Metzerott, Shoemaker

Gentlemen, will you wear my heart’s-ease?”

The words were simple, but the tone was full of meaning. Instinctively all felt that the climax of the evening had been reached, the closing word been spoken; and each one, silently accepting a blossom and exchanging a cordial pressure with the hand that bestowed it, with only a murmured “Good-night,” left the room. Not the least cordial pressure was that which came from the hand of Pastor Schaefer.

Twelve months have passed since the “tea-party,” during which time, it is to be feared, Mr. Clare has had cause to think more than once how the pikes and eels preferred the old way. And yet he wears by no means a discouraged expression as he walks with his constant companion, Louis Metzerott, through the early August twilight, towards Dr. Richards’s house. Something has been accomplished during this year, however little. Pastor Schaefer sometimes holds consultation with him, though usually not as the taker of what counsel is produced thereat; the rector of St. Andrew’s, though he is “not to be expected to turn Socialist at his time of life,” is slowly learning that God is the King of earth as well as of heaven; and that, whatever blessing or needed lesson may come by means of suffering, happiness is that which is most consonant with the divine nature. The temperance lecturer has taken to denouncing the weakness of the present civil authorities in the license question rather as a misfortune than a fault; and the evangelist launches satire and invective against the greed of money, and the evils of “practical politics:” all which are steps in the right direction.

“But ye’ll never do it, Ernest, me boy,” Father McClosky had said shortly after the “tea-party;” “ye’ll never get any of the sects nor Holy Church nayther for your ‘general advance all along the line.’ Av there was nothing else to prevent it, I’ll tell ye phwat would,—vested interests. Think of the churches, schools, convents, hospitals, and all them things; would we ever let them fall into the hands of heretics?”

“The question is, whether you can help it,” said Mr. Clare. “I see the force of your remark, Bryan; but don’t you think the churches”—

“Oh! be aisy wid ye! There’s only one!”

“The religious bodies, then,” said Mr. Clare, “which is a much less convenient phrase, and strongly sepulchral in flavor. Don’t you think they would be not only inconsistent, but blind to their own interests, to be influenced by a consideration of that kind?”

“People generally is—the both of them.”

“In such cases as the present, yes. For—for whom does your Church hold in trust, all the property she possesses?”

“For the poor,” said Father McClosky.

“And, in case of the nationalization of property, to whom would she surrender it?”

“To heretics and infidels, me boy.”

“Ah! and with that razor will she cut her own throat. The present state of things, Bryan, cannot last: that, remember, is the strongest point in my argument; a revolution must come. It depends on the—religious bodies—what sort of a revolution it shall be. And, whereas, in the case of their opposing or even hanging back, they might find themselves exceedingly uncomfortable under the new régime, don’t you see that if Christianity were regarded as the friend and ally of Socialism (I don’t say the nursing mother, which is, however, true), there would be no difficulty at all in treating ecclesiastical property as belonging to the nation, but used, rent-free, for public purposes, like stores, art-galleries, museums, etc.?”

“I see; and if the Church could see, it would be all very well; but that day will never dawn, Ernest.”

“I confess that I have more hope of Protestantism,” said Mr. Clare; “and yet the Roman Church as a whole is in herself a magnificent Commune. She understands human nature better than any Protestant body; and her missionaries and religious orders have always steadily upheld the true worth of manual labor.”

“Aha! I expected that! Some one said of you the other day, ye spalpeen, that ye dignified your trade.”

“Did you say that I hoped my trade might dignify me? It is quite true, Bryan; there’s nothing like working with one’s hands to keep the body in health and the soul at peace. I wish every clergyman and brain-worker in the country had some handicraft to work at for an hour or two every day; though not in the present condition of the labor market,” he hastened to add, with a smile.

“Well, as between labor and capital, I’m afraid most of the clergy would choose capital,” said Father McClosky with a grin.

The rector of St. Andrew’s also had his private protest to make.

“I’ve read that book of Bellamy’s, my dear Clare,” he said, “and, while I admit that his Utopia would be an ideal state of affairs, I see two reasons why it can never be realized. In the first place, if earth were so delightful a place, man—the average man—would never long for heaven. Of course, religious people might; but I mean, as I say, the average man.”

“‘And so shall we ever be with the Lord!’” quoted Ernest Clare. “That is the true sweetness of heaven, rector, and no earthly happiness can lessen it. As for your average man,—well, in the first place the average of those days will be considerably higher than the present, you know; and in the second I fancy we shall all need to rise far above any average that is ever likely to prevail, before we get to heaven at all.”

“That is very true,” said the rector. “But don’t you think that a Commune would tend to reduce all alike to a uniform dead level of the commonplace?”

“Does military discipline, when it is strict and thoroughgoing, ever produce a dead level of commonplace?” asked Mr. Clare. “It is true that the soldier on duty must be a mere machine; but he is an intelligent, self-acting machine. He obeys, but it is not blind obedience; for he knows at least the general aim, though not, perhaps, the particular object sought to be gained, and has his own opinion as to the means employed. At Balaklava, you remember,—

Indeed, I do not believe military discipline is at all possible, except with highly developed individualities, which is one reason that a Communal form of government has never been possible until now. Then, too, the constant effort of the soldier is to distinguish himself by rising above the common level.”

“To distinguish himself, to surpass others! Are they good motives, Clare?”

“To surpass others in diligence and devotion to the common weal?” said Mr. Clare. “It is a motive that is never found unmixed, rector, either with love of one’s self or love of one’s fellows; in the last case I should not call it a bad motive.”

“But in the first?” said the rector.

