The Project Gutenberg eBook of Hope and Have, by Oliver Optic

"Stop, sir!" said Fanny, in tones so imperative that the man could not help obeying her.

"Faix, I'd like to do it, miss," said the man, taking off his hat and rubbing his tangled hair.

"You shall have your money—every cent of it. Put the furniture back, and you shall have your due just as soon as you have done it," said Fanny, as haughtily as though she had been a millionaire.

Mr. O'Shane looked at her, and seemed to be petrified with astonishment. The deed he was doing, harsh and cruel as it was, he regarded as a work of necessity. Though he owned the house occupied by Mrs. Kent, and another in which he lived himself with two other families, both of them were mortgaged for half their value, and he was obliged to pay interest on the money he owed for them. He certainly could not afford to lose his rent, to which he was justly entitled. He had indulged his tenant for a year, and nothing but the apparent hopelessness of obtaining what was due had tempted him to this cruel proceeding. Nothing but starvation in his own family could justify a landlord in turning a mother with a dying child out of the house. He looked at Fanny with astonishment when she promised to pay him, but he was sceptical.

"It's meself that would be glad to do that same," replied he. "Would you let me see the color of your money, miss?"

"Put the things back, and you shall have your money as soon as you have done it," added Fanny, moving down the street. "I will be back in a few moments."

The landlord looked at her, as she walked away. He was in doubt, but there was something about the girl so different from what he had been accustomed to see in young ladies of her age, that he was strongly impressed by her words. Fanny sat down on a rock in the shade of a lone tree. Mr. O'Shane looked at her for a moment, and then decided to obey the haughty command he had received. He went to work with more energy than he had before displayed, and began to move the furniture back into the house, greatly to the surprise and delight, no doubt, of the grief-stricken mother.

Fanny counted out a hundred dollars from the stolen bills in her pocket, and returned to the house. Mr. O'Shane had by this time completed his work, and was awaiting the result.

Mr. O'Shane's eyes opened, and he fixed them with a gloating stare upon the bills. He counted them; there was a hundred dollars.

"God bless you, miss, for a saint as ye are!" ejaculated he, as he put the money in his pocket. "Ye saved me from doing the worst thing I ever did in me life. I'll send the receipt to Mrs. Kent to-day;" and he walked away towards his own house.

The last part of the interview between Fanny and Mr. O'Shane had been witnessed by Mrs. Kent, who came out of the house when she had attended to the wants of her sick child. The dark cloud which menaced her a few moments before had rolled away, and, if the sunshine did not beam upon her, she was comparatively happy in having one trouble less to weigh her down. She was calm now, but the tears—they were tears of relief—still rolled down her wan and furrowed cheek.

"I have prayed for help, and help has come," said she to her deliverer, as the harsh landlord walked away.

Fanny could not make any reply to a statement of this kind. She was a fugitive and a wanderer; she was a thief, shunning the gaze of men, and she could not conceive of such a thing as that she had been sent as an angel of relief to the poor woman in answer to her prayers. As she thought what she was and what she had been doing, a blush of shame suffused her cheek. She was silent; there was nothing which she could say at such a moment.

"Heaven will bless you for your good, kind heart. You are an angel," continued Mrs. Kent.

Fanny knew how far she was from being an angel, and she had no heart for deceiving the poor woman. It might be fun and excitement to deceive the people at Woodville, but Mrs. Kent seemed to be sanctified by her sorrows.

"I hope you haven't robbed yourself by your good deed, miss," added the poor woman, wondering why Fanny did not speak.

Perhaps Mrs. Kent thought it singular that a young girl, like Fanny, should happen to have so much money about her, but she did not ask any questions; and perhaps she did not think that one who had been so kind to her could do anything wrong.

"Now, you will come into the house and see poor Jenny. She will want to thank you for what you have done," said Mrs. Kent, leading the way to the door.

