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self-reliance, had given to the face of the melancholy student all that it had lacked to perfect its wonderful resemblance to the fine countenance of his brother; and now the very mother that bore them might have doubted which of the two stood in life before her.

Alas! it mattered little to the widowed heart which had been so long wasting beneath the pain of " hope deferred." The shock of sudden joy had finished the work which grief begun, and ere the shades of night had closed around the cottage, Amy breathed her last sigh on the bosom which had in vain sought to banish the image of her who had been so worshipped. She died in the joyful faith that she had found her long absent husband, and her latest accents breathed tenderness and love in the ear of him who would have given his life but to restore her to life and happiness.

The sea kept well its secret. No tidings ever came from its depths to reveal the fate of Captain Thornton; and while the form of the gentle Amy moulders beneath the greensward in her native village, the bones of the gallant sailor are bleach ing in the coral caves of the ocean.

Wilfred Thornton had returned from his sojourn in foreign climes a wiser and a better man, but he was not proof against this sudden shock which awaited him. He turned for ever from the world, and burying himself in seclusion, sought to cherish rather than subdue his grief. He still lives a lonely, melancholy man, whose hair is whitened by care no less than time, and who, during years of utter hopelessness, has indeed found that-

66 Sympathy is half our life,
And fancy makes the rest.”

THE MOURNING RING. CHAP. I.

THE OMNIBUS.

The clear sky at noon had tempted out the modish butterflies in clouds, and Broadway presented a moving panorama of the gay and beautiful. Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like these, and the splendours of Tyrian purple are outdone in elegance by the walking costume of the daughters of republican America.

A distant rumble, and the affrighted fair were hurried from the majesty of a stately promenade into a quicker walk. Soon the dust rose in clouds -the wind discomposed at a puff all that the patience of hours at the toilet had accomplished. The sky was overcast. Big drops of rain mocked the insufficient shelter of the parasol, and then in a calm, as if the earth held its breath to receive the bath, down came the rain in torrents. Among those caught in the shower, one lady, dressed in the extreme of fashion, cast an imploring look at a passing omnibus. It had but one vacant seat, but, for a miracle, half a dozen hands were raised

at once, to pull the signal strap, and stop the stage. People safely sheltered usually make it a point of honour not to notice the desires and perplexities of less fortunate pedestrians in a shower, but in this instance the porcine code of the omnibus was forgotten.

Nay, more-the passengers were exuberantalmost oppressive in their politeness. One insisted on holding her purasol, that the water might not drop from it upon her dress-the lady was conducted to the driest place in the carriage, and her fringes and furbelows were gathered up for herall of which attention she received as a matter of course, scarce thanking the officious gentlemen with a gracious look, and almost visiting upon them the discomposure with which the weather had afflicted her. Another face presented itself at the door. "Go on, driver-you are full !" And yet it was a female face too. Why would those who had waited upon one lady with so much eagerness, leave another of her sex in the middle of the street, ankle deep in mud and water? Why? She was not fashionable-not even in the last year's fashion—and, if the truth must be said, she was not so much as tolerably well dressed. " There are differences, look you," as Parson Hugh hath it.

Come in, child," said one of the passengers, a benevolent, and rather old gentleman, "Come in. Any port in a storm!" He seated her upon his knee the lady bridled-the child (she was no more), though her face showed that she had cares beyond her years-could see no impropriety in accepting the courtesy of a man apparently old enough to be her grandfather. If she had scruples, however, the rain left her no choice. The young men began to cast very "knowing" glances at her, but her protector calmly gave his eyes a tour of observation round the vehicle, which at once put down all their glances. Still the lady minced, and looked, from time to time, superciliously, and with a great deal of the appearance of outraged propriety, over her shoulder. The girl wore nothing but a shilling calico, and, what was conclusive against her "respectability," she had a basket upon her arm!

