University of Virginia Library

2. CHAPTER II.
MARGARET VISITS A MEDIUM.

THE following evening, when the day's work was
done, Samuel Dale dressed in all his best, and
with a flower in his button-hole came to inquire
about Margaret. Mrs. Fairfax received him
very coldly, as coldly as she could with consistent
reference to the unfinished steps.

“I couldn't work to-day, nor couldn't rest to-night,” he
said, “without comin'. I would have writ you a letter to
say how much I blame myself, if I could, but I ain't much
used to a pen, so I come as you see, and brought this little
flower; I found it in the meadow, and”—

“O thank you! how beautiful! how good of you!” and
Mrs. Fairfax took the flower and tucked it under her belt!

Really, this young man is not a dunce, she thought, and
excusing herself in a tone of insinuating sweetness, she disappeared,
returning presently with a little flimsy cap upon
her head, all alight with red ribbons.

Perhaps Samuel had some perception of her mistake, and
was seeking to set himself right, when he said: “My mind
has been took up all day with one sad picter, as I went
along the furrer.”

“Dear me!” said Mrs. Fairfax; “your mind ought to
have been took up some part o' the time with your Bible!”

“I don't find revelation all in the lids of the Bible,” says
Samuel; “I find it in the fields sometimes, and sometimes
I find it in my own heart, bad as it is.”

“What an idea! What an awful idea!” cries Mrs.
Fairfax.

Samuel did not answer this exclamation, but asked
instead, if the handsome house yonder was not the parsonage,

adding when he had received an affirmative reply, “I
thought so, and a kind of rigor, like, goes over me whenever
I look at it; something is goin' to happen agin me,
belongin' to that place.”

“That can't be!” Mrs. Fairfax said; “for our new
preacher, who is to come next month, is the sweetest man
you ever beheld.” And then she said he was a bishop's
son! Samuel made no answer. He was drumming with
his fingers on the table by which he sat, and seemed to be
thinking to himself.

“Didn't you understand?” Mrs. Fairfax says, “Our
new preacher is old Bishop Lightwait's son!”

“D — n it! what do I care!” exclaims Samuel, and he
rises to go.

Then Mrs. Fairfax bemoans his wickedness, and hopes
that the Bishop's son, who is very eloquent, may succeed in
melting his stubborn heart, and bringing him into the church.

“As to my heart,” says Samuel, “I'm afeared sometimes
it is stubborn, but I was took in the church, by probation,
when I was fifteen years old, and six months after, regular,
and I've been a member ever sence.”

“Bless you, I wouldn't have thought it!” cries Mrs.
Fairfax. And she begs pardon for what she has said as to
required change of heart, and giving up the world. “You
misled me,” she says. “Of course we church members can
say what we please, and think what we please! I am so
glad to know! I thought you was a worldly person, to be
sure;” and she brought forth a pie, and insisted upon Samuel's
partaking of it, meantime imparting such scandal
about Brother B. and Sister C. as we are not privileged to
repeat, inasmuch as it would not have been whispered to
unregenerate ears.

“I'm afeared now,” says Samuel, “that you are misled
further than before. I'm in good and regular standin' with
the church, as fur's I know, but I ain't in good an' regular
standin' with myself. I was young when I was struck
under conviction. I went on to the anxious seat, and they
all got round me and prayed and talked about hell bein'
paved with infant's skull bones, an' about the worm that
never dies waitin' to devour me, an' all that, till my wits
fairly went wild, and then they rounded to with talk about
grace and mercy an' all them meltin' things, an' at that I

broke out exhortin, and then they cried one an' all, “Here,
Lord, here's another soul we've got for you! a brand
snatched from the burning! glory hallelujah! I was flustered,
like, an' didn't know what saved me, nor whether I
was saved or not; then they told me that my case wasn't
uncommon, but that to speak my doubts would be to grieve
the Spirit; that I'd already give full and sufficient evidence
of havin' got a new heart, and that I must unite with the
church right away; and so I did, on probation, and afterwards,
regular. And that, ma'am, is the way it stands
with me.”

“And you did very wisely to join the church at once,”
says Mrs. Fairfax. “Your case seems to me to have
showed specially sound conversion, and you have never
backslid?”

“I don't know whether I've backslid or not,” says Samuel,
looking down; “my attention is liable to be drawed
off when I'm a-hearin' the movinest sermon, if it happens
that there is a purty girl afore me.”

“The external observances are the main thing,” says Mrs.
Fairfax complacently, and then she says, “if you attend to
them punctual, you have no call for self-accusation, none at
all, Brother Dale!” And she took his hand, in token of
her sisterly regard, it is to be supposed.

“I wish I could think so,” Samuel answered, “but I
can't.” And turning away his face, he went on: “I don't
often say anything about my religion, if I've got any, but I
thought I'd say this to you in the beginnin', so that neither
yourself nor,” he hesitated and added, changing the form
of his sentence probably, “so that neither you nor anybody
would think me any better than I am.”

“And I'm sure I'm obliged to you for saying it in the
beginning,” Mrs. Fairfax replied, and she particularly emphasized
“beginning,” and gave the hand she still retained
a little squeeze, by way of further emphasis.

Samuel did not return the pressure; his mind seemed
preoccupied, and he asked, as if in pursuance of some train
of thought, when Father Goodman was going to leave them,
and if the bishop's son was to come right away, and then
he said it was nothing to him, he didn't know why he asked,
and with an abrupt good-night, was gone.

“The young man is really good-looking,” mused Mrs.

Fairfax as she shut up the house, “and older than I
thought, too. Younger men than he have married wives
of my age!” And she looked in the glass and adjusted
her little cap. As she unclasped her belt, the rose fell to
the ground; “Let it go,” she said, and as she passed to
and fro she trod on it again and again.

She went to bed without seeing Margaret, who, being
restless and weary, meanwhile, arose and sat at her window,
noting how softly the moonlight lay upon the distant fields,
the fields where Samuel had been at work that day. The
cup of now faded daises was in her lap, and as she picked
the withered leaves and threw them away, she said to herself,
“these are the misfortunes that I am picking out of his
life.” So she pleased herself with innocent fancies.

