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the moment she rises bravely however and comes forward holding out her hand i see it is my duty to beg your pardon she says coldly you furnish so striking an example in the bundle of time of the satisfaction which comes from doing one s duty that i am to miss the opportunity he a little abashed i beg you will not put it in that way of course duty is duty she and it often has the added advantage of being the most odious thing to one s neighbors that can be devised as we have to pass sunday under the same roof and as there happen to be only four of us here it seems to me it will be better to all further performance of duty until some time when we can escape from each other he forgetting to her hand which he has taken when she offered her apology with all my heart i was perfectly miserable when you sent back my ring she withdrawing her hand and going back to her rocking chair oh very likely you were you say in love with me then how amusing a passion that is over is to look back upon he you seem to speak from experience she oh not necessarily i really don t seem to remember having been very deeply in love he beginning to lose his head a little although not yet conscious of it you have certainly declared â she who hasn t when a man is in love with her a woman will say anything to please him he you give your sex a good character a summer comedy she laughs by way of answer fully aware that she is getting him to lose his temper and secretly sure that if she can make him angry she may gain her point in the end she with men to deal with we have to use our wits of course you can t blame us for that he then that explains why you were so ready to send back my ring you never cared for me at all she since you got over it so quickly it is so much better all around is n t it it is so pleasant to feel that nobody is hurt he savagely having forgotten entirely his of indifference who said i d got over it she why did n t you he with an inward devoted to her feigned innocence no i did n t she oh i beg your pardon i m sure but your studied reference to all that sort of thing as in the past â he what sort of thing she why being fond of me and â and â all that you know she casts down her eyes and after a moment be quite without any apparent cause to blush violently mr who has risen and begun to pace up and down with his hands behind him stops in front of her chair with the determined aspect of a man who will stand no more nonsense the bundle of time look here he says with a good deal of emphasis you know i have n t got over it she how should i being fond of you and all that as you call it is n t the sort of thing that a man does get over a soft flush comes into miss s cheek she her pretty hands and looks out over the sparkling sea with a smile of new happiness you don t know she with feminine how fond we have become of little island over there isn t it pretty from here very pretty but i m not interested in islands just now i m interested in you she that s very kind of you especially when i am as cruel as you oh i don t take any credit for it i can t help it s ie then you ve tried he yes i have i had to did n t i come you need n t pretend not to care for me and if you do i won t believe you s ie i like your impudence he then it s all right for i promise to be nothing but so you have nothing to dislike s ie that will require very little change the answer seems not wholly to him for he smiles warmly as he takes a chair close by a summer comedy hers then he possesses himself of her hand and after a second of hesitation he puts his arm about her and kisses her full upon the lips she with an indignation so that she has to join in his laugh at it why george right here suppose somebody should see us he oh it is so still here that nobody could see us being a woman she does not immediately perceive the of this logic and with no very great show of to a repetition of the demonstration five minutes later mr appears with his wife in the doorway behind the young people and the pair with a shrewd glance of satisfaction it s all right he remarks in a self satisfied aside we shall have a quiet sunday all to ourselves margaret they won t trouble us le a political dinner a political dinner here is upon the third floor of the union club house on park street boston a card room overlooking the common which is often used as a waiting or reception room for private dinner parties about five o clock one october afternoon a gentleman stood by one of its windows looking out over the tops of the already almost naked trees the heaps of yellow leaves and patches of dying grass and thus on to the sky beyond the public garden and crimson with the of an sunset the man was young tall and well knit with elastic graceful figure and a proud carriage of the

2Charles Dickens

head a certain and restlessness of bearing indicating a highly nervous temperament his hand which rested upon the of the window was long and slender with carefully kept nails while his evening dress was worn with the ease and air of one whose occupations leave him so in the bundle of time leisure sufficient for the cultivation of some in his personal habits the door of the room although not was nearly closed and whenever a step sounded in the hall outside the solitary of the apartment involuntarily assumed an attitude of attention which gave place to a look of relief when the step passed by at length the sound of a long deliberate tread reached his ear and his slender fingers stopped their nervous play upon the window a look of disgust came over his face and without turning he said as the door swung open to admit the you are almost late richard to one accustomed to vary the monotony of life by it might have occurred to remark the use of the full name and it indeed throws a certain light upon the character of richard to note that not even his most intimate friends ever thought of calling him by any of those familiar in which after all lies the essence of good fellowship was below medium stature pale in the of skin hair and eyes and he wore always an air of being well brushed which was so perfect as to be somewhat a political dinner it irritated his cousin tom the tall young man who stood at the window so intensely that even now with his back to he was conscious of an exasperated inclination to seize the other his smooth hair his shirt front and his coat it seemed to him as if an intolerable interval elapsed before richard in his deliberate fashion responded to his greeting we may be interrupted in a moment said coming at once to business and i wish to be sure you understand what â i understand perfectly the other responded impatiently turning away from the window to face his i am to pay another of your infernal black mail and your note was sufficiently explicit to let me know what is expected of me you need not take the trouble to go over it again i won t listen the other smiled putting up his hand with a gesture of glancing at the same time towards the door to assure himself that he had closed it on entering my dear fellow he said there is really no occasion for a row you know you mean to oblige me and why make a fuss about it in the bundle of time tom muttered a curse of impatience and turned back to gaze out of the window once more while the other despite his detailed the scheme that night to be for his political far below in park street a s boy was carrying home an order of roses a bunch so big that their crimson burst out of the paper and made a vivid spot of color in the old street even in the fast growing dusk tom never saw roses â or indeed anything else lovely â without thinking of and he almost groaned aloud as the remembrance of her face came into his mind now for five years he had been to miss and for a scarcely shorter time had he been in the power of his cousin who stood here to day with the determination to enforce that power to the utmost he wheeled again swiftly and faced his of course they count on a handsome from you mr was saying though when you me you are not to put that out too â just hint at it look here tom broke out why can t you come out like a man richard and say how much money you will take for a political dinner that piece of paper it would be quite as well for you and you are fast driving me to desperation the other smiled cruelly taking from his pocket book a worn yellow envelope out of which he drew an old letter and a check very innocent looking bits of paper he observed the check between his fingers i think i won t sell just yet tom there s more in you than money â your friendship counts for something my boy especially just now when your fondness for me is all that prevents your being an out and out independent and making a fool of yourself i m really doing you a service in keeping you in the party you d only be sacrificing yourself to go after george george is the only man that can carry the district retorted even â excuse me interrupted the other with perfect with your influence might carry the district but he can t without it and as i am so fortunate as to have secured that â a click at the door prevented the conclusion of his remark and a small active gentle a the bundle of time man with red hair and shining entered mr replaced letter and check in their envelope this into his pocket and the cousins greeted the by a name familiar in political circles half a dozen other gentlemen followed in quick succession and the talk became general poor tom seated himself in a chair near the window and as the glare of gas replaced the fast fading daylight he sat staring gloomily at the row of figures â clubs hearts and diamonds â with which the walls were decorated he took little part in the talk only by an effort himself to respond when addressed and when dinner was announced he rose with a sigh of desperation five years before the cousins had been together in a state street office tom open handed newly had quarrelled with his father and was constantly in want of money he

2Charles Dickens

was in a fashionable set was just out of and exceedingly popular at the clubs he was gay and perhaps a little wild but never vicious the intense pride of family which he inherited from his mother was a strong defence against any course positively evil the brightness of the family fair fame being almost a religion with him a dinner yet one black day tom so far with temptation as to his father s name to a check it was rather the occupation of an idle moment when devilish possibilities presented themselves to his active mind than the intent to commit a crime he had just written a letter to a pressing saying that he enclosed the amount of a bill which tom felt must be paid at all and in his brain over the possibility of obtaining the funds needful to make the letter true he recalled how perfectly he was able to imitate his father s signature the useless check book at his hand was that of a bank where his father s credit was good although the son s account was hopelessly and almost in less time than the telling the fated paper was written and folded in the letter no sooner was it done than a of the crime of which he was guilty overwhelmed tom with such a flood of shame and self that even had he succeeded in instantly destroying the he would always have blushed to recall his to disaster just how his cousin whose desk was next his own had divined his opportunity and been able to reach over and possess himself of the fatal letter tom was never able clearly in the bundle of time to understand in the office it had seemed impossible to create a disturbance when his demand for the paper s return had been refused while any faintest of the consequences of s possession of it did not enter s mind until long afterward not until the time came indeed when richard deliberately began his black operations thinking of the matter to night tom cursed himself for the time that he had not defied his cousin rather than by weak compliance brought himself deeper and deeper into the mire it is probable that the consciousness of the guilt of yielding at least to the suggestion of temptation and of having gone so far in the evil path as actually to write his father s name had much to do with his allowing richard to over him he firmly believed that had he been left to himself the check would never have been uttered and it was certainly true that his impulse to destroy it had come as soon as the signature was written but he could not forget that there had been a moment when his intention of the benefit of his crime had been sufficiently strong to lead him to trace that signature the utmost care a political dinner tom was keenly sensitive in regard to the family honor and the idea of a breath of scandal filled him with the deepest dismay he was led along moreover and his made more complete by one or two notes so carelessly that taken in connection with the check and the letter in which it was enclosed they might almost seem an admission of his guilt it was a long time before he realized to the full the cruelty and the of his cousin and by time it was clear to him he seemed too completely in the power of the other to escape the dread of exposure the of how a story the other might make out of the evidence in his hands had led tom to yield to the first demands of richard and after that the rest followed as a matter of course when a few months after the check was written his father s death left him the possessor of millions tom believed his way to peace to be an easy one richard had as yet displayed no and that he would sell the check had not for a moment doubted with this one terror removed he would be free to marry and whatever folly had his past but so simple and short sighted a bargain s in the bundle of time little suited richard s subtle and ambitious nature he counted tom s wealth as his already but he did not on that account intend to lose his hold upon his cousin s influence as well he longed for political advancement and he v as personally as as tom was well liked below this too was his life long instinctive enmity against his cousin when they were boys together richard had hated tom for him in races for being more than himself he was full of bitterness that tom was the heir to as many millions as his numbered hundreds and last of all he was full of the jealousy of a base man who sees his enemy win the love of the woman to whose favor he secretly for five years he had been patiently making tom his tool and working toward the end which this evening should as he led the way into the banquet room he was so full of self that even his slow step assumed a certain quickness do you see how is he whispered to tom as they went to the dinner table he d like it better if if he were going to carry off the honors himself a political dinner they belong to him was the bitter reply and he d have them if you were n t a scoundrel and i an tut chuckled don t abuse yourself and do try to be a little less tom glanced at george the man who the best elements of his party believed should be candidate instead of political issues this year were turning as almost never before in the history of the country on principles

2Charles Dickens

of and honesty party lines were everywhere being broken through by men who found conviction stronger than party and tom himself felt his heart burn within him at the consciousness that the support he was to give his cousin was a direct of his sincere belief to be honest he must have who was set aside almost solely because the large interest which tom represented was supporting the latter there had been a good deal of by richard but tom s influence and tom s millions had everywhere been his card had an inherited place in the boston political world and in this particular matter no other man s word was of so much weight as his so that he felt to o in the bundle of time the full the responsibility of the he was to make which although would practically settle the matter richard had taken his seat opposite his cousin and with sparkling of lights of and of laughter the dinner went on tom could not eat and with gloomy eyes he looked down the table from his seat on the right of the eminent who presided his money paid for this feast at which he sat so unwillingly and to which he was brought to offer up his political honor as one more sacrifice to the of his tyrant his was almost it seemed to him that he must break out in some desperate deed he replied mechanically to what was said to him his face like a mask assuming a smile at the numerous which flew faster and faster he thought of and how she would despise him if she knew he had never dared tell her the truth but with painfully wrought excuses had explained the delay of their marriage until even her perfect faith was strained to wonder sitting at the feast to night tom ground his teeth and cursed the fate which made him wrong the heart that trusted him he looked across at his a political dinner cousin whose sallow cheek was flushed with triumph and a bitter leaped to his lips at the bondage in which he was held â an old purpose long cherished took new shape in his mind suppose he should rise in his place and lay bare all his whole wretched story to the honorable gentlemen dining here after all the ordeal seemed less dreadful than to stand up before them as for his cousin whatever was noble in his soul asserted itself and he sat more erect as his determination took form he might lose all that was dearest to him he shivered and set his teeth together at the thought of going out from this brilliant company a disgraced and man the impossibility of making them believe in the innocence of his intentions in writing that check came over him like a blast of icy air that these men who had all his life given to him the honor which belonged to a member of the proud old family into which he had been born should to morrow ever and ever after look when he encountered them seemed to him a punishment too terrible for human nature to endure the friends of his fine old father the companions of his college days the men he knew and in the bundle of time liked at the club all seemed to come in review before him passing his mental self as he sat there in the gay over the wine with averted faces and mien to confess seemed to him to mean the of all honor and all happiness he could not explain â could he even persuade he could only rise in his place and confess what he had done and that he had borne the burden of it so long that it was intolerable to bear it longer he would not even richard he thought with a of contempt behind which perhaps lay some subtle self if those who heard could and did read between the lines of his story that was not his concern he would not even mention his cousin s name but he almost groaned aloud as he thought of her to tell the truth meant giving her up and he reflected bitterly that not even the fact that he had never been so worthy of her as this confession would make him could not change the fact that he could not ask her to unite her with those of a man disgraced he would be worthy of her he said to himself even if he lost her he would not add to his the crime of being false in this public act it a political dinner was in no small degree a sense that to night he was acting in a sort of public capacity which gave him the firmness to hold to the resolution to speak the vital force which despite all corruption all and all selfishness does still live in our free institutions for every honest man strengthened him to go forward he might perhaps have lacked resolution to make this supreme sacrifice of himself had private issues been at stake but in his mind a throb of that patriotism which is the hope of the country woke all the nobility and fire of his soul whatever may have been the weakness or wickedness of his previous hfe he was at this moment truly and nobly a hero he set his teeth together and waited what he had to say in his mind and mingling it with the words in which he meant to tell the whole naked truth to at last the dinner meanwhile wore on and almost before tom realized it the air was full of cigar smoke and the for the evening was on his feet what he said poor tom could not have told had his life depended upon it he smiled to himself with dry lips as he fancied what would be the

2Charles Dickens

effect of the remarks he meant to make in the bundle of time the applause which now followed as a matter of course would hardly be so ready then he reflected with a ghastly sense of humor he clapped when the sat down remarking to himself that he was glad the speaker s rather unusual of mouth and forehead was not his and then almost with a shock he realized that his cousin richard was on his feet mr had prepared himself most carefully for this ordeal yet he was not wholly free from and as he cleared his voice to begin his air was that of a man who finds unexpected difficulty in getting his words to consent to be uttered tom strangely grown calm bit off the end of a cigar and watched richard with a critical air â a sort of disinterested curiosity as if he already looked back upon his past with vague wonder the speaker grasped firmly his coat collar drew a deep inspiration and went bravely forward with his carefully collected he began to quote he thrust his hand into his pocket and drew out a handful of papers selected a list of figures and laid the others upon the table before him among them was the yellow envelope which tom knew so well a political dinner fixed his eyes upon it as a bird looks into the eyes of a snake which him in telling of it afterward tom declared that it seemed to him he could not move that some irresistible power held him and that had not a special providence interfered in his behalf that envelope would have gone back into richard s pocket providence on this occasion took the form of the of the evening who was seized with a sudden whether from the effect of generous or from a naturally humorous disposition is not apparent in either case it seemed to him an excellent joke to the heap of letters lying beside s plate and them about among those of the guests near him the speaker absorbed in his figures noticed nothing and fate tired of poor tom directed that in the distribution the yellow envelope with several others should come into his trembling fingers when he held the envelope in his hand his powers all re asserted themselves yet so firmly and fully had he determined upon confession that even now the need was removed the heroic resolve did not at once in the bundle of time vanish he looked down at the envelope and with a thrill of scorn so keenly realized in what a slavery he had been living that it seemed necessary to make his declaration in order to regain his self respect to his highly wrought mood it appeared easier to speak than to keep silence in another moment however that common sense which prevents half the noble deeds which but for it would stir the world itself and he smiled at the folly he had almost committed yet it mattered very little since before fortune put this chance into his hand he had conquered in his fight with self and and this was certainly nearer to being a hero than most men ever approach holding the letters carelessly he extracted the check from its and passed the whole bunch to his next neighbor that gentleman in turn handed them to the next man and so in succession each guest handed them until when richard warm with pride and his exertions resumed his seat amid the customary applause the whole was gravely handed to him by the fact man who sat next below him and it was only after the dinner was over that he learned of their a dinner there was a stir of expectation when the having introduced him rose slowly to his feet it was understood well enough what he had to do and however much his companions might wonder they could not but agree that what he attempted he did with grace richard watching him was at once astonished and elated at the hearty and air with which his cousin delivered his opening sentences briefly but forcibly tom ran over the points oi the political situation the need of a strong candidate in the crisis which they all saw approaching he stood easily holding his cigar in his fingers and now and then with the hand that held it his general remarks concluded he took from his pocket a bit of paper leaned forward to touch the end of it to the flame of a candle and with it lit his cigar i do not mean gentlemen he continued when his cigar was well alight and the last of the burned check fell from his fingers to turn this social occasion into a but it is as well to come to an understanding of each other s feelings in order to work with a harmony which shall be effective so that i feel excused for mentioning for your consideration the name of a in the bundle of time date upon whom i think we can all agree and whom so far at least as i can speak we could heartily unite in supporting richard modestly cast down his eyes while a deeper hush fell upon the company these men were and it is probable that their objections to the they expected were based upon grounds of rather than upon moral conviction yet being in a situation where they realized that the better feelings of the masses might be taken advantage of they regretted the loss of an opportunity to be so virtuous they were prepared to it is true but they were not wholly reconciled to giving up the rare luxury of being at once honest and successful as for tom it was even then with the ashes of the fatal paper lying before him only by a mighty effort that he held himself to his task he leaned forward

2Charles Dickens

nervously mechanically picking up a a swift train of thought brought back to him the scene he had looked at from the adjoining room a couple of hours before â the sunset the s boy carrying home the big bunch of roses and it brought back too the remembrance of which those roses had awakened a political the name gentlemen he said drawing himself up to his full height is that of george there was an instant of surprised silence then a storm of applause an amateur an amateur it is a sunny afternoon in august and upon the wide of the cottage is a group of young folk standing or seated in chairs and upon the railing one of them has a and the discussion going forward largely with the best pose of the groups which mr van is about to take although it may be added that other things come in for a word now and then but where in the world is mrs asks a looking creature of twenty or if she is to be the centre of the group we can t pose till she comes she went to change her frock miss answers she did n t like the one she had on i will say that mrs does her duty by her clothes young who is in a in looks as well as otherwise adds tom who is with the widow s charms oh of course dick don t you think it would be splendid to go over to the old fort and have a group asks it in the bundle of time what should we go over to the fort for in this blazing sun demands uttle miss whose languid pose shows how averse she is to unnecessary exertion oh it would be so romantic and the old guns would be so good to pose against miss wishes to be taken as the goddess of war says why not the goddess of peace she asks oh that is miss s you could n t think of interfering with her certainly not miss answers with s more emphasis than seems absolutely necessary never mind miss tom remarks all the women who have made any stir in the world who have been remembered and be and all the rest of it have been the cause of war and so come under your she is welcome to them miss puts in i wish her joy of the troublesome crew if she attempts to manage her subjects i suppose a woman is never thoroughly attractive and really good at the same time jack that is an admirable thing to say to us cried miss ladies we are either not attractive or we are not respectable take your choice i did not say respectable jack answers with an amateur coolness i said really good you are all so attractive that i am convinced that you are none o you really pious and perfect mr knows that a woman would rather be called an abandoned wretch than commented miss dear me van turning with the air of a man having upon his shoulders the of the universe are n t you almost ready take us as we are mr van miss returns for my part i cannot think of moving oh but you must he answers of course i cannot take you if you will not pose then i won t be taken oh don t say that he you know i want to take you all just pose the rest of us laughs miss and grace won t be left out for the world why must we wait for mrs asks dick let s have two or three groups before she comes all right answers van whose only anxiety is to get to work how furious she will be miss remarks under her breath to miss so much the better is the response which less of christian charity than might be desirable in the bundle of time now keep perfectly still all of you van says miss please turn your face a little to the right â no to the left i mean miss please look up a little more you can t wave that about in that manner but my dear fellow i assure you that i can for i do but i mean that you must n t then why don t you say what you mean but you don t stop oh i stop when the time comes old fellow i know this amateur it will be ten minutes yet before you are really ready and i don t see why i should let my go out so long beforehand van puts on an expression of long suffering fortitude and his emotion by examining the of his with great attention miss he says after a moment s study will you pull your hand back a little it is so far forward that it will be out of proportion the hand is withdrawn with a jerk my hands are bad enough when they are properly taken i don t think that i could stand having them made any worse i knew a girl that had her engagement broken because she sat for an amateur photograph tom with much solemnity the young ladies instantly forget all about their an amateur and turn to him with the keenest interest who was it why was the engagement broken â tell us about it ladies ladies van cries in despair don t change your positions i was just ready to begin who was the girl miss asks of tom the altogether yes who was she oh she was a girl i knew the man she was engaged to made a row about her being with a lot of people on a hotel look here cries the exasperated van i should think that you might be in better business than trying to break up things in that way trying to break

2Charles Dickens

up things my dear fellow i never for an instant thought of such a thing drive ahead but tell us about the girl miss oh there isn t anything more to tell but why did he object oh just a matter of taste he thought it wasn t the correct thing the young ladies regard one another with looks of uneasiness and are apparently completely out of conceit with the whole idea of a photograph don t you think miss says rising and turning almost back to the that we had better wait for mrs after all in the bundle of time wait for me the widow cries as mrs appears with great sweep and of i am very sorry if you find it so unpleasant to wait for me it is always unpleasant to be deprived of mrs s company tom with mock gallantry but then there is the anticipation of her coming dick adds in the same tone thank you for nothing the widow answers you shall both be for making game of me the young men groaned in concert she means it tom i can always tell by the way she says a thing whether she really means it or is only trying to somebody after that you will get no mercy the widow cries his fingers with a fan her is wonderful to behold her gown being of black lace over yellow silk and much with glittering drops of yellow glass a large diamond star upon her breast and others twinkle in her hair heavens but is n t the widow got up to do execution murmurs under his breath to miss mrs turns upon mr van with all her customary animation there you horrid man i ve taken all the trouble to put on this gown because you said you it an amateur would like to take me in it i hope you appreciate the sacrifice is it a sacrifice to make one s self beautiful puts in dick it is needless to the refined gold tom come the widow declares turning upon them sharply i will not be if you do not behave i will take mr van around to the other and have my pictures taken all by myself oh do that is just what we were longing for that is civil to mr van oh van does n t mind he s hardened to it to be a successful amateur dick declares it is necessary to lay aside all human except selfishness and vanity tom adds with frightful that is a nice thing to say mrs don t mind them mr van she continues turning to that gentleman who has apparently been so much engaged upon his that he has not noticed what has been said we appreciate you at least will you all please get into position the asks with cheerfulness we will take a few views and then try some time plates o in the bundle of time if anybody thinks that i am going to put my dress beside that gown of mrs s remarks miss he is little acquainted with my disposition or with the feminine mind tom adds oh that is nonsense mrs i want you for a foil besides that frock is awfully becoming i knew this gown was n t much miss whispers to miss but i did not think that it was bad enough for her to afford to praise it there is at this moment so little interest shown in the entire scheme that van is evidently thoroughly discouraged he goes from one to the other and as soon as he can get two or three in place he is harassed by the discovery that they are moving about or that the others have escaped him altogether i never did see anything like it he cries in anguish you won t be quiet an instant i don t think that i will be taken anyway mr van miss with an evident endeavor to appear as if the idea was at that instant born in her mind i don t think that it is quite the thing to be taken in groups this way the young men laugh significantly but the girls who have been longing for this escape and who have besides made up their minds that nothing will induce them to be taken in their plain an amateur with the widow in her splendid instantly take sides with miss and declare that they will not be taken the suggestion of a broken engagement is too much for them jack says laying down the glass with which he has been to identify a in the whose engagement is broken demands mrs with instant interest s without an instant s delay mrs changes color slightly but she holds herself wonderfully well in hand in view of the fact that she is perfectly well aware that every person present knows that her cap has been set for the mentioned for a couple of seasons and that she was in a rage when his engagement to another was announced to cover the pause which follows she takes the glass and looks over the bay what is that she asks it is the jack answers with something like a wink to tom and dick the widow turns instantly to van laying the glass in the beside come mr van she says if nobody else is to be taken you may take me is it an engagement tom asks don t be impertinent she isn t the mr s in in the bundle of time miss with every appearance of innocence yes is the reply to which all the girls listen in the hope that there will be something added come mr van the widow remarks briskly i have been ready this age where shall i stand just where you are oh no j it is much better to stand here mrs miss breaks in why not try

2Charles Dickens

the comer of the by the post or there by the door why not have her taken as if she were just coming out of the door i think it would be better for her to be sitting on the steps why not have her sitting in the holding the or the spy glass adds tom all these suggestions are poured out at once upon the unhappy who begins to feel that he is in a he turns from one to the other and in the end says to mrs well do whatever you think best you don t expect me to pose myself do you the mr always handles the subject s head a great deal and then says fix your eyes just an amateur here and look natural wink often enough to relieve the eyes if you haven t learned that you don t know the a b c s of your duty nobody is to handle my head the widow declares a chorus of feeble laughter this retort and then there is a renewal of suggestions in regard to the pose why not pose as if you were walking away and just turn your head over your shoulder there that s good keep that way oh no that s too stiff a little more to the left hold your chin up a bit that fan is too far down just a thought to the right now there that is perfect now ready oh bother what is the matter now i ve been and put in the wrong and this is the time plate then take a time picture can you stand still without a rest of course i can go ahead all right ready now i say the voice of jack at this critical moment i suppose you know that all that yellow will take black take black the widow in dismay why i shall be as solemn as a a the bundle of time she entirely her pose and turns to the consideration of this important question with a suddenness which leaves the completely in the you might go and put on another gown miss suggests a little nonsense mrs i have had all the dressing i can stand for one afternoon besides van the light is getting fainter we must have the pictures now or not at all i don t see why you could n t have said that half an hour ago the widow says turning to with marked oh i did n t remember that i had been asked then you had better have kept quiet altogether the long suffering van there is a good deal of chatter and suggestion of various sorts and in the end mrs declares that nothing will induce her to have her picture taken oh don t say that van here i have given up a party this afternoon on purpose to take you well i don t want to be taken and that is the whole of it she accordingly turns and with a great of her yellow and black van looks after her a moment and then turns to the others for sympathy an amateur it s too bad old fellow tom remarks lazily that you should n t get a single plate yes it is one of the girls adds after all the trouble you have taken oh i am satisfied he with a grin i have two or three good snap shots at mrs that ought to come out first rate have you really yes i thought i should get a better expression if she did not know when she was taken i hope that you have n t played the same trick on us â the significance of the s smile is too evident to be mistaken the wretch i believe he really has girls he has really taken us all well what was i here for van inquired gathering up his i ve had experience with girls before and i knew it was best to take a plate when i had a chance whereupon there is an effort to get his away from him but as the young men take no part in it he has little difficulty in making his escape his wedding gift to mrs which was presented a couple of months later was a capital picture of herself in an admirable pose on the with a glimpse of her future husband s just visible in the over her shoulder t t the man who committed the man who committed i it was the most ridiculous of situations to have lived thirty years under one name married under it and then be suddenly called upon to change it was enough to make even a harder headed man than philip a little confused and when it came to his wife s taking a new name also and that quite a different one from either of his it is no wonder that declared that the personal identity of the family was wholly lost and that for his own part he knew neither who his nor himself had become it came about in this way and his wife were not related yet they had from birth an aunt and an uncle in common which is a puzzle which he may solve who cares to take the trouble although for a proper understanding of the matter it should be added that two more old than these n the bundle of time same relatives never or quarrelled with friends in their wilful fashion they were very fond of philip and and to them they willed the ample fortunes with which fate had provided them they departed life at about the same time and aunt left her property to on condition that the latter assume the family name of the while uncle his wealth to philip upon terms precisely similar it made no especial difference to he was not unwilling to assume the proud old

2Charles Dickens

name of his mother s family and with aid the change was soon effected but with the situation was more complicated had she been single she could have shifted her name temporarily changes of this sort being among the ai which are supposed to enter into the calculations of every young woman the idea of taking a name which was not her husband s was another thing and too ridiculous she said it suggested the weak minded of strong minded women far more closely than was at all pleasant but as for having aunt s money go to those disagreeable girls declared she would sooner take forty names or have no the man committed i name at all and so it ended in the of powers on behalf of mrs as well as of her husband with the ultimate result that the young couple became known as mr and mrs a of which put them in very serious doubts as to who they might really be it chanced that about the time matters were settled the date arrived when the pair had planned to visit to avoid the of the boston spring but what are we to call ourselves demanded as they were discussing details you say you cannot reach until a week after i do and it will certainly look peculiar enough for mrs to announce that she is expecting her husband mr in a few days i simply shall refuse to recognize you when you get there it is too utterly ridiculous for our names to be different nonsense replied you could n t help rushing to meet me if you were called van and i peter you me too much to resist me especially after a week s separation you you horribly conceited wretch cried his wife i never speak in the bundle of time one word to you when you come to if i die of i won t even honor you with a glance of my haughty eyes as aunt used to say oh you shall see had more than half forgotten the threat of his wife when he stepped upon the hotel at but a single glance at the self possessed little woman who sat with an elderly lady in frosty curls showed him what was before him the faintest flush swept over mrs s smooth cheek as mr in passing the ladies lifted his hat but no other sign would have indicated to the most acute observer the fact that she had any previous acquaintance with that gentleman she went serenely on with her apparently as intent upon its conventional beauties and as deeply interested in miss s gossip as before she had been prepared for this encounter she had known to a minute the probable time of her husband s arrival and had taken her place here for the especial purpose of him she soon the man committed excused herself and went to her room where she executed a series of girlish of wild glee but hardly with the highest of dignity then she made the most of and went down to dinner fate or so contrived as to fix that gentleman s place opposite his wife s at table mrs s first feeling at this arrangement was one of pleased amusement yet she felt it to be in a manner a challenge her love of mischief asserted itself and throughout the meal although she was unusually she totally ignored mr he made some advances in the good graces of miss whose seat was next his own discovering that they had common acquaintances in the north and by the time dinner was ended patience not being the strongest trait of his character he thought himself in a position to make use of that elderly maiden s good offices may i ask the name of the lady opposite he questioned as they left the table she was sitting with you on the when i came her face seems familiar that is mrs answered miss delighted to be able to give information she is from boston have n t the bundle of time you ever met her she is very intimate with the of whom we were speaking oh that is why her face seems so familiar was reply shall i be too much upon your kindness if i ask for an introduction i shall be pleased to present you she will certainly be glad to meet a friend of the but mrs merry weather had been quietly watching the pair since in the course of their conversation they had reached the parlor and the intent with which miss now approached her she turned away with well feigned and stepped through the long window upon the a mischievous gleam lighted her eye she saw captain an officer on leave whose acquaintance she had made during her week at smoking alone just outside the parlor window and immediately joined him his wife having fled perceiving that he was freed himself from miss as speedily as possible and himself to the as he came through the long window his wife turned to go to her room and in passing let her the man committed fan whether by accident or design even she herself was hardly sure fall at the feet of the latter he picked it up but as she took it his grasp lingered upon it long enough to compel her eyes to meet his has n t this gone far enough he murmured under his breath thank you she returned aloud and he stood aside to let her pass iii it was perhaps half an hour later when a servant tapped at s chamber door bringing a note the which she saw at once was in her husband s hand ran â to mrs introducing mr philip it read as follows â dear mrs â will you allow me to make you acquainted with mr philip i have known him all my life and

2Charles Dickens

can speak of him as a capital fellow whom you will find it a pleasure to know i take the opportunity of adding my regards and with devotion i remain very sincerely yours philip in the bundle of time hesitated a moment here was the way out of her difficulties but enough at this indication of a readiness on her husband s part to humor her caprice she became unwilling to end the farce the cleverness of his device amused her but it also stirred her up to match against his her skill in it was hardly ten minutes after despatched his before the servant returned it to him accompanied by a tiny note which said â mrs regrets missing the acquaintance of mr especially when he is so cordially by an apparently disinterested third person but as she is not aware of having in the world a friend whose name is philip she is sure there must be some mistake in the delivery of this letter to her this note despatched sat waiting for nearly an hour expecting some further demonstration on the part of her husband but as at the end of that time nothing had occurred she concluded to retire she was both amused and vexed the of the situation grew more and more evident she lay tossing about in bed vainly trying to sleep becoming more and more restless every moment the man committed she heard the sounds in the hotel gradually the beams of the late risen mo n struck at length the top of her window throwing a mellow light through the chamber lay watching the golden glow as it moved slowly down the curtain when her attention was suddenly arrested by a shadow which began to define itself upon the window shade it was the of a man s hat beneath which the shape of a head soon made itself visible then the form of a man s shoulders and in time his whole figure except so far as it was obscured by the balcony chair in which he sat he was smoking and something in the pose of the shadowy head convinced the that the visitor was her husband had raised herself upon her elbow following the development of the figure upon the curtain when it was complete she slipped softly out of bed and dressed hastily her hurried completed she hesitated a moment then walked boldly to the window and drew up the shade the window was open and at the first sound the turned toward her he started as the moonlight fell upon her face he ejaculated is that you in the bundle of time hush she said in a whisper you knew it was i or you would n t be here i had n t the faintest idea where you were retorted i was here trying to think what you meant by treating me so and â do speak lower she interrupted somebody will surely hear what if they do do you want to compromise me compromise you yes compromise me i should think you d care more for the reputation of your own wife than to have it known she was talking with a strange man at midnight from her chamber window he threw back his head and laughed a long laugh which broke out afresh under every attempt to it he you you ll be the death of me i never heard such a delicious bull in my life for heaven s sake she exclaimed in a hoarse whisper leaning out of the window in her eagerness and putting her hand over his lips miss s room is directly over mine and she has ears like a i come inside he said rising lightly the man committed and making a motion to put his foot over the window sill no no no she cried then suddenly closing the window in his face and it she sat down on the floor and burst into foolish tears her husband stood helplessly regarding her by the clear moonlight he tapped on the pane softly once or twice then as she paid no heed he trimmed his cigar and walked away with an air of injured dignity and was seen no more that night iv mrs dressed herself with especial care upon the following morning and never had she looked prettier than when she took her seat at the breakfast table her husband was already there but with the first glimpse that she had of his face she perceived that he was seriously vexed he gave not the slightest heed to her presence not even acknowledging her arrival by the stirring of an he finished his meal silently and before had done more than her cup of coffee he left the table half an hour later as she sat at one end of the while her husband strode up loo in the bundle of time and the other her gloomy were interrupted by the appearance of miss who with an air of mystery took her seat by s chair and drew out her a very handsome man she said after a moment s silence mrs started with a sudden consciousness that she had been intently watching her husband and that her companion had her glances who she asked to appear indifferent mr you looked as if you thought so too oh is that his name who is he who knows him here i don t know miss answered but â a significant of the lips left the to infer that awful things remained but what oh nothing what are you about mrs asked with a shade of impatience in her tone what do you know about him nothing oh i assure you positively â the committed loi nothing returned the other only i thought i heard his voice on the balcony last night â in the night you know â and that fast mrs s room is almost under mine

2Charles Dickens

fast i m sure i never thought mrs fast oh she must be or she would n t be talking on the balcony in the night with a man i could n t be sure it was he for i have n t heard his voice much though now i think of it the gossip went on eagerly as a new idea seized her he asked me to present him to you i do it now and that will give me a chance to hear him speak while i remember the sounds of last night but â began oh you need n t mind miss interrupted he must be respectable for he s a friend of the and away swept the excited little woman shortly to return with mr mr mrs and before had time to recover herself she was sitting there talking to as if they were the strangers it was too ridiculous yet there sat little miss shrewd alert eager for a morsel of scandal as is the early bird for the i in the bundle of time worm and was far too to yield herself to the tongue of any woman she scarcely followed the earlier portions of the conversation with its usual which needed no very close attention but all her energies were aroused when her husband threw down the by saying it is strange mrs that i never heard the mention your name gray was my at and i have known him all my life indeed returned coolly raising her eyes to meet his and the main point of his remark i should have said that mr gray s was a mr i certainly have met such a man at the there was a in our class retorted capital fellow the girls all used to over him it can t be the one i mean then said she severely no girl could possibly over him a stony silence succeeded broken by an inquiry from miss upon the length of time mr remained at that depends he answered carelessly there is nothing in particular to detain me here the man committed no mrs merry weather said with sarcastic sweetness then why do you remain the most useless thing in the universe observed to cover the sting of the words by a sudden of manner is an idle man come come miss interrupted briskly that is far too personal mrs i m sure an idle man is no worse than an idle woman and he is still a man you know and therefore necessarily good for something laughed no â therefore not expected to be good for anything retorted his wife good he said now we shall get on as long as we can confine ourselves to general abuse of the sexes mrs we are safe it is individual application that is dangerous oh that is no matter she returned if it is n t personal for instance if i said that a man who put both himself and his wife into a ridiculous position should have wit and skill enough to find a way out of it that would still be a remark of a general nature certainly and if i answered that under bundle of time those circumstances some women would be so stubborn or so stupid that not even solomon could get them out of the simplest fix that too would be only a moral that runs at large i am neither stubborn nor stupid poor burst out tears starting into her eyes my dear mrs merry weather exclaimed miss whose presence alone prevented the conclusion of the whole misunderstanding at that moment of course mr meant nothing of the sort how could you think so it is said to be a feminine trait to make a personal application said i was only speaking of the wife of the man in the we women are easily hurt said in a low voice rising and moving away she was wounded and miserable in imagining the comedy which she and her husband were to play she had fancied a sort of stage courtship a little high flown and unreal from the consciousness on the part of the actors that they were merely playing a light half mocking gallantry was what she expected or at least so she had told herself although in truth with a woman s sentiment she had also expected the ring of genuine the man committed love too tears were in her eyes as she now sought a seat in a retired part of the and it was with difficulty that she refrained from breaking down altogether a step she knew approached quickly her husband said coming up to her how long â miss s appearance cut the question short why here you are she cried what made you run away have you discovered mr no he but i hope to for mrs has been kind enough to promise to drive with me this afternoon i will have the carriage at the door about three if that suits your convenience and before either lady could utter a word of comment or suggestion he had lifted his hat and withdrawn v the afternoon was the scenery sufficiently novel to both philip and to hold their attention and for the first half hour of their drive there was nothing to indicate any shadow of between the pair i in the bundle of time at the end of that time they found themselves upon a secluded portion of the road when coolly put his arm about his wife and kissed her she resisted a little but ended by returning his embrace with much oh dear she sighed how good it does seem to be ourselves again and not somebody else i think it has been perfectly since you came it seems a week since last night then why did you send back my letter of introduction that was particularly horrid of you of course i did