Fanny could not refuse this reasonable request, but she felt very strangely. She found herself commended and reverenced for what she had done, and she could not help feeling how unworthy she was. Conscious that she had performed a really good deed, she could not reconcile it with her past conduct. It was utterly inconsistent with the base act she had done in the morning; and in the light of one deed the other seemed so monstrous that she almost loathed herself.

She followed Mrs. Kent into the room where the sick girl was reclining upon the bed. There was no carpet on the floor, and the apartment was very meagerly furnished with the rudest and coarsest articles. Jenny was pale and emaciated; the hand of death seemed to be already upon her; but in spite of her paleness and her emaciation, there was something beautiful in her face; something in the expression of her languid eyes which riveted the attention and challenged the interest of the visitor.

"Jenny, this is the young lady whom God has sent to be our friend," said Mrs. Kent, as they approached the bedside.

Fanny shuddered. "Whom God had sent"—she, a thief! She wanted to cry; she wanted to shrink back into herself.

Fanny complied with the request in silence, and with her eyes fixed on the floor. The sick girl took the offered hand in her own, which was almost as cold as marble.

"Mother has prayed to Our Good Father, and I have prayed to Him all the time for help," said Jenny, whose accents were hardly above a whisper. "He has sent you to us, and you have saved us. Will you tell me your name?"

"Fanny, I am going to heaven soon, and I will bear your name in my heart when I go. I will bless you for your good deed while I have breath, and I will bless you when I get to heaven. You are a good girl, and I know that God will bless you too."

Poor Fanny! How mean she felt! As she stood in the presence of that pure-minded child, already an angel in simple trust and confiding hope, she realized her own wickedness. The burden of her sins seemed to be settling down upon her with a weight that would crush her.

"I love you, Fanny," continued the invalid, "and I will pray for you to the last moment of my life. Won't you speak to me?"

"I was very glad to do what I did," stammered Fanny, almost suffocated by the weight which pressed down upon her.

"You have done all that could be done, Fanny. I like to speak your name. It sounds like music to me. After what you have done, Fanny will always mean goodness to me. You cannot do anything more; you have already done enough."

"Don't cry, mother," continued Jenny. "God will take care of you, and we shall meet again."

"Can't I get anything for you, Jenny? Isn't there anything you want?" asked Fanny, who felt that she must do something, or she would soon be overwhelmed by the emotions which agitated her soul.

"Nothing, Fanny. I don't think much of the things around me now. I feel just as though I didn't belong here. This is not my home. Can you sing, Fanny?"

"Something about heaven?" answered Jenny, as she sank back upon the pillow, and fixed her gaze upon the ceiling, as though beyond it she could see the happy home which, was ever in her thoughts.

Fanny, as we have said before, was a remarkable singer, not in the artistic sense, though, with proper cultivation of her talent, she might have been all this also. She had a fine voice, and sang as naturally as the birds sing. But this was not an occasion for artistic effects. Never before had the soul of the wayward girl been so stirred. She was a Sunday-school scholar, and familiar with most of the beautiful and touching melodies contained in children's song-books.

She was asked to sing "something about heaven;" and she began at once, as though it had been selected by some invisible agency and impressed upon her mind, with the beautiful hymn:—

"There's a home for the poor on that beautiful shore

When life and its sorrows are ended;

And sweetly they'll rest in that home of the blest,

By the presence of angels attended.

There's a home for the sad, and their hearts will be glad

When they've crossed over Jordan so dreary;

For bright is the dome of that radiant home

Where so softly repose all the weary."

The "home for the poor on that beautiful shore" seemed to be almost in sight of the singer, for the pale, dying girl spread heaven around her; and Fanny sang as she had never sung before. She could hardly keep down the tears which struggled for birth in her dim eyes, and her sweet voice was attuned to the sentiment of the words she sang, which were wedded to a melody so touching as to suggest the heaven it spoke of.