The next evening, and the next, and the next, Samuel
came and inquired about Margaret, but Margaret was kept
well out of sight. “She is not yet well enough to brave
the night air, the poor, dear child,” says Mrs. Fairfax,
and so she puts him off; making herself familiar, fond
almost, in the meantime, and seeking by a thousand nameless
arts to establish some sort of relations between herself
and him.

“We are so lonely here,” she says, “my little daughter
and I, your visits are quite a charity. Do come often,
Brother Dale, or Samuel; which shall I call you? And
then she laughs girlishly, and tells him he doesn't seem in
the least like a brother to her. It was after some such talk
as this, that she said to him, one evening, taking both his
hands in hers, in the sweet sincerity of her importunity:
“Isn't there something, dear Samuel, I can do for you, to
pay you for all your goodness?”

“No, ma'am,” said Samuel, “nothing at all.” And
then he said he was sure there was nothing to pay for.

“O, yes, this precious flower, if nothing else; you see I
wear it yet, and next my heart, too — for I assure you I
have a heart; just feel how it beats! Dear me, I am so
foolish!”

She had gathered the flower that afternoon from her own
garden, and with her own hand. But so the desired effect
was produced, what matter!

The encouragement was not very encouraging, but Mrs.
Fairfax was a persevering woman. She would neither give

up the hands nor the importunity, something she must and
would do.

“If you insist so much, there is one thing,” Samuel said,
stammering.

Mrs. Fairfax hung her head. “I am trembling like a
leaf,” she said; I must sit somewhere!” He did not take
her to his knee, but told her like the honest-hearted fellow
he was, that he loved her daughter Margaret, and did not
believe that ever in his life he should love anybody else.

Mrs. Fairfax did not seem surprised nor displeased. She
found a place to sit, however, and replied calmly, very
calmly, that the intelligence made her more than happy,
but the dear child was so young, he must not think of speaking
of love to her, not yet, not for a long time, not for a
year, at least. And Samuel promised sacredly that for
twelve months he would not speak of love to Margaret,
and Mrs. Fairfax gave him a little kiss on the forehead, and
he went away with a light heart. A great deal may be
accomplished in a year, she thought to herself; a pretty
story it is if that little chit has come up to be my rival,
we'll see!

After this understanding Samuel became quite intimate in
his friendship with Mrs. Fairfax, — dangerously confidential,
in fact, — he did many chores for her, and she managed
always to have some little commission in his hands, and
petted and scolded, and praised and blamed him at her
pleasure; sometimes she would give him a playful box on
the ear, and other times, reward him with a kiss.

He often supped at her table, drove her to town now and
then, made her presents of a domestic and serviceable
character, and of Sunday evening, sung with her out of
the same hymn-book.

Often she took occasion to whisper to him, “Remember
your promise!” But there was no need to remind him
of it; he was blessed enough in being in the same room
with Margaret, in hearing her voice, in watching her work,
or play, and if, by any means he could add to her enjoyment,
he was more than blessed. He could talk and laugh
and jest with Mrs. Fairfax — he was not afraid of her —
she was like himself, of the earth; but Margaret, he worshipped
her, from afar, and it would not have surprised him
to see little wings growing out of her shoulders. He grew

more and more diffident as her beauty unfolded, day by day,
his rude hands were not worthy to touch so fair a flower,
but he would make excuses to be near her, and sit silent
for hours, all graciously suffused with her presence.

Mrs. Fairfax kept always an eye upon him, and in spite
of his familiarity with her, so restrained him in his intercourse
with Margaret, that he could not for his life call her
Daisy any more, though he had done so on the first day of
their acquaintance. He felt obliged to say Miss Margaret
now, and when he was dying to walk alone with her in the
lane, to ask her mother, instead.

Mrs. Fairfax had succeeded beyond her expectations; he
was greatly under her influence; she might have him altogether
in her power yet; stranger things had been done by
women before now.

Margaret's dresses were tucked up, her hair was clipped
off. How she cried when they fell in her lap, one by one,
those shining curls, and lay there, a silken heap, but smiled
again, and was almost pacified when Samuel, hiding the
tremor of his lip under his hat-brim, said to her, “Never
mind, you look just as pretty as ever, any how!”

Mrs. Fairfax still pretended to esteem Margaret a mere
child; it may be that she did so esteem her, for it is difficult
for any of us to know when the child we have held on our
knee becomes a man or woman; but, whatever she felt personally,
she perceived that Margaret was beginning to be
treated as a woman. “We will put an end to this,” she
said, and so it came about that the shining locks fell in the
girl's lap, and lay there all in a heap, one day.

It was on the evening of this same day that as Margaret
sat on the new door-steps watching the glory of the sunset,
— all the grand picture she had ever seen, — Samuel
Dale came up the path and seated himself beside her; he had
but just time to say, however, “You look just as pretty
as ever,” when Mrs. Fairfax appeared, and took matters in
her own hands, by seating herself between the pair.
“What do you suppose I have been thinking about,
Samuel?” she said, in her sweetest manner. Samuel said
he was sure he did not know, and his tone implied that he
did not care.

“Why, of you, to be sure, you ugly bear!”

“Raly, is it possible? Couldn't you find anything profitabler
to think about?”

“You ungrateful creature; I've a great mind not to tell
you what I've been thinking.”

“Well, ma'am as you please.”

“You don't deserve to know, but I can't really get
vexed with you.” And she told him that she had been
thinking that he ought to marry, and she had selected just
the wife for him; and so she went on and finally made as
close a likeness of herself as could be.

“Such a wife wouldn't suit me in a single particular,”
Samuel answered. “I've got my mind made up, and every
day makes me more and more sure that I shall never
change it.” And as he was saying this, he put his arm
about the neck of Wolf, and drew him between himself and
Mrs. Fairfax, who told him playfully that he was ill-natured
and had better go home.

Samuel said he was of her opinion, and rising at once,
went down the path and out of the gate, without another
word.

“Here, pet! Here, beauty!” Mrs. Fairfax called after
Wolf, who was scrambling over the fence behind Samuel.
He stopped and looked round. “You must go back; old
boy,” he said, kindly, patting the great head of the dog;
but when he went forward again, Wolf went too, running
between his legs, licking his hands, and in all ways he knew
manifesting his fondness.

