University of Virginia Library

18. CHAPTER XVIII.
LAST SCENE OF ALL.

Before I finally dismiss the personages of my
little drama, let me indulge the delusion that
my audience, by an encouraging round of applause,
have “called them out” to be marshalled
yet once again in their sight.

It must have been apparent to my readers,
from the turn things were taking at the close
of my last chapter, that Ruth and Stanford have
been worthily provided for, long before this
work reaches the public eye. Let us hope that
in their prosperity they will lose none of those
generous traits that distinguished them while
they were struggling with worldly ills and privations;
but that their union, in enhancing their
joys, may also enhance their virtues.

Arthur Loveday is at present engaged in his
collegiate studies, after the completion of which
he looks forward to entering upon the study of
medicine. Frank is still at school. He has not
lost his old predilections for a mercantile life.
Over the mantelpiece in his chamber is a glass
case, enclosing the memorable hat, which, in his
days of poverty, was wont to expose him to so
much persecution and remark. He has liberally
assisted many of his old associates in procuring
occupations by which they can gain a

subsistence. He owns a “first-rate” pony, and
is in the habit of taking a ride on horseback
every morning before breakfast.

As for our friend May—sunny, smiling little
May—she is fast blooming into girlhood. Long
since has she made the coveted present to her
friend Lucy Marvell; and not one present merely,
but more than I can count.

The Bangs family have been taken under the
especial protection of Ruth, who has provided
for them all in the handsomest manner, placing
the boys in situations where, with industry and
perseverance, they can aspire to the most honourable
stations in the community.

I must not forget our old acquaintance, Mr.
Bibb. Ruth has set him up in business, and he
is now fatter, more jocose, and prosperous than
ever, notwithstanding the irreparable loss he
has sustained in the death of Mrs. Bibb. That
notable lady burst a bloodvessel not long since
while scolding a book-pedler, who had trodden
with muddy feet on her best carpet—a new-year's
gift from Frank Loveday. It is still the
old grocer's delight to collect the children of
the neighbourhood about him, and feast them
with candy and raisins—a pastime which he
can now indulge in unrebuked. He has made
one good resolve for the future: never to meddle
again in affairs of the heart, nor to try his
talents at match-making.

A singular fate has befallen Mr. Edward Dangleton.
Overcome by a terrific sense of his
past delinquencies and transgressions, his mind
seems to have rebounded from its vicious apathy

into the extreme of fanaticism. He is now a
strolling preacher, and he finds many hearers
among the poorer classes of society, with whom
his franticly fervid appeals and sulphurous exhortations
are popular and effectual. That he
is sincere, no one can listen to him and doubt;
but in his eyes, the Supreme Being is a penal
God of terror, and vindictiveness, and hoarded
wrath, not a Father of infinite benignity, mercy,
justice, and love, as he manifests himself to
us in his works. And thus does poor human
frailty make for itself and for the world a Deity,
investing him with attributes which can have
no existence save in the depraved and affrighted
imagination of the inventor!

“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall
see God.” What more shall we ask? Heaven
must be looked for in the soul; and, as we grow
in goodness, we draw nearer to God, who is
infinitely good. Fallible brother! how shalt
thou presume to measure the distance between
me and the Divinity, or to analyze that which
God and his commissioned angels can alone
discern? Dost thou, who cannot explain to me
the principle of life in the meanest reptile, dare
to pronounce judgment against an immortal
soul? Go pray for that knowledge which may
enlighten thee as to the extent of thine own
ignorance. Thou hast brazen, stentorian lungs,
but there is a still, small, pleading voice, whose
lightest whisper can drown thy noisy fulminations:
it is the voice of conscience!

There is yet another of my characters who
should not be forgotten in this farewell glance.

I allude to Monsieur Mallet, the friend of Von
Steinbach, the composer of—Chaos can tell
what. As he sympathized with Ruth in her misfortunes,
so did he bask in the sunshine of her
prosperous days. Through Arthur's agency,
publishers have been found for his favourite
compositions, all of which are dedicated, in
grandiloquent terms, to his former pupil. Rumours
have reached me that one of his operas
was recently put in rehearsal at the Park Theatre,
but that it was hastily withdrawn on the
manager's finding, to his dismay, that the piece
was in twelve acts—a most unexampled instance
of musical fertility!

My task is done. The little structure which
my pen has raised is complete. Time may
soon rend its fragile foundations, and cover it
with the dust of merited oblivion; but its truths,
if it contain any, shall be imperishable.