We have seen the question raised lately in a religious paper, whether the sacrifice of personal ornaments for benevolent objects was not obligatory; and we have seen the right to retain these small personal luxuries defended with earnestness.

To us, it seems an unfortunate mode of putting a very sacred subject.

The Infinite Saviour, in whose hands all the good works of the world are moving, is rich. The treasures of the world are his. He is as able now as he was when on earth to bid us cast in our line and find a piece of silver in the mouth of the first fish. Our gifts are only valuable to him for what they express in us.

Had Mary not shed the precious balm upon his head, she would not have been reproved for the omission; yet the exaltation of love which so expressed itself was appreciated and honored by him.

It is written, too, that he looked upon and loved the young man who had not yet attained to the generous enthusiasm that is willing to sacrifice all for suffering humanity.

Religious offerings, to have value in his sight, must be like the gifts of lovers, not extorted by conscience, but by the divine necessity which finds relief in giving.

He can wait, as mothers do, till we outgrow our love of toys and come to feel the real sacredness and significance of life. The toy which is dear to childhood will be easily surrendered in the nobler years of maturity.

But Eva's was a nature so desirous of sympathy that whatever dwelt on her mind overflowed first or last into the minds of her friends; and, an evening or two after her visit to the mission home, she told the whole story at her fireside to Dr. Campbell, St. John, and Angie, Bolton, Jim, and Alice, who were all dining with her. Eva had two or three objects in this. In the first place, she wanted to touch the nerve of real Christian unity which she felt existed between the heart of St. John and that of every true Christian worker—that same Christian unity that associated the Puritan apostle Eliot with the Roman Catholic missionaries of Canada. She wished him to see in a Methodist minister the same faith, the same moral heroism which he had so warmly responded to in the ritualistic mission of St. George, and which was his moral ideal in his own work.

She wished to show Dr. Campbell the pure and simple faith in God and prayer by which so effective a work of humanity had already been done for a class so hopeless.

"It's all very well," he said, "and I'm glad, if anybody can do it; but I don't believe prayer has anything to do with it."

"Well, I do," said Bolton, energetically. "I wouldn't think life worth having another minute, if I didn't think there was a God who would stand by a man whose whole life was devoted to work like this."

"Well," said Campbell, "it isn't, after all, an appeal to God; it's an appeal to human nature. Nobody that has a heart in him can see such a work doing and not want to help it. Your minister takes one and another to see his Home, and says nothing, and, by-and-by, the money comes in."

"But in the beginning," said Eva, "he had no money, and nothing to show to anybody. He was going to do a work that nobody believed in, among people that everybody thought so hopeless that it was money thrown away to help him. To whom could he go but God? He went and asked Him to help him, and began, and has been helped day by day ever since; and I believe God did help him. What is the use of believing in God at all, if we don't believe that?"

"Well," said Jim, "I'm not much on theology, but we newspaper fellows get a considerable stock of facts, first and last; and I've looked through this sort of thing, and I believe in it. A man don't go on doing a business of six or seven or eight thousand a year on prayer, unless prayer amounts to something; and I know, first and last, the expenses of that concern can't be less than that."

"Well," said Harry, "we have a lasting monument in the great orphan house of Halle—a whole city square of solid stone buildings. I have stood in the midst of them, and they were all built by one man, without fortune of his own, who has left us his written record how, day by day, as expenses thickened, he went to God and asked for his supplies, and found them."

"But I maintain," said Dr. Campbell, "that his appeal was to human nature. People found out what he was doing, their sympathies were moved, and they sent him help. The very sight of such a work is an application."

"I don't think that theory accounts for the facts," said Bolton. "Admitting that there is a God who is near every human heart in its most secret retirement, who knows the most hidden moods, the most obscure springs of action, how can you prove that this God did not inspire the thoughts of sympathy and purposes of help there recorded? For we have in this Franke's journal, year after year, records of help coming in when it was wanted, having been asked for of God, and obtained with as much regularity and certainty as if checks had been drawn on a banker."

"Well," said Dr. Campbell, "do you suppose that, if I should now start to build a hospital without money, and pray every week for funds to settle with my workmen, it would come?"

"No, Doctor, you're not the kind of fellow that such things happen to," said Jim, "nor am I."

"It supposes an exceptional nature," said Bolton, "an utter renunciation of self, an entire devotion to an unselfish work, and an unshaken faith in God. It is a moral genius, as peculiar and as much a gift as the genius of painting, poetry, or music."

"It is an inspiration to do the work of humanity, and it presupposes faith," said Eva. "You know the Bible says, 'He that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of those that diligently seek him.'"

The result of that fireside talk was not unfruitful. The next week was a harvest for the Home.

In blank envelopes, giving no names, came various sums. Fifty dollars, with the added note:

"From a believer in human nature."

This was from Dr. Campbell.

A hundred dollars was found in another envelope, with the note:

"To help up the fallen,
From one who has been down."

This was from Bolton.

Mr. St. John sent fifty dollars, with the words:

"From a fellow-worker."

And, finally, Jim Fellows sent fifty, with the words:

"From one of the boys."

None of these consulted with the other; each contribution was a silent and secret offering. Who can prove that the "Father that seeth in secret" did not inspire them?

CHAPTER XLIX.

THE UNPROTECTED FEMALE.

"The Squantum and Patuxet Manufacturing Company have concluded not to make any dividends for the current year."

Such was the sum and substance that Miss Dorcas gathered from a very curt letter which she had just received from the Secretary of that concern, at the time of the semi-annual dividend.

The causes of this arrangement were said to be that the entire income of the concern (which it was cheerfully stated had never been so prosperous) was to be devoted to the erection of a new mill and the purchase of new machinery, which would in the future double the avails of the stock.

