University of Virginia Library

2. II.
MY SON'S MOTHER.

At precisely three o'clock, Juno Clifford's elegant
private carriage drew up before her husband's office
in State street. The steps were let down, and the
lady alighting, swept with the mien of an empress
across the pave, through the front room, and into
John Clifford's private counting-room. “Business
hours are over, I suppose?” she said, briefly.

“Yes, we were just closing.”

“Well, I want you to go with me to Eliot street.
The boy you brought home is in the carriage, and I
am going to see his mother. I suppose it's a necessary
form. It's the best way to satisfy him, and
then we can adopt him with entire safety.”

“Adopt him?”

“Yes, wasn't that what you brought him home
for? You've been teasing me these three years
about adopting a child. You had Max Clifford
round till I got tired to death of him. I've never
been willing to take any one before, but this child
interests me, and we will have him.”

“Well, certainly, if you wish it, wife. I don't
know but we may as well adopt this boy as another.
He pleased me very much when I saw him hawking
papers, and I told him, when I brought him home,
that I would find something better than that for him
to do. But we won't be hasty. We can take him
on trial for a time, and then, if we like him, we can
legally adopt him. We had better not make any
rash promises.”

They were all alone in the counting-room, and
the proud woman bent suddenly, and pressed her lips
to her husband's brow. It was so strange a thing for
her to do this—it had happened not more than once
or twice during the seven years of their married life,
and it moved him greatly. His eyes grew so dim, he
could hardly see her beauty, as she said in a low
tone, very sweet and touching, “My husband, God
has given me no child to love. This one pleased me,
and I want him now. I have so many long, lonely
hours to pass, and I need something to love, do I not,
John?”

“But you didn't like him when I brought him
home.”

“I like him now. John, I don't ask favors very
often. You will give me carte blanche to promise
this boy's mother whatever may be necessary?”

“I will. God knows, my beautiful, all I can do
will be little enough to reward you for the sacrifice

you made, in dowering with your youth, and your
fresh loveliness, a worn and wearied man, twice your
own age. I could not die in peace, if I had left one
thing undone, to make you happy!”

As the showy equipage rolled on, Juno Clifford
sat in silence, leaning her head against the velvet
cushions of the carriage. Her long lashes were
drooped over her eyes, as if to shut in their expression,
lest it should betray some cherished secret. It
was a beautiful picture; Juno ought to have seen it
herself, for she was fond of pictures. John Clifford
sat there opposite, with his back toward the horses,
taking it all in, and reproducing it to hang upon the
walls of his heart. His forehead thrilled yet, with
the kiss she had given him, and his pulses quickened
at the unusual memory. In that hour he had no
thought for the ideal woman, the imaginary wife.
Mrs. Clifford always dressed well, and the rich ermine
that lay about her throat, and swept down to her
feet, along with the velvet folds of her cloak, imparted
to her complexion a singular brilliancy. The
fur cap of the Russian ladies, which so few can wear to
advantage, suited well the haughty style of her classic
face; and from under her drooped lashes shot
flashes of light that seemed fairly to kindle the band
of jewels which confined it under her chin. The
boy, still in his fancy costume, sat silently beside her.
Ah, it was indeed a splendid picture—the contrast

between them—the lady, proud, defiant, stately, and
so beautiful — the fair, spiritual-looking child, with
his clear, earnest eyes, his pale face, and his loving
expression.

The boy had been looking silently from the window
for some moments. “It is here,” he said at
length, and once more the carriage stopped, and
Juno Clifford drew the folds of her cloak about her.
“Stay here for a while,” she said briefly to her husband,
and following the child, she descended to the
pavement. It was an old rickety house before which
the carriage stopped—a rambling, irregular wooden
building, that seemed looking mournfully at every
passer-by, and asking permission to fall down and
rest, which nobody had time to give. The child
climbed up one flight of stairs after another, looking
around every now and then at “the angel,” as he
called Juno, in his heart. Poor little thing, he
hadn't been so long out of heaven, but he had forgotten
how it looked there.

