mine already by right, from the long years' possession of that heavenly face of hers in my heart and my studio, I would not treat her as such in any sense until I might woo and win her. I was more painfully scrupulous than I would have been with any other lady to avoid doing or saying any thing which might look like asserting a claim. I carefully governed myself against all intrusions upon her quiet and privacy, and suffered myself only to see her at first upon grounds of the most polite etiquette, that, if possible, I might be thought worthy for my own sake, regardless of any past relations of benefactor and beneficiary, to have a place where alone of all others I would give my life to sit supreme. My course was a successful one. In time came the blessed, the unmistakable signs of being loved. The involuntary, warmer pressure of the hand, when late in the evening, after talking with them or reading to them for hours, I left her mother's parlor; the solicitude, the nursing, bestowed by gentlewoman goodness upon my slight pain or illness; the interest in all that I cared for; the pleasure with which my day's calendar of labors was listened to at nightfall by the breezy windows. And, finally, I determined to do that act which the truest and the bravest man must ever come to with more trembling than to any other passage of his life; which only the flippant coward dares boast he approached nonchalantly, and according to mere cool forms -the finding out whether you have not been flattering yourself, and it is possible, after all, that you are to her you love the one man in the world, as she is to you the only woman. My thorough respect and self-respect had won the mother, and it was by her consent that, for my end, I invited the daughter to accompany me one morning to my studio. Ellen granted the request, and, reaching there, I opened the door of the inner room, and drew back the curtain that hung over my wife's picture. "Look, Miss Lorn!" A deep blush of delighted surprise and awakening spread over the face of the beautiful girl, and, as soon as she could get words, she said: "Why, when did you do this? I never sat to you." "That portrait was painted nearly seven years ago." "What! Is it possible that any one just like me-" "No, there is none else like you; and, therefore, if you can not do for me the one thing which I live for, on the broad earth I have nowhere else to go! Ellen! can it be that the last few months leave you still ignorant of what that one thing is ?" I drew her gently toward me, and, as she hid her face upon my breast, she just whispered, "I can not find the words to tell you what I would say. I am sure you know it with out-" "Yes, thank God! I do. I know it at last, and feel it, without words, for I love you, and you love me!" And then I told her the story of the portrait the story, actually incredible save by her who trusted me. And my soul was full of hymns to think that this was indeed my wife's portrait. It will always be my great sorrow, though now it be a consoled one, that we did not marry, as the Law of Heaven calls all such as we to do, immediately. But the Law of Society said, "Wait; wait till you are able to put your wife at the head of a more expensive-a more luxurious establishment. The world will visit you then, and you shall begin your married dance, like young Whiffletree, to the music of golden trumpets.' I grieve to say that the Law of Society so far overruled in my foolish mind the Law of Heaven, that I proposed to remain engaged for one year before the wedding. In that time I would work-oh, how I would work!-with one single aim-the increase of wealth and distinction for her sake. The year passed, we would open a house on Washington Square, perhaps, and keep servants and a carriage with the best of them. To this end I greatly enlarged my circle of acquaintances. I went more into society, and suffered myself to be lionized, with an ulterior view to orders. I became hail-fellow-well-met with many a dashing young blood, whose wealth would have hitherto been to me but a miserable compensation for listening to his horse, militia, and quadrille twaddle. I suffered myself to be talked to on the comparative merits of tailors by Snobson, to take drinks and rides with De Fasteboie. I went into general routs and crush parties, and was seduced by learned women into dissertations upon Annibale Caracci. The just nascent taste for and study of art in town enabled mothers, with daughters who did not despise the lure of a rising artist, to "book-up" those young persons in all the commonplaces of dilettante painting and sculpture; so that they imagined their fascinations took me on my weak side, when they made sweet, bashful love to me, as an obvious professional character. How little they thought that I was all the time looking through them and over their heads to that quiet parlor where a young girl, who never got one of their cards, sat waiting my return over some choice old passage I had marked for her to read! How little they thought that I was using them all, men and women, waltzers and talkers, sons, daughters, and mammas, merely as the steps of a ladder, above whose top round sat-the sewing girl repulsed from Whiffletree's! Yet how often did I say to myself, "Wilton, after all, what better are you in all this selfish mingling with the people you despise than