Now, as society is, and, for aught we see, as it must be, the masculine half of mankind have it all their own way; and the cleverest and shrewdest woman, in making investments, has simply the choice between what this or that man tells her. If she falls by chance into the hands of an honest man, with good sense, she may make an investment that will be secure to pay all the expenses of her mortal pilgrimage, down to the banks of Jordan; but if, as quite often happens, she falls into the hands of careless or visionary advisers, she may suddenly find herself in the character of "the unprotected female" at some half-way station of life, with her ticket lost and not a cent to purchase her further passage.

Now, this was precisely the predicament that this letter announced to Miss Dorcas. For the fact was that, although she and her sister owned the house they lived in, yet every available cent of income that supplied their establishment came from the dividends of these same Squantum and Patuxet mills.

It is a fact, too, that women, however strong may be their own sense and ability, do, as a general fact, rely on the judgment of the men of the family, and consider their rulings in business matters final.

Miss Dorcas had all this propensity intensified by the old-world family feeling. Her elder brother, Dick Vanderheyden, was one of those handsome, plausible, visionary fellows who seem born to rule over womankind, and was fully disposed to magnify his office. Miss Dorcas worshiped him with a faith which none of his numerous failures abated. The cupboards and closets of the house were full of the remains of inventions which, he had demonstrated by figures in the face of facts, ought to have produced millions, and never did produce anything but waste of money. She was sure that he was the original inventor of the principle of the sewing-machine; and how it happened that he never perfected the thing, and that somebody else stole in before him and got it all, Miss Dorcas regarded as one of the inscrutable mysteries of Providence.

Poor Dick Vanderheyden was one of those permanent waiters at the world's pool, like the impotent man in the gospel. When the angel of success came down and troubled the waters, there was always another who stepped in before him and got the benefit.

Yet there was one thing that never left him to the last, and that was a sweet-tempered, sunny hopefulness, in which, through years when the family fortune had been growing beautifully less in his hands, Dick was still making arrangements which were to bring in wonderful results, till one night a sudden hemorrhage from the lungs settled all his earthly accounts in an hour, and left Miss Dorcas and Mrs. Betsey without a male relative in the world.

One of the last moves of brother Dick had been to take all the sisters' United States stock and invest it for them in the Squantum and Patuxet Manufacturing Company, where, he confidently assured them, it would in time bring them an income of fifty per cent.

For four years after his death, however, only a moderate dividend was declared by the company, but always with brilliant promises for the future; the fifty per cent., like the "good time coming" in the song, was a thing to look forward to, as the end of many little retrenchments and economies; and now suddenly comes this letter, announcing to them an indefinite suspension of their income.

Mrs. Betsey could scarcely be made to believe it.

"Why, they've got all our money; are they going to keep it, and not pay us anything?"

"That seems to be their intention," said Miss Dorcas grimly.

"But, Dorcas, I wouldn't have it so. I'd rather have our money back again in United States stock."

"So had I."

"Well, if you write and ask them for it, and tell them that you must have it, and can't get along without, won't they send it back to you?"

"No, they won't think of such a thing. They never do business that way."

"Won't? Why, I never heard of such folks. Why, there's no justice in it."

"You don't understand these things, Betsey; nor I, very well. All I know is, that Dick took our money and bought stock with it, and we are stockholders of this company."

"And what is being a stockholder?"

"As far as I can perceive, it is this: when old women like you and me are stockholders, it means that a company of men take our money and use it for their own purposes, and pay us what they like, when it comes convenient; and when it's not convenient, they don't pay us at all. It is borrowing people's money, without paying interest."

"Why, that is horrid. Why, it's the most unjust thing I ever heard of," said Mrs. Betsey. "Don't you think so, Dorcas?"

"Well, it seems so to me; but women never understand business. Dick used to say so. The fact is, old women have no business anywhere," said Miss Dorcas bitterly. "It's time we were out of the world."

"I'm sure I haven't wanted to live so very much," said Mrs. Betsey, tremulously. "I don't want to die, but I had quite as lieve be dead."

"Come, Betsey, don't let us talk that way," said Miss Dorcas. "We sha'n't gain anything by flying in the face of Providence."

"But, Dorcas, I don't think it can be quite as bad as you think. People couldn't be so bad, if they knew just how much we wanted our money. Why, we haven't anything to go on—only think! The company has been making money, you say?"

"Oh, yes, never so large profits as this year; but, instead of paying the stockholders, they have voted to put up a new mill and enlarge the business."

"Who voted so?"

"The stockholders themselves. As far as I can learn, that means one or two men who have bought all the stock, and now can do what they like."

"But couldn't you go to the stockholders' meeting and vote?"

"What good would it do, if I have but ten votes, where each of these men has five hundred? They have money enough. They don't need this income to live on, and so they use it, as they say, to make the property more valuable; and perhaps, Betsey, when we are both dead, it will pay fifty per cent. to somebody, just as Dick always said it would."

"But," said Mrs. Betsey, "of what use will that be to us, when what we want is something to live on now? Why, we can't get along without income, Dorcas, don't you see?"

"I think I do," said Miss Dorcas, grimly.

"Why, why, what shall we do?"

"Well, we can sell the house, I suppose."

"Sell the house!" said poor little Mrs. Betsey, aghast at the thought; "and where could we go? and what should we do with all our things? I'd rather die, and done with it; and if we got any money and put it into anything, people would just take it and use it, and not pay us income; or else it would all go just as my money did that Dick put into that Aurora bank. That was going to make our everlasting fortune. There was no end to the talk about what it would do—and all of a sudden the bank burst up, and my money was all gone—never gave me back a cent! and I should like to know where it went to. Somebody had that ten thousand dollars of mine, but it wasn't me. No, we won't sell the house; it's all we've got left, and as long as it's here we've got a right to be somewhere. We can stay here and starve, I suppose!—you and I and Jack."