At last, he pushed open a door, and Juno stepped
quickly to his side. She paused, however, for a moment,
and lifting up her long lashes, allowed her eyes
to take in the whole scene. There had been a time
when she had been portionless, but she had never
shaken hands with real poverty. Now, its aspect did
not so much touch her heart, as it excited her curiosity.
The house had evidently been built for the

abode of wealth. Perhaps feet as light as thine, my
lady Juno, have trod that crumbling floor; other
eyes as dark, and glorious, may have counted the
carved lilies on the oaken wall; but the bounding
feet were still long ago, and if the dark eyes open
ever so widely, they can only see the coffin lid. Didst
ever think of that, my lady Juno?

There was the tiniest bit of a fire, in the great
fire-place, wide and stately enough to have held Yule
logs at Christmas time. A few half-kindled chips
were striving, as all fire strives, to send up their flame
toward heaven, but the heaps of rubbish on top of
them, choked it down, and turned it awry. I suppose
thoughtful people would have traced an analogy,
and remembered the tiny little flame of love to God,
which our warden angels strive so hard to kindle,
and how the dust and rubbish of this world's pomp
and circumstance, so often choke it back again. But
Juno Clifford was no analogist, and she stood there
merely taking in the picture.

There was a slight, graceful woman sitting in a
low chair beside the embers. She was very pale and
delicate, and her blue eyes rested with a look of sorrowful
abstraction on the child in her arms. The
little one might have been five years old, and, begging
Master Warren's pardon, she looked a great
deal more like an angel than Juno Clifford. Her
brow was indescribably pure. It seemed almost luminous,

the blue veins shone through it so distinctly.
Around it lay rings of golden hair, in short, clustering
curls. Her mouth and chin were very calm, and
a sweet, serene patience made her face even more
remarkable than her beauty. Her eyes were of the
same clear blue as her brother's, and they were
turned steadily toward the fire. About both mother
and children, there was, spite of their poverty, an air
of patrician grace and refinement, which was unmistakable.
At the mother's feet sat a girl of seven
little Emmie Hereford. There was but one adjective
needed to describe Emmie's face. It was emphatically
sunny. You just saw that she had brown
hair, and brown eyes of precisely the same shade,
but all you noticed was the sunshine. It fairly
flooded the great bare room, and lighted up the
dingy walls with something better than the warmest
firelight. She was singing when they opened the
door, singing a carol of the merry harvest time, in
the midst of that grim, bare poverty, when the very
name of harvest-time, on any other lips than those
so young, so hopeful, would have seemed a mockery.

“Mother, sweet mother,” cried Warren's voice,
as he sprang into the room. Juno's cheek flushed, as
she heard the exclamation. Already she loved him
enough to feel a pang of jealousy, at being forgotten,
even for a moment, but it passed away as quickly as it
came. He had only pressed one kiss on his mother's

wasted cheek, and the innocent brow of the little one
upon her lap, when he rose to his feet, and, pointing
to the door, said reverently, as one should announce
an empress,—“Mother, that is Mrs. Clifford — the
angel, mother!”

The mother rose with an air of quiet propriety,
which circumstances had no power to affect, and offering
her chair to her visitor seated herself upon a
bench at a little distance. Juno Clifford might have
made a star actress. She had quick perceptions of
character, and never failed to fascinate where the
prize to be gained was worth the effort. On this occasion
her husband would scarcely have known her.
She was so quiet and gentle, so far removed from her
usual hauteur and reserve, that John Clifford, if he
had been watching her, might have fancied his imaginary
wife had just stepped out of her common,
every-day garb, and taken possession of Juno's velvet
and ermine. Calling Warren to her side, she laid
her hand upon his curls, and keeping him there, won
Mrs. Hereford to unfold her history. It was by no
means an uncommon one.

Her husband had been the younger son of a
noble English family, and was educated for the
church. But when he found that his own heart was
wanting in devotion to his calling, the highest, and
most indispensable qualification, he had quietly, but
firmly, refused to take orders. This step had effectually

alienated him from his family, and the breach
was widened by his marriage with the daughter of a
poor curate. “I brought him nothing,” she said
meekly, “but a true, loving heart, and a face that to
his partial eyes seemed fair. I ought never to have
married him, but we loved each other so.” She
paused, and the tears fell slowly and very quietly
upon her clasped hands. A fierce frown, which she
bowed her head to conceal, contracted Juno Clifford's
features for a moment. A picture rose before her of
another bridal,—of youth and beauty bartered away
for gold, and her perjured, loveless heart beat tumultuously,
clamoring for a rest that came not.