2Charles Dickens

n t think you d give up so she returned you were a great goose and a great goose not to break in when you locked the window in my face i suppose oh well it does n t matter was the feminine retort it s all over now anyway for the next half hour the couple delivered themselves over to the of and by sudden perils into which they were brought by s driving little of his attention being left for his horses then all their was once more of course the husband remarked now the man committed we can tell and have done with all this uncomfortable nonsense oh no cried just think what a horrible scandal that hateful miss would make out of it she is capable of anything what could she make out of it but the truth but nobody could ever be made to understand it and it really is too ridiculous can t you think of something else dear yes he retorted savagely i can think of several things â the price of stocks for instance or the of or of how i hope uncle and aunt are in the most tropical of for making such wills why philip how can you talk so it is you have no acquaintance by that name he interrupted and my aunt too she went on without him and your own uncle her husband broke into a bitter laugh you have a logical mind mrs he observed perhaps you can think of something i in the bundle of time h poor sobbed the of her nerves finding relief in the tears which flowed fast you have no heart at all you â there there i â but being wise from past experiences he attempted no further argument only gathered her into his arms and allowed her to sob her emotions into his left breast pocket vi the result of the further conversation between mr philip and mrs may be inferred from the fact that when they reached the hotel about dusk the gentleman went to the office and wrote upon the register mr philip and wife â a simple line which yet proved sufficient to send a perfect of gossip and conjecture through the quiet of the hotel where nothing so exciting had occurred since the of with young two before when husband and wife entered the dining room together that night felt the eyes of every person present and was the man committed far more completely covered with confusion than â even in the blushing days of her really miss murmured leaning across the table i was never more surprised in my life if i had known you were going off to get married this afternoon i would at least have thrown a after you is it true that you were engaged but had quarrelled that s what i told mrs i was sure of it this morning oh we have known each other a long time said poor her cheeks crimson but we have never quarrelled the next morning it was even worse at first noticed nothing amiss but his wife s feminine sense detected hostility in the air the moment she entered the breakfast room on miss s face she read fresh in every line while mrs s bow was so slight that if such a salutation had not been expected it would scarcely have occurred to a that it was intended for a bow at all plainly the tide of gossip had been setting strongly against the young couple and wondered what new development could have given it so much sudden she was enlightened later in the no in the bundle of time when she received a crisp note from miss asking the favor of a few minutes private conversation and although philip protested that it was sure to be a case of interference his wife insisted upon going to the s room she was received with great solemnity sit down miss began poor dear laughed it seemed natural enough that a lady of so strongly marked should regard any woman who had committed matrimony as having fallen into a dreadful abyss don t laugh miss went on with rather unnecessary pathos what i have to tell you is too dreadful i can t bear to have you laugh what in the world â began there there the other interrupted do be calm don t get excited it is n t your fault my fault echoed her guest what are you talking about what is the trouble that man miss said becoming more and more has deceived you the man committed a that man you think is your husband â mr deceived me yes deceived you do try to be calm i felt it my duty to tell you mrs says she remembers having seen him in boston and his name is n t at all but but he had it changed said not at all understanding miss s drift but that is n t the worst he is married already married echoed the other but he has committed ejaculated miss he has â but her listener upon whom the situation suddenly dawned burst into laughter which prevented further speech â a tide of laughter which she could not check with which she struggled in vain for a moment then turning her back at once upon miss and politeness she fled to her own and laughed herself into trying to give her husband an intelligible account of the charges against him in the bundle of time vii it was impossible to make take things seriously the more severely virtuous the lady looked the colder the glances which followed himself and his wife the the affair seemed to him and the he appeared he by in the very face of miss who cut them both dead after mrs s abrupt flight from her chamber he had taken the landlord into his confidence and the two

2Charles Dickens

men would be seen whispering and nodding together like arch and only the fact that his wife was unhappy cast any cloud over his boyish never mind he comforted her the are coming this week we be very exclusive and associate with nobody but them and in a day or two the did arrive the were out driving when they reached the hotel and almost the first question mrs gray asked of miss was â where are mr and mrs the mj n committed it is n t mrs any longer miss replied pulling a terrible face it is mrs is it returned mrs gray lightly it does n t matter but where are they i don t know hesitated the â or that is i do not care to know but i think they are driving together how you speak don t you think is lovely handsome is that handsome does miss observed with a conspicuous lack of originality mrs gray stared in amazement i think we cannot be talking of the same person she said rather coldly the people of whom i spoke are the best friends my husband and myself have in the world but gasped miss â echoed mrs gray what has to do with it everything the man i mean has committed and i don t see why he is n t arrested for it and his wife â or the woman he calls his wife â knows it for i told her myself he came here and they pretended to be strangers and the next day they went off and got married and i told her â t bundle of time you told her exclaimed gray who had far remained a silent listener of the conversation and he burst into laughter as boisterous and as s had been oh that is too much that is beyond everything i ever heard in the midst of this outburst the offending and his pretty wife drove up to the and at the imminent risk of her neck flung herself out of the carriage into the outstretched arms of mrs gray old fellow cried gray loud enough to be heard from one end of the to the other how are you i hear you ve been committing bless your ugly responded so i hear myself good lark is n t it and in half an hour everybody knew all the details of the affair for the landlord considered himself released from his bond of secrecy and although some sharp were made behind their backs mr and his wife encountered nothing but the most and manners thereafter as for miss she so far herself as to remark â the man committed i am sure mrs it was strange you thought me in earnest about your husband s being a you must have noticed that i was hurt at your suspicion but in her heart of hearts she never forgave either or an amateur an amateur it was rather a pleasant room and decidedly a pleasant morning and certainly no one should have hesitated to say that the two young people in the room were pleasanter than the room or the morning either in the first place rose west was pretty enough to make a young man lose his head or an old one his heart and her cousin philip had apparently utterly surrendered both mistress rose assumed that all devotion was simply her right and took his adoration quite as a matter of course laughing when he sighed mocking when he protested and altogether so and him that fifty times a day he was ready to rush away in desperation never to see her again yet always just as the limit of his patience was reached the arch little would so far as to bestow upon her despairing lover some pretty smile or some trivial gracious word that cost nothing and meant nothing but which brought him to her feet again ten times more than before rose was an and her cousin insisted that the and attention she received i in the bundle of time had spoiled her and in truth she did receive praise enough to have turned any head not most securely placed upon its s shoulders how much was for her reading and how much for her beauty it might have been hard to say protested that it was entirely the latter but was a prejudiced witness the poor fellow was so madly jealous of every word she spoke and of every faintest smile which her lips that it drove him nearly wild to think of her smiles and soft words upon the public while he had to content himself with mockery and laughter matters were somewhat complicated too by the fact that had aspirations for the stage himself and this very morning he had been trying to rose into giving him a lesson in only as it was part of his to pretend that he had no great respect for her powers â lest any praise should tend to confirm her in that public career which he hated â he found matters somewhat difficult to manage i tell you rose he said at length after much i m going to read you a speech i m studying you can be audience you know and it will be improving to you how extremely kind you are she retorted but you are always telling me that i know nothing about so i m afraid i can t really appreciate it an amateur that is just it said you represent the common intellect i want to see how i should affect an ignorant audience thank you returned rose with a malicious twinkle in her eye but if you really want to know how the audience is affected i shall have to very well assented he with a great affectation of reluctance this being precisely the thing he desired only don t interrupt too much it is the scene

2Charles Dickens

from the lady of where â oh i know rose broke in it s nay dearest nay of course every reader begins with that why don t you take something that is not so i think the new england would be good it has not been read much and it would exactly suit your style â in adam s fall â we all my book and heart shall never part the cat doth play and after the dog â now rose west protested you are enough to provoke job if this is the way you mean to act i may as well stop that is the way my efforts at are met i was only you for your good but go on by all means i m devoted to that in the bundle of time particular scene it is than the moon go on nobody but a can really do it glared at his pretty but he had learned by bitter experience that it was hardly worth his while to attempt to get the better of her in a war of words so after a few further he plunged headlong into his reading throwing himself into a attitude with his book in his left hand and his right stretched forward he began â nay dearest nay â now interrupted rose you are too ridiculous why should i i m not a horse bother returned the reader hotly nay dearest nay if thou have me â but i would n t she laughed we should sound well and at each other like a pair of young look here rose if i am to read at all you must keep still but how are you to improve if i don t correct you but you need n t break in at every second word then read better her cousin looked at her in a mind divided between a desire to shake her and a longing to kiss her rosy laughing lips then he cleared his throat and went on again changing his emphasis an amateur wildly about from one word to another in a vain attempt to suit his critic nay dearest nay if thou have me â but i won t sir nay dearest nay if thou have me â i should save some other woman from a great misfortune i ve no doubt if thou have me paint â why i never paint and it is too mean in you to ask me to especially with such a paltry as getting you for a reward if thou have me paint â i don t want you to paint rose west cried poor i won t read another word unless you behave i am beautifully it is a great sacrifice for me to find fault with you but you do read i don t either it is only â it is rude to dispute a lady rose returned i say you read like the old exercise in the reading book shall you ride to town to day shall you ride to town to day shall you ride to town to day shall you ride to town to day shall you ride to town to day shall you ride to town to day if thou have me paint if thou have me paint if thou have me â bundle of time paint if thou have me paint if thou have me paint if thou have me paint if thou have me paint thee there was another pause the two cousins gazing into each other s eyes â he with an expression appealing annoyed half angry she mischievous defiant laughing at length he concluded to go on again nay dearest nay if thou have me paint the home â paint the home you ridiculous boy do i look like a house painter if thou have me paint the home â oh paint it by all means if you like but i prefer a brown stone front that wouldn t need painting nay dearest nay if thou have me paint the home â oh it was n t my idea at all pat in the rose you offered to do it yourself without any suggestion from me do you mean to let me read or not demanded oh read by all means retorted she briskly there is more variety to your reading than to any i ever heard before you develop a of meaning from the simplest sentence which is perfectly marvellous you d make an out of corn apple seed and thorn t â an amateur you d move an audience alternately to tears and laughter simply by repeating the oh you re positively a genius you always me said you what an idea was n t i to tell you what i thought of your reading but you need n t be so absurd oh said rose i do that to show you what you really say you are so original that you can t help making the form mean a great many things that the author never thought of nonsense i d like to know how much better you could read it yourself i am modest answered rose to suppose i could do half so well but i try to show you how you read if you won t be angry of course i won t go ahead here s the book oh i won t read the same thing how will this do and she repeated with most exaggerated tragic emphasis â â thomas t took two t s to tie two up to two tall trees to frighten the terrible thomas t tell me how many t s â stop i ha ha ha come back but the had fled the room i le t e in mary jane s house t t in mary jane s house in mary jane s house t is not impossible that at some period of its discouraged existence the little house may

2Charles Dickens

have been painted but of such refinement not the smallest trace had escaped the touch of time it was now of an unbroken tint of varied only by the dull red of its one chimney and the small windows of glass it stood a few rods back from the country road upon a slight into which it had the appearance of slowly sinking as from year to year the annual fall made a higher and higher mound beneath its low windows a ragged cluster of stood upon one side of the front door and there were still signs that at some remote period a similar had stood over against it in the late spring shoots with wide green leaves would still rise from the old roots but they never had vigor enough to survive the next winter i in the bundle of time two women were coming across the fields toward the house one morning about nine o clock moving with that awkward stride which the fact that new england so seldom walk outside of their own doors they were both in their working clothes although one had on a hat which was decorated with large and badly artificial roses there was in their air a certain flavor of excitement and which would to any observer have betrayed the fact that there was something unusual in prospect they advanced with eager haste brushing with their heavy gowns the dew which still lingered in the depths of the and talking with a rapidity strangely at with the habitual restraint and deliberation of country hfe i d know s td ought t wore this hat the taller of the pair said tossing her head with the consciousness of being arrayed with undue splendor upon a week day but them young ones d got off somewhere th my nd i could n t take the whole day to find it oh don t make no sort o her companion replied there ain t nobody there but old mis jones she went over in mary jane s house bout to lay er out si stayed there all lone night i should n t think he d a wanted to good gracious responded she of the hat ef mary jane c u d live there day in an day out for ten year with a dead man buried in the i sh d think si might stay there one night he ain t scared o stopped to away from her gown a withered branch of which with thorns had caught at her as she passed d you know she said sinking her voice into a sort of confidential half tone i ve been just crazy to get inter that house for the life o me i never could make out what mary jane did with all them things an â i know the other interrupted eagerly ain t it queer mis told me that that time she went to boston more n three years ago mary jane sent by her for a whole lot of things paper an an paper an beads â more n two dollars worth she said mary jane give the money inter her hand after she got the stage with a list o the things she said she meant to it but somehow she lost it in one o them big stores where she got in the bundle of time the things i expect she was considerable confused i ate she were assented but the thing is what d she do with all that stuff i tell you there s some ry bout mary jane an m goin to find out what t is tore i leave that house or my name ain t the pair had come to a stone wall thickly overgrown with a confused mass of golden rod and poison ivy over which they made their way with some difficulty they were in the in which stood the lonely old cottage toward which they were bound and either to regain their breath or from some not unnatural shrinking now that they were almost in the very presence of death they their steps a little d you ever hear asked up to her companion and glancing toward the house as if the dead woman lying there might still chance to be able to her that an mary jane to set up the woman stopped and regarded her with the most vivid interest depicted upon her dull face him that s buried in the there she demanded in mary jane s house yes him i ve heard that they t sit up consider ble replied with all the delight which a woman from the communication of a fresh bit of gossip t course twas much s twenty years ago but they to go told me he know d well well i w ant r know exclaimed was that the reason they the body in the oh fer th land sake no f course not he was a well down there an it in on him an when they tried ter im they he d gone down in a so they could n t im they had come close to the weather beaten house by this time and passing around to the back door they paused an instant be yer goin t knock asked knock responded why sh d i knock just for mis jones t ain t her house ny more n tis mine she opened the door as she spoke and together they entered the dingy little passage which led them into the kitchen it was a poor place and already there had fallen upon it that mysterious air of neglect which the removal of the of the dwelling from earthly concerns the two â bundle of time women looked about them with an eager curiosity but they did not stop i ve been in most every room in the house said leading the way farther into the cottage

2Charles Dickens

i ve been in the kitchen an her bedroom an the fore room an i ve looked in the f the front entry an there ain t in any of em they passed through the room which opened out of the kitchen and at the door of the chamber beyond they encountered the figure of mrs jones who had been alone in the house for some hours performing the last solemn offices for the dead wall i d for t she exclaimed with an smile i d jest bout made up my mind that there war n t nobody near this place ter day well yer see said one o the had the some for a spell in the night an that kind o things to our house i hope yer ain t d no help nor oh t war n t that mrs jones replied smiling more than ever but it s sort o like y know i ve got her fixed beautiful an she looks real nice an young â f her that is mary jane was the in mary jane s house perfect spit f her mother i always said that yes she took consider ble after her mother s family assented with the air of a mistress of ceremonies mrs jones turned and led the way into the room from which she had come where in all the solemn simplicity of death lay that which had for more than half a century been known as mary jane the coarse sheet snowy white had settled into heavy folds as it hung over the edge of the bed showing the outlines of the figure it covered mrs jones folded back the cloth from the face of the dead that faded homely face which the women had known so long and a sudden silence fell upon them it was a moment before they spoke again and then their voices were hushed and softened sh looks awful peaceful said presently don t she returned well she knows more n the whole of us now yes mrs jones assented that s a fact i never see a that looked more real rested as yer may say they stood for some moments discussing the details of the thing which had once been mary jane lingering a little in the bundle of time touched yet with an awkward air of not knowing exactly how to behave in a situation so strangely solemn and then the practical side of life once more resumed its accustomed hold upon them where s her folks mrs asked t she got cousins over to the corners oh yes she s got cousins but her an them t never set horses t gather was the reply of mrs jones who made it a point of professional pride to know all that there was to be known concerning those to whom she they being dead there s two of em coming over to take poor mary jane i sh d think she d turn over in her grave to have them two old women over her things i know should and she never could abide either of em well it s what we re all a to the moved slowly out of the chamber of death and without putting into word their intention they began an examination of the house which if conducted with perfect calmness was yet sufficiently searching they made their frank comments as they proceeded from room to room and from to closet throughout all this examination which became more and more like a search as the in mary jane s house possibilities of the house were gradually exhausted there was evident in the manner of the three women an eager curiosity and a baffled air of not finding that which they had expected they glanced at one another now and then with perfect understanding but it was not until they returned to the kitchen after going over the house that their disappointment was put into word wall observed leaning back against the kitchen table and setting her arms i own up to it i m clean beat so be i rejoined them things ain t in this house nowhere that s one sure thing an i vow i d know what mary jane ken h done with em mrs jones made no reply it was not her way to acknowledge that she was baffled she was meditating deeply and revolving in her breast what could have become of the treasures of fancy work which it was the opinion of the neighborhood that mary jane had wrought but which she had refused to display to her friends but she only assumed an air which was evidently intended to convey that she knew more than she was prepared to tell and changed the subject i d know s t my business she said t in the bundle of time do no up fer them women but f mary jane s sake i guess i up a little f you go down an the tub i jest out them sheets an put things to rights some before they get ere took a candle and departed down the dark stairs which led to the cellar of the cottage while mrs jones and consulted in regard to the work which must be done suddenly from beneath they heard the voice of cry out â for the alive with one accord the two women rushed to the head of the stairs what is it they cried o responded the voice from beneath jest you come down here they needed no second bidding but plunged down the narrow and steep nearly falling over each other in their eagerness they found holding her candle up over her head so that its light should fall upon a strange thing before which she stood wall i d for t exclaimed mrs jones ain t that the est you ever did see mrs stood with her jaw

2Charles Dickens

dropped with astonishment at the wonderful in mary jane s house structure which the rays of the dim candle lighted there in the cellar stood a sort of evidently made of boxes covered with white cloth which was here and there stained with from the of the place along the sides were hung wreaths and of dried ground pine in which the wild white of new england pastures were mingled with flowers wrought of colored paper and beads and bows of fastened the at the while along the base of the ran a strip of twisted and by the damp and upon this was laboriously embroidered that passage of scripture wherein mention is made of and as having gone down quick into the pit wall i never see to beat n all my born days said what s worked all round the bottom there s the text what was preached to at his fun mrs jones replied i ve tell p there was a minister over to the corners preached it an they say twas a ful discourse wall it must a ben n awful sight o work to make all them letters commented f mary jane d my to in the bundle of time round after i guess she d never no time for sort o thing seems ef mary jane must a just put her whole soul inter it observed she must a ben years an years a it wonder where she learned how t make them paper flowers they re real i must say mrs jones remarked with a professional air she done well to keep things to herself so close there t nobody never the idea what she was up to she must jest a lived for it mrs said t must a ben n sight o work repeated stooping to examine more closely the of the tomb i sh d think she d ben scared f fear she d got inter herself said oh that was all over t the time s up mrs jones explained light them two scene lamps there n let s see it all lit up poor mary jane she must a taken a sight o comfort in it the lamps were lighted casting a flickering and uncertain glow over the pile and for half an hour the three women over its fantastic they called in mary jane s house attention to this detail and to that they upon which work had been done first and upon the length of time which the whole had occupied and all the time they kept exclaiming over the strangeness of this on the part of mary jane the ludicrous side of this homely exhibition of the love which mary jane had borne to her lover swallowed up alive by the pitiless so long ago did not present itself to the mind of these women whose lives had been lacking even such few pale of imagination as had cast their light over mary jane s sad and lonely heart they appreciated better than women of far more culture might have appreciated the touching aspect of this grotesque memorial in all their comments there was still a faint as if they were speaking of something not without a certain character no of costly wrought by the hand of genius could have conveyed to them so full a of the tragedy and of the imaginative comfort as came to their minds through this damp and time stained this spoke a language which they understood and it appealed at once to their feminine sympathy and to whatever in the bundle of time they possessed they lingered over it with respectful and sincere admiration almost with tears in their eyes seems s ef i can t to them women it all to pieces said at last with her toil stained fingers the leaves of a rose of pink paper mrs jones turned toward her with the air of one who has made her mind up beyond venture these women ain t a goin to lay no hand on it she announced they ain t a goin to see it even what s more why how you goin to help it i tell yer how i m goin to help it mrs jones answered setting her face in an expression of grim determination i m jest a goin to take it all to pieces before anybody sees it but jest us oh mis jones you ain t really yes i be too i don t b you to sneered mrs jones f you think i m o them women from over to the corners you don t know jones i ken tell yer that i m goin to put them flowers round inside the coffin an them wreaths f ever in mar y jane s house on the outside an there won t be down here for no women to at an don t you it the two women stood astounded at her boldness for a moment and then brought forward a last argument which seemed to her so strong that she almost trembled as she said it but mis jones she said them women bein the lawful might take the law on yer mrs jones rose to her full height her face flushed with feeling law she echoed i don t care one single straw for the law what i m goin by now s the gospel i m goin to do s i be done by f i was that poor dead upstairs you may help or you may leave alone s you please but i m goin to by mary jane f she is dead she turned and with fingers which were none the less for being strong and coarse began to the from the cloth to which they were fastened her two companions hesitated a moment and then they too began to undo the work upon which mary jane had the passionate tenderness of years i

2Charles Dickens

an afternoon tea an afternoon tea drawing room of mrs de mrs de is seated upon the beside mr jack mrs and mr d in easy chairs close mrs de of course i never believed it i said when i heard it that was far too shrewd to make a scandal when she had so little to gain by it mr that is the way i look at it she d never with a fellow who could not give her and flowers her affections were always in direct proportion to a man s credit at the s mrs de l poor jack how dreadfully hard on you mrs oh i m sure you don t do her justice she is a girl of so much principle mr but there was such a close connection between principle and interest in her mind mrs de l you are always so horribly cynical i hate you mr p don t reward him for being sarcastic in the bundle of time mrs de z thank you jack we will call it square may i give you tea mr mr d thank you no more i have already destroyed my nerves mrs c then why not have another cup it is certainly delicious mrs de l then i may fill your cup mrs c of course i am happy to say that i have no nerves mr p i had suspected it do you know mrs c because i have endured you so long mr p oh come now that is sheer mrs de l don t spare him i m not equal to keeping him in order myself enter miss and miss mrs de l i am so glad to see you my dear we were just speaking of you mr p yes mrs was telling us that she heard you had returned miss j returned from where mrs c mr misunderstood i said i had not seen you since i returned aside to mr p i murder you for that mrs de l that is undoubtedly what mr was thinking of miss j it would be kind of you mr to remember that we danced together at the ball three days ago mr p oh i thought that you might have an afternoon tea taken a short trip somewhere a sort of excursion perhaps mrs c does any one know who is to lead the german at the miss j aside to miss you see that they know all about it miss c aside the more reason for facing it out mrs de z you are silent miss miss c i am enjoying the intellectual conversation mrs de l so nice of you to put it in that way enter tom there is a stir among the ladies miss walks away to the window in the back part of the drawing room and absorbed in the view mrs de l so glad to see you mr why did you not bring mrs with you mr b oh she is somewhere about town and i couldn t find her don t you know she may turn up here at any moment mrs c you must be anxious to have her mrs de l of course he is will you have a cup of mr b no thanks tea so near dinner time is a thing i never could stand don t you know he speaks to the ladies and then miss at the window mrs c really it looks like an appointment i is the bundle of time miss c looking at mrs and mr ana then at mrs de and r it is so much the fashion nowadays for married people to that one is prepared for anything mrs c the men so seldom seem to care for the girls nowadays that it is singular to see anything of this sort miss c yes is apt to be confined to the married women mrs de l the young women â mr d are so dreadfully in earnest were you going to say mr p come hadn t we better proclaim an armed and talk about somebody who is not here to defend herself mrs c with all my heart do you know they say mrs is awfully cut up about her husband miss g why mrs de l oh how awfully severe don t you think he is worth caring about miss c i meant to ask what reason she could have mr p oh none in the world why should a woman care if her husband is of a pretty girl mrs de l so i say i always tell mr de he may with as many pretty girls as he likes but i should hate to have him go on with a an afternoon tea plain one for everybody would say what a homely of a wife he must have if he can put up with a girl that looks like that miss c we all know you to be a philosopher mrs de enter mrs she starts at seeing her husband but herself instantly she kisses mrs de and speaks to the other s mrs de z your husband said you were coming i am delighted to see you you never come nowadays to see your old friends mr b who has come forward with miss yes i was waiting for you to come in mrs b i am glad to find you here miss i want you to come home to dine with me mr p aside to mrs there i call that beautifully done all round mrs c it could n t be better miss j thank you so much but i have promised to dine with miss c yes and i really cannot spare her mrs mr d aside to mrs the and way in which she swore to that lie commands my highest respect mrs de l do sit down it is just the middle of

2Charles Dickens

the afternoon miss c rising in response to a glance from miss but we really must be going i in the bundle of time had no idea it was so late one always forgets about the time at your house mrs de mrs de l oh i wish one always could i d forget my time of life miss c that would be only returning the compliment to time for so completely forgetting you mrs de z ha ha you are just as sharp and clever as you were in the days when i used to look up to you older girls in my school days mr d aside to mrs a for an mrs c aside to mr we really must get out of this before it becomes a free fight mrs de l kissing miss and then miss i am so glad you came do come again soon you know i am always at home and if you don t care for me you are sure to meet somebody or other who will entertain you miss and miss mrs c don t you think those two girls are going off dreadfully they used to be such a pretty pair mrs b miss is pretty still don t you think only i do think miss makes up badly mr d good bye mrs de mrs an afternoon tea is going to set me down at the club i must spare my aged frame you know mrs de z we are very sorry to spare it i assure you there is the usual embracing and ceremony mrs is accompanied to the door by the hostess and goes away with mr dan ton mrs b aside to her husband you had better come with me it will look better mr b certainly my dear i intended to mrs de l returning i wish dear would not drive about so openly with mr dan ton people do talk so horribly mrs b it is always so unpleasant to have any scandal connected with one s friends mr b or one s family mrs de l indeed it is i think i should certainly die to be mixed up in a scandal but one ought to be charitable and especially people who are so united as you two are mrs b well nobody can stop people from they will invent the most injurious stories i tell dick we may wake up any morning to find the whole town ringing with some absurd story that we have separated or or murdered each other or anything else dreadful mr p that would be a good joke but really people know you both too well mrs de l if anybody is safe from scandal i should think you ought to be the bundle of time mr b oh nobody is mrs b good bye my dear come and see me soon and you mr you never come to see us more leave taking and once more mrs de her guests to the drawing room door as she returns she throws her hands up in a mock gesture mrs de l who would believe that within forty eight hours that man had started to with and been brought back by her brother mr p altogether i think we had rather a lively and amusing afternoon the way that cat fought for her friend was something delicious is a bit but she s game to the mrs de l really jack you ought not to have them people are talking awfully and only yesterday i got a curtain lecture on your account mr p i m awfully sorry my dear why don t you talk back i m sure you have chance enough mrs de l oh i assure you i was n t over meek but after all you can t talk back to everybody and will repay everything that was said to her this afternoon with interest mr p let her who cares what if people do talk besides the scrape will furnish r an afternoon tea folk with enough to talk about for some time to come so we may rest easy mrs de l perhaps it will i m sure i hope so shall i see you at the to night mr p yes i shall look in about twelve good bye they walk toward the door together and this time mrs de her departing guest beyond the drawing room door the of which falls behind them t t the tiger the tiger t was one night when we had been dining with major that i heard the story the major was rather famous for collecting odd characters and this time he had asked us to meet an old friend whom he had known in india since the major had travelled in india as well as everywhere else that civilized man does travel he might well have been an englishman so great was his love of and it is not improbable that this characteristic was the one which most him to his numerous english friends of whom the present visitor mr was one the stranger was a strongly built wholesome looking man forty five or with a weather beaten face and a keen eye and a closely cut crop of iron gray hair his hands were also of noticeable strength if appearance counted for anything and his whole build indicated both l in the bundle of time unusual power and unusual endurance lie was rather quiet during dinner but after the women had gone and smoke and talk had pervaded the dining room he burst out rather suddenly and unexpectedly a great gray cat had followed the servant into the room and came to rub herself against the legs of the company with the freedom confidence of an established favorite my dear the englishman cried as soon as he caught sight of the animal will you excuse me if i ask to have that

2Charles Dickens

beast put out the manner in which he said this indicated so much discomfort that everybody stopped talking and stared at him while the host himself rose to without waiting for a servant i beg your pardon mr said the color mounting into his cheek but since that time in india major i haven t any control of myself where one of the cat tribe is concerned i have to kill it or i must get away from it the host nodded my dear fellow lie said don t mention it i beg i wonder that you ever had any nerve for anything after that by the way do you mind telling the gentlemen about the the tiger l l scrape it was the of an escape i ever knew of and they will all be interested the englishman and said he did not intend to lead up to this but of course we all insisted and in the end he was induced to relate to us the following story the major who had heard the tale from other sources afterward for its entire and indeed the character of the would in itself have been sufficient to establish this you see he said pushing up his sleeve so that his arm was bare almost to the elbow i am not without some evidences of what happened my whole body is covered with such as these the crossed and one another in a perfect as if the skin had been scratched with a sharp but surely a cat could not do that tom french said as we looked in amazement at these singular that would depend upon the size of the cat he returned with a smile i do not mind telling the story although it is not a thing that it is very pleasant to recall i ve had times when i woke up in the night and remembered it with a sensation that made ii in the bundle of time my hair rise on my head the cat that scratched me was the great a tiger that you might have heard of in india ten years ago as the devil in that ridden country a murmur ran around our circle and we involuntarily drew our chairs nearer to the he smiled faintly perhaps a little amused at the effect that the mention of the tiger produced and at the same time it was evident that he began to feel the of the attention which was instantly upon him india has been a sort of second home to me mr continued there is said to be a bit of indian blood in my family though whether this is a theory that grew out of the conclusion of my name or whether the name came from some indian i am not prepared to say we have the family history for a couple of hundred years without mention of him though so that this indian must be pretty remote at least i had hunted everything in india that there is to hunt from the elephant down but i had never killed a man and in an evil hour i decided to have a crack at the the beast was a that had kept the tiger the whole region of in terror for well on toward a dozen years and the victims that had gone to feed her in that time were well up in the scores the natives were so thoroughly afraid of her and so completely convinced that she was inspired by a demon that they could hardly be persuaded to defend themselves and when it came to getting men to go with me i found that it was all but impossible after an awful lot of and with the promise of an extravagant price i found a couple of men such as they were and amid the cheerful of all the inhabitants that i was but offering myself up as food for the man i set out on my quest before i returned i had come to the place where i should have been glad to see my men eaten but they came out of it safe and to this day probably boast how they killed the we had little trouble in coming on the track of the beast the old lady had been dining on a mother and child in a little village half a day to the south and was known to be still in the neighborhood looking out for more provisions of the same sort we searched a couple of days without finding her and then my men declared that she must the bundle of time have left the locality some of the tracks that we had found were rather fresh however and i decided that we would look about one day more before we left the place we had but a single tent and were with as little luggage as possible the third night we in a charming little grassy meadow a couple of miles out of the village one of the prettiest spots i ever saw in my life there was a little brook not quite dried up running right through the middle of it and half a dozen trees were scattered round before you came to the which began about an eighth of a mile from our tent the night was as light as day for the moon was full and i sat until about ten o clock in front of the tent smoking and admiring the view of a bit of mountain top that showed far off in the west through a break in the trees when i turned in i gave particular directions to the men about watching and tried the effect of a little by adding that if they both got to sleep at once the tiger was a demon and would know it heaven knows whether i was n t right too it must have been near midnight when i

2Charles Dickens

woke and in the second of waking dreamed that i was hunting and my elephant had fallen on me i saw the exact spot where the tiger the accident had happened a place near the upper village of where an elephant had stumbled with me once and which i suppose stuck in my mind as a dangerous point i even noticed how the that are put on under the had covered me so that i was wrapped up in them it was curiously real and detailed that dream and yet it must have all been into the of a minute between the tiger s falling on me and my being awake enough to know what had happened the beast had come up behind the tent and leaped directly at it the men were both asleep of course and very likely they would not have seen her if they had been awake she had evidently made up her mind to have a little white blood that time and the cunning beast was clever enough to know how to steal a march by a flank movement the natives you remember believe that the intelligence of every man a tiger eats goes into the beast and this by that calculation was as wise as at least a score of men â unless the intelligence of some natives is to be counted as a negative quantity like that of the two men i had the tiger had jumped so that her body lay directly across my if she had struck a little higher she would either have in the bundle of time crushed the life out of me or at least knocked me insensible and if she had struck a little lower very likely she would have broken my legs the canvas of the tent was between us the whole thing having gone down under her weight and through it i could hear her to discover just how her prey was placed then with one scratch of her tremendous she up the canvas so close to my head that i could feel the against my cheek and in less time than i have taken in telling you she had me by the breast of my hunting jacket which i luckily had on as the night was a bit she pulled me out through the in the canvas as you would pull a out of a bag rising so that i could slip out from under her body and there i was in the full moonlight in the jaws of the man the story stopped to his lips from the glass before him but nobody spoke we sat in breathless silence and with a glance around the circle of intent faces he went on again it is no light thing to be face to face with a man who has been in the grasp of a man eating tiger and he could not but see that we were strongly affected by his story the first thing i was conscious of see the tiger ing the englishman continued was those two infernal cowardly natives climbing a tree i was so enraged that i forgot to be afraid and the first sound i made was a command that i roared to them to come back and pick up their guns of course i might as well have to the wind and there i lay helpless in that infernal beast s grip and saw them scramble into the branches entirely and of course as little able to aid me as if they had been a hundred miles away oddly enough i was not afraid even then the tiger had not hurt me beyond the fall of her soft body across me which really had not injured me in the least i was conscious of the intensely smell of her breath and it may be that the modern theory that there is in the breath of these creatures a certain quality has some truth in it at any rate i was not in the least frightened and my mind was perfectly tranquil my arms were free and in the single moment that the tiger paused after she had drawn me out of the tent i managed to reach out and catch the of the gun which one of my men had flung down close to the tent as he ran it may be that my movement startled in the bundle of time the beast but at any rate she began to move toward the she went in the direction which the tent had faced which indicated that she had made the half circle in the covert before showing herself at first she stepped slowly and i was able to slide my hand half way down the barrel of my rifle but then she began to run and the stock caught in a turf of grass i held on with all my force but the tiger evidently feeling the pull backward gave a sudden spring forward and the rifle was out of my hand my head and my heels were dragging but fortunately the ground was soft and beyond a scratching from the grass and the leaves of the weeds i suffered no great injury my mind ran over all possible means of escape i tried to get at my pocket knife but when i succeeded in reaching my pocket i found that everything had been shaken out as i had been dragged along then all of a sudden the tiger stopped about to the and dropped me on the grass i lay perfectly still raising her great handsome head â she was a splendid devil to look at â she began to call in a soft way the call of a cat for her a hundred or so the tiger the infernal beast i never hear a cat call her without its all coming back to me she had hardly called a couple of times before the two of

2Charles Dickens

them came running out of the and leaping toward her as soon as they came to me they began to snuff curiously and i thought with a feeling of relief â that curious and feeling of relief that comes in the midst of a thing that is not in the least finished and of which the end is still hopeless â that they were not old enough to eat flesh i was intended rather for their amusement and education than for their diet they had been invited to examine me and to play with me but the eating of me was probably to be reserved for the mother alone the way in which the great cat went on with those would have been very pretty to see had the danger not made it so frightful she licked them with her great red tongue over them and showing a maternal delight which was touching in its way but not she let them smell me all over and then she began gently to stir me up a little for their amusement with all her claws she pushed me about in the bundle of time as if i had been a ball it was a cat playing with a mouse only that i refused to run i knew that that meant being brought back with those cruel claws in my flesh and for a while i kept my head the were not long in learning how they were expected to play with me but they were not so careful as their mother had been to keep in their claws and the result was that in five minutes after they began to toss me about i was scratched from my head to my feet and as if i had been stung by a thousand â i endured it as long as i could all the time to edge away from the old mother that lay and and her great eyes in the moonlight â the image of contentment it occurred to me that if i could roll over as the played with me i might perhaps get back to where i dropped my gun or at least reach one of the trees that stood about and take my chance of up before the mother got to me but what good inquired one of the listeners as the paused an instant would it do you to climb a tree don t climb it probably would n t have done me any good whatever was the reply but i was in the t ir tiger a place where anything that looked like hope appealed to me i thought i might break off a limb and beat the tiger back or that i could induce one of my men to do something or in short he added smiling that a miracle might happen however i did not reach the tree so that what would have happened if i had does not matter suddenly one of the gave me a scratch so cruel that i lost my head i sat up and began to beat the beasts over the head they and and began to bite although as g matter of fact their biting was of less consequence than their scratching my hunting jacket was thick and their teeth did not go through it while their claws did but the old she devil of a mother heard them and came to their rescue i had presence of mind enough to lie down again and keep quiet so that when she came to me she only me and gave me a or two with her she licked her affectionately and crouched down by them while they began their sport again at last she seemed to be with the spirit of their fun and began to take a hand herself now and then as they rolled me toward her she would give me a playful toss which usually pretty well knocked the in the bundle of time breath out of my body and bruised me black and blue if you have ever seen a cat torment a mouse you can imagine what happened to me perhaps i was by the breath of the beast â for as i said a minute ago there is some sort of theory nowadays that the breath of all the cat family has qualities or perhaps the truth was that i was so utterly without hope that i had given up my hold on life but at any rate i was not conscious of being afraid and i was even aware that i was somehow getting and dull i shouted to the men in the trees directions to get my gun and fire even if they should hit me but they were too entirely overcome by fear to be able to do anything and they simply sat and looked on while this ghastly play went forward and i was being worried to death under their eyes they probably said in eastern fashion and held themselves relieved from all responsibility not to make too long a story of the affair â although i assure you gentlemen that the time it lasted seemed long enough to me â the began to get more and more lively and at last without being conscious that i had any intention of doing it i suddenly sprang to my feet and ran toward the tiger the nearest tree which was perhaps twenty feet away i had gone a dozen feet when the made an enormous bound a sort of pleasant amiable leap which landed her just behind me she seized the back of my coat without me and carried me back to her she was playful and and evidently too sure of me to be angry that i tried to get away the fell upon me once more and the mother joined in their innocent and playful fun at last she threw me over her head and as i came down

2Charles Dickens

behind her i caught hold of one of her hind legs the act was instinctive like my attempt to run away it seemed as if i had somehow got beyond taking care of myself and some instinct had come to the rescue i have always been remarkably strong in the arms and i clung with a desperate grip in the first astonishment the animal swung around so that i was whirled around a half circle of seven or eight feet instantly however she stopped and bent her body so that her splendid head with its teeth showing white in the moonlight came close to mine quick as a flash and still acting without any conscious thought i swung my head to the other side of her and at the the bundle of time same time i bent her leg across my knee with all my force i do not know mr said looking round the circle of eager faces with a smile whether you will believe me when i say that what i did was to break the leg of a living and a man at that across my knee and yet that is literally what happened i remember the savage strain i gave all my force ail my anger and all my instinctive thrill at the sudden hope of escape to put force into me i felt the bone snap and instantly i sprang to my feet caught one of the by the head and flung it as high into the air as i could the yell of rage and pain that that beast gave makes my flesh creep still when i remember it she whirled about as i sprang backward but sank down instantly on her broken leg at the same instant the that i had thrown struck the earth with a terrible and sent up a that would have made your hair rise the mother turned her head to see what had happened and that gave me one little instant in which to get away from her i ran toward the tent and she followed she could no longer spring but on three legs she could run as the tiger fast as i could go and she was close at my heels when by the mercy of heaven i stumbled over my gun i don t know how i got that rifle into my hands right end first and fired it but i did it somehow and then i distinguished myself by dropping down in a dead faint i hav e n t any idea how long i lay there those cowardly natives in the trees were afraid to come down even then and when i came to the pair of were about their dead mother whose nose was actually against my foot so close to me had she fallen i thought at first that i would keep the creatures alive but they made me faint simply by their presence and i told the men to shoot them both next morning the men of made something of a hero of me as they are apt to do when a man has simply been forced to do something out of the common course to save his head one of the there sent me this ring there had been in all this discourse which may seem unreal and cold when set down upon paper a certain simplicity and frankness which were as convincing as they were as the speaker ended there was a deep drawn sigh almost in from us the bundle of time all so deep had been our attention and our in the tale we sat for a moment in absolute silence with our eyes fixed upon the englishman then little lieutenant who is swore a great oath under his breath it was not the thing for a man to do in a company of gentlemen but it did express our feelings pretty well the host rose without comment and said shall we the ladies then who in his way is as as the little lieutenant sprang up and going to the englishman shook him heartily by the hand without saying a word there was a quick murmur from the rest of us which was equivalent to a unanimous of his act then we went into the drawing room and rejoined the ladies yes â and no yes â and no miss may who has been curled up in the corner of a comfortable sofa in her upstairs sitting rises to welcome mr frank whose card has just been brought to her and whom she has allowed to come up as an especial favor mr coming forward with outstretched hand so good of you to see me you ve been ill i hear miss yes mr m quickly but you are better miss d smiling and waving him to a seat in a big easy chair while she her old position yes mr m do you know i ve been all but on the sick list myself miss d yes mr m i took an awful cold coming out from the ball was n t the weather dreadful that night miss d yes mr m and i had such a pain in my lungs â miss d yes mr m and my throat was so sore miss d yet more yes l o in the bundle of time mr m and i certainly thought i was in for and all the rest of it cheerful was n t it miss d apparently not sure how much is jest and how much earnest yes mr m however i m all right now do you know i think i ve got the biggest kind of a joke on ned miss d with animation yes mr m you know how dreadfully smashed he s been on lily miss d yes mr m well you know that tall cousin of hers that comes from philadelphia to visit there miss d yes

