University of Virginia Library

HALF-LENGTHS FROM LIFE.

1. CHAPTER I.
OPERATIVE DEMOCRACY.

“Can't you let our folks have some eggs?” said Daniel Webster
Larkins, opening the door, and putting in a little straw-coloured
head and a pair of very mild blue eyes just far enough to reconnoitre;
“can't you let our folks have some eggs? Our old
hen don't lay nothing but chickens now, and mother can't eat
pork, and she a'n't had no breakfast, and the baby a'n't drest,
nor nothin'!”

“What is the matter, Webster? Where's your girl?”

“Oh! we ha'n't no girl but father, and he's had to go 'way to-day
to a raisin'—and mother wants to know if you can't tell her
where to get a girl?”

Poor Mrs. Larkins! Her husband makes but an indifferent
“girl,” being a remarkable public-spirited person. The good
lady is in very delicate health, and having an incredible number
of little blue eyes constantly making fresh demands upon her
time and strength, she usually keeps a girl when she can get one.
When she cannot, which is unfortunately the larger part of the
time, her husband dresses the children—mixes stir-cakes for the
eldest blue eyes to bake on a griddle, which is never at rest—
milks the cow—feeds the pigs—and then goes to his “business,”
which we have supposed to consist principally in helping at raisings,
wood-bees, huskings, and such like important affairs; and

“girl” hunting—the most important and arduous, and profitless
of all.

Yet it must be owned that Mr. Larkins is a tolerable carpenter,
and that he buys as many comforts for his family as most of his
neighbours. The main difficulty seems to be that “help” is not
often purchasable. The very small portion of our damsels who
will consent to enter anybody's doors for pay, makes the chase
after them quite interesting from its uncertainty; and the damsels
themselves, subject to a well known foible of their sex, become
very coy from being over-courted. Such racing and chasing,
and begging and praying, to get a girl for a month! They are
often got for life with half the trouble. But to return.

Having an esteem for Mrs. Larkins, and a sincere experimental
pity for the forlorn condition of “no girl but father,” I set out at
once to try if female tact and perseverance might not prove effectual
in ferreting out a “help,” though mere industry had not succeeded.
For this purpose I made a list in my mind of those
neighbours, in the first place, whose daughters sometimes condescended
to be girls; and, secondly, of the few who were enabled
by good luck, good management, and good pay, to keep them. If
I failed in my attempts upon one class, I hoped for somenew lights
from the other. When the object is of such importance, it is
well to string one's bow double.

In the first category stood Mrs. Lowndes, whose forlorn log-house
had never known door or window; a blanket supplying the
place of the one, and the other being represented by a crevice
between the logs. Lifting the sooty curtain with some timidity, I
found the dame with a sort of reel before her, trying to wind
some dirty, tangled yarn; and ever and anon kicking at a basket
which hung suspended from the beam overhead by means of a
strip of hickory bark. This basket contained a nest of rags and
an indescribable baby; and in the ashes on the rough hearth
played several dingy objects, which I suppose had once been babies.

“Is your daughter at home now, Mrs. Lowndes?”

“Well, yes! M'randy's to hum, but she's out now. Did you
want her?”

“I came to see if she could go to Mrs. Larkins, who is very
unwell, and sadly in want of help.”

“Miss Larkins! why, do tell! I want to know! Is she sick
agin? and is her gal gone? Why! I want to know! I thought
she had Lo-i-sy Paddon! Is Lo-i-sy gone?”

“I suppose so. You will let Miranda go to Mrs. Larkins, will
you?”

“Well, I donnow but I would let her go for a spell, just to
'commodate 'em. M'randy may go if she's a mind ter. She
needn't live out unless she chooses. She's got a comfortable
home, and no thanks to nobody. What wages do they give?”

“A dollar a week.”

“Eat at the table?”

“Oh! certainly.”

“Have Sundays?”

“Why no—I believe not the whole of Sunday—the children,
you know—”

“Oh ho!” interrupted Mrs. Lowndes, with a most disdainful
toss of the head, giving at the same time a vigorous impulse to
the cradle, “if that's how it is, M'randy don't stir a step! She
don't live nowhere if she can't come home Saturday night and
stay till Monday morning.”

I took my leave without farther parley, having often found this
point the sine qua non in such negotiations.

My next effort was at a pretty-looking cottage, whose overhanging
roof and neat outer arrangements, spoke of English
ownership. The interior by no means corresponded with the
exterior aspect, being even more bare than usual, and far from
neat. The presiding power was a prodigious creature, who looked
like a man in woman's clothes, and whose blazing face, ornamented
here and there by great hair moles, spoke very intelligibly
of the beer-barrel, if of nothing more exciting. A daughter
of this virago had once lived in my family, and the mother met
me with an air of defiance, as if she thought I had come with an
accusation. When I unfolded my errand, her abord softened a
little, but she scornfully rejected the idea of her Lucy living with
any more Yankees.

“You pretend to think everybody alike,” said she, “but when

it comes to the pint, you're a sight more uppish and saucy than
the ra'al quality at home; and I'll see the whole Yankee race
to —”

I made my exit without waiting for the conclusion of this complimentary
observation; and the less reluctantly for having observed
on the table the lower part of one of my silver teaspoons, the
top of which had been violently wrenched off. This spoon was
a well-remembered loss during Lucy's administration, and I knew
that Mrs. Larkins had none to spare.