They had been very happy for a few years, Mrs.
Hereford continued, looking up through her tears—
very happy. Three bright, smiling children made
light and music in their frugal home, and her Edward's
love had never failed her. At last a fourth
little one slept upon her breast, the one she held
there now, her little Mabel. But Mabel was hopelessly,
incurably blind. This was their first real
sorrow. Then her father died. They had shared
his humble dwelling ever since their marriage; but a
new curate came, and they went forth again, with
the whole world before them, where to choose a home
or a grave. Edward had been educated solely with
a view to the ministry. His organization was too
delicate for physical labor, and but few avenue of

employment were open before him. They went to
London, and for nearly two years he gained a bare
pittance for himself and his family, by constant exertions
as a copyist. At last, what with severe labor,
mental uneasiness, and bad air, his health gave way,
and he failed rapidly. They had never been bitterly
poor before, but now Edward was reduced to part
with a diamond cross, the last gift of his dead mother,
which he had sacredly preserved through all his
misfortunes. With the money thus obtained, nearly
three hundred pounds, they resolved to emigrate to
America. It was represented as a kind of Eldorado
in those days, and under the influence of his new
hopes, Edward's health began to revive, as soon as he
had engaged their passage. The voyage was an unusually
long one, and they had not been a week at
sea, before she once more perceived that he was failing
rapidly. The blind Mabel was confided to the
care of the eldest child, Warren; thoughtful even
then beyond his years; and the anguished wife
passed day and night in anxious watching by her
husband's side. On the seventh day he died. They
were in mid-ocean—not so much as a green island
dotted its bosom. There was no grave for him but
the waves. The sea-sand must draggle in his bright
hair, the sea monsters wrap their slimy coils about
the breast where, for so many years, her head had
rested. There was madness in the thought. She
threw herself at the captain's feet and pleaded, with
clasped hands and dry stony eyes, that strove to weep
and could not, that they would let her keep him—
only let her keep him, till she could lay him in a
grave on shore—where she could come sometimes and
press her lips to the green mound, and plant flowers
on it. But to her wild prayer there was no answer,
no amen. The waves closed over him, and the ship
passed on, making no pause for the ocean burial;
going on her way like a thing of life and beauty, as
if there were no waves but the waves of ocean—no
sorrow, and no prayer.

The mother stood alone, with her fatherless children,
on a foreign shore. “Would she have a
carriage?” “Where would she go?” They were
questions which she knew not how to answer. She
stood there with her blind girl in her arms, and the
rest around her, in a tide of troubled thought.
Edward had meant to settle in Boston. He had an
old friend there, a prosperous merchant, and there
would be a melancholy satisfaction in seeking his
friend, in following the course the dead one had
marked out.

Two days after, she sat in a quiet room at the
Tremont House. She had gone thither at the suggestion
of the captain, who supposed her wealthy
Her little girls lay sleeping on the low French bed,
Emmie's brown curls floating over the golden rings

of Mabel's hair. Their little hands were clasped
together, and Emmie's arm was wound protectingly
round her sister's neck. Warren and Richard seemed
to feel instinctively that she chose to be left to herself,
and they stood quietly at the window, watching
the people below, and the lights in the shops. The
mother's musings were as perplexing as they were
painful. She had four children, and not more than
nine hundred dollars in the world. She thought till
her brain throbbed, but she could see no means of
support. Were she alone, she might perhaps advertise
for a situation as governess, but even then she
would have no recommendations. And yet—a hopeful
thought dawned upon her. She rang for writing
materials and a directory. Turning the leaves with
her trembling fingers, she very soon ascertained the
address of her husband's friend; a dainty, lady-like
looking note was written and directed to Mark
Sutherland, Esq., Beacon street.