There was a seraphic smile on the wan face of Jenny as the singer finished the first verse, and she clasped her thin white hands above her breast in the ecstasy of her bliss. Fanny sang the four verses of the hymn, and every moment of the time seemed to be a moment of rapture to the dying girl.

"How beautiful!" cried Jenny, after a period of silence at the conclusion of the hymn. "I have never been so happy, Fanny. Let me take your hand in mine again."

"Can I do anything more for you?" asked Fanny, as she gave her hand to the invalid.

"But the sweet strains you have just sung still linger in my soul. Let me hold your hand a moment, and then I will go to sleep if I can. I like to hold your hand—you are so good."

Fanny despised herself. She wanted to tell Jenny what a monster of wickedness she felt herself to be, and she would have done so if it had not been for giving pain to the gentle sufferer.

"I would like to go to heaven now, holding your hand, and mother's, and Eddy's; for it seems to me I could carry you up to the Saviour with me then, and give you all to him; and he would love you for my sake, and because you are so good. But I shall never forget you; I shall bear your name to heaven with me, Fanny."

The wicked girl shuddered. "Depart from me," seemed to be the only message the Saviour had for her.

"Let me do something more for you," said Fanny, who could not endure to be called good by one who was so near heaven that there could be no hypocrisy or shadow of deceit in her heart.

"O, no! I am never tired of singing;" and she sang the song containing the refrain, "There is sweet rest in heaven," with exquisite taste and feeling.

Mrs. Kent whispered that Jenny must be weary now, and Fanny took the hand of the sick girl, to bid her good by.

"Good by, Fanny. I shall never see you again; but we shall meet in heaven," said Jenny, with her sweetest smile.

"Isn't there anything I can bring to her?" asked Fanny, when they had passed into the other room.

"I don't know. Poor child! she knows how little I can do for her, and she never says she wants anything. She is very fond of flowers, and Eddy used to bring her dandelion blossoms, but these are all gone now."

"I will bring her some flowers," replied Fanny, who could not help wishing for some of the beautiful flowers which grew in such profusion at Woodville.

But to her Woodville now seemed as far off as the heaven of which she had been singing to the dying girl; but she thought she could obtain some flowers in the city; and she felt as though she would give all the rest of her ill-gotten treasure for a single bouquet.

Fanny begged Mrs. Kent to tell her if there was anything she could do for the sick daughter, or for the family; and the poor woman confessed that she had nothing in the house to eat except half a loaf of bread, which was to be their dinner. Lest her visitor should think her destitution was caused by her own fault, she related the story of hardships she had undergone since her husband departed with his regiment.

Mr. Kent was a mechanic, and having been thrown out of employment by the dull times at the commencement of the war, he had enlisted in one of the regiments that departed earliest for the scene of hostilities. He had left his family with only a small sum of money, and had promised to send all his pay to his wife, as soon as it was received. Mr. Kent's regiment had been engaged in the disastrous battle of Bull Run, since which he had not been heard from. It was known that he had been taken prisoner, but when exchanges were made he did not appear. His wife was unwilling to believe that he was dead, and still hoped for tidings of him.

Jenny was sick when her father departed, but it was not supposed to be a dangerous illness; perhaps it would not have been if she had been supplied with the comforts of life. The family had been driven from the more comfortable abode, in which Mr. Kent had left them, to Mr. O'Shane's miserable hovel. The poor woman had gone out to work until Jenny's condition demanded her constant attention. She had then obtained what sewing she could; but with all her exertions she was hardly able to obtain food for her family, to say nothing of procuring clothes, and paying the rent.

Mrs. Kent lived by herself, having little or no communication with the world around her. She had heard of the provision for soldiers' families, and had made an effort to obtain this aid; but she was unable to prove that she was a soldier's wife, and being delicate and sensitive, she had not the courage to face the rebuffs of the officials a second time.