Unsuccessful thus far among the arbiters of our destiny, I
thought I would stop at the house of a friend, and make some inquiries
which might spare me farther rebuffs. On making my
way by the garden gate to the little library where I usually
saw Mrs. Stayner, I was surprised to find it silent and uninhabited.
The windows were closed; a half-finished cap lay on the
sofa, and a bunch of yesterday's wild-flowers upon the table. All
spoke of desolation. The cradle—not exactly an appropriate adjunct
of a library scene elsewhere, but quite so at the West—
was gone, and the little rocking-chair was nowhere to be seen. I
went on through parlour and hall, finding no sign of life, save the
breakfast-table still standing with crumbs undisturbed. Where
bells are not known, ceremony is out of the question; so I penetrated
even to the kitchen, where at length I caught sight of the
fair face of my friend. She was bending over the bread-tray,
and at the same time telling nursery-stories as fast as possible, by
way of coaxing her little boy of four years old to rock the cradle
which contained his baby sister.

“What does this mean?”

“Oh! nothing more than usual. My Polly took herself off
yesterday without a moment's warning, saying she thought she had
lived out about long enough; and poor Tom, our factotum, has
the ague. Mr. Stayner has gone to some place sixteen miles off,
where he was told he might hear of a girl, and I am sole representative
of the family energies. But you've no idea what capital
bread I can make.”

This looked rather discouraging for my quest; but knowing
that the main point of table-companionship was the source of
most of Mrs. Stayner's difficulties, I still hoped for Mrs. Larkins,

who loved the closest intimacy with her “help,” and always took
them visiting with her. So I passed on for another effort at Mrs.
Randall's, whose three daughters had sometimes been known to
lay aside their dignity long enough to obtain some much-coveted
article of dress. Here the mop was in full play; and Mrs. Randall,
with her gown turned up, was splashing diluted mud on the
walls and furniture, in the received mode of these regions, where
“stained-glass windows” are made without a patent. I did not
venture in, but asked from the door, with my best diplomacy,
whether Mrs. Randall knew of a girl.

“A gal! no; who wants a gal?”

“Mrs. Larkins.”

“She! why don't she get up and do her own work?”

“She is too feeble.”

“Law sakes! too feeble! she'd be able as anybody to thrash
round, if her old man didn't spile her by waitin' on—”

We think Mrs. Larkins deserves small blame on this score.

“But, Mrs. Randall, the poor woman is really ill and unable
to do anything for her children. Couldn't you spare Rachel for
a few days to help her?”

This was said in a most guarded and deprecatory tone, and
with a manner carefully moulded between indifference and undue
solicitude.

“My gals has got enough to do. They a'n't able to do their
own work. Cur'line hasn't been worth the fust red cent for hard
work ever since she went to school to A—.”

“Oh! I did not expect to get Caroline. I understand she is
going to get married.”

“What! to Bill Green! She wouldn't let him walk where
she walked last year!”

Here I saw I had made a misstep. Resolving to be more cautious,
I left the selection to the lady herself, and only begged for
one of the girls. But my eloquence was wasted. The Miss
Randalls had been a whole quarter at a select school, and will
not live out again until their present stock of finery is unwearable.
Miss Rachel, whose company I had hoped to secure, was
even then paying attention to a branch of the fine arts.

“Rachel Amandy!” cried Mrs. Randall at the foot of the ladder

which gave access to the upper regions—“fetch that thing
down here! It's the prettiest thing you ever see in your life!”
turning to me. And the educated young lady brought down a
doleful-looking compound of card-board and many-coloured waters,
which had, it seems, occupied her mind and fingers for some
days.

“There!” said the mother, proudly, “a gal that's learnt to
make sich baskets as that, a'n't a goin' to be nobody's help, I
guess!”

I thought the boast likely to be verified as a prediction, and
went my way, crestfallen and weary. Girl-hunting is certainly
among our most formidable “chores.”

2. CHAPTER II.
INTRODUCTIONS AND REMINISCENCES

Thus unsuccessful, it was for rest more than for inquiry that
I turned my steps toward Mrs. Clifford's modest dwelling—a
house containing only just rooms enough for decent comfort, yet
inhabited by gentle breeding, and feelings which meet but little
sympathy in these rough walks. Mrs. Clifford was a widow,
bowed down by misfortune, and gradually sinking into a sort of
desperate apathy, if we may be allowed such a term—a condition
to which successive disappointments and the gradual fading
away of long-cherished hopes, will sometimes reduce proud
yet honourable minds. The apathy is on the surface, but the
smouldering fires of despair burst forth at intervals, in spite of
their icy covering. Exertion had long since been abandoned by
this unfortunate lady, and she sat always in her great arm-chair,
seeming scarce alive to common things, yet starting in agonized
sensitiveness when the tender string of her altered fortunes was
touched by a rude hand. This total renunciation of effort had
done its work upon her mind and body. Mrs. Clifford had become
a mere mountain in size, while her pale face and leaden
eye told of anything but health and enjoyment. She read incessantly,
seeking that “oblivious antidote” in books, which coarser
natures are apt to seek in less refined indulgences. She lived in
a world of imagination until she had insensibly become unfit for
a world of reality. Who can find anything charming in common
life, after a full surrender of the mind to the excitements of fiction?
Who ever relished common air after a long draught of
exhilarating gas?