a walking advertisement-a rollicking sign-board, with 'Painting done here!'" And I confess I had my misgivings as to how far I was acting nobly. As the time went on I began to feel all this excitement wearing on me. After painting all day, the whirl of incessant party-life was not the thing for me. I ought to have been on Ellen Lorn's peaceful little sofa. I suspect, too, that the drinks with De Fasteboie were not good for me; they told on my constitution in a feverish brow and a nameless craving. The bays, stabled all the afternoon, needed only to feel the reins, and warmed to work without urging. The sunlight was not yet quite out of one side of the sky, and the moon had just risen on the other, when we came whirling A night came which I shall never forget while into the upper portion of Broadway. Of a sudI live. I had promised, in the morning, to take den, above all the other blended hum of town, out Ellen in the evening for a moonlight row then pealed upon our ears the quick alarm of upon the North River. We would go to Wee-fire-bells. Men, boys, and engines began to hawken on the flood tide, take a little straw-run and rattle through the streets, and making berry supper there, and come back by eleven or twelve on the ebb. It was all arranged before I kissed her good-by and left for the studio. A little after noonday, as I rested from my easel to take my lunch upon the sandwich which Ellen always had ready in its clean white napkin when I left home, De Fasteboie sauntered in from his restaurant breakfast, taken, as his wont was, very early in the afternoon, and hailed me with, "How're ye, old fellow! Well, what's up? Br-e-ad and ha-am, on my soul! really, equal to What's-his-name's hermit-‘water and cresses from the spring'-the exact words, I think. Come, put down that melancholy stuff. Bob and Bouncer are at the door, and my tiger can't keep them more than a minute longer from kicking over the traces. Prime order, shiny as glass, and the oats fairly sticking out of them. Hurrah for the road and a Champagne dinner at Stryker's! Come-quick!" Almost without knowing how, I consentedlocked my door, and jumped up by De Fasteboie's side on the dog-cart. Aside from having to hear him talk, it certainly was pleasant to be bowling along at a steady rate of twelve miles the hour on a smooth, tough, elastic road, to the rhythm of spirited hoofs, out of the din and dust, all among blossoms, river breezes, and deep, green lawns of country houses. Our dinner at Stryker's was elaborately good, even at that earlier day of luxury. The Champagne was, perhaps, the child of vineyards then, and not of orchards. At any rate, we drank freely of it-drank till we felt its generous thrill with poignant pleasantness. And such goodfellowship, so-called, rose out of its bubbles that not until the clock aroused us, striking seven, did we think of taking to the road again. Seven o'clock ! Oh shame!-at that very hour had I appointed to go with Ellen to the boat; and for what had I forgotten my promise? I, the earnest man and the worker, to revel with bon-vivants-to while a long summer day in banqueting-to waste even the hour I had pledged to the woman of my love! Full of that feverish restlessness which torments the man who has criminally laughed away an appointed time, I prevailed upon De Fasteboie, after much reluctance, to order up the horses. We neither of us said much on our way in. With De Fasteboie it was after-dinner satiety that kept him taciturn; with me it was that remorse which likes not to talk-only to get forward, both to repair injury, if possible, and to run away from itself. a strange mixed glare with the contending sunset and moon-rise, the lurid surges of the fire, canopied with heavy smoke-clouds, rolled on our view from further down town. "Where is the fire?" I shouted to a man whom we hurled past as he ran. "In Macdougal Street," he replied, behind us. "Oh! I hope not any where near my studio. De Fasteboie-do me the favor to take me there I may be necessary, if it is near." Into the Avenue-past the Square--into Macdougal Street-fast as we could drive. Heavens! could it be? It was my studio! Then De Fasteboie set me down among the struggling mob and the engines. After which, spite the bold training of his horses, he left, for their sake not daring to stay. 'Friends, make way, if you please." I shook off the hands whose rough kindness would detain me, and just plunging my handkerchief in a water-pail, tied it over my mouth and rushed up the half-charred stairway. There were pictures up stairs for the Exhibition-orders in every stage of progress-none of these were in my mind. My wife's portrait-the talisman of all my hardest life-the goal to which I had painted forward for six years with all their nights and days-I would bring that down safe though I had to leap back from the window. With the floor half yielding beneath me and almost strangled, I reached the landing and felt for my key. But no-no need-the studio door had been opened before me and stood ajar. Through dense clouds I groped, holding my breath, to the inner door-as I pushed that open, the floor within fell down, crackling with the pictures all ashes upon it, and a bright sheet of flame rolled up into my very eyes. A quick pain shot through them-then I opened them, and finding I could not see, cried out in agony, 'Blind, O God! blind!" Yet Heaven helped me as I groped my way back to the stairs-then plunged down them to the ground. 