The coach bad reached the head of one of the unfashionable streets, in which the poor pay more rent than the wealthy do for their palaces. The child pulled at the string once, but the driver did not notice it. Nobody assisted her, for her only friend could not reach the strap while she sat upon his knee. She tugged at it again-the vehicle stopped-she pushed her way timidly out, amid knees which seemed more than ever angular and protuberant, was half-drowned in the gutter to begin with, and ran home in a pelting shower. The lady but raised the tip of her finger a few minutes afterwards, and three gentlemen caught hold of the signal string together.

"Do you alight here, ma'am?" one of them inquired.

"My house is a few steps farther down, but❞— "Driver, can't you turn a step or two out of your way?" one asked, and all assented in the implied request. The stage turned, and the omnibus drew up at the door of a princely mansion.

A servant came out with an umbrella, and the lady was safely conducted within her own door.

"Dear! how wet you are, child!" cried an old woman in a tremulous voice, as the sewing girl entered her poor but neat apartment. The grandmother-for that was her relation to our young friend-did not rise to meet her as she entered, for she had not risen unassisted for many months-she was palsied. Mary busied herself at once in attending to her grandmother's comforts, and then, upon the old lady's insisting upon it, she heeded her own. And then, over their frugal cup of hot water, sparingly tinctured with the Chinese weed, the two compared notes upon family expenses. After the purchase of a few necessaries, which she had brought in her basket, Mary had remaining a half dollar, less the sixpence which she had paid for her ride. Miss Modiste, from Paris, for whom she had toiled beyond twelve on the night preceding, could not pay her. She was sure that girls should be willing to wait a day or two for their money, in such times, when they were fortunate to find work at all. The lady for whom the dress was made owed the milliner a hundred dollars; and if Miss Modiste could wait weeks for that sum, she was sure that Mary could wait days for a few shillings. All this Miss Modiste delivered with a voluble and rapid English accent which showed that she was from Paris-very far from it, but no further than she always had been. But then what could a fashionable milliner do without the name of the capital of the world of fashion in her advertisement? Mary almost sighed aloud as she withdrew from the shop, to be driven by the storm into the same stage with the very garment for the making of which she was unpaid; to see the wearer treated with over-strained civility, and herself almost shut into the street in a drenching rain. It was Saturday night. Mary thanked God that she was still above starvation, and concealed from her grandmother the partial despondence which she could not help feeling. She checked the desire to repine until, in the calm twilight of a beautiful evening which had succeeded the shower, her thoughts were schooled into absolute and heartfelt gratitude. The morrow, welcomed in such a frame of mind, she felt must be a happy day.

She

But Mary's happiness was short-lived. had intended a surprise for her dear old relative, and as she prepared to enjoy it with her, her pleasure was damped with surprise of another colour. Age is peevish, and the approach of dotage brings unreasonable whims. Mary and her grandmother had not always been poor. The old lady was, before her later infirmity, which made her taciturn, garrulous upon her happy days-first, when a husband and a son made her former residence in New York delightful-then of her removal to the South, where in that sunny clime her every wish was answered by affectionate servants; and in this part of her narrative Mary's memory of her infancy could assist her-for none can recollect more vividly the comforts of childhood in compe

tence than those whose maturer years are fated to fall in penury.

The last stage of these days of ease was when, returned to New York after the death of her second husband, Mrs. Haynes vested, under the advice of a friend, all that was left to her in a then profitable stock. The fearful tornado, which is too well remembered, and too deeply felt by many of our readers, swept away the dependence of the widow and the orphan. They were compelled to retire from the circle in which they had moved, and were soon forgotten.

Mary, in their destitution, turned the knowledge of needlework which the old-fashioned and wisefashioned educational notions of her grandmother had given her, to good account. It was well that adversity rather strengthened than broke down her young mind; for it had nearly prostrated her grandmother, and an attack of palsy completed the wreck. The newspapers speak of " commercial embarrassments,' of cent per cent, and of financial operations checked or ruined by the almost universal failure of corporate credit, and breaches of moral honesty; but these are nothing in the catalogue of woe that follows. It is bad when the broker cannot pay his "differences," but oh, it is worse when the widow cannot pay for her bread. It is bad when the merchant's note is dishonoured; but it is worse when the broken faith of those in whom the fatherless trusted breaks the heart of the indigent inheritors of straw and stubble, where they had fancied gold was hoarded.