To the looker-on, this poor lady, broken down and dispirited
as she was, seemed to have much left for which to be grateful.
Her two daughters and their manly brother were patterns of duty
and devoted affection. Through the whole sad period of the
downfall of their fortunes, and the gradual withdrawal, from
various causes, of almost the very means of existence, Augustus
Clifford shrank from nothing which promised advantage to his
mother's condition. While she had yet an income, he was her
very efficient and accurate man of business; and when the “misfortunes”
of banks, and the assiduity of “defaulters” had made
this office a sinecure, he turned his hand to the plough, and was
the “patient log-man” of a poverty-stricken household. He had
seen with unavailing distress the sad decay of his mother's energies,
and done all that a son may, to avert the ill consequences
of her indolent habits; but finding matters only growing worse,
he had left home at the urgent entreaty of his sisters, a few
weeks before the time when our story commences, to seek employment
in the city, where abilities like his are so much more in
request than in the woods.

Of the two daughters, Rose, the elder, was in feeble health,
and, though gentle and unassuming, and much beloved at home,
not particularly attractive elsewhere. She was said to have
been crossed in love, and her subdued and rather melancholy
manner seemed to confirm the report. But Anna Clifford had
beauty and grace of a rare order, though in a style not always
appreciated by those who admire that fragility of form which is so
coveted by our own fair countrywomen. She was taller than
most women, but so beautifully proportioned that this would not
occur to you until you saw her measured with others. Magnificent
is the epithet for her beauty; and much intercourse with
polished society had given a free and finished elegance to her
manners, while it had detracted nothing from the truth and simplicity
of her character. Born to fortune, and having the further
advantages of connections high in place, it is not surprising that
she should have found many admirers. Indeed we have the satisfaction
of knowing that our forest judgment of her charms had
been borne out by the homage rendered to our fair neighbour by
various young men of acknowledged taste who had bowed at her

shrine in happier days. But it may not be so easy to believe
that her heart was still her own. Perhaps the careless gayety of
her spirits had proved her shield, since all passion is said to be
serious. However this may be, she declared she would not
marry till thirty, adding, with the deep determination of twenty-one,
and also with the tone which befits the inheritrix of certain
prejudices, that then the happy man should be neither a Yankee,
a Presbyterian, nor a widower.

We have omitted to mention that these our friends were from
England—one forgets that friends are foreigners. Mrs. Clifford,
whose income at home had diminished from various causes, was
attracted to this country by the far higher interest to be obtained
on money; and during some years that she resided in one of the
great cities, her expectations of increased income were more than
realized, and she and her family had enjoyed all that the best
American circles afforded to the wealthy and the accomplished of
whatever land. When the dark days came, and Mrs. Clifford
found herself left with scarcely a pittance, the “West”—then an
El Dorado—offered many attractions to the sanguine mind of
Augustus, and he persuaded his mother to withdraw, while yet
she might be able to purchase a little land where land is almost
given away. What had been the result of this enterprise, we
have already seen. Mrs. Clifford was too old to bear transplanting.
A high aristocratic pride was the very soul of her being.
In the present condition of her circumstances, she felt not only
inconvenience—that was unavoidable under a complete revulsion
of habits—but degradation; an idea which common sense and
self-respect should have scouted. And the very thing that should
have made present sacrifices easy, served but to embitter them.
The Cliffords had expectations from England, on the demise of
some long-lifed uncle or aunt; a fortune, of course, since an
English legacy always passes for a fortune, an involuntary compliment,
I suppose, to the well-known wealth of our magnificent
mother. However, the Cliffords said “expectations,” which we
will leave to be limited, or unlimited, by the imagination of the
reader.

This much by way of introduction—an indispensable ceremony,
always attended with some awkwardness. Our present one

has been circumstantial and minute, after the fashion of the country,
e. g.:

“Miss Wiggins, let me make you acquainted with an uncle of
His'n, just come down from Ionia county, the town of Freemantle,
village of Breadalbane—come away up here to mill, (they
ha'n't no mills yet, up there.) Uncle, this is Miss Wiggins,
John Wiggins's wife, up yonder on the hill, t'other side o' the
mash—you can see the house from here. She's come down to
meetin'.”

3. CHAPTER III.
“THE HARROWS.”

This same introduction has unavoidably called for so many
words, that we must hasten over some minor points in the character
and situation of our young friends. It would require a
long story to express fully the difficulties under which these
sweet girls laboured, in trying to soften for their mother a lot
which they could cheerfully have endured themselves. Mrs.
Clifford's habits were imperative, her prejudices immoveable.
All that had yet occurred had failed to make her perceive that it
was necessary to do without everything but the bare requisites
of subsistence; and to keep this sad necessity from her eyes had
been the constant study of her children. She had, indeed, no
idea of their efforts and sacrifices, or of the real condition of the
household.

“Where is the silver chocolate-pot, Anna?” Mrs. Clifford inquired
one morning at breakfast.