Fanny listened to this story with but little interest. She was thinking of Jenny, whose sweet smile of holy rapture still lingered in her mind. Promising to do something for the family, she took leave of Mrs. Kent, who had no words to express the gratitude she felt towards her benefactor. Fanny went to the nearest store, and purchased a liberal supply of provisions and groceries, which she sent back to the house. She felt better then, and walked down the street till she came to a horse car, in which she rode down to the Park.

Fanny got out of the horse car at the Park. She was in the midst of the great city, but she felt no interest in the moving, driving scene around her, for the thought of poor Jenny still engrossed her. She had even forgotten Mr. Long, and the dreaded policemen who might be on the watch for her. This was the good time for which she had stolen the money and run away from her happy home at Woodville. It was a mockery, and she even wished she had been caught before she left Pennville.

It was now two o'clock in the afternoon, though hours enough seemed to have elapsed since she left Woodville to make a week. She had eaten nothing but an ice-cream since breakfast, and she was faint from the excitement and the exertion of the day. She found a saloon for ladies, and entered; but the nice things of which she had dreamed in the morning no longer existed for her. She ate a simple dinner, and walked down Broadway till she came to the Museum, which she had regarded as an important element in the enjoyment of her week in the city.

She paid the admission fee, and went in. She wandered from room to room among the curiosities, hardly caring for anything she saw, till she came to the exhibition-room, where plays were acted. She had never seen a play performed, and she had looked forward with brilliant anticipations to the pleasure of seeing one. She was disappointed, for it had not entered into her calculation that a clean conscience is necessary for the full enjoyment of anything. The actors and the actresses strutted their brief hour before her; but to her the play was incomprehensible and silly. It had no meaning, and even the funny things which the low comedian said and did could not make her laugh. Before the performance was half finished, she had enough of it, and left the place in disgust.

Jenny Kent was rapturously happy, dying in a hovel, in the midst of poverty and want, while she was miserable with health and strength, with plenty to eat, drink, and wear. Fanny tried to shake off the strange depression which had so suddenly come over her. She had never been troubled with any such thoughts and feelings before. If she had occasionally been sorry for her wrong acts, it was only a momentary twinge, which hardly damped her spirits. She was weighed down to the earth, and she could not rid herself of the burden that oppressed her. She wanted to go into some dark corner and cry. She felt that it would do her good to weep, and to suffer even more than she had yet been called upon to endure.

"I'll bear your name to heaven with me," had been the words of the dying girl to Fanny; but what a reproach her name would be to the pure and good of the happy land! In some manner, not evident to our human sight, or understood by our human minds, the words of Jenny had given the wayward girl a full view of herself—had turned her thoughts in upon the barrenness of her own heart. Her wrong acts, so trivial to her before, were now magnified into mountains, and the crime she had committed that morning was so monstrous and abominable that she abhorred herself for it.

In spite of the reproaches which every loving word of the dying girl hurled into the conscience of Fanny, there was a strange and unaccountable fascination in the languid look of the sweet sufferer. Wherever she turned, Jenny seemed to be looking at her with a glance full of heaven, while the black waters of her own soul rose up to choke her.

Fanny struggled to get rid of these strange thoughts, but she could not; and she was compelled to give herself wholly up to them. Something, she knew not what, drew her irresistibly towards the dying girl, and she started up Broadway to find the flowers she had promised to carry to her. In a shop window she saw what she wanted. The flowers were of the rarest and most costly kinds; but nothing was too good for Jenny, and she paid four dollars for a bouquet. In another store she purchased some jelly and other delicacies such as she had seen the ladies at Woodville send to sick people. Thus prepared to meet the dying girl, she took a horse car, and by six o'clock reached the humble abode of Mrs. Kent.

"How is Jenny?" asked she, as she entered the house, without the ceremony of knocking.

"He might do something to make her easy, but Jenny don't complain. She never speaks of her pains."

"I have come to stay all night with Jenny, if you are willing I should," continued Fanny, doubtfully.