“I can't bear to drive him back outright,” Samuel called
out, “so if you don't mind, Mrs. Fairfax, I'll bring him
back to-morrow night.”

She did not mind of course, and with his shaggy tail
curled to a ring on his back, the dog trotted off behind the
young man, and both were soon out of sight.

“I a'most wish I had never seen the fellow,” Mrs. Fairfax
exclaimed. And then she drew a comparison that was
very unfavorable to Samuel, between him and the bishop's
son.

Margaret made no reply, and all the next day nothing
was said of Samuel, but when, at sunset Mrs. Fairfax announced
her intention of running up to Mrs. Whiteflock's
for half an hour, Margaret very well understood that the
visit was in some way connected with him.

She was scarcely out of sight when Samuel appeared,
fresh, trim, smiling, and bearing in his hand a bouquet
of the fairest daises.

“I don't know how it is,” he said, as he dropped the
flowers in Margaret's lap, “but somehow, these things
always make me think o' you. I hope you like 'em.”

“Of all things!” she answered, taking them up and
pressing them to her lips. And then she said, “I didn't
use to care so much about 'em.”

“I always liked 'em,” he replied, “but I never envied
'em, as I know of, till now.”

Margaret hung her head to hide her blushes, and the
next moment, with artful evasion, said, he ought not to
envy the poor things their beauty, — they were withering
already.

“It wasn't thieir beauty I envied 'em,” he said, in his
honest, simple way, “but I did envy 'em for all that, and
if they are a-witherin' I think they ought to be happy even
to die.”

“You speak riddles,” Margaret said, at the same time
caressing the great ears and big round neck of Wolf (who
sat beside her), in a way that was very provoking to
Samuel.

He stood silent before her so long that she said at last,
piqued, perhaps: “Why don't you ask for mother? Of
course you came to see her.”

“No, Daisy, I saw her on my way here.”

Margaret looked serious, and he, seating himself beside
her and picking the flowers that lay in her lap to pieces,
tossed the broken flakes away.

“I thought you meant to give them to me!” Margaret
said, pettishly putting back his hand.

“So I did,” he answered; nevertheless he continued to
toss away the flowers; perhaps for the sake of having his
hand thus put back, for it was only by this chance that he
had ever touched her hand since the first day of their
acquaintance.

When they were all broken and tumbled and lying white
at her feet, Margaret gave him a pretty scolding, and told
him she would never forgive him as long as she lived.

“I'm sorry,” he said, “I wasn't half a-thinkin' of what I
was doin', I wasn't, raly!” and then he said if she liked
daisies so much, maybe she wouldn't mind goin' across the
hill to the meader where they growed; if she wouldn't
mind, he could fill her apron with them in a few minutes!

Margaret did not require much coaxing, and leaving Wolf
to take care of the house, they set off, talking, as they went,
of the moonlight, the ripple of the waters, the dew on the
grass, of a thousand indifferent matters, while their thoughts
were all setting another way.

In a green hollow — “the lap of the meader,” Samuel
called it — they came upon the daisies, and had a little quarrel
as to whether the tall or the short ones were the prettier,
and Margaret in make-believe anger threw handfuls of
them over her admirer, who, as he picked them from his
hair and beard, felt that so charming a creature did not exist
in all the world. Then they made up, and agreed to gather
from the same bed, and in the gathering, their hands often
met, their voices took a softer tone, and softer, till they
almost spoke in whispers, — and we all know what comes of
such things. When the apron was filled with daisies, they
required to be assorted, and to do this required time, and as
the pleasing work prolonged itself, Samuel sung snatches
of old songs, and tender bits of love ditties, out of tune to
be sure, and with sad omissions and substitutions of words
and rhymes, but full of sweet meaning and passionate pathos,
and, to Margaret, masterly triumphs of executive skill.

If my fair reader shrug her shoulder and uplift her eyebrow,
let me say to her that these young persons were quite
in the honest simplicity of nature, with all its exuberance of
hope and trust, unrestrained and unembarrassed by the conventional
restrictions that would necessarily regulate your
conduct. Their acquaintance too, it must be remembered,
had been commenced in circumstances singularly calculated
to inspire confidence, and encourage familiarity; then
neither of them had any one else upon whom to throw some
of the burden of tenderness that must needs accumulate in
every heart; they were man and woman, and as all men and
women thirst with insatiable longing for something nearer,
truer, sweeter than they yet have known, — than it is perhaps
possible for our poor humanity to know, — they were,
after all, not very unlike the rest.

Just as naturally as the young rose to the sun and dew,
their hearts had unfolded, each to the smile of the other, and
they were lovers without their own consent. The village
clock was striking ten, when Mrs. Fairfax, measurably calm
and collected, if not serene with herself, set out for home.

Mrs. Whiteflock had communicated intelligence, that in
some sort reconciled her to the defeat of her matrimonial
scheme with Samuel Dale; he had left a sweetheart behind
him! Mrs. Whiteflock was sure of this, positively sure.
She had herself seen him several distinct times writing letters
on tinted paper; moreover, she had plied him with
questions, and he had the same as owned the fact to be as
she supposed; he had a sweetheart, a great way off; those
had been his very words.

If Mrs. Whiteflock could have removed Samuel's Sunday
coat, trowsers and blue silk pocket-handkerchief, together
with divers and sundry other articles and appurtenances,
she might have discovered, safe between the leaves of his
Testament, and in the very bottom of his old hair trunk, the
veritable love-letters, all inscribed to Margaret Fairfax, and
affluent with all he dare not speak. She had not this privilege,
however, and did not suspect that the sweetheart, a
great way off, was her neighbor's child, and Mrs. Fairfax,
her suspicions happily diverted, went home measurably
reconciled; it was so much easier to resign her hopes in
favor of a woman she had never seen, whose name she did
not even know. She almost exulted in the thought of what
pain she was prepared to inflict upon Margaret. For herself,
she did not suffer pain; she was provoked, frustrated
in one direction, but one was not all, and long before she
reached home she was living over in memory the moment
when the bishop's son had held her hand. Her little cap
with its red ribbons, had scarcely been soiled on Samuel's
account. She rejoiced in that; then there were the steps,
clear gain, besides a good many other gains, and for the
future she would compel him to serve her to the extent of
her pleasure! Hadn't he told her things? and wasn't he in
her power?