“You, know, mamma, the handle was loose, and I took it to
the village.”

“But what a length of time it has been gone! Pray inquire
for it! I do so hate this earthen thing!”

The poor lady would have been without chocolate, and without
tea also, if the chocolatière had not been transferred, at least pro.
tem. to the possession of our village dealer-in-all-things. But
the idea of such a transaction would almost have crazed her;
and she had so far lost the train of cause and effect, that she
thought the last bank-note brought in by Augustus had sufficed

for six weeks' family expenses. The girls never gathered courage
to enlighten their mother's views as to pecuniary matters,
though they were sometimes obliged to run away to hide their
tears when she would remark the meanness of their dress, and
fear they were contracting habits which would unfit them to enjoy
better fortune. Anna Clifford and her sister, forced by suffering
to learn a premature prudence, often wished, in the grief of their
hearts, that no prospect of an inheritance had prevented their
mother from accommodating her ideas to her present condition.
This “waiting for dead men's shoes” is proverbially enervating
to the character.

When I entered the little parlour, I was somewhat startled by
the sight of two rough-looking men, one fanning himself with his
hat, the other drumming on the table with his long, black, horny
nails, and both taking a deliberate survey of the apartment and
all that it contained. In the accustomed chair sat Mrs. Clifford,
a purple spot on each cheek, and a look of helpless anger in her
eye, while her daughters, one on either side of her, stood, pale as
death, gazing on these strange guests.

“Well! I guess we may as well levy, if you've nobody to stay
judgment,” said the straw hat, who seemed to be principal.
“Mr. Grinder told us the money or the things. That's the hang
of it. No mistake. Turn out what you like, or we'll take what
we like. No two ways about it! You ha'n't hid nothing, have
ye? If you have, you'd better rowst it out at once't! We've a
right to sarch.”

Mrs. Clifford gasped for breath.

“Who sent you here?” she said.

“Oh! we're for Grinder. That bill, you know. Your son
there confessed judgment. I s'pose he thought levyin' time would
never come. We want a hundred dollars, or goods to that amount.
You've got a good deal more than the law allows—now what'll
you turn out? Come, be lively, gals, for we can't wait!”

This was said quite facetiously.

“Couldn't you grant a little time, till we can hear from my
brother?” said Anna, who seemed more self-possessed than her
mother or Rose.

“Can't go it! No fun in waitin'. Hearin' from him won't do
no good, unless he sends money. Do you expect money?”

“Yes—that is—we hope—”

“Ha! ha! hope starved a rattlesnake! We can't eat nor
drink hope. Come, Woodruff, they a'n't a goin' to turn out any
thing but talk. Go ahead!”

Our poor friends were overwhelmed, but seeing no present
remedy, they could only sit quietly looking on while the officers
proceeded to execute this trying process of law. I must do Mr.
Beals and his assistant the justice to say that, allowing for their
rude natures, they were not wilfully insulting, but performed
their duty with as few words as possible. Indeed, nothing can
be more foreign to the character of the men of this country than
any thing like intentional rudeness to a woman. We must not
blame them for not respecting feelings which they could not understand.

When they had departed, Mrs. Clifford's pride came to the
rescue. In reply to the words of sympathy which one cannot
help offering in such cases, she said it was a thing of no importance
at all. “My son will come or send before these people
actually proceed to sell our property! It can never be that the
very furniture of my house is to be taken away by a low person
like Grinder! I cannot imagine why Augustus does not write!
I expected he would have sent us funds long ago!”

It would have been unavailing to convince the poor lady that
her son might not probably find it very easy to pick up money,
even in the city, in these times; so we turned the discourse gradually
to other things. I stated the purpose of my long walk and
its ill success; and after some attempts at conversation—laboured
enough when all hearts were full of one subject, and that, one
that did not bear handling—I invited Mrs. Clifford with her daughters
to remove to our house until Augustus should return.

The old lady's manner was stately enough for Queen Elizabeth.
She thanked me very graciously, but felt quite too sad, as
well as too infirm, she said, to think of quitting home. And with
this reply I was about to take my leave, when Anna, suddenly
turning to her mother, declared she should like very much to accept
the invitation.

It was as easy to read high displeasure in the countenance of
the mother as most painful surprise in that of the gentle Rose.
But Anna, though her cheek was flushed and her lip quivering
with emotion, persisted in her wish.

“You will return with me now?”

“Not just now, but this evening.”

And I promised to send.

“What must you have thought of me?” said the dear girl as I
welcomed her. “But you could not suppose for a moment that
I really coveted a visit when my poor mother's heart was so cruelly
wrung! Ah no! it was a lucky thought that struck me
when you said Mrs. Larkins wanted a servant. It flashed upon
me that in that way I might earn a pittance, however small, on
which mamma and Rose can subsist until we hear from Augustus.
You see what these horrid debts come to, and we are absolutely
without present resources. Ah! I see what you are going to
say; but do not even speak of it! Mamma would rather die, I
believe! Only get me in at Mrs. Larkins', and you shall see
what a famous maid I'll make! I have learned so much since
we came here! And I have arranged it all with Rose, that mamma
shall never discover it. Mamma is a little deaf, you know,
and does not hear casual observations, and Rose will take care
that nobody tells her. Poor Rose cried a good deal at first, but
she saw it was the best thing I could do for mamma, so she consented.
She can easily do all that is needed at home, while my
strong arms”—and here she extended a pair that Cleopatra might
have envied, so round, so graceful, so perfect—“my strong arms
can earn all the little comforts, that are every thing to poor mamma!
Won't it be delightful! Oh, I shall be so happy! There
is only one sad side. My mother will think—till Augustus returns—that
I have selfishly flown from her trials.” And at the
thought she burst into tears, for the remembrance of her mother's
displeasure weighed sorely upon her.