Jack, perceiving by his mistress's tones that something was the matter, here jumped into her lap and kissed her.

"Yes, you poor doggie," said Mrs. Betsey, crying; "we'll all starve together. How much money have you got left, Dorcas?"

Miss Dorcas drew out an old porte-monnaie and opened it.

"Twenty dollars."

"Oh, go 'way, Miss Dorcas; ye don't know what a lot I's got stowed away in my old tea-pot!" chuckled a voice from behind the scenes, and Dinah's woolly head and brilliant ivories appeared at the slide of the china-closet, where she had been an unabashed and interested listener to the conversation.

"Dinah, I'm surprised," said Miss Dorcas, with dignity.

"Well, y' can be surprised and git over it," said Dinah, rolling her portly figure into the conversation. "All I's got to say is, dere ain't no use for Mis' Betsey here to be worritin' and gettin' into a bad spell 'bout money, so long as I's got three hundred dollars laid up in my tea-pot. 'Tain't none o' your rags neither," said Dinah, who was strong on the specie question—"good bright silver dollars, and gold guineas, and eagles, I tucked away years ago, when your Pa was alive, and money was plenty. Look a-heah now!"—and Dinah emphasized her statement by rolling a handful of old gold guineas upon the table—"Dare now; see dar! Don't catch me foolin' away no money wid no banks and no stockholders. I keeps pretty tight grip o'mine. Tell you, 'fore I'd let dem gemmen hab my money I'd braid it up in my har—and den I'd know where 'twas when I wanted it."

"Dinah, you dear old soul," said Miss Dorcas, with tears in her eyes, "you don't think we'd live on your money?"

"Dun no why you shouldn't, as well as me live on yourn," said Dinah. "It's all in de family, and turn about's fair play. Why, good land! Miss Dorcas, I jest lotted on savin't up for de family. You can use mine and give it back agin when dat ar good time comes Massa Dick was allers a-tellin' about."

Mrs. Betsey fell into Dinah's arms, and cried on her shoulder, declaring that she couldn't take a cent of her money, and that they were all ruined, and fell into what Dinah used to call one of her "bad spells." So she swept her up in her arms forthwith and carried her upstairs and put her to bed, amid furious dissentient barkings from Jack, who seemed to consider it his duty to express an opinion in the matter.

"Dar now, ye aggrevatin' critter, lie down and shet up," she said to Jack, as she lifted him on to the bed and saw him cuddle down in Mrs. Betsey's arms and lay his rough cheek against hers.

Dinah remembered, years before, her young mistress lying weak and faint on that same spot, and how there had been the soft head of a baby lying where Jack's rough head was now nestling, and her heart swelled within her.

"Now, then," she said, pouring out some drops and giving them to her, "you jest hush up and go to sleep, honey. Miss Dorcas and I, we'll fix up this 'ere. It'll all come straight—now you'll see it will. Why, de Lord ain't gwine to let you starve. Never see de righteous forsaken. Jest go to sleep, honey, and it'll be all right when you wake up."

Meanwhile, Miss Dorcas had gone across the way to consult with Eva. The opening of the friendship on the opposite side of the way had been a relief to her from the desolateness and loneliness of her life circle, and she had come to that degree of friendly reliance that she felt she could state her dilemma and ask advice.

"I don't see any way but I must come to selling the house at last," said Miss Dorcas; "but I don't know how to set about it; and if we have to leave, at our age, life won't seem worth having. I'm afraid it would kill Betsey."

"Dear Miss Dorcas, we can't afford to lose you," said Eva. "You don't know what a comfort it is to have you over there, so nice and handy—why, it would be forlorn to have you go; it would break us all up!"

"You are kind to say so," said Miss Dorcas; "but I can't help feeling that the gain of our being there is all on one side."

"But, dear Miss Dorcas, why need you move? See here. A bright thought strikes me. Your house is so large! Why couldn't you rent half of it? You really don't need it all; and I'm sure it could easily be arranged for two families. Do think of that, please."

"If it could be done—if anybody would want it!" said Miss Dorcas.

"Oh, just let us go over this minute and see," said Eva, as she threw a light cloud of worsted over her head, and seizing Miss Dorcas by the arm, crossed back with her, talking cheerfully.

"Here you have it, nice as possible. Your front parlor—you never sit there; and it's only a care to have a room you don't use. And then this great empty office back here—a dining-room all ready! and there is a back shed that could have a cooking-stove, and be fitted into a kitchen. Why, the thing is perfect; and there's your income, without moving a peg! See what it is to have real estate!"

"You are very sanguine," said Miss Dorcas, looking a little brightened herself. "I have often thought myself that the house is a great deal larger than we need; but I am quite helpless about such matters. We are so out of the world. I know nothing of business; real estate agents are my horror; and I have no man to advise me."

"Oh, Miss Dorcas, wait now till I consult Harry. I'm sure something nice could be arranged."

"I dare say," said Miss Dorcas, "if these rooms were in a fashionable quarter we might let them; but the world has long since left our house in the rear."

"Never mind that," said Eva. "You see we don't mind fashion, and there may be neighbors as good as we, of the same mind."

Eva already had one of her visions in her head; but of this she did not speak to Miss Dorcas till she had matured it.

She knew Jim Fellows had been for weeks on the keen chase after apartments, and that none yet had presented themselves as altogether eligible. Alice had insisted on an economical beginning, and the utmost prudence as to price; and the result had been, what is usual in such cases, that all the rooms that would do at all were too dear.