2Charles Dickens

mr m well ned asked lily to go to the opera with him the other evening and she wrote back that she was already engaged miss d yes mr m and of course ned went to the opera and about until he saw them and â miss d greatly interested yes mr m and he saw her with this great tall fellow that he did n t know and he got perfectly furious with jealousy miss d le a ni fig forward in the greatest interest and putting a into her mouth just because her eye fell on them when she was too absorbed to consider what she was doing yes mr m and now he s making no end of a row yes â no l l and wants me to go and demand his letters back should n t you think he d do it himself miss z with animation yes mr m and all the time i know it was only her cousin and i won t tell him is n t that an awfully good joke miss d doubtfully yes mr m you don t seem very enthusiastic don t you think ned deserves a lesson for being so unreasonable miss d more positively yes mr m after all women always admire a man for being jealous they think it shows that he is really in love miss d y e e s mr m don t you know it is so miss d with a shrug yes mr m come you are trying to me should n t you want a man to be jealous who was in love with you miss d with a nod and a little gesture which intimate that she holds very positive views on the subject yes mr m laughing there i said so i knew you d take ned s part now don t you miss d after a brief interval of silence in which she apparently tries in vain to decide to what the admission her yes mr m women are never logical i suppose you think their are above logic in the bundle of time miss d quickly yes mr m or below it miss d yes mr m oh don t be offended you know i always agree with you even if i know you are wrong it is only polite to agree with a woman i always say miss d yes mr m there now i ve got you all cross again i declare i don t know what i shall do to you you are cross are n t you miss d smiling in spite of herself at his absurd manner yes mr m with a sigh of but not very i think i can always make girls forgive me when they are provoked miss d yes mr m why said the other day i talked so fast that nobody else could get in a single word now you know better than that don t you miss d yes mr m and she was just as cross as she could be because i would n t let her tell a story but i talked right ahead and the first thing she knew she was laughing like anything don t you think she is a sort of a girl miss d laughing yes mr m the sort of girl that ought to be in a kind of stage setting and be composed in a picture you know yes â and no miss d yes mr m now you are a different sort altogether miss d yes m oh yes you know never really has anything to say that is worth hearing and she is always interrupting one trying to say it now if you excuse me for saying it to your face it is a pleasure to talk to you you always have so much to say miss â with a sweeping bow yes mr m oh you may laugh but truly i d rather talk to you than to any other girl i know the girls are so full of nonsense and they all keep saying so many silly things that no sensible man can bear to talk with them don t you know i ve had a great notion of getting a lot of cards printed to send round as and the motto â miss d yes mr m was to be little folks should be seen and not heard don t you think that s an original idea miss d yes mr m oh now you think i m into girls again and you don t like it don t be cross because you see i especially want you to be this afternoon i came for a special reason miss d yes mr m i ve been trying for a long time to get a the bundle of time up my courage i am really awfully shy and i ve always been of you than of anybody else miss d drawing back into the corner of the sofa and becoming colder with a that something of importance is coming yes mr m yes i really have i ve always liked you best of all the girls i think we ve known each other long enough so we can be perfectly frank don t you miss d faintly yes mr m his minute in sudden confusion i wish â that is do you know i m awfully fond of you miss d in a tone colder yes mr m why of course you must have known it have n t i always asked you first for the you do dance so awfully well too miss d yes she folds her hands and looks into his face with an air of great innocence mr m moving in his chair of course you know it and you must have seen what i meant by it miss d laughing yes mr m oh you think i

2Charles Dickens

asked you just because you dance so well it was n t that at least that was only part of it miss d with an air of candid but wholly interest yes mr m oh miss i wish i were sure you d answer one question the way i want you to and no â but after all the best way to find out whether you will or not is to ask it is n t it miss d yes mr m i never was any good at making speeches i always talk on in httle scraps and wait for other people to put in a word now and then when they want to â miss d yes mr m it makes conversation so dull to have it all one way don t you think miss d yes mr m but i wanted to ask you if you â he pauses and looks at her she smiles and he continues as rapidly as ever i wanted to ask you if you would n t marry me miss d very quietly no mr m do you mean it miss d yes mr m really miss d yes mr m why not but then i don t suppose i ve any right to ask that i hope you are not offended we can be friends still miss d yes mr m i m so sorry you are sure you are in earnest miss d yes mr m then i suppose there is no good in urging you i won t cry over milk don t you think it is better to take things in the bundle of time miss d smiling and regarding him curiously yes mr m rising well that is off my mind at any rate i ve been meaning to ask you all winter you are sure you are not offended miss d yes mr m so many girls are put out you know when they won t have a fellow miss d yes mr m i had n t any idea it was so late really i ought to have gone long ago good bye don t bother to rise good bye and before miss can even add a word of farewell he goes quickly away apparently as brisk and as ever t t f the chamber over the gate the chamber over the gate â â t was the one week in the year when the httle old town seemed really possessed of life and it was the day of that week when its life was at its fullest tide ever since the pink above the tops of the hills had foretold the coming of the market place had been and the peasant folk the the pleasure and the pleasure had come pouring along the winding roads leading to the shut in village which thus once in a out into the glory of its annual fair all through the sunny hours had the noise of traffic the sound ot bell and drum and and those rude which the vagabond from the south love to play upon laughter and song had mingled with the of sheep and the of cattle the shrill cries of strange shouting their wares and the loud of the calling to pleasure to enter their dingy tents and behold i the bundle of time and wonders the of beggars the barking of dogs the merriment or the of children formed an of sound and through every street of the place every nook of the valley where it stood and even from the sides of the hills about it the din as the night fell the uproar increased although now there were not a few folk who were making their way with more or less ease and as the case might be along the ways which led them out of the valley toward their homes on the other side of the hills two travellers who were the tide and were descending the road which led from the south smiled into each other s face as they approached and heard the riot more distinctly we may be late one of them said but it is evident that the fun is not over by any means certainly the noise is not the other responded but let us hasten for i am as hungry as the parish priest after a fast day i warrant that no parish priest was ever so hungry as i am said the first speaker laughing i could eat a the great bear overhead if it were only a little before a fire the chamber er the gate â smiled and glanced up at the stars but he only quickened his steps by way of reply and in a few moments more the pair stood at the arched which led into the court of the inn of the village for fifty and one weeks in the year the inn was as deserted and dead as a rock when the tide is out but now it with life and in answer to their request for lodgings the landlord laughed in their faces by saint martin he said with tremendous this is a pretty time in the week to be looking for lodgings every corner even to the mouse holes has been full since monday and thou for rooms as coolly as if it were any other week in the year thou late to the fair friend we found other fair more attractive returned who acted as speaker but now thou must needs give us a bed if thou out of thine own we are able to pay thee thine own price and i warrant that that is large enough the landlord was firm in his denial of any means of the two travellers and they were about to leave the inn in the hope that some place might be found elsewhere in the village where they could get lodgings for the night when the landlady

2Charles Dickens

in the bundle of time who had come up during the conversation said to her husband in a half aside â but there is the chamber over the gate he turned and looked at her with a fierce glance but as he did not in words rebuke her she said to the strangers â you would not mind lodging in the same room for one night though it be narrow nay answered we are and have never yet been so far apart that we mind a single bed there be two beds she returned thrusting backward with her elbow her husband who was evidently minded to interfere eat your supper and go out to see the fair if it please your when you return all shall be in readiness for your sleeping it was evident enough that there was here some mystery or other but the matter did not seem of much importance in comparison with the fact that a chamber for the night had been secured the brothers ate their supper in great content and then followed the advice of the landlady by going out to see the fair which was still in full blast the were the drums and pipes and strings and bells were sounding voices of all keys and all tones were and calling and laughing while the of the chamber over the gate to and fro like in a hill the brothers went from tent to tent and from to and examining everything laughing at the and the shows the snake and the with the infinite of youth until at last the fatigue of their tramp over the hills to the town added to that of the fair made them turn their thoughts to the inn and to their resting place for the night come said the best of the fun is over and i am tired let us go and see what sort of a hole may be this chamber over the gate into which we are to be thrust to sleep it cannot be much responded or it would have been filled already here in good is a witch let us have our fortunes told before we go the before which he paused was a sort of rude tent fashioned of dingy stuff and lighted by a torch which had already burned down almost to its the fortune was an old with shining eyes who sat crouched upon the ground and called out to the to come and hear all the secrets of fate come hither handsome she cried â l the bundle of time to the brothers here you shall learn all your fortune here you may discover if your love you and if they will grant your suits cross your palms to me brave all the secrets of fortune are mine both the brothers hesitated and each glanced at the other as if had he been alone the witch would not have called in vain but as if there were that to be told which he would not have heard by his fellow oh come thy way said who hath faith in these sitting in the streets let us to the inn and to bed the other moved on as he was somewhat we may dream out our fortunes in this mysterious chamber over the gate he said with a light laugh ay cried the witch his words go thy ways to the chamber over the gate and read the future in the mirror of thoughts there was so bitter a in her tones that both the brothers turned to look at her and in looking back they made a wrong turning so that in another moment they found themselves in a of tents and unable to see their way out of it the chamber over the gate and ignorant in which direction lay the inn for which they were bound stay cried after they had turned and twisted in half a dozen directions we must needs ask guidance here in the nick of time is the waiter who served us at supper it was indeed the inn waiter who stood before them and although he had evidently been the fair with deeper than were consistent with much of gait he was still able to guide them as he went moreover he and seemed disposed to become extremely confidential and ye are to lodge in the chamber over the gate he said at last nodding his head with drunken gravity i wonder now will it be one of you or both what dost thou mean demanded the man looked at him with a cunning shaking his big head but he did not reply to the question directly i warrant now he said that the mistress made you to pay the reckoning in advance did she not she is a shrewd baggage and she had promised the priest that the place should not be slept in this year there was over much last fair time in the bundle of time what happened last fair time asked laying a hand on the man s arm for they were now close to the inn gate it is always the same the man said it was the same that always happens when there are in the chamber over the gate what nonsense is the man you struck in the voice of the landlord who at this instant appeared in the it is a good lodging would the gentlemen sleep in the streets he held up the torch he carried upon the serving man a glance so angry that the shrank away ashamed without even waiting for the coin which would have bestowed upon him for his service as a guide come this way my masters the landlord said turning to a narrow doorway which opened in the side of the arch which covered the entrance to the inn and leading his guests up a crooked and contracted which its way upward in the solid wall

2Charles Dickens

the chamber into which he conducted them was a small square room witli two strait windows looking down into the of the inn and a single narrow opening opposite through which one might have shot an the chamber o er the gate at an enemy approaching from the street without the place was furnished a couple of beds stood over against the two windows a couple of and a shabby table were placed against the walls while a dingy mirror of glass set in a frame hung between the windows good this is not a apartment said laughing never have i been in so strait quarters before the street would be quarters wider the host returned grimly but on the whole the cheer is better here than there such as it was there was evidently nothing to be done but to make the best of things and when the landlord had lighted their rush candle and himself off the brothers got speedily to bed the noises in the village had largely died away the in the inn itself had subsided and the lay there in silence and a darkness which was lessened only by a ray of light from a lantern set upon a post before the inn which strangely struck through the narrow in the outer wall of the chamber and fell upon the old mirror opposite for a space they were quiet but at length said softly â in the bundle of time art thou awake yea the other answered i am not drowsy but i thought that thou asleep for a moment made no reply then he burst out suddenly he demanded with a trace of in his tone what said the lady to thee this morning there by the trees perchance retorted his brother with sudden bitterness if i tell thee thou wilt say to me in return what thou whispering to her when i came upon thee in the even naught that she was to hear cried angrily good sneered i would not be sure that thou not have been to hear what she said to me by the trees started as if to spring up in bed but controlled himself and lay down again he was stretched out upon his side facing the opposite wall of the room and his eyes were irresistibly attracted by the gleam of light reflected upon the old mirror which hung between the windows for a long time there was silence in the chamber while continued to stare at the mirror the chamber o er the gate thinking angrily of his brother and of the lady suddenly it seemed to him that there was a movement in the dull surface of the mirror there was an appearance of rolling clouds as if masses of luminous up continually from the centre and spread onward toward the edges of the glass he watched it idly thinking of it only as of some upon his tired eyes coming from looking too long until he became aware that the surface of the whole mirror had cleared and that in it he could see reflected the chamber with his brother and himself lying in the two beds he wondered at the clearness of the reflection in a room so dimly lighted but before this wonder could fully shape itself in his mind it gave way to another he seemed in the mirror to see the reflection of slowly and stealthily rising from the bed involuntarily he glanced toward but in his dim corner he was lying quiet without himself moving saw his shadowy semblance in the mirror steal from its place with a caution which was in itself a confession of evil intent he saw it stoop to the stool whereon lay his clothing and take from its belt the dagger cold sweat of fear broke out upon s forehead as he lay there and saw his double in the bundle of time glance toward the sleeping with the fury of a rival in his eyes he gasped his hands so tightly that the nails cut into the palms he said to himself that he was dreaming and yet he knew that he was fully awake he felt as if the dreadful picture on the mirror was painted so plain that all the world might see and he dared not stir lest his brother wake and behold it he grew hot with shame and then cold with fear as he saw pictured before him his own self creeping across the chamber with the stealthy glide of a midnight the dagger clutched with ready hand to strike the and with it all he felt as if ten thousand were urging him to do this very thing which he saw before him hardly could he restrain himself from stealthily gliding out of his bed to seize his dagger and creep toward the couch of as he saw his shadow doing in the glass moreover it seemed to him that this was nothing new but as if it were in some way the of something which was already familiar to him this way of clearing his pathway to the love of the lady â with a sudden horror it flashed upon him the chamber over the gate that it was from the wicked depth of his own mind that this dreadful vision had come he groaned aloud with horrible self and remorse it is â the mirror of thoughts he murmured unconsciously speaking aloud at the word sprang up in his bed it is false it is false he cried out furiously i never thought to murder thee in thy sleep the mirror lies what cried springing up in his turn thou see it also i saw a lie returned in a voice of rage it is an accursed if thou hast seen a vision of me it is a of that witch in the market place a vision of thee echoed what hast thou seen demanded

2Charles Dickens

sitting up in bed and leaning forward in the semi darkness as if in a vain attempt to read the face of his brother thou cry out that it is the mirror of thoughts i saw â i saw nothing answered nothing but some idle imagining that is something which perchance i dreamed he was overcome by the discovery that the vision in the mirror had been seen by his w the bundle of time brother but with a change of actors and that to each the mirror had evidently offered the picture of himself playing the yes assented eagerly doubtless thou hast been dreaming i saw that thou asleep was too much overcome to reply to this and once more silence fell in the chamber over the gate the quick breathing of the brothers sounded loud and hollow and felt his heart beating hotly against his breast he was too confused to think clearly and little by little despite the excitement of the feelings which the vision in the mirror had awakened sleep overcame him he fell into a slumber which was broken by and half in which he seemed still to see his own shape creeping snake like across the room to plunge the dagger in the heart of his brother suddenly with a cry of terror he awoke and sprang up the dream had become a reality and stood over his bed his dagger in his extended hand the instinct of self preservation is strong and quick and almost before he had seen his danger had grasped the wrist of the brother who would have been his the chamber ol er the gate he cried in the name of god what art thou doing what thou do if thou a man cried back fiercely i am myself of him who would steal away my lady there was a breathless struggle in the darkened chamber brother fighting against brother in a mad contest for life or death was the more quick and but was the stronger of the and when to strength was added a weapon the issue of the combat seemed not to be doubtful felt his strength failing and through his mind there rushed humiliating recollections of the many times his brother had beaten him in playful struggles for mastery he remembered the torch ring in the wall of the castle hall which he had been used to clutch as a boy to prevent his brother from throwing him to the ground and he seemed to hear again the mocking triumphant laugh with which would always in the end him from his hold and fling him down upon the rush strewn floor even in the midst of this struggle for life could remember how the rushes always slipped under him as he fell at last he could see the face of his mother t bundle of time looking over the gallery above which she could reach from the chamber where she sat at with her maidens by passing through the and whence she was wont to keep an eye to the doings of her wild lads in the hall beneath for the sake of our dead mother cried out with face so vividly before him that a vision could not have been clearer for reply lifted his strong knee and set it against his brother s chest straining to get free the hand which held the dagger felt a shuddering sense of failure of being again conquered and with it there came a sense that to the victor belonged the lady a of self contempt swept over him that he was not able to even when she was the prize with a last despairing effort he threw all his force into a straining every till he felt the blood his temples as if it would burst through in the fury of the thrust he flung the right arm of backward with a so vicious and so sudden that the dagger was torn from the hand which held it and sent flying across the chamber it flew full into the midst of the weird mirror and the chamber over the gate the glass into a thousand which flashed in the light with sudden radiance and then went out in blackness leaving the room almost totally dark now that it was deprived of the reflection of the lantern without at the crash as if it were the breaking of some spell which the mirror had cast over them the brothers stood still panting and yet clutching each other with the grasp of men who fight for their lives it was too dark for them to see the faces each of his brother but they were so closely locked that the hot breath of burned s cheek for the love of god he panted why thou me he felt the strong frame of his brother quiver and then suddenly the head of was bowed to s shoulder and both were sobbing like children they wound their arms about each other as they had done when childish quarrels were made up and the hot tears of remorse and reconciliation washed away the bitterness of the strife they sat down hand in hand upon the edge of the bed and were silent each struggling with his thoughts said hesitatingly at in the bundle of time length dost thou think that the lady loves thee i know not answered all that she hath told me â well the other said as he hesitated she told me there by the went on pressing his brother s hand as if he asked pardon for the words that she could not love thee but i that she with me now by our lady mary cried out she hath played us both false in good what she said to me in the was that she could never love thee it is as we have thought and she doth but amuse herself with us twain while her

2Charles Dickens

heart is given to that cunning a conviction born of old knowledge and seemed to take hold upon them both yet i would have killed thee for her sake murmured he threw his arms about and kissed him on the cheek then as if ashamed of this last display of he rose by the true cross he said with the air of one who has never known emotion this is a mad time of the night to be talking get thee to bed the chamber ol er the gate then after both were in bed and had lain a long time in silence spoke once more dost thou think he asked somewhat hesitatingly that the foul mirror which we have broken hath done men to death here in this chamber with its visions in good i know not answered but us it hath reconciled yea was the reply but not until we had shattered it a lesson in natural history a lesson in natural history she standing with drooping head and busily a hole in the sand with the point of her of course you are right i have never known an instance in which you were not he regarding her with a little concern but apparently with more curiosity now you are angry she have i no cause to be captain he you must have she i must have he of course else you would not be angry she oh now you are sarcastic he if i had with you you would have been equally displeased she you are determined to be disagreeable he on the contrary i am anxious to be agreeable if i only could hit upon the way in which it could be come at she indeed and to think how little one might have suspected that he flinging himself on the sand at her feet you do not mind if i lie down i trust she by all means make yourself comfortable he thank you in the bundle of time she looks at him doubtfully for a moment and then moving away a little but not so far as to be out of ear shot she seats herself upon the end of a log he i should think that that seat would be damp she it is no matter he if you do not mind certainly it is not she you might have found me a better seat he rising with elaborate courtesy and bowing toward the seat on the sand which he has occupied you will perhaps condescend to try the place which i had she thank you but i prefer to remain where i am he flinging himself down again as you please there is a short silence during which she becomes more and more solemn while he an e cheerful expression of countenance she looks out over the sea while he regards her idly twisting his cane in his hands he i think i promised to give you a lesson in natural history to day did i not she very likely but i should n t think of troubling you he oh it is no trouble i assure you i have nothing else in the world to do she it is a pity you have nothing to do i never could respect an idle man a lesson in natural history and so i proposed to become a busy one by giving you the instruction she that would indeed be something not much it is true but still something she very well if you are determined to undertake my education you had perhaps better begin he good it will perhaps be best that i examine you a little at the outset in order that i may discover how much you know i shall have to question you s ie is that part of the bargain i e there is no bargain so far as i know you said that you wished to know more of natural history and i to instruct you now the field of natural history is a wide one it is probable that there are some divisions of the subject which would be more attractive to you than others and it is also probable that you are better prepared for some than for others in order to discover what is the best thing to begin upon it is necessary that i discover what you know in this department already i trust that i make myself clear s ie oh perfectly he and of course you are ready to answer the questions i ask s ie that will depend upon what they are he you mean upon whether you can answer them or not s ie not at all t bundle of time he what then she upon whether i wish to answer them or not he that is hardly a satisfactory attitude for a she but it is necessary with such a teacher he thank you it is hardly worth while to go on after that she as you please what had you thought of beginning upon he we might have had an instructive lesson upon the nature of the female of man she if the truth was to be told i cannot but regret that for your own sake you did not go on it is hardly possible that you could fail to get a new respect for the sex if you only studied it carefully he do you know it seems to me sometimes that you women are more profoundly ignorant in regard to yourselves than any other animals she taking as the standard of course the things which you men suppose to be true in regard to us he of course we are disinterested and can tell what the truth is she disinterested he why not she you do not of course try to make things square themselves to your theories a lesson in natural history he our theories are only facts she and to what conclusions

2Charles Dickens

have your facts â admirable phrase â led you he that women are the most selfish the most inconsistent the most â she really it is not worth while to go on that sort of abuse is at once too and too cheap to be worthy of the eloquent lips of captain it was you was it not whom mrs was pleased the other day to call the most courteous gentleman of the time he mrs is a old s ie she would be pleased to hear you say so it would dawn on her for the first time that the most courteous gentleman of his time could lose his temper and a woman like a he does it not seem to you that the conversation has become a trifle too personal to be wholly well bred it is possible that that construction might be put upon it by some mrs for instance might incline to that view he what is the reason that you take so much delight in me i never lose my temper with any other woman in the world s ie that is proof that we should never be together he you forget that i am a and believe â she in small l in the bundle of time he don t interrupt it is rude and believe that like like she that means that if i like you it will cure your liking for me he nonsense it means nothing of the sort she oh that is not a peculiarity of yours it is common to the whole sex i could perhaps give you a lesson in the nature and attributes of the male of the human race with profit to you it would be necessary to begin it is true by asking you questions he i could at least be patient in answering them if i undertook it which is more than could be said of some she don t be too modest say which is more than can be said of most of your sex he i was thinking of yours she it is a fault of your character if you will pardon my mentioning it to think too much of our sex he i am aware that the subject is one which it is to take too seriously she thank you is this natural history he it has become so uncertain who is to take the part of in the lesson that the whole scheme of instruction has been she which is such a pity he it is certainly not my fault she nothing can be a man s fault as long as there is a woman alive a lesson in natural history very likely you are right s ie does this seem to you a very intelligent or conversation he on the contrary it seems to me utterly she then it would perhaps be better if you would go on with that famous discourse on natural history which you were anxious to give me the animal kingdom is headed by a which is gifted with peculiar which distinguish it from the monkey tribe it is from the cold by any natural clothing it is unable to upon raw food it is neither endowed with strength to withstand the attacks of the other animals nor able to climb to escape them as do the and in a word it is in most respects inferior to those species from which it is supposed to have descended she oh most admirable philosopher he the female of the species is capricious vain and wholly she a second daniel come to judgment he her strongest characteristic is the love of finery although in some specimens the love of deceit and of cruelty seems to even this she do you know captain it has often seemed to me that the strangest thing about men is the way in which they take to abuse of our sex the moment anything in the world goes against i l in the bundle of time their wishes if the wind blows in the wrong direction it is always upon women that man throws the blame adam is said to have begun it when he laid the blame of the fall upon eve for my part i have no doubt whatever that he sent the serpent to tempt her so that he might have an excuse for eating the apples without taking the blame he as if that were necessary she you may be sure that he would the blame on to woman somehow he at this stage of human history nothing seems to me more stupid than the of reproaches upon the sexes she i am so sorry to have begun it yes j it is a pity that you did s ie you impudent wretch you know that i did nothing of the sort but you would have if you had had a chance s ie that is masculine he well i am ready to forgive you she that is more than i can say he oh if you are not ready to forgive yourself i cannot help that she rising i think it is time for me to go back to the hotel he oh don t hurry your conversation is of a sort â she losing her self control captain i will never speak to you again a lesson in natural history he and why not pray she you are never tired of me and i think you are too cruel really miss i â she oh don t deny it of course it is foolish of me to mind but â i give you my word that it never occurred to me that you cared for all this silly talk i did not think there was point enough to my to wound you s ie recovering herself that is just it it is not keen enough to pierce without being felt it only he you are evidently

2Charles Dickens

on the way to me when you return to abuse she not that you deserve to be forgiven but â he but you know that i am at heart your devoted slave she no that i had not suspected he it is true nevertheless i am yours to dispose of at your will she then suppose that i suggest that you should start on an exploring expedition to the south pole he with all my heart if you will come too she come you are improving i have never before heard so gallant a speech from your lips he there is no telling what you can make of me if you will really take me in hand in the bundle of time she but â he there is no but about it i intended to add to my remarks on the race of beings upon which i began to lecture that great and noble as the man is he is nothing unless he is taken in hand by the female of his sex and trained she the theory does you infinite credit but suppose i reply that the training of some individuals of the species is so difficult that no sane woman would think of undertaking it he that is all very well in theory in practice it is the duty of women to take pity upon the most hopeless cases which present themselves the glory is the greater if the men they labor upon are apparently hopeless she upon that theory i have certainly no choice but to take you captain he it is a bargain then she i suppose so he thank you she but i did not give you leave to kiss me like that he it is a fact of natural history which i neglected to mention that the masculine affection gratitude and stronger sentiments by pressing his lips to those of the female of his species as thus she it is highly improper of him and yet â he and yet she and yet not wholly unpleasant t t one class day if one class day it â j â â â â amid roses that the bee runs the song and in the same mood the poet wrote joy is the of sorrow pretty sitting in the window seat of jack s room in and looking out over the gay picture of fresh young faces and still gowns which make up the glory of a class day did not know these but she was none the less the spirit which them she had been so perfectly so securely happy half an hour ago she had settled herself so amid her crisp white drawing the window curtain before her as a sign that she wished to be let alone while she rested and waited for harry to send the escort he had promised to take her to the tree harry himself was class and had so much on his hands that it was really wonderful that he had been able to devote so much of his day to miss as he had already t bundle of time given her â a reflection which had been in her mind when the gossip on the other side of the window curtain had suddenly come to her ears and her with thrust it had been such a delightful day thus far thought she had never seen a morning more perfect when the sunshine was so bright and so soft and so warm yet neither nor glaring when the air w as so fresh and the trees so green the flowers so fair and never moreover although this was by no means her first class day had her dress been more perfectly satisfactory more in the carriage or more about retaining its freshness as the day wore on and then there was that magnificent bunch of which harry had not forgotten to send her and which was beginning to at her belt at this moment and above all there was harry himself he had somehow contrived to be on hand when the carriage drove up looking than ever and he had been so kind and attentive he had been more than that for he had found the opportunity in the shade of a big palm which in a clumsy green tub was one of the of the where half a dozen men of whom he was one ay one gave the most dashing spread of the day to put the all important question toward which he and had been all winter she flushed with exquisite pleasure sitting in jack s window seat at the remembrance and too with a shy shame at the kiss she had granted him in token of the love she could not find words to express but all this was half an hour ago and now she sat still in the shadow of the curtains so thoroughly miserable that she could hardly seem to herself ever to have been happy she had come over to jack s spread and jack who was her cousin had tucked her away in this window seat to be comfortable and rest and then she had heard that dreadful talk which was destined to change the whole course of her life the were the wife of an ex governor a short stout hard woman whom had always detested a woman one might have selected from her appearance to be concerned in such bitter gossip and a faced girl for whom miss had if possible even less fondness the two had seated themselves close beside s window seeing indeed that somebody was there but not noticing who it was so well was the of the window seat by the in the bundle of time and in their talk they were perfectly without whether they were overheard he is class were the words which arrested s attention is he the younger lady asked in that tone which so suggests that some scandal

2Charles Dickens

is under discussion is he that awfully handsome fellow yes returned the ex governor s wife who imparted all information with an air which her dearest friends most of whom heartily detested her were accustomed to call official â yes that s he is it really the other and is he a truly genuine the real article i assure you his father is one of the pillars of the church an or an elder or something the governor met him when he was in salt lake city he is very rich and has seven wives seven wives echoed the other in a tone of almost delight at so perfectly a state of things you don t mean it and this handsome fellow really has seven mothers i m sure i don t know whether he calls them all mothers or not the ex governor s lady returned with her tone they are all his father s wives or â something worse one class day j and his own mother pursued the younger who found the subject full of a most novel â was she the first wife no she wasn t that s the worst of it the governor inquired about that because mr had been at our house â mr brought him you know and he went everywhere last winter â and he found that his mother was the third wife if she d been the second it would not have seemed quite so bad somehow but the third could feel the ex governor s wife settle her stout person back in her chair and she knew as if she saw it the expression which the face of that lady wore â the look of one who would seem to say i have expressed all that a virtuous woman could venture to put into words on such a delicate subject the young lady to whom the elderly gossip was talking gave a little gasping murmur then she said in a voice of mingled delight at the of the situation and of affected horror â then he is n t legitimate no the other returned with the of satisfied oh of course he is not and i danced with him only last week at n the bundle of time the lawn party any way i met him at the and the what is a here for anyway it does seem strange does n t it but there have been several of the sons of wealthy in it seemed to poor as if the discussion between the was likely to go on but at this point it was interrupted by the arrival of a friend who came to escort the to the tree and a moment later heard her name called and put aside the curtain to see tom standing in the narrow doorway â jack told me where to find you he said it s time to join the mob if we are to get sort of she rose slowly from her place looking so grave and pale that tom regarded her in surprise and concern goodness he exclaimed what is the matter with you you are as white as dress it s my head returned feebly too stunned even to be able to manufacture an original excuse i got jack to hide me because i had a headache and i thought i should be better by this time do you want to go to the tree anyway demanded tom feeling rather helpless nâ class day oh yes she answered quickly i shall be better in the open air i dare say and at any rate i m he answered with a glance of frank admiration tell you he said we ll go into my room as we go along and i can give you some water perhaps that ll make you feel better if he had proposed anything else it would have been quite the same thing would have accepted any suggestion which gave color to her excuse of illness and which might help her to rally her self possession for the ordeal of the afternoon she would not have missed those class day ceremonies for worlds she sat up straight and brave among her mates with chattering girl friends all about her and forced herself to play her part with as joyous a seeming as that of any of them all she saw the classes of come in to take their seats upon the grass and with laughing face watched all that complicated and which is so inevitable a part of getting the disposed upon the she made little speeches to the young who were sprinkled amid the gay rose garden of girls and with tom the bundle f f time about the water he had given her and into which he had conveyed a of of all the fair and and seemingly happy company none was outwardly more fair more or more happy than miss and yet secretly she heard constantly ringing in her ears that terrible word she saw harry come into the yard at the head of his class tall and handsome and to her eyes the noblest of them all and her whole being seemed to with indignation at this which had been cast upon him she resented it with all the force of her strong young will she hated the women who had sat there and her lover â her lover whose first kiss lay yet warm upon her lips and yet she knew in her secret heart that what they said was probably true she had all along known that harry was the son of a although the fact had hitherto meant nothing to her she looked across the merry crowd with a terrible sinking at her heart and she needed quite all the pluck of which she had boasted to carry her safely through that afternoon it was after the wild scramble for the flowers from the tree that her hardest

2Charles Dickens

trial came one class day for then harry ran out from the struggling shouting laughing crowd with his hands full of roses and with skilful aim threw the whole bunch straight into s lap she bowed and smiled her thanks clutching the blossoms as her girl friends fell upon her to imitate on a small scale the grand scramble around the tree when it was all over when the noisy cheering growing and was silent and the crowd was scattering came down from her high seat with the spoil of the tree pinned into her belt along with the drooping there were two or three to be got through and then the dance in the evening her courage failed her as she thought of it she would go home at once she would get away from the crowd and noise and hide herself where she could be quiet and think can t you get me a carriage somewhere she said to tom ours won t come until evening and i don t think i can stand this headache much longer it was not until she was seated in the carriage which he found for her that she said softly to her cousin jack who had heard of her departure and hurried to ask how she was â in the bundle of time will you tell mr that i have gone home i had promised him the first dance all the long drive in from cambridge to boston sorrowfully discussed the situation with herself and tried to fight down the pain which swelled in her heart she had been born and in a circle where a stain upon one s birth was an and disgrace she felt amid all her sorrow a pang almost of shame as if some doubt had been cast upon her own and now and then a throb of anger mingled with her pain as if her lover had deceived and betrayed her confidence by hiding the truth about his birth all other feelings however in an intolerable sense of anguish at the loss of her it was characteristic of her training rather than of her nature that there did not for a moment enter her mind any idea of continuing her relations with harry from the moment she had heard applied to him that terrible word all question of her marrying him was answered forever it did not occur to her that it could be otherwise she did not debate that phase of the matter with herself at all not even turning over in her own mind the obvious plea that a marriage as an act of one ay religion was widely different from an ordinary case of union she only wondered how she could bear to give her lover up saying to herself that it would not have been so hard yesterday before he had put his love into words and before that kiss had so bound their lives together she felt sure that harry would understand that he might follow her home and she was sure he would come but it was nearly nine o clock before his card was brought to her she had been sitting alone in the dark crying a little now and then but for the most part too bitterly sad for tears she scarcely paused to her eyes before hastening down to the parlor and she came into the dimly lit room with the flowers he had given her still hanging crushed and faded at her belt he started up as she entered and before he spoke he took her in his arms and kissed her fervently she yielded herself up to his passionate caress an instant then she freed herself and stood looking at him with trembling lip and eyes full of tears what is it he exclaimed aware that something had happened but not in the least suspecting its nature what is the matter she turned away from him to throw her t bundle of time self into a great easy chair and burying her face in her hands upon its arms she burst into a flood of tears he sprang to her side and put his arms about her soothing and caressing her she struggled to regain her self control and by degrees her sobs ceased she sat upright her bosom heaving and the tears still running from her eyes he regarded her in concern and bewilderment as she strove to speak and waved her hand toward the chair from which he had risen on her entrance obeying her gesture he sat down and looked at her with questioning gaze it is terrible she said when she was able to speak and i ought to have known known what demanded more and more puzzled she looked at him an instant with eyes a sudden coldness came over her you are a she said with an intensity which showed how much she felt the words his face fell you have n t just discovered that he returned no she answered but it never meant anything to me until â until â one class day she hesitated then stopped altogether looking at him with a face full of piteous appeal he did not speak however and she was forced to go on until to day i heard mrs â i heard a woman say â she stopped again the rosy blood flushed her face young started to his feet crimson to his temples his face was hard and set he leaned his back against the mantel and folded his arms you heard a woman say he repeated taking up and continuing her words that my mother was a sealed wife and that i was born of a marriage was that it yes replied with a slight hesitation which to his thoroughly aroused indicated that this was not all very likely he went on with a little bitter laugh this woman that you heard used the ugly words which

2Charles Dickens

are fond of upon women i tell you that my mother is as pure and as lovely as any woman alive nothing that he could have said would have touched her so deeply she rose from her chair and held out her in the bundle of time hand to him his face softened as he took it but he went on none the less vehemently it is all very well for old that know nothing about it to sit in judgment here in boston on the women of salt lake city if they were there they d follow the prevailing religion just as they do now i don t believe the rubbish myself but i do know that women like my mother are as conscientious and as true in every way as the people who abuse them he dropped her hand and began to pace back and forth on the hearth rug trying to restrain an indignation which was evidently of no recent growth and you he said at last stopping before her you are like the rest i did n t try to deceive you how could i tell that you would n t realize what my being a latter day saint meant when i knew that you knew it and to day â the of feeling was too bitter he set his lips together his whole face white and drawn with misery poor s tears were falling now she clung to the corner of the mantel with both hands it is not that she said all that you say must be true but it isn t that one class day what is it then he demanded almost fiercely you wouldn t marry me now and if it isn t that what is it i would marry you if there were only myself to consider she answered mournfully but with a certain firmness which showed that she did not even consider the possibility of but there are father and mother and my brother i â do you love me less than you do them he broke in fiercely they have had you all your life and they have each other i have only you in all the wide world she shook her head sadly no she said there is more than that i might leave them and brave all that the world would say but â but what he demanded as she paused but afterward â i do not understand he began afterward i would be so good to you that you could not repent then he met her glance and saw the blush rising in her pale cheek a sudden comprehension of her thought came to him ah he cried out with a fresh bitterness as if he had been in his most tender spot you mean that your children shall never have to say their father was â in the bundle of time she bent forward swiftly and laid her fingers over his mouth preventing him from concluding the sentence he looked at her with despair in his glance as if she were separated from him by an gulf then he took her in his arms and kissed her passionately she clung to him sobbing but even then it did not occur to her to consider the possibility of changing her decision she felt the misery of the situation with all the terrible which belongs only to the inevitable but you love me he said at length as if trying to reconcile that fact with her oh she sobbed i do love you so no denial she could have spoken would have made him realize how fixed and was her resolution as did the tone of utter despair in which she said these words he knew then although he would not yet give her up that his pleading would be in vain yet he pleaded with her because he could not bear to lose her he urged her love and then he claimed her by his own she had no answer she could not argue she only clung to him and begged him to spare her further torture begged him to leave her to forget her and then with the one class day next breath moaned a pitiful prayer that e would always hold her in remembrance the clock on the mantel measured the hours into and quarters with regularity until the silvery told off the close of class day in midnight and harry took s face between his hands and devoured it with his hungry gaze as if he were its least detail upon his sorrowful memory good by he said you will be happy sometime i am not selfish enough not to wish that with my whole heart i will go back to salt lake of course jack said when some knowledge of what had occurred came to him through and he had his friend â of course it s tough but what could harry have been thinking of any way to suppose that one of our family could marry a to which the young lady to whom he confided his opinion assented but she added with a sigh whose seemed to include all the inexplicable misfortunes of life â such a handsome fellow as he was too t mt a fishing party i a fishing party the warm air from the fields comes blowing down through the bushes and shrubs on the river s brink and the two young persons who have their in the shade of the growth the languid stream seems hardly to move as if it shared with all nature the languid drowsy calm of the time nobody who was not both young and fond of would have been found in such a situation on that sunny afternoon and it was evident had the most casual observer been present to notice that there was little more than the most shallow pretence in the fishing which they were apparently there for j

2Charles Dickens

she it is so warm that no fish that was not an idiot would stir to bite this afternoon i told you that it was too warm to come he oh no not too warm to come or you would not have come she it is too warm he then what did you come for she simply because you so he how weak minded she nothing of the sort i wanted you to be punished for me he and so you nobly sacrificed yourself she of course a girl always sacrifices herself to the good of others t bundle of time he that accounts for the of the refusal of men she oh no that is to be accounted for by the fact that there are limits beyond which even feminine self sacrifice cannot go he but you are fond of fishing you said she did i then i am he that is logical she of course it is logical i know that i always tell the truth and if i said that i am fond of fishing it follows that i must be he that is she of course if a man had said it it would be different he yes quite different she but i did not say that i was fond of he that is one of the legitimate attractions of fishing she but i do not believe that there is a single fish in all this stupid river he who cares so long as we are here she well i like that he do you she but we came after fish he did we she did n t we he i did n t she what did you come for he you a party tke young woman preserves a fine indifference and almost an air of under this compliment although a faint blush does steal up into her soft and rosy before she at her line with sudden vehemence she oh i ve got a bite a real one he yes i she more than ever but she will not show that she understands she what do you mean he what i said she but that was nonsense he oh of course after a girl is always nonsense she after a girl what an elegant expression he not elegant but expressive she expressive he yes it just expresses how we follow on as the silly fish go after the hook she they don t he but you said that you had a she oh that was nothing he it might prove to be something if you would only try to land your fish she her line run out with the current oh it was probably a mud fish or an nothing else would bite such a day as this he but to land it would show so much the more skill on your part in the bundle of time she but it would be of no good after it was landed thank you she innocently for what he you have something on your line you had better attend to that she goodness how it i should n t have thought that any living thing could be so lively on so hot a day it is probably a he sweets to the sweet she don t lose your temper it â oh she has pulled in her line until the head of a great appears above the surface in which are anything but and then with a scream of horror she allows it to slip through her so that her prey once under the water she oh it is an he apparently it is she oh the horrid nasty thing to get on my hook he you put the hook out for him it isn t likely that the poor fool is any better pleased with the state of things than you are she too much excited over the danger that the monster which she has may come into the boat and itself by devouring her bodily to consider whether these last words do or do not contain some hidden meaning oh what shall i a fishing party do how shall i get that dreadful great thing off my line he he isn t on your line you know he is on your hook she oh what shall i do he you might land him she oh i never never could i throw away my line first he but you would n t let him go through life dragging a hook and line after him would you his tone and manner are so significant that it is impossible for her to pretend that she does not understand the application of his remark he is so plainly the case of the unlucky with his own that there is instantly the of a personal flavor to the conversation which makes her for the moment forget the awful peril of having an monster attached to her by a cord a feminine and desire to improve the opportunities of the situation puts for the instant the out of her mind entirely she that does not trouble me he d be sure to get rid of it somehow they always do seems to him that she is softening and he is to move somewhat nearer to her he no he could n t the bait is too tempting and your hook is too sharp she you tip the boat over if you lean over so far this way he i risk the boat won t you take me off the hook in the bundle of time she a well feigned appearance of entirely misunderstanding you captain he venturing to steal an arm about her waist you can t have failed to see how fond of you i am and in this uncertainty i am far worse off than that unlucky she but he is n t off you know he is on he don t me darling while he is speaking a