“Well, ambition in a good cause is better than ambition in a bad one, of which we have so much nowadays. I should call it a motive which would be likely to purify itself as it went along, or else come to signal grief, as in the case of Judas.”

“Ah! you take that view of Judas’s character!” cried the rector, whereupon the discussion glided into another channel.

But on the August evening when we again meet Mr. Clare, his thoughts are busy with a state of things far from ideal. The “little game” which Mr. Dare had been “up to” two years ago, and in which Mr. Randolph had succeeded in “taking a hand,” had been partially operative in producing what is called a glut in the market, of certain articles considered by modern civilization necessaries of life. This glut did by no means signify that every one in the world had as much as he or she could use of such necessaries; but only that, an artificial scarcity of certain other actual necessities having been produced, with a consequent rise in price, much coin of the commonwealth had been diverted into the pockets of the capitalists who had produced the “corner,” while the commonalty had just so much less; and, if they purchased one article, were forced to go without another. Thus came what is known as “over-production,” a euphemism which one might suppose owed its origin to the capitalists themselves, if these polished, genial personages were capable of so veiling from themselves and the world the misery of which they are the cause. After all, those who perish from want and suffering in these days do not greatly outnumber the victims that have been offered to many a hero’s love of conquest; yet how many conquerors have been almost or actually deified by adoring soldiery! And as these heroes seldom fail with kind words, crosses of the Legion of Honor, cigars, and such like, to reward the devotion of their followers, so the modern money-king seldom refuses a subscription to aid those who have suffered in his cause. There is a superb magnificence about this new and civilized game of war, this winning and losing millions by a stroke of the pen, which renders it overwhelmingly worth the candle, at least in the opinion of the players; and while its barbaric splendor fascinates the intellect and deadens certain of the moral qualities, it also leaves others ample room to flourish and develop, thus producing a deformed but not ignoble character. But moral deformity is not only far removed from the stature of the perfect man in Christ, but inevitably tends to perpetuate itself, to the permanent and growing deterioration of the race; and those who arraign God Almighty because of the sufferings of the poor must consider that only by these very sufferings can this frustration of the very object of man’s creation be prevented, and the eyes of rich and poor alike be opened to the enormity of the crime committed.

Upon the August evening to which we return again, the unusual clearness of the air, which, from a Micklegard point of view, was decidedly a melancholy beauty, seemed at first sight to have no sort of connection whatever with Mr. Randolph’s trip to Paris and “Dare’s little game.” Yet one result of the financial crisis referred to had been that many of the factories in Micklegard, including Randolph’s Mill, had found themselves overstocked with goods, and, after intervals of “shutting down” for a month at a time, had decided themselves unable, consistently with the fall of prices caused by “over-production,” to run their mills on the old terms. But, capital having caused the crisis, it was quite right and logical—from a military point of view, and according to a certain Latin proverb—that the losses should be borne by Labor; and Randolph’s Mill set the example of offering the “hands” (which unfortunately had mouths also appertaining unto them) lower wages.

Why should we go further into detail? Are not the terrible, sickening, godless minutiæ of a “strike” known to every one? There were knots of desperate-looking men always talking, talking at the corners of the streets; or, worse, leaning against the walls, with folded arms, lowering brows, and darkly gleaming eyes. Those who were fortunate enough worked at cleaning the streets, as porters, or at any odd job that fell in their way; sometimes a whole family were dependent upon the earnings of some daughter out at service, or son employed as cash or errand boy in a store.

“Oh! they get help from the unions,” said a wealthy mill-owner one day to Ernest Clare; “some of them live better than they ever did in their lives.”

“They don’t look it,” replied Mr. Clare quietly.

“No, because they are such discontented dogs; they absolutely enjoy lounging on the street corner, and looking sulky. It helps the effect.”

“An unemployed dog,” replied Mr. Clare, “when he is also discontented, is very apt to be a dangerous dog. I hope the mill-owners may not find to their cost that it would have been cheaper in the end to run their mills on Gospel principles.”

At which view of the case the mill-owner was amused to an extreme.

“There comes Tina Kellar, Tina Schaefer that was,” said Louis, as he and Mr. Clare came to the turn which led to North Micklegard.

“How slowly and wearily she walks,” returned his companion. “I suppose her husband is still away?”

“Yes, but she had a letter from him yesterday. He says the West is the place after all. He has taken up a land claim out there, and, as soon as he gets his house built and things cleared up a little, will leave his partner in possession, and come home after his wife and family.”

“I hope they may do well,” said Mr. Clare thoughtfully, “but Tina seems scarcely strong enough for that wild life. How old is her baby?”

“About six months, I think. No, she is not strong, but the life can scarcely be harder than her present one. Since her husband left, she has been going out washing or house-cleaning whenever she can get a job. You know that they are living in our old house, and my father actually shook his fist at her last rent-day.”

“She was ready, then?”

“Ready with every cent; but he told her to keep it towards an outfit and travelling expenses. I don’t know what they live on, I’m sure; for they never get regular meals at ‘Prices’ now; only bread and sometimes a dish of potatoes. Dora, the eldest girl, who was named after my mother, keeps house and takes care of the little ones. Tina is so proud she won’t take help, except that she lets me pay for the baby’s milk. They have named her Louise, after me,” said Louis proudly.

“Yes, I heard you were to be godfather,” replied Mr. Clare, smiling cheerfully as the subject of this conversation approached. “Good-evening, Frau Christina; when am I to have the pleasure of christening that young lady of yours? or is your father to do it?”

“Ah! I haven’t heart or time to think of christenings, Mr. Clare,” replied Tina in a low, weary voice; “it’s all a mistake for poor folks to have children, and they might as well die unchristened as not.”