The next day, at the fashionable calling hour,
Mr. and Mrs. Sutherland were announced. The
lady was very showy, and somewhat handsome. Mr.
Sutherland was a mild-looking, middle-aged gentleman,
with an expression of much civility in his light
eyes, that always seemed to say—“By your leave, sir;
if you please, madam.” His head looked so sleek,
you would have imagined every individual one of his
iron-gray hairs was trying to compress itself into

the smallest possible space, just to get out of other
people's way. The lady greeted Mrs. Hereford with
almost oppressive cordiality, and eagerly insisted that
they should leave the hotel at once, and become her
guests, until they had time to look up a satisfactory
residence. Mr. Sutherland's face expressed as much
gratification at his wife's cordiality as such a face
could express. He asked a few timid questions about
his old friend, and then Mrs. Hereford managed to
tell them the object with which they had sailed for
America, and how small was the sum on which lay
her sole dependence. She expressed a wish that they
could assist her in getting scholars, or in some way
procuring a livelihood. Mr. Sutherland coughed a
very sympathetic cough, and lifted his meek eyes to
his wife in a mute appeal, as it seemed, for permission
to assist the widow of his old friend. But it was
quite lost upon his good lady. She, righteous soul,
was pouring out sympathetic discourse like wine.
She knew no opportunity indeed to get scholars, but
perhaps Mrs. Hereford could open a thread and
needle store, she had heard of such things being
done by ladies in reduced circumstances. She hoped
Mrs. Hereford would not fail to recollect that resignation
was a Christian duty, and so saying, she went
away, without renewing her invitation.

There was no help to be hoped for in that quarter
and the lonely English woman was compelled to

make a confident of her landlord. By his assistance,
she procured a cheap boarding-place, and employment
at plain sewing. But her wants were many,
and her strength small. The scanty remnant of her
fortune diminished daily, and she had sunk, step by
step, to penury. “I do not know why I have told
you all this,” she concluded, “but you seemed to
sympathize in my distress. For the last three weeks
I have been too weak and ill to accomplish any thing,
and with four children looking up to me for bread, I
can no longer afford to be proud. I have not so
much money in the whole world as would pay for
this desolate apartment a week longer. We have
tasted food but once in the last twenty-four hours.
This morning Warren and Dick both left me, with
high hopes of earning money enough to get some
supper, and Dick, poor, patient child, has not yet
returned.”

Juno Clifford sat in silence for a moment, after
Mrs. Hereford ceased speaking; then she drew a card
from her card-case, and wrote a hurried request to
her husband that he would send at once to the nearest
shops for all the necessaries of a comfortable
supper. “Go, Warren,” she said, gently, “hand this
to Mr. Clifford, and return again after a few moments.”

Then she turned to Mrs. Hereford, and said, in a
low, earnest tone, “Rich as you may have thought

me, I, too, suffer. I am poorer in heart than you can
ever be, for I have no child to love me. Will you
give me Warren?”

“He is my oldest son, lady; his dead father's
pride, and my chief dependence for the future.”

“But I love him. I will do more for him than
you could ever hope to do. Would you have your
children grow up in ignorance, and perhaps die of
starvation before your eyes, when, by parting with
him, you might provide for them all? I do not ask
you to do this for nothing. I will give you a pleasant
home, and a comfortable support. He shall be educated
as our own child, and cared for, by my husband
and myself, as if indeed he were of our own blood.
We will give him our name, and make him the heir
to our fortune.”

“Should I see him often?” the mother asked
with mournful resignation.

Juno's brow darkened, but her self-command was
wonderful, and she still retained her sweet, persuasive
accents. “You would hardly ask that,” she said,
gently. “Mr. Clifford would never consent to it, nor
indeed could I. We want him for his love, and we
never could bring him to regard us as his parents, if
he saw you often. Think what a future lies before
you, and consider if it would not be better to give
up this one child, and do without his presence, than
to bring them all up in want and misery? With us,

his fortune will be brilliant, as even his father could
have hoped. My husband has a little farm on the
banks of the Mohawk River. It is a sweet place,
thirty miles west of Albany. I have been there
once, and no one could desire a fairer home. You
shall have it rent free, and each year you shall receive
four hundred dollars, payable quarterly. In return,
I ask but for Warren. You will not be under a
single obligation. I want the boy, and his love will
be worth more than all I could do for you, to my
empty, childless heart.”