Eva saw at once in this suite of rooms, right across the way from them, the very thing they were in search of. The rooms were large and sunny, with a quaint, old-fashioned air of by-gone gentility that made them attractive; and her artist imagination at once went into the work of brightening up their tarnished and dusky respectability with a nice little modern addition of pictures and flowers, and new bits of furniture here and there.

Just as she returned from her survey, she found Jim in her own parlor, with a thriving pot of ivy.

"Well, here's one for our parlor window, when we find one," said he. "I'm a boy that gets things when I see them. Now you don't often see an ivy so thrifty as this, and I've brought it to you to take care of till I find the room!"

"Jim," said Eva, "I believe just what you want is to be found right across the way from us, so that we can talk across from your windows to ours."

"What! the old Vanderheyden house? Thunder!" said Jim.

Now, Jim was one of the class of boys who make free use of "thunder" in conversation, without meaning to express anything more by it than a state of slight surprise.

"What's up now?" he added. "I should as soon expect Queen Victoria to rent Buckingham Palace as that the old ladies across the way would come to letting rooms!"

"Necessity has no law, Jim." And then Eva told him Miss Dorcas's misfortune.

"Poor old girls!" said Jim. "I do declare it's too thundering bad. I'll go right over and rent the rooms; and I'll pay up square, too, and no mistake."

"Shall I go with you?"

"Oh, you just leave that to me. Two are all that are needed in a bargain."

In a few minutes, Jim was at his ease in front of Miss Dorcas, saying:

"Miss Dorcas, the fact is, I want to hire a suite of rooms. You see, I'm going to have a wife before long, and nothing will suit her so well as this neighborhood. Now, if you will only rent us half of your house, we shall behave so beautifully that you never will be sorry you took us in."

Miss Dorcas apologized for the rooms and furniture. They were old, she knew—not in modern style—but such as they were, would he just go through them? and Jim made the course with her. And the short of the matter was, that the bargain was soon struck.

Jim stated frankly the sum he felt able to pay for apartments; to Miss Dorcas the sum seemed ample enough to relieve all her embarrassments, and in an hour he returned to the other side, having completed the arrangement.

"There, now,—we're anchored, I think. The old folks and Aunt Maria have been wanting me to marry on and live with them in the old hive, but Jim doesn't put his foot into that trap, if he knows it. My wife and I must have our own establishment, if it's only in two rooms. Now it's all settled, if Allie likes it, and I know she will. By George, it's a lucky hit! That parlor will brighten up capitally."

"You know, old furniture is all the rage now," said Eva, "and you can buy things here and there as you want."

"Yes," said Jim; "you know I did buy a pair of brass andirons when I was going to ask Allie to have me, and they'll be just the things for the fireplace over there. Miss Dorcas apologized for the want of those that belonged there by saying that her brother had taken them to pieces to try some experiments in brass polishing, and never found time to put them together again, and so parts of them got lost. I told her it was a special providence that I happened to have the very pair that were needed there; and there's a splendid sunny window for the ivies on the south corner!"

"That old furniture is lovely," said Eva. "It's like a dark, rich background to a picture. All your little bright modern things will show so well over it."

"Well, I'm going to bring Allie down to go over it, this minute," said Jim, who was not of the class that allow the grass to grow under their feet.

Meanwhile, when little Mrs. Betsey came down to dinner, she found the storm over, and clear, shining after rain.

"What, Mr. Fellows!" she exclaimed; "that dear, good young man that was so kind to Jack! Why, Dorcas, what a providence! I'm sure it'll be a mercy to have a man in the house once more!"

"Why, I'm sure," said Miss Dorcas, "your great fear that you wake me up every night about, is that there is a man in the house!"

"Oh, well," said Mrs. Betsey, laughing cheerfully; "you know what I mean. I mean the right kind of a man. I've thought that those dreadful burglars and creatures that break into houses where there's old silver must find us out—because, Dorcas, really, that hat that we keep on the entry table is so big and dusty, and so different from what they wear now, they must know that no man wears a hat like that. I've always told Dinah that—she knows I have, more than twenty times."

A snicker from the adjacent china-closet, where Dinah was listening, confirmed this statement.

"Why, it's such a nice thing. Why, there's no end to it," said Mrs. Betsey, whose cheerfulness increased with reflection. "A real live man in the house!—and a young man, too!—and such a nice one; and dear Miss Alice—why, only think, bringing all her wedding clothes to the house, and I don't doubt she'll show them all to me—and it'll be so nice for Jack! won't it, Jack?"

Jack barked his assent vigorously, and a second explosive chuckle from the china closet betrayed Dinah's profound sympathy. The faithful creature was rolling and boiling in waves of triumphant merriment behind the scenes. The conversation of her mistresses in fact appeared to be a daily source of amusement to her, and Miss Dorcas was forced to wink at this espionage, in consideration of Dinah's limited sources of entertainment, and generally pretended not to know that she was there.

On the present occasion, Dinah's contribution to the interview was too evident to be ignored, but Miss Dorcas listened to it with indulgence. A good prospect of regular income does, after all, strengthen one's faith in Providence, and dispose one to be easily satisfied with one's fellows.

CHAPTER L.

EVA TO HARRY'S MOTHER.

Dear Mother: You've no idea how things have gone on within a short time. I have been so excited and so busy, and kept in such a state of constant consultation, for this past week, that I have had no time to keep up my bulletins to you.

Well, dear mother, it is at last concluded that we are to have two weddings on one day, the second week after Easter, when Alice is to be married to Jim Fellows, and Angie to Mr. St. John.