2Charles Dickens

wicked smile of the most heartless and malicious mischief brings out every in mistress s face and she herself in swiftly and gathering up her line so that as the captain attempts to follow up his appeal with an impassioned kiss by a quick and swift jerk she lands the which proves to be an enormous fellow full in the lap of her captain starts back with a leap which nearly the boat uttering at the same time a word which at least a acquaintance with ter ns she don t swear he with more temper tha i politeness oh no of course not women always take refuge in morality after they have outraged all decency she i must say you are amiable i â b tt miss like another before her has upon an enterprise without sufficiently considering what the consequences nay be the is and about on the bottom of the boat in a manner calculated to throw an entire boarding school into and it itself a party upon the feet she has been so absorbed in watching the face of her companion that she has forgotten all about the but now her wits entirely desert her and she bursts into a series of shrieks which would alarm the entire neighborhood were there any neighbors in it to be she oh save me save me he with a vicious and wholly delight in her distress you do not seem to like it now that it is here she oh take it away take it away he i should not think of with your capture she i will jump overboard he you will find it very damp in the river i assure you the this remark by about anew as if the mention of the of its native element were more than it could bear she oh captain oh do do do take it away he secretly but not ready to show his pity what did you pull it in for she oh i don t know oh i ll do anything for you if you will only kill that horrible creature the for the moment into comparative and the captain is therefore able to steel his heart against the misery he he comfortably and easily in the so in the bundle of time bow of the i do not at this interesting moment happen to think of anything that i really want you to do besides if i did it would seem too much like for me to mention it she poised on the stern oh dear dear i hate you he it is kind of you to take the trouble to think of me at all she i did n t suppose that you could possibly be so cruel lighting a with much coolness i know you won t mind my smoking especially as the wind blows this way she there is n t any wind he be careful or you will fall overboard â the meanwhile having been left entirely undisturbed for a few moments has become calm after its first excess of which apparently was but a not uneasiness at finding itself among complete and wholly strangers it lies now almost upon the bottom of the boat perhaps wondering what it has been brought there for and perhaps pondering upon possible means of escape the of its violence gives miss an opportunity to recover something of her own calmness she makes a desperate attempt to appear wholly at her ease an air of withering severity he casually giving the a touch with the toe of his boot it is strange what mistakes one a fishing party may make miss i had always thought of you as a lady until that landed in my lap she you are intolerable he and you â the aroused by the captain s now begins a new and particularly lively series of which almost throw miss into she makes a brave endeavor to restrain herself but it is an utter failure and she ends by burying her face in her hands and bursting into tears he never being able to endure the sight of a woman in tears hem she perceiving that she has touched him and yet keeping the corner of an eye fixed upon the while she is with another watching her companion oh oh oh he oh don t cry i can throw the beast overboard if you like she oh please please he you don t object to losing your fish her only reply is that of increased sobs and after enduring it as long as his tender nature can the captain rises to return the captive to its native element she watches him until he has the creature at the very edge of the boat when she suddenly and him she stop he what is it she that is my that you are throwing away in the bundle of time he drops it in amazement setting his foot upon it in a vain attempt to reduce it to that calmness which is essential to the production of a good effect in polite society he what do you mean that you don t want it thrown overboard she i don t think that you have a right to throw away what does not belong to you he that is so like a girl she recovering her spirits a little what is the he yes one is as slippery as the other she thank you he oh pray don t mention it do you want this thing thrown overboard or not a provoking gleam of flashes into her face which somehow sets his heart beating she regards him with an arch side look not with a certain condescension she i don t know it is all i have caught you see he well what of that she so it would be a pity to throw it away if i have to go home without anything to show

2Charles Dickens

for the whole afternoon s fishing regards her a in a dazed sort of way and then he rushes to the of the boat and her in his arms wholly regardless of the or the of the a fishing party he you blessed darling she after a moment of inarticulate bliss i hope you are satisfied now he to be landed yes thank you anything is better than to be in suspense she anything is better i he laughing and clasping her more closely yes even this she how mean of you to say that he but i landed in paradise you know she oh thank you you could hardly say less one would think under the circumstances he but i know i feel so much more i even forgive you the the perhaps aroused by the mention of his name to a consciousness that he is his opportunities to take part in this comedy becomes instantly and most as lively as ever and begins to execute a series of movements which may be designed to the joyous of affairs but which fail to appeal to the young woman s sense of fitness when he ends by in a chill and slippery ecstasy of emotion about miss s trim ankles she breaks in upon the bliss of her lover with a shriek of the most piercing he what is it dear she oh that that take it away i he where is it i don t see it she oh i m all tied up in it he where e bundle of time she if you don t take it away this minute i never speak to you again whereupon he goes down upon his knees in the bottom of the bt at and to grasp the creature by the head and in a moment more that unfortunate has been offered up an innocent victim upon the altar of their happiness and deep peace upon the and its occupants t s adventure s adventure u r r the hideous which was neither speech nor song had been going on for hours and began at last to be with it as if it were a it was perhaps an that the were there in the closed hut which it would be death for a man to enter it might be a prayer to the infernal gods in whose honor he was to be sacrificed at sunset r r he had become so by the of the position in which he was bound by the fatigue of by the dull of the old yonder that he had wholly ceased to have any sensation of concern he thought of his approaching fate as one thinks of events that have already befallen one in dreams r r i r it was probable he reflected that f h ea it s adventure almost miraculous the information that lady mary was after all not to marry the duke it was the irony of fate that he should be and doomed to death he reflected that this was the result of his own disregard of all when he got that letter which had been wandering from one missionary station to another for six months he had struck straight through the forest for the coast and this was the result well lady mary had sent him away and â he muttered a curse under his breath and reflected how little such philosophy consoled him for the loss of the happiness toward which he had been hastening then he shook himself angrily and strove again to regain the drowsy indifference which he so cultivated the heat and the influences of the time helped him and once more he put lady mary and all that lay outside of the filthy hut out of his thoughts and drifted away toward sleep deeper and deeper became his semi oblivion the of the insects in the hot air outside mingled with the death song of the old women until all were blended in one of sound suddenly the song of the changed â o the bundle of time i r r bim bim i the song took on a new character a fresh energy and now at regular intervals the dull of the drum was heard really the old ladies are waking up reflected in the same fashion as before the old god either will not hear or he is as sleepy as i am and they must wake him the sudden flash which came from the raising of the mat before the door of the hut in which he lay bound aroused him with a shuddering thrill his first thought was that the hour of death had come to him but in an instant he reflected that at least it was not yet much past the middle of the afternoon he could tell this by the intolerable heat and by the sunlight which hotly into the hut as if the mat at the entrance had been a dam to keep back the flow of a tide of splendor a woman was for an instant against the sky and then the curtain dropped leaving a blinding darkness in place of the blinding light closed his eyes once more and lay still he was aware that the new comer was creeping toward him muttering to herself in s adventure the same strange tongue that was being sung by the women in the hut over there â a tongue of which in all his wanderings in africa he had never before heard a syllable and which bore no sort of resemblance to the ordinary language of his a sharp pain in his leg made him start and shrink as far as his bonds would permit him he opened his eyes and in the half darkness saw the old who crouched over him muttering in the strange tongue collecting his blood in a small she had thrust a sharp wooden into his leg and from the

2Charles Dickens

wound a stream of blood was down you me too quickly mother he said in the dialect you will have it all soon why take it a little at a time the started at his voice and turned toward his face oh i am awake he said if that is what you want to know did you think i would sleep while you my body full of holes the woman leaned forward still holding the under the wound so that no drop of blood should fall to the ground while with the other hand she thrust back the hair which was tossed over s forehead in the bundle of time then she drew from her a bit of something wrapped in a fragment of this she spread like an upon the place she had cut it stung like fire but the bleeding was at once i i ll not engage you as a surgeon if i ever need one exclaimed in english your treatment may be effective but it hurts like the deuce as he spoke the old woman set the in which she had been his blood carefully upon the ground near the door of the hut then she reached up her long arms to the roof and tore a hole through which the light came streaming nor was that absolutely necessary the prisoner began in english then he went on in the speech no sunlight for me mother i am to be despatched soon enough there is no need to roast me beforehand i dare say you will do that afterward the thought which his words suggested gave him the keenest pang that he had known since he had been overcome and bound there by the black falls it had not before occurred to him that he was not only to be killed but to be eaten afterward he had himself against the thought of death but at the idea of what was to come s adventure after an irrepressible shudder ran through his body bim sang the invisible chorus and for the first time the full horror of the situation thrust itself upon him despite all his marvellous self control and the indifference to life which he had so long cultivated the beside him bent over and examined his face intently with her eyes her breath was in his face her black and broken teeth grinned ghastly before him there were a like her yonder his death song and their foul hands would tear his limbs at the feast to night a horrible feeling of and overcame him from which he was aroused by an exclamation of the woman who bent over him it is the white hunter she said in the dialect opened his eyes in astonishment what do you know about white hunters he demanded the white hunter killed the bush cat at the snake hole the woman answered in a whisper the white hunter saved the son of my son like a vivid vision there rose before t bundle of time that day when he had saved the boy from the bush cat in the lower valley the cry of the old woman who had carried the boy away into the forest seemed again to ring in his ears and he knew that this was she instantly the instinct of self preservation up in his breast he was alive in every fibre of his being he regarded the old woman with burning eyes he did not waste breath by asking her to save him his eyes indeed aid but he was not one to say what was already known besides there were guards alongside the hut crouched on the shady side of the little building to escape the glare of the and he had no mind to be overheard by them in anything which might arouse suspicion he all at once assumed that this old creature was to save him and he looked at her with the of his conviction shining in his face bim him the old woman shuddered at the sound she pointed her finger toward the hut where the women were this out refrain and shook her head then she laid her finger upon her lips in that gesture silence which is universal in civilized and lands she said s not a word but sat down upon the ground and smoothed a space with the palm of her hand then with her lean and bony forefinger she began to draw rude figures upon it first she made a figure upon one side of the place she had smoothed leaving the outside of it open and vague she looked up at as she did so as if to see whether he understood this beginning of her signs his face gave no indication of comprehension the old woman swept her arms abroad in a wild gesture and he instantly seized the idea that this figure stood for the forest and that the woman was making a map nodded but did not speak and the other went on with the utmost rapidity making marks in the sand she showed him still working in silence and indicating her meaning always by signs the relative position of the hut where they were to that in which the women were singing to the council house of the village and to various objects then she took hold of the ropes of twisted palm fibre which bound him and with her teeth tore at them with so much energy that in an short time he was free sat up and stretched his cramped limbs he was alive again and the sweet a the bundle of time ness of the joy of mere existence turned him half giddy he was half naked alone and in the midst of hostile tribes and yet the prospect of escape made the blood through his veins with all its old energy he watched as for his life while the old woman drew with her

2Charles Dickens

black finger a line from the spot which indicated upon her rude map the hut where they were to the edge of the woods three times she made him trace it over with his own finger pointing out to him the then with a sudden sweep of the hand she brushed away all traces of the she did not in providing for his safety forget her own all this had been done with a swiftness which showed plainly enough that the woman did not wish to convey to those who had sent her for the blood the impression that she had lingered beyond the time needed for getting it now she crept to the side of the hut opposite the doorway and marked two lines upon the ground then she stole back to the side of when the drums beat she whispered the guards will leave dig through the wall quickly and go the way to the forest tomorrow there will be food and a weapon in the hollow tree by the red fall fr s she caught up the from the ground and was gone in so short a space that he had not even time to thank her evidently she carried the blood into the hut where the women were singing for almost immediately there arose a perfect fury of sound from the chorus the whole air through the hot afternoon with the shrill cries of the women whose became each instant more fierce and barbarous for a time sat up and rested his tired muscles strained and aching from the in one position then he reflected that it was not unlikely that the guards would look into the hut before they left their charge to go to join the procession which would come to conduct him to the banquet it is to be a banquet in my honor he reflected grimly and yet it would be like that of a certain of worms i should be eaten rather than eat he lay down again in the position in which he had been tied arranging the broken ropes so that in the dim light it might seem to any one who looked in that they were still in place he lay thinking of the chances of escape he thought of how in the bundle of time he could tell this story at one of lady s afternoon could he but get safely back to england and he seemed to see the bright eyes and parted lips of lady mary as they would look while he talked she would shudder as he spoke of the blood and it was not improbable that she would also shudder could she see him now he smiled at the thought half naked the long from that wound he had received in the fight with the still red across his shoulder he was not exactly the figure to put in an appearance in the most exclusive drawing room in all london it seemed to him that the afternoon would never end he thought that at least the old women must have sore throats tomorrow after keeping up that all day long he wondered whether they would drink his blood mingled with some infernal of and unspeakable things pr whether they would the red drops over their hideous bodies now that he felt sure of escaping even the idea of their intention of dining upon him only affected him as a bit of exquisite satire he could afford to smile at them now with all the accumulated horrors of their s he should foil them he should the fame which he had won among the tribes all along the river of being a too powerful to be resisted he wished that he could set fire to their village before leaving them it would be a pleasant parting testimony of his feelings toward them however perhaps that was not to be thought of if he escaped that was the main thing with lady mary waiting there in england it was not well to run the risks which he had so encountered in the days when he wanted rather to be rid of his life than to preserve it he would try to sleep while he had time he might find it long before there were another opportunity he endeavored to forget everything and at length he really did fall into a half full of wild dreams suddenly the sharp stroke of a drum made him start he was broad awake in an instant he heard his guards who had probably been sleeping on the shady side of the hut and who had not stirred for hours get up with some muttered speech one of them came and thrust his head through the doorway but he instantly withdrew it and as soon as he had done so sprang to his task of making his way through the in the bundle of time side of the hut it was a simple matter of tearing through a slight of twigs and palm leaves and it was quickly accomplished he peered out through the opening a few shrubs grew close by and his way out of the hut he crouched a moment among these getting his direction the noise of the drums the howling of the natives and the of the horns of the priest combined in a din which made him shudder the song of the old women was done now and a dozen lays had taken its place as if the people were with joy over the coming sacrifice â or was it the feast the thought of the feast started on his way toward the forest half creeping and half running he made his way from to from behind one hut to another constantly drawing away from the noise of the assembly he saw in a hut he passed a half filled with food he seized it and went on his way eating with his hands he

2Charles Dickens

was half and thirst tormented him to the point of madness the woods were near now he had only to cross an open space and then the of thickly growing bushes would receive him s adventure suddenly a dog sprang out from one of the huts an ill half starved brute and sharply at the sound a chorus of dogs all over the village took up the cry and with a vehemence that was to hardly less than it seemed as if the cries must attract attention even amid the noise of the infernal with which the natives were now proceeding toward the hut from which the victim had escaped he gave a wild leap over a low which lay before him and ran for the forest he plunged into a thicket of bushes that scratched and tore his naked shoulders he did not heed the pain for he was at last in the woods and in the woods he felt himself a match for a whole tribe of the branches closed behind him just as there arose a terrible yell from the village which proclaimed that the had discovered the escape of their supper threw back his head and replied with a yell of triumph beyond were freedom and lady mary e â in the jury room i in the jury room the place is a western state of recent creation and the scene a jury room into which the has just introduced a jury which chances to be composed exclusively of women the room is and cheerless furnished only with a dozen arm chairs and a long table upon which lie a heap of soiled cards bearing the words guilty and not guilty and which have apparently been used in the or innocence of half the inhabitants of the state the ladies have the air of being rather and uncertain and preserve a certain as long as the is present as if they feared to betray their with the situation the instant he is gone and the door is locked behind him there is an appearance of relief in the whole company there mrs remarks i am glad that the s gone he has a sort of grin on all the time that i simply cannot stand yes mrs he seems to think it is awfully funny to have a jury all of women i don t see what there is in it that s so awfully amusing in the bundle of time oh there are some men that always find anything that a woman does funny mrs puts in i am sure women do things as well as men is n t it a glorious triumph for the cause miss with to have at last a jury of women at last woman can b tried by her it is â the other members of the company are perfectly well aware that if miss who is by profession a woman s rights orator be allowed to go on without interruption she will talk for the rest of the day upon the cause so two or three break in upon her at the same time yes yes mrs small says hastily it is glorious as you say miss but i d like to get through with it and get home my baby s sick and i don t want to stay away from her a moment longer than i have to oh is she sick mrs asks poor little thing what is the matter the two ladies plunge into a private and deeply absorbing discussion of the of mrs small s offspring from which they pass to the of babies in general and are startled by the of miss sharp that they must show that they can judge as and as as men i agree with you the mrs returns it is a grave responsibility that we have assumed and we must show ourselves worthy of it in the jury room is there any fine for not deciding right asks timid mrs fairly fine miss sharp with splendid scorn whatever we do is right oh no mrs says my husband is a lawyer and he told me yesterday that we had to decide according to the evidence or the judge could set the verdict aside and according to the law adds miss who does not wish to seem less fully informed than her companion yes according to the law and the evidence the other lady says accepting the but how can we tell what is according to the law mrs fairly looking quite alarmed at the weight of her that s just what the judge told us when he charged us replies the with a shade of impatience in her tone oh i could n t understand what he said at all mrs fairly more overwhelmed than ever i wish i d said i would n t be on the jury anyway your saying you would n t be on it would n t have let you off miss returns women can no longer the of civilization this grand phrase the of poor timid mrs fairly who with tears in her eyes turns for comfort to a placid woman who has sat down beside her in the bundle of time oh mrs jones she what shall i do i don t know anything about law and evidence the other smiles upon her with comfortable oh what difference does that make she i don t know anything about law or evidence either but i know i m going to vote against that bold faced that sat there in the witness box as bold as brass and lied away so this remark causes so great a commotion that two ladies who have been engaged in exchanging for cake writing them down with the of a pencil on the backs of the dirty verdict cards pause in the midst of their conversation and mrs small and mrs are arrested in their histories

2Charles Dickens

of all the their children have ever had oh you must n t talk that way mrs much shocked that was evidence and we have n t any right to say that evidence is a lie mrs jones smiles on with serenity if i know a thing is a lie i shall say it s a lie whether it s evidence or not she and for that matter she adds stoutly if it was law and i knew it was n t true i d say so just the same the confusion of tongues which arises in response to this is such as to make it impossible to catch the whole of any remark in the jury room oh my iâ why who ever â did you ever hear â but you might be â but the cause â the at length is constrained to rap on the table to bring things to something like order there there she says it will never do to go on like this we shall never come to any decision at this rate decision miss i came to a decision the minute i saw that dreadful looking woman the idea of her bringing suit against that fine looking man it was utterly absurd but you had n t any right to make up your mind till you had heard the witnesses i just the same is the defiant and i d like to know who s going to make me change it but you might be for contempt of court oh what is contempt of court mrs fairly appalled at this new which has sprung up in her path bother miss they can t fine us for what we say here besides there s a penalty for telling what is said in the jury room the judge said so well any way mrs says somewhat o in the bundle of time taken we have to make up our minds now according to what we heard in the court oh well anybody whose mind is n t made up may make it up is the but it does not take me forever to make up my mind when the whole thing is as plain as a the ladies murmur a little among themselves to indicate their sense that this language is rather too strong and then the two who were interested in turn back to their occupation did you say three eggs or four one asks the other and as i was saying mrs remarks to mrs small after he had been sick for three weeks he was so thin that you would n t have known him oh i wanted to ask you about that ruffled mrs says to mrs fort there is an interval of varied conversation and at the end of ten minutes miss who is very jealous of the dignity of which has been conferred upon mrs when she it herself looks sharply at that lady don t you think that it is time for us to take a vote she asks oh by all means mrs answers we will take a vote if the ladies are ready i thought some might like to discuss a little further first how do we vote some one asks in the jury room we put those things into a box the replies indicating with a wave of her hand the dirty cards and discovering with evident the use to which these are being put by the ladies of inclination that is if there are any of them left when we are ready to use them oh my one of the to the other under her breath how sharp some folks can be yes the other especially if they re set up a uttle by an office but there is n t any box some observing member of the jury declares there ought to be is the response a search of the room failing to bring to light anything in the nature of a box there is at first dire perplexity but at length miss sharp has a brilliant thought the said that if we wanted to know anything we were to rap on the door she the dozen women look at one another in questioning silence this proceeding seems to them so bold that only a stout heart could think of venturing upon it will somebody please rap the says rather timidly it s your place to rap miss answers with evident enjoyment in the bundle of time but i thought somebody nearer the door â nobody else has any right to knock is the reply and although mrs has secretly her doubts about this she is not prepared to dispute the proposition well i am ready to do my duty she with a smile to cover her timidity with a show of she goes to the door and timidly but so faintly that it would be impossible for one without to hear oh that is no use miss you must knock louder than that the second rap is hardly less ineffectual than the first but at the third the puts in his head what is wanted he asks is the verdict ready not yet mrs answers we have n t anything to vote in the box is gone the in a manner which the ladies feel to be highly offensive box he echoes there ain t no box the men vote in their hats the ladies of the jury exchange glances expressing indignation at this last crowning insult to womanhood â with a large w but we can t vote that way mrs to observe i suppose you can t very vote in your in the jury room the returns with excessively ill timed you may have my hat he holds out his hat and mrs takes it in an manner there ain t nothing more is there he asks with a grin even more offensive than the previous one and mrs for

2Charles Dickens

a moment with her eyes fixed on the hat in her hand as if it were a then she walks to the table and drops it i would n t vote in his hat if i never at all she this declaration is received with general approbation and a consultation upon the possible methods of taking a vote it is at length decided that the shall be placed in a pile face downward on the table and then counted this important matter being disposed of the calls for the vote it is evident from the consternation with which the call is received that there is not a full readiness among the company to give their i â i don t think i have made up my mind quite one said timidly looking about her with an appealing glance for moral support i ve made up my mind to vote against that horrid woman miss with emphasis and if you will tell me which of these is against her i vote it this very minute â bundle of time why guilty would be against her or â or not guilty the replies with growing confusion i don t think i am quite clear myself dear though of course she adds brightening visibly under the inspiration of a idea we can make it either way we please if we only agree beforehand oh that is not right at all miss sharp breaks in one of the persons in the case is the and the other is the and guilty has to be for one and not guilty for the other but which is which i don t remember exactly but it s so any way my husband told me to vote not guilty mrs remarks pleasantly and he s a friend of the man so not guilty must be for him and guilty for the woman i tell you how you can tell speaks a who has thus far been too deeply engaged in counting the of a piece of very elaborate fancy knitting to take much part in the conversation my husband told me that the name of the person that came first in the name of the case is the one that you give a verdict for if you vote guilty and the name of the one that comes last is the one you vote for if you vote not guilty but what is the name of this case some one there is an awful pause of half a moment in the jury room i don t quite remember whether it is or the hesitatingly can anybody tell not only anybody but everybody is ready to tell but unfortunately there is a great in the opinions and it is discovered that there are about equal numbers who favor each reading after a good deal of over this point it is at length decided that there is nothing for it but to appeal to the and that is accordingly once more summoned by a rap upon the door well ladies the remarks pleasantly putting in his head what can i do for you this time verdict ready at last not quite sir mrs answers we only wanted to ask what the name of this case is what the â great scott the cries ain t you got as far as the name of the case yet the regards him with a look of outraged dignity we simply wished to inquire she the comes in and the door behind him oh certainly he answers the case is that of for obtaining money under and is the man a asks in the bundle of time yes is the man miss claims that he borrowed money of her under pretence of intended marriage do you think he did asks mrs with the utmost great scott the you don t expect me to give an opinion do you i m under oath ladies well i did n t know but you could tell something about it mrs explains it is dreadfully miss regards her with eyes of concentrated rage and the instant the door is closed behind the she falls upon her i should think that for the credit of womanhood you might have been more careful what you said to that she he will go and tell just what you said to him for my part i should think that there might have been sense enough in the room to keep from calling him in at all i said all the time that it was i beg your pardon the replies at last by the repeated attacks of miss to strike back but it was because you were so positive that it was that i felt that there was no way of convincing you short of calling in the the murmur of the members shows so plainly that the general sentiment is with mrs that in the jury room miss does not venture to pursue the subject but not to be put down entirely she remarks that at least now that the point is settled it would be well to take a vote at last very well mrs returns we will take a vote then those that are in favor of miss will vote guilty and those that are in favor of mr will vote not guilty the are all there i wish to say before we vote miss remarks in her most and manner that it is well to remember that this is the first case that has ever been tried in america before a jury of women and that it is well to remember that the whole future of american women may be influenced by the way in which we vote if we give a vote for the man it will show that we are not narrow minded but that we are liberal enough to side with the right even when it is in favor of one who has been an enemy

2Charles Dickens

of woman has this man been against woman is demanded amid evident excitement yes he has written against it in the then that settles it one woman declares i will never vote in favor of a man that has wished to keep our sex on the level of and by us of the this remark is received with what might most accurately were it not for the want of deference to in the bundle of time the sex implied by the use of the term be called a of excited determination for my part miss sharp rises to remark while i agree with what miss says in regard to the importance of what we decide to do i look at the matter from exactly the opposite point of view in regard to the verdict what is the reason that women have been so long trampled under the feet of men if it is not that they have not held together it is all very well to talk of being broad enough to give a verdict in favor of a man the always are in favor of men and if we do not show that we are prepared to stand by our sex how can women trust their cause to our hands we are here to represent the strength of womanhood all over the east they are watching us and the eastern papers say that they are waiting to judge by the results in the west whether it is worth while to try woman or not what will they say if the first woman jury in the country goes back on woman the effect of this is so great that miss is forced to see that she is again in the she takes revenge in a feminine way excuse me miss sharp she says sweetly but your front is coming off miss sharp her front hair with frantic haste and from the discussion to consult with her pocket mirror in a corner her triumphant enemy who has thus snatched victory in in the jury room the very moment of defeat turns upon the company a smiling glance which seems to intimate that of course they are convinced of the justice of her position now and such is feminine nature that for the most part they are oh ladies cries out the plaintive voice of mrs small won t you please to vote so that i can go home my baby is sick and i am so worried that i don t know what to do yes mrs jones we may as well vote now as any time those that have made up their minds will keep to em no matter what you say or what the evidence is and those that have n t will vote one time as well as another this is not a soothing speech but the fat and placid mrs jones is so perfectly unmoved by the glances cast in her direction that it is felt by the others that all would be wasted so that nobody ye will vote now mrs says with dignity please select your there are not enough here somebody declares that is because they have been used up since we came into the room the declares fixing her stern glance on the whose pockets are filled with dirty pieces of on which are written for various and sundry kinds of cake well we can t vote without more cards i j the bundle of time we shall have to call the again i am not going to call that horrid man again mrs declares with spirit nobody knows exactly what reply to make to this and a pause which is broken by an unexpected move on the part of mrs i am going home she declares rising i am just sick of staying here and i never will be on a jury again in my life i don t know anything about their old case and what s more i don t want to i am tired to death and i am just going home why you can t go the won t let you out i should like to see him touch me my husband would just tear him to pieces if he laid a hand on me but he has to keep you here it s the law i don t care anything about the law i resign from this old jury and that is the whole of it if i m not a member of it the has n t any right to keep me shut up here as if i were a prisoner myself it is shameful and i shall tell my husband just as soon as i get home by this example mrs small rises also and begins to settle her bonnet i resign too she says i must go home and see to my sick baby but you can t resign cries miss in wrath and consternation nobody can resign from a jury in the jury room then what was i put on it for demands mrs standing at bay i thought it was going to be splendid you always said it would be when you i can t stay here and if they will let me go i will promise never to vote again my husband said i should n t like it and i don t i don t the rising of her voice and the appearance of her countenance sufficiently warn those about her that it is only a step to and great is their consternation i say cries mrs we shall never agree on anything at this rate why not draw lots to see which way the verdict shall be i cannot betray the trust of the state a sentimental looking shaking her curls with an expression of being prepared to die for principle for my part another in quite a different spirit i will vote for anything if i can only

2Charles Dickens

be allowed to go home meanwhile mrs and mrs small after consulting together are seen to be advancing to the door upon which the former vigorously the appears with great and the other wait with breath while the following takes place between him and the would be what do you want now ladies verdict ready in the bundle of time we are going home mrs sweetly we have resigned from the jury resigned great scott resigned thunder and the bursts into wild and laughter which becomes so violent that there seems to be imminent danger that he will in the end burst a resigned you can t resign from a jury mrs back but mrs small the color rising in her cheeks attempts to pass the i am going to my sick baby she says will you stand out of my way sir the awful dignity of her manner the who the door and puts his back against it look here ladies he says lord knows i d like to send you all home it s always been my belief that women had no business round a court of justice but you ve been and i have n t any right to let you go you ve got to give in a verdict or stay here long enough to show that there ain t no possible chance of your agreeing before you be discharged at this awful statement mrs bursts into hysterical weeping whereupon the at first makes a motion as if he were minded to attempt consolation but he evidently thinks better of it and goes out the women gather in a discouraged in the jury room fashion about the weeping woman while mrs small whose has given way to anger herself of an opinion of the which is at once so and so obviously that it is not worth while to set it down for my part cries mrs fairly i think it is just shameful to shut us up here and not let us out i should think that would be ashamed of themselves i should think that every woman in the land would rebel against such an i should like to know how they think we can tell anything about the law if we stay here for a week the situation is becoming tragic and there is no telling to what pitch of desperation the company might have come when some ten minutes later the who has been in consultation with the judge returns with the welcome news that his honor is willing to accept a plea of and to allow the jury to be discharged and thus it comes about that the first woman jury of the state does not in the end declare for either the man or for the woman in the case but among the of that part of the world it is held to be a fact not to be disputed that whatever is the second best story in the world the best is certainly the account which is given by the of his dealings with the female jury i miss jane miss jane he lived in a square house with a roof which stood less than a score of feet from the village street tall and trees grew in the tiny front yard hardly larger than a pocket handkerchief and managed among them by great and ingenuity to keep the place so shaded that a fine green moss had spread itself over the stems of the and over the somewhat fence which enclosed them they were the most and ghostly of trees and their tops were at least twice as far from the ground as was the roof of the house they the house was not one of much pretence it was a two story substantial building and there had even in the beginning been some in the way of carved the front door and in the elaborate leading of the fan light above but time had so the carving and with rest in the bundle of time less teeth at its edges it had so off the paint and had with the aid of the wind so bent and the old fan light that the glory of these things was no more the house was still in a state of preservation sufficient to bring it within the bounds of respectability but it had no longer any faintest pretence of elegance whatever may in the beginning have been its state the windows of the old house were small panes and it may have been that the terrible which was so marked in jane was the result of constant attempts to peer through them and between the branches of the at what passed in the village street â only that there was so little ever passing in the village street that this theory does not upon reflection seem within the mansion was quaint and crooked and above everything else it was narrow the furniture was plain but stately and with a fine air of having been in existence so long that it had come to be something more than mere furniture being endowed with some of the characteristics of the folk with whom it had so long associated the tall clock which had away the lives of miss jane s ancestors for three or four generations was too big to stand in the tiny hall and had to be given miss jane a corner in the sitting room that good apartment which has vanished with the advance of civilization the green silk which lined the doors of the ancient secretary was almost white with age along its folds while the were dull with time and despite all could not be rubbed into the vulgarity of appearing new there were chairs covered with such as has not been in the shops since the days of our and which apparently will not be again this side of the judgment day the books on

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the spider legged old tables were published when the century was young if indeed they were not brought into being in a century dead before this one was born all about the house was the air of and of belonging to a time long since gone it was perhaps because she grew up in this atmosphere that miss jane had always the air of being old when she to school in she might at any moment have been mistaken for her own grandmother and the danger of regarding her as a contemporary of her own furniture grew greater as she advanced in life she was a queer little fair haired thing with a curious a sallow cheek and a strangely nervous motion of the chin she threw her chin up in the bundle of time as she talked or as she sat silent moving her lower jaw like a nervous which tries to get rid of its bridle it was an inheritance from her mother a kind hearted and amiable old lady who had the forbidding appearance of the typical witch in story miss jane had properly speaking never been young since she had been born with maturity of mind no less than of person she was rather a humorous body but there had never been anything at all resembling about her she was born a hundred years old and that of course made a difference the store of worldly goods of which miss jane was possessed was small there was a trifling income from some property which her father had left and when there is no to speak of a very little income will do after the death of her mother jane took to going out to do sewing for the few families in the village who were in a position to indulge in the luxury of a it was partly that she needed tlie money and quite as much that she needed the companionship she could not bear the thought of sitting day after day alone in the empty house and she was not of sufficient to run from one neighbor s to another s after the fashion of the miss jane it was in the line of her professional work that miss jane s romance happened and that she came to be the topic of conversation for the whole village for a time she was moreover made a person of consequence in the eyes of her fellows and that is a thing which the feminine soul dearly loves there was a great stir at the house of squire and all the domestic atmosphere was in commotion the squire s nephew his pride his pet and his heir was coming to visit him in that mysterious way in which intelligence is diffused in a village where there is nothing to interest folk save the intimate affairs of their neighbors it was known that there had been serious difficulties between and his uncle and that this visit was quite as much for the arrangement of terms as of a friendly nature nobody knew just what had been doing this time and indeed the of were of so terrible a nature that the good village folk were only in the habit of alluding to them in a sort of awe stricken whisper as being quite beyond the range of their simple and he was known to smoke while the squire had wine on his own table so that it was not surprising that the young fellow in the bundle of time should be so abandoned as to drink it he had been to paris and to visit that city in any capacity other than that of a missionary must always seem to the good villagers as something not far removed from a crime he was supposed to have been into all sorts of vices and cards and wine and tobacco were as familiar to him as possible there was certainly no doubt about that and yet withal was an youth there was not a man woman or child in the village who did not secretly admire him he was the rural ideal of manly beauty if not of virtue the type of politeness if not of propriety on those rare and fleeting occasions when he condescended to honor the village with his presence he was the all absorbing topic of thought and of conversation his looks were commented upon his easy impudence was viewed with secret admiration and expressed the young men of the village studied his attire while the young studied his face and figure his most trifling remarks were quoted and remembered he became for the time being the village while yet he set at defiance all the village traditions and outraged all the village customs when he was seen openly along miss jane in the direction of a brook on sunday morning with his rod lifting his hat to the church whom he met with as easy an air as if it were any other of the seven days in the week instead of the first there was a flutter in the village conscience which must have s interfered with the reception of such divine truth as that morning was announced from the village pulpit he read french novels he drove fast horses he smoked cigars and and whatever he did he did with the unconscious air of one for whom the of village morality did not exist it was evident that he either did not in the least care what the villagers thought of his morals or that he was so indifferent to the whole moral question that he had never taken the trouble to find out what they did think on this particular visit the squire had ranged himself to some extent upon the side of the village he had heretofore taken much the same view of the matter as did his irrepressible nephew or to be more exact he had assumed that whatever did

2Charles Dickens

was outside the province of the moral rules of the village now he had come to the place where he so strongly of certain things which had done that in the bundle of time he was almost forced into the position of which the villagers had so long held the truth was that had been carrying out the theory which had ruled his life and which had not a little encouragement from his uncle s indulgence that he was a law unto himself and the particular scandal into which he had got himself wa one which chanced to touch the squire in a particularly delicate spot the squire had not sent for to come to him without having in his a s which he intended to propose to the lad he stood in place of father and mother to the young man and was wholly dependent on him for money so that the squire might be excused for feeling that he had a right to speak in this crisis he had made up his stupid old mind that the thing for to do and the only thing which could save his nephew from destruction was for the to marry all his life the squire had heard the phrase marry and settle down until he had come to regard the two things as inseparable and to feel that the man who married was thereby settled down whatever might be his natural to that result he sent for to come to him and he made up miss jane his mind that this time he would not be he would not allow the young to his anger as he had so often done he would be firm and and there should be no down from the decision he had reached was plainly going to the dogs and he must see to it that a catastrophe was prevented when arrived and the squire presented to him his scheme the young received the proposition with shouts of laughter which was the worst thing he could have done since he thereby touched his uncle s vanity and made him indignant personally as well as in the interests of the highest morality the gentleman was brought to the point of informing the who at him that not one penny more should the latter receive from him until he was engaged to be married and to this determination he stuck with a decision which was so new that became at last filled with consternation wondering to what length this thing would go it was not unnatural that the young gentleman should be he had a lot of debts to pay and he had plans for the rest of the summer which it needed con in the bundle of time money to carry out he had no resource outside of his uncle and if the old gentleman persisted in this and notion did not see just how the remainder of the season could prove anything but extremely unpleasant to him there were higher and harder words between uncle and nephew than there had ever been before and every syllable which was said on either side confirmed the old squire in the belief that he must be since upon him the whole of s future depended it was only natural that spoiled as he was should be much vexed over the whole affair he had been annoyed enough at the scandal which led to this quarrel and now that he was cut off from supplies and forced to in the attitude of a his naturally easy temper was more ruffled than it had ever been in the whole course of his existence before he upon the situation until the morning when miss jane came to hem the new muslin curtains for the parlor and then he had a bright idea he came down to his breakfast at the hour which in itself was regarded by the villagers all duly informed concerning it as of miss jane and after the meal was disposed of he sauntered out on to the where miss jane sat sewing in the village there was nothing in the fact that miss jane went out sewing to interfere with her social standing and indeed since it was known that it was not absolutely necessary that she should do it it conferred upon her a certain distinction she was looked upon as if she were a person of so much leisure that she could go visiting day after day and the mere fact that her visits were paid for did not from her social rank miss jane greeted with coolness and with a certain air of dry which amused him he stretched himself in the which was in itself an article of sufficient in the village and lay there watching her as she in the warm june how tired you must get of sticking that needle in and pulling it out again he observed at length not half so tired as you must get of doing nothing she retorted smiled and regarded her closely miss jane was not a beauty and neither her nor her habit of her in the bundle of time chin had any tendency to make her more fascinating she was half a dozen years older than and she had nothing in her appearance to contradict an assertion that she was ten years his senior looked at her from his amused at her and then it was that he had an idea so forcibly did it strike him that he almost called out in glee but he was able so far to control his emotions as to confine himself to a laugh which was too musical not to be delightful you are severe on me he said beginning with unusual to put into execution at once his suddenly formed scheme this is my you know i should think you would need it miss jane sewing more swiftly laughed more than ever you folk down here

2Charles Dickens

all seem to think that i am an idle for naught he said then with a quick change of tone that would not have done to an actor of standing he added but then i never had a mother or a father to set me going straight a boy is n t good for much until a woman takes him in hand that is so miss jane assented briskly you should marry miss when i marry answered i must have a wife with a steady head and a clear one so that there shall be one in the family miss jane laughed but with evident approval of the sentiment you will probably take some silly little who is pretty but who never had an idea in her head she returned no said with emphasis you do not do me justice miss jane i have knocked about a good deal â so i have understood she â and i am older in my judgment than i get credit for being he went on the interruption i know what i need as well as anybody does in upon this conversation the next day to her friend miss jane owned that she was a good deal struck by it and she added that when had gone on to ask her advice in certain matters she had given it with a conviction that she might be doing the young man a real service the of the little town were of course soon put in full possession of all this information by with the addition of much more from the imagination of in the bundle of time that lady while it was not long before all the village were talking of the amazing intimacy which had sprung up between miss jane and he had called at the old house under the more than once he had been seen walking home with her from more than one of the houses where she was employed and there was a general among the good ladies of the town to secure the services of the for the sake of seeing whether the young man did really come to escort her home at night as was reported it is not to be pretended that all this did not to some extent turn the simple head of miss jane to be the centre of village gossip to have risen to the dignity of being associated in the minds of her with the village favorite was more honor than she had ever to or expected she was flattered and excited and her chin worked more than ever as she caught her neighbors watching her with curious eyes as for he was not only carrying out his scheme but he was amusing himself as well he had never found any adventure of his life more droll miss jane was not without plenty of natural which miss j ine made her good company and she was not in the least sentimental so that he was able to carry on the farce of her without any disagreeable necessity of pretence the whole town knew how often he walked with miss jane and how often he talked with miss jane and indeed it was part of his plan that they should know he was giving a sort of to the whole affair with the intent that it should come to the ears of his uncle and in time to the ears of his uncle it did come naturally the squire at first treated the whole story with contempt and laughed at the idea that his nephew should be paying attentions to plain and elderly miss jane but when began to take the out driving and was seen walking with her in the moonlight then the squire lost his head a little and began to think that there was perhaps something in it he said one morning after revolving the situation in his mind i hope you are not going to waste your whole summer about when you should be looking for a wife i mean just what i have said and â and i have made up my mind to obey in the bundle of time you sir responded secretly delighted then why don t you set about finding the right girl you can t find one in a moment oh the girl doesn t matter was s careless answer i don t want to marry at all but if i must marry one girl is as good as another but one girl is not as good as another you young his uncle responded beginning to get red in the face you must remember that you have to consider your family oh of course i should think of marrying a girl that is not respectable and i shall try to get one who comes of a good family you don t ask any more do you the squire was inwardly raging but miss jane s family was every whit as good as his own and he knew it so that it was of no use to continue the attack on that line but you would n t want a wife who was a he said angrily or one that or had any oh that is a matter of taste responded with a great affectation of indifference if she is good it is enough miss jane since when did you come to have so great an admiration for virtue his uncle sneered angrily since i have been confined down here in the country answered significantly the power of virtue has become impressed upon my mind as for beauty that is after all a matter of taste i don t think i mind a little in a woman it does n t look so set as the regular thing you know you are a rascal his uncle roared losing his temper completely and he flung himself out of the breakfast room leaving to smile to himself over the

