University of Virginia Library

1. ELLEN HART.

CHAPTER I.

The bell in the tower of the `Old South'
church was tolling heavily and loud the strokes
for nine o'clock, as a Watchman came upon
his `beat on the corner of W — Place. It
was a cold, cloudy night, late in November,
and his large box-coat was closely buttoned
up to his throat and his winter cap drawn low
over his ears and forehead. With his rattle
hanging upon his wrist and a short club in
his grasp he began to pace his round into
Summer street. The wind came howling
through the cross avenues of the town westward,
causing the passengers on the walks to
bend low to it and with the cape of the cloak
shield their faces from its piercing effects.—
The street lamps burned more brightly than
usual in the clear atmosphere, but at intervals,
agitated by the wind which found its way
through the frame of the lantern, would flicker
and cast dancing shadows across the streets
and along the side-walks. Ashy-hued clouds
were driving along the gloomy sky, opening
now and then to let a star shine through
for an instaut and then disappear. Few persons
were in the streets and the hacks and
cabs that passed, went at a furious rate over
the icy ground, as if the drivers were willing
to exchange as soon as possible their bleak
elevation for a seat in the warm bar-room adjoining
their `stand.'

The watchman passed half-way up the
`Place,' and mid-way met his comrade advancing,
as warmly muffled against the cold
as himself.

`A stiff night, Maxwell,' said his companion.

`It will shut up the harbor! I have not
known so cold a snap at this season for years,'
responded the other.

`The poor will feel it.'

`Yes; and rogues will keep in, for they are
most of them too ill-clad to stand this weather;'
answered Maxwell with a laugh.

`The keenest will only be abroad and we
must keep the better watch.'

`The cold will keep me stirring,' growled
the other. `It is worth a man's life to sit
down five minutes. He'd never get up again!
See how comfortabte it looks in that parlor!
It's the rich this world was made for after all.
Now, that man who lives there, because he is
rich, can stay at home with his family and
enjoy himself, while we, because we are poor
men, must leave our wives and children and
be abroad in such a night as this to watch his
house! This is a rich man's world, and poor
folks have no business in it.'

`You have no cause to complain,' said Echardt,
with a German accent, `for your situation
is much better than that of thousands in
this city. To hundreds of poor devils you
and I are rich and envied! Look at that poor
man and his wife now with their little girl!'
and he pointed to a miserably clad man carrying
on his shoulder fragments of some old
fence, followed by a woman, her feet incased
in an old pair of men's boots and dressed in a
thin ragged gown accompanied by a barefooted
little child, both tottering under a load
of miserable fire-wood gathered in vacant lots,
and both looking, as doubtless they were, half
frozen to death. Maxwell turned and looked

after them as they went shivering past, one
behind the other, and then replied,

`You are right, Echardt. I am wrong to
complain. My lot is a good one. That might
have been me, my wife and my child! God's
mercies we all ought to be thankful for!'

`So we ought; and if every man who was
discontented would feel so, there would be less
complaining and a great deal more happiness.
It is not riches or a large fine house, or
a carriage and such things that make men
happy. We must carry our happiness about
with us in our bosoms. A contented spirit is
better than Jacob Astor's wealth. Now, much
as you envy Mr. Hart, who lives in this elegant
house,' he said, glancing at the windows
of the handsome mansion, the lights within
reflecting a rich crimson glow through the
closely drawn curtains, speaking of domestic
comfort combined with elegance, taste and
wealth; `happy as you think he is, I have no
doubt if we both knew the truth, we should
find that he was very far from being as happy
as you or I.'

`Perhaps not,' answered the other; `but
there is a poor shivering creature who has
seated herself on the steps as if she would get
warmth by gazing into the warm-looking windows.
I must start her up, or she will freeze
to stone there. Poor thing!'

`And so many houses—so many rooms—so
many beds—so many fire-places with plenty
of room around them as there are in this great
city, and yet here is a poor woman who has to
wander the streets. It is a shame to human
nature!'

`It is so; but it has always been so and always
will be so! Go on your rounds. I will
take care of her, Echart,' said Maxwell. The
other watchman then continued his walk,
beating his feet to keep the blood in circulation,
while Maxwell approached the woman
who had seated herself on the steps of the rich
man's house.

`Come, come, good woman! You must'nt
sit here,' he said in a firm but kind voice.—
`Have you no home to go to?' She was clad
in a calico gown, an old handkerchief and a
wretched hood! By the light of a street lamp
he saw that her naked feet were thrust into an
old pair of hotel slippers. He could not see
her features. He repeated his question.