Bit by bit their mementoes of other days, their once indispensable comforts, had been wrested from them. But there was one trifle to which the widow clung as with her life. It was a mourning ring, the gift of her son, Mary's father, upon the death of her first husband. When the second bridal took place the ring was lost sight of. It laid perdue till the presence of her second husband no longer kept her heart from the grave of the first. When the second was also laid in the earth, her heart returned to her first love, memory recurring only to the second husband as to a kind friend. And Mary's father, whom she also wept as no more-her first and only child-he too spake through his orphan daughter to her heart. The mourning ring came out from its concealment, and had been worn for many years as an indispensable part of the old lady's toilet.

Age, we have remarked, has unreasonable whims. Mrs. Haynes in competence, when the expence of such an alteration would not have been inquired, did not think of having a lock of her son's hair inwoven in the brooch with that of her husband. Now that every penny was counted and saved for absolute necessaries, she wished aloud a thousand times that the hair of her son should be braided in the trinket with that of the father. Hours she would sit and look at the finger on which she wore the precious relic, having apparently no thought for any other objectno interest in anything else. Ever anxious to make her aged relative comfortable, Mary at length proposed to the old lady to take the ring to a jeweller's. In the melancholy seclusion and

poverty in which the old lady lived, the outside world was to her one dark Egypt, to which Mary went only to procure bread and return; and Jacob did not stipulate more earnestly for the safety of Benjamin than did Mrs. Haynes for the safety of the ring; and the brethren of Benjamin did not promise more confidently than Mary did that all should be well. That very evening she had procured it from the jeweller's, she was about to crown the old lady's melancholy happiness by returning it to her, when the poor child discovered that it was lost!

Fortunately, as Mary had intended to surprise her with the trinket that evening, the grandmother did not once mention it. A long hour of anxiety it caused poor Mary: she even lay awake, waiting for the dreaded question, which she could not answer. But sleep must visit the weary; and Mary was insensible to trouble and to sorrow, and back in her dreams to the dimly-remembered but happy days of childhood, long before the brilliant lights in the house of her fashionable fellow-passenger of the omnibus gave any token of the close of a fashionable evening.

Mrs. Meredith, the lady whose retreat to the omnibus we have recorded, was on the point of retiring for the night, when Betty, her maid, brought her the ring. The footman said that a gentleman had just called with it, supposing Mrs. Meredith had dropped it in the omnibus. It was a lady's ring, and he remembered no other lady. A girl in a homespun gown could not, of course, have lost such a trinket; and, indeed, the gentleman did not remember that any such person was his fellow-passenger.

"The thing is none of mine, Betty." "So I thought, mawm. You can't want no such trumpery as this, mawm. Where shall I put it, if you please, mawm?"

"I'm sure I don't care what becomes of it," yawned the lady.

Betty did; for, with all her depreciation of the article, Betty bad quite a weakness for jewellery, and the result of her presenting it to her mistress had been just as she had hoped. It was packed in cotton in a pill-box, and deposited in Betty's trunk within the half-hour, and Mrs. Meredith thought no more about it.

CHAPTER II.

WHERE HAVE I SEEN THAT FACE BEFORE?

"I wish, Mary, you would manage to bring home that mourning ring to-night," said old Mrs. Haynes, as her grand-daughter tied on her hat on Monday inorning.