“But they aren’t going to die, I hope,” said the clergyman cheerfully; “Louis says you are all going West to grow up with the country. Come, I won’t keep you standing when you are tired out with your day’s work; but you’ll let me give a little treat to the children, I’m sure,” as he pressed something into her hand.

“It’s very good of you, Mr. Clare, but we ain’t beggars,” said Tina proudly, even while her hand closed involuntarily over the gift.

“We are all beggars in the sight of God,” said Mr. Clare, “and you know Who took little children into His arms and blessed them. I am quite sure He would like yours to have a treat. Good-night; God bless you.”

“Stop a bit, Mr. Clare; I want to tell Louis where I’ve been working to-day. Do you know, Louis, that Pinkie Randolph has come home?”

“I knew she was expected, but not quite so soon,” said Louis steadily, though his cheek glowed.

“Well, she’s home, and I’ve got the job of cleaning house for her. Much she knows about it! though she wouldn’t have it done till she was at home to ‘superintend,’ as she called it. I will say, though, that she’s a kind-hearted girl; told me this morning I looked tired, and gave the cook orders to make me a cup of tea for my dinner. She’s at Dr. Richards’s now, I guess.”

“I’m glad she thought of you,” said Louis gently.

“I ain’t got much cause to complain,” said Tina resignedly. She had not thanked Mr. Clare, but neither of them remembered it as she moved away with her slow, weary step, looking, with her careworn face and thin, bent form, twenty years older than her real age.

“You don’t care to turn back, do you?” asked Mr. Clare as they walked on.

“I promised to come, and I have no reason to avoid—any one,” said Louis with a gentle dignity not unbecoming. He looked much older than twenty-one, for his youth had ripened rapidly; years of thought and care for others had developed his judgment and strengthened his character, and intercourse with such a man as Ernest Clare had opened new worlds to his intellect and conscience. Now, as his companion glanced down at him, he wondered whether in her travels the fair Rosalie had met with anything truer, purer, or nobler than the young man’s fair face, with the open brow set in golden-brown waves, the steadfast blue eyes, and firm, sweet lips, under the heavy mustache. It was not a sad face, though just now it wore a certain quiet wistfulness; but there was a chiselling about the lips, a resolute gravity upon the white brow, that are not often seen upon the sunny side of thirty.

He was tall and well made, without equalling Mr. Clare’s height and magnificent proportions; yet there was nothing even apparently unsuitable about their companionship; and, spite of the difference in age, Louis knew himself to be in all Micklegard his leader’s chosen friend; more companionable than Fritz, more sympathetic than even Father McClosky.

Virginia Dare, with Frank Randolph in close attendance, was sitting at the parlor window, and recognized them as they approached.

“Grand Dieu!” she exclaimed, for she was now much given to French ejaculations,—“Grand Dieu! voilà, our friend the shoemaker and that handsome carpenter-clergyman. What a figure the man has! Just look at his shoulders and arms! mais c’est une taille de prince!”

“Don’t be silly, Virgie,” advised Pinkie rather sardonically; “it’s no good getting up an enthusiasm for that man; he’s a star decidedly out of your sphere.”

“He’s a cad,” remarked Frank, who was fond of using Anglican words, without considering their applicability to American civilization. “No fellow that wasn’t would make such a beastly fool of himself;” but further comment was cut short by the entrance of the persons criticised.

It was with a strange mingling of emotions that Pinkie saw her boy lover enter the room, and received a greeting kindly but grave, as from one immeasurably her superior. Not that Louis had any such idea; it was, indeed, in search of Pinkie that his eyes had involuntarily wandered, and the touch of her soft little hand gave him a strange thrill; but there was no shade of difference in his greeting to her and to Miss Dare; it was only Mrs. Richards, by whom he sat down, and on whose hand he gently laid his own, who detected any tremor in voice or manner; and Alice looked into his face and sighed heavily.

The conversation soon turned upon financial matters, and Mr. Randolph took occasion to ask, half maliciously, how “Prices” was weathering the present business storm.

“Oh! we shall pull through, I think,” said Mr. Clare easily. “You see, there is very little conflict of interests among us, so our ship is readily handled; and we are able to shorten sail, and even, in extremity, cast the cargo overboard. But we haven’t come to that yet,” he added.

“Ah? I rejoice to hear it. And without metaphor”—

“Without metaphor, our shareholders, rich and poor, decided to forego their regular rate of interest on their investments, to enable us to reduce our prices for food, clothes, and lodging; accepting, at the year’s end, any dividend the company may be in funds to declare.”

“Most praiseworthy,” said Henry Randolph with a sneer.

“By no means! it is only taking out of one pocket and putting into another,” replied Mr. Clare.

“I see from this morning’s paper that a large Socialistic meeting took place last night, where several speeches of a decidedly insurrectionary character were made. I suppose both of you were present?” pursued the millionnaire.

“Neither of us,” replied Mr. Clare.

“But one of the speakers was called Metzerott. Your father, perhaps?” to Louis.

“It was my father,” replied the young man, in a voice of such pain that Pinkie glanced at him involuntarily; but, at the quick, ardent look of gratitude that flashed into his eyes, she glowed vividly, bent her head for a moment over her work, then, raising it haughtily, sent him another glance of icy disdain.

“I am sorry to hear it,” said Mr. Randolph, who had seen nothing of this by-play; “but of course such principles as all of you profess can lead only in one direction. And you’ll get into trouble down there at ‘Prices,’ I warn you as a friend. We are a law-abiding people here in America”—

“And therefore aim to improve the laws,” said Mr. Clare so quietly that his remark did not seem an interruption.

“Eh! improve? you’ll never improve away the distinction between rich and poor, or the laws that protect property.”