2Charles Dickens

success of his th success was not quite so rapid as the young hoped however his uncle was angry but he did not give way even after had had the to parade miss jane before the squire s very face on his arm at a he made no proposition to pay his nephew s debts and as his were becoming more and more pressing was forced to play his last card and actually ask miss jane to marry him miss jane was a shrewd little body and had not talked to her about his the bundle of time for nothing she understood the young fellow perhaps better than he did himself and it is certain that she would have made him a far better wife than he was in the ordinary course of things likely to pick up she was a little flattered that he should have chosen her as his and being a woman she enjoyed his while she yet knew perfectly well that they were worth nothing whatever you are not in earnest she said when he asked her to marry him not in earnest he repeated rather em at the turn things had taken do you think that i do not mean what i say i should be sorry to think that a descended to say anything that he did not mean miss jane responded with gentle severity blushed and wished himself a thousand miles away but when one has asked a woman to marry him he cannot gracefully retreat until she has at least given him some sort of an answer but you do not er me he said meekly oh i will answer you she said i would n t marry you for anything you could mention miss j ine not marry me echoed rather aghast at the of the fact that there was a woman in the village who would not jump at the chance to marry his royal self and i am not fond of being made a cat s either miss jane continued working her chin in her and young began to have a strong suspicion that when he undertook to trick his uncle by a sham of being engaged to an person he had made a mistake in his selection of the person he had never in his whole life had so awkward a moment and never had he felt so small he stammered something â he could not have told what it was and to it miss jane made no pretext of paying any attention whatever am i to understand that you really wish to make me your wife miss jane asked with an awful clearness of utterance which made the cold run down s if not why should i have asked you to marry me he returned with weak you do me the honor of supposing me to be a fool miss jane said l in the bundle of time i beg your pardon he said it j â â you had better beg my pardon does it strike you as a manly thing mr to make a of a woman in this way many a girl might have taken you in earnest and not seen your game at all you might have destroyed the peace of her whole life how did you know that i was not as sentimental or as trusting as any one i was sure â began poor but she interrupted him fiercely she cried you were sure of nothing but that this was a way to deceive your uncle you did not do me the honor to give a single thought to what i might or might not feel you were so absorbed in yourself that you had not a thought to spare for me but i assure you broke in almost beside himself and feeling as if he were being in the public street by a woman that â you will assure me perhaps miss jane interrupted him again that you were honest with me and that you had no intention of deceiving the squire you are a nice fellow you must be proud of yourself after all that he has done for you and after miss jane the way in which you have repaid him to think of playing this trick on him you might have spared him if you had no on me miss jane s blood was up and for once in her life she indulged herself in the luxury of saying exactly what she thought and all she thought her victim in his chair like an unfortunate on a pin but there was no escape from the piercing glance of her eyes he had never in his whole life before been in a position where he was treated as a who could and must be judged by the same laws as those which governed the conduct of ordinary mortals he was accustomed to be regarded as one in whose favor there were always innumerable exceptions to be made and the sensation of being in with vulgar and was as disagreeable as it was novel really miss jane he remarked with a desperate attempt to rally his scattered dignity i must say that it seems to me that you are taking an extraordinary tone with me when one asks a lady to become his wife he at least expects that she will answer him kindly that depends miss jane responded nodding her head significantly well you l in the bundle of time shall be answered kindly i accept your offer we will be married in a month you had better tell your uncle to night he may not like the match an as there is n t any too much time for him to get reconciled to it in he had better know as soon as possible poor sat staring at her like one of reason if he had been disconcerted by her previous remarks this announcement completed his but

2Charles Dickens

miss jane he began a month â oh of course you would prefer to make it a week she interrupted i understand the natural impatience of the young lover but really i cannot think of having less than a month to get ready in i think it will be pleasant to go abroad for wedding trip don t you agree with me i have always wanted to see europe the young man stared at her with eyes but you said you would not marry me for anything he managed to a woman s no always means yes she answered besides i do not marry you for anything i marry you for nothing the struck as being as completely out of place as a jest at a funeral he sat in silence for a few moments and all the miss jane time there was in his head the strangest mixture of desire to get out of this scrape admiration for miss jane and withal a dawning of more manly feelings a shame of what he was and what he had done rose in him as he sat there with his eyes cast down and tried to collect his thoughts he raised his head at length and looked up to meet the eyes of miss jane who was regarding him closely miss jane he said i beg your pardon with all my heart i have been a and i see it i can do nothing but beg you to forgive me i forgive you she said rather more than he expected after he had himself to this extent do you find it so easy to forgive yourself the color flushed into his face miss jane was doing her work thoroughly and now that she had got to it no he answered humbly that is not so easy again they fell into silence and for full half an hour they sat there in the gathering twilight without speaking miss jane never showed more discretion than when she allowed this silence to flow unbroken she realized instinctively that was think m the bundle of time ing as he had never thought before in all his careless young life and that if there any salvation for him it perhaps lay in this hour â miss jane he said at last you have done me a greater service than i can tell you thank you and good bye he rose and held out his hand and she gave him hers without other word than it must be confessed that she was filled with a feminine curiosity to know what he was intending to do but she wisely to ask she did hope that sometime she should know what he had thought during all that long silence but she was capable of holding her tongue at the right time and she did not ask her chin after he had left her and for a day or two she was but after that she settled down to the old routine she knew somehow that had left the village but beyond that nobody seemed to have any information and miss jane was more than once questioned in regard to the young man by those who felt that she might know something in regard to his sudden departure there was a suspicion that miss jane might be afflicted at his desertion which kept many silent so that she was not in general greatly troubled and for more than a week she had no news miss jane at the end of that time she had a letter from it was written from the city where he had gone to begin work despite the fact that it was he had made a clean breast of the whole matter to his uncle and had promised to go to work for the first time in his life if his debts were but paid and the old squire being wise enough to recognize the fact that this was not a time to or to stick to the strict letter of his declaration had said not a word of blame or reproach but had put the young man in the way of setting to work at once i hate it desperately arthur wrote but i am working to make a man of myself and one that you shall not be ashamed of miss jane the villagers have never been able yet to discover what happened between miss jane and the friendship which had existed between her and both and the old squire seems to contradict the theory that she was made the victim of the young man s while the respect in which she is held by the squire who is accustomed to speak of her as the most sensible woman he knows has given her a new in the village is turning into a steady and really good fellow and when he comes en the bundle op time down to see his uncle on his he is not long in finding his way to the under the tall trees it is proper that i should come to see you at once he is accustomed to say for i suppose that the truth is that we are really engaged of course miss jane answers but that only means that i have the right to interfere if i do not approve of the woman you really mean at any time to marry i int a reading lesson i m a reading lesson it is a beautiful july morning and on the of a cottage sits mrs with her six year old son the water in the bay is sparkling and dancing and not a few are gliding to and fro over the blue surface of the bay mrs wears an expression of great determination and in her hand is a reading book of type is seated at her side in a low chair and wears upon his face that serene expression which can only belong to a

2Charles Dickens

child who has the world at his feet because for him no world exists which he cannot conquer you know mrs says in tones of softness which at once induce in the experienced ears of her son the idea that she is about to ask him to do something which he will not wish to do that if you are to keep up with your class after being out so much while you were sick last winter you will have to read with me mornings this summer i am willing to give you my time to help you and â in the bundle of time you need n with great self denial i don t want to take up your time but you don t want to m back into the with the little ones do you mamma but i can get along somehow i am too old to go back with the little ones age doesn t have anything to do with it it will depend upon what you know this view of the case seems to make an impress sion upon the boy since for a moment he is and his mother that he is pondering upon the matter but he breaks out with th entirely question â mamma why don t they have fourth of july every month i will tell you all about that some other time dear now you know we are to have a lesson she opens the book with an air of determination so stem that the boy before it but he is not yet subdued but mamma i would like to know about it now some other time now i want you to read a profound sigh and his eyes upon the book as if it were a curious thing of which he does not in the least suspect the use i think you read the first of this before you left school but we will begin at the begin a reading lesson just the same this is a story about and is the dog and is the cow oh mamma frost is going to call his new dog frost fish don t you think that that is a funny name yes dear but we will pay attention to this now why do you say pay attention mamma attention isn t the same thing as money never mind that want you to read spell the first word b o â oh mamma do look at that funny boat out there it is almost alike at both ends if you look at the boats dear we shall have to go into the house for our lesson i think it is pleasanter out here don t you but i can t help seeing things mamma can i if you will look at your book you won t see what is out in the harbor dear me i wish nobody had ever found out that there was such a thing as reading then there would have been no fairy stories written for me to read to you then you could have made them up and that would have done just as well but everybody does not think so what would other folk have done oh i don t care about them master with the frank selfishness of childhood anyway i don t want to read n the bundle of time then don t waste any time about it but read at once and get through with it that is the simplest thing to do b o w what does that spell mamma i will tell you those two first words because they are not words that we have very often that is bow now you go on and read the rest d o d o â give the sounds of the letters and then you can tell what the word is â not darling but â â oo â no dear mrs says with a sigh which seems wrung from her very soul the word is do oo do regards the word with an air of unaffected but purely curiosity do you think i be able to read as well as you do mamma in a week hardly in a week i should say at the present rate of progress the mother answers with a smile what does that mean mamma what does what mean what you said presents eight â present rate of progress means the rate at a reading lesson which we are getting on it means that if you do not learn faster than you are learning now you won t be able to read for a long long time well i m going to learn very fast now d o â d o do â oh yes do y y o y o â y o u you â you do you â well go on s e s e s e e â sound the letters â well put the e on e what does that mean e well oh mamma can t i have a recess now our teacher always lets us have a recess when we are tired but you have read only one word and that i told you if you have a recess after each word how soon do you think we should get through the book but i m tired so that i can t think besides i want a drink dreadfully if i let you go and get a drink will you come back directly in the bundle of time mamma and may i have a piece of too why it isn t half an hour we left the breakfast table but i m awfully hungry mamma mrs a sigh of profound anguish but she weakly gives her consent to the and away with a which is a marked contrast with uie languor of his previous motions the mother looks out over the sunny bay and makes an attempt at a sort of mental

2Charles Dickens

calculation of the time and effort it is likely to take to teach her son to read all the words in the book if it takes an entire morning to master a single one she sits for some time and falls into a reverie wherein there is a good deal of speculation upon the question of what is the proper method of children and of imposing upon their savage natures the entirely arbitrary discipline of civilization the question is one of so much that she is unable to come to any solution whatever although she so completely loses herself in the reflection that she is not aware of the passage of time until fifteen minutes or so have passed then she begins to wonder what has become of her son and at the end of ten minutes more she that it would be a good plan to go after him just as she rises to go to look for him he comes running around the house after his dog which is i reading lesson carrying in his mouth a stick to which is tied a of red cloth oh mamma he cries utterly the whole subject of lessons and all of the sort do see run with the flag his mother says in a tone so severe that he is suddenly arrested in his play do you think i can let you go for a drink and a lunch again if this is the way you do when you are trusted but mamma i was coming just as fast as i could run but what about he was only just running ahead of me and did it take you a whole half hour to get a drink you said i might have a piece of and you always told me to eat slow say slowly and not slow to eat slowly but it did not take you half an hour to eat a piece of but â never mind about it now mrs remarks with another sigh we must go on with the lesson before the whole morning is gone i have letters to write for the noon mail and i shall not have time if we do not hurry but mamma why don t you write your letters first and let me read afterward k â â â in the hâ op stop talking and s and lead the first word is bow and after that you had read do now go on i had read mamma but i have forgotten what the second word is do you then do you reads in a confident manner s e e â see see m e what does m e spell mamma sound the letters â not but e well what does that make can does can begin with oh it is what no no me me can you see me not â can you see me do you see me mamma can you see anybody through glass that is a mile thick don t ask such questions now pay attention to the lesson go on with the next word but mamma just tell me this one question and i won t ask any more can you see anybody through glass if it is a mile thick no of course you could n t not if the glass was perfectly clear a reading lesson oh i don t know how thick glass would have to be before you could n t see through it you could n t see anybody a mile off anyway could you an awful expression of despairing came over the face of mrs she says with firmness if you do not pay attention to your lesson i shall not let you go out to play all this afternoon you should have read the whole page in this time and you have not got through the first line oh have i got to read the whole page mamma oh i don t want to read so much as that it looks his mother answers with an attempt at as if you would be sent to bed before you got through another line oh i don t want to go to bed i read i will truly if you won t send me to bed very well then go on and read do you see me i â did n t i read that well mamma very well go on a m was am i was am â no no not was am but i am i am the â that word i knew i am the â oh mamma that word is too long for me to read just tell me that word bundle of time that word is little i am the little d d d o o d o â â what is the last letter no g g d o g cow why you know what that what made you say cow there is a cow in the picture an nâ ay there is something else too oh is a man d o g does not spell man what else is there oh dog did n t i read that well very well but that isn t the end of the sentence what is the other word that is a long word mamma and if you have letters to write i wish you would tell me just for this once so that we can get through that is the dog s name has a dog and its name is curly isn t that a funny name mamma what has that to do with the reading lesson i think i might have a recess now anyway why should you have a recess when you have just got back from being gone half an hour this is anyhow and nobody has lessons in a reading lesson but you have n t had lessons for six months well i was sick anyway don t you think i was

2Charles Dickens

good when i was sick yes you were good most of the time when was sick he was so cross that they couldn t do anything with him his nurse told that she did n t know but she should have to get a new place was so naughty should not let you hear such things why she could n t help it she did n t know what she was going to say till she said it did she she could n t put her hands over my ears could she i tell you i d just kick some if she tried to do that the sound of a clock striking within mrs that if letters are to be written for the noon mail it is necessary that they shall be attended to at once she the reading book with an attempt to look stern which only results in her looking troubled â an aspect which does not in the least affect master she says i must go now and write my letters but i cannot have anything like this to morrow you must have a better lesson to morrow and i shall be obliged to keep you in from play if you do not read well mamma i just hate reading and i never want to know how but suppose that you were on a desert island with nothing to eat and there was a sign that told â t in the bundle of time where provisions were hid and m could not read it then you would starve because you did not learn to read what are things to â u but there wouldn t be a sign on a desert island there might be people might have been before and left it why do they call family robinson s island a desert island there was n t sand there and a desert is where there is sand and nothing grows but palms and sand and and they call any island a desert island when nobody lives there but that is n t right it is right if that is the way in which the word is used no it is n t mrs sighs with the air of one who an impossible discussion and rises as she turns to go into the house she looks back to say â remember that to morrow we are really to read yes mamma did n t i read good to day to this question she makes no answer but goes to her desk to write to her husband who is still in town to see if he cannot find a to bring with him when he comes h t one morning in spring â t i ll â i ii ii w â i i i l h i â â â v i k l la one morning in spring he sunlight lay over the hills the fields and the the hills were purple with the richly colored of the shrubs and the trees not yet fully in leaf the fields were green with the springing grass while the trees in the showed the tender green of little and the of coming blossoms the had come and the air was full of their cries as they flashed to and fro in beautiful smooth flight the sky overhead was tenderly blue with clouds as soft as silk the air was full of that delicious chill spring feeling which makes one remember at once the winter that is just past and the summer that is at hand two old women stood beside a gate and talked leaning their arms upon the and seeming hardly able to stand there without such support yet they had stood there for more than an hour talking in a low in the bundle of time ing of the issues of fate and life and death like two of the together in the interval after the days of the earth had been completed one was a small woman thin and delicate as a shadow and looking as if the first breath would blow her away she had looked thus delicate for sixty five years and in her the neighbors had said â don t seem possible sam s folks ever be able to raise that girl now they said instead â oh she the ly f all she looks so delicate aunt was not without a certain pride in the difference between her appearance and her of vitality she smiled when she said that she was failing with a meaning look which explained that the remark was to be taken as a joke and that she really did expect to keep her frail hold upon existence for many a year longer she tossed her head at the f the young girls of the village remarking that she had seen how that sort of thing wore so that any girl who looked more than usually strong felt that under the eye of aunt she was as it were marked out for speedy destruction one morning in spring the other woman was of a more generous mould she had an of and a bosom enough to have served for half the neighborhood had there been any means of its proper division she was good in her appearance and inclined toward the in her attire no she said i tell you i just t slept a wink all night there s been rom the time he went off last evening and she won t let me come into her room she her father s folks does always did now it ain t my way to shut out my own flesh and blood when i m in trouble but she s different she is the small figure of aunt seemed actually to quiver with suppressed eagerness what did he say she asked with the air of one not only anxious but actually greedy for the answer what was there for

2Charles Dickens

him to say demanded mrs with as much indignation as her good natured face was capable of expressing when a man s done what he s done there ain t a great sight that there s left for him to say to my way o looking at things that s so the other assented but in the op stop and asking questions and read the first word is bow and that you had read do now go on had read mamma but i have ten the second word is do you then do you reads in a manner s e â see see m e what does m e spell mamma sound the letters â not but e well what does that make can does can begin with oh it is what no no me me can you see me not â can you see me do you see me mamma can you see anybody through glass that is a mile thick don t ask such questions now pay attention to the lesson go on with the next word but mamma just tell me this one question and i won t ask any more can you see anybody through glass if it is a mile thick no of course you could n t not if the glass was perfectly clear a reading lesson oh i don t know how thick glass would have to be before you could n t see through it you could n t see anybody a mile off anyway could you an awful expression of despairing came over the face of mrs she says with firmness if you do not pay attention to your lesson i shall not let you go out to play all this afternoon you should have read the whole page in this time and you have not got through the first line oh have i got to read the whole page mamma oh i don t want to read so much as that it looks his mother answers with an attempt at as if you would be sent to bed before you got through another line oh i don t want to go to bed i read i will truly if you won t send me to bed very well then go on and read do you see me i â did n t i read that well mamma very well go on a m was am i was am â no no not was am but i am i am the â that word i knew i am the â oh mamma that word is too long for me to read just tell me that word x m the bundle paused to over the of information that they were sharing i should n t ha thought aunt observed that he d ha had the face to tell all about the s on o thai girl he did n t was the answer he said it wa n t fit for a decent girl to hear disappointment was plainly visible in the face of aunt oh he did did he she retorted he was giving himself away the worst kind to say that the mother of was evidently suddenly aroused to the consciousness that it her to put in a word in behalf of her daughter s lover i d know about that she responded i d n know what you expect o him he could n t leave his own camp could he and go off and sleep in the woods like a bear if he ain t a joseph i d n t know as he s the only one that ain t the of her usually placid voice and the remembrance of certain in the history of the men of her own family made aunt change her position uneasily oh i ain t a him she said but one morning in spring what do you s pose be the come out of it all l make it up with him she would n t last night mrs replied with a note of despair in her voice it does seem s if that everlasting might have held his tongue and not told o this just to make trouble for and dan there s some folks is always so malicious yes that s so assented aunt the two stood a moment in the sunshine reflecting upon the wickedness of mankind in general and of in particular and then with remarks about the waiting they moved apart mrs returned to the house while aunt went on her way to repeat to other the information she had from her friend meanwhile within the house had so far recovered from the anguish of her soul as to be able to watch through the closed shutters of her chamber while her mother stood at the gate when the latter came back toward the house put on a hat and descended just in time to meet her mother in the entry for the land cried mrs suddenly confronted with her daughter in thb bundle of time her had not yet adjusted themselves to the dusk of indoors and she had almost stumbled against her daughter before she perceived her stood before her pale and the marks of weeping on her cheeks and a light of resentment in her looks which her mother knew only too well well she said i hope you have told that old old maid everything that there was to tell it would be a pity if she should have to make up anything her mother returned soothingly i ain t told aunt nothing and if i had she would n t tell wouldn t tell retorted with scorn did she ever know anything that she didn t tell her own age the mother wisely allowed this question to go and turned her attention to the task of changing the subject what you got yer on for you ain t a goin out

2Charles Dickens

be you you look all beat out come into the kitchen and have some breakfast i ve it all hot for you the girl turned wearily away and went toward the door i don t want any breakfast she said with one morning in spring more gentleness i did n t mean to be cross mother but i ain t feeling well it was good of you to keep things hot but i could n t eat anything it would stick in my throat the mother looked at her with her lips working but where be you going the girl considered a moment then she turned back and faced her mother with a gesture of genuine sorrow i m going over to s hollow she said with a note of defiance in her voice s hollow the other woman echoed with amazement yes the girl answered she was paler than ever and she leaned against the wall of the small entry as if her strength had failed her there was in her voice a note of dogged determination which did not escape her mother s ear not to that â that girl yes to that girl mrs looked at the desperate face of the girl with a pinched expression about her lips twice she tried to speak but her voice failed her and she could find no word in which to put the thoughts which swayed her why she said at last after tn the le tim what seemed to them both a long interval of i would n now there ain t else to do but what are you going to say to her a hot blush came over the face i m going to find out the truth she said then as if she did not dare to trust herself to further speech lest her resolution should fail her entirely she turned away and went into the yellow spring sunshine the road along which took her way wound in and out among groups of trees which her somewhat from the keen eyed observation that she felt with morbid self consciousness would be bestowed upon her just now by the of the village as she went her anger swelled against the old who were probably at this very moment shaking their heads over her affairs and dan for the first time since this miserable business had come to her ears she found herself involuntarily defending dan to herself it was natural that her new england nature trained to look upon sin of the sort of which he had been guilty as of the deepest should have been moved to one morning in spring its depths by the discovery that her lover had been guilty of with the girl she had shrunk with horror from the bare thought of the fault of her lover and it had seemed to her that all was over between them even when he pleaded for forgiveness and assured her of his continued love she had still felt the physical and moral which made it impossible for her to yield to his entreaties now however by a seemingly but in reality perfectly logical reaction she began to defend him in her mind the thought of the village had made her take sides with him instead of him at the pitiless bar of conscience she began to feel as if he could not be so wrong as it had seemed with the thought she involuntarily lifted her head and looked about her with more animation than she had shown since the fell as she did so she perceived that she had come farther than she realized and that she was almost at the end of her walk s hollow lay just before her it was a singular basin shaped depression in the hills looking rather as if it had been dug out by the hand of man than as if it s in the bundle of â â were the work of nature it was not more than a dozen rods in and all about it ran a fringe of the gloomy which so strangely pleased the taste of a past generation but which seem to be utterly d as if from a to the want of appreciation on the part of the present of the land across which they throw their broken shadows in it stood the house wherein the family out its existence shut oflf from the rest of the village the loneliness of ihe situation might in itself have seemed to mark some social separation between the of the shabby dwelling which showed forlorn traces of having once been touched up with red paint and the neighbors of half a mile away the mind of however was not in a condition to be susceptible to reflections of this nature she was considering as she paused on the brink of the hollow how she was to see without running the of the whole family and what she should say to her after she had found her suddenly as if her thought had the image of the girl from came out of the house and advanced toward the place where one morning in spring stood miss stared at her with a fascinated look as she came on not capable of turning to run away as she wished to do yet becoming more and more confused as the other came nearer and nearer she had never seen the girl so closely before and when at length they stood face to face she could not but be struck by the wild and evil beauty of the other there were those who affirmed that there was blood in the veins of the mother of the family and in the daughter the strange beauty of the mother seemed to have an added she had black hair which without curling hung in wilful locks which were crisp and wrinkled her eyes were large and piercing her lips full and red

2Charles Dickens

her skin had a deep hue beside which the cheek of looked pale and wan while the blood which flushed beneath it was evidently rich and hot her dress was neglected and in places torn yet it had here and there traces of a certain instinct for which was quite as artistic as it was feminine and which would in itself have been sufficient to show that there was some strain beside the ordinary blood of new england in her veins as she climbed the hill she walked slowly a â â â t w fm of and it was evident to the that she was soon to become a mother she pulled more at the throat her loosely fitting gown and drew her fingers through the hair which uncovered down her neck but she gave no sign of being conscious of s presence until she had come close to her i seen you coming she remarked in a voice quite devoid of any particular sion and i thought likely you d leather talk to me alone than in the house all the young ones round the effect of this address upon was like that of a dash of cold water thrown in her face it startled and confused her but at the same time it brought forcibly home to her the need of retaining her self possession yes she said mechanically and without knowing what to add looked at her with piercing eyes she said you t slept none he did n t neither at this familiar mention of her lover the red blood flew into s face she felt as if a deliberate insult had been offered her you re take it hard went on with unexpected coolness he said you did has â has â he been here faltered one morning in spring catching her breath at this new proof of her lover s treachery he t been gone more n a minute the other replied without a word turned where she stood and began to walk away but she moved like one suddenly struck blind putting out her hands as if to feel for support stop the other woman said you need n t go off that way he warn t here from no love for me a sudden note of bitterness came into her voice as she added â if there is any one woman in the world that dan hates worse than he does the devil i m the one â if he don t believe that i am the devil that is there was a desperate ring to her voice which bore convincing testimony to the truth of what she said and which arrested s steps more than the words themselves a certain defiance a brutal indifference to whatever sounded in these hard accents and told how deep was the wound made by the hostility of the man with whom fate had tangled her thread of life but â began the other laughed â bundle w oh pale thing cried out â you f don t even dare tb ask the questions you to get answers to i told him i hated you but be blamed if is enough of you to hate she s wrist as she spoke and squeezed it so tightly that cried out in agony the girl burst into a peal of wild laughter did it hurt she cried that â ing to what i do if i wanted to oh i m strong enough she threw out her arm s a sudden wild gesture as if appealing to the wide heaven above them and a quick of anguish distorted her handsome evil face why could n t he have loved me she cried out instead of this stupid little fool i was a mate for him â shrunk away together as if from a mad woman oh you need n t be afraid the other said again into her half manner i ain t a going to hurt you i told him i would n t a sudden rush of outraged dignity came to the aid of i am not afraid of you she said lifting one morning in spring her head there was no need of his coming to you on my account once more she turned away but the other caught her by the wrist hold on she said i have n t done yet i told him i d tell you the truth about that night i â i don t want to hear faltered who had come for no other purpose but who now would have given anything to escape but you we got to responded he came over this morning and made me promise he could make me promise anything i d go to h â for him if he wanted me to the of her tone and manner was not but held her own now her moral courage was her physical weakness and she did not as at first under the burning eyes of the woman before her say it then she said and let me go home that night said her voice taking on a curious note which was half defiance and half tenderness i knew he was alone in the camp i heard sam tell acres so and i made up my mind that m thb â that was my chance i ve loved dan ever since he in he t never cared the turn of his finger for and he never pretended to it pretty for i woman to be in love with a man that ain t even up to her but i m from the common run of girls i don t care who knows that i ve been in love with dan all my life a shudder went through she felt too faint to stand and moving aside a step she leaned against the trunk of the forlorn and broken laughed savagely i started about as

2Charles Dickens

soon as dark and walked all the way up to the camp except for two or three miles that i got a lift on a load of wood that some up country man was home and got with it was about the middle of the night when i got there and dan was so sound asleep that i thought i should never get him up to let me in put out her hand with a shuddering gesture stop she said i don t want to hear i can t hear laughed oh you re too nice to hear are you one morning in spring well it ain t no matter it warn t his fault he told me that night that he despised me for coming and he cursed me into the bargain that was the reward i got for â stop cried again i won t hear you you were a devil to go there the other came close to her and caught her once more by the wrist in a grip so strong that it left its mark for many a day you poor fool she cried savagely what do i care for that i love him you pale do you think i cared what happened afterward i love him i tell you oh i should like to pull you into inch bits and throw you to the dogs in the yard down there you think you care for him and again her laughter rang out like that of a here she called suddenly here prince here watch the dogs which always surrounded the mansion came bounding up out of the hollow at her call their tongues hanging out of their mouths at her boys cried then just as they sprang toward who was in mortal terror she caught them by their at tub op mm â â â ai down i down t home home the dogs away to look at her in t what sudden change of instruction might mean got wild again commanded and went back to the tumble down house in s hollow caught her breath leaning against the tree trunk you had better go home i shall kill you if you stay here you all you want to i did n t tell it for love of you he s in love with you fast enough you need n t be afraid of me he would n t touch me with a ten foot pole had no word to say but she needed no second bidding to speed her departure she trembled in every limb but she hastened along the road by which she had come intent only upon getting as far as possible from that dreadful woman and her frightful dogs but before she had gone ten paces ran after her and laid a strong hand on her shoulder sick with fear turned her face over her shoulder to her her eyes met those of fairly with triumphant hate one morning in spring and malice there was something in the intensity with which she into the ears of the words which were her parting arrow poisoned and sure to leave a wound she bent down over the shrinking girl with glittering gaze and her with the frightful truth i shall have his child she said the end â â â â i â â â f â ii i i â â â f messrs brothers poems by including of the and son in shadow one volume cloth price each volume separate price these poems are always poetical they are carefully finished they are not de they do not affect american humor and they are utterly mr t b might own a good many of them they reveal mr mind and temper at their best and will be enjoyed by those who have an ear for fine light impressions and delicately expressed â the the poems all very short except the ballad of the are almost all with love s delicious essence the passion receives fresh illumination in a hundred ways warmth richness smooth flowing melody â these are some of the traits of mr verses which are well worthy the setting here given them they are almost invariably the setting of some pretty and thoroughly poetic thought and the writer s expression is clear and precise and studded with bits of exquisite â a there are many who will welcome another volume fi om the pen of although it be a sad one the twenty nine which make up this little collection are but variations of one melody and that played in the minor key they will sink deep into many hearts for they are the expressions of various moods which all who have known grief and loss will have felt and be able to comprehend the men and women who have no artistic gifts and who sit and shed salt tears in stony silence unable to give their woe adequate words will feel that a human heart has here been revealed to them able to with every throb and of their own there is not a cry of a bruised soul but will find its echo in some one of these and the knowledge that they are the expression of a real and personal sorrow gives them a power and interest that no ideal or imaginary work could possess â brothers boston br hm p a book o by z i oo er â â ling him a hâ am bright and iâ t q d c â i c m tht â ml are ae and they are separated tf bright m hi die a mr writes smoothly and i a entertaining reading a book o nine tales by whose writing has been familiar in magazines and newspapers for several years is a volume of short stories suited to the light leisure of summer days in the country there are really seventeen stories although to make the title appropriate

2Charles Dickens

tt here you are ladies all and comfortable when you get your verdict ready just knock on the door mrs but suppose we want to know anything hack oh rap on the door just the same the men always when they wants to send out for tobacco mrs with dignity you will not be troubled in that way this time now that you have a jury of women to deal with you will not have to go after tobacco miss sharp no women can use their minds without the excitement of poisonous hack well ladies i hope there ll be nothing worse bows and goes out smiling they all watch him except mrs jones who pays no attention he the door and they all turn to front with a sigh of relief mrs there glad that s gone he has a sort of grin on all the time that i simply cannot stand mrs yes he seems to think it s awfully to have a jury all of women don t see what there is in that that s so awfully o a gentle jury mrs herself behind tables l oh there are some men that always find anything that a woman does funny miss coming around to front of table l isn t it a glorious triumph for the cause to have at last a jury entirely of women at last woman can be tried by her ladies with gesture y at last it is â mrs to mrs small if somebody doesn t stop her she ll deliver one of her regular stump speeches mrs small yes yes miss it is glorious as you say but rd like to get through with it and go home miss smith yes we all want to go home miss skin go home we are here to do our duty and â mrs small of course miss but my baby s sick and i don t want to stay away from her a minute longer than i have to mrs oh is she sick poor little thing what is the matter mrs small and mrs sit l p and converse together paying no more attention to the rest mrs of course it is necessary to do our duty gently and faithfully no matter how much time it takes mrs fairly and mrs fort â r f and talk together mrs jones on placidly miss sharp coming to front of table r yes we must show that we can men in deciding and the ladies all sit except mrs miss coming to p l miss begins to knit on a pair of toy reins mrs produces some mrs jones quite nice and ain t it just like the sewing circles i used to go to before i moved west miss smith yes isn t it like a sewing circle mrs i agree with miss sharp that this is a grave responsibility that we have assumed and we must show ourselves worthy of it miss skin striking the table hear mrs fair startled from her talk with mrs fort is there any fine for not deciding right miss sharp fine whatever we do is right mrs oh no my husband is a lawyer and be told me that we had to decide according to the evidence or the judge could set the verdict aside miss skin turning toward her and according to the law mrs yes according to the law and the evidence that s what my husband said miss smith yes that s what my father said too a gentle jury mrs fair but how can we tell what the law is mrs that s what the judge told us when he charged us mrs fair oh i couldn t understand what he said at all oh i wish rd never been on the jury anyway miss skin your saying you wouldn t be on it wouldn t have let you off women can no longer the of civilization mrs fair looking around in consternation and then appealing to mrs jones o mrs tones what shall i do i don t know anything about law and evidence mrs jones smiling and knitting on oh that makes no difference i don t know anything about law or evidence either but i know tm going to vote against that that stood there in the witness box as bold as brass and lied away so mrs oh you mustn t talk that way mrs jones that was evidence and we haven t any right to say that evidence is a lie mrs jones if i know a thing is a lie i shall say it s a lie whether it s evidence or not and for that matter if it was law and i knew it wasn t right i d say the same thing miss smith oh my why â mrs why whoever â mrs did you ever hear â miss but you might be â miss sharp but the cause of womanhood and â mrs with her ladies ladies mrs jones you know it s just the same with you all only you don t dare say so mrs fort yes i think just as you do mrs jones mrs fair you ve taken such a weight off of my mind miss smith yes it is a weight off of one s mind mrs there there it will never do to go on like this we shall never come to a decision at this rate she sits miss skin decision i came to a decision the minute i saw that dreadful looking woman the idea of her bringing suit against that nice looking man miss smith yes wasn t he nice looking miss skin it s utterly absurd miss sharp but you hadn t any right to make up your mind till you d heard the witnesses miss skin but i did all the same and i d like to know who s going

2Charles Dickens

to make me change it mrs there there mrs talks with miss and miss sharp across the table the others all talk together mrs fort to mrs fairly oh can you remember it i am so glad l ve wanted that receipt this long time a gentle jury mrs fair oh i ve made that cake too often to forget it besides i always remember my mrs fort if only had some paper to write it down i ve got a pencil mrs fair take one of those cards on the table mrs fort yes that will do she goes to the table y and takes a handful of cards reaching between miss and miss sharp miss sharp what do you want of those mrs fort oh just to take them she goes back to her seat and begins to write with pencil on her watch guard mrs fair three cups of flour one cup of butter two eggs one â mrs fort oh don t go so fast three cups of flour â mrs but if you insist upon following your prejudice you might be for contempt of court mrs jones contemptuously i d like to see anybody fine me for contempt of court mrs fair oh is there anything else what is contempt of court miss skin bother they can t fine us for what we say here mrs fort oh never mind that tell me the rest two eggs what else miss skin besides there s a penalty for telling what s said in the jury room mrs well anyway we have to make up our minds now according to what we heard in the court miss skin oh well anybody whose mind isn t made up may make it up of course it doesn t take me forever to make up mine when the whole thing is as plain as a everybody falls into private conversation except mrs jones who on placidly mrs to mrs small and as i was saying after he d been sick for three weeks he was so thin you wouldn t have known him mrs fort to mrs fairly writing new cards and putting them in her pocket yes i think it is better than mrs to mrs oh i wanted to ask you about that miss to miss smith won t you take hold of this so that i can measure it miss and miss smith rise and measure the reins which miss is knitting a gentle miss skin to miss sharp yes i tell you that we shall gain if we have an entertainment miss sharp with amusing miss skin of course miss smith how pretty that purple comes in miss yes doesn t it that out yesterday when that witness said had on a purple dress when he proposed to her it came over me just like a that that was what wanted next to the miss skin jo miss sharp yes if i were see very different doings miss sharp to mrs you think that it is time for us to take a vote mrs oh by all means we will take a vote if the ladies are ready i thought some might like to discuss a further first mrs fort tu get some more cards i m perfectly delighted with these s goes toward the table and gets more cards miss and miss smith a their miss thank you i think i shall be able to finish it before we come to a decision sits miss smith how do we vote sits mrs waving her hand toward cards we put those things into a box miss holds up cards miss skin you mean if there happen to be any left when we get ready to use them mrs oh my how sharp some folks can be mrs fort only took two or three of the old things they were too dirty to use miss sharp but you seem to have used them mrs jones yes it s just like the sewing circle there was always somebody there to stir up things before we got through the afternoon mrs perhaps ladies we had better take a vote now we have been here some time and it may be expected of us miss skin i don t see any box to vote in mrs there must be one somewhere miss sharp miss mrs and mrs rise and look about after the box mrs there isn t any box miss then of course we can t vote miss smith herself at end of table l no we can t vote mrs jones if s just as well it a lot of bother mrs sitting behind table r yes s what i think â a gentle jury too my husband said that the would be the hardest part for me miss sharp l f vote of course we ll vote do you suppose that we are to be cheated out of our right to vote by such a paltry trick as the hiding of the box miss skin r f knock on the door for the ta y all look at one another in alarm mrs b l moves nearer to the table and looks around mrs will â will somebody please rap miss skin it s your place to rap mrs but i thought â miss sharp nobody else has a right to call the mrs approaching the door timidly well i am ready to do my duty she softly miss sharp he can t hear that mrs somewhat louder miss skin oh that s no use you must knock louder than that if you want to get a man mrs some can t get one even by knocking as loud as ever they can miss skin do you mean me i scorn men miss sharp so sad for the men mrs small o ladies won t you please to do something so tiiat i can go home she

2Charles Dickens

rises and crosses to mrs jones mrs jones can t you make them vote or something mrs jones no my dear i can t women can t be mrs we are going to vote mrs small as soon as we get a box to vote in she loudly hack entering well what is it verdict ready all but mrs jones rise mrs not yet we haven t anything to vote in the box is gone hack grinning box there ain t no box the men vote in a hat the ladies look at each other in indignation or lion miss sharp to front he womanhood mrs but we can t vote that way hack i suppose you can t very vote in your you may have my hat he holds out his hat mrs takes it in an manner there ain t nothing more is there mrs nothing sir hack going i d be as quick with the vote as i could ladies the court is getting impatient exit miss sharp odious monster miss skin horrid beast f mrs walks to table holding hat at arm s li drops the hat on table i i i i a gentle jury i vote in his hat if i never at all miss sharp of course not they all sit again except mrs mrs small and mrs fairly r f mrs im mrs l f miss sharp and miss as before mrs fort l b miss end of table l miss smith before table l mrs table r mrs jones as before mrs behind table c mrs jones we used to vote at the sewing circle down to by up face down miss skin yes that s the way mrs yes do very well ladies please prepare your mrs mrs mrs small mrs fairly all go to the table for and stand whispering in centre of stage miss rises and comes in front of table l miss i â i don t think made up my mind quite she looks around miss skin rising and coming to front i ve made up mv mind to vote against that horrid woman and if you ll tell me which of these is against her i ll vote this very moment she goes to table for card mrs why guilty would be against her or â or â not guilty i think i m quite clear myself dear though of course we can make it any way we j ease if we only agree beforehand miss sharp rising oh that s not right at all one of the persons in the case is the and the other is the and guilty has to be for one and not guilty for the other miss smith rising but which is which miss sharp i remember exactly but that s so any way mrs rising and coming to front my husband told me to vote not guilty and he s a friend of the man so not guilty must be for the man and guilty for the woman mrs i ll tell you how you can tell mv husband told me that the name of the person that comes first in the name of the case is the one that you vote for if you give a verdict of â guilty and the name of the one that comes is the one you vote lor if you vote not guilty miss but what is the name of the case there is a moment of silence mrs i don t quite remember whether it b v s or v s can anybody teu miss skin it is v s miss sharp it is v s mrs my husband says that it isn t v s it s â t lo a gentle jury â miss skin well then it s mrs that s not the way i remember it miss skin when i know a thing i know it it s i tell you miss sharp i know it isn t but if miss s got it in her head that it is the only thing to do is to call the again mrs i hate to call that man miss skin you needn t call him i tell you it s mrs well we ought to be sure i ll call him she goes to and miss this is the first place i ever saw where you knock for folks to come in hack putting in his head well ladies what can i do for you this time verdict ready at last mrs not quite we only wanted to know what the name of this case is hack what the â comes in great scott ain t you got as fu as the name of the case yet the women shrink to r and l f mrs jones calmly now and then scratching her head with a knitting needle mrs with dignity we simply wished to inquire hack oh certainly very natural curiosity miss skin you needn t sneer at us sir because we are women hack oh not for the world the case is that of for obtaining money under miss and is the man i hack yes is the man miss claims that he borrowed money of her under pretence of intended marriage mrs do you think he did hack great scott you don t expect me to have an opinion do you i m under oath ladies mrs well i didn t know but you could tell something about it it s dreadfully hack you ll have to figure it out among yourselves exit miss skin turning to mrs with an enraged gesture i should think that for the credit of womanhood you might have been more careful what you said to that he will go and tell just what you said to him for my part i should think that there might have been sense enough in the room to keep from calling him