I have not thought it necessary to record the various interruptions
which I could not help making to this plan. Anna's warmth
overpowered all I could say, and she succeeded in convincing my
reason at least, if not my feelings, that it was the best thing for

the present. Her eyes did not allow of close application to the
needle, and the uncertainty of that most laborious of all ways of
earning a poor living, was a further objection. In the country
few persons undertake needlework as a business. Sometimes a
widow with children, or a wife whose husband frequents the tavern,
earns a scanty and ill-paid addition to her means in this way,
and with such it seems hardly right for the young and healthy
to interfere. But “girls” are universally in request, and get as
well paid and much better treated than schoolmistresses, with far
less wearing employment. I knew that at Mrs. Larkins' Anna
would meet with decent treatment, and be sure of a punctual dollar
per week; since Mr. Larkins hates mixing griddle-cakes too
much ever to lose a girl for want of this essential security.

The thing was settled, and all I could do was to procure the
introduction.

Mrs. Larkins was at first a little afraid of “such a lady” for
a help, but after a close and searching examination, she consented
to engage Miss Clifford for a week.

I left Anna in excellent spirits, and, during several evening
visits which she contrived to make me in the course of this her
first week of servitude, she declared herself well satisfied with
her situation, and only afraid that Mrs. Larkins would not care
to retain one who was so awkward about many things required in
her household. But she must have underrated her own skill, for
on the Saturday evening, Mr. Larkins put into her hands a silver
dollar, with a very humble request for a permanent engagement.

The spending of that dollar, Anna Clifford declared to me was
the greatest pleasure she could remember.

4. CHAPTER IV.
CHARACTERISTICS.

That blessed privilege of the state of “girlhood” in the country—the
undisturbed possession of Sunday—not falling to the lot
of Miss Clifford, she could only snatch a moment to visit her mother
and sister, and deposit with the latter the various little matters
which were the fruit of her first earnings. She went, however,
in high spirits. “Poor Rose will be so happy!” she said.

When she returned, a cloud sat on her beautiful brow, and her
cheeks bore the marks of much weeping. “Mamma received
me very coldly,” she said; “she thinks I am enjoying myself
with you! But I must bear this—it is a part of my duty, and I
thought I had made up my mind to it. 'Twill be but a little
while! When Augustus comes, all will be well again.”

Strong in virtuous resolution, Anna returned to her toil. Another
week or two passed, and the Larkinses continued to esteem
themselves the most fortunate of girl-hunters. Anna's active habits,
strong sense, and high principle, made all go well; and the
influence which she soon established over the household, was such
as superior intellect would naturally command, where there was
no idea of difference of station. Mrs. Larkins would have thought
the roughest of her neighbours' daughters entitled to a full equality
with herself; and she treated Miss Clifford with all the additional
respect which her real superiority demanded. It has been
well said that the highest intellectual qualifications may find employment
in the arrangements of a household; and our friends
the Larkinses, young and old, if they had ever heard of the doctrine,
would, I doubt not, have subscribed to it heartily, for they
will never forget Miss Clifford's reign. Without dictating, like
good Mrs. Mason, in the Cottagers of Glenburnie, (whose benefits,

I have sometimes thought, must have been harder to bear than
other people's injuries,) she continued to introduce many excellent
improvements, and indeed a general reform throughout.
The beds were shielded from public view; the family ablutions
were no longer performed in an iron skillet on the hearth, or a
trough under the eaves; and Mrs. Larkins solemnly burnt the
willow switch which had hitherto been her only means of government,
declaring the children never required it under Miss Clifford's
excellent management. Thus encouraged by her success
in the process of civilization, Anna told me laughingly that she
did not despair of the highest step—to induce Mrs. Larkins to
boil corned beef instead of frying it, and Mr. Larkins to leave off
tobacco. And far from feeling degraded by her labours, she said
she was quite raised in her own opinion by the discovery of her
power of being useful.

I own I suspected a little the solidity of this boast of independence.
We sometimes say such things for a double purpose—as
a boy passing through a church-yard at night whistles partly to
show he is not afraid and partly to keep up his courage. Anna's
position with regard to the people with whom she lived, was indeed,
as we have said, one of decided superiority. To see her
maid well drest and at leisure every afternoon, seated in the
“keepin'-room” ready to be introduced to any one who should
call; to give her always the lady-like title of “Miss,” and to
share with her whatever was laborious or unpleasant in the daily
business—this Mrs. Larkins considered perfectly proper in all
cases, and to Miss Clifford she gladly conceded more in the way
of respectful observance. But in this vulgar world, spite of all
that philosophers have said and poets sung, there lurks yet a certain
degree of prejudice, which makes real independence not one
of the cheap virtues.