Mrs. Kent consented, and Fanny, after sending in her bouquet, went for a physician whose name she had seen on a fine house near Central Park, judging from the style in which he lived that he must be a great man. She found him at home, and he consented to return with her to Mrs. Kent's house. He examined Jenny very carefully, and prescribed some medicine which might make her more comfortable. He did not pretend that he could do anything more for her, and he told Fanny that the sufferer could not live many days, and might pass away in a few hours. Fanny offered him his fee; he blushed, and peremptorily refused it. Physicians who live in fine houses are often kinder to the poor than the charlatans who prey upon the lowest strata of society.

Fanny procured the medicine which the kind-hearted doctor had prescribed, and administered it with her own hands. Jenny gave her such a sweet smile of grateful encouragement, that she was sorry there was nothing else to be done for her.

"Now sit down, Fanny, and let me take your hand. I feel better to-night than I have felt for a long time."

"I wish I was as good as you are, Jenny," said Fanny, struggling with the emotions which surged through her soul.

"You are an angel! You have been as good as you could be. Fanny, we shall meet in heaven, for I feel just as though I could not live many days. We shall be friends there, if we cannot long be here."

"I hope you will get better," added Fanny, because she could think of nothing else to say.

"O, Jenny! I am not good! I cannot deceive you any longer!" exclaimed Fanny, bursting into tears.

"Now I know that you are good. The blessed Bible says, 'He that humbleth himself shall be exalted.' I'm glad you don't think you are good."

"Don't weep, dear Fanny. I know how you feel; I have felt just so myself, when it seemed to me I was so wicked I couldn't live."

"You don't know how wicked I have been; what monstrous things I have done," added Fanny, covering her face with her hands. "If you knew, you would despise me."

"You wrong yourself, Fanny. Such a good, kind heart as you have would not let you do anything very bad."

"I have done what was very bad, Jenny; I have been the worst girl in the whole world; but I am so sorry!"

"I know you are. If you have done anything wrong,—we all do wrong sometimes,—you could not help being sorry. Your heart is good."

"O, no! Don't tell me; tell it to God. He will pity and forgive you because you are really sorry."

"You would despise me if you knew how wicked I have been. It was seeing you, and thinking how good you are, which made me feel that I had done wrong."

"I'm sure, after all you have done for mother and for me, I can't help believing that you are an angel. I love you, and I know that you are good."

"I mean to be good, Jenny. From this time I shall try to do better than I ever did before."

"I don't think I ever tried to be good, but I shall now," replied the penitent girl, as she wiped away her tears.

Jenny seemed to be weary, and Fanny sat by the bedside gazing in silence at her beautiful and tranquil expression. The sufferer was looking at the rich flowers of the bouquet, which had been placed on a stand at the side of the bed. They were a joy to her, a connecting link between the beautiful of heaven and the beautiful of earth.

"Will you sing me a hymn, Fanny?" asked the sick girl, without removing her gaze from the flowers.

"If God hath made this world so fair,

Where sin and death abound,

How beautiful, beyond compare,

Will Paradise be found!"

"How beautiful!" murmured Jenny, her eyes still fixed upon the flowers. "Will you take out that moss-rose, Fanny, and let me hold it in my hand?"

Fanny gave her the flower, and then sang another hymn. For an hour she continued to sing, and Jenny listened to the sweet melodies, entranced and enraptured by the visions of heaven which filled her soul. Then she asked Fanny to read to her from the Bible, indicating the book and chapter, which was the eighth chapter of Romans.

"Now, stop a moment: 'For we are saved by hope,'" said the sufferer. "Do you know what the emblem of Hope is, Fanny?"

Fanny passed the box to her, and she took from it a little gold breastpin, in the form of an anchor.

"This was given to me by my father when I was a little girl. My Sunday-school teacher told me years ago what an anchor was the emblem of, and told me at the same time to remember the verse you have just read—'For we are saved by hope.' That anchor has often reminded me what was to save me from sin. Fanny, I will give you this breastpin to remember me by."