2Charles Dickens

in at all i said all the time that it was mrs i beg your pardon but it was because you were so positive that it was that i felt that there was no way of convincing you short of calling him in there is a general murmur miss but sits down front of table l now that this is settled we will take a vote ladies those that are in favor of miss will vote guilty and aa ami a gentle jury ii those that are in favor of mr will vote not guilty select your please miss sharp sits before table r miss skin and striking an attitude i wish to say before we vote that it is well to remember that this is the first case that has ever been tried in america before a jury of women and that it is necessary to bear in mind the that the whole future of american women may be influenced by what we do if we give a vote for this man it will show that we are not but that we are liberal enough to side with the right even when it is in favor of one who has been an enemy of woman age mrs fair has this man been against woman mrs yes he s written against it in the owl mrs fort then that settles it i will never vote for a man that has wished to keep our sex on the level of and by us of the miss smith yes that settles it they all tion miss sharp rising for my part while i agree with what miss says in regard to the importance of what we decide to do i look at the matter from exactly the opposite point of view in regard to the verdict what is the reason that women have been so long trampled under the feet of men if it is not that they have not held together it is all very well to talk of being broad enough to give a verdict in favor of a man the are always in i of men miss smith hear hear miss sharp if we do not show that we are prepared to stand by our sex how can women trust their cause in our hands we â miss skin but i tell you â miss sharp please don t interrupt we are here to represent the strength of womanhood we â miss skin of course â miss sharp sit down i am not through we are the of the cause all â miss skin i â miss sharp will you sit down and stop interrupting miss sits all over the east they are watching us and the eastern papers say and say rightly that they are waiting to judge by the results in the west whether it is worth while to try woman or not what will they say if the first woman jury in the country goes back on the sex miss smith what will they say miss sharp they will say â miss skin excuse me miss sharp but your front is coming off miss sharp her scratch ana to back r where she a pocket mirror and her hair miss out her hands in a broad gesture and looks about her smiling there you see that i was right la a gentle jury miss smith oh yes you were right miss she hasn t a word to say looking at miss sharp i it would be horrid to wear a wig miss smith oh so should i mrs small suddenly and forcibly o ladies won t you please to vote so that i can go home my baby is sick and i am so worried that i don t know what to do mrs jones yes we may as well vote now as any time those that have made up their minds will keep to em no matter what anybody says and those that haven t any minds can vote one time as well as another mrs what do you mean by having no minds i call that insulting mrs jones there ain t no men within hearing miss skin what s that to do with it mrs jones oh what s the use of pretending among ourselves the ladies look at each other in indignation but mrs jones on placidly mrs seems about to speak angrily but and speaks with exaggerated dignity mrs we will vote now please select your they move to the table and begin to pick out cards miss there are not enough here mrs that is because they have been used up since we came into the room miss smith we shall have to call that again mrs nothing will induce me to have that horrid man summoned again mrs l p you ma do what you like about and about the but i am going home all going home mrs yes going home i am just sick of staying here and i will never be on a jury again in my ufe rolls up her i don t know anything about the old case and what s more i don t want to i am tired to death and i am just going home miss sharp why you can t go the won t let you out mrs i should like to see him touch me my husband would just tear him to pieces if he laid a hand on me miss skin but he to keep you here it s the law mrs i don t care anything about the law i resign from old jury and that s the whole of it then i m not a member if i m not a member of it the hasn t any right to keep me shut up here as if i was a prisoner myself it is shameful and i shall tell my husband just as soon as i

2Charles Dickens

ood i have shaken off the of last night and am more like what father used to tell me to be when i was a of a girl a cheerful as right as a though to be sure i do not know what being as right as a is any more than i did then last night it is true there were circumstances that might have been urged for a week it had been the of a saint weather that took all the snap out of a body s mental fibre mother had had one of her bad days when the pain seemed too dreadful to bear patient angel that she is had been in one of her most despairing fits and the old year looked so dreary behind the new year loomed so hopeless before that there was some excuse for a girl who was tired to the bone with watching and worry if she did not feel exactly cheerful i cannot allow though that it justified her in crying like a watering pot and the pages of her until the whole thing was like a composition written with tears in a school i certainly cannot let this sort of thing happen again and i am thoroughly ashamed that it happened once i will remember that the last day father lived he said he could trust me to be brave both for mother and myself and that i promised â i promised so last night may go and be forgotten as soon as i can manage to forget it to night things are different there has been a beautiful snow fall and the air is so crisp that when i went for a walk at sunset it seemed impossible ever to be weak again mother is wonderfully comfortable and the new year began with a letter to say that george will be at home to morrow mother is asleep like a child the fire is in the best of spirits and does the for itself and for peter who is with content expressed by every hair to the tip of his white tail even is singing in the kitchen a hymn that she thinks is cheerful about sa a a e ter er er noon it is evident that there is every opportunity to take a january fresh start and to conduct myself in the coming year with more self respect so much for new year resolutions i do not remember that i ever made one before and very likely i shall never make one again now i must decide something about i tried to talk with mother about her but mother got so excited that i saw it would not do and felt i must work the problem out with pen and paper as if it were a sum in it is not my business to attend to the education of the minister s daughter especially as it is the minister s daughter and he with his whole congregation thinks it rather doubtful whether it is not sinful for even to know so dangerous an i sometimes doubt whether my good neighbors in would regard tom himself who father used to say as the for all rural new england with greater horror than they do me it is fortunate that they do not dislike me personally and they all loved father in spite of his in this case i am not clear on the other hand that it is my duty to stand passive and see without at least protesting a sensitive imaginative delicate child driven to despair by the misery and terror of a creed if had not come to me it would be different but she has come time after time this poor little morbid creature has run to me in such terror of hell fire that i verily feared she would end by going frantic ten years old and desperate with conviction of original sin and this so near the end of the nineteenth century so called of grace thus far i have contented myself with taking her into my arms and just loving her into calmness but she is getting beyond that the of a saint she is finding being so delightful that she is sure it must be a sin she is like what i can fancy the most imaginative of the to have been in their passionate childhood in the days when the only recognized office of the imagination was to picture the terrors of hell i so long for father if he were alive to talk to her he could say the right word and settle things the bible is very touching in its phrase as one whom his mother but to me whom his father would have seemed to go even deeper but then there is s father whose tenderness is killing her i don t in the least doubt that he suffers as much as she does but he loves her too much to risk damage to what he calls her immortal soul there is always a ring of triumph in his voice when he the phrase as if he already were a spirit in eternal and infinite glory there is something finely noble in such a superstition all this however does not bring me nearer to the end of my sum for the answer of that ought to be what i shall do with it would never do to push her into a struggle with the or to set her to arguing out the impossibility of her she is too young and too morbid and would end by supposing that in reasoning at au on the matter she had committed the sin her father would not let her read stories unless they were books perhaps she might be allowed some of the more entertaining of history but she is too young for most of them she should be reading about bed hood and the white cat and the

2Charles Dickens

whole company of dear creatures immortal in fairy stories i will look in the library and see what there january may be that would pass the searching ordeal of her father s eye if she can be given anything which will take her mind off of her spiritual condition for a while that is au that may be done at present i hunt up my old for her too a little more exercise in the open air will do a good deal for her and perhaps blow away some of the later has been in to make her annual attack on my soul i had almost forgotten her yearly missionary effort so that when she appeared i said with the utmost cheerfulness and what is it supposing that she wanted to know something about breakfast i could see by the instant change in her expression that she regarded this as deliberate levity she was so full of what she had come to say that it could not occur to her that i did not perceive it too dear old i her face has always so droll an expression of mingled shyness and determination when as she once said she her skirts of concerning me she stands in the doorway twisting her apron and her is always the same â miss i thought i d take the liberty to say a word to you on this new year s day yes i always respond as if we had the dialogue what is it it s another year miss and your peace not made with god to me there is something touching in the fidelity with which she to the self imposed performance of this evidently painful duty she is the of a saint shy about it â she who is never shy about anything else in the world so far as i can see she feels that it is a cross for her to bear as she told me once and i honor her for not it she thinks i regard it far more than i do she judges my discomfort by her own whereas in truth i am only uncomfortable for her i never could understand why people are generally so afraid to speak of religious things or why they dislike so to be spoken to about them i mind s talking about my soul no more than i should mind her talking about my nose or my fingers indeed the little flavor of personality which would make that unpleasant is lacking when it comes to discussion about things like the spirit and so on the whole i mind the soul talk less i suppose really the shyness is part of the general all we new have that makes it so hard to speak of anything which is deeply felt father used to say i remember that it was because folk usually have a great deal of sentiment about religion and very few ideas and thus the difficulty of bringing their expression up to their feelings necessarily them i assured i appreciated all her interest in my and that i would try to live as good a life during the coming year as i could and then she withdrew with the audible sigh of relief that the heavy duty was done with for another she assured me she should still pray for me and if i do not suppose that there is any great in her petition i am at least glad that she should feel like doing her best in my behalf mother declares that she is always offended when a person offers to pray for her she looks at it as dreadfully and january as if the had an intimate personal hold upon the almighty and was willing to exert his influence in your behalf but i hardly think she means it she never fails to see when a thing is kindly meant even if she has a keen sense of the ludicrous at any rate it does us no harm that kindly are offered for us even if they may go out into an void and i am not sure that they do r january is delighted with the and she does not think that her father will object to her having them so there is at least one point gained we have had such a lovely sunset i i do not see how there can be a in a world where there are so many beautiful things the whole west through the branches of the elms on the south lawn was one gorgeous mass of splendid color i hope george saw it it is almost time for him to be here and i have caught myself humming over and over his favorite tunes as i waited mother has had a day of uneasiness so that i could not leave her much but rubbing her side for an hour or two relieved her it has cramped my fingers a little so that i write a funny stiff hand poor mother it made me ashamed to be so glad in my heart as i saw how brave and quiet she was with the lines of pain round her dear mouth later how long is it that we have been engaged that is what george asked me and out of all the long talk we had this evening this is the one thing which i keep hearing over and over why should it the of a saint me so it is certainly a simple question and when two persons have been engaged six years there need no longer be any false about things of this sort about what sort do i mean that the time has come when george would not mind my feelings it may as well come out as father used to say you cannot balance the books until the account is set down in full well then i mean that there is a frankness about a

2Charles Dickens

long engagement which may not be in a short one so that when george and i meet after a separation it is natural that almost the first question should be â how long is it that we have been engaged the question is certainly an innocent one â although one would think george might have answered it himself how much did the fact that he talked afterward so eagerly about the miss west he while at his aunt s and of how pretty she is have to do with the pain which the question gave me at my age one might think that i was beyond the of a school girl we have been engaged six years and four months and five days it is not half the time that jacob served for although it is almost the time he bowed his neck to the yoke for and i am afraid lest i am nearer to being like the latter than the former i always pitied for she must have understood she had not her husband s love any woman would perceive that six years â and life is so short i poor george it has not been easy for him i he has not even been able to wish that the obstacle between us was removed since that obstacle is mother surely she is my first duty and since she needs me day and night i cannot divide my life but i do pity january george he is wearing out his youth with that old of a housekeeper who makes him uncomfortable with an ingenuity that seems to show intellectual force not to be suspected from anything else but she is a faithful old soul and it is not kind to abuse her how long is it that we have been engaged i have a tendency to keep on writing that over and over all down the page as if this were the copy book of a child at school how tom used to admire my writing books in our school days i his were always and blotted he is too big and manly to over little things and he laughed at the pains i took turning every corner with absurd care he was so strong and splendid on the ice when we went over on s pond and how often and often he has drawn me all the way home on my i but all that was ages and ages ago and long before i even knew george it never occurred to me until to night but i am really growing old the that tom remembered and on which he sent me little of have not in the least troubled me or seemed too many i have not thought much of of late years but to night i realize that i am twenty nine and that george has asked me â how long is it that we have been engaged january and ashes have been my portion for days and if i could by tearing from my the last leaves blot out of remembrance the foolish things i have written it would be quickly done my new year s resolutions were even less lasting than the of a saint are those in the jokes of the comic papers and i am ashamed all through and through i have tried to reason myself into something resembling common sense but i am much afraid i have not yet entirely accomplished it i have said to myself over and over that it would be the best thing for george if he did fall in love with that girl he saw at and go his way without wasting more time waiting for me he has wasted years enough and it is time for him to be happy but then â has he not been happy or is it that i have been so happy myself i have not realized how the long engagement was him he must have wearied or he could never have asked me â no i will not write it january george came over last night and was so loving and tender that i was thoroughly ashamed of all the wicked suspicions i have had after au what was there to suspect i almost confessed to him what a miserable little i had been but i knew that confession would only be my soul at the expense of making him uncomfortable i hated to have him think me better than i am but this i suppose is part of the penalty i ought to pay for having been so weak besides â probably it was only my weakness in another form the petty jealousy of a small soul and a morbid fancy â he seemed somehow more remote than i have ever known him and i could not have told him if i would we did not seem to be entirely frank with each other but as if each were trying to make the other feel at ease when it was not really possible of course i was only my own feelings to him for he was dearly good january he told me more his visit to and he seems to have seen miss west a good deal she is a sort of cousin of the he says and so they had a common ground when she found that he lived so near to the she asked him all kinds of questions she has never seen them having lived in the west most of her life and was naturally much interested in hearing about her relatives i found myself leading him on to talk of her i cannot see why i should care about this stranger generally i deal very little in gossip father trained me to be interested in real things and details about people never attracted me yet this girl sticks in my mind and i am tormented to know all about her it cannot be anything

2Charles Dickens

he said though he did say that she is very pretty perhaps it was the way in which he said it he seemed to my sick fancy to like to talk of her she must be a charming creature january why should he not like to talk of a pretty girl i hope i am not of the women who cannot bear to have a man use his eyes except to see their graces it is pitiful to be so small and mean i certainly want george to admire goodness and beauty and to be by his very affection for me the more sensitive to whatever is admirable in others if i am to be worthy of being his wife i must be noble enough to be glad at whatever there is for him io rejoice in because of its loveliness and yet as i write down all these fine sentiments i feel my heart like lead oh i am so ashamed of myself january miss came in this afternoon looking so thin and cold and tall that i have been rather sober ever since the of a saint i wish i had on shoes with higher heels i said to her as we shook hands then perhaps i should n t feel so insignificant down here she looked down at me laughing that rich laugh of hers mother always used to say she knew the could n t have been drowned in the flood she answered for they must all have been tall enough to to mt you know the so far back that yon must be able to tell whether she was right i don t go quite so far as that she said sitting down by the fire but i know that my great married a so that i always considered judge a cousin if father was a cousin i must be one too said i you are the same relation to me on one side miss went on that is on the other it s about cousin you see so that i can it or not as i please i am flattered that you choose to count us in i told her smiling and i am sure also you must be willing to count in anybody so good as yes is worth holding on to though he s so weak that he d let the shadow of a bully him the answer to the question in the new england who is the man ought to be he used up all the there was in the whole family though i confess that i never heard mrs called meek i assented meek i miss i should think not a is a sunday school beside her while as for tom â january she ap her lips with an expression of so very marked i was afraid at once that tom must have been doing something dreadful again and my heart sank for his father but tom has been doing better i said this winter he â this winter i she exclaimed why just now he is worse than ever oh dear i asked what is it now his father has been so unhappy about him if he d made tom unhappy it would have been more to the purpose tom s making himself the town talk with that girl â what girl don t you know about the that live in that little red house on the rim i know the red house and now that you say the name i remember i have heard that such a family have moved in there where did they come from oh where do such come from ever demanded miss i m afraid nobody but the old nick could tell you they re a set of drunken that turned up here last year they were probably driven out of some town or other tom s been â but i did not wish to hear of tom s and i said so miss laughed as usual you never take any interest in wickedness she said good that s about the only fault i have to find with you poor i tom has made him miserable indeed in these years since he came from college the bitterness of seeing one we love go wrong must be and when we believe that the the of a saint of wrong are to be eternal â i should go mad if i believed in such a creed i would try to train myself to hate instead of to love or if i could not do this â but i could not believe anything so horrible so that i need not daniel is a saint though of course he does not dream of such a thing a saint would not be a saint i suppose who was aware of his and the s is one of his most marked attributes of i wonder whether in the development of the race will ever come to be with a sense of humor a saint with that human quality would be a wonderfully compelling for good daniel is a fine influence by his goodness but he somehow the of virtue in the abstract rather than brings home personally the idea that his example is to be followed and all because he is so hopelessly without a perception of the humorous side of existence but why do i go on writing this when the thought uppermost in my mind is the grief he will have if tom has started again on one of his wild times i do hope that miss is mistaken i so small a thing will sometimes set folk to talking especially about tom who is at heart so good though he has been wild enough to get a bad name january things work out strangely in this world so that it is no wonder all sorts of fanciful are made out of them there could hardly be a

2Charles Dickens

web more closely woven than human life to day when i had not seen tom for months and when the gossip of last night made me want to talk with him chance brought us face to face january mother was so comfortable that i went out for an hour the day was delightful cold enough so that the walking was dry and the snow firm but the air not sharp to the cheek the sun was warm and cheery and the shadows on the white fields had a lovely softness i went on in a sort of dream it was so good to be alive and out of doors in such wonderful weather i turned to go down the rim road and it was not until i came in sight of the red house that i remembered what miss said last night then i began to think about tom tom and i have always been such good friends i used to understand tom better in the old school days than the others did and he was always ready to tell me what he thought and felt nowadays i hardly ever see him since i became engaged he has almost never come to the house though he used to be here so much i meet him only once or twice a year and then i think he tries to avoid me i am so sorry to have an old friendship broken off like that the red house made me think of tom with a sore heart of all the talk his wild ways have caused the sorrow of his father and the good that is being lost when a fellow with a heart so big as tom s goes wrong suddenly tom himself appeared before my very eyes as if my thought had him up he came so unexpectedly that at first i could hardly realize how he came then it flashed across me that he must have walked round the red house i suppose he must have come out of a back door somewhere like one of the family such folk never use their front doors he walked along the road toward me at first so that he did not recognize me when he saw my face he half hesitated as if he had almost the of a saint a mind to turn back and his whole face turned red he came on however and was going past me with a scant salutation when i stopped him i stood still and put out my hand so that he could not go by without speaking good afternoon tom i said is n t it a glorious day he looked about him with a strange air as if he had not noticed and i saw how heavy and weary his eyes were yes he answered it is a fine day where do you keep yourself tom i went on hardly knowing what i said but trying to think what it was best to say i never see you and we used to be such good friends he looked away and moved his lips as if he muttered something but when i asked what he said he turned to me look here what s the good of pretending you know i don t go to see you because you re engaged to george you chose between us and there s the end of that what s more you know that nowadays i m not fit to go to see anybody that s decent then it is time that you were was my answer let me walk along with you i want to say something i turned and we walked together toward the village i could see that his face hardened it s no sort of use to preach to me he said though your preaching powers are pretty good i ve had so much preaching in my life that i m not to be rounded up by piety i smiled as well as i could though it made me want to cry to hear the hard of his tone january i m not generally with piety tom the whole town thinks all the heathen know i it s a pity there were n t a few more of em i laughed and thanked him for the compliment and then we went on in silence for a little way i had to what he said about george but it did not make it easier to begin i was puzzled what to say but the time was short that we should be walking together and i had to do something tom i began you may not be very sensitive about old but i am loyal and it hurts me that those i care for should be talked against oh in a place like he returned at once i could see on the they u talk about anybody will they then i suppose they talk about me i m sorry tom for it must make you uncomfortable to hear it unless that is you don t count me for a friend any longer he threw back his head in the way he has always had i used to tell him it was like a s shaking back its mane what nonsense of course they don t talk about you you don t give folks any chance and you do i added as quietly as i could he looked angry for just the instant and then he burst into a hard laugh caught by you were always too clever for me to deal with well then i do give the plenty to talk about they would talk just the same if i did n t so i may as well have the game as the name the of a saint does that mean that your life is regulated by the i supposed that you had more independence tom he flushed and stooped down to pick up a

2Charles Dickens

stick with this he began to strike the bushes by the roadside and the dry of sticking up through the snow he set his lips together with a determination which brought out in his face the look i like least the resemblance to his mother when she means to carry a point look here he said after a moment i m not going to talk to you about myself or my doings i m a fast enough but there s no good talking about it if you d cared enough about me to keep me straight you could have done it but now i on my way to the devil and no great way to travel before i get there either we had come to the turn of the where the trees shut off the view of the houses of the village i stopped and put my hand on his arm tom i begged him don t talk like that you don t know how it hurts you don t mean it you can t mean it nobody but yourself can send you on the wrong road and i know you re too to hide behind any such excuse for the sake of your father tom do stop and think what you are doing oh father console himself very well with prayers and anyway he u thank god for sending me to because if god does it it must be all right don t tom you know how he suffers at the way you go on it must be terrible to have an only son and to see him flinging his life away it isn t my fault that i m his son is it he january demanded i ve been dragged into this infernal life without being asked whether i wanted to come or not and now i m here i can t have what i want and i m promised eternal hereafter weu then i show god or the devil or whoever things that i can t be into a the sound of wheels interrupted us and we instinctively began to walk onward in the most commonplace fashion a farmer s wagon came along and by the time it had passed we had come to the head of the bim road in full sight of the houses tom waited until i turned to the right toward home and then he said â i m going the other way it s no use to talk to me but i m obliged to you for caring i cannot see that i did any good and very likely i have simply made him more on his guard to avoid giving me a chance but then even if i had all the chance in the world what could i say to him and yet tom is so noble a fellow underneath it all he is honest and kind and strong in his way only between his father s and his mother s â for she is sharp â he has somehow come to grief they have tried to make him religious so that he would be good and he is of the sort that must be good or he will not be religious he cannot be pressed into a mould of and so in the end â but it cannot be the end tom must somehow come out of it january when george came in to night i was struck at once with the look of pleasant excitement in his face what pleases you i asked him the of a saint pleases me he echoed evidently surprised â is n t it a pleasure to see you but that s not the whole of it i said you ve something pleasant to tell me oh i can read you like a book my dear so it is quite idle trying to keep a secret from me he seemed confused and i was puzzled to know what was the matter you are too wise entirely was his reply i really had n t anything to tell then something good has happened i persisted or you have heard good news what a fanciful girl you are george returned nothing has happened he walked away from me and went to the fire he was strangely embarrassed and i could only wonder what i had said to him i reflected that perhaps he was planning some sort of a surprise and felt i ought not to into his thoughts in this fashion whatever the matter was that interested him i sat down on the other side of the hearth and took up some sewing george i asked entirely at random did n t you say that the miss west you met at is a cousin of the i flushed as soon as i had spoken for i thought how it betrayed me that in my desire to hit on a new subject i had found the thought of her so near the surface of my mind i had not been thinking of her at all and certainly i did not connect her with george s strangeness of manner there was something almost weird it seems to me now in my putting such a question just then perhaps it was for she must have been vividly in his thoughts at that moment january he started flushed as i have never seen him and turned quickly toward me what makes you think that it was miss west think what was miss west i cried i was completely astonished then i saw how it was er mind george i went on laughing and putting out my hand to him i did n t mean to read your thoughts and i did n t realize that i was doing it but what made you â i m sure i don t know i broke in and i managed to laugh again only i see now that you know something pleasant

2Charles Dickens

about miss west and you may as well teu it he looked doubtful a minute studying my face the hesitation he had in speaking hurt me it s only that she s coming to visit the he said rather unwillingly told me just now why that will be pleasant i answered as brightly as if i were really delighted now i shall see if she is really as pretty as you say i felt so to be playing a part â so somebody has said the real test of love is to be unwilling to deceive the loved one even in the smallest thing that may be the test of a man s love but a woman will bear the pain of that very deception to save the man she cares for from i am sure it has hurt me as much not to be entirely frank with george as it could have hurt a man but i could not make him uncomfortable by letting him see that i was disturbed yet that he should have been afraid or unwilling to tell me did trouble me he knows that i am not jealous or apt to take he is the of a saint always saying that i am too cold to be really in love it made me feel that the coming of this girl must mean much to him when he feared to speak of it if he had not thought it a matter of consequence he would have realized that i should take it lightly i am not taking it lightly but what troubles me is not that she is coming but that he hesitated to tell me something is wrong when george fears to trust me january i have seen her i went to church this morning for that especial reason mother was a little astonished at me when i said that i was going well she said you don t have much but i didn t suppose that you were so dull you would take to church going you can never tell i answered making a jest of a thing which to me was far from funny mr will be sure to conclude i m under conviction of sin and come in to finish the she looked at me keenly what is the matter she asked in that soft voice of hers which goes straight to my heart it is n t anything very serious mother i said since you will have the truth am going to church to see that miss west who s visiting the george thinks her so pretty that my curiosity is roused to a perfect she did not say more but i saw the sudden light in her eye mother has never felt about george as i have wished she has never done him justice and she thinks i him that is her favorite way of putting it but this is because she is my mother and does n t see how much there must have been on his side before he could fall in love with me january miss west is very pretty all the time i watched in church i tried to persuade myself that she was not i and sat there finding fault with her face saying to myself that her nose was too long her eyes too small her mouth too big as if my invention would change the fact it was humiliating business and utterly and miss west is pretty she is more than this she is wonderfully pretty there is an appealing baby look about her big blue eyes which goes straight to one s heart she looks like a darling child one would want to kiss and from all the hard things of life i own it all i realize all that it means and if in my inmost soul i am afraid i will not deny what is a fact or try to shut my eyes to the of my feeling about her of course george found her she is the young men in the congregation all watched her and even grim could not keep his eyes off of her she does not have the look of a girl of any especial mind her is after all that of a doll her large eyes are of the sort to please a man because of their appealing helplessness not because they inspire him with new her little lips will never speak wisdom i am afraid but in my jealousy i wonder whether most men do not care more for lips which invite kisses than for lips which speak wisdom i am frankly and weakly miserable george walked home with me but he had not two words to say i must try to meet this if george should come to care for her more than for me if he should â if by a pretty face he forgets all the years that we have belonged to each other what is there to do i cannot the of a saint yet believe that it is best for him but if it will make him happy even if he thinks that it will what is there for me but to make it as easy for him as i may he certainly would not be happy to marry me and love somebody else he cannot leave me without pain that i am sure i shall show my love for him more truly if i spare him the knowledge of what it must cost me but what nonsense all this is a man may admire a pretty face and yet not be ready for it to leave behind all that has been dear to him oh if he had not asked me that question when he came back from i cannot get it out of my mind that even if he was not conscious of it it meant he still was secretly tired of his long engagement that he

2Charles Dickens

was at least dreaming of what he would do if he were free he shall not be bound by any will of mine and if his heart has gone out to this beautiful creature i must bear it as nobly as i can father used to say â and every day i go back more and more to what he said to me â what you cannot at need sacrifice nobly you are not worthy to possess january i have had a note which me completely tom writes to say that he is going away that i am to forgive him for the shame of having known him and that his address is in a sealed envelope i am not to open it unless there is real need why should he give his address to me january the way aunt has of coming in without knocking stealing in on feet made noiseless by brought her into the sitting room last night while i was in the january twilight and meditating on nothing in particular i knew her slow fashion of opening the door like a at a cupboard as says â so that i was able to compose my face into an appropriate smile of welcome before she was fairly in sitting here alone was her greeting mother is asleep i answered and i was waiting for her to wake aunt seated herself in the chair in tbe room and began to swing her foot as usual daniel s at it again she observed i smiled a little it always me that the troubles of the church should be so often brought to me who am an aunt arrives about once a month on the average with complaints about something they are seldom of any especial weight but it seems to relieve her to tell her which daniel i asked to her a little of course you know that well enough what is it now he won t have any fire in the she answered why not let somebody else take care of the then if you want a fire you don t suppose was her response with a chuckle that he d give up the key to anybody else do you i should think he d be glad to he hold on to that key till he dies retorted aunt with a and i should n t be surprised if he had it buried with him he wouldn t lose the chance of making folks uncomfortable the of a saint oh come aunt you are always so hard on i protested he is always good natured with me i wish you d join the church then and see if you can t keep him in order last night it was so cold at prayer meeting that we were all half frozen and mr had to dismiss the meeting old lady spoke up in the part of it when we were all so chilled that we could n t speak and she said in that little high voice of hers the is very cold to night but i trust that our hearts are warm with the love of christ i laughed at the picture of the half frozen and dear old lady coming to the rescue with a pious jest it was so characteristic but has anybody spoken to i asked you can t speak to him she responded her foot with a violence that seemed to speak celestial anger within i try to after every prayer meeting but he has the lights out before i can say two words i can t stay there in the dark with him and the minute he gets me outside he locks the door and posts off like a streak why not go down to his mill in broad daylight i suggested oh he d stick close to the grinding thing just so he could n t hear and i m afraid of being pitched into the she said laughing you must speak to him he pays some attention to what you say but it s none of my business i don t go to prayer meeting but it s your duty to go she answered with a shrewd smile that showed that she appreciated january her response and if you neglect one duty it s no excuse for another besides you can t be willing to have the whole congregation die of cold so in the end it was somehow fixed that i am to with daniel because the faithful are cold at their it would seem much for them to stay at home and be warm they do not as far as i can see enjoy going but they are miserable if they do not go their trouble them worse than the cold poor things i suppose that i can never be half thankful enough to father for bringing me up without a conscience prayer meetings seem to be a good deal like salt in the boy s definition of something that makes food taste bad if you don t put it on prayer meetings make church uneasy if they do not go if they will go however and if they are better for going or believe they are better or if they are only worse for staying away or suppose they are worse they should not be expected to sit in a cold in january why daniel will not have a fire is not at all clear it may be economy or it may be a lack of it may be for some reason too deep to be discovered i refuse to accept aunt s theory that it is sheer obstinacy and i will beard the in his mill regardless of the danger of the at least he generally to me january came up for me this evening while i was reading to mother s down in the parlor she announced says he wants to see you if you re

2Charles Dickens

not busy li come again if you ain t able to see him the of a saint go down dear mother said at once it may be another church quarrel and i would n t hinder you from settling it for worlds but don t you want me to finish the chapter i asked church quarrels will generally keep no dear i m tired and we stop where we are i try to go to sleep if you turn the light down as i bent over to kiss her she put up her feeble thin fingers and touched my cheek lovingly you re a dear girl she said be gentle with the there was a twinkle in her eye for the idea of anybody s being anything but gentle with daniel is certainly droll enough miss said the other night that a baby could twist him round its finger and never even know there was anything there and certainly he must call out the gentle feelings of anybody only tom seemed always somehow to get exasperated with his father s poor tom i do wonder why he went away i the up by way of growing old i have not seen him this winter except the other day at church and then i did not look at him to night he seemed worn and sad and somehow his face was like ashes it was so lifeless the has dried to the bones of his face till he looks like a pathetic skull his voice is not changed though it has the same strange note in it that used to affect me as a child a weird quality which suggests some vague melancholy flavor not in the least or â a quality that i have never been able to define i never hear him speak without a sense of mysterious and i remember confiding to father january once when i was about a dozen years old that had the right voice to read fairy stories with father i remember laughed and said he doubted much if daniel knew what a fairy story was unless he thought it was something false tom s voice has something of the same quality but only enough to give a little thrill to his tone when he is really in earnest there is an amusing between that odd wind harp strain in s voice and his gaunt new england figure the asked almost before we had shaken hands did you know tom had gone away i was impressed and rather startled by the intensity of his manner and surprised by the question yes i said he sent me word he was going do you know where he has gone no i wondered whether i ought to tell him about the sealed address but it seemed like a breach of confidence to say anything yet did he say why he was going the asked no i said again the turned his hat over and over helplessly in his knotted hands in silence for a moment he was so pathetic that i wanted to cry then you don t know he said after a moment i only know he has gone there was another silence as if the were pondering on what he could possibly do or say next peter who was pleased for the moment to be kind to the visitor came and rubbed against his legs waving a great white of tail daniel bent down and the of a saint the cat but the troubled look in his face showed how completely his mind was occupied i m afraid there s something wrong he broke out at length with an energy unusual with him an energy was suffering ther than power i don t know what it is but i m afraid it s worse than ever oh miss if you could only have cared for tom you d have kept him straight i could only murmur that i had always liked tom and that we had been friends all our lives but the was too much moved to pay attention of course he went on i had n t any right to suppose judge s daughter would marry into our family but if you had cared for him miss â i broke in for i could not hear any more please don t say such things you know you must n t say such things i as i think of it i am afraid i was a little more hysterical than would have been allowed by cousin but i could not help it at least i stopped him from going on he so much that i set to work to convince him i was not offended which i found was not very easy poor daniel he is really heart broken about tom but he has never known how to manage him or even to make the boy understand how much he loves him may be a christian virtue but over is a poor quality for one who has the bringing up of a real wide awake head strong boy a little less virtue and a little more common sense would have made a good deal more useful in this world if it did lessen his value to heaven he is the very salt of the earth yet he has so let himself be trampled january upon that to tom his humility has seemed weakness i know too tom has never appreciated his father and has failed to understand that goodness need not always be in arms to be manly and so here in a couple of sentences i have come round to the side of the after all perhaps in the long run the effect of his goodness with all its seeming lack of strength may effect more than qualities january i was interrupted last night in my writing to go to mother but i have had and tom in my mind ever since i

2Charles Dickens

not help remembering the gossip about tom and the fact that i saw him coming from the red house i wonder if he has not gone to break away from temptation in new he may turn over a new leaf oh i would so like to write to him and to tell him how much i hope for this fresh start but i hardly like to open the envelope i have been this afternoon to call on miss west the are not exactly of my world but it seemed kind to go if you were really honest you would add that you wanted to see what miss west is like it is all very well to put on airs of disinterested virtue but if george had not spoken of this girl it is rather doubtful whether you would have taken the trouble to go to her in your very best and â and you did put on your very best and wondered while you were doing it whether she would appreciate the lace you bought at i understand you wanted to impress her a little though you did try to make yourself believe that you were only wearing your finest clothes to do honor to her what a you are i the of a saint came to the door and asked me into the parlor where i was left to wait some time before miss west appeared i confessed then to myself how i had really half hoped that she would not be in but now the call is over i am glad to have seen her i am a little confused but i know what she is she is the most beautiful creature i ever saw she has a clear color when she like a red in september the last and the richest of all the of the year then her hair curls about her forehead in such dear little that it is enough to make one want to kiss her she speaks with a funny little western to her r s which might not please me in another but is charming from her lips the mouth that speaks is so pretty yes george was right of ber mind one cannot say quite as much she is not entirely well bred it seemed to me but then we are a little old fashioned in she did notice the and asked me where i got it oh she said when i had told her then you have been abroad yes i said i went with my father judge took you abroad several times did n t he put in yes i went with him three times oh my commented miss west how set up you must feel i don t think i do i answered laughing do you feel set up because you have the west that so few of us have visited why i never thought of that she responded you have n t any of you in the west have you january i have n t at least but that ain t anything to compare with going abroad she continued her face falling and going abroad three times too i should put on airs all the rest of my life if i d done that it is not fair to go on putting down in black and white things that she said without thinking i am ashamed of the satisfaction i found myself taking in her i was even so unfair to her that i could not help thinking that she somehow did not ring true i wonder if a woman can ever be entirely just to another woman who has been praised by the man she cares for if not i will be an exception to my sex i i will not be small and mean just because miss west is so lovely that no man could see her without â well without admiring her greatly january i went down to the mill this afternoon to see daniel and to represent to him the of the faithful at frozen prayer meetings he was standing in the door of the mill which was open to the brisk air and his frock gave a picturesque air to his great figure he greeted me pleasantly as he always does i ve come on business i said your own or somebody s else he asked with a grin not exactly mine i admitted what has aunt sent you for now he demanded i laughed at his penetration you are too sharp to be deceived i said aunt did send me they tell me you are trying to destroy the church by them all to death at the prayer meetings the of a saint aunt can t be frozen she s too dry that is n t at all a nice thing to say i said smiling you can t cover your by her he showed his teeth and settled himself against the door post more comfortably why did n t she come herself he inquired she said that she was afraid you d pop her into the you see what a monster you are considered i would n t be willing to spoil my meal daniel likes to play at and if he had ever had a chance might have some skill at it as it is i like to see how he it if i am not always impressed by the wit of what he says i said why do you the people so in the i have n t known of anybody s being frozen but why don t you have a fire i persisted if you don t want to build it there are boys enough that can be hired how is your mother to day was the only answer the vouchsafed she s very comfortable thank you why don t you have a fire makes folks sleepy he declared and once more oflf abruptly to another subject

2Charles Dickens

did you know tom s gone oflf yes where s he gone i don t know why should i if you don t know daniel commented i suppose nobody does why don t you have a fire in the i demanded determined to tire him out january you asked me that before he responded with a grin of delight i gave it up then for i saw that there was nothing to be got out of him in that mood i looked up at the sky and saw how the afternoon was i must go home i said mother may want me but i do wish you would be reasonable about the i give you a load of wood if you use it send the wood and we see was all the promise i could extract from the dear old daniel was evidently not to be and i came away without any assurance of on his part the faithful will have still to endure the cold i suppose but i have made an effort what i said to and what said to me is not what i sat down to write i have been lingering over it because i hated to put down what happened to me after i left the mill why should i write it this is not a and nothing forces me to set these things down i really write it as a penance for the mood i have been in ever since i may as well have my thoughts on paper as to keep turning them over and over in my mind i crossed the foot bridge and turned up water street i went on pleased by the brown water showing through the broken ice in the mill and the f of snow in the beyond like queer white birds i smiled to myself at the remembrance of daniel and somehow felt warmed toward him as i always do despite all his ways he kindness of heart through all his the of a saint suddenly i saw george coming toward me with miss west they did not notice me at first they were so engaged in talking and laughing together my mood instantly but i said to myself that i certainly ought to be glad to see george enjoying himself and in any case a lady does not show her foolish feelings so i went toward them trying to look as i had before j caught sight of them they saw me in a moment and instantly their laughter stopped if they had come forward simply and at ease i should have thought no more about it i think but no one could see their confusion without feeling that they expected me to and if they expected me to it seems to me they must have been saying things â but probably this is all my imagination and mean jealousy you see i ve captured him miss west called out in rather a high voice as we came near each other i have no doubt he was a very willing captive i answered smiling and holding out my hand i realize now how i hated to give her my hand and most certainly her manner was not entirely that of a lady we ve been for a long walk she went on and now i suppose i ought to let you have him i could n t think of taking him i am only going home but it seems real mean to keep him after i ve had him all the afternoon i must give him to you i hope he wouldn t be so as to be given and leave you to go home alone i said that is not the way we treat strangers in january oh you must n t call me a stranger miss west responded twisting her head to look up into george s face i m in love with the place and i should admire to live here all the rest of my life to this i had nothing to say george had not spoken a word i could not look at him but i moved on now i felt that i must get away from this girl with her strange western speech and her familiar manner good by i said mother will want me and i mustn t linger any longer i managed to smile until i had left them but the tears would come as i hurried up the hill toward home oh how can i bear it i january the happiness of george is the thing which should be considered in any case i am helpless i can only wait in woman s fashion even if i were convinced he would be happier and better with me â and how can i tell that â what is there i could do my duty is by mother s sick bed and even if my pride would let me struggle for the possession of any man i am not free to try even that degrading conflict i should know moreover that any man saved in spite of himself would be apt to look back with regret to the woman he was saved from s letter l is not often repeated in life i am afraid still if one could be sure that it is a danger and he were saved this might be borne if it were surely for his good to think less of me i might bear it somehow hard as it would be but my hands are tied there is nothing for me but waiting january george met last night as she the of a saint was coming here and sent word that he had to drive over to i thought it odd for him to send me such a message instead of coming himself for he had not seen me since i met him in the street with miss west to day aunt came in