Yet if we look for a recognition of this truth any where out of
the woods, we shall probably be frowned upon as very wild waifs
from dream-land—visionaries, who, in this enlightened age, can
still cling to the antiquated notion, that theory should be the mould

of practice. So, in my pride of worldly wisdom, I took upon me
to doubt whether my friend Anna was indeed the heroine she
thought herself. The matter was not long doubtful.

Among the gentlemen who had been disposed to play the agreeable
to Miss Clifford, was a certain Captain Maguire, an Irish
officer, who had met her in Montreal. From Anna herself one
would never have learned that her beauty had found a solitary
adorer; but the tender and unselfish Rose could not help boasting
a little, in her quiet way, of the triumphs of her sister's charms.
She had thought well of the Captain's pretensions, and rather
wondered that his handsome person and gallant bearing had not
made some impression upon Anna, who was the object of his devoted
attention.

“But Anna thought him a coxcomb,” she said, “and never
gave him the least crumb of encouragement; so, poor fellow! he
gave over in despair.”

Now, as it would happen, just at the wrong time, this unencouraged
and despairing gentleman chanced to be one of a party
who made a flying pilgrimage to the prairies; and being thus far
favoured by chance, he took his further fate into his own hands,
so far as sufficed to bring him to the humble village which he had
understood to be shone upon temporarily by the bright eyes of
Miss Clifford. He went first to her mother's, of course, and during
a short call, ascertained from the old lady that her youngest
daughter was on a visit to us. The Captain was not slow in
taking advantage of the information, and he was at our door
before Rose had at all made up her mind what should be done in
such an emergency.

I was equally embarrassed, since one never knows on what
nice point those things called love affairs may turn. However, I
detained the Captain, and wrote a note to Miss Clifford. What
was my surprise when a verbal answer was returned, inviting
Captain Maguire and myself to Mrs. Larkins'. There was no
alternative, so I shawled forthwith; but I really do not know how
I led the young gentleman through the shop into the rag-carpeted
sitting-room of Mrs. Larkins. The scene upon which the door
opened must have been a novel one for fashionable optics.

Anna Clifford, with a white apron depending from her taper

waist, stood at the ironing-table, half hidden by a clothes-frame
already well covered with garments of all sizes. Mrs. Larkins
occupied her own, dear, creaking rocking-chair; holding a little
one in her lap, and jogging another in the cradle, while blue-eyed
minims trotted about or sat gravely staring at the strangers.

“Get up, young 'uns!” said Mrs. Larkins, hastily, as Captain
Maguire's imposing presence caught her eye, and Miss Clifford
came forward to welcome him; “Jump up! clear out!” And
as she spoke she tipped one of the minims off a chair, offering the
vacated seat to the gentleman, who, not noticing that it was a
nursing-chair, some three or four inches lower than usual, plumped
into it after a peculiar fashion, a specimen of bathos far less
amusing to the young officer than to the infant Larkinses, who
burst into a very natural laugh.

“Shut up!” said the mother, reprovingly; “you haven't a
grain o' manners! What must you blaat out so for?” Then
turning to the Captain with an air of true maternal mortification,
she observed, “I dare say you've noticed how much worse children
always behave when there's company. Mine always act
like Sancho! How do you do, sir, and how's your folks?”

This civility was delivered with an indescribable drawl, and
an accent which can never be expressed on paper.

Captain Maguire replied by giving satisfactory assurance of
his own health; but having a large family connection and no
particular home, perhaps thought it unnecessary to notice the
second branch of Mrs. Larkins' inquiry.

Miss Clifford meanwhile asked after friends in Montreal and
elsewhere, and entertained her dashing beau with all the ease and
grace that belonged to the drawing-rooms in which they had last
met. It was most amusing to note the air with which Anna ran
over the splendid names of her quondam friends, and contrast it
with the puzzled look which would make itself evident, spite of
“power of face,” in the countenance of her visitor. Never was
man more completely mystified.

At the very first pause, Mrs. Larkins, who was particularly
social, and who had seemed watching a chance to “put in,” asked
the Captain, with much earnestness, if he knew “a man by the
name of Maguire,” who had been in “Canady” in the last war

“Was he any relation to the Captain? He used to peddle some
among the sojers around Montreal and those parts.”

The Captain declared he did not recollect the gentleman, but
he had hundreds of Irish cousins, and thought it highly probable
that Mrs. Larkins' friend might be one of them.

“Oh! he wasn't an Irishman at all! He was a very respectable
man!” said the lady.

“Ah then!” remarked the Captain, with perfect gravity, “I'm
quite sure he can't be one of my cousins!”

And Mrs. Larkins gravely replied, “No, I dare say he wasn't;
but I thought I'd ask. What are you a cracklin' so between your
teeth?” continued she, addressing Daniel Webster.

“Oh! the bark of pork,” replied the young gentleman.

“Rind, Webster,” said Anna; “you should say rind.”

“Well! rind, then,” was the reply.

Mr. Larkins now brought in a huge armful of stove-wood,
which he threw into a corner with a loud crash.

“Will there be as much wood as you'll want, Miss Clifford?”
said he.