She found Margaret at the door, sitting demure and quiet
in the moonlight, her blue eyes drooping dreamily, and
Wolf dozing at her feet.

“Have you seen Samuel?” she said directly.

“Yes; he stopped, and, leaving Wolf, went away again.
Haven't you seen him?” (He was but just gone that
moment.)

No, Mrs. Fairfax had not seen him; she had not cared to
see him; it was Mrs. Whiteflock she went to see. “And,

by the way,” she said, “he is going to be married, Mrs.
Whiteflock tells me. Would you have believed it?”

“What of it?” said Margaret; “why shouldn't he marry
if he wants to?”

“He should, of course; I'm sure it's nothing to me. I
told it just as I would tell any other news; but Mrs. Whiteflock
knows it to be true.”

“Mrs. Whiteflock knows a great deal,” replied Margaret.

“She can't help knowing what she sees and hears; what
Sam tells her, to be sure.”

“You might call his name right, I should think,” replied
Margaret, “even if he is going to be married!” Then she
said she hoped he would get a wife good enough for him,
and for her part she was sleepy, and thought she would go
to bed.

This was not all sheer affectation, though some of it was.
Margaret felt safe, much safer than she would have felt if
she had been older. She knew by that instinctive perception
that is wiser than any other wisdom, that she was
beloved by Samuel, and if he loved her what cared she for
gossip? Love meant marriage, and marriage meant supreme
felicity, thenceforward and forever.

“Mrs. Fairfax was well deceived; the girl didn't care for
Samuel, after all, she thought, and she proceeded to unfold
another budget of news, all about the new preacher, the
Bishop's son, who was to come to them now very soon.
“His name,” she said, “is John Hamlyn; a nice name,
isn't it?” Then she repeated it; John Hamlyn Lightwait,
rolling it as a sweet morsel under her tongue. John
was her own father's name, and she didn't like it when she
used to hear her mother call it every day, but when John
came to be joined with Hamlyn, and was the name of a
Bishop's son withal, why it sounded so different! The
name of the sister, who was to keep house for John Hamlyn,
was Katharine, and she was called Kate at home. “Isn't
it strange that she should be called Kate?” queried Mrs.
Fairfax. “So common, quite like the rest of us, to be sure!”

Then she said to Margaret, “I wish I had you to name
over again; I would christen you something that had a little
style, I'll warrant you!” And she concluded in
the end, that she could have selected nothing that would
have been altogether so queenly as Katharine! Mrs.

Fairfax, it will be seen, did not rely much upon Mrs. Fairfax,
in her simple self. O no! She relied upon her shoes,
and the feather in her bonnet, the buckle of her belt, the
carpet on her floor, the drapery at her window, on seeming,
in short, not in being!

She could not think of wearing a dress suited to her
means and condition; oh, no! She must have one just like
that of Mrs. Goldbag, who rode in her carriage, and had
nothing to do from year's end to year's end. She loved to
be seen where charitable women congregate; loved to be
officious, and did not mind putting herself out a little for the
sake of being so, but it was the distinction she loved, and
not the duty. She sang loud in church, and with unction,
and in class-meetings was a kind of sal volatile to the tearful
and troubled. She knew the direct road to heaven, and
could point it out to those who saw less clearly, with a
cheery confidence that was very comforting.

Her tastes were religious, rather than her feelings; but
her appearance of smartness, the lace on her sleeve, and the
smooth glove on her hand, stood her in grand stead; and
yet there was that about her dress that suggested the possibility
that the carefulness was external; a lack of soundness
and substantiality in the things seen that, somehow,
suggested fears for the unseen.

Let us hope that she was in this respect altogether singular.
The daughter, though in some sort liable to the
weakness of the mother, possessed more largeness of soul,
more sweetness of heart, more originality, and more integrity
of character. She might, through impulse, commit
greater errors than the mother, and in her folly still be better
than the mother in her prudence.

As they were about to separate for the night, Margaret
ventured to ask for a pair of new slippers. She was thinking
of Samuel, and Mrs. Fairfax took the alarm. “You
have shoes to wear to meeting, and what more do you
require?” she said, adding directly: “I wish you to be
punctual at church when our new preacher comes, and not
suffer your mind to be drawn off, so that he may see you
have a pious mother, and see, and see, and” — She could
not think what more she wished him to see, and abruptly
changed the subject.

Margaret had no heart to say anything more concerning

the slippers, and nothing further was said of Samuel that
night, nor for days afterward. He came and went, rendering
various services to the mother, as usual, and never
seeing the daughter alone, but steadily growing in favor
with the one and out of favor with the other.

Thus matters stood at the beginning of June, at which
time Father Goodman was gone, and the Bishop's son
installed. It was raining, and as Mrs. Fairfax sat by a little
low fire with her knitting, and Margaret went about the
morning work, they were surprised by the flapping down
of a great black umbrella at the door.

Who ever has seen the brown hull of a ripe nut fall
away, and a round, fat, white worm tumbling out, has in
his memory a pretty correct symbol of Mrs. Whiteflock, as
she appeared dropping her camlet cloak, and settling at the
hearthstone of Mrs. Fairfax.

“Well, of all things! Mrs. Whiteflock, have you rained
down?” Thus Mrs. Fairfax.

“I don't wonder you're surprised. I thought I'd surprise
you for once!” And Mrs. Whiteflock laughed by
way of showing her good will. Mrs. Fairfax laughed too;
laughed a great while, and a great deal in proportion to the
time expended, as the most cordial method of expressing
consideration and welcome.

“I'm so glad!” (Laughing.)

“Well, I am so glad too!” (Laughing.)

“Margaret, (without laughter) do help Sister Whiteflock
to untie her bonnet-strings. Why, how awkward you are,
child.”

“Come to the fire, now, and dry your things. (Laughing
again.) Margaret put on another stick. (No laughter.)
How do you do? anyhow.” (Laughter renewed.)

“O, I'm able to take my portion, thank you.” (Laughing.)