`No,' she answered in a faint voice.

`Then go with me to the watch-house. You
will find at least a fire and a cot there!'

He took her by the arm and was about to
lead her away from the step when a gentleman,
enveloped to the eyes in the folds of a Spanish
cloak, came up and pausing said,

`What is the matter, Maxwell, for I believe
this is you!'

`A poor woman, Mr. Hart, who was sitting
on your steps where she would soon have got
stiff. She says she has no home and I am taking
her to the watch-house.'

`Please, sir, give me a little something?
asked the woman.

`You are always at your post, Maxwell.
That's right, never let the vagabonds be
about!'

`Please, sir.'

`I have nothing for you,' he answered coldly;
and passing her by he entered his dwelling,
while the watchman led off the poor woma.

This uncharitable person was a merchant of
eminence. His name was Henry Hart. He
had been the maker of his own fortune, and
lived in a style of magnificence commensurate
with his income. He had accumulated
his wealth on the miser's principle, that pennies
grew to pounds. He never gave away
money, he loved it for itself and for the consideration
it gave him among men. He was
nevertheless liberal in expenditure where himself
and his family were interested. He had
an excellent wife, both lovely and accomplished.
At the time he is now introduced to
the reader he had been sixteen years married,
and had five children, the eldest being a lovely
girl of fifteen with every advantage of education.
But we wlll enter his parlor with him
and witness the domestic scene, the idea of
which excited the envy of the watchman.

The merchant threw aside his cloak and
hat and listened a moment in the hall to the
sound of the pleasant voices of his children
which reached his ears. He sighed.

`Let them be happy now! They know not
at what expense of peace of mind I purchased
for them this enjoyment.' Mr. Hart, though
uncharitable and unfeeling when called upon
to administer of his wealth to the necessities
of others, was a kind and affectionate father.
Those who knew him only in his family regarded
him as a most excellent husband and
parent, and a kind, pleasant man. He was so

ndeed, wherever money was not concerned.
When this was the subject present, he knew
neither friendship nor affection. `Business'
was the magic word which covered a thousand
acts that were far removed from charity,
or honesty. But so long as the world knew
not the selfish and unlawful springs of action
he cared not the result upon others. He was
a merciless landlord and a hard creditor. But
this was all in the way of `business!'

So he had gotten rich, and men respected
him because he had gotten rich. His wife
moved in the `set' that became his pretensions
and they belonged to the fashionable and
gay world, they and their children.

But all is not prosperity that seems so. Four
years previous to the present time of our story
Mr. Hart had been placed in a very critical
situation for his credit, through the failure of
a House for which he had endorsed heavier
than he should have done. The announcement
of their failure and the notification that
their several notes to the aggregate sum of
sixteen thousand dollars had become due with
three days grace were simultaneous. He had
not a quarter of the sum at command and had
only the day before invested in a railroad all
the money he had of his own besides much
he had borrowed of the banks. His credit as
a merchant was in danger; and a merchant's
credit is his life. He thought of no way of
raising the money but by mortgaging one of
his houses, and this he feared to do lest it
should subject his soundness to suspicion. At
length he thought of a merchant who had retired
from business of whom he might possibly
borrow twelve thousand dollars for a few
days. He applied to him, but this gentleman,
though very opulent was not able to oblige
him, and declined loaning his note on the plea
that he already had it on so much paper in
Bank.

`Then if he has it on so much, it will be of
little consequence whether it is on another
note or not,' said Mr. Hart to himself, as he
left his dwelling full of the most agonising anticipations
of the blow about to fall upon his
good name. Suddenly a temptation rose up
in his mind! It was a temptation to make
use of the rich man's name by forgery. Mr.
Hart did not at once reject the thought, but as
he walked along dwelt upon it; and each moment
the idea of obtaining relief in this way
grew stronger.

`It will not be a forgery,' he said to himself,
`for I have the intention to take it up' He
said he hardly knew whose notes his name
was on, he had endorsed so many! Then I
have no fear of detection! Before its maturity
or he received a Bank notice, I should
pay and destroy it! I see no other alternative!
It must not be that the house of Henry
Hart fails for inability to meet a sudden payment
of sixteen thousand dollars! In a few
days I can command twice this sum, and shall
I now be ruined for want of half of it.'