“Yes—quite enough, thank you,” said Anna, composedly; “I
have nearly finished the ironing.”

At this, the Captain, with a look in which was concentrated the
essence of a dozen shrugs, took his leave, declaring himself quite
delighted to have found Miss Clifford looking so well.

We were no sooner in the open air than he began—and I did
not wonder—

“May I ask—will you tell me, Madam, what is the meaning
of Miss Clifford's travestie? Is she masquerading for some frolic?
or is it a bet?—for I know young ladies do bet, sometimes—”

“Neither, sir,” I replied. “Miss Clifford is, in sad and sober
earnest, filling the place of a servant, that she may procure the
necessaries of life for her family. More than one friend would
gladly offer aid in an emergency which we trust will be only
temporary, but Miss Clifford, with rare independence, prefers devoting
herself as you have seen.”

“Bless my soul! what a noble girl! What uncommon spirit
and resolution! I never heard anything like it! Such a splendid

creature to be so sacrificed!” These and a hundred other enthusiastic
expressions broke from the gay Captain, while I recounted
some of the circumstances which had brought Mrs. Clifford's
family to this low ebb; but as he pursued his trip to the
prairies the next morning without attempting to procure another
interview with the lady he so warmly admired, I came to the
conclusion—not a very uncharitable one, I hope—that Anna had
shown her usual acuteness in the estimate she had formed of his
character.

Perhaps the Captain thought his pay too trifling to be shared
with so exalted a heroine. But we must not complain, for his
mystified look and manner at Mrs. Larkins' affords us a permanent
income of laughter, which is something in these dull times;
and I have learned, by means of his visit, that there is one really
independent woman in the world.

5. CHAPTER V.
DARKNESS AND LIGHT.

As levying day had come before it was expected, so selling
day, the time so dreaded by the affectionate daughters, came duly
on, and no tidings yet of Augustus. Many letters had been forwarded
to his address in New York, and no answers arriving, the
anxiety of the family had been such as almost to drown all sense
of the hopeless, helpless destitution which now seemed to threaten
them. Being alone at this time, and wishing that whatever it
was possible to do might be done properly for Mrs. Clifford, I took
the liberty of sending for a neighbour, that is, a country neighbour—one
who lived “next door about four miles off”—a gentleman
well versed in the law, though not practising professionally.

Mr. Edward Percival, this friend of ours, came into this country—then
a land of promise indeed—some seven years since.
Having inherited a large tract of wild land, he chose to leave
great advantages behind him for the sake of becoming an improver—a
planter—a pioneer—what not? There must be some
marvellous witchery in the idea of being a land-holder, if we may
judge by the number of people who undertake this wild, rough life
without the slightest necessity. Englishmen seem to be peculiarly
attracted by the idea of unlimited shooting—a privilege so jealously
monopolized by the great in their own country; but with
our own citizens this is usually a matter of small interest. Be
the spell what it may, we shall not wish to see it reversed while
it brings us neighbours like Mr. Percival.

He came, he saw, he conquered—and Cæsar's victory must

pale by comparison, for Mr. Percival overcame a sheriff, and obtained
an extension of time. I say he came—that was a matter
of course, seeing he was sent for by a lady. He saw—but I am
sadly afraid it was not the sight either of Mrs. Clifford or myself
that enlisted his sympathies so completely. He saw two very
lovely young ladies—for Anna had easily obtained a furlough for
a day that she might comfort her mother and sister under their
trials. And Mr. Edward Percival, though no beau, was made
of “penetrable stuff,” and felt his heart strangely moved by the
unaffected sensibility and dutiful solicitude of those two sad-hearted
daughters. By what particular course of strategy he conquered
Sheriff Beals I have never learned, but I have understood
there is but one avenue to law-hardened hearts, and I suppose
some knowledge of the profession had endued Mr. Percival with
the acumen required for discovering this covered way.

The result was that Mrs. Clifford retained her fine old chased
gold watch, with its massive hook and crested seal, with several
other “superfluities” on which the law had laid its chill grasp;
and the two Miss Cliffords, though they did not fall at Mr. Percival's
feet to thank him for his intervention, looked as if they
could have done so; and the gentleman himself, as he took his
leave, gave utterance to some consoling expressions, which fell
with strange warmth from lips usually very guarded. So all
was well thus far.

But Augustus came not. Anna returned to her householdry,
Mrs. Clifford to her reading, and Rose to her round of anxious
cares and painful economy. Another week wore away—another
mail reached our Thule, and brought no tidings from the lost one.
Agonizing apprehensions were fast assuming the form of certainties,
and even Anna was yielding to despair, when Mr. Percival,
who had not failed to acquaint himself with the condition of
things, announced his intention of going to New York, and
offered his services in making the requisite inquiries after young
Clifford.

We have not been informed what urgent business called Mr.
Percival eastward, but conclude it to have been something sudden
and pressing, as he had returned from New York but a few weeks
before.

The suspense of our unhappy friends was destined to be lengthened
out yet another week; but we need not detain our readers
proportionally. At the end of that period then, after Mrs. Clifford
and her daughters had renounced all thoughts but one, Mr.
Percival returned, bringing with him the long-lost son and brother;
or, rather, what might seem more the shadow than the
substance of the gallant youth who had left us some three months
before.