Easter comes this year about the latest that it ever does, so that we may hope for sunny spring weather, and at least a few crocuses and hyacinths in the borders, as good omens for the future. I wish you could choose this time to make your long-promised visit and see how gay and festive we all are. Just now, every one is overwhelmed with business, and the days go off very fast.

Aunt Maria is in her glory, as generalissimo of the forces and dictator of all things. It is for just such crises that she was born; she has now fairly enough to manage to keep her contented with everybody, and everybody contented with her—which, by-the-bye, is not always the case in her history.

It is decreed that the wedding is to be a morning one, in Mr. St. John's little chapel; and that, after the reception at mamma's, Jim will start with Alice to visit his family friends, and Angie and St. John will go immediately on the steamer to sail for Europe, where they will spend the summer in traveling and be back again in the autumn. Meanwhile, they have engaged a house in that part of the city where their mission work lies, and of course, like ours, it is on an unfashionable street—a thing which grieves Aunt Maria, who takes every occasion to say that Mr. St. John, being a man of independent fortune, is entitled to live genteelly. I am glad, because they are within an easy distance of us, which will be nice. Aunt Maria and mamma are to see to getting the house all ready for them to go into when they return.

Bolton is going over with them, to visit Paris! The fact is, since I opened communication between him and Caroline, her letters to me have grown short and infrequent, and her letters to him long and constant, and the effect on him has been magical. I have never seen him in such good spirits. Those turns of morbid depression that he used to have, seem to be fading away gradually. He has been with us so much that I feel almost as if he were a member of our family, and I cannot but feel that our home has been a shelter and a strength to him. What would it be to have a happy one of his own? I am sure he deserves it, if ever kindness, unselfishness, and true nobleness of heart deserved it: and I am sure that Caroline is wise enough and strong enough to give him just the support that he needs.

Then there's Alice's engagement to Jim. I have long foreseen to what her friendship for him would grow, and though she had many hesitations, yet now she is perfectly happy in it; and only think how nice it is! They are to take half the old Vanderheyden house, opposite to us, so that we can see the lights of each other's hearths across from each other's windows.

Mother, doesn't it seem as if our bright, cosy, happy, free-and-easy home was throwing out as many side-shoots as a lilac bush?

Just think; in easy vicinity, we shall have Jim and Alice, Angie and St. John, and, as I believe, Bolton and Caroline. We shall be a guild of householders, who hold the same traditions, walk by the same rule, and mind the same things. Won't it be lovely? What nice "droppings in" and visitings and tea-drinkings and consultings we shall have! And it is not merely having good times either; but, Mother, the more I think of it, the more I think the making of bright, happy homes is the best way of helping on the world that has been discovered yet. A home is a thing that can't be for one's own self alone—at least the kind of home we are thinking of; it reaches out on all sides and helps and shelters and comforts others. Even my little experiment of a few months ago shows me that; and I know that Angie's and St. John's home will be even more so than ours. Angie was born to be a rector's wife; to have a kind word and a smile and a good deed for everybody, to love everybody dearly, and keep everybody bright and in good spirits. It is amazing to see the change she has wrought in St. John. He was fast getting into a sort of stringent, morbid asceticism; now he is so gracious, so genial, and so entertaining,—he is like a rock, in June, all bursting out with anemones and columbines in every rift.

As to Jim and Alice, you ought to see how happy they are in consulting me about the arrangements of their future home in the Vanderheyden house. And the best of it is, to see how perfectly delighted the two old ladies are to have them there. You must know that there was a sudden failure in Miss Dorcas's income which would have made it necessary to sell the house had it not been for just this arrangement. But they are as gracious and kind about it as if they were about to receive guests; and every improvement and every additional touch of brightness to the rooms seems to please them as much as if they were going to be married themselves.

Miss Dorcas said to me that our coming to live in their neighborhood had been the greatest blessing to them that ever had happened for years—that it had opened a new life to them.

As to Maggie, dear Mother, she is becoming a real comfort to me. I do think that all the poor girl's sorrows and sufferings have not been in vain, and that she is now a true and humble Christian.

She has been very useful in this sudden hurry of work that has fallen upon us, and seems really delighted to be so. In our group of families, Maggie will always find friends. Angie wants her to come and live with them when they begin housekeeping, and I think I shall let her go.

I shall never forget the dreadful things I saw the night I went after her. They have sunk deep into my heart; and I hope, Mother, I see more clearly the deepest and noblest purpose of life, so as never again to forget it.

But, meantime, a thousand little cares break and fritter themselves on my heart, like waves on a rock. Everybody is running to me, every hour. I am consulter and sympathizer and adviser, from the shape of a bow and the positions of trimming up to the profoundest questions of casuistry. They all talk to me, and I divide my heart among them all, and so the days fly by with frightful rapidity, and I fear I shall get little time to write, so pray come and see for yourself

Your loving

Eva.

CHAPTER LI.

THE HOUR AND THE WOMAN.

It is said that Queen Elizabeth could converse in five languages, and dictate to three secretaries at once, in different tongues, with the greatest ease and composure.

Perhaps it might have been so—let us not quarrel with her laurels; it only shows what women can do if they set about it, and is not a whit more remarkable than Aunt Maria's triumphant management of all the details of two weddings at one time.

That estimable individual has not, we fear, always appeared to advantage in this history, and it is due to her now to say that nobody that saw her proceedings could help feeling the beauty of the right person in the right place.

Many a person is held to be a pest and a nuisance because there isn't enough to be done to use up his capabilities. Aunt Maria had a passion for superintending and directing, and all that was wanting to bring things right was an occasion when a great deal of superintendence and direction was wanting.