“God forbid—the last,” said Mr. Clare. “What we aim at is to make property—outside of what we now call personalties—really stable and secure, by making the Nation, and not any private individual, its owner.”

“Tut, tut, what nonsense! I beg your pardon, Mr. Clare; but, really, to hear a man of your intellect, in this age of the world”—

“And exactly because it is this age of the world,” said the clergyman, laughing. “Why, Mr. Randolph, a man of your intellect ought to recognize the spirit of the times. Would you have us go back to mediævalism, every man his own sovereign,—barring an act or so of empty homage,—as well as his own postman, policeman, scavenger, and lamplighter?”

“We are civilized rather beyond that point, sir; besides, it has nothing to do with the subject in hand.”

“Nevertheless, the day will come when ‘every man his own bread-winner and property-holder’ will be equally a relic of barbarism,” said Mr. Clare coolly.

“Not in my time, sir, or yours.”

“Why, a certain English magazine I was reading, the other day, was disposed to assign it to the date of the Greek Kalends; but I don’t feel so sure about that,” said Ernest Clare. “Though it might be correct enough for England providing America had never been discovered. John Bull is a conservative animal; he has been beaten and pulled alternately by the horns and tail until he has learned to say ‘A;’ and is now fully persuaded that ‘A’ is the only correct thing to say; and that any one who says ‘B’ is revolutionary, immoral, and un-English. But Brother Jonathan, once he has learned to say ‘A,’ is more than half prepared to say ‘B,’ and will be positively eager about the remainder of the alphabet; so ‘the coming of the Coqcigrues’ may be nearer than we dream,” he ended, smiling.

“May I go in to see Freddy?” asked Louis, turning to Alice.

“He will be glad to see you,” she said. “His father is with him now. No, Louis, I fear he is no better. If he would like to see Mr. Clare, you had better leave him. It flusters him to have more than one or two persons in the room.”

It was evident that Freddy and the Ark of the Covenant would soon part for this world, though he lay still, propped with pillows, upon its friendly bosom, white and shadowy, only the great brown eyes full of life and gladness. Freddy had had a long attack of lung-fever, from which, though the disease had been broken, he had no strength to rally. For a time he had seemed better, then he began to fade, slowly and painlessly, like a flower; but also with conscious gladness, impossible to a flower. He welcomed his friend with a smile and feeble outstretched hand; but not till Dr. Richards had left them came the whisper, “Have you seen her, Louis? Isn’t she pretty?”

“Prettier than ever,” said Louis. “Shall I sing to you, old fellow? or will you see Mr. Clare?”

“I want you,” said Freddy. “I want to tell you that I am glad to have seen her again before I die, and doubly glad to die now that I have seen her.”

“Do you—oh, no! Freddy!—you don’t love her too?”

“I think I should if I wasn’t going to die,” said Freddy, smiling. “Sing now, old fellow. Sing the ‘Land o’ the Leal.’”

So Louis sang—though it was a difficult task—song after song, in his sweet tenor voice, until those in the outer room hushed their talk to listen, and Freddy fell fast asleep with the tender notes echoing still in his ear. For it is never “woe” to those who are vanquished by the Cross.

During the next fortnight, Louis and Pinkie met almost every day; for Freddy was sinking fast, and both were assiduous in their attendance upon him. It would seem almost impossible that under such circumstances some of the old childish familiarity should not have revived; but Miss Randolph had profited excellently by her Parisian sojourn. She was perfectly able to be to one of her babyhood’s playmates all sisterly tenderness, at the same moment that to the other she was only icy politeness; for she had thoroughly learned that the whole duty of woman is to make a rich marriage.

Louis did not molest her. He met her coldness with grave, kind courtesy, and treated her so exactly as one whom he had had the pleasure of knowing only a short time, that Pinkie’s girlish heart was hot within her, and she burned to teach him with whom he had to deal. But at present this was impossible, since they never met without witnesses.

For some months, Dr. Richards’s physical condition had been such that there seemed small prospect of his ever again practising his profession, for, though he was able with difficulty to move about the rooms of one floor, he could not walk up or down stairs.

Accordingly he had rented his offices to Edgar Harrison, a calm, determined-looking young man just starting in life as an M.D., who, in addition to the vigorous practice of his profession, displayed quite an astral faculty for being always on hand to intercept Miss Randolph’s comings and goings. Pinkie, of course, turned up her nose at him as a struggling physician; yet, as it would not have done to be unkind to the poor fellow, gave him plenty of smiles, accepted his modest tributes of flowers, and half promised to take a drive with him some day, when Freddy should be better.

It was not long before Freddy was quite well. They were all around him at the last, his mother supporting him in her arms, white as he, but terribly composed; Dr. Richards, in a great chair drawn close beside the bed, held one transparent hand as though he could thus retain the pure spirit that was soon to flutter forth—whither? to annihilation? The father’s clasp was the clutch of despair.

Louis was close upon the other side of the narrow couch, now and again wiping the cold dews from his friend’s forehead. They thought him past speaking; but his eyes were open, watching eagerly, gladly,—what? Louis knew; Louis, who had tried in his babyhood to heal the sick, and in youth had followed the white Form down the wreck-laden river. And it may be that the brightening spirit felt the unspoken sympathy, for slowly the brown eyes and the blue met in a long, loving, comprehending look. It seemed to recall him once more to earth, for the wonderful gaze turned next upon Pinkie, who knelt sobbing at her uncle’s feet.

“Don’t—cry—Pinkie,” he said, gaspingly.

“Freddy!”

It was the cry of a strong man in doubt and agony. Freddy looked in his father’s face with a smile.

“He will take care of me, father,” he said.