Mr. Hart was alone in his counting room.
Before him on the desk lay a note in his handwriting.
It read as follows—

He stood for some time with his pen in his
hand looking at what he had written. His
face was pale; his lips firmly compressed.
Three several times he had dipped his pen into
the leaden standish by his arm and each time
hesitated to copy the signature from an old
letter which he had imitated closely on a sheet
of paper he had just torn up and thrown into
the grate.

`It is but a dash of the pen! and there is
really no crime—and certainly no danger!
Yet I do not like to do it. But there is no
other means of safety! I would die rather
than be protested in bank! I know I can
take it up and Mr. Stebbins will never be the
wiser for the use that has been made of his
name! It must be done!'

He drew the note before him and then with
a slow but firm hand copied accurately the
signature, `Robert Stebbins,' at the bottom of
the note!

`It is done,' he cried, dashing the pen upon
the floor and crushing it with his foot. He
cast sand upon the forged name, endorsed his
own upon the back of the note, and then tak
ing his hat went out. At a merchant's in —
street he stopped and readily obtained a signature.

`Been selling property to old Stebbins, Mr.
Hart?' asked the merchant.

`Yes'—he answered coloring, and thus sealing
his forgery with a falsehood.

The note was discounted without question,
as Mr. Hart well knew it would be. Some
days before it matured he took it up; and

when it was placed in his hands he felt a degree
of relief that he had been a stranger to
for many days. Crime, when the breast of
the criminal alone holds the secret, makes the
heart of man ill at ease. The danger was now
over and Mr. Hart that night slept soundly.

But the consequences of the act he had
been guilty of remained in its effects upon his
own moral feeling. This had become less sensitive;
and there was now no assurance that
in a parallel emergency he who had once resorted
to unlawful means to extricate himself
would not do so again and again.

Up to this time, however, when we meet
him in his front-hall listening to the merry
voices of his children he had not a second
time yielded to the temptation; for tempted
since he had often times been in the vicissitudes
of his extensive and complicated business
to relieve himself in this way. His affairs
were now outwardly prospering, but his
circumstances were far from being prosperous.
He had met with heavy losses and had
been very much embarrassed by unsuccessful
speculations. Nearly all his real estate had
been privately sacrificed to make good the
amounts he had drawn from his business capital
to meet their losses; for he had sold property
instead of resorting to false notes. The
recollection of the state of mental suffering
he had undergone while the forged note lay in
the Bank out of his hands, was fresh and
vivid, and led him to make any sacrifice
rather than subject himself again to these distressing
fears of detection.

Such was the character and condition of
Mr. Henry Hart, the wealthy merchant,
whose supposed happiness awakened the envy
of the watchman. But we will not keep him
longer in the hall.

He opened the door and the scene that met
his eyes was one familiar to him but not so to
the reader. The room was the front one of
two large and lofty apartments connected by
folding doors, which in summer were always
open. They were now closed and an elegant
piano stood against the polished doors; at
which, as he entered, a beautiful young girl of
fifteen was seated, not playing but laughing
and talking with a handsome youth of nineteen
or twenty, who was bending gracefully
over her.

In the centre of the parlor was a large
round table supporting a bronzed astral lamp,
which shed a rich, subdued, yet clear light
throughout the apartment. Beneath it around
the table were seven or eight boys and misses
under twelve, playing at a game called `Dr.
Busby,' with printed and beautifully colored
cards; and as Mr. Hart entered they were
shouting out with laughter all around for the
`Black-Eyed Lover.' It was a merry and
happy party of them, and every little heart
was overrunning with happiness. Two of the
children, a boy of eight and a little girl of six
years, were the children of the rich merchant,
the others were little visiters for the evening
A few feet removed from the table sat in a
velvet rocking chair a handsome and very lady-like
person sewing white fur upon a child's
pelisse. She was about thirty-eight, and yet
was youthful in her appearance. Her form,
however, was slight, and her health was evidently
delicate At intervals she would suspend
her work and look at the children around
the table with smiling interest in their amusement.
Often she would be referred to by
some one of the little people as authority
for such, and such modes of playing the game,
when she would give her opinion with a grace
and kindness than won their hearts.

Mrs. Hart was only happy in her children!
The rich crimson drapery of the windows,
the costly mirrors, the gorgeous carpet, the
expensive furniture and lavish ornaments of
the room in which she sat made no portion of her
enjoyment. She would have been as happy in
the humblest abode with her children gathered
around a pine table, in health, as she was now.
Her happiness, as Echardt would have said,
she drew from within, and was not dependent
for it on outward circumstances. It often
takes a whole life to learn this `wisdom of
life,' and few attain it, else there would be
fewer to complain of this world, as

a pendulum `swinging between a smile and a
tear.'