66 "Did you get it?" cried a hundred throats simultaneously, who knew not what, to me, that "it" meant. "No," I answered, mechanically, and the low murmur that went through the crowd showed how much those kind, rude souls felt sorry for my unknown wretched ness. "Blind, O God! blind!" In the quickening of that sudden, great affliction, there fell upon me like a tempest remorse for what I had lost and the sense of irreparable blight. I saw quickly go past me, in mournful procession, all the blind beggars I had ever pitied at the street Then she said to me, Will you do me one favor?" "Oh! don't speak so. side and in hospitals. I saw Bartimeus as he | her voice asking how I felt. Thrown out of this world's work-shop as a ruined tool, what more was left for me? One thing-and that I would do. At the foot of Hammersley Street the deep river was now running in swift and strong flood. I might go to Weehawken yet to-night-I laughed in my despair-yet not as I meant to go in the morning. Ellen would not be with me; no, she would not see me as I drifted cold and unpained through those quick waters, a drowned blind man-with my eyes glassily staring up to the moonlight, and my hair waving back like a strange waif of sea-weed. With this resolution in my mad soul, I managed to feel my way down toward the rivernever stumbling at crossings or striking against posts—until the monotonous lashing between the piles and the feel of boards beneath my feet told me I was on the wharf. Going to the edge I shut my teeth, and without a prayer got ready to leap. Almost off! when a small round arm, nerved mightily beyond its common strength, caught me around the waist-and a bitter voice of grief-a woman's voice-yes, Ellen's-cried out close to my face, "Oh, Mark, Mark! Pity me -pity me, and do not die!" Utterly exhausted by my passion of despair I fell to the wharf, helpless as a child. And she, the loving and true-hearted, sat down, taking my hot head into her lap. "Would you kill me, Mark? Me whom you love? Speak to me-look at me-you will frighten me to death. Oh, look at your Ellen!" I turned my sightless eyes up to that heavenly, invisible face which bent over me, and answered, "I shall never see you again. I am blind-blind by fire!" For a moment the anguish that shook that tender young girl was like the wrath of a great whirlwind. In passionate sobs and tears it broke over me and mingled with my own sorrow, till I seemed growing mad again, and struggled to rise, saying, "No help for it-I must die!" And then the mighty, self-conquering heroism of woman came to her aid. She brushed the tears from her eyes, and clasping my hand, answered with a voice of firm cheerfulness, "No! you shall never die, while I have eyes and hands for us both." And almost unconsciously she led me from the pier, and guided me gently home. I slept a long and heavy sleep till late in the next morning. When I awakened, it was to feel instantly Ellen's kiss upon my lips; to hear love me still as much as ever?" 'Can you ask me that-me whom you saved, both soul and body last night ?" "Well, then, you will grant me this one thing let us be married immediately." "O God! to think I can never take care of you, now!" "Never mind-I can take care of you. Mother and I have two more rooms to ourselves than there is any need of: we will take more boarders-don't be afraid; we shall live. I only want to belong to you before all the world -that I may have a right to take care of you. If you love me still, let it be as I say this once." We were married that very day. I, the blind-ah, the doubly blind-to her the beautiful, the patient, and far-seeing. For many a day afterward I sat in my little room with my eyes bound up, for they were very tender for a long time, while Ellen talked hopefully to me, and made bright pictures in my mind by telling me how the clouds and the grass and the trees were looking. Oh, the blessing she was to me in that darkness! Very soon after our marriage she told me how she came to save me at the wharf. At the first cry of fire, fearing I was away-for seven o'clock had come without bringing me-she had hurried to my studio, and reached it just in time to bear away out of the thickening smoke that one beloved picture. She had carried it to a safe place, and then returned in the vain desire of having the other paintings saved. She had been hemmed in by the crowd when I came-her voice lost in theirs, when I rushed up the burning stair-case. She had seen me return, groping strangely-broken through the crowd, and tracked me down Hammersley Street. She just reached the wharf in time and saved me! 66 For many days, I have said, she sat with me, lighting my darkness. Her plans for keeping house, helped by our good and tender mother, were all successful. We lived comfortably, if not luxuriously, and I only groaned in spirit when I thought to myself, I might have been doing all this for her, and more.' No-not more-God never gives more, before heaven comes (and that coming only brightens and strengthens it), than a noble woman's love on earth. Gradually I was able to do something. People that had heard of me while yet I painted seemed willing to hear further from the blind artist. So using my Ellen's pen, I wrote lectures upon the art whose