The effort of speaking seemed to exhaust the last remains of his feeble powers; for he lay for some moments with closed eyes; then suddenly they flashed open again, he turned his head slightly upon his mother’s bosom.

“Kiss me, mamma,” he said; and with that kiss upon his lips Freddy fell asleep like a tired child.

It was not, as might have been expected, the mother who seemed to feel most deeply the blow of Freddy’s death. It was true that Alice had no time to grieve, she who was now the only bread-winner. Besides, she had a strong reason for controlling her sorrow, in anxiety for her husband, who sat day after day in the great chair in which he had seen his child die, motionless, tearless, silent—as silent as the grave wherein that child was lying.

What were his thoughts, even the wife who loved him so well did not dare to speculate; but that they were such as, if dwelt upon, would unhinge both thought and reason, she felt very little doubt.

“Can you say anything to comfort him?” she asked of Ernest Clare. “I cannot; his sorrow is too terrible; and I, who have just escaped the hopelessness of it, do not dare to meddle.”

He shook his head sorrowfully. “I will try,” he answered; “that is, if he will see me.”

Dr. Richards made no difficulty about this. “Let him come,” he said; “he’s not as bad as some of his cloth.”

And, in truth, Mr. Clare made no effort to convince the bereaved father that his grief was the punishment of sin; he did not offer to pray with him, neither did he quote a single text; but, after a cordial hand-clasp, sat down quietly beside him, and began the conversation in a low voice, but a matter-of-course tone.

“I am very sorry I was prevented from being with Freddy at the last.”

“It was not your fault,” replied the doctor in a hard, cold voice. “The end came suddenly and unexpectedly, and there was no time to send for you. You had been most kind and attentive; and I am glad to have an opportunity to thank you. I suppose Freddy had all the consolations of religion, whatever they may be worth.”

“They are worth much to me and to him,” said Mr. Clare gently.

The doctor waved his hand impatiently. “I am not up to an argument to-day, Clare,” he said.

“No, I suppose not. You must miss our dear boy at every moment!”

“He was my last patient,” said the doctor with a ghastly attempt at a smile. “I was physician and nurse too, you know, and now my occupation’s gone! I say, Clare, what fools those fellows are who speak of a man’s immortality consisting in his children who live after him, or in some work of his that is remembered. Here am I, getting on towards sixty, who have done nothing, and have no children to carry on my name. It’s a poor old show for my ‘joining the choir invisible,’—eh, Clare?”

“I don’t believe you care very much for that,” said Mr. Clare.

“No, you are right; not when the pinch comes,” said the doctor gloomily.

Mr. Clare was silent; he saw that the man’s heart was full to overflowing, and that, if let alone, he would pour it out in his own way. In a moment or two, the cool sarcastic tones began again as if they were arguing the case of any one else in the world but the speaker.

“I suppose you don’t believe in euthanasia, Clare?”

“As practised upon one’s self, or on some one else?”

“Either, or both.”

“Then, no. In the first case, it is cowardice; in the second, murder. But I should think you could believe in it logically enough.”

“Logic is a delusion, my friend. Logically, I might have spared my poor boy a lifetime of suffering: but, selfishly, I kept him alive months longer than any one else could have done!”

“And you are proud and glad to have done so!”

“Of course! selfishly. And now, look at me! what good shall I ever be in the world again? Why could I not drop a little hydrocyanic acid on my tongue, and join the majority?”

“Fred,” said Alice,—she had been working beside him all the while, but had not joined in the conversation; and now her voice was very tremulous;—“Fred, do you remember your own words to me, when I, believing as you do, declared that I would never outlive, for long, you and our dear boy? Do you remember?”

“Indeed, I don’t, my dear. Some nonsense, I suppose.”

“You told me to live for others, Fred, and in so doing I should find the secret of life.”

“Ah! I hadn’t the rheumatism then,” said the doctor dryly, “nor had I lost my only son,” he added, with a tremor in his voice of which he seemed to feel ashamed, for he went on quickly, “Besides, you miss the point of my arguments, my dear, which is that, in my condition, it is impossible for me to live for others except as a burden upon them.”

“It is impossible for any one to live for others,” said Ernest Clare quietly; “the only possible thing is to live for One other, Who is Jesus Christ.”

“Ah! my wife can follow you there; I cannot,” said the doctor. “It would be a different world if one like Jesus Christ had made and governed it.”

“The mystery of pain, sorrow, and sin,” said Mr. Clare, “I do not wonder that it baffles you; yet one who is a father ought to recognize the chastisements of his Father, I think.”

“Come, now, Clare, would any father inflict such pain as I”—his voice broke irretrievably.

“If it were to bring you to the joy of knowing Him? to purify you and fit you for endless happiness with Him? I think a Father would,” said Mr. Clare.

“The mystery of pain, the secret of life!” said the doctor thoughtfully, having by this time regained his composure. “Well, Alice, if you have solved the one and found the other, I can only congratulate you. It was the task we set ourselves to work out together; do you remember?”

“And He sent pain and grief to help us,” said Alice.

A great light came upon Ernest Clare’s face; he sat quite still for a moment, then rose and knelt beside the doctor’s chair.

“Our Father!” said the rich full voice; then it paused and was utterly silent. Dr. Richards covered his eyes with his hand, and in that silence there rose before him all the meaning of the words that had been spoken. “Our Father!” He had wished to understand why a merciful God allowed pain to exist, and God had sent pain to teach him. Was not that, indeed, fatherly?

Mr. Clare rose from his knees, and left the room without another word, leaving the doctor still sitting with his hand over his eyes.