The double wedding in the family just fulfilled all the conditions. It opened a field to her that everybody was more than thankful to have her occupy.

Lovers, we all know, are, ex-officio, ranked among the incapables; and if, while they were mooning round in the fairy-land of sentiment, some good, strong, active, practical head were not at work upon the details of real life, nothing would be on time at the wedding. Now, if this be true of one wedding, how much more of two! So Aunt Maria stepped at once into command by acclamation and addressed herself to her work as a strong man to run a race; and while Angie and St. John spent blissful hours in the back parlor, and Jim and Alice monopolized the library, Aunt Maria flew all over New York, and arranged about all the towels and table-cloths and napkins and doilies, down to the very dish-cloths. She overlooked armies of sewing women, milliners and mantua-makers—the most slippery of all mortal creatures—and drove them all up to have each her quota in time. She, with Mrs. Van Arsdel, made lists of people to be invited, and busied herself with getting samples and terms from fancy stationers for the wedding cards. She planned in advance all the details of the wedding feast, and engaged the cake and fruit and ice-cream.

Nor did she forget the social and society exigencies of the crisis.

She found time, dressed in her best, to take Mrs. Van Arsdel in full panoply to return the call of Mrs. Dr. Gracey, who had come, promptly and properly, with the doctor, to recognize Miss Angelique and felicitate about the engagement of their nephew.

She arranged for a dinner-party to be given by Mrs. Van Arsdel, where the doctor and his lady were to be received into family alliance, and testimonies of high consideration accorded to them. Aunt Maria took occasion, in private converse with Mrs. Dr. Gracey, to assure her of her very great esteem and respect for Mr. St. John, and her perfect conviction that he was on the right road now, and that, though he might possibly burn a few more candles in his chapel, yet, when he came fully under family influences, they would gradually be snuffed out,—intimating that she intended to be aunt, not only to Arthur, but to his chapel and his mission-work.

The extraordinary and serene meekness with which that young divine left every question of form and etiquette to her management, and the sort of dazed humility with which he listened to all her rulings about the arrangements of the wedding-day, had inspired in Aunt Maria's mind such hopes of his docility as led to these very sanguine anticipations.

It is true that, when it came to the question of renting a house, she found him quietly but unalterably set on a small and modest little mansion in the unfashionable neighborhood where his work lay.

"Arthur is going on with his mission," said Angelique, "and I'm going to help him, and we must live where we can do most good"—a reason to which Aunt Maria was just now too busy to reply, but she satisfied herself by discussing at length the wedding affairs with Mrs. Dr. Gracey.

"Of course, Mrs. Gracey," she said, "we all feel that if dear Dr. Gracey is to conduct the wedding services, everything will be in the good old way; there'll be nothing objectionable or unusual."

"Oh, you may rely on that, Mrs. Wouvermans," replied the lady. "The doctor is not the man to run after novelties; he's a good old-fashioned Episcopalian. Though he always has been very indulgent to Arthur, he thinks, as our dear bishop does, that if young men are left to themselves, and not fretted by opposition, they will gradually outgrow these things."

"Precisely so," said Aunt Maria; "just what I have always thought. For my part I always said that it was safe to trust the bishop."

Did Aunt Maria believe this? She certainly appeared to. She sincerely supposed that this was what she always had thought and said, and quite forgot the times when she used to wonder "what our bishop could be thinking of, to let things go so."

It was one blessed facility of this remarkable woman that she generally came to the full conviction of the axiom that "whatever is, is right," and took up and patronized anything that would succeed in spite of her best efforts to prevent it.

So, in announcing the double wedding to her fashionable acquaintance, she placed everything, as the popular saying is, best foot foremost.

Mr. Fellows was a young man of fine talents, great industry and elegant manners, a great favorite in society, and likely to take the highest rank in his profession. Alice had refused richer offers—she might perhaps have done better in a worldly point of view, but it was purely a love match, &c., &c. And Mr. St. John, a young man of fine family and independent fortune, who might command all the elegancies of life, was going to live in a distant and obscure quarter, to labor in his work. These facts brought forth, of course, bursts of sympathy and congratulation, and Aunt Maria went off on the top of the wave.

Eva had but done her aunt justice when she told her mother that Aunt Maria would be all the more amiable for the firm stand which the young wife had taken against any interference with her family matters. It was so. Aunt Maria was as balmy to Eva as if that discussion had never taken place, though it must be admitted that Eva was a very difficult person to keep up a long quarrel with.

But just at this hour, when the whole family were at her feet, when it was her voice that decided every question, when she knew where everything was and was to be, and when everything was to be done, she was too well pleased to be unamiable. She was the spirit of the whole affair, and she plumed herself joyously when all the callers at the house said to Mrs. Van Arsdel, "Dear me! what would you do, if it were not for your sister?"

Verily she had her reward.

CHAPTER LII.

EVA'S CONSULTATIONS.

"Now see here," said Jim, coming in upon Eva as she sat alone in her parlor, "I've got something on my mind I want to talk with you about. You see, Alice and I are to be married at the same time with Angie and St. John."

"Yes, I see it."

"Well, now, what I want to say is, that I really hope there won't be anything longer and harder and more circumlocutory to be got through with on the occasion than just what's in the prayer-book, for that's all I can stand. I can't stand prayer-book with the variations, now I really can't."

"Well, Jim, what makes you think there will be prayer-book with the variations?"

"Oh, well, I attended a ritualistic wedding once, and there was such an amount of processing and chanting, and ancient and modern improvements, that it was just like a show. There were the press reporters elbowing and pushing to get the best places to write it up for the papers, and, for my part, I think it's in confounded bad taste, and I couldn't stand it; you know, now, I'm a nervous fellow, and if I've got to take part in the exercises, they'll have to 'draw it mild,' or Allie and I will have to secede and take it by ourselves. I couldn't go such a thing as that wedding; I never should come out alive."