Poor Mary! She did not know how to prevaricate, and if she had known, she felt aware that prevarication would only delay the discovery that must be made after awhile. She only sighed, and dared not turn her head toward the old lady. "Well, I suppose you could get it," pursued her grandmother, "if it was not for that woman that don't pay her bill. I don't see why people pay their bills-I always did."

don't

Little did they know in what manner Mrs. Meredith did stand in the way of the return of the trinket. Mary placed her grandmother's frugal dinner within her reach, and putting her own in her reticule, hurried out. She was a different looking lassie from the storm-draggled maiden of the preceding Saturday. She was care-worn and pale, it is true, but the inquietude which sat upon her countenance made it even more interesting. Her raven curls dropping in natural ringlets upon her neck, harmonized with her brilliant though sunken eyes-unnaturally brilliant: for, when adversity forces young women into a struggle with the world, out of their gentle sphere, and beyond their strength, the exertions which at last enfeeble and prostrate them, give them at first unnatural mental and physical strength, and light the eye while the heart may be ready to flag. Mary was not what is generally styled "beautiful." There was nothing winning in her appearance, but at the same time there was nothing of that carelessness of personal attire which, too often for their respectable appearance, attends the dispirited poor. Far removed from coquetry or desire to attract attention, her dress and person still bespoke all that care, cleanliness, and attention could do for her toilet; and if her tout ensemble did not at once strike the spectator with its elegance, it left an impression which would at once give the observer, upon a second meeting, the vague recollection of having before met the orphan child.

It

She encountered her friend of the omnibus. was on her lips to ask him if he had seen her lost treasure. She even stopped, and was upon the point of addressing him, when the ill-concealed smiles of the other men in the stage, and the open superciliousness of the one woman crossed her mind. Pure in thought as a babe, it now for the first time crossed her mind that it might have been something more than the mean appearance of her clothing which caused the half contempt and complete insult which she had experienced on Saturday, while accepting what seemed to her the simple and well-timed kindness of a stranger. Then, with her natural frankness, she was about to say something to him in apology, or in explanation of -she knew not what-and then, quick as a flash, she thought that if anything were wrong, this would only make it worse. She blushed, hung her head, and passed on.

The gentleman looked after her. "Where have I seen that face before?" he asked himself. The incident in the omnibus did not occur to him, and if it had, he would hardly have thought of Mary in that connection, so different was she in general appearance on Monday from the girl that his genuine politeness had sheltered on Saturday. "Where have I seen her before? young!" And he ran over in his mind the portraits of all the pretty servants whom chance had thrown in his way in his wanderings. An acquaintance saluted him, and Mary was forgotten again, after, with the characteristic injustice of man to the other sex, he had set her aside as one beneath a virtuous man's thoughts. Mary went her way, grieving that a little foolish indecision

R

had probably shut her out for ever from her last chance of recovering her lost treasure.

Betty, the maid, meanwhile, had derived much enjoyment from the contemplation of the prize which had just fallen into her hands. The ownership of it did not trouble her mind in the least. Why should it? Better moralists than Betty do not hesitate to appropriate to themselves larger matters, the property of others; and bad not the conduct of her mistress also, in relation to the subject, been enough to remove all scruple? Had Mrs. Meredith done as she would be done by, she would have caused the ring to be advertised, and thus at once have found a claimant for it. Mary diligently studied the advertisements in all the newspapers which fell in her way, and even advertised the loss herself. But Mrs. Meredith had entirely forgotten the ring, and Betty could not read.

So passed a week. The grandmother was growing daily more importunate for the ring, which she was sure had been gone quite long enough to be altered. She was certain she should never see it again, she said. So was poor Mary, but she dared not, could not acknowledge it. Iler home became every day more and more uncomfortable. The return to her humble lodgings, to which she had been in the habit of looking forward as the happy and quiet hour of the day, was so no longer. Her peevish relative did not fail to open the subject of the lost ring, as soon as her grandchild opened the door, and poor Mary quailed, as the old lady did not scruple to accuse her of ingratitude-of lack of filial affection, in thus neglecting a memento of her father-of terrible carelessness in general. Mary was deeply affected as she perceived that her grandmother's mind was growing yet more imbecile under this, to her, terrible calamity; but her constant reproaches at length drove the child in desperation to acknowledge that the ring was lost, and how.