Religion is a science, and, like all science, empirical. Dr. Richards had made his first theological experiment; and, though the needle had moved ever so slightly upon the dial of the galvanometer, the existence of the current must ever more remain for him an established fact.

It was a source of self and mutual congratulation to Frau Anna Rolf and Karl Metzerott, that Louis’ grief for Freddy’s death seemed to draw him nearer to Annie. When he was not at Dr. Richards’s, after work hours, he was quite sure to be taking long walks with her; and it really seemed as if their darling scheme were on the eve of accomplishment.

“As for that little chit of Randolph’s, he’s quite forgotten her,” said Karl Metzerott; “I haven’t heard her name out of his mouth since she came home;” which, Karl’s own nature might have warned him, is not invariably a token of forgetfulness.

“It goes to my heart to see the boy looking so sad and worn,” said Frau Anna; “but my Aenchen will comfort him; and I could not wish her a better husband.”

The shoemaker smiled proudly. “There’s no fault to be found with Louis,” he said, “except that he lets this man Clare lead him about by the nose; and the same may be said of your Fritz, Frau Anna.”

“Fritz will fight when the time comes,” replied the other, her thin face and wild, dark eyes glowing with repressed enthusiasm. “He is all for peace now, but when the signal is given he will remember that he has a wife and child to defend, and a father’s death to avenge.”

“He has more,” murmured George below his breath. No one heard him, and if his heavy features looked a shade more sullen, nobody was sufficiently at leisure to observe it; indeed, as we know, George had never been troubled with overmuch observation. Of a reserved, sullen temperament, too sluggish for mischief, but immovably obstinate if crossed or contradicted, and subject to occasional fits of almost delirious rage, his education had consisted almost solely of that judicious letting alone, a little of which is considered so advantageous. “Let sleeping dogs lie,” was the established rule for treating him; yet, even half understood as he was, it should have seemed a dangerous experiment thus to train and drill him into the thought of revenge.

In spite of his apparent slowness of thought, he had in some matters the quick scent of a bloodhound, and knew far more about the story of his brother’s marriage than any one imagined. A question or two to Denny the porter, a half-glimpse of a box of trinkets which Fritz was putting up to return to the donor, a look upon Gretchen’s face when Frank Randolph’s name was casually mentioned,—these were enough, perhaps more than enough, for George; for it is quite certain his suspicions were not, at least, less than the truth.

Not a hint of all this crossed his lips. Fritz had married her, and taken the burden of her escapade upon his own shoulders; in which last respect, if he were willing to take her at all after all that had happened, George considered him quite right. In his quiet, sullen way, George would have died for Fritz, whose good-nature had warded off many a collision with the other’s sullen temper; while his bright, ready wit had shielded and protected his younger brother from many an attack, and backed him up in many a quarrel. Therefore, George had mentally inscribed upon the cryptogram which, like Madame Lafarge, he was always knitting, the name of Francis Randolph, accompanied with signs denoting vengeance upon him, his house, and his posterity, to the fourth generation and beyond. But for the present he bided his time; Gretchen’s name must not be made a subject of gossip.

At the very moment of the conversation above recorded, Louis and Annie were wandering along the river-bank in very lover-like fashion, it must be admitted; for she was leaning on his arm, and looking into his face with soft, attentive eyes; while he was talking earnestly, opening the very depths of his heart, talking as he could only talk to Annie Rolf.

“I don’t think I deceive myself about her, Aenchen,” he said; “I seem to see all her faults, and yet love her the better for them.”

“I cannot quite understand that, Louis,” said the girl, smiling; “for me, I could not love without respect; I must look up and see, at any rate, few faults, and none that I could despise.”

“Then you should love one like Mr. Clare,” said Louis; “I don’t know any one else who would suit you.”

Annie smiled and shook her head, but did not reply further, and Louis went on,—

“What I love in her, I suppose, is my ideal,—what she might be, or, as Mr. Clare would say, what she will be when all that is evil is purged away from her nature. O Annie! how lovely she will be then!”

“Yes, indeed,” said Annie heartily; though, if her true opinion had been given, it would have been that, when vanity and sauciness should be purged out of Miss Rosalie Randolph, there would be not enough of her left to swear by.

“I often think,” pursued Louis, whose natural turn for speculative philosophy had been decidedly fostered by intercourse with Ernest Clare,—“I often think, Aenchen, when people talk about being disappointed and deceived in their friends, that it is not really so. One may be deceived by a person one loves, not in him. For what gives and attracts love is the real self, independent of all accidents; and, sin being not a part of that self, it follows that when we meet in that happy world the false friend of earth, we shall recognize the self we really loved, and feel that the deceit was in our bad opinion of him, not in our good one.”

“That is very beautiful,” murmured Annie. And while he was smiling at her in all the pleasure of sympathy and comprehension, and she gazing into his face with eyes that half betrayed her wonder what Louis’ real self could be, since his present and apparent self was so bright and beautiful,—at this moment there passed them alight, open buggy, wherein sat Edgar Harrison and a small figure in black, whose brown eyes took in the full significance of the sight presented to them.

“Your friend, the handsome young shoemaker, and his sweetheart,” said Edgar Harrison. “I suppose they are awfully happy; don’t you?”

“Really, I don’t know; I can’t pretend to understand the feelings of that sort of people,” said Miss Randolph haughtily.

Edgar watched her with quiet amusement. He was not at all afraid of Louis as a rival, though admitting that in a higher station of life he might have been dangerous. “Well, they look pretty happy,” he said.

Pinkie shrugged her shoulders, a gesture she had learned in Paris, without reply; but her first act, upon reaching her own room, was to throw aside her crape-trimmed hat, and study her own pretty face reflected in the glass, as attentively as if it had been the Rosetta stone or a Babylonian cylinder. Then the red lips curved into a triumphant smile.