"But when you remember me, I want you to think what the anchor means. You say you are not good, but I know you are. You mean to be good, you hope to be good; and that will make you good. Do you know we can always have what we hope for, if it is right that we should have it? What we desire most we labor the hardest for. If you really and truly wish to be good, you will be good."

Fanny took the breastpin. If it had been worth thousands of dollars, it would not have been more precious to her. It was the gift of the loving and gentle being who was soon to be transplanted from earth to heaven; of the beautiful girl who had influenced her as she had never been influenced before; who had lifted her soul into a new atmosphere. She placed it upon her bosom, and resolved never to part with it as long as she lived.

"Hope and have, Fanny," said Jenny, when she had rested for a time. "Hope for what is good and true, and you shall have it; for if you really desire it, you will be sure to labor and to struggle for it."

"Hope and have," repeated Fanny. "Your anchor shall mean this to me. Jenny, I feel happier already, for I really and truly mean to be good. But I think I ought to tell you how wicked I am."

Jenny was weary again, and Fanny sang in her softest and sweetest tones once more. It was now the twilight of a long summer day, and Mrs. Kent, having finished her household duties, came into the room. Soon after, the sufferer was seized with a violent fit of coughing, which seemed to weaken and reduce her beyond the possibility of recovery. When it left her, she could not speak aloud.

Jenny asked for paper and pencil, and when her mother had raised her on the bed, she wrote, with trembling hand, these words:—

It was evident to the experienced eye of Mrs. Kent that Jenny was going from earth. The sufferer lay with her gaze fixed upon the ceiling, and her hands clasped, as in silent prayer. She seemed to be communing with the angels. She struggled for breath, and her mother watched her in the most painful anxiety.

Mrs. Kent took her offered hand, and kissed her, struggling all the time to be calm. Little Eddy was raised up to the bed, and kissed his departing sister.

"Good by, Jenny," she answered, awed and trembling with agitation at the impressive scene.

The dying girl closed her eyes. But a moment after she pressed the hand of Fanny, and murmured,—

She was silent then; her bosom soon ceased to heave; the ransomed spirit rose from the pain-encumbered body, and soared away to its angel-home!

Peacefully, on what had been her couch of pain, lay the silent form of Jenny. The room resounded with the sobs of the mother and the brother, and hardly less with the wailings of the stranger, who, in a few brief hours had found and lost the truest and best of earthly friends. The darkness gathered, and still they wept—the darkness from which Jenny had fled to the brightness of the eternal world, where there is no night or sorrow. There was woe in that humble abode, while heaven's high arches rang with pæans of rejoicing that a ransomed soul had joined the happy bands above.

There were no kind and sympathizing friends to go into that hovel and deck the marble form in the vestments of the grave. Fanny was the first to realize that there was something to be done: she was a stranger to such a scene; she knew not what to do; but she told Mrs. Kent that she would go out and obtain assistance. With hurried step she walked down to the residence of the physician who had so gently and feelingly ministered to the sufferer. She found the doctor at home, and informed him of the sad event. Since his return he had told his wife and daughter of the beautiful girl who was dying in the cottage up the street. He called them into his library, and Fanny, with tearful eyes and broken voice, repeated her narrative of the passing away of poor Jenny.

The ladies promptly expressed their intention to visit the bereaved mother, and discharge the duties the occasion required. A carriage was called, in which the benevolent physician, his wife and daughter, and Fanny, proceeded to the house of Mrs. Kent. They were the kindest and tenderest of friends, and the sorrowing mother, grateful to them for their good offices, and grateful to God for sending them to her, was relieved of a great load of pain and anxiety. At a late hour they departed, with the promise to come again on the following day.