"Well, Jim, I don't believe there's any reason for apprehension. In the first place, the ceremony, as to its mode and form, always is supposed to be conducted according to the preferences of the bride's family, and we all of us should be opposed to anything which would draw remark and comment, as being singular and unusual on such an occasion."

"I'm glad to hear that," said Jim.

"And then, Jim, Mr. St. John's uncle, Dr. Gracey, is to perform the ceremony, and he is one of the most respected of the conservative Episcopal clergymen in New York; and it is entirely out of the question to suppose that he would take part in anything of the sort you fear, or which would excite comment as an innovation. Then, again, I think Mr. St. John himself has so much natural refinement and just taste that he would not wish his own wedding to become a theme for gossip and a gazing stock for the curious."

"Well, I didn't know about St. John; I was a little afraid we should be obliged to do something or other, because they did it in the catacombs, or the Middle Ages, or in Edward the Sixth's time, or some such dodge. I thought I'd just make sure."

"Well, I think Mr. St. John has gone as far in those directions as he ever will go. He has been living alone up to this winter. He has formed his ideas by himself in solitude. Now he will have another half to himself; he will see in part through the eyes, and feel through the heart, of a sensible and discreet woman—for Angie is that. The society he has met at our house in such men as Dr. Campbell and others, has enlarged his horizon,—given him new points of vision,—so that I think the too great tendencies he may have had in certain directions have been insensibly checked."

"I wish they may," said Jim, "for he is a good fellow, and so much like one of the primitive Christians that I really want him to get all the credit that belongs to him."

"Oh, well, you'll see, Jim. When a man is so sincere and good, and labors with a good wife to help him, you'll see the difference. But here comes little Mrs. Betsey, Jim. I promised to get her up a cap for the occasion."

"Well, I'm off; only be sure you make matters secure about the ceremony," and off went Jim, and in came little Mrs. Betsey.

"It's so good of you, dear Mrs. Henderson, to undertake to make me presentable. You know Dorcas hasn't the least interest in these things. Dorcas is so independent, she never cares what the fashion is. Now, she isn't doing a thing to get ready. She's just going in that satin gown that she had made twenty years ago, with a great lace collar as big as a platter; and she sits there just as easy, reading 'Pope's Essay on Man,' and here I'm all in a worry; but I can't help it. I like to look a little like other folks, you know. I don't want people to think I'm a queer old woman."

"Certainly, it's the most natural thing in the world," said Eva, as she stepped into the little adjoining workroom, and brought out a filmy cap, trimmed with the most delicate shade of rosy lilac ribbons. "There!" she said, settling it on Mrs. Betsey's head, and tying a bow under her chin, "if anybody says you're not a beauty in this, I'd like to ask them why?"

"I know it's silly at my age, but I do like pretty things," said Mrs. Betsey, looking at herself with approbation in the glass, "and all the more that it's so very kind of you, dear Mrs. Henderson."

"Me? Oh, I like to do it. I'm a born milliner," said Eva.

"And now I want to ask a favor. Do you think it would do for us to take our Dinah to church to see the ceremony. I don't know anybody that could enjoy it more, and Dinah has so few pleasures."

"Why, certainly. Dinah! my faithful adviser and help in time of need? Why, of course, give my compliments to her, and tell her I shall depend on seeing her there."

"Dinah is so delighted at the thought that your sister and Mr. Fellows are coming to live with us, she is busy cleaning their rooms, and does it with a will. You know Mr. Fellows has just that gay, pleasant sort of way that delights all the servants, and she says your sister is such a beauty!"

"Well, be sure and tell Dinah to come to the wedding, and she shall have a slice of the cake to dream on."

"I think I shall feel so much safer when we have a man in the house," continued Mrs. Betsey. "You see we have so much silver, and so many things of that kind, and Dorcas frightens me to death, because she will have the basket lugged up into our room at night. I tell her if she'd only set it outside in the entry, then if the burglars came they could just go off with it, without stopping to murder us; but if it was in our room, why, of course, they would. The fact is, I have got so nervous about burglars that I am up and down two or three times a night."

"But you have Jack to take care of you."

"Jack is a good watch dog—he's very alert; but the trouble is, he barks just as loud when there isn't anything going on as when there is. Night after night, that dog has started us both up with such a report, and I'd go all over the house and find nothing there. Sometimes I think he hears people trying the doors or windows. Altogether, I think Jack frightens me more than he helps, though I know he does it all for the best, and I tell Dorcas so when he wakes her up. You know experienced people always do say that a small dog is the very safest thing you can have; but when Mr. Fellows comes I shall really sleep peaceably. And now, Mrs. Henderson, you don't think that light mauve silk of mine will be too young-looking for me?"

"No, indeed," said Eva. "Why shouldn't we all look as young as we can?"

"I haven't worn it for more than thirty years; but the silk is good as ever, and your little dress-maker has made it over with an over-skirt, and Dinah is delighted with it, and says it makes me look ten years younger!"

"Oh! well I must come over and see it on you."

"Would you care?" said Mrs. Betsey, delighted. "How good you are; and then I'll show you the toilette cushions I've been making for the dear young ladies; and Dorcas is going to give each of them a pair of real old India vases that have been in the family ever since we can remember."

"Why, you'll be robbing yourselves."

"No, indeed; it would be robbing ourselves not to give something, after all the kindness you've shown us."