“I’ll settle him,” said Pinkie, with a toss of her head.

The next afternoon was what she herself called “hideously warm;” and therefore her prettiest white dress, a marvel of lace and embroidery, was evidently just the thing to wear. There was not a touch of black about it; and the creamy softness brought out every tint of the rich brunette coloring, and softened the vivacious girlish beauty into something infinitely charming. She fastened a knot of fragrant tea-rosebuds in her belt, and then, taking her wide-brimmed Leghorn hat in her hand, announced to the housekeeper her intention of walking round to take tea with her aunt, Mrs. Richards.

“It is too hot for dinner, and so you may tell papa and Frank when they come home,” said Pinkie audaciously; “but you might order a freezer of cream to be sent around to Dr. Richards’s; harlequin, mind, chocolate, vanilla, strawberry, and orange ice. Don’t forget.”

“From Prices’?” asked the housekeeper. “Your papa won’t like your being away at dinner, Miss Pinkie.”

“Then he can do the other thing,” returned the girl carelessly. “‘Prices’? no, certainly not. Our own confectioner.”

“Because I thought,” returned the housekeeper, “as it is late in the afternoon, and every one busy, if you wouldn’t mind, as you have to pass our confectioner’s door”—

“I mean to pass his door,” said the girl. “Do you suppose I’m going in? Nasty hot place, smelling of cake and bread!”

“Very well, miss. I’ll send John to the drug store to telephone. And oh! Miss Pinkie, that poor woman who has been cleaning the house—Tina Kellar, you know—would like to have more work to do, and there are some of the small rooms that need papering”—

“But she’s not a paper-hanger.”

“She’s as good as one, miss; for she papered her own house from top to bottom, and it’s as pretty a job as ever I see. Besides, she wouldn’t charge near as much as a regular paper-hanger.”

“Humbug!” said Pinkie. “Give her what you’d give a man, if she does the work at all.”

“Well, you’re a kind-hearted young lady,” said the housekeeper, “and I’ll do it gladly, miss; though the poor creature is hardly strong enough to do such hard work.”

“Then, don’t give it to her,” said Pinkie; “I don’t believe in oppressing people.”

“But she must work, you know, miss, to support her children.”

“Then, what are you talking about? Give her the work if she wants it, and pay her well. If she’s not strong enough, she can let it alone. I hope you see she has good meals whenever she is here!”

“Law, yes, miss; only she’s got so little appetite. She don’t eat enough for a baby. I believe all that keeps her up, anyhow, is determination. She looks like she could just lie down and die any minute.”

“Well, make her some beef-tea,” said Pinkie; “that will do her good. It is wrong for people to work beyond their strength, wrong and foolish too. I don’t see why they do it.”

“No, I suppose you don’t, when all the wish you’ve got is that you had something to wish for,” murmured the housekeeper, looking after her; while Pinkie, as she tripped along, thought complacently, “People talk about the difficulty of dealing with the laboring classes; but I don’t see any trouble in it at all, if you only know how!”

Arrived at her aunt’s, she found the doctor confined to his room by an access of rheumatism, and quite unable to see any one; so Pinkie, in spite of her Parisian toilette, bustled around to help the boy from “Prices” lay the cloth in the parlor, where meals were now usually taken, and made herself so sweet and charming during the tête-à-tête tea with her aunt that Alice’s sad face brightened perceptibly.

“You’re a good little thing, Pinkie,” she said tenderly. “I wish I had you always.”

“I’ll come and stay with you whenever you like,” said Pinkie, laying her cheek against her aunt’s shoulder; “but now run away to Uncle Fred, dearest; I know he wants you. I’ll just sit here and wait till some one comes for me.”

“I’m afraid—that is, I think Louis will be in by and by,” said Alice. “Let me know when he comes. Unfortunately, Edgar is out of town to-night, or I would call him to talk to you.”

“The solemn Edgar! I’m glad he is,” replied Pinkie.

Louis was late that night. In reality, he was detained by an extra job at which he worked out of hours, but Pinkie had had ample time to picture to herself another river-side ramble, and to feel genuinely forsaken and miserable, before he entered softly and unannounced.

The white figure in the arm-chair by the window, dimly visible by the moonlight, he supposed to be Mrs. Richards, and approached gently; but, as he bent to give her his usual kiss of greeting, he sprang back, startled. Pinkie, in tears and alone, arrayed in a vesture, as it seemed, of hoar-frost and moonbeams, with fragrant rosebuds in her bosom, and soft white fingers that clung to his confidingly, as she said,—

“It’s nobody but me. Did you expect to find Aunt Alice? She is with Uncle Fred. He is so much worse, and I have been so sad and lonely.”

“She had been.” Louis’ fair cheek flushed deeply; he drew a hard breath between his set teeth. The radiance of the full September moon was all about her, the fragrance of the pale rosebuds filled the air; and it was no haughty money-princess who spoke, but his own Pinkie, whose lips he had kissed, and who had thrown herself, weeping, into his arms. Louis felt that he had need of all his manhood, if he would not be doubly scorned when this changing mood should have passed away.

And yet—

“I suppose you were thinking of Freddy,” he said very gently, but coldly; “it is natural you should feel sad.”

“I was thinking of myself,” said Pinkie honestly enough. “Oh, Louis, just think how lonely I am all day, in that great house, with only the servants to talk to! I wish I were Aunt Alice’s daughter! I should like to be poor and work for her.”

“No, no, that you certainly would not,” replied Louis, smiling in spite of himself.

“But I should,” she persisted. “Why not? she is the only creature on earth that cares a straw for me; why should I not work for her?”