“And how is the dear children? Martha, and Mary,
and Madeline, and Lucinda, and Sally, and Jane Ann, and
Charles, and Wesley, and Peter, and Cartright, and all?”

“I don't wonder you stop, Mrs. Fairfax. I a'most forget
their names myself, sometimes, fifteen years married, and
thirteen of 'em!”

“Thirteen, to be sure! Well, after all, you've no reason
to complain; they are all so nice and well-behaved. I was

just saying to Margaret that I didn't know such fine children
anywhere, and eight or ten of 'em are perfect beauties,
as I have said to Margaret many a time.”

Mrs. Fairfax had never said anything of the sort, and
probably had never considered till that moment whether or
not the children of her neighbor were good or bad looking,
but it was a pleasant thing to say, and she said it; her conscience
was accommodating, and she sometimes, as now,
took advantage of it. And Mrs. Whiteflock was in the
habit of returning these civilities by praising everything
belonging to her neighbor, and disparaging all she had at
home. “Dear me!” she said upon this occasion, “my
children are nothing for looks! And there is Peter, as ugly
as a mud fence! he takes after his father, while the other
twelve favor me. But the handsomest of 'em don't compare
with your Margaret. Where is she? Ah, here!
What a pretty teacup that is you are washing, dear; but
what do you think I heard somebody say about you?”

Margaret blushed scarlet. She was sure she didn't
know.

Mrs. Fairfax, who had been of late wilfully shutting the
truth from herself, saw that red writing, received its meaning
at a glance, and was displeased.

“Don't be putting nonsense in the child's head,” she
said. Mrs. Whiteflock felt her mistake. “By the bye,”
she inquired, only anxious to say something, “who put up
those new door-steps for you?” No answer. Mrs. Fairfax
was busy with her knitting.

“They're so nice. Did you have a mason from town?”
Mrs. Fairfax shook her head, absently.

“I ask because I thought maybe you employed the
mason that built the new vestry to the church. I never
saw a nicer piece o' work, anyhow.”

Margaret was smiling as well as blushing now; her
mother was being forced to hear the praises of Samuel Dale,
though she would not speak them.

“Did they cost a mint o' money,” Mrs. Whiteflock continued,
still referring to the door-steps. “I've a good
mind to get new ones too!”

“They are just the old steps, reset;” Mrs. Fairfax
replied, irritably, “and the cost is hardly worth mentioning;”
then in tones sweetly modulated, “I believe I

haven't asked one word about your old man; is he busy as
ever?”

“He's the same old sixpence, every way,” Mrs. Whiteflock
answered carelessly, continuing with animation: “I
did think those steps were new!”

“Not at all; and how are Whiteflock's headaches? he
used to have 'em so bad, I remember.”

“They must have been dressed off new, or something,
those steps must.”

“But about Peter's headaches, Sister Whiteflock?”

“'Pon my word, I don't know; but I guess I'd a-heard
of it if he'd a-had 'em very bad; men are such a bother
when they're sick! And now I come to think, I heard
Samuel saying something or other about your steps.”

Mrs. Fairfax slyly twitched the sleeve of her friend;
“Tell me,” she said, “when it was I saw Peter Whiteflock
last? Was it at quarterly meeting?”

“Very likely. Oh, now I know what Samuel said.”

“If you please,” interposed Mrs. Fairfax, you and I will
go into the parlor. I can't see to turn my seam here.”

And leaving Margaret to prepare the dinner, and to
muse in sad disquiet, the two women withdrew to the best
room, and when the door was closed behind them, the real
purpose of Mrs. Whiteflock's visit came out. The Bishop's
son had been to see her. The very first call he had made,
too! wasn't she honored! Oh, she liked him so much! he
was so handsome! and he had such a bad cold! and he was
so pious, and so gracious, and his coat fitted so beautiful!
and he was so fond of her apple pie! Just a plain pie too,
but he praised it, as though it had come from the French
baker's! “And what do you think, Sister Fairfax, he said
about you?”

“Bless your dear heart, what was it?”

“Well, he wanted to know who that fine-looking woman
was in the white shawl, and said he would make it a point
to see you very soon, and then he asked if that beautiful
little girl in the pew with you was your daughter.”

“He said little girl, you are quite sure?”

O yes, Mrs. Whiteflock was quite sure, and of course he
spoke of the child merely in compliment to the mother.

These were slight grounds for vantage, to be sure, but
Mrs. Fairfax so esteemed them and was flattered. She did

not say to her friend that she had already been introduced to
the Bishop's son, and that he had evidently forgotten her,
not she.

“There was one circumstance connected with his visit
that I can't understand.” Mrs. Whiteflock continued, and
she bent low, and spoke almost in a whisper, “He would
go down to see Peter. I couldn't prevent it. I said Peter
was busy, and then I said he was away from home, and I
would send him to the parsonage; but all wouldn't do.
Down he went, just as if he had been there twenty times,
and, would you believe, he stayed a long hour. Of course I
couldn't get a word out of Peter's head.”

In order to understand the full force of this communication,
it will be necessary to state that the husband of Mrs.
Whiteflock was a person of equivocal position, even in
his own household; that any considerable intimacy existed
between himself and his wife would have been doubted
most seriously, but for the cloud of witnesses. He never
went abroad with her; when she entertained visitors he
did not sit at the table, and she never addressed him in
terms implying social equality.

He was, indeed, a singular formation, seeming hardly to
belong to the organic creation; he was of immense bulk,
as it were from accretion, and not from the assimilating
process of growth; neither had he determined proportions
or symmetry of outline; in short he was a large, solid,
opaque body, shining chiefly by light reflected from his
wife.

No one ever spoke of Mr. and Mrs. Whiteflock, but of
Mrs. Whiteflock and Peter, and when he was personally
addressed, his given name was apt to be repeated with compassionate
frequency, thus: “How do you do, Peter?”
“Are you pretty well, Peter?” “Take a chair, Peter!”
“Come again, Peter!” He had a kind of workshop fitted
up in the cellar at home, and it was perhaps from living so
much in the damp and shade that he came to have the look
of a sprout, and to be almost passive in his existence. He
was master of no trade, but his occupations were various,
and he might be employed one day a-making shoes for the
children, another in soldering legs in broken pots, another in
braiding door-mats, and yet other days in still more ignoble
employments. He did not belong to the church, he did not

belong to anything, nor did anything belong to him, not his
wife, nor his child, nor his house, nor his farm, nor anything
that he had. He had great possessions, and yet was
dispossessed; he was not a fool, but he was worse, he was
not presentable. To pay him customary respect was to
embarrass him; therefore, by common consent he was left
out.

