon her ear. She tied the horse to the fence, and passing forward to _his_ grave, sat upon a pile of sods that had been left by the sexton. She neither wept nor moved—but there she remained in the bright sunshine, gazing hour after hour on a tuft of tiny white blossoms, which sprung up from a sod which they had placed just over his heart. Now and then, she twined her hands together as they reposed in her lap—and as the sunshine went suddenly away, and heavy black clouds rolled over the sky, with the lightning playing amid their ragged folds, she smiled, and drew closer to the grave.

At last, a roar of thunder burst from the clouds, big drops of rain came down upon the graves, and bent the willows more droopingly to the earth.

Malina lifted her eyes upward with a wild and startled look, then turning them on the willows which sheltered that single family, and on the congregation of graves which lay around her, all covered with long grass, she rested them on the mound at her feet, murmuring—

“Have all a covering from the cold rain, but thee?”

As she spoke, Malina took off her shawl, and spreading it over the newly made grave, cast herself upon it, and for the first time since she felt his heart stop beating beneath hers, moaned and sobbed as if her very life were going from her.

In a few moments the garments of our poor mourner were saturated with rain—still she clung closer to the grave, murmuring words of wild endearment to the unconscious inmate, and congratulating herself, with strange earnestness, that she was still able to shield his bosom from the storm.

At last, the clouds rolled away, and though the sun was just going down, his last fires kindled a rainbow amid the water drops that yet filled the air. Malina lifted her head, and gazed upward—a smile parted her lips when she saw the rainbow, and pressing her cheek upon the grave again, she whispered—

“The angels have built thee a bridge, love!”

The sun went down, and Malina arose from the grave, shivering from head to foot. She gazed around, and was turning her eyes with a wistful look on her late resting place, as if she meditated casting herself down again, when a low neigh from the horse which still remained by the fence, aroused her, and leaving the shawl behind, she hurried toward the patient animal, and mounting him, rode away.

Malina must have wandered from the usual road, in the strange abstraction of her mind, for it was midnight when she came opposite the old meeting-house. Prompted, doubtless, by some vague fear of returning home, or perhaps allured to pause by the open gate, the weary and half bewildered girl turned her horse, and riding close to the front door of the parsonage house, dismounted, and allowed him to wander amid the flower beds and rose bushes which filled the yard. Thrusting her hand beneath the door sill, she took out a key, and fitted it to the lock, but with difficulty, for her hands trembled; and though hot flushes every moment darted through her frame, she was shivering with cold. She went up stairs, holding feebly by the balusters, and guided by the moonlight, which fell from a window overhead, she entered a room—that which she had decorated as the bridal chamber of her sister Phebe, and of the departed. A clear moonlight came through the windows, and lay like flags of silver amid the black shadows which filled the apartment. Every thing was still and motionless; not a breath stirred the bridal ribands with which the muslin curtains were looped back. The bed lay with the moonlight sleeping amid its pillows, like a snow drift, when the air is calm; and the atmosphere was impregnated by the dead flowers which had been profusely lavished on the toilet, and now hung crisp and withered in their vases. Malina was very ill, and a fever burned through her veins—her limbs were almost powerless, and her forehead seemed girdled with iron. Still was she sensible of surrounding things, and her heart swelled with the recollections which thronged on her aching brain. She unfastened her damp dress, and with difficulty crept into bed.

“Poor, poor Phebe,” she murmured, gathering the white counterpane over her shivering form, “how little she thinks I am here—how she would pity me, so ill, and all alone. Alas, how sad a thing this trouble is—I have not thought of Phebe these many long days—I wonder if she is ill as I am—if her head is so hot, and her limbs chilled, till they shake so. This is a cold bed—very, very cold—but his is colder still. Oh, my God! _he is dead_—and I have seen his grave. I—but it was not me—no—he loved my sister. But I had his dying kiss! It was the last throb of his heart that beat against mine, and chilled me so. That was it—that was it!”