And Eva went over to the neighboring house with Mrs. Betsey; and entered into all the nice little toilette details with her; and delighted Dinah with an invitation in person; and took a sympathizing view of Dinah's new bonnet and shawl, which she pronounced entirely adequate to the occasion; and thus went along, sewing little seeds of pleasure to make her neighbors happier—seeds which were to come up in kind thoughts and actions on their part by and by.

CHAPTER LIII.

WEDDING PRESENTS.

St. John and Angie were together, one evening, in the room that had been devoted to the reception of the wedding presents. This room had been Aunt Maria's pride and joy, and already it had assumed quite the appearance of a bazar, for the family connections of the Van Arsdels was large, and numbered many among the richer classes. Arthur's uncle, Dr. Gracey, and the family connections through him were also people in prosperous worldly circumstances, and remarkably well pleased with the marriage; and so there had been a great abundance of valuable gifts. The door-bell for the last week or two had been ringing incessantly, and Aunt Maria had eagerly seized the parcels from the servant and borne them to the depository, and fixed their stations with the cards of the givers conspicuously displayed.

Of course the reader knows that there were the usual amount of berry-spoons, and pie-knives, and crumb-scrapers; of tea-spoons and coffee-spoons; of silver tea-services; of bracelets and chains and studs and brooches and shawl-pins and cashmere shawls and laces. Nobody could deny that everything was arranged so as to make the very most of it.

Angie was showing the things to St. John, in one of those interminable interviews in which engaged people find so much to tell each other.

"Really, Arthur," she said, "it is almost too much. Everybody is giving to me, just at a time when I am so happy that I need it less than ever I did in my life. I can't help feeling as if it was more than my share."

Of course Arthur didn't think so; he was in that mood that he couldn't think anything on land or sea was too much to be given to Angie.

"And look here," she said, pointing him to a stand which displayed a show of needle-books and pincushions, and small matters of that kind, "just look here—even the little girls of my sewing-class must give me something. That needle-book, little Lottie Price made. Where she got the silk I don't know, but it's quite touching. See how nicely she's done it! It makes me almost cry to have poor people want to make me presents."

"Why should we deny them that pleasure—the greatest and purest in the world?" said St. John. "It is more blessed to give than to receive."

"Well, then, Arthur, I'll tell you what I was thinking of. I wouldn't dare tell it to anybody else, for they'd think perhaps I was making believe to be better than I was; but I was thinking it would make my wedding brighter to give gifts to poor, desolate people who really need them than to have all this heaped upon me."

Then Arthur told her how, in some distant ages of faith and simplicity, Christian weddings were always celebrated by gifts to the poor.

"Now, for example," said Angie, "that poor, little, pale dress-maker that Aunt Maria found for me,—she has worked day and night over my things, and I can't help wanting to do something to brighten her up. She has nothing but hard work and no holidays; no lover to come and give her pretty things, and take her to Europe; and then she has a sick mother to take care of—only think. Now, she told me, one day, she was trying to save enough to get a sewing-machine."

"Very well," said Arthur, "if you want to give her one, we'll go and look one out to-morrow and send it to her, with a card for the ceremony, so there will be one glad heart."

"Arthur, you—"

But what Angie said to Arthur, and how she rewarded him, belongs to the literature of Eden—it cannot be exactly translated.

Then they conferred about different poor families, whose wants and troubles and sorrows were known to those two, and a wedding gift was devised to be sent to each of them; and there are people who may believe that the devising and executing of these last deeds of love gave Angie and St. John more pleasure than all the silver and jewelry in the wedding bazar.

"I have reserved a place for our Sunday-school to be present at the ceremony," said Arthur; "and there is to be a nice little collation laid for them in my study; and we must go in there a few minutes after the ceremony, and show ourselves to them, and bid them good-by before we go to your mother's."

"Arthur, that is exactly what I was thinking of. I believe we think the same things always. Now, I want to say another thing. You wanted to know what piece of jewelry you should get for my wedding present."

"Well, darling?"

"Well, I have told Aunt Maria and mamma and all of them that your wedding gift to me was something I meant to keep to myself; that I would not have it put on the table, or shown, or talked about. I did this, in the first place, as a matter of taste. It seems to me that a marriage gift ought to be something sacred between us two."

"Like the white stone with the new name that no man knoweth save him that receiveth it," said St. John.

"Yes; just like that. Well, then, Arthur, get me only a plain locket with your hair in it, and give all the rest of the money to these uses we talked about, and I will count it my present. It will be a pledge to me that I shall not be a hindrance to you in your work, but a help; that you will do more and not less good for having me for your wife."

What was said in reply to this was again in the super-angelic dialect, and untranslatable; but these two children of the kingdom understood it gladly, for they were, in all the higher and nobler impulses, of one heart and one soul.

"As to the ceremony, Arthur," said Angie, "you know how very loving and kind your uncle has been to us. He has been like a real father; and since he is to perform it, I hope there will be nothing introduced that would be embarrassing to him or make unnecessary talk and comment. Just the plain, usual service of the Prayer-book will be enough, will it not?"

"Just as you say, my darling; this, undoubtedly, is your province."

"I think," said Angie, "that there are many things in themselves beautiful and symbolic, and that might be full of interest to natures like yours and mine, that had better be left alone if they offend the prejudices of others, especially of dear and honored friends."

"I don't know but you are right, Angie; at any rate, our wedding, so far as that is concerned, shall have nothing in it to give offense to any one."

"Sometimes I think," said Angie, "we please God by giving up, for love's sake, little things we would like to do in his service, more than by worship."

"Well, dear, that principle has a long reach. We will talk more about it by and by; but now, good-night!—or your mother will be scolding you again for sitting up late. Somehow, the time does slip away so when we get to talking."