practice must now be a memory only with me forever. Then she read them over to me till I learned them, and I traveled with her, talking them to the sympathizing audiences whose pity softened without mortifying me, because I could not see it. This greatly didn't you tell me—I'd have slicked up a little. No matter now, though. How do ye do? So you're from Boston, be ye?" Yes-and I did well at lecturing. I There was a good-humored smile of curiosity on her face as she examined me through her glasses; and at the same time I observed that both the girls were laughing. "You'll have to tell your story about the gentleman from Boston!" said Delia (that was the younger), in the old lady's ear. "And Lyddy Lankfort's wedding!" exclaimed the grandmother, quite merrily. "That's jest what come into my head! I never hear of a gentleman from Boston but I think on't, I do believe. But I couldn't tell it; my memory's a failin' on me so. Here, Susie! you take up this stitch I've dropped; I've took up many a stitch for you, girls, when you was childern, and larnin' to knit, and that's all the good it ever done I guess you'd go without stockings, if ye didn't have me to knit 'em for ye, for all knittin' on 'em yourselves." "Oh, Ellen, Ellen! I see you again! am not-not quite blind!" As she woke in sudden amazement, and saw the truth-that I could see a very little-she shed the first tears from her brave steadfast eyes that she had per-ye. mitted herself since she had to uphold me. After that, little by little, my full sight came back to me. I painted again, and became more famous than before. I realized my dream of a fine house, equipage, all material splendor I had striven for. But as He who knows all hearts bears me witness, I would be blind again, if no otherwise could I see the heaven of that woman's heart as I saw it in my blindness! HA Having given Susie the sock, with this severe comment, the old lady wiped her glasses, and held them pensively in one hand, while she gently stroked the cat's neck with the other. The cat purred; Susie bent blushingly over the sock; Delia played with a string; I looked with pretended interest at the pathetic picture of the old lady and her cat; but I was, in reality, thinking how handsome the girls were, and how captivating they would be had they possessed a little sentiment with their fun, and been less shockingly practical. "Gentleman from Boston!" suddenly burst forth the old lady, with a laugh. “I don't know as I've thought on't for the last sixty years without laughin', no matter where I was-even if 'twas in meetin'!" 66 LYDIA LANKFORT'S WEDDING. [AVING shown me the chambers of the house-the dairy-room, with its hundred cheeses, like so many flattened spheres of gold, ranged upon shelves-the wool-loft, in which were stored the results of three seasons' shearing-the yellow-white blocks of fleeces packed away, in regular rows, to the ceiling, with little aisles and arches, all of wool, and having explained to me, very innocently, that this crop, Sixty years!" I observed. reaped from the backs of sheep, was a commod-long road to look back over." ity which increased in weight by being kept, and that it would probably command a better price per pound another season than this, the young ladies of the farm conducted me to the pantry, where they exhibited a trayful of extraordinary hens'-eggs; then to the wash-room, to show me the glossy water-tank, supplied by a spout from the hill; and, finally, asked me if I would like to see their grandmother? "That is a There's been Times wasn't "Wa'al, in one sense, 'tis. changes that make it seem so. then as they be now. You'd think 'twas rather funny, wouldn't you, to go back to where there wasn't any railroads, or steamboats, or tallygrafts? I don't remember as we ever used to see a newspaper very often them days. And as for chaises, and buggys, and such things, I don't believe there was over a dozen or so in all "By all means!" I replied; and they accord- Connecticut. At least I never see one in our ingly led me to a sitting-room, where the old village-only Deacon Lankfort had a kind of a lady sat, with a large gray cat in her lap, knit-one-hoss wagin he used to drive to meetin', and ting a sock which was precisely the color of the thought drea'ful smart! cat. "The Deacon was one of the richest men there was in town; he had a noble farm, and kept store besides—sold sugar, calico, brooms, Boston crackers, and no end of rum. Twa'n't considered any disgrace them days to sell rum. Temperance-I never heard of temperance when I was a girl. "Gran'ma!" cried the youngest of the girls -the prettier of the two, if there was any difference in their beauty, for they were both handsome as cherries-"Gran'ma!" she repeated, raising her voice, for it appeared that the old lady was rather deaf, "here's a gentleman come to see you." "It's the Deacon's darter, Lyddy Lankfort, I "A gentleman from Boston!" added her sis- was goin' to tell ye about. She liked Enos Foote. ter, laughing. Enos was a clerk in her father's store, and as "From Boston!" echoed the old lady, put-likely a young man as any there was in town. ting on her spectacles. "I declare! Why I don't know 't they was exactly engaged; but 'twas understood well enough by every body that he was to marry Lyddy, and go into business with her father, who was to take him into partnership; and every thing went on smooth enough, till up comes that everlastin' gentleman from Boston. "I never shall forgit the fust time I see him. 