With such fragments of speech, and moans of pain, Malina verged into the delirium of a raging fever. At times she would weep, and call for her sister, in tones of yearning tenderness—then notes of music would break from her lips, and ring through every corner of the solitary house, as if a prisoned angel were pleading for release there. When the fever came on, fierce and strong, she began to ask for water—to weep, and wring her hands, while she entreated some visionary being to leave her in the grave-yard where _he_ was; where showers were continually falling and weaving rainbows around those who thirsted for rest or drink; and so her voice of suffering rose and swelled through the lone building all night. When the day dawned, she was still awake and delirious; tears stood on her crimson cheeks, and entreaties for water still rose to her parched lips.

It came at last—she knew not how it was, but a pale, sweet face bent over her, a soft voice was speaking comfort, and a glass of water cooler and more refreshing than she had ever tasted before was held to her lips. She was just conscious enough to think that it was Phebe who ministered to her wants, or some good seraph that looked as sweetly sad and kind. Then she sunk to sleep, and it was many weeks before she awoke from the dream that followed.

It was Phebe Gray who stood by the sick bed of the sufferer. A villager had seen Mrs. Gray’s horse that morning, bridled and with his saddle on, trampling among the flower beds and feasting upon the choice rose bushes which grew in the parsonage yard—he went in to secure the animal and was terrified by the voice of suffering which issued from the house. He went up stairs, saw the delirious young creature who occupied the bridal chamber, and hastened to inform Mrs. Gray—but Phebe had struggled with her own sufferings and stood over Malina’s sick bed many hours before the mother had arranged her dress and prepared herself to pass through the village with that degree of propriety which she considered due to her character.

Malina lay many weeks before the fever left her; then a cough set in and a hectic spot settled and burned into her thin cheeks. The poor girl smiled a sad quiet smile, when she heard them say each evening, that a little over exertion had excited her, that she had taken a slight cold which in the turn of her disease was felt more than usual. Still the cough deepened, the crimson spot burned on, and she knew that the life which kindled would soon be exhausted. And so it was, that autumn when the woods were all flushed with those dyes which an early frost brings to the foliage, when the nuts were ripe and the brown leaves fell in showers over the crisp moss, Malina Gray was extended beneath the snowy drapery which her own hands had gathered above the bridal bed. White ribands were still knotted amid the folds which seemed brooding over her like a cloud, and a few crimson fall flowers lay scattered upon the pillow, some of them so close to the marble cheek that a faint tinge was coldly reflected there. For two whole nights Phebe watched the beautiful clay reposing in the dim light upon her own bridal bed, but scarcely more changed than her own sweet self. Malina was the happiest, her heart had broken amid the struggle of its suffering, but that of the watcher lay crushed and withering in her young bosom. She felt that life was yet strong within her; but hope, love, every thing that makes life pleasant to a woman, had departed. She was still good, still pure almost as an angel, but the sad smile which settled on her lips never deepened to a laugh again, and no human being ever saw a tear in her changeless and sorrowful eyes.

They laid Malina Gray down to sleep beside old minister Brown—in the very spot she had yearned to repose in. A large circle of neighbors gathered around the grave, some in tears, and all very sorrowful. Mrs. Gray stood by the coffin; her mourning was arranged with great care, and a veil of new crape, deeply hemmed, fell decorously over her face, and the white handkerchief, with which she concealed those maternal tears proper for a mother, whose duty it was to be resigned under any dispensation. But Phebe stood silent and motionless; no handkerchief was lifted to her eyes, and the face which gleamed beneath the crape veil, was profoundly calm, almost as that of the corpse.

We had a new minister, on trial, of Mrs. Gray’s choosing, who performed the funeral service, and when all was over, returned home with the mourners; when they knelt in the little parlor that night, he prayed earnestly, and with genuine tears, for the bereaved mother; he besought the Lord to visit, with consolation, one who was a mother in Israel, a bright and shining ornament in the Christian church; a woman who had brought up her children in the fear and admonition of the Lord; whose path was growing brighter and brighter to the perfect day when she would reap a rich reward in heaven.

Amid a few natural sobs which awoke in the widow’s heart, she murmured, “Amen,” satisfied that her life had been one of perfect rectitude, and that in all things she had been a pattern mother, and an ornament to the church, which ought to be her consolation under any bereavement.

The new minister was a very conscientious man, but practical in all his ideas; he was honest in the high opinion which he entertained of Mrs. Gray, and not sufficiently sensitive to shrink from offering his hand to Phebe, when that lady delicately gave him to understand that the step would be satisfactory to herself. The old parsonage house was still empty, and Phebe’s inheritance. He was an installed pastor, and Miss Gray’s engagement to his predecessor never entered his mind as an objection.