Poor Augustus—his heart wrung, and his brain on the rack
when he left us—had been seized with a fever, so violent in its
symptoms, that no hotel at Buffalo would receive him, through
fear of infection. Other lodging places presenting the same difficulty,
he was at last placed with a poor coloured woman, on the
outskirts of the town; poverty, and perhaps a better motive, inducing
her to overlook the danger. Here he was nursed, with the
tenderness so characteristic of that kind-hearted race, through a
course of typhus fever; and from the first he had never been
long enough himself to give the address of his friends. Tracing
him as far as Buffalo by means of the steamboat's books, Mr.
Percival had found no difficulty in discovering the place of his
retreat. The invalid was beginning to sit up a little, and had
written a few lines to his mother by the mail of that very day.

Need we say that our friends forgot even grinding poverty for
awhile?

Home, and the attentions of those we love, have wondrous restorative
powers. Augustus gained strength rapidly, and exulted
in the change as only those who have

can exult, in the sunshine and the breeze. The exhilaration of
his spirits amounted almost to delirium. He would recount again
and again the kindness of his dark nurse, and in happy oblivion
of the narrowness of circumstances which drove him from home,
reiterate his schemes of gratitude to poor dear Chloe—schemes
devised on a scale better befitting past than present fortunes. As
the exquisite sense of recovery subsided, however, care reasserted
her empire, and poor Augustus gradually sank into his former
condition of premature gravity.

Here, again, Mr. Percival's affairs seemed to favour our young
friend strangely; for while Augustus had been gaining strength
and losing spirits, that gentleman made the discovery that he was
in pressing want of an assistant in his business. He had great
tracts of land in far-away counties, calling for immediate attention;
there was a great amount of overcharged taxes which must
be argued down (if possible) at various offices; he had distant
and very slippery debtors—in short, just such a partner as Augustus
Clifford would make was evidently indispensable; and,
Augustus got well.

Anna had come home to help nurse her brother, but with such
positive promise of return, that Mr. Larkins did not go girl-hunting,
but mixed griddle-cakes and dressed the children unrepiningly
during the interregnum. When Augustus recovered, the secret
of the weekly dollar was confided to him, and Anna prepared for
going back to her “place.” The brother was naturally very
averse to this, and laboured hard to persuade her that he should
now be able to make all comfortable without this terrible sacrifice.
But she persisted in fulfilling her engagement, and, moreover,
declared that it really was not a sacrifice worth naming.

“Look at your hands, dear Anna!” said Rose.

“Oh! I do look at them—but what then? Of what possible
use are white satin hands in the country? I should have browned
them with gardening, if nothing else; and when once Uncle Hargrave's
money comes, a few weeks' gloving will make a lady of
me again.”

“But Mr. Percival, I am sure—” Rose tried to whisper, but
Anna would not hear her, and only ran away the faster.

By and by, Uncle Hargrave's legacy did come, and whether
by a gloving process or not, it was not long before Anna's hands
recovered their beauty. Mrs. Larkins lost the best “help” she
ever had, and Anna at length told all to her mother, who learned
more by means of this effort of her daughter, than all her misfortunes
had been able to teach her.

The legacy, like many a golden dream, had been tricked out
by the capricious wand of Fancy. In its real and tangible form,

far from enabling Mrs. Clifford to return to city splendour, it
proved so moderate in size that she was obliged to perceive that a
comfortable home even in the country would depend, in some
degree, on economy and good management. Certainty being
thus substituted for the vague and glittering phantom which had
misled her, and helped to benumb her naturally good understanding,
she set herself about the work of reform with more vigour
than could have been anticipated; and an expression of quiet
happiness again took possession of faces which had long been
saddened by present or dreaded evils.

Strange to say, Mr. Edward Percival, by nature the most frank,
manly, straightforward person in the world, seems lately to have
taken a manœuvring turn. After showing very unmistakable
signs of an especial admiration of Mrs. Larkins' “girl,” he
scarce ventures to offer her the slightest attention. At the same
time, his interest in the ponderous mamma is remarkable, to say
the least. Hardly a fine day passes that does not see a certain
low open carriage at Mrs. Clifford's door, and a grave but gallant
cavalier—handsome and well-equipped—soliciting the old lady's
company for a short drive. This is certainly a very delicate
mode of mesmerizing a young lady, but it is not without effect.
Anna does not go to sleep—far from it! but her eyelids are
observed to droop more than usual, and choice flowers, which
come almost daily from the mesmerizer's green-house, are very
apt to find their way from the parlour vase to the soft ringlets of
the lovely sleep-waker. What these signs may portend we must
leave to the scientific.

Mr. Percival came from the very heart's core of Yankeeland;
he may say with Barlow,

he is a conscientious Presbyterian, and he has been four years a
widower. All these disabilities have been duly represented to
Miss Clifford; nay—I will not aver that they may not even have
been wickedly dwelt upon—thrown in her teeth, as it were, by
one who loves to tease such victims; and I have come to the
conclusion, which Anna herself suggested to me the other day,
hiding at the same time her blushing face on my shoulder, after a
confidential chit-chat, “There certainly is a fate in these things.”