“What are you trying to make me say?” asked Louis, very pale, but still smiling; “something that you can laugh at me for afterwards? That is not worthy of you, Pinkie.”

“I don’t see what right you have to call me that!” cried the girl, springing to her feet in sudden anger at the calm superiority of his tone.

“You seemed, some way, to give me the right,” said the young man simply; “but I beg your pardon; I will be more careful. And now I have something to say to you, Miss Randolph. Ever since you returned, your manner to me has been as if I were some presumptuous upstart whom you were obliged to keep in his place. And I want to tell you that I know my place quite well; I am a shoemaker and an employé of ‘Prices’; so you may spare yourself any further trouble in the matter.”

“But you were that when I went away,” murmured Pinkie, lifting her eyes to his for just a moment.

He took one step towards her, then checked himself. “That was before you had learned your place,” he said.

Pinkie’s eyes filled with tears; for as yet her love for Louis was the most real part of her character, and when she yielded to it for a moment, as at present, it made her, for the time being, as real as itself.

“My place!” she said, looking at him with the bright drops gemming her lashes; “my place? Oh, Louis, what place have I in the world? I am only a trouble to my father: he thinks himself bound to give me what he calls social advantages, but it’s an awful nuisance to him; he was much more comfortable when I was at school. Frank certainly doesn’t want me or care for me very much. Freddy”—her voice was choked with sobs.

“Yes,” said Louis hoarsely, “Freddy loved you, Pinkie.”

“But he is dead,” cried the girl passionately, “and now you, Louis—you, whom I thought my—my friend, you turn against me!”

She crossed her arms upon the back of the tall chair against which she had been leaning, and, bowing her head upon them, sobbed unrestrainedly. Louis came close to her, so close that his breath stirred her hair as he bent over her, but he did not touch her.

“After all,” he said, “I believe your best chance for becoming the woman God meant you to be, would be for me to take you in my arms now, this moment, and carry you off where no one could ever find you again.”

Pinkie listened with beating heart and thrilling from head to foot, while, amid her tears, a dainty smile stole out to play unseen about her rosy lips. Of course she had not the very slightest intention of allowing him to do anything of the sort, but it was delicious to hear him talk so.

“For I believe you love me, mein Röslein roth,” continued the voice above her bent head. “I believe you love me; yet I know that you will never marry me. You are not noble enough, yet, to understand the nobility of labor.”

“I certainly don’t understand the nobility of shoemaking,” cried Pinkie, roused to defend herself; “though, of course, it’s a very necessary trade, and one that some people must always follow; but why should you be one of them, Louis?” She laid her hand on his arm and looked beseechingly into his face. “It makes one’s hands black, and the leather smells so horribly,” she urged.

Louis turned away abruptly; he had not foreseen this turn of affairs.

“And you could be any thing, you know,” continued the temptress. “A doctor, for instance; that’s a noble profession, if you like, Louis; and even if you didn’t get very rich it wouldn’t matter, because,”—she blushed and hung her head.

Louis regarded her steadfastly, though his face was bloodless, and his eyes as sad as death.

“What would be the good?” he said gently. “If you will not marry the shoemaker, dear, you could never bring yourself to marry the shoemaker’s son.”

“I—I—don’t know,” said the girl softly.

He laid one hand—it was very cold—gently on hers. “I do,” he said. “I know you, darling, better than you know yourself; even if you were willing,—as you will not be, once this mood has passed—I would not condemn you to a life you are not strong enough to live. Why, the woman who cleans your house, Pinkie, is my friend, the sister-in-law of the man who works beside me, in my father’s shop. Could you welcome her to your house, or visit her in hers? or, rather, would you do it?”

“I’ll tell you who would, and could, too,” said Pinkie, with sparkling eyes. “That Rolf girl you were walking with yesterday.”

Louis made no reply. He looked inquiringly at the pretty, angry face, and waited for further information, which was not long in coming.

“I heard you were engaged to her,” said Pinkie, “and I think it is a very good thing; both in the same station of life, and all that; no wonder you won’t give up ‘Prices’ while she’s there.”

“There is only one woman in the world for me, Rosalie,” said Louis sternly. “Don’t pretend to think anything else.” He was worn with resisting temptation, and stunned by this sudden veering about of the wind, and his patience was almost gone. But for his thorough knowledge that a marriage between them was an utter impossibility, he would have caught her in his arms, and kissed her into a knowledge of her own mind, he told himself; but no, her kisses were the unclaimed property of some good man, he hoped, or tried to hope; and Louis would rob no one.

Pinkie looked in his face for a moment, then began again to sob broken-heartedly. He tried to leave her, he even walked as far as the door; then, turning, came swiftly back to her side.

“Darling,” he said, “will you marry me now? as I am? I will make things as easy for you as I can, trust me for that; you need not live at ‘Prices;’ I could take care of you even now, and, once these hard times are over, we could be very comfortable. Will you marry me now, Pinkie?”

Over the girl’s heart swept a swift revulsion of feeling, a sudden recoil from the bare ugliness of the life which Louis called comfortable. She had not been prepared for this when she set herself “to lure this tassel gentle back again;” this shoemaker who treated her so consistently as his inferior. For a moment, Pinkie felt that she quite hated him.

“Will you, darling?” he said again, and Pinkie raised her head, looked him full in the eyes, and answered,—

“Marry a shoemaker! No, certainly not.”

He turned away, he walked steadily to the door and down the stairs; she ran to the window, and watched him down the moonlit street, but he never looked back: and when the last echo of his footsteps had died away, the poor, lonely, spoiled child flung herself face downwards on the floor, and cried in good earnest.