This man possessed one remarkable gift, variously interpreted,
but at all events, investing him, when the fit was
on, with singular powers; he was sometimes enabled to
speak with tongues, sometimes to prophesy, and sometimes,
as it appeared, to talk with spirits. This gift now and then
brought his neighbors to him as suppliants. When a man
lost his wife, if it happened that he had been attached to
her, he forthwith sought out this opaque, mysterious Peter,
and from his gloomy cellar not unfrequently returned with
his heart and spirit wonderfully encouraged and strengthened.
His visitors came to him mostly in the night time,
for it was held a disreputable thing to countenance the pretensions
of so strange a creature, and no man said to his
brother, except it were in a whisper, what he had seen or
heard during those mysterious interviews. Some more
marvelous experience than common, did after all, get itself
uttered now and then. Some distraught mother, perhaps,
who had seen the cold clods heaped between her and the
sweet eyes of her baby, would come from this dim cellar
crying for joy, and boldly proclaiming that she had seen
her darling; seen it as plain as she had ever seen it in life;
that it was not dead; removed a little from her sight, that
was all. Such stories did get themselves told, but they
got themselves hushed up, too, and she that had cried for
joy, not unfrequently got ashamed of her report. It was
hysterics, it was hallucination, it was morbid impressibility.
So the doctor said, and for her part, she didn't know what
to think. She could not quite get over the first impression,
to be sure, but one thing she could do, she could be silent,
and moreover, keep away from Peter for the future.

The young folks who were in love would see him against
all prohibition and all authority, but this was a light offence
compared with seeking spiritual comfort at his hands, and
was generally laughed at as a joke, and passed over without
serious objection.

If a farmer found disease breaking out among his cattle,
he was likely to make some excuse for seeing Peter, and
incidentally to make mention of the calamity, for it was
admitted that he had some inexplicable gift, the exercise
of which was especially friendly to the lower order of creation.
He could remove callous excrescences from the legs
of oxen and horses by the muttering of a few strange words,
the cutting of a circle in water, or some other like man
œuvre, and he was especially successful in restoring wall
eyes, and in causing hair to grow on naked and indurated
surfaces. Most of his neighbors came, therefore, to be
indebted to him for one favor or another, and a kindly
feeling, slightly blent with pity, prevailed toward him. If
he had made gain of his art, he would probably have been
accused of being in league with the devil, but he did not
thus make gain, so the probability was somewhat less
imminent.

At the raising, at the vendue, at the tavern, of a rainy
afternoon, Peter was never seen; he was fond of the church,
but he was not made at home there, and unless it were in
some dim corner, of an evening, he seldom sat in the congregation.
His wife, or Mrs. Whiteflock — nobody thought
of calling her his wife — was ashamed of him, and up to this
time had made no pretence of anything else. Sometimes
when she was surrounded with her friends, and she was
quite a leader in society, he stood without the door and
admired her fine manners, and fine dress, and when he had
thus filled himself full of delight, went back to the humble
avocations of his cellar without one jealous pang. He was
not at home with himself, much less with any one else,
there seemed to be no place into which he fitted, and as he
was never obtrusive, the mysterious current of his life
moved on toward the great eternity, without exciting much
interest or remark.

Thus he stood; not in dishonor, but with no definite and
acknowledged relations to society, or even to his own family,
at the time to which our story belongs. Mrs. Whiteflock
bought and sold, hired men and dismissed them, went and
came, feasted and fasted, without any reference to him.

“Tell me, my dear,” she said, when they had done with
the Bishop's son, “what is the secret about the doorsteps?
for of course, as I ought to have seen at first, it was not my
Peter you cared to talk about.”

“It's a long story, and you must never tell.”

“No never!”

“We all have our troubles, I suppose?”

“Oh, to be sure. I know I have mine, plump as I look.”
And then the two women put their heads together in confidence,
and involved themselves for good and all in the peril
of shared counsel. The greater part of what they said of
themselves, of their neighbors, of the church, need not be
reproduced, as it will have little bearing on our story, but
whatever was thus imparted, in the warmth of impulse, was
most likely repented of in the coolness of calmer judgment.
The most secret and sacred confidence on the part of Mrs.
Whiteflock related to Peter, her marriage with him and the
blessings consequent, in the shape of children, and involved
matter for some curious and interesting speculation, if we
had time for it. On the part of Mrs. Fairfax, to Margaret,
and to Samuel Dale, whose proper name she contemptuously
denuded of two syllables. It is not worth while to follow
her into minor details, her whole argument being susceptible
of a very brief summing up.

Sister Whiteflock had been mistaken as to Samuel's old
sweetheart, and the mistake had misled her, and caused her
to receive him on terms of familiarity which she bitterly
regretted; in short, to accord him a footing in her household,
from which she now found it advisable to eject him. He
had stolen the heart of her child, a crime for which she
could never forgive him. Margaret was his sweetheart, and
no other! They were lovers, these witless creatures!

Then Mrs. Whiteflock cried, shame! and the two women
held up their hands as though they had never loved and
never married. It was disgraceful, it was sinful, but what
could be done! The affair would lead to marriage, inevitably,
except there were some intervention of providence;
this being problematical, a providence must be interposed
by human means, and who so fit to take this shape as the
mother herself? “Sam” was useful; Mrs. Fairfax had
received at his hands many generous favors, she must not
break with him altogether. She was a lone woman, and
every lone woman must needs have a sort of middle man to
do her drudgery. She must manage in some way to retain
the man, and dismiss the lover. She did not clearly see her
way, and would feel the stronger for the aid and counsel of

her friend. So the two women put their heads together and
agreed that Samuel should be ousted, and that all means to
this end were righteous. He was homely, homely as a
scare-scrow! he was big, big as the side of the house! stupid,
stupid as an ox! and they wished he would go back
where he came from!