The mother threw herself upon her knees. For
a moment she sobbed bitterly. Then she lifted
toward heaven her streaming eyes, and a prayer
trembled upon her lips, very brief, very fervent, that
God would help her to decide aright. Then rising,
she walked back and forth across the floor, with
feeble steps. An age of agony swept over her soul
in those few moments. Could she give him up, she
asked herself again, and again—her first-born, beautiful
son? Could she have him called by another
name, her Edward's boy, the descendant of the proud
race of Hereford? And oh, worst of all, must she
live to know that she was no longer remembered,
that his lips were calling another one his mother, and
his heart had forgotten the first love of his babyhood.
Would it not be easier to see his bright head
shut down beneath the coffin-lid? Alas, if he should

die, she had not money enough in all the world to
buy a coffin! And then her frightened heart reproached
her with selfishness. Would not they all
rise up and condemn her, if she suffered this passionate
mother's love to deprive him of the bright
future opening before him; to consign them to a life
of poverty and wretchedness, whose sweetest goal
would be a nameless mound in the pauper's graveyard?
This thought decided her. She resolutely
choked back her tears, and turning to Mrs. Clifford,
she said, in a tone of forced calmness, “I have no
choice left, with these helpless, suffering ones around
me. He shall answer for himself. Poor as I am, I
will not send my boy from me, but if he will go willingly,
then take him, and may Heaven give your
kindness such a reward as I never can.”

“Be it so! He shall decide. I hear his foot
upon the stairs.” It was strange how soon Juno had
learned to catch the sound of that child's footstep;
she who, after seven years of married life, could not
distinguish her husband's tread from the footfall of
her black servants. Warren entered, and, of his own
accord, resumed his old place at Juno's side, and once
more, with one hand resting upon his head, and the
other imparting a kind of subtle magnetic influence,
by the caressing motion with which it moved backward
and forward over his small palm, the lady asked
him if he would like to live with her always. She

told him briefly of the proposal she had made to his
mother, and then she said, “I will love you, Warren,
as fondly as your own mother ever could, and I need
you more than she does, for I have no other child to
love. If you come to us, you will be the means of
making all your dear ones comfortable and happy,
and you will be educated to become every thing your
father could have wished. You are not to see or
write to your mother, or your family. This will be
better for them as well as you. It is a great sacrifice,
I know, but can you not make it for their sakes?
Will you go with me?”

There was a struggle in the boy's heart. He
grew pale as death. His eyes turned with a look of
anguished tenderness on the faces of his mother and
his sisters. But Juno Clifford triumphed. He put
back the hand he had withdrawn from her clasp, and
said, quietly, but still firmly—“I will go with you.”
Thus was made the life election of the adopted son.

Mrs. Clifford's point was gained, but she still
preserved the singular gentleness of her demeanor.
When her husband entered, followed by a servant
bearing a bundle of faggots and a hamper of provisions,
she quietly explained the promises she had
made, and called on him to confirm them. Then
telling Mrs. Hereford she would make arrangements
the next day for their removal to comfortable lodgings
out of the city, and in the spring they should

be sent to Mohawk village, she bade her a kind good
bye. “You will come to me in the morning, Warren,”
she said as she went out. “You may spend this last
night with your mother.”

Once in the carriage, Juno Clifford's acting was
over. She threw herself back on the cushions, and
declared she was fagged to death; that really she
never went through such a tiresome piece of work in
her life; that she was glad that it was well over, and
she hoped, now she had adopted a son at last, Mr.
Clifford would be satisfied. And, listening to these
words, some of the blessedness her kiss had left upon
his brow passed away, and leaning back on the cushions
opposite, he invoked once more that fair picture
of his imaginary wife, and thought how, if she were
with him, it might have been that if God gave them
children by birth or by adoption, she would have
knelt by his side, and prayed for grace to train the
soul for heaven. But she was not there, and turning
away his eyes from Juno's face John Clifford
breathed the prayer alone.