Phebe betrayed no emotion when the proposal was made. She simply declined it, without giving a reason; and when he married another person, and would have rented the parsonage, she said with decision—“It must remain as my sister left it!”

And when Mrs. Gray would have remonstrated, she answered, still with firmness—

“I am of age, mother, but still will obey you in all things else. Act as you like regarding the other property—but no stranger shall ever live in the parsonage. Poor Malina furnished it for _him_, and for me. She died there, and so will I!”

* * * * *

It may be so, for the old house is still uninhabited. Every thing remains as Malina left it; the bridal chamber, the easy chair, and the flute upon the table; time has made little change in those silent apartments, for every week Phebe, who has become a calm and sorrowful old maid, goes up to the house alone, and remains there for many hours; sometimes seated at the study table, and gazing at a grave which may be seen through the trees. Once, a child gathering valley lilies, beneath the window, saw her standing at the open sash, with her sad eyes turned toward the grave-yard. She was talking to herself—the child dropped his flowers and listened, for there was something so mournful in her voice, that his little heart thrilled to the sound.

“They tell me that he wearied himself, and died of fever,” she said; “and that thou, my sister, perished naturally, and as we all must. Alas, if I could but think so. Why not have told me how he was beloved before it was too late? I would have given him up—and while you were happy, this heart had not become so palsied and feelingless. Alas, it was well that thy heart _could_ break, my poor, poor Malina!”

* * * * *

NOON.[5]

BY WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT.

’Tis noon. At noon the Hebrew bowed the knee
And worshiped, while the husbandman withdrew
From the scorched field, and the wayfaring man
Grew faint, and turned aside by bubbling fount,
Or rested in the shadow of the palm.

I, too, amid the overflow of day,
Behold the power which wields and cherishes
The frame of Nature. From this brow of rock
That overlooks the Hudson’s western marge,
I gaze upon the long array of groves,
The piles and gulfs of verdure drinking in
The grateful heats. They love the fiery sun;
Their broadening leaves grow glossier, and their sprays
Climb as he looks upon them. In the midst,
The swelling river into his green gulfs,
Unshadowed save by passing sails above,
Takes the redundant glory, and enjoys
The summer in his chilly bed. Coy flowers,
That would not open in the early light,
Push back their plaited sheaths. The rivulet’s pool,
That darkly quivered all the morning long
In the cool shade, now glimmers in the sun,
And o’er its surface shoots, and shoots again,
The glittering dragon-fly, and deep within
Run the brown water-beetles to and fro.

A silence, the brief sabbath of an hour,
Reigns o’er the fields; the laborer sits within
His dwelling; he has left his steers awhile,
Unyoked, to bite the herbage, and his dog
Sleeps stretched beside the door-stone in the shade.
Now the gray marmot, with uplifted paws,
No more sits listening by his den, but steals
Abroad, in safety, to the clover field,
And crops its juicy blossoms. All the while
A ceaseless murmur from the populous town
Swells o’er these solitudes; a mingled sound
Of jarring wheels, and iron hoofs that clash
Upon the stony ways, and hammer clang,
And creak of engines lifting ponderous bulks,
And calls and cries, and tread of eager feet,
Innumerable, hurrying to and fro.
Noon, in that mighty mart of nations, brings
No pause to toil and care; with early day
Began the tumult, and shall only cease
When midnight, hushing one by one the sounds
Of bustle, gathers the tired brood to rest.

Thus, in this feverish time, when love of gain
And luxury possess the hearts of men,
Thus is it with the noon of human life.
We in our fervid manhood, in our strength
Of reason, we, with hurry, noise and care,
Plan, toil and strive, and pause not to refresh
Our spirits with the calm and beautiful
Of God’s harmonious universe, that won
Our youthful wonder; pause not to inquire
Why we are here, and what the reverence
Man owes to man, and what the mystery
That links us to the greater world, beside
Whose borders we but hover for a space.

-----

[5] From an unpublished Poem.

* * * * *

TRUTH.

BY MRS. FRANCES SARGENT OSGOOD.

“This above all!—to thine own self be true!
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.”