It was a pretty story if Margaret, a mere child, a baby,
was to set up a will of her own, and after all her good
mother had done for her, too! O, the ingratitude of children!

This conference, thus summed up, lasted several hours;
Margaret had felt herself excluded from the session, from
the first, and the suppressed tones that came to her now and
then, were pregnant with uneasy intimations that set her
spirit chafing as she went about her work. At length she
paused, folded her arms, and looked out into the rain;
looked, naturally enough, in the direction of Mrs. Whiteflock's.
All at once the expression of worry and fretfulness
vanished from her young face, and a light like the light of
enchantment came in its stead. There was secret work to
be done, that was evident. She stood still and listened for
a moment, and having hastily thrown a shawl over her
head, passed out of the house, through the garden, and was
in a moment flying along the meadow, her naked feet, like
little white wings, just touching the grass as she went.

Peter Whiteflock sat near the open door of his cellar
absorbed in his work, which happened to be the repairing
of an old clock, when she came and stood before him; he
did not see her; his life was all so shadowy, perhaps, that
he was not conscious of an added shadow, and kept on turning
the old creaking hands, and listening to the striking of
the hour with all the rapt admiration with which a lover
might listen to the prattle of his mistress. “There she
goes! beautiful! splendid! that's right! now try again!”
and so, turning the hands, and gazing at the face of the lady
on the face of the clock, his enjoyment ran up to ecstasy
again and again, as the correct hour was rung out. “There
she goes! she's my beauty! that's miraculous! that's
sublime!”

Margaret had never been so near this man in all her life
till now, and she observed him and all his surroundings
with something of superstitious fear mingling with her curiosity,
and yet she could not but perceive that both himself

and everything about him was singularly human and humanizing.
She was struck, first of all, with his immense
bulkiness; she could not make out upon what he was seated,
though it was apparently a stool, or chair from which the
back had been broken away, for he not only covered, but
literally hung down on all sides of it. His cheeks, arms and
legs stood out with fatness, and as for his lap, if he had ever
had one, it was gone where the eye could not follow it. He
was very white and sprout-like, and had certainly the seeming
of lamb-like innocence. The implements and tools of
his tinkering were scattered all about the room; here a pot
of coals, and there chisels, and saws, and augers; and yonder,
gimlets, and awls, and chalks and lines, and all the
finer professional instruments and articles; while close at
his elbow stood a plate of bread and butter, garnished with
onions, and a huge pitcher of milk. His face was beardless;
his eyes of a pale blue color, large and vague; his hair long
and silky, and tumbling in half curl upon his shoulders; his
dress a cross between foppishness and carelessness; in his
shirt he wore a showy pin, and his fingers were covered
with rings.

“I have come,” Margaret began timidly, when the clock
had struck all round from one to twelve. He looked up
without a smile, without any token of surprise or pleasure,
and then as if something external to himself got him on his
legs, he came forward, seeming to be impelled, and not to
move of his own volition, for he hesitated, stopped, and as
it appeared, resisted the advance with all his might. He
got, or was gotten near enough at last to take Margaret's
hand, upon which he fell to shuddering, closed his eyes,
and after a moment led her to a seat with all imaginable
grace, blind though he were. His whole aspect was changed
since she first looked upon him; the light of a clear and
high intelligence shone in his face, his motions were quiet
and easy, and his voice was eminently full and melodious.
“You have come,” he said, divining her unspoken errand,
“about the young man who gave you the ring you have in
your bosom.” Margaret started and looked at her hand,
and yet she knew the ring had never been on her hand; she
had feared the eyes of her mother, and had hidden it in her
bosom. Samuel had given it in secret, and no one in the
world except they two knew that she possessed it. Her

first impulse was to deny the truth. “I don't know what
you mean,” she said, virtually telling a lie. The manner of
the mystic, medium, fortune-teller, or whatever he was,
changed from sweetness to severity with a suddenness and
completeness that quite transformed him. “Can you expect
help from me,” he said, “when you come to me with a falsehood
on your lips! The ring is in your bosom, and if you
deny it, I will leave you to free yourself from the darkness
that is gathering about you, as you best can; the love that
is anchored in a lie, cannot hold, and I would not make it if
I could.”

His eyes were closed, but Margaret felt that he, or rather
that some intelligence represented by him, was looking
through her. She burst into tears, and owned the truth,
opening wide her heart, and revealing all its fears, and
hopes that kindled fears. At this, her confessor resumed
his benign aspect, and “calmed her fears, and she was calm,
and told her love with virgin pride.”

“But am I loved again?” she said; “that is what I
want to know.”

“Yes, as tenderly, as devotedly as woman need ask to be
loved.”

“And will my lover marry me?”

The face of the man grew strangely sad. “It grows very
dark about you,” he said; “I cannot see all, but I see that
you are beloved. There is a white dove nestling on your
shoulder, and on its wings in golden letters a name. I cannot
see it clearly; now it comes out plainer. S-a-m—
Samuel, that is the name, and he who bears that name has a
beautiful spirit. I feel an atmosphere of repose, of heaven,
about me. Be true, my child, be true to him, whatever
interpose; no other man will ever love you as he does.”

Margaret laughed. She was not afraid of herself, of
whom she had most reason to be afraid; so that she was
beloved, why that was all; love would lead to marriage,
and marriage was life-long felicity. Margaret, it must be
remembered, was very young. In answer to her laughter
there came a sigh from the heart of the great creature
before her. “There is another picture presented,” he said;
“I see a church, and a pale young man coming out of it;
he approaches you, and the dove flutters and trembles, and
now he strikes it with his white hand, and with broken

wing I see it lying on the ground at your feet. You have
enemies, my child.”

“Who are they?”

“They of your own household; trust the woman this
man has taken to be with him; she will befriend you.”

“What man do you mean?”

“The man through whom I am communicating with you,
— Peter Whiteflock; but he is growing tired, and I cannot
use him longer; farewell.”