On opening the door, the husband and father
was greeted by half a dozen voices.

`There is pa!' said the mother rising and
meeting him with a smile. `We were all
just wishing, dear, you would be in by eight
o'clock!

`Oh, pa, how glad I am your come!' cried a
rosy little fellow of eight years, throwing up
his arms with glee, `we want you to come
and play Dr. Busby with us.'

`Dear papa!' exclaimed Grace, the little
maiden of six years, whose pelisse her ma was
trimming with warm fur for the cold winter;
and leaving her chair she ran to him to be
kissed.

He stooped and took her in his arms, and
lifting her high from the floor, kissed her rosy
mouth and then let her down again; her ringlets
flying in the rapid descent above her
head like a thousand ringlets of gold. With
a light bound she recovered herself and flew
back to her play, shouting, `Dr. Busby's son,'
when all laughed merrily and loud, for Dr.
Busby's son was not the right card to be called.
The scene fell like moral sunshine upon the
merchant's clouded heart; for he had come
home with a dark, gloomy spirit, having been
all day perplexed with new difficulties that
had arisen in his affairs. His reception and
the joyous hearts and the demonstrations of
affection restored him to himself and caused
him to forget his anxieties.

`You are cold, dear father,' said Ellen, his
eldest daughter, folding his hand in both her's!
`There is your nice arm-chair been waiting
for you all the evening. But I forgot to introduce
you to Edward Elmore. He has just
returned from college!' and Ellen blushed;
why, she did not know!

The young collegian shook Mr. Hart's
hand in a frank, yet respectful manner, saying—

`I suppose you must quite have forgotten
me, sir?'

`Are you not Dr. Elmore's son?

`Yes, sir.'

`I know you more, sir, by the likeness you
bear your father than from any recollection I
have of you as a boy before you went away.'

`Edward has altered very much,' said Mrs.
Hart, looking at his manly figure and fine
open countenance with kindly admiration.

`And sister Ellen says he has grown so
handsome too!' hallooed from the circle round
the table little Tommy, the rosy cheeked,
curly-headed lad of eight years old. `I 'spec'
she'll have him for a beau!'

`Why Tommy are you not ashamed?' exclaimed
Ellen, running to him and pulling his
hair, as much to hide her blushes from Edward
as to punish him for his mischievous betrayal
of her opinion.

`Ellen, dear, you will order your pa's tea
in,' said her mother with a smile.

The confused maiden ran out of the room
glad to hide her embarrassment. Would she
have been embarrassed, my fair reader, if telltale
little Tommy instead of minding his
game of `Dr. Busby' had not come near the
truth? Would she have blushed if she had
thought nothing about him? And would he
have colored as he did and turned to the piano
to admire very perseveringly the gilded
ornaments encompassing the name of the
maker, if he had not thought of the beauteous
Ellen with more particularity than he regarded
other young misses?

We leave the question unanswered. The
random words of the little Tommy, however,
made an impression upon the minds of both
parents and instinctively they looked at each
other and divined each other's thoughts.

Young Edward Elmore, though still very
young, and just graduated at Yale College,
was destined nevertheless to hold a position
in society through the wealth and influence of
his family, that rendered him even at this age
a `good match' in prospective in the eyes of
parents who were far-sighted; and such a
parent was Mr. Hart. The idea took possession
of his mind, and was one that he received
with pleasure.

Dr. Elmore, the father of Edward, had been
a physician in London, of considerable eminence;
but marrying a Bostonian, and having
inherited a handsome fortune, he removed
to the United States. He now resided in
Boston, a retired gentleman, but with the reputation
of being rich; Edward was his oldest
son; but he had two daughters, both older
than Edward. The knowledge that Dr. Elmore
was related to a noble family in England
gave him and his children a consideration in
society extraneous from that conferred upon
him by his wealth.

The character of Edward was every thing
a judicious and fond father could desire. He
was manly, honorable and frank. Integrity
and uprightness of heart and feeling strongly
characterized him. His disposition was generous,
and his intellect of a superior cast.

His advantages had been closely improved,
and he now was entering life with the brightest
prospect before him of usefulness and honor.
He had already commenced the study of
medicine with his father; for, though rich, he
wisely resolved to secure to himself a means
of independence that had a basis more stable

than money. In his boyhood he had known
Ellen Hart, and one of his first visits, on his
return, had been to her, whose lovely image
had often flitted over his pages among Greek
characters, and the cold outlines of mathematical
demonstrations.