2Charles Dickens

and the moment i saw her i knew that she had something to say that it would not be pleasant to hear what s george taking that west girl over to for she asked it was like a in the back but i tried not to why should n t he take her i responded aunt gave a characteristic and her foot violently if he wants to perhaps he should she answered the subject dropped there but i wonder a little why she put it that way january our engagement is broken george is gone and the memory of six years he says had better be wiped out january i could not tell mother to day by the time i got my courage up it was afternoon and i feared lest she should be too excited to sleep to night to morrow morning she must know ii february i wonder sometimes if human pride is not stronger than human affection certainly it seems sometimes that we feel the wound to vanity more than the to love i suppose that the truth is that the little where the blow for the moment it seemed to me to night as if i felt more the sudden knowledge that the village knows of my broken engagement than i did the suffering of the fact but i shall have forgotten this to morrow and the real grief will be left miss tall and gaunt came in just at twilight she brought a lovely moss rose bud why miss i said you have never cut the one bud off your moss rose i thought that was as dear to you as the apple of your eye it was she answered with her air that s why i brought it mother will be delighted i said that is if she can forgive you for picking it it isn t for your mother miss said with a sudden softening of her voice it is for you i m an old woman you know and i ve it s my whim for you to have the bud because i ve watched it growing and loved it almost as if it were my own baby the of a saint then i knew that she had heard of the broken engagement the sense of the village gossip the idea of being talked over at the sewing circle came to me so vividly and so dreadfully that for a moment i could hardly get my breath then i remembered the sweetness of miss s act and i went to her and kissed her the poor old dear had tears in her eyes but she said nothing she understood i am sure that i could not talk but that i had seen what she meant me to see her sympathy and her love we sat down before the fire in the gathering dusk and talked of indifferent things she praised peter s beauty although the ungrateful peter refused to stay in her lap and would not be gracious imder her caresses she did not remain long and she was gay after her fashion miss is apt to cover real feeling with a decent veil of now i must go home and get my party ready she said rising with characteristic suddenness are you going to have a party i asked in some surprise i have one every night my dear she returned with her laugh all the ghosts come it is n t very gay but it s very select she hurried away and left me more touched than i should have wished her to see february it was well for me that miss s visit prepared me last night for to day broke in upon me with the most childish frankness miss she burst out ain t you going to marry george no my dear i answered but you must n t say ain t aren t then but i thought you promised years and years ago dear said i this isn t a thing that you may talk about you are too young to understand and it is vulgar to talk to people about their private affairs unless they begin but it s no than â there s no such word as no worse than to break one s word is it when two persons make an agreement they have a right to it if they change their minds and that is not breaking their word how do the work all right answered but father said that you and george â i said as firmly as i could i have told you before that you must not repeat what your father says it is n t wrong she returned rather i was surprised at her manner but i suppose that she is always fighting with her conscience about right and wrong so the mere idea makes her i am not so sure i told her trying to turn the whole matter off with a laugh i don t think it s very moral to be ill bred do you why father says manners don t matter if the heart is right this is only another way of saying that if the heart is right the manners will be right if you in your heart consider whether your father would wish you to tell me what he did not say for my ears you will not be likely to say it that sounds rather now it is written down but i had to stop the child and i could not be harsh the of a saint with her she evidently wanted much to go on with the subject but i would not hear another word how the town must be discussing my affairs february mother is certainly growing weaker and although dr will not admit to me that she is failing i am convinced that he thinks so she has been telling me this afternoon of things which she wishes given

2Charles Dickens

to this and that relative or friend it will not make me any more likely to die she said and i shall feel more comfortable if i have these things off my mind i ve thought them out and if you put them on paper then i shall feel perfectly at liberty to forget them if i find it too much trouble to remember i put down the things which she told me trying hard not to let her see how the tears my writing when i had finished she lay quiet for some time and then she said â may i say one thing about george she has said nothing to me before except comforting words to show me that she felt for me and that she knew i could not bear to talk about it you know you may i told her though i confess i shrank at the thought i know how it hurts you now she said and for that i am grieved to the heart but dear i can t help feeling that it is best after all you are too much his superior to be happy with him you would try to make him what you think he ought to be and you could n t do it the stuff is n t in him he d get tired of trying and you would be so for him that in the end i m afraid neither of you would be happy february she stopped and rested a little and then went on i am afraid i don t comfort you much she said with a sigh i suppose that that must be left to time but i want you to remember it is much less hard for me to leave you alone than it would have been to go with the feeling that you were to make a mistake that would and your whole life the tears came into her eyes and she put out her dear shadowy hand so feebly that i could not bear it i dropped on my knees by the bed and fell to sobbing in the most childish way mother patted my head as if i were the baby i was acting there there she said the as your father would have said do not cry over misfortunes they live them down she is right and i must not break down again february there are times when i seem like a stranger visiting myself and i most wish that this guest would go i must determine not to think about my feelings or rather without to make resolutions i must stop thinking about myself the way to do i suppose is to think about others and that would be all very well if it were not that the others i inevitably think about are george and miss west i cannot help knowing that he is with her a great deal somehow it is in the air and comes to me against my will if i go out i cannot avoid seeing them walking or driving together i am afraid that george s law business must suffer i should never have let him neglect it so for me perhaps i am cold blooded what mother said to me the other day has been much in my thoughts i wonder how it was ever the of a saint possible for me to be engaged to a man of whom neither father nor mother entirely approved to care for him was something i could not help i am sure of that bat the engagement is another matter it came about very naturally after his being here so much in father s last illness george was so kind and about the business that we were all full of gratitude and in my blindness i did not perceive how mother really felt i realize now it was his kindness to father and the relief his help brought to mother which made it hard for her to say then that she did not approve of the engagement and so soon after she became a helpless invalid that things went on naturally in their own course i am sure that if mother could have known george as i have known him she would have cared for him she has hardly seen him in all these years she hopes that i will forget but i should be poorer if i could one does not leave off loving just because circumstances alter he is free to go his way but that does not make me any the less his if there is any virtue in my being so february i met mrs in the street today her black eyes brighter more piercing more snapping than ever she came up to me in her quick way stopped suddenly tall and strong and looked at me as if she were to read some profound secret hid in the very bottom of my soul i could never by any possibility be half so mysterious as mrs s looks seemed to make me do you write to tom she demanded i don t even know where he is i answered then you don t write to him february no that s a pity mrs went on her eyes piercing me so that they almost gave me a sensation of physical discomfort he ought to know i looked at her a moment in silence thinking she might explain her words to know what i asked at length about you and george she responded nodding her head emphatically but if you don t know where he is that s the whole of it good day she was gone before i could gather my wits to tell her that the news could make no difference to tom in discussing my separation from george i suppose the village â but i will not be unkind because i am unhappy i know and know with sincere pain

2Charles Dickens

that and mrs believe that i could have saved tom if i had been willing to marry him i have cared for tom from and i am fond of him now in spite of all that has happened to show how weak he is but it would be wicked for him to be allowed to suppose the breaking of my engagement makes any difference in our relations he cannot be written to however so i need not trouble february miss west has gone back to but i do not see that this makes any especial difference to me aunt told me this afternoon evidently thinking that i should wish to hear it and evidently too trying not to let me see that she regarded it as more than an ordinary bit of news i only wonder how long it will be before george will follow her oh i do hope she will make him happy i february the consequence of my being of no the of a saint religion seems to be that i am regarded as a sort of ground by persons of all where they may air their troubles now it is a catholic who asks advice perhaps i had better set up as a consulting something or other are the only sort of female consulting things that i think of and they are so far from respectable that i could not be a medium but i shall have to invent a name to call myself by if this goes much further this time it is is as devout a little superstitious body as i ever saw she firmly believes all that her church teaches her and she believes all sorts of queer things besides i wonder sometimes that her small mind which never can remember to lay the table properly can hold in remembrance all the droll she perhaps the reason why she is so a servant and is so constantly under the severe of s awful is that her mental faculties are exhausted in remembering signs and i ve no right to make fun of her however for i don t like to salt myself the which brings to me is not one which it is easy to handle she believes that her church has the power of eternal life and death over her and she wishes in defiance of her church s to marry a man she declares that unless she can marry ran her heart will be broken into the most numerous fragments and she me to devise a method by which she can accomplish the difficult feat of getting the better of the church sure miss she said in the most way in the world you re that clever that ye could february a way what would get round father o he s no that quick at things i suspect from something the child let fall that with genuine righteous hatred of the scarlet woman had urged to fly in the face of her church and marry ran would regard it as a signal triumph of grace if could be so far persuaded to the of i can understand perfectly s way of looking at the matter but i have no more against s church than i have against s so this view does not appeal to me i said don t you believe in your church she broke into of her entire and seemed inclined to feel that harm might come to her from some unseen if such charges were made so as to be heard by spirits then i don t see why you come to me i said if you are a good catholic i should think that that settled the matter but i thought you d think of some way of round it she responded beginning to cry me heart is broke for ran an it is that go to the bad if i don t have him poor little ignorant soul i how could one reason with her or what was there to say i could only try to show her that she could not be happy if she did the thing that she knew to be wrong but what for is ye me that when ye don t it s wrong she demanded evidently i do think it is wrong to act against a church in which you believe i said the of a saint i am afraid i did not in the least comfort her for she went away with an air in which indignation was mingled with disappointment february is all right she told me today her apron and blushing very prettily that she saw last night and was engaged to him already he has it seems personal attractions superior to those of ran and added that on the whole she prefers a first hand husband so i m obliged to ye for yer me to give ran the go by she concluded i thought yer would i do not know whether the swiftness of the change of or the amazing conclusion of her remarks moved me more february father used to say that was the thing on the face of the earth and he would certainly be amused if he could know how her pride has increased i could not leave mother this afternoon and so i sent down with a of soup to the poor old refused to have it because i did not bring it myself she wasn t a to have me send her soup she informed i am afraid that was enough to make some remark upon the fact that i carry her food pretty often for old said â i can see her wrinkled old nose turned up in supreme scorn as she brought it out â that s different when miss brings me a little thing now and then â and it ain t often she take that trouble either i â that s just a friend dropping

2Charles Dickens

in with something to make her sure of her welcome i i shall have to leave february everything to to go and make my e with for the old goose would starve to death before she would take anything from the of the poor and i do not see how she keeps alive anyway february i had a note from george this morning about the and in it he said that he is to be away for a week or two that means â but i have no longer any right to about him it is not my business what it means henceforth he must come and go and i must not even wonder about it february i must face the fact that mother will not be with me much longer i can see how she grows weaker and i can only be thankful that she does not suffer she speaks of death now and then as calmly as if it were a matter of every day routine mrs dr said this morning you seem to be no more afraid of death than you are of a sunrise i m not enough to be afraid she answered with her little smile dear little mother she is so serene so sweet so quiet nothing could be more dignified and yet nothing more entirely simple she is dying like a she lies there as gracious as if she had invited death as a dear friend and awaited him with the welcome the of it all is what me most when i am with her it is impossible for me to feel that anything terrible is at hand she might be going away to pass a pleasant summer visit somewhere but there is no suspicion of anything dreadful or painful the of a saint it is not that she is indifferent either â she has always found life a thing to be glad of i should have liked well enough to stay a while longer to bother you she said after dr had gone but we must take things as they come it s better perhaps you need a rest dear mother she is always so lovely and so wonderful february mother has been brighter to day and really seems better if it will only last i i asked her last night if she expected to see father she lay quiet a moment and then she turned her face to smile on me before she answered i don t know she said i have wondered about that a good deal and i cannot be sure if he is alive and knows then i shall see him i am sure of that it is only life that has been keeping us apart if he is not any more why then i shall not be either and so of course i can t be unhappy i feel just as he used to when he had you read that translation from something to him the week before he died the thing that said death could not be an evil for if we kept on existing we would be no longer by the body and that if we did n t it was no matter for we should n t know she was still a moment looking into some great distance with her patient sunken eyes then she smiled again and said as if to herself but i think i shall see him february george is married aunt has been in to tell me she mentioned it as if it were february a thing in which i should have no more interest than in any bit of village news she did not watch me i remember now or ask my opinion as she generally does she was wonderfully and kind only i can see she thought i ought to know about it and that the best way was to put the matter and simply as if it had no possible sentiment connected with it when she had done her errand she went on to make remarks about and the fires just what i do not know for i could not listen then she went away i did not expect it so soon i knew that it must come but i was not prepared for this suddenness i supposed that i should hear of the engagement and get used to it and then come to know the wedding was to be and so come gradually to the thing itself that george forever out of my life it is better it is a thousand times better to have it all over at once i might have through the days as they brought nearer and nearer the time when george was to be her husband instead of mine now it is done without my knowing for three days he has been married and have only to think of him as the husband of another woman and try to take it as a matter of course whether george has done this because he cares so much for her or not he has done what is kindest for me it is like waking from the to find that the tooth is out we may be and sore but the worst is past and we may begin slowly perhaps but really to recover yet it is so soon how completely he must be carried away to be so forgetful of all that is past we were engaged six years and he miss west after an acquaintance of hardly as many weeks i the of a saint wonder if all men are like this it seems sometimes as if they were not capable of the long brooding devotion of women but it is better so and i would not have him thinking about me he must be wrapped up in her i do care most for his happiness and his happiness now lies in his thinking of her forgetting all the six years when

2Charles Dickens

he was â when i thought he was mine i will not moon and i will not fret that george has changed does not of course alter my feeling i am sore and hurt i see life now in its uses he has cut me off from the happiness of serving him and helping him as a wife but as a friend there is still much that i may do very likely i can help his wife â she seems so far short of what his wife should be for service in all loyalty i belong to him still and that is the thought which must help me february i have already had a chance to do something for george i hope that i have not been unfair to my friends but i do not see how i could decide any other way old lady came in this afternoon with her snowy curls and cheeks pink from the wind almost as soon as she was seated she began with characteristic i know you won t mind my coming straight to the point my dear she said i came to ask you about george s new wife do you think we had better call on her the question had come to me before but i confess i had thought of it only as a personal matter mr s people were hardly of our sort you know she continued in her gentle voice though of february course after your father took him into his office as a student we all felt like receiving him i never knew him until after that i have seen a good deal of him i said wondering if my voice sounded queer you know he helped settle the estate it did seem mrs went on that his mother did not live for of course we could hardly have known her she was a hardy you know from but i have always found mr a very young man especially for one of his class he is really very intelligent as we have received him i said i don t see how we can refuse to receive his wife that s the way i thought you would feel about it old lady answered but i wished to be sure as he has been received entirely on account of his connection with your family i told aunt that it ought to be for you to say whether the favor should be extended to his wife i am informed that she is very pretty but she is not i believe exactly one of our sort she is exceedingly pretty i assured her i have seen her she is not â well i am afraid that she is rather western but i shall call then that settles it of course we shall do whatever you decide i suppose he will bring her to our church i say our because you really belong to it you are just a lamb that has found a place with a off and got outside the fold we shall have you back some time i am afraid i said laughing that i should only disgrace you and injure the fold by pulling a fresh off somewhere to get out again the of a saint she laughed in turn and fluttered her small hands in her delightful way i am not afraid of that she responded when the lord leads you in he is able to make you want to stay i hope your mother is comfortable so that is settled and miss west â why am i such a coward about writing it â mrs is to be one of us george will be glad that she is not left out of society ill march march mother s calmness keeps me ashamed of the hot ache in my heart and the restlessness which makes it so hard for me to keep an outward composure is rather shocked that she should be so entirely unmoved in the face of death and the dear foolish old soul in from her cradle must needs believe that mother is somehow her future welfare by this very serenity don t you think miss she said to me yesterday that you could persuade your mother to see mr she d do it to oblige you but it would n t oblige me oh miss think of her immortal soul i said as gently as i could she was so distressed you know how mother always felt about those things it certainly could n t do any good now to try to alter her opinions and it would only tire her i left as quickly as i could without her feelings but i might have known that her conscience would force her to speak to mother bless me mother said to her i m no more wicked because i m going to die than if i were going to live i can t help dying you know so i don t feel responsible the of a saint when tried to go on and broke down with tears mother put out her thin hand like a sweet shadow she said i know how you feel and i thank you for speaking but don t be troubled where there are many don t you think there may be one even for those who did not see the truth if they were honest in their blindness march how far away everything else seems when the foot of death is almost at the door as i sit by the bedside in the nights wondering whether he will come before morning i think of the nights in which i may sometime be waiting for death myself i wonder whether i shall be as serene and absolutely as mother is it is after all only the terror of the unknown why should we be more ready to think of the unknown as dreadful than as delightful we certainly hail the

2Charles Dickens

thought of new experiences in the body why not out of it novelty in itself must give a wonderful charm to that new life at least for a long time think of the pleasure of having youth all over again for we shall at least be young to any new existence into which we go just as babies are young to this death is terrible it seems to me only when we think of ourselves who are left behind not when we think of those who go life is a thing so beautiful that it may be sad to think of them as deprived of it but the more beautiful it is the more i am assured that whatever power made the earth must be able to make something better if life is good a higher step in must be nobler and however we mourn none of us would dare to say that our grief is caused march by the belief that our friends have through death gone on to sorrow march this morning â march mother was buried to day i have taken out this book to try to set down â to set down what not what i have felt since the end came that is not possible and if it were i have not the courage i suppose the mournful truth is that in the dreadful loneliness which death has left in the house i got out my as a companion one s own thoughts are forlorn company when they are so sad but if they are written out they may come to have more reality and the journal to seem more like another personality how strange and shameful the weakness is which makes it hard for us to be alone the feeling that we cannot endure the brooding universe about us unless we have hold of some human hand yet we are so small â the poor naked soul a single of down tossed about by all the winds which fill the of an infinite universe why should we not be afraid father would say why should we he believed that the universe took care of everything in it because everything is part of itself you ve only to think of our own human instinct of self preservation on a scale as great as you can conceive he told me the day before he died and you get some idea of the way in which the universal must protect the particular i am afraid that i am not able to grasp the idea as he did i have thought of it many times and of how calm and dignified he was in those last days i am a woman and the universe is so great that it turns the of a saint me cold to think of it i am able to get comfort oat of father s idea only by remembering how sure he was of it and how completely real it was to him yet mother was as sure as he she told me once that not to be entirely at ease would be to father s be and she was no less serene in the face of death than he was yes it would be to them both to doubt and i do not in my heart of hearts but it is lonely lonely â march it is touching to see how human kindness the great sympathy with what is real and lasting in the human heart the of in the face of the great tragedy of death would be at any hint that she wavered in her belief yet she said to me to day â don t you worry about your mother miss she was a good woman if her eyes were not opened to the truth as it is in her heavenly father u look after her i guess she sees things some different now she s face to face with him and i believe she had the root of the matter in her somehow though she hadn t grace given her to let her light shine among men dear old she is too loving in her heart not to be obliged to her when she is brought to the actual application of the awful belief she and she is too human not to feel that a life so patient and so upright as mother s must lead to eternal peace no matter what the creed teaches march the gray is chasing its tail before the fire and i have been looking at it and the blazing wood through my tears until i could bear it march no longer the moonlight is on the snow in the and must show that great black patch where the grave is she cannot be there she cannot be conscious of the bleak chill of the earth and the question whether she is anywhere and is conscious at all is in my mind constantly she must be she cannot have gone out like a candle flame she said to mr that day brought him and mother was too gentle to refuse to see him that she had always believed god must have far too much self respect not to take care of creatures he had made and that she was not in the least troubled because she did not feel any responsibility about what was to happen after death she was right of course but he was he began to out something but mother stopped him i did n t mean to shock you she said gently but don t you think mr i am near enough to the end to have the privilege of saying what i really believe he would n t have been human if he could have resisted the voice that said it or the smile that enforced the words now she knows she has found the heart of truth somewhere out there in the sky which to us looks

2Charles Dickens

so wide so thick with stars which might be abiding places she may have met father how much he at least must have to tell her whether he would know about us or not i cannot decide in any case i think he would like her to tell him sh is learning wonderful things yes she knows and i am sure she is glad march george has been to see me in the and grief of the last fortnight i have hardly the op a saint remembered him and he has brought his wife home without my giving the matter a thought it is wonderful that anything could so hold me that i have not been moved but they came back the day after the funeral and i did not hear of it until a couple of days later it gave me a great shock when i saw him coming up the walk but by the time he was in the house i had collected myself and i had i think my usual manner he was most kind and sympathetic and yet he could not help showing how ill at ease he was perhaps he could not help reflecting that my duty to mother had been the thing which kept us apart and that it was strange for this to end just as there was no longer the possibility of our coming together i do not remember what george and i said to each other to night any more than i can recall what we said on that last time when he was here i might bring back that other talk out of the dull of pain but where would be the good nothing could come of it but new suffering we were both outwardly calm and self possessed i know and talked less like lovers than like men of business so a merchant might sell the of a fortune i fancy and when he was gone i went to prepare mother s night drink as calmly as if nothing had happened i did not dare not to be calm to night we met like the friends we promised to be he was uncomfortable at first but i managed to make him seem at ease or at least not show that he felt strange he looked at me rather curiously now and then i think he was astonished that i showed no more feeling about our past i cannot have him unhappy through me and he must feel that at least i march accept my fate serenely or he will be troubled i must not give myself the gratification of proving that i am constant he may believe i am cold and perhaps heartless but that is better than for him to feel responsible for my being miserable what did he tell me that night it was in effect â though i think he hardly realized what he said or implied â how our long engagement had worn out the passion of a lover and he felt only the friendship of a brother the coming of a new real love had shown him the difference does this mean that married love goes through such a change will he by and by have lived through his first love for his wife and if so what will be left that is not my concern but would this same thing have come if i had been his wife and should i now find myself if we had been married when we hoped to be only a friend who could not so fill his heart as to shut out a new love better a that it should be as it is at least he was not tied to me when the discovery came but it is not always so certainly father and mother loved each other more after long years of living together â but this is not a train of thought which it is well to follow what is must be met and lived with but i will not my heart by dwelling on what might have been george was most kind to come and it must have been hard for him but i am afraid it was not a happy half hour for either of us i suppose that any woman brought face to face with a man she still loves when he has done with loving her must feel as if she were that is nonsense however and i fought against the feeling now i am happy in the thought that at least i have done one thing i have the of a saint made it possible for george to come to me if hereafter he need me if he were ia trouble and i could help i know he would appeal to me as simply as ever if i can help him i am yet free to do it i thank god for this march i have asked to stay with me for a while dear old miss she is so poor and so proud and so i know that she is half starving in that great gaunt house that up so among its of trees as if it were an asylum for the ghosts of all the generations of the family somehow it seems to me that in america the decayed as they are called in england have a harder time than anywhere else in the world miss has to live up to her instincts and her traditions or be bitterly and miserable people generally assume that the family pride behind this is weak if it is not wicked but surely the ideal of an honorable race cultivated and right minded for generations is a thing to be cherished the growth of civilization must depend a good deal upon having these ideas of family preserved somehow father used to say the great weakness of modern times is that nowadays the best of the race instead of saying to those

2Charles Dickens

below climb up to us say we will come down to you i suppose this is hardly a fair up of modern views of social conditions though of course i know very little about them but i am sure that the way in which class distinctions are laughed at is a mistake i hope i hate false pride as much as anybody could yet dear miss trying hard not to disgrace her ancestors and being march true to her idea of what a should do is to me pathetic and fine she cares more for the traditions of her race than she does for her own tion and anybody who did not admire this strong and unselfish spirit must look at life from a point of view that i cannot understand i can have her here now on an excuse that she will not suspect and she shall be fed and rested as she has not been for years march i forgot miss s plants when i asked her to come here i went over this morning to invite her and i found her her great tree with tender little and with loving glances which were like those a mother gives her pet child in dressing it for a party the sun came in at the bay window and the which are the pride of miss s heart were coming finely into blossom if the poor old soul is ever really happy it is in the midst of her plants and things grow for her as for nobody else do look she said with the greatest eagerness that slip of that came from the wreath is really i do think it will live she brought me a full of water into which was stuck a bit of from the wreath that cousin sent for mother miss had asked me if she might go to the for the slip she was so pathetic when she spoke of it it is n t just to have a new plant she said it is partly that it would always remind me of your mother and i should love it for that to day she was wonderful her eyes shone as she looked at the and showed me the tiny white point like a little mouse s tooth that had begun to the of a saint come through the bark under the green water it was as if she had herself somehow accomplished the miracle of creation i could have taken her into my arms and cried over her as she stood there so happy with just this slip and her plants for family and riches i told her my errand and she began to look troubled unconsciously i am sure she glanced around at the flowers and in to instant i understood oh i beg your pardon i said before she had time to speak i forgot that you cannot leave the plants i was thinking how i could manage she answered evidently troubled between the wish to oblige me and the thought that her precious plants could not be left you need not manage i said i was foolish enough not to think of them of course you can t leave them i might come over in the she proposed hesitatingly i could make up the fire in the morning and at this time of the year the room would be warm enough for them till i came back at night i know you must be most lonely at night and i would stay as late as i could you are a dear thing i said and her tone brought tears to my eyes if you will come over after breakfast and stay until after supper that will do nicely â if you think you can spare the time there s nothing i can spare better she said laughing i m like the man that was on his way to jail and was met by a beggar i ve nothing to give you but time he said and that his honor just gave me so i don t like to give it away that s one of your father s stories march i stayed talking with her for an hour and it was touching to see how she was trying to be entertaining and to make me cheerful i did come away with my thoughts entirely taken off of myself and my affairs and that is something march it has done me good to have miss here she makes her forlorn little and tells her stories in her big voice and somehow all the time is thinking i can see of brightening the days for me peter was completely scornful for two days but now he passes most of his time in her lap of course but gracious miss has been as dear and kindly as possible and to night in the twilight she told me the romance of her life i do not know how it came about i suppose that she was thinking of mother and wanted me to know what mother had been to her perhaps too she may have had a feeling that it would comfort me to know that she understood out of her own suffering the pain that had come to me through george s marriage i do not remember her father and mother they both died when i was very young i have heard that mr was a very handsome man who the village greatly by his love of horses and wine but father used to tell me he was a scholar and a cultivated man i am afraid he did not care very much for the comfort of others and aunt always speaks of him as a who broke his wife s heart took care of him after mrs died and was devoted to him they say she was a woman before she was left alone with that big house and she sold the

2Charles Dickens

silver to pay his debts the of a saint to night she spoke of him with a sort of pitiful pride yet with an air as if she had to defend him perhaps even to herself i m an old woman she said and my own life seems to me like an old book that i read so long ago that i only half remember it it is forty years since i was engaged it is strange i had never known of this before but i suppose it passed out of people s minds before i was old enough to notice i never knew you had been engaged miss i said then your mother never told you what she did for me she answered looking into the fire that was like her she was more than a mother to me at the time â she broke off and then repeated it was like her not to speak of it there are few women like your mother we were both silent for a time and i had to struggle not to break down miss sat looking into the fire with the tears running down her wrinkled cheeks she did not seem conscious of them and the thought came to me that there had been so much sadness in her life that she was too accustomed to tears to notice them it is forty years she said again i was called a beauty then though you d find that hard to believe now when i m like an old in a i suppose no young person ever really believes that an old woman can have been beautiful unless there s a picture to prove it i show you a some time though after all what difference does it make at least he thought â another silence came here the embers in the fire march dropped softly and the dull march twilight gathered more and more thickly i felt as if i were being led into some sacred room closed many years but where the dead had once lain perhaps it was fanciful but it seemed almost as if i were seeing the place where poor miss s youth had died it was n t proper that i should marry him i know now father was right only sometimes â for myself i suppose i hadn t proper pride and i should n t have minded but father was right a could n t marry a of course i knew it all along and i vowed to myself over and over that i would n t care for him when a girl tells herself that she won t love a man she broke in with a bitter laugh the thing s done already it was so with me i need n t have promised not to love him if i had n t given him my whole heart already â what a girl calls her heart i would n t own it and over and over i told him that i did n t care for him and then at last â it was terrible to hear the voice in which she spoke she seemed to be choking and it was all that i could do to keep control of myself i could not have spoken even if there had been anything to say i wanted to take her in my arms and get her pitiful tear stained face hidden but i only sat quiet well we were engaged at last and i knew father would never consent but i hoped something would happen when we are young enough we all hope the wildest things will happen and we shall get what we want then father found out and then â and then â i don t blame father he was right i see now that he was right of course it would n t have done but then it almost killed me if it had n t been the of a saint for your mother dear i think i should have died i wanted to die but i had to take care of father i put out my hand and got hold of hers but i could not speak the tears dropped down so that they sparkled in the but she did not wipe them away i was crying myself for her old sorrow and mine seemed all part of the one great pain of the race somehow i felt as if to be a woman meant something so sad that i dared not think of it and the hardest was that he thought i was wrong to give him up he could not see it as i did and of course it was natural that he could n t understand how father would feel about the family i could never explain it to him and i could n t have borne to hurt his feelings by telling him is he â he is dead my dear he married over at and i hope he was happy i think probably he was men are happy sometimes when a woman would n t be i hope he was happy that was the whole of it we sat there silent until came to call us to supper when we stood up i put my arms about her and kissed her then she made a joke and wiped her eyes and through supper she was so gay that i could hardly keep back the tears poor poor lonely brave miss march cousin arrived yesterday according to her usual fashion preceded by a i tell her that if she followed her real inclinations she would her from the station and then race the messenger but she is constrained by her breeding to be a little more deliberate so i have the few hours of her journey in which to expect her it march is all part of her brisk way she can never move fast enough

2Charles Dickens

talk quickly enough get through whatever she is doing with rapidity enough i remember father s telling her once that she would never have patience to lie and wait for the day of judgment but would get up every century or two to hurry things along it always seems as if she would wear herself to in a week yet here she is more lively at sixty than i am at less than half that age she was very kind and softened wonderfully when she spoke of mother i think that she loved her more than she does any creature now alive aunt she said last night was n t human she was far too for that but she was too sweet and human for an angel for my part i think she was something far better than either and far more sensible this was a speech so characteristic that it brought me to tears and smiles together to night cousin came to the point of her errand with customary i came down she said to see how soon you expect to arrange to live with me i had n t expected anything about it i returned of course you would keep the house she went on entirely my feeble protest you might want to come back sometimes this summer i m going to take you to europe i am too much accustomed to her habit of planning things to be taken entirely by surprise but it did rather take my breath away to find my future so completely disposed of i felt almost as if i were not even to have a chance to protest but i never thought of giving up the house i managed to say the of a saint of course not why should you she returned briskly you have money enough to keep up the place and live where you please don t i know that for this ten years you and aunt have n t spent half your income keep it of course for as i say sometimes you may like to come back for old times sake i could only stare at her and laugh oh you laugh cousin remarked more forcibly than ever but you ought to understand that i ve taken charge of you we are all that are left of the family now and i m the head of it you are a foolish thing anyway and let everybody impose on your good nature you need somebody to look after you if i d had you in charge you d never have got tangled up in that foolish engagement i m glad you had the sense to break it i felt as if she had given me a blow in the face but i could not answer don t blush like that cousin commanded it s all over and you know i always said you were a fool to marry a country lawyer father was a country lawyer i retorted cousin was a judge and a man whose writings had given him a wide reputation don t outrage his memory by calling him a rustic for my part i never had any patience with him for burying himself in the country like a you forget that mother s health â i began but with cousin one is never sure of being allowed to complete a sentence oh yes she interrupted of course i forgot well if there could be an excuse aunt would serve for anything i beg your pardon march but now all tliat is past and gone and fortunately the family is still well enough remembered in boston for you to take up life there with very little trouble that s what i had in mind ten years ago when i insisted on your coming out people who saw me then will hardly remember me the folks that knew your father and mother she went on serenely are of course old people like me but they will help you to know the younger generation besides those you know will not have forgotten you a is not so easily forgotten and you were an uncommonly pretty bud what a fool you were not to marry i you always were a fool cousin generally a compliment in this manner and it prevents me from being too much elated by her praise she was interrupted here by the necessity of going to prepare for supper miss did not come over to day so we were alone together no sooner were we seated at the supper table than she to the attack when you live in boston she said i shall â suppose i should not live in boston i interrupted but you will what else should you do i might go on living here living here she cried out you don t call this living do you how long is it since you heard any music or saw a picture or went to the theatre or had any society i was forced to confess that music and painting and acting were all entirely lacking in but i the of a saint remarked that i had all the books that attracted me and i protested against her saying i had n t any society oh you see human beings now and then cousin observed coolly and i dare say they are very worthy creatures but you know yourself they are not society you haven t forgotten the year i brought you out i have not forgotten it of course and i cannot deny that when i think of that winter in boston the year i was nineteen i do feel a little mournful sometimes it was all so delightful and it is all so far away now i hardly heard what cousin said next i was thinking how a home in boston would be and how completely alone as for family i am cousin is the only near relative i have in

2Charles Dickens

the world and why should i not be with her it would be delightful perhaps i may manage to get in a week or two in town now and then but i cannot go away for long there would be nobody to start the reading or keep up the shakespeare club and what would become of e and or of all that dreadful tribe i dare say i am too proud of my consequence and that if i went away somebody would be found to look after things still i know i am useful here and it seems to me i am really needed besides i love the place and the people and i think my friends love me march cousin went home to day is at hand and she has a bonnet from paris â a perfect dream of a bonnet she said with the enthusiasm of a girl dove colored velvet and march and steel beads and two or three white tips a bonnet an angel could n t resist â and this bonnet must form part of the church service on the connection between paris and the proper of the day is not clear in my mind but when i said something of this sort to cousin she me with great gravity there is nothing in worse form than making jokes about sacred subjects your bonnet is n t sacred i retorted for i cannot resist sometimes the temptation to her or at least it can t be till it s been to church on you know what i mean was her answer when you live with me i shall insist upon your speaking respectfully of the church i was n t speaking of the church i persisted laughing at the gravity with which she always takes up its i was speaking of your bonnet your paris bonnet your bonnet your frivolous giddy girlish bonnet oh you may think it too young for me she said eagerly forgetting the church in her excitement but it is n t really it s as modest and appropriate as anything you ever saw and so becoming and oh i can always trust your taste cousin i told her but you know you re a worldly old thing you d insist upon having your robes fitted by a fashionable tailor again she looked grave and shocked in a flash how can you you are a worse heathen than ever but then there is no church in so i suppose it is not to be wondered at that s another reason for taking you away from this wilderness the of a saint there are two churches as you know very well i said nonsense they re only meeting houses â however when you come to boston to live we will see i told you last night that i shouldn t give up i know you did but i did n t mind that you must give it up she went away upon this and refusing to accept any other decision i did so far yield as to promise that i would go abroad with her this summer i need to see the world with a broader view again and i shall enjoy it to think of the picture fills me with joy already i should be willing to cross the atlantic just to see once more the tailor of s in the national gallery it is odd it comes into my mind at this moment that he looks something like tom or tom looks something like him very likely it is all nonsense yes i will go for the summer â to leave here altogether â no that is not to be thought of march the whole town is excited over an accident up at the lake this morning a man and his son were drowned by breaking through the ice they had been up to some of the and it is said they were not sober they were and part of the family in the little red house the mother and the daughter are left i hope it is not heartless to hate to think of them i have no doubt that they suffer like others only it is not likely folk of this sort are as sensitive as we are it is a mercy that they are not march march the family seems just now to be forced upon my attention and that in no pleasant way aunt came in this and seated herself with an air of mysterious importance she looked at me with her keen eyes penetrating and humorous even when she is most serious and seemed to be examining me to discover what i was thinking it was evident at once that she had news this is generally true for she seems always to have something to tell her mind news as salt moisture and her greatest pleasure is to impart what she has heard she has generally with me the air of being a little uncertain how i may receive her tidings like all persons of strong mind and a sense of humor she is by nature in sympathy with the habit of looking at life frankly and and i believe that secretly and only half she me my mental freedom sometimes i have suspected her of leading me on to say things which she would have felt it wrong to say herself because they are but which she has too much common sense not to with she is convinced though that such freedom of thought as mine is wrong and she nobly herself of the pleasure of being frank in her thoughts when this would involve any reflection upon the which are her rule of life she a lively mind by feeding it on scraps of gossip and on them in her way she is never unkind in her thought i am sure but she does sometimes say sharp things like lady however she people

2Charles Dickens

out of pure good nature i looked at her this morning as she sat swinging her foot and â there is no other word for it â the of a saint her green and i wondered as i have often wondered before how a woman really so clever could be content to pass so much of her time in the gathering and of mere i suppose that it is because there is so little in the village to appeal to the intellectual side of her and her mind must be occupied she might be a brilliant woman in a wider sphere now she seems something like a in building of and boots on a floor i confess too that i wondered as i looked at her if she represented my future i thought of cousin s of what i should come to if i stay in and i tried to decide whether i should come in time to be like aunt a general of news from house to house an old maid aunt to the whole village with no real kindred and with no interests wider than those of village gossip i cannot believe it but i suppose at my age she would not have believed it of herself we re really getting to be quite like a city aunt said with a which showed me there was something important behind this remark are we i responded i confess i don t see how she there s wickedness here that isn t generally looked for outside of the city oh wickedness i i said there is plenty of that everywhere i suppose but i never have thought we have more than our share of it she her foot more violently and had what might have seemed a considerable lunch on her green march veil before she spoke again â though it is wicked for me to make fun of her then she took a fresh start what are you knitting she asked what started in january to be some for the boy he brings our milk and he never seems to have i don t wonder much was her comment his mother has so many babies that she can t be expected to take care of them poor mrs i said i should think the poor thing would be discouraged i am ashamed that i don t do more for her i don t see that you are called upon to take care of all the poor in the town but if you could stop her increasing her family it d be the best thing you could do when aunt makes a remark like this i feel it is discreet to change the subject i hope that now the weather is getting i observed you are not so cold in prayer meetings she was not diverted even by this chance to dwell on her pet grievance but went her own way i suppose you feel now you ve got to look out for that girl too she said that girl i repeated i tried not to show it but the blood rushed to my heart and made me faint i realized something terrible was coming though i had nothing to go upon but the old gossip about tom and the fact that i had seen him come from the red house her sin has found her out returned aunt with indignant emphasis for my part i don t see what such creatures are allowed to live for think what kind of a mother she will make they d better the of a saint take her and her baby and drown em along with her father and brother aunt was all i could say well t suppose you think i m not very ble but it does make me mad to see that sort of â â i don t know what you are talking about i interrupted has the girl a child no but she s going to have her mother s gone off and left her and she s down sick with besides her mother has gone yes and it d be good if there was anybody to take care of the girl it is useless to ask aunt how she knows all that goes on in the town she news from the air i believe i reflected that she is not always right and i hoped now she might be mistaken but somebody must be with her if she s down with i said yes that old woman s there the of the poor sent her but she s about twice as bad as nobody i should think if i was sick and she came round i know i d ask her to go away and let me die in peace it was evident enough that aunt was a good deal stirred up but i did not dare to ask her why if there is anything worse behind this scandal i had rather not know it we were fortunately interrupted and aunt went soon so i heard no more i was sick with the of having tom connected in my thought with that wretched girl and i do hope that it is only my foolishness he cannot have fallen to such depths march march i have heard no more from the and i must hope things were somehow not as aunt thought to day i learned that she is shut up with a cold i must go in to morrow and see her miss is a gi eat comfort the dear old soul begins really to look better and the about her lips is yielding to good feeding she tells me stories of the old people of the town whom i can just remember and she is full of reverence for both father and mother of course i never talk with her but i am surprised sometimes to find that under the shell of her is a good

2Charles Dickens

deal of i suppose any kindly mortal who accepted the old made for those nearest and dearest and human nature will always make for itself i should think that an imaginative belief in a creed a belief that realized the cruelty of must either drive one mad or make one from simple horror nobody but a savage could worship a god and not become insane from the horror of being in the clutch of an power march i have had a most painful visit from he came in looking so gray and old that it shocked me to see him he shook hands as if he did not know what he was doing and then sat down in a dazed way slowly his hat and fixing his eyes on it as if he were blind i tried to say something but only stumbled on in little about the weather to which he paid so little attention that it was evident he had no idea what i was saying in a minute or two i was reduced to silence one cannot go on saying mechanical the of a saint in the face of suffering and it was impossible not to see that was in grievous pain i said at last when i could not bear the silence any longer what is the matter he raised his eyes to mine with a look of pitiful helplessness i ve no right to come to you miss he said in his slow way but there s nobody else and you always were tom s friend tom i repeated what has happened it is n t a thing to talk to a woman about he went on and you have to excuse me miss i m sure you will it s that girl i sat silent and i felt my hands growing cold she s had a baby he said after a moment the simple bald fact was horrible as he said it i could not speak and after a little hesitation he continued in a tone so low i could scarcely hear him it s his think of the shame of it and the sin of it it seems to me if it could only have been the lord s will i would have been glad to die rather than to have this happen my son the wail of his voice went to my heart and made me shiver i would have given anything i possessed to comfort him but what could i say shame is worse than death when one dies you can at least speak of the happiness that has been and the consolation of the memory of this in disgrace whatever has been good before makes the shame only the harder to bear what could i say to a father mourning the sin and the disgrace of his only son it seemed to me a long time that we sat there silent at last he said â i did n t come just to make you feel bad miss march i want you to tell me what i ought to do what i can do i ought to do something to help the girl bad as she is she s sick and she s a woman i don t know where tom is and i m that baby s grandfather his voice choked but he went on of course i ought not to trouble you but i don t know what to do i don t know what to do my wife â the poor old man stopped he is not polished but he has the instinct of a good man to screen his wife and plainly was afraid he might say something which would seem to reflect on her my wife he said evidently changing the form of his words is dreadfully put out as she naturally would be and of course i don t like to talk much with her about it i thought you might help me miss never in my life have i felt more helpless i tried to think clearly but the only thing i could do was to try to comfort him i have no remembrance of what i said and i believe it made very little difference what he wanted was sympathy i had no counsel to give but i think i sent daniel away somewhat comforted i could only advise him to wait and see what was needed he of course must have thought of this himself but he liked to have me agree with him and be good to him he will do his duty and what is more he will do his best but he will do it with very little help from mrs i am afraid poor daniel i could have put my arms round his neck and kissed his weather beaten cheek but he would not have understood i suppose he would have been frightened half out of his wits and very likely would have thought that i had suddenly gone mad the of a saint it is so to comfort a slow minded person he cannot see what you mean by a caress yet i hope that daniel went away somewhat oh if tom could only realize the sorrow i saw in his father s eyes i think he would have his punishment march when said last night that he did not know where tom was i thought for just a moment of the sealed address tom left me i was so taken up with pity however that the thought passed from my mind after the was gone i wondered whether i should have spoken of the letter but it seemed to me that it was better to have said nothing i thought i should open it before saying anything and i needed to consider whether the time had come when i was justified in reading it tom trusted me and i was bound by that yet surely