"And why didn't you tell me this before? why didn't you set right about finding it? I've faith to believe, Mary Richardson, that you've sold that ring. It cost ten dollars when it was new, and it was such good old-fashioned gold, that the jeweller gave you twelve for it. But I shall know: I shall watch you-you-you-that it should ever come to this! You might have had the hair saved-your own poor father's, and his father'sbut there. It is swept into the street long before this, without they saved it to put into a new ring, for it was beautiful hair, and-"

The old lady had talked herself to sleep, and as Mary adjusted the pillows under her head, a single scalding tear fell from the orphan's eyes upon the old woman's cheek. She opened her eyes- the loss of the ring was forgotten.

"Never mind, if we are poor, Mary. God will be good to us-and there's that ring with your grandfather's hair in it, you shall have your father's put in too, as soon as we are able."

The old lady sank into slumber again. Poor Mary sat down in the twilight, and sobbed as if her heart would break.

"If she fails thus, in a short time she will be to me but as the living dead."

CHAP. III.

THE INTELLIGENCE OFFICE.

It was Sunday, three weeks from the com. mencement of our sketch. Betty was arranging herself for the afternoon parade, which all servant maidens in New York so much affect, and which is indeed their right as well as their privilege. Many, perhaps most of them, attend church; and it is a beneficent order of Providence that the poor dependent, whose recreations are abridged by her situation, finds in the visit to the sanctuary at once the fulfilment of a religious duty, and the gratification of a not necessarily criminal vanity, the display of her well-saved holiday clothes; the exchange of greetings between friends who scarce meet except at such times-the affectation of independence which all put on, induced by the natural exaltation of spirit which they feel, that, for a few hours at least, they are their own mistresses, the cheerfulness which the day inspires making the labourer contented with his lot; certainly in these, the simple pleasures of the poor, there are reasons enow that the sabbath should be to them a welcome day, apathetically as it is received and wearily as its hours may pass with those who are endowed with more of this earth's blessings and comforts. And if in their employment of the sabbath these should indulge in what rigid observers of form consider improper, surely over such a sin the Recording Angel, to borrow Sterve's beautiful figure, may drop an obliterating tear, as he makes the record.

But we are all infirm. Betty had no business with her mistress's wardrobe, certainly; and if that mistress had done nothing to weaken her sense of right and wrong-if she had never treated with slight and derision any moral obligation, however apparently trivial, Betty might not have found herself in difficulty. Mrs. Meredith did not care anything about the ring, and it was an easy train of ratiocination by which Betty reached the conclusion that if she helped herself to the loan of a few articles of her mistress's dress, in order that the ring could be worn to better advantage, Mrs. Meredith would be none the worse. Perhaps she would never know it, and if she did she would never care. But she did care, and poor Betty lost her place.

When men have reached fifty years of age, if there is any good in them it comes out. They discover that the world is much more endurable when its inhabitants mutually assist, encourage, and befriend each other. Men of such an age are polite, not from form merely, but from generosity of impulse and of habit. It was therefore that our friend of the omnibus was so attentive to Mary. He saw that she needed politeness and attention; and that was enough for him. He did not repulse her, because there was no eclat in waiting upon a poor girl in a homespun dress. He did not care for the doubt of his motives or the affected supe riority which the young gallants in the conveyance betrayed.

Middle-aged-old single gentlemen are invariably the favourites of landladies. Middle-aged-young

single gentlemen are different sort of people, as!
difficult to please as a boy between his teens and
twenties. The boy is afraid of being suspected of
juvenility, the middle-aged young gentleman is
afraid of being suspected of age. So neither can
be treated except with extreme punctilio. But
your dear, kind, middle-aged, old gentleman,
with just two crows-feet to each eye, and about
a score of grey hairs among his whiskers, can be
"done anything with." So his landlady asked our
old friend if he wouldn't be kind enough to step
into the "Institute for the Encouragement of Faith-
ful Domestic Servants," and ask the principal to
send her a chambermaid. The young men at the
breakfast table laughed, and so did our middle-
aged friend a little, for he was not in the habit of
laughing much, and consented.