Hour after hour Mrs. Kent and Fanny sat in the chamber of death, talking about the gentle one who had passed away, and was at rest. It was nearly morning before Fanny, worn out by excitement and fatigue, could be prevailed upon to take the rest she needed. Mrs. Kent made a bed for her on the kitchen floor, and she slept for a few hours. When she awoke, her first thought was of Jenny; and all the events of the previous day and evening passed in review before her. Her soul had been sanctified by communion with the sainted spirit of her departed friend. On the day before, her current of being seemed suddenly to have stopped in its course, and then to have taken a new direction. Her thoughts, her hopes, her aspirations had all been changed. She had resolved to be good—so solemnly and truly resolved to be good, that she felt like a new creature.

She prayed to the good Father, who had been revealed to her by the dying girl; and from her prayers came a strength which was a new life to her soul. From her strong desire to be good—to be what Jenny had been—had grown up a new faith.

In the forenoon came the wife and daughter of the good physician again upon the mission of mercy. They had requested the attendance of an undertaker, and assumed the whole charge of the funeral of Jenny, which was to take place on the third day after her death.

Fanny had hardly thought of herself since the angel of death entered the house, though she had been weighed down by a burden of guilt that did not embody itself in particular thoughts. In her sincere penitence, and in her firm and sacred resolve to be good and true, she had found only a partial peace of mind. She had not a doubt in regard to her future course: she must return to Woodville, and submit to any punishment which her kind friends might impose upon her. She was willing to suffer for what she had done; she was even willing to be sent to her uncle's in Minnesota; and this feeling of submission was the best evidence to herself of the reality of her repentance.

She was not willing to return to Woodville till she had seen the mortal part of Jenny laid away in its final resting-place. But Mr. Grant, who was at Hudson with his daughters, might already have been informed of her wicked conduct; and Mr. Long was probably still engaged in the search for her. There was a duty she owed to her friends which her awakened conscience would not permit her to neglect. The family would be very anxious about her, for wayward and wilful as she had been, she felt that they still loved her. Procuring pen and paper, she wrote a letter to Mrs. Green, informing her that she should return home on Friday; that she would submit to any punishment, and endeavor to be good in the future. She sealed the note, and put it in the post-office, with a feeling that it was all she could do at present as an atonement for her faults. If it was not all she could do, it was an error of judgment, not of the heart.

On Thursday the form of Jenny was placed in the coffin. It was not a pauper's coffin; it was a black-walnut casket—plain, but rich—selected by Mrs. Porter, the physician's lady, who could not permit the form of one so beautiful to be enclosed in a less appropriate receptacle. The choicest flowers lay upon her breast, and a beautiful wreath and cross were placed upon the casket before the funeral services commenced.

The clergyman was a friend of Dr. Porter, and he was worthy to be the friend of so true a man. The service was solemn and touching; no word of hope and consolation was omitted because they stood in the humble abode of poverty and want. He spoke of the beautiful life and the happy death of Jenny, and prayed that her parents might be comforted; that the little brother might be blessed by her short life, and that "the devoted young friend, who had so tenderly watched over the last hours of the departed," might be sanctified by her holy ministrations. The father, living or dead, wherever suffering, or wherever battling against the foes of his country, was remembered.

Fanny wept, as all in the house wept, when the good man feelingly delineated the lovely character of her who was still so beautiful in her marble silence; when he recalled those tender scenes on the evening of her death, which had been faithfully described to him by Fanny. The casket was placed in the funeral car, and followed by two carriages,—one of which contained Mrs. Kent, Eddy, and Fanny, and the other the family of Dr. Porter,—to Greenwood Cemetery. Sadly the poor mother turned away from the resting-place of her earthly treasure, and the little cortège returned to the house from which the light had gone out. The last solemn, sacred duty had been performed; Jenny had gone, but her pure influence was still to live on, and bless those who had never even known her.

When the little party reached the house, Dr. Porter, after some remarks about the solemn scenes through which they had just passed, inquired more particularly than he had been permitted to do before into the circumstances of the family. He promised to procure for her the money due to her as a soldier's wife, and to obtain some light employment for her. Mrs. Kent was very grateful to him for his kind interest in herself, and in her lost one, assuring him that she did not ask for charity, and was willing to work hard for a support.