Left to themselves, the little family in Eliot
street forgot, for a time, the provisions and the firewood
of which they stood in such pressing need, and
remained huddled around the embers in silent thought.
Mabel's face was hidden upon the mother's shoulder;
Warren knelt beside her, with his head bowed upon

her lap, and even the gay, light-hearted Emmie, leaning
against her knee, was fairly sobbing. At last
they were roused from their reverie, by a slow, half-hesitating
step upon the stair, and Dick Hereford
entered. He was a fine, manly-looking little fellow,
fully as large as Warren, though two years younger.
He came slowly in, and going up to his mother's
chair, said, in a despairing accent—“Mother, I have
made but sixpence; we shall starve at this rate.”
Then his eyes fell upon Warren, and he exclaimed,
“Why, where have you been, Ware? You must
surely have done better than I. How came you by
those handsome clothes?”

With an inward prayer for strength, the mother
unfolded the events of the afternoon. Dick seemed
to enjoy the tidings. His spirit was naturally hopeful
and courageous, and, to him, the forthcoming
prosperity of the family was a matter of unqualified
joy.

“Give us your hand, old fellow,” he exclaimed,
with an assumed manliness, which was very amusing
in the boy of ten. “Give us your hand and see if
you can't look thankful at the good fortune that's
coming to you. I don't see any thing to look so
solemn about. Of course you can come to see us,
and we'll all write to you!”

“No, that is it,” and the mother's tone trembled

—“we cannot write him, and we are not going to see
him any more.”

A shadow stole over the boy's face, when at length
he comprehended the full force of the separation; but
with a cheerfulness, evidently assumed for his mother's
sake, he said, gayly—“Well, any way, if we must be
sober, we'll have a good supper to help us bear it.”

In five minutes he had kindled a nice fire in the
great fire-place and extracted from the hamper a
loaf of bread, a pie, a paper of tea, and a small box
of sugar. “There's some meat there, mother, dear,”
he said, in his good, cheerful voice; “if you'll cook
it, I'll be off after some water, and put the kettle
boiling.”

It was such a supper as they had not tasted in
many months. Mrs. Hereford strove to conquer her
emotions, and at least to appear to enjoy it for her
children's sake, and even she grew more cheerful,
under the influence of the light and warmth, and
the comfortable viands. After the table was cleared,
she sat down by the fire, with her children around
her. The little ones talked gayly of the future, and
the mother, though every pulsation of her heart
seemed a wail, forced back her tears, and listened.
Warren did nothing; the image of “the angel” lay
warm and bright at his heart, but he loved the mother
of his infancy too well to speak the words of
parting lightly. Dick talked hopefully of the time

when he should be old enough to relieve his mother
and sisters from dependence on a stranger; of the
nice home he would make for them, and the fine
horses he would have when he grew to be a man.
Emmie's sunny face kindled, and her brown eyes
sparkled, as she talked of the new home where they
were going. Only the summer before, when Mrs.
Hereford had been paid a few shillings more than
she expected, for the sewing she had done for a generous
lady, she had given the children an omnibus
ride into the country; and this was the great gala
day of Emmie's life. While Mrs. Hereford had sat
under the green trees, holding her little Mabel, and
never wearying of making word-pictures for the
blind girl; telling her how the sunshine slept among
the long grass of the meadows, and how bright were
the wings of the summer birds; Emmie had watched,
in delighted abstraction, the varied movements of the
lambs, ducks, and geese, which peopled the extensive
farm the mother had selected for her stopping place.

The child recalled all this as she sat looking at
the embers, and prattled merrily of the flowers, and
the lambs, and the poultry she should call her very
own, and the tiny little chickens she was to feed with
her own hand.

The sweet Mabel, also, sitting in the mother's
arms, raised to the dear face bending over her, her
meek, sightless eyes, and whispered—“It will be so

beautiful there, dear mamma. I can sit under the
trees, and I shall know their great arms are waving
above me, and the flowers are beneath my feet, and
the blue sky over all. You'll have time to talk to
me sometimes, won't you, mother dear, and tell me
how the sunshine trembles through the leaves, and
the hill rises in the distance, and the wind blows the
rye into little billows; and, mother, I shall feel it
blow cool, and fresh, and pure, on my very face, and
be so happy I shall never stop to think I cannot
see.”

The mother could not speak. She clasped her
fatherless ones in her arms, and with her tears falling
on Mabel's golden curls, bowed her head in prayer,
that though her own heart seemed breaking, the
Heavenly Father's hand might lead them through
the green pastures, and beside the still waters of
Peace.