'Twas to meetin'; he had some business with the Deacon, and he sot in the Deacon's pew. He was dressed up mighty smart, with his hair all queued down behind, and pomatumed up straight before, and powdered all over, as if it had jest come out of a flour-bag. That was the fashion them days. But I couldn't help laughin' to see him lookin' so uncommon stiff and f'erce! He staid in town three or four days, and the Deacon introduced him around, and had so much to say about the gentleman from Boston that it got to be a by-word; for the Deacon thought there never was any body like him. We used to joke Lyddy about him, and asked Enos if he knew there was a sock knittin' for him? and it worked 'em both up so, I began to mistrust how the land lay. The Deacon had his weaknesses-he was human, and desperit worldly-and he'd thought it all over, how nice 'twould be to have the gentleman from Boston a member of his family. "Lyddy warn't a girl to be slighted neither, by the best of 'em. She was amazin' pertyclear red and white-with eyes bright as di'monds. She wa'n't none too good for Enos, though. But while every girl in the neighborhood was after him, and he was after Lyddy, she changed her mind all at once, and began to receive attentions from the gentleman from Boston. "Twas her father's doin's mostly; but she was young, and a little giddy, and I s'pose she thought it would be a fine thing to marry a stranger that dressed so smart, and talked so large, and walked so like a prince of the 'arth, and had so much money as folks told about and that, arter all, was the main thing, I imagine. "They managed perty shrewd to keep Enos quiet, and at last he was sent off to Hartford on some pretense of business, but for no 'arthly reason under the sun, only to have him out of the way when the weddin' come off. The gentleman from Boston was f'erce enough for the match-and no wonder; for whoever got Lyddy got a perty wife, and a fortin' with her. "Your gran'ther Slade was courtin' me along 'bout that time; he was a kind of half-cousin of Lyddy's-her father was old granny Slade's half-brother-and since we'd been engaged, Lyddy and I had got to be tolerable intimate. So one day, arter she was published-the minister used to read off in meetin' them that contemplated matrimony, always, in those daysLyddy sent for me to come over and see her. I took my knittin', and went over-girls never thought of goin' a visitin' then 'thout some kind o' work. I remember I went cross-lots, and picked some ros'berries by the way, and strung some on a stalk of grass to take to Lyddy. She run out by the well to meet me, and hugged me in her arms, and bust out a cryin' right there on my neck. "My, Lyddy!' says I. 'What on 'arth is the matter?' says I. 'Now don't cry!' says I. But all the time I was a cryin' myself; for I knowed what the trouble was-and many a sad and lonesome time I'd had thinkin' of her and poor Enos Foote, though 'twa'n't no business of mine. "I an't cryin'! or if I be, it's cause I'm so glad to see ye!' says Lyddy, says she. 'Come in, do!' So I went in, and she began to look a little chirk, showin' me her weddin'-dress and fixin's. But I couldn't feel happy somehow; I kep' thinkin', thinkin', and e'ena'most chokin', when I tried to talk; and at last I couldn't help speakin' right out: 666 "What 'u'd Enos say, Lyddy?' "She turned white as a sheet, and dropped her dress, and stood a minute the most distressed object ever I set eyes on; then she began to cry agin! 666 "Oh, don't mention Enos!' says she. 'There never was any body so miserable as I be!' "She took on terrible for much as ten or fifteen minutes; and I let her, for I thought 'twould do her good to have her cry out. But I felt awful while I sot by and looked on. I was in love a little myself then, and I could jest enter into her feelin's, and feel for Enos, too, exactly as if't had been my own case. At last she wiped up, and tried to put a good face on the matter. "It's no use now,' says she; 'le's talk about somethin' else.' "But I was determined to dive into the matter a little deeper. So says I: "If you don't like him, what makes ye marry him?' says I. "If I don't like who?' Lyddy spoke up, real spunky for a second or two. "Your gentleman from Boston!' says I. "Who says I don't like him? Of course I like him, or I shouldn't marry him,' says she; but her voice was beginnin' to tremble. I. "But there's somebody you like better,' says 'No use your denyin' that. And there's somebody likes you a good deal better than ever you desarved he should. And you're willfully and wickedly breakin' his heart, as if 'twa'n't of no more vally than a stun under a cart-wheel! Excuse me for bein' so plain with ye, Lyddy; but that's jest what I think, and I couldn't help sayin' it.' "Instid of bein' mad, as I s'posed she'd be, what did she do but run up to me, and git right down on her knees by my side, and look up in my face, with her hands a holdin' both of mine tight, and the tears a running out of her eyes jest like two springs of water! 666 "Oh! will it break his heart?' says she. 'Do you think he loves me so-do you?' And she laughed and sobbed, both at the same time, as if it made her happy, even then, to think how Enos loved her. |