Our friend hesitated on the threshold, and repented of his promise. He had dared in his time to refuse to fight a duel; he had once skilfully rescued a victim from an infuriated mob; he had even been in a real battle, where they fired leaden bullets. Nay, more, he had in his life-time crossed the park, in New York, at high noon, during the pyrotechnical festivities of the Fourth of July. All these things, and more and more terrific ones he had dared and done without flinching; but when he put his foot on the threshold of the "Institute," he did tremble a little, so strange, unappreciable, and unintelligible did the danger of something seem to him.

"Oh, come in old feller," shouted some one in the crowd, observing that he hesitated. He did come in, and with absolute awkwardness and timidity made his way up to the throne of the Pluto of this receptacle for girls out of service. The master of the ceremonies was provokingly dull of apprehension, and the interview was thus cruelly protracted. When at length the man was made to understand, be said,

"Perhaps you can agree with one of them here."

One of them stood directly in the doorway. He strove gently to put her aside, but she was not to be put off so easily.

"Come," she said, "you'd better take me than one of them young flirts, and then your wife won't be jealous."

A shout of laughter rose, and Richardson felt his ears tingle, and still pressed forward. She caught his arm.

"Oh, stop and look a body in the face, if you aint ashamed of yourself."

It was our old acquaintance, Betty. Richardson looked at her mechanically for an instant, and then all his embarrassment vanished.

"Where did you get that ?" he asked anxiously, pointing to the ring.

"What?" cried the woman, bridling up with an air of injured innocence.

The conversation had become interesting, and the others huddled round them, tittering, stretching their necks, and standing upon tiptoe.

you

"That ring I mean, and you know it, for never came by it honestly." "What is the difficulty?" inquired the man of the "Institute," emerging from his corner.

Richardson turned to answer, and Betty seized the moment to flit. She undoubtedly had her own reasons for not answering questions. Perhaps she was determined to keep the ring-perhaps it did not seem best to her to refer any person to Mrs. Meredith for a "character," as the document of that description which she now found it proper to use was one of a date somewhat antiquated.

CHAP. IV.

THE PAWNBROKER'S.

Poor Mary's grandmother had grown much worse. Anxiety-for in the second childhood, the few trifles which interest are clung to with more than infantile eagerness-had broken her down fearfully in a few weeks. She sat in her chair silent for hours together. Mary could no longer leave her; and, indeed, if her situation would have permitted her to be left alone, there was no cause for Mary's absence. Her employer, kind at heart, though somewhat unceremonious, had given her occupation while any lasted, but now the fashion. ables had left town-the seasonable dresses were made up, and all was dull for the poor operatives. Mrs. Meredith had paid her bill, with a threat of the withdrawal of her "patronage," from such importunate people; and the milliner had paid Mary, not only a portion of the cash received from her customer, but also with a portion of the patronizing condescension of that lady, as she told her poor dependent that she was sorry to say she could no longer give her work at present. Mary thanked her, passed silently into the street, summoned her fortitude to her aid, and tried to persuade herself she was merely wiping dust from her eyes, when she was stanching a tear. Mary could not be idle. She divided her little stock of money into sums to be used from day to day, and in no case to be exceeded, and found that by economy they could subsist ten days-by parsimony they might make it last longer. She looked over her small stock of personal effects, to think what among them could possibly be spared, if the worst came to the worst; and she shuddered at the necessity which might occur for her visiting a pawnbroker's-a place from which her intuitive sense of delicacy shrunk. She busied herself in repairs of her scanty wardrobe, and that of her aged relative; and, after that was done, time hung heavily upon her hands, and she volunteered repairs upon the clothing of the wretched near her. It might make her some return one day,-but of that she did not think, for even our poor Mary, in all her destitution, felt that there were others even more wretched than she.

Poverty makes its victims acquainted with strange associations. The gay, the happy, and the easy-living world little wot of the shades and degrees of misery, which are concealed beneath the revolting and forbidding exteriors of those whom we consider the vile, and pass without mercy as the victims of their own voluntary debasement. Voluntary! God in heaven, and the poor sin-infected heart on earth, alone know how

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