"You have been a blessing to me, Fanny," said Mrs. Kent, when the physician and his family had departed. "I am sure that God sent you here to save me from misery and despair. What should I have done if you had not come?"

"I think I was sent for my own sake, rather than for yours, for I know that it has been a greater blessing to me than to you," replied Fanny.

"I'm sure that one who has been so kind can't be very bad," added Mrs. Kent, rather bewildered by the confession of her benefactor. "Where did you say you lived, Fanny?"

The wanderer had been obliged to invent a story in the beginning to account for her absence from home, and the poor woman's heart had been too full of gratitude to permit any doubt to enter there.

"I have deceived you, Mrs. Kent," replied Fanny, bursting into tears. "I do not live in the city; my home is twenty-five miles up the river. But I did not mean to deceive poor Jenny. I wanted to tell her what a wicked deed I had done, but she would not let me."

"She was too good to think evil of any one, and especially of you, who have been so generous to us."

"She told me how to be good. The very sight of her made me feel how wicked I was. I mean to be good."

"I shall always think of Jenny, and the anchor she gave me, when I am tempted to do wrong. I feel that Jenny has saved me, and made me a new being."

"I'm sure I hope so; and I am glad you came here for your own sake, as well as for mine. But I can't believe that one who has been good to my dear lost one can be very bad," replied Mrs. Kent, gloomily.

"I am—at least, I was; for I know I am ever so much better than I was when I came here. I ran away from home!"

"Dear me! I hope not. I thought it was strange that a young lady like you should have so much money; but my heart was so full that I didn't think much about it."

"Mrs. Kent, I stole that money!" added Fanny, her face crimson with the blush of shame.

"It was wrong of me to take the money," added Mrs. Kent, actually trembling with apprehension at the thought. "I will pay it all back some time, Fanny. I can work now. I'm sure I wouldn't have taken the money if I had thought you did not come rightly by it."

Fanny then told the whole story, and described her feelings from the time she had first seen Mrs. Kent in front of the house.

"I am so sorry!" said the poor woman, wringing her hands as she thought of her own participation in the use of the stolen property. "I would rather have been turned out of the house than be saved by such money."

"So am I; but I am sure she knew how guilty I had been, though she didn't know exactly what I had done."

"I think there is hope for you, Fanny. You must have a kind heart, or you couldn't have done what you did for Jenny. I'm sure I feel very grateful to you."

"Now you know me as I am, Mrs. Kent; but I tell you most solemnly, that I mean to be good always after this. I am sorry for my wicked deeds, and I am willing to be punished for what I have done. I shall always bless poor Jenny for saving me from error and sin—if I am saved."

"I am going back to Woodville to-morrow morning. I will give up all the money I have, confess my fault, and let them do with me as they think best."

"You can tell them I will pay back all the money you spent for me, just as soon as I can."

"Mr. Grant is very rich, and he will not ask you to do that. He is very kind, too."

"But I must do it, and I shall have no peace till it is done," protested the poor woman. "I'll tell you what I will do. I will give you a note for the money."

Mrs. Kent was in earnest. She was sorely troubled by the fact that she had even innocently received any of the stolen money. In the evening she wrote the note, which was made payable to Mr. Grant, and insisted that Fanny should take it. They talked of nothing but the guilt of the runaway, though rather of the means of making reparation for the wrong, than of the consequences of the wrong acts. Mrs. Kent was fully convinced that Fanny was sincerely penitent; that her intercourse with Jenny had ushered her into a new life. She was even willing to believe, before they retired that night, that it was all for the best; that He who brings good out of evil, would bring a blessing out of the wrong which Fanny had done.

The next morning the wanderer bade farewell to Mrs. Kent, and took the train for Woodville.