The word was no sooner spoken than Peter trembled and
underwent various spasmodic contortions, and slowly unclosing
his eyes, was himself again. She's all right, you
see! a perfect little beauty, isn't she? fifteen years I've had
her, and she's good as new to-day! golden-tongued as a
robin. I wouldn't sell her for twice her cost!” He was
on his stool again, hanging down all around it, and apostrophizing
the old clock, unconscious of any interruption,
apparently.

“And what can I do, then?” cried Margaret, bewildered
and frightened by his spasms, his reference to enemies, and
his strange double character.

“How should I know!” he replied, gazing upon her in
blank ignorance. “I reckon you had as good go home;
you've heard my queen of singers perform all through,
from one to twelve. She beats all the organs holler, don't
she!” and he fell to eating bread and butter. And poor
little Margaret, not knowing at all whether she had talked
with man or spirit, angel or devil, fled across the fields, her
white feet bearing her more like wings than before.

That night, Mrs. Fairfax was unusually gay and communicative.
She and Mrs. Whiteflock had been talking all
the afternoon about the new preacher, the bishop's son, she
said. All the church members were to meet at Mrs. Whitelock's
to make cushions and curtains, and piece quilts and
hem table-linen, and she knew not what all, toward refurnishing
the parsonage, and making it worthy of its new
occupants. She named the afternoon that had been set
apart for this benevolent purpose, and selected the dress
she herself would wear on the occasion. Then, to the
surprise and joy of Margaret, she asked her if she would
like some new things so as to shine with the rest.

“I have neglected you too much, my dear,” she continued;

“I have been to blame, and for the time to come, I
mean to do a better part by you. You shall have the slippers
you asked for, and whatever more you wish, so it is
not unreasonable.” And she patted the cheek of the wondering
child, with a show of affectionate regard. Mrs.
Whiteflock, who really had a tender and motherly heart in
her bosom, had said to her friend, during the afternoon's
counsel, “if you wish to govern Margaret, you must do it
through love; harsh measures will never do. And moreover
you cannot keep her a child any more; she is now a
woman, and will be so regarded.”

“Ah, I will try the experiment!” Mrs. Fairfax had
answered. Hence the sweetness.

The result exceeded her hopes; Margaret was taken by
storm; the fondness, the generosity were so new, so
strange, she knew not what to say. She thought of the
stolen interview with Peter, and her heart reproached her;
her mother would condemn her conduct, the church would
condemn it; perhaps she had been wicked. She had indulged
in hard, almost angry feelings toward her mother
even while she was meditating such good things toward
herself.

“I have something to tell you, mother,” she said, falling
on her neck and bursting into tears.

She meant to own her love for Samuel; her hand was
already on the ring; she meant to confess the stolen interview
of the morning, but the mother preferred not to hear
what she already knew; as matters stood she could ignore
the facts, and, as she believed, manage more adroitly.

“Keep your little secrets, my dear,” she said, pushing
Margaret from her; “I don't care to know them; what,
indeed, could a child like you have to confess?” Then she
asked, playfully, whether Margaret had forgotten to tie her
garters that morning, or to feed her chickens? or of what
other equally great sin she was guilty? laughing as though
it were all a very fine jest. So, for the present, the opportunity
of honest dealing was lost between them.

Thus disjoined from her mother, as it were, Margaret put
down her little secret and remained silent. She could not
for the life of her say anything that referred ever so remotely
to Samuel. With regard to him she could not assert
herself.

Mrs. Fairfax kept up the conversation all the same after
Margaret had dropped out of it. She seemed not to be
aware of the silence, but answered her own questions, and
ran on from this indifferent matter to that, and from one person
to another till at last, quite incidentally, she mentioned
Samuel. He wasn't quite what a young man should be, she
was afraid; he stayed out late of nights, drank, and played
cards; she hoped nothing worse, but she didn't know. She
was sorry to hear such things; he seemed like a harmless
fellow, a clod-hopper, to be sure, but good-natured and well-disposed.
This was all nothing to Margaret, of course it was
nothing; her little darling was too good, too wise to think
of such a poor creature with undue interest. He had himself
as good as told her that he didn't believe in the Bible!
Wasn't that horrible! She had never breathed it till now,
she had been so much shocked by it! A word from her
would put him out of the church, but she would forbear.
“We must still treat him kindly,” she said, “but with a
difference, Margaret, with a difference!” It was best for
all, she said, that each should keep in his right place. This
young fellow, whoever he was — Sister Whiteflock's man —
was very ignorant, and didn't really know his place, she
supposed, “but we know ours, at any rate,” she said, “and
must keep in it.” She hoped Margaret would not behave
haughtily or scornfully, but with condescension instead of
consideration, and above all things without compromise of
the dignity that should mark the daughter of Mrs. Fairfax!
They had, moreover, just now, a reputation to establish
with the bishop's son!

This was the subject of her admonition; she did not bring
proof of her accusations, but took care so to state them that
there should seem to be no doubt of their truth. Indeed, she
constantly made it appear that she knew worse things than
she told; that she was, in fact, softening and making the
best of it all. And she strove to impress upon Margaret,
the necessity of great reserve in her intercourse with Samuel,
by a variety of insinuations and intimations not here set
down.

Poor little Margaret! Every word so softly spoken had
pierced like a dagger. She had drawn farther and farther
away from her mother until she was quite shrunken into the
chimney-corner, where with her head leaned upon the stone

jamb she listened to the heart beating loud and fast under
the ring in her bosom, and thought of him who gave it, with
twice the accustomed tenderness. Hitherto, she had had
him only to love; henceforth he was to defend, to protect,
to carefully guard and encourage as well; for that she
would stand for him against the world, she did not for a
moment doubt.

We do not know much of ourselves until we are tried,
not even the best of us, and “Deliver us from temptation,”
is a prayer that should evermore ascend unto Heaven.

When Margaret closed her chamber door that night, she
turned the key, a precaution she was not used to take, and
going back directly, tried it again, to make assurance sure.
Then reverting to the experience of the morning, she congratulated
herself that that was safely locked too, and
resolved that, in spite of any momentary impulse to the
contrary, she would, for the future, wisely keep her own
counsel. Then she took the ring from her bosom, held it up
in the light, kissed it again and again, slipt it on her finger,
and at last, with her hand beneath her cheek, fell asleep
to dream such dreams as women dream when they love
much.