2Charles Dickens

he ought to be told the state of things it was imperative that he should know about the poor girl i have never been able to be sure why he did not let his family know where he was but i fear he may have with them now he must be told oh it is such wretched business so sad and dreadful i went upstairs after thinking by the fire until it had burned to embers and indeed until the very ashes were cold i took out tom s letter and for a moment i was half sick at the thought that he had degraded himself so it seemed almost as if in holding his letter i was touching her and i would gladly have thrown it in the fire then i was ashamed to be so and so and realized how foolish i was the sealed envelope had in it a card with tom s address in new york and this note â march if you open this it must mean that you know i have nothing to say in my own that you could understand only this is true i have never really cared for any woman in the world but you you will not believe it and you will not be likely to find it very easy to forgive me for saying it now but it is true i never knew better how completely you have possession of me than i do just at this moment when know i am writing what you wiu read me no i suppose you can t really hate anybody but you must despise me and it is an insult for me to say i love you but i have loved you all my life and i cannot help it i shall go on till i die even if you do not speak to me again in my whole life do not make me come home unless i must forgive me if you can the note had neither end nor beginning i was so overcome by it all by the pity of it that i could not trust myself to think i sat down and wrote to tom just this message without salutation or signature â your father has been here to see me the girl is ill of her baby was born night before last and is alive i sent this off to day what he will do i cannot tell i cannot even be sure what he ought to do and i had no right to urge him to come or to stay away certainly for him to marry that outcast creature seems impossible but if he does not the baby must go through life with a brand of shame on her the world is so cruel to children perhaps it has to be at least father believed that the only preservation of society lay in this severity but i am a woman and i think of the children who are not to blame things are so tangled up in human relations the of a saint that one thread cannot be drawn without bringing about on other lines yet to marry this girl â oh it is not possible to think of tom s living in the same house with that dreadful creature of his having it known that he had married such a woman â it is horrible whichever way i look at it i cannot be kind in my thoughts to one of them without being cruel to the other i am so thankful that i have not to decide i know i should be too weak to be just and then i should be always unhappy at the wrong i had done now whatever i was called upon to take the responsibility of was done when i had written to tom iv april april when a new month comes in it always seems as if something should happen the divisions of time do not appeal to the feelings as simple arbitrary but as real and so the fancy demands that the old order shall end and some better new fashion begin i suppose everybody has had the vague sense of disappointment that the new month or the new year is so like the one before i used to feel this very strongly as a child though never unhappily it was a disappointment but as all times were happy times the disappointment was not bitter the thought is in my mind to night because i am troubled and because i would so gladly leave the fret and worry behind to begin afresh with the new month the thought of tom and his trouble on me so that i have been miserable all day miss has not been here this week her beloved plants need attention and she is doing mysterious things with and selecting out seeds making plans for her garden beds and working herself into a delightful fever of excitement over the coming glories of her garden it is really rather early i think but in her impatience she cannot wait her flowers are her children and all her affection for family and kin having nothing nearer to the of a saint cling to is on them it is so fortunate that she has this taste i cannot help to day feeling so old and lonely that i could almost envy her her fondness for i must cultivate a taste for something if it is only for cats i wonder how peter would like to have me set up an asylum for crippled and over and over again i have asked myself what i can do to help but i have found no answer one of the hardest things in life is to see our friends bear the consequences of their mistakes daniel is suffering for the way he brought tom up and yet he has done as well as he was able father used to say

2Charles Dickens

what i declared was a hard saying and which was the harder because in my heart of hearts i could never with any success dispute it you cannot wisely help anybody until you are willing not to interfere with the discipline that life and nature give he said you would not offer to take a child s medicine for it why should you try to bear the of a friend s suffering when it comes from his own fault that is nature s medicine i remember that once i answered i would very gladly take a child s medicine for it if i could and father laughed and pinched my ear don t try to be providence he said i would like to be providence for and tom now â and for the girl too it makes me shiver to think of her and if i had to see or to touch her it would be more than i could endure this shows that i am low in my mind i have been so out of sorts that i was completely out of key to day with george i have had to see him often about the estate but he has seemed always april anxious to get away as quickly as possible to day he lingered almost in the old fashion and i somehow found him altered he is â i cannot tell how he is changed but he is he has a manner less â it is time to stop writing when i own the trouble to be my own wrong and then go on to set down imaginary faults in my neighbors april i am beset with lately has been here for an hour and he has left me so restless that i may as well try to write myself into calmness never seems so big as when he stands talking with me looking down on the top of my head with his great bald forehead above his keen eyes like a mountain top i always get him seated as soon as i can and he likes to sit in father s wide arm chair one of the things that i like best about him is that and queer as he is he never takes that seat until he has been especially asked then as he sits down he says always with a little softening of his great voice â this was your father s chair he has never been out of a fortnight i dare say but there is something about this simple speech ready for it as i of course always am that almost brings the tears to my eyes he is country bom and country bred but the delicacy of the courtesy his is pure gold what nonsense it is for cousin to insist that we are too to have any gentlemen i she does not appreciate the old new england stock what daniel wanted i could not imagine but while we were talking of the weather and the the of a saint common things of the day i could see that he was preparing to say something he has a wonderful smile when he chooses to show it it always reminds me of the picture one sees sometimes of a genial face peering from behind a mask when i him about the fires he only grinned but his grin is to his smile as the smell of to that of a rose he amused me by his comments of aunt she runs after gossip he said just as a runs after its tail it does n t mean anything but it must do something she is a shrewd creature i answered it is absurd enough to compare anybody so to a aunt s nobody s fool was his response she sent me here to night sent you here i echoed his face grew suddenly grave i don t know how this thing will strike you miss he said it seems to me all wrong the fact is he added more calmly but with the air of meaning to have a disagreeable thing over it s about the girl you know about her and that she is very sick yes i said he stretched out his large hand toward the fire in a way that showed he was not at ease i could not help noticing the difference between the hand of this daniel and that of the other is a farmer and has a farmer s hand has the white hand of a miller i don t see myself he said grimly looking into the coals that there is likely to be anything april in her wickedness but none of the women are willing to go near her i should think she d serve pretty well as a warning the of the poor ve sent old to nurse her and that seems to be their part but who s to look out that doesn t keep drunk all the time s more than i can see he scornfully as if his opinion of women was far from flattering how did you know about it i asked job â he s one of the â came to see if there was n t somebody the church could send down i went to aunt but she could n t think of anybody she s with a cold and she would n t be the one to go into a sick room anyway and she sent you here he turned to me with the smile which i can never resist the truth is he answered that when there s nothing else to do we all come to you miss but what can i do that is what i came to see did you expect me to go down and nurse the girl he looked at me with a shrewd twinkle in his eye and for a moment said nothing i just expected if there was anything possible

2Charles Dickens

to be done you d think of it he replied i thought for a moment and then i told him i would write to cousin to send down a trained nurse from boston the won t pay her he commented with a grin perhaps you will i returned knowing perfectly that he was trying to the of a saint it will take several days at least to get her here we considered for a little in silence i do not know what passed through his mind but i thought with a positive sickening of soul of being under the same roof with that girl i knew that it must be done though and simply to be rid of the dread of it i said as steadily as i could â i will go down in the morning and so it has come about that i am to be nurse to the girl and to tom s baby april the last four days have been so full and so that there has been no time for in like i have now to write up the interval although i cannot bring myself to his way of things as if he always wrote on the very day on which they happened father used to laugh at me because i always insisted that it was not honest of to put down one date when he really wrote on another tuesday i went down to the house i had promised myself not to let the sick girl see how i shrank from her but i had a sensation of sickening almost physical when i got to the red house i was so ashamed of myself that i forgot everything else the girl was so sick the place so cheerless so dirty so poverty stricken she was so dreadful to look at with her tangled black hair her hot cheeks her fierce eyes everything was so miserable and dreadful that i could have cried with pity was in a bed so dirty that it would have driven me to distraction the pillow slip was ragged and the torn in great places as if a wild cat had it was swaying back and april forth in an old broken rocking chair smoking a black pipe which perhaps she thought the foul air of the sick room she had the appearance of paying very little attention to the patient and none at all to the baby which incessantly from a shabby clothes basket in a corner the whole scene was so sordid so pitiful so hopeless that i could think only of the misery and so forget my shrinking and dread a boy that the of the poor had sent down was wood in the yard and i him to the house for and clean linen while i tried to get to attend to the baby and to help me to put things to rights a little she of spirits like another and her wits did not appear to be entirely steady after i found her holding the baby under her arm literally down while she prepared its food i decided that unless i wished to run the risk of being held as to the murder of the infant i had better look after it myself can t you pick up the room a little while i feed the baby i asked don t see no use of clearing up none she said t ain t time for the funeral yet this i suppose was some sort of an attempt at a joke but it was a most ghastly one i looked at the sick girl to see if she heard and understood it was evident that she had but it seemed to me that she did not care i went to the bedside i ought to have spoken to you when i came in i said but your eyes were shut and i thought you might be asleep i am miss and i have come to help mrs take care of you till a regular nurse can get here from boston the of a saint she looked at me with a strange sparkle in her eyes from boston she repeated yes i said i have sent to my cousin to get a regular trained nurse she stared at me with her piercing eyes opened to their fullest extent do they train em she asked yes i told her a trained nurse is almost as good as a doctor then i shall get well she demanded eagerly â she get me well i hope so i said with as much of a smile as i could muster when i wanted to cry and before she comes we must clear up a little i began to do what i could about the room without making too much bustle the girl watched me with eager eyes and at last as i came near the bed she asked suddenly â did he send you i felt myself growing flushed though there was no reason for it asked me to come i answered i don t know him she commented evidently confused is he i hushed her and went on with my work for i wanted to think what i had better tell her of course was of no use but when came things went better was at my being there at all and of course would not hear of my doing the rough work she took possession of mrs and ordered her about with a vigor which completely dazed that unsatisfactory person and amused me so much that my disturbed spirits rose april once more this was all very well as long as it lasted but had to go home for dinner and when the restraint of her presence was removed herself she tied a bonnet over a still more head lighted her pipe and departed for the woods behind the house when that impudent old hired girl o yours s

2Charles Dickens

got all through and got out she remarked you can hang a out the shed and i come back i ain t got no occasion to stay here and ordered round by no hired girl of anybody s my were of no avail since i would not promise not to let come into the house and the fat old woman away into the seclusion of the woods i suppose she slept somewhere though the woods must be so damp that the indulgence seems rather a dangerous one but at nightfall she returned more and more like came back and we did what we could when dr came in the afternoon he allowed us to get into clean linen and she did seem grateful for the comfort of fresh sheets and pillow slips it amused me that had not only taken the servants but had picked out the oldest i took the ones she explained of course we would n t any of us ever want to sleep in them again she was really shocked at my proposing to remain for the night it ain t for you miss to be taking care of such folks she declared and as for that woman i d as soon have a basket of in the house as her any time the of a saint even this lively image did not do away with the necessity of my remaining i could not propose to to take my place the mere fact of being mistress often forces one to do things which servants would feel insulted if asked to undertake father used to say remember that oblige does not exist in the kitchen though of course this is true only in a sense servants have their own ideas of what is due to position i am sure only that their ideas are so different and often so different from ours i could not leave the sick girl to the of mrs and so i had no choice but to stay all day long watched me with a most strangely she evidently could not make out why i was there in the evening as i sat by her she said suddenly â i what you think yer get by it get by what â bein here i smiled at her manner and told her that at least i had already got the satisfaction of seeing her more comfortable she made no reply for a time but evidently was considering the matter i did not think it well for her to talk so i sat knitting quietly while mrs loomed in the background rocking t won t please him none she said at last he don t care a damn for me i tried to take this without showing that i understood it i m not trying to please anybody i responded when a neighbor is sick and needs help of course anybody would come april folks t been so awful anxious to help me there is a good deal of sickness in town i explained t ain t nobody s business to come anyhow commented mrs there s precious few d come if t was the girl muttered has anybody been to see you i asked the girl turned her fierce eyes up to me with a look which made me think of some wild bird hurt and one old woman that sat and her veil and swung her foot at me she never come but once i had no in this portrait even without mrs s comment that was aunt she remarked she s always round miss is one of the kindest women alive i said though she is a little odd in her manner sometimes she said she hoped i d found things bad enough to give me a for something better went on with increasing bitterness god how does she think i d get anything better what does she know about it anyway there there interposed mrs in a sort of professional tone now don t go to excited and you know she brought you some flannel for the baby them pious folks has to talk but lord nobody minds it and you hadn t ought ter they don t really mean nothing much it seemed to be time to and i forbade the of a saint to talk sent mrs off to sleep in the one other bedroom and settled down for the night s watching the patient fell asleep at last and i was left to care for the fire and the poor little pathetic forlorn dreadful baby the child was in aunt s flannel and i fell into reflections in regard to human life after all i had no right to judge this poor broken girl lying there much more in danger than she could dream what do i know of the intolerable life that has not not even cleanliness of mind or body society and morality have so us about and so guarded us that we have rather to try to get outside than to struggle to keep in and what do we know of the poor wretches fighting for life with wild beasts in the open i am so glad i do not believe that sin is what one actually does but is the proportion between deeds and opportunity how carefully father explained this to me when i was not much more than a child and how strange it is that so many people cannot seem to understand it if i thought the moral law an thing like a human for which one was held responsible and whether he knows the law or not i should never be able to endure the sense of injustice of course men have to be arbitrary because they can see only things and must judge by outward acts but if this were true of a deity he would cease to be a deity at all and be simply a man with unlimited

2Charles Dickens

power to do harm april i found myself so running last night in that it seemed just as well to go to bed or no i was besides too tired to write down my interview with mrs april i was just about to go home for a bath and a nap after watching that first night when without even knocking mrs opened the outside door i was in the kitchen and so met her before she got further naturally i was surprised to see her at six o clock in the day good morning i said i knew you were here yesterday she said by way of return for my greeting but i thought i d get here before you came back this morning i have been here all night i answered she looked at me with her piercing black eyes which always seem to go into the very recesses of one s thoughts and then in a manner rather less remarked â i ve come to speak to this girl you know well enough why i m afraid you can t see her i answered the latter part of her words she is not so well this morning and dr told us to keep her as quiet as possible mrs leaned forward with an expression on her face which made me look away is she going to die she demanded i turned away and began to close the door i could not bear her manner she has too much cause to hate the girl but just then with the poor thing sick to the very point of death i could never have felt as she looked i m sure i hope not i returned we expect to have a professional nurse to morrow and then things will go better a professional nurse yes we have sent to boston for one the of a saint sent to boston for a nurse for that creature she s a great deal better dead she only leads men â if you will excuse me mrs interrupted i pushing the door still nearer to closing i ought to go back to my patient it is n t my business to decide who had better be dead she started forward suddenly taking me unawares and before i understood what she intended she had thrust herself through the door into the house if it is n t your business she demanded sharply what are you here for what right have you to interfere if providence is willing to take the creature out of the way what are you trying to keep her alive for i put up my hand and stopped her will you be quiet i said i cannot have her disturbed you cannot she repeated raising her voice who gave you a right to order me round is this your house i knew that her shrill voice would easily penetrate to s bedroom and indeed there was only a thin door between the sick girl and the kitchen where we were i took mrs by the wrist as strongly as i could and before she could collect her wits i led her out of the house and down to the gate what are you doing she demanded how dare you drag me about i beg your pardon i said dropping my hold i think you did not understand mrs that as nurse i cannot have my patient excited she looked at me in a of anger i have never seen a woman so carried away by rage and it is april frightful yet she seemed to be making an effort to control herself i was anxious to help her if i could so i forced a smile although i am afraid it was not a very warm one and i assumed as a manner as i could muster you must think i was rather abrupt i said but i did not mean to be i could n t explain to you in the kitchen the is so thin you see she s in the room that opens out of it mrs softened somewhat it is very noble of you to be here she said in a new tone and one which i must confess did not to me have a genuine ring it s splendid of you but what s the use of it what affair of yours is it anyway i was tempted to serve her up a quotation about a certain man who went down to and fell among thieves but i resisted i could come mrs and apparently nobody else could they would n t she rejoined frankly don t you see everybody else knew it was a case to be let alone i asked her why everybody felt as if it was responded she quickly i hope you don t set up to be wiser than everybody else put together i don t set up for anything i declared but i may as well confess that i see no sense in what you say here s a human creature that needs help and it seems to be my place to help her it s a nice occupation for the daughter of judge to be nursing a thing like a a i answered is likely to be able to the of a saint stand it yoa would n t let the girl die alone would you she was n t alone mrs was here you wouldn t let her die with mrs then mrs looked me straight in the eye for a moment with a look as hard as polished steel yes she said i would i could only stare at her in silence there she went on make the best of that i m not going to be mouthed i would let her die and be glad of it why should i want her alive do you think i ve no human feelings do you think i d ever forgive

2Charles Dickens

her for dragging tom into the mud i ve been on my knees half the night praying she and her might both die and leave us in peace i if there s any justice in heaven a man like won t be loaded down with the disgrace of a like that there was a sort of fascination in her growing everybody knows how she at the of her husband and that she is continually saying he has n t any force but here she was catching at his goodness as a sort of bribe to heaven to let her have the life of mother and child i could not answer her but could only be thankful no houses were near mrs would hear i supposed but that could not be helped what do you know about how i feel she demanded down upon me so that i involuntarily shrank back against the fence it is all very pretty for you to have ideas of charity and play at taking care of the sick i dare say you mean well enough miss but this is n t a case for you go april home and let providence take care of that girl god u look after her i stood up straight and faced her in my turn stop i i cried i m not a in half the things you are but i do have some respect for the name of god if you mean to kill this girl don t try to lay the blame on providence she shrank as if i had struck her then she rallied again with a sneer i think i know better than an what it is right to say about my own religion was her retort somehow the words appealed to my sense of humor and unconsciously i smiled well i said we will not dispute about words only i think you had better go now perhaps my slight smile vexed her perhaps it was only that she saw i was off my guard she turned quickly and before i had any notion of what she intended she had run swiftly up the path to the house i followed instantly the idea of having a personal encounter with mrs was shocking but i could not let her go to trouble without making an effort to stop her i thought i might reach the door first but she was too quick for me before i could prevent her she had crossed the kitchen and opened the door of the sick room i followed and we came almost together into the room although she was a few steps in advance she went hastily to the bed had been awakened by the noise and stared at mrs in a fright oh here you are are you mrs began how did you dare to say that my son was the father of your i d like to have you whipped you nasty mrs i said resolutely if you do not the of a saint leave the house instantly i will have you arrested before the sun goes down she was diverted from her attack upon and wheeled round to me arrested she echoed you can t do it i can do it and you know me well enough to know that if i say it i mean it i m not a lawyer s daughter for nothing go out of the house this instant and leave that sick girl alone do you want to kill her she blazed at me with eyes that might have put me to flight if i had had only myself to defend do you think i want her to live i told you once she ought to be out of the way do you think you are doing a favor to tom by keeping this thing alive i took her by the wrist again you had better go i said you heard what i said i mean it i confess that now i consider it all the threat to have her arrested seems rather silly and i do not see how i could well have carried it out at the moment it appeared to me the simplest thing in the world and at least it effected my purpose to frighten mrs with the law she turned slowly toward the door but as she went she looked over her shoulder at you are a nice thing to try to keep alive she sneered the doctor says you haven t a chance and you d better be making your peace with god i would n t have your heap of sins on my head for anything i put my hand over her lips mrs i said take her other arm mrs who had apparently been too con april to understand what was going on and had stood with her mouth wide open in eyed astonishment did as i commanded and we led mrs out of the room i mrs back into the bedroom to look after and shut the door behind her then i took mrs by the shoulders and looked her in the face i had rather have that girl s sins on my head than yours i said you came here with murder in your heart and you would be glad to kill her outright if you dared if you have not murdered her as it is you may be thankful i felt as if i was as much of a as she but something had to be done she looked as if she were as much astonished as impressed but she went only at the door she turned back to say â i come again to see my after that i hardly dared to leave the house but i got to stand guard while i was at home she has a deep seated dislike for mrs and i fear would greatly have enjoyed an encounter with her but mrs did not return

2Charles Dickens

now that i go over it all i seem to have been engaged in a but i do not see what else there was for me to do was so terrified and excited that i had to send for dr as soon as i could find anybody to go i set mrs to watch for a and she took her pipe and went placidly to sleep before the door i had to be with yet keep running out to spy for a messenger and it was an hour before i caught one by the time the doctor got to us the girl was in declaring she did not want to die she did not dare to die could not would not die all that day she was the of a saint constantly starting out of her sleep with a cry and by the time night had come i began to feel that mrs would have her wish april that night was a dreadful one to me the nurse from boston had not come and i could not leave the girl alone with mrs indeed seemed more and more i think she took advantage of the fact that she no longer felt any responsibility the smell of spirits and tobacco about her grew continually stronger and i was kept from sending her away altogether only by the fact that it did not seem right for me to be alone with no house is near and if anything happened in the night i should have been without help was evidently worse the excitement of mrs s visit had told on her and whenever she went to sleep she began to cry out in a way that was most painful about the middle of the night that dreadfully forlorn time when the day that is past has utterly died out and nothing shows the hope of another to come woke moaning and crying she started up in bed her eyes really terrible to see her cheeks crimson with fever and her black hair tangled all about her face oh i am dying she shrieked for the instant i thought that she was right and it was dreadful to hear her i shall die and go to hell she cried oh pray pray i caught at my scattered wits and tried to soothe her she clung to me as if she were in the greatest physical terror april i am dying she kept repeating oh can t you do something for me can t you save me oh i can t die i can t die she was so wild that her screams awakened mrs who came running in half dressed as she had a child she said coming up to the bed if you was dying do you think you d have strength to like that the rough question had more effect than my efforts to calm the girl she sank back on the pillow sobbing and staring at mrs i ain t got no strength she insisted i know i m goin to die right away nonsense was mrs s response i know when folks is i guess i ve seen enough of um you re all right if you stop like a blame fool i see now that this was exactly the way in which the girl needed to be talked to it was her own language and she understood it at the time it seemed to me brutal and i interposed there mrs i said as soothingly as i could you are rather hard on she is too sick to be talked to so contemptuously and after looking at us a moment apparently decided that the emergency was not of enough importance to keep her from her rest so she returned to her interrupted i comforted my patient as well as i and fortunately she was not again violent still she moaned and cried and kept urging me to pray for her pray for me pray for me i she kept repeating the of a saint oh can t you pray and keep me from hell miss there was but one thing to be done if prayer was the thing which would comfort her evidently i ought to pray with her i will pray if you will be quiet i said i cannot if you go on like this i u be stiu i ll be still she cried eagerly only pray quick i down by the bed and repeated the lord s prayer as slowly and as as i could the girl who seemed to regard it as a sort of spell against invisible terrors clutched my hand with a desperate grasp but as i went on the pressure of her hot fingers relaxed before i had finished she had fallen asleep as abruptly as she had awakened i sat watching her thinking what a strange thing is this belief in prayer the words i had said are beautiful but i do not suppose this made an impression on to her the prayer was a a spell to ward her soul from the dark terrors of satan a charm against the powers of the air i wondered if i should be happier if i could share this belief in the power of men to move the unseen by but i reflected that this would imply the continual discomfort of believing in invisible beings who would do me harm unless properly and i was glad to be as i am the faith of some christians is so noble so sweet so tender that it is not always easy to realize how are the conditions of mind which make it possible when one sees the crude superstition of a creature like it is not difficult to be glad to be above a feeling so ignorant and degrading when i see the beautiful tenderness april of religion in its best aspect i am glad it can be so fine and so comforting

2Charles Dickens

but i am glad i am not limited in that way my prayer with had one unexpected result while i was at home in the morning mr came to see her the visit was most kind and i think it did her good he did some real praying mrs explained to me afterward course d rather have that my efforts in the line had more effect so far as i could judge upon mr than upon i met him when i was going back to the house and he stopped me with an expression of gladness and triumph in his face my dear miss he said i am so glad that at last you have come to realize the of prayer i was so astonished at the remark that for the moment i did not realize what he meant i don t understand i said enough my look perhaps confused him a little and his face lost something of its brightness that poor girl told me of your praying with her last night when she thought she was dying yes i repeated before i realized what i was saying she thought she was dying then i reflected that it was useless to hurt his feelings and i did not explain i could not wound him by saying that if had wanted me to repeat a charm and i had known one i should have done it in the same spirit i wanted to make the poor thing comfortable and if a prayer could soothe her there was no reason why i should not say one people think because i do not believe in it i have the of a saint a prejudice against prayer but really i think there is something touching and noble in the attitude of a mind that can in sincerity and in faith give itself up to an ideal as one must in praying it seems to me a pathetic mistake but i can appreciate the good side of it only to suppose that i believe because i said a prayer to please a frightened sick girl is absurd it is well that we are not read by others for our thoughts would often be too poor mr would have been dreadfully if he had realized i was thinking as we stood there how like my saying this prayer for was to my to s she believes that crosses cut out of a leaf of the bible and stuck on her feet take away the but she regards it as wicked to cut up a bible i have an old one that i keep for the purpose and she comes to me every winter for a supply we began at the end and are going backwards is about used up now she evidently thinks that as i am a anyway the extra condemnation which must come from my act will make no especial difference and i am entirely willing to run the risk still it is better mr did not read my thought i wish you might be brought into the fold the clergyman said after a moment of silence i could only thank him and go on my way april yesterday the new nurse miss arrived and great is the comfort of having her here she is a plain simple body in her neat uniform rather except for her snapping black eyes her eyes are at with the calmness of her and give one the impression that april there is a somewhere within she interests me much â largely i fancy from the suggestion about her of having had a history she is swift and yet silent in her motions and understands what she has to do so well that i felt like an awkward beside her she disposed of mrs with a turn of the hand as it were somehow managing that the old woman was out of the house within an hour with her pipe and all yet without any fuss or any mrs had the appearance of being too dazed to be angry although i fancy when she has had time to think matters over she will be indignantly at having been so i pity you more for having that sort of a woman in the house than for having to take care of the pa miss miss said i don t see what the lord such folks in the world f or without it is to up our christian charity she would mine into i m afraid i answered laughing i confess it has been about all i could do to stay in the house with her to night i can sleep peacefully in my own bed secure that is well taken care of the girl seems to me to be worse instead of better and dr does not give much encouragement i suppose it is better for her to die but it is cruel that she wants so to live she is horribly afraid of death and she wants so much to live that it is pitiful to reflect it is possible she may not what is there she can hope for she does not seem to care for the child this is because she is so ill i think for anybody must be touched by the helplessness of the little pink thing it is like a little mouse i saw the of a saint in my childhood and which made a great impression on me that was naked of hair just so wrinkled so pink so it was not in the least pretty any more than the baby is but somehow it touched all the tenderness there was in me and i cried for days because gave it to the cat i feel much in the same way about this baby i have not the least feeling toward it as a human being i am afraid to me it is just embodied just a little pink helpless bunch of

2Charles Dickens

april miss came just in time i could not have gone through to night without her i think i could not have stayed quiet by s beside although i am as far as possible from being able to sleep to night just as the evening was falling and i was almost ready to come home i heard a knock at the door miss was in the room with so i answered the knock myself i opened the door to find myself face to face with tom the shock of seeing his white face staring at me out of the dusk was so great that i had to steady myself against the door post he did not put out his hand but greeted me only by taking off his hat father said you were here he began in a strained voice yes i answered feeling my throat contract i am here now but i am going home soon i was so moved and so confused that i could not think i had longed for him to come i could not have borne that he should have been so base as not to come and yet now that he was here i would have given anything to have him away he had to come april he had to bear his part of the consequences of wrong but it was horrible to me for him to be so near that dreadful girl and it was worse because i pitied her because she was so helpless so pathetic so near even to death we stood in the dusk for what seemed to me a long time without further speech tom must have found it hard to know what to say at such a time he looked at me with a sort of wild desperation then he cleared his throat and his lips i have come he said what do you want me to do i could not bear to have him seem to put the responsibility on me i did not send for you i answered quickly he gave me the wan ghost of a smile do you suppose that i should have come of myself he returned what i do i would not take the burden the decision must be his you must do what you think right i said then i added with a queer feeling as if i were thinking aloud what you think right to her and to â to the baby his face darkened and i was glad that i had not said your baby i understood it was natural for him to look angry at the thought of the child the unwelcome and of what he would have kept hidden and yet somehow i resented his look the baby is not to blame tom i said it has every right to blame you to blame me he repeated if it has to bear a shame all its life whose fault is it its own or yours if it has been born to a life the of a saint like that of its mother it certainly has no occasion to thank you he turned his flushed and face away from me and looked out into the darkening sky i could see how he was holding himself in check and that it was hard for him i hated to be there to be seeing him to be talking over a matter that it was intolerable even to think about but since i was there i wanted to help him â only i did not know how i wanted to give him my hand but i somehow shrank from touching his i felt as if it was wicked and cruel to hold back but between us came continually the consciousness of and that little red baby sleeping in the clothes basket i am now to think of it but the truth is that i was a brute to tom suddenly tom turned for a moment toward the west so that the little lingering light of the dying day fell on his face and i saw by his set lips and the look in his eyes that he had come to some determination then he faced me slowly he said i would go down into hell for you and i m going to do something that is worse what s past it s no use to make excuses for and you re too good to understand if i told you how i got into this foul mess now â he stopped with a catch in his voice and i wanted more than i can tell to say something to help him but no words came i could not think i wanted to comfort him as i comfort when she is desperate the evident difficulty he had in keeping his self control moved me more than anything he could have said i marry the girl he burst out in a moment you are right about the baby it s no matter about she is n t of any account anyway and she never april expected me to marry her i never see her after she s â after i ve done it it makes me sick to think of her but i do what i can for the baby he stopped and caught his breath i could feel in the dusk rather than see that he looked up as if he were trying to read my face in the darkness i will marry her he went on on one condition what is that i asked with my throat so dry that it ached that you will take the child i think now that we must both have spoken like talking by machinery i hardly seemed to myself to be alive and real but this proposition awoke me like a blow i could at first only gasp too much overcome to bring out a word but its mother i managed to at last if

2Charles Dickens

i m to marry her for the sake of the child he answered in a voice i hardly recognized it would be perfect to leave it to grow up with the if that s to be the plan i save myself does n t mind not being married you don t know what a tribe the are it s an insult for me to be talking to you about them only it can t be helped is it a boy or a girl i told him and you think a girl ought to be left to follow the noble example of the mother i oh no no i cried out anything is better than that that is what must happen unless you take the poor thing he said in a voice which though it was hard seemed somehow to have a quiver in it but would she give the baby up i asked she s its mother the of a saint she be only too glad to get rid of it anyway she d do what i told her to i tried to think clearly and quickly to have the baby left to follow in the steps of its mother was a thing too terrible to be endured and yet i shrank from taking upon my shoulders the responsibility of training the child whatever tom decided about the marriage however i felt that he should not have to resolve under pressure if he were doing it for the sake of the baby s future i could clear his way of that i could not bear the thought of having tom marry this would be a bond on his whole life and yet i could not feel that he had a right to it now if i agreed to take the child that would leave him free to decide without being pushed on by fear about the baby my mind seemed to me wonderfully clear i see now it was all in a whirl and that the only thing i was sure of was that if it would help him for me to take the baby there was nothing else for me to do tom i said i do not and i will not decide for you and i will not have anything to do with conditions if she will give me the baby i will take it and you may decide the rest without any reference to that at all he took a step forward so quickly and so fiercely that he startled me and put out his hand as if he meant to take me by the arm then he dropped it do you think he said that i would have an near you it is bad enough as it is but you shall not have the reproach of that my cheeks grew hot but the whole talk was so strange and so painful that i let this pass with the rest i cannot tell how i felt but i know the re april of it makes my eyes swim so that i cannot write without stopping continually and i am writing here half the night because i cannot sleep i could not answer tom i only stood silent until he spoke again i know i can t have you he said and i know you were right i m not good enough for you i never said that i interrupted i never thought that never mind it s true but i d have been a man if you d have given me a chance oh tom i broke in don t i it is not fair to make me responsible no he acknowledged with the shake of his shoulders i have known ever since we were children you are not to blame it s only my infernal self i could not bear this either everything that was said hurt me and it seemed to me that i had borne all that i could endure will you go away now tom i begged him i â i can t talk any more to night shall i tell you have come he gave a start at the name and swore under his breath it is for you to be here with that girl he burst out bitterly and i brought it on you i it is n t your place though where are all the christians and church members i suppose all the pious are too good to come they might get their oh how i hate don t tom i interrupted go away please my voice was and indeed i was fast getting the of a saint to the place where i should have broken down in hysterical weeping i go he responded quickly i come in the morning with a minister will eight o clock do i d like to get it over with the bitterness of his tone was too much for me i caught one of his hands in both of mine oh tom i said are you quite sure this is what you ought to do do you teu me not to marry her he demanded fiercely i was completely i could only drop his hand and press my own on my bosom as if this would help me to breathe easier oh no no i cried half sobbing i can t i can t i have n t the right to say anything but i do think it is the thing you ought to do only you are so noble to do it i he made a sound as if he would answer and then he turned away suddenly and dashed off with great strides i could not go back into the house but came home without saying good night or letting miss know i must be ready to go back as soon as it is light april it seems so far back to this morning that i might have had time to change

2Charles Dickens

into a different person and yet most of the day i have simply been longing to get home and think quietly i wanted to myself to the new condition of things last night the idea that tom should marry the girl was so strange and unreal that it could make very little impression on me now it is done it is more real than anything else in the world april i went down to the red house almost before light hut even as early as i came i found tom already there the nurse had objected to letting him in and even when i came she was evidently uncertain whether she had done right in admitting him but tom has generally a way of getting what he is determined on and before i reached the house everything had been arranged with i wanted to come before folks were about to see me tom said to me there be talk enough later and i d rather be out of the way i ve arranged it with her does she understand â i began but he interrupted she understands all there is to understand all that she could understand anyway she knows i m marrying her for the sake of the child and that you re to have it the boy that i have hired to sleep in the house now mrs is gone in order that miss may have somebody within call appeared at this minute with a of water and we were interrupted the boy stared with all his eyes and i was half tempted to ask him not to speak of tom s being here but i reflected with a sick feeling that it was of no use to try to hide what was to be done if tom s act was to have any significance it must be known i turned away with tears in my eyes and went to i found with her eyes shining with excitement and i could see that despite tom s idea that she did not care about the marriage she was greatly moved by it oh miss she cried out at once ain t he the of a saint good he s truly goin to marry me after all i never he d do that you must have thought â i began and then with a sinking consciousness of the difference between her world and mine i stopped and he says you want the baby she went on not noticing though i what you want of it it be a bother for yer mr wanted me to take it and bring it up well remarked with feeble i would n t f i was you are you willing i should have it i asked oh i m willing anything he wants was her answer he s awful good to marry me he never said he would he s real white he is she was quiet a moment and then she broke out in a burst of joy i never i d marry a real gentleman i she cried her shallow delight in marrying above her station was too pathetic to be offensive i was somehow so moved by it that i turned away to hide my face from her but she caught my hand and drew me back then she peered at me closely you don t like it she said excitedly you won t try to stop him no i answered i think he ought to do it for the sake of his child she dropped her hold and a curious look came into her face that s what he said yer don t either of yer seem to count me for much i was silent convicted to the soul that i had not april counted her for much i had accepted tom s decision as right not for the sake of this broken this doomed to shame from her cradle but for the sake purely of the baby that i was to take it came over me how i might have been influenced too much by the selfish thought that it would be intolerable for me to have the child unless it had been as far as might be by this marriage i flushed with shame and without knowing exactly what i was doing i bent over and kissed her it is you he i said her tears sprang instantly tears i believe of pure happiness you re real good she murmured and then closed her eyes whether from weakness or to conceal her emotion i could not be sure it was nearly eight before mr came tom has never been on good terms with mr and it must have been easier for him to have a clergyman with whom be had never i suppose exchanged a word than one who knew him and his people i took the precaution to say at once to mr that was too ill to bear much and that he must not say a word more than was necessary i will only offer prayer he returned i know mr s prayers i have heard them at when i have been tempted to wonder whether he were not attempting to fill the interval between us and the return of the lost at the i am afraid it will not do i told him you do not realize how feeble she is then i will only give them the blessing perhaps the of a saint i might talk with mr afterward or pray with him i knew that if this proposition were made to tom he would say something which would wound the clergyman s feelings mr i urged if you pardon me i would n t try to say anything to him just now he is doing a thing and a thing that s noble but it must be terribly hard i don t think he could endure to have anybody talk to him he

2Charles Dickens

have to be left to fight it out for himself it was not easy to convince mr for when once a narrow man gets an idea of duty he can see nothing else but i managed in the end to save tom at least the irritation of having to fight off religious appeals the ceremony was as brief as possible it was touching to see how humble and yet how proud was she seemed to feel that tom was a sort of god in his goodness in marrying her â and after all perhaps she was partly right his coldness only made her i wondered how far she was conscious of his evident shrinking from her he seemed to hate even to touch her fingers i cannot understand â â april i have had many things to do in the last two days and i find myself so tired with the stress of it all that i have not felt like writing it is perhaps as much from a sort of feverish uneasiness as from anything else i have got out my to night the truth is that i suffer from the almost intolerable suspense of waiting for to die dr and miss both are sure there is no chance whatever of her getting well and i cannot think that it april would be better for her or for tom or for her baby â who to be my baby i â if she should live we are all a little afraid to say or even to think that it is better for a life of this sort to end and i seem to myself in putting it down in plain words but we cannot be rational without knowing that it is better certain persons should be out of the way for their own as well as for the good of the community and the more quickly the better is a weed poor thing and the sooner she is pulled up the better for the garden and yet i pity her so i i can understand religion easily when i think of lives like hers it is so hard to see the justice of having the weed destroyed for the good of the flowers that men have to invent excuses for the eternal somebody has defined as man s justification of a deity found wanting by human standards and now i realize what this means human mercy could not bear to make a and a power which allows the possibility of such beings has to be excused to human reason the gods that men invent always turn to on their hands if there is a conscious power that he must pity the of our race although i suppose seeing what it is all for and what it all leads to must make it possible to bear the sight of human weakness the baby is growing wonderfully attractive now she is so well fed and attended to i am ashamed to think how little the poor morsel attracted me at first she was so associated with dreadful thoughts and with things which i hated to know and did not wish to remember that i shrank from her perhaps now the fact that she is to be mine me to look at her with different eyes but she is really a dear the of a saint little thing pretty and sweet oh i will try hard to make her life lovely â april aunt came in last night almost as soon as i was at home she should not have been out in the night air i think for her cold is really severe and has kept her shut up in the house for a fortnight she was so eager for news however that she could not rest until she had seen me and i am away all day well was her greeting i am glad to see you at home once more i ve begun to feel as if you lived down in that little red house i said i had pretty nearly lived there for the last two weeks but that since miss came i had been able to get home at night most of the time how do you like going out nursing she asked thrusting her tongue into her cheek in that queer way she has i told her i certainly should n t think of choosing it as a profession at least unless i could go to places i hear you had clean up she remarked with a chuckle how did you hear that i asked her i thought you had been with a cold aunt s smile was broad and she swung her foot i ve had all my faculties she answered so i should think you must keep a troop of paid i don t need i just keep my eyes and ears open i wondered in my heart whether she had heard of april the marriage and as if she read the question in my mind she answered it i thought i d like to know one thing though she observed with the air of one who candidly that he is not i d like to know how the new mrs takes his marrying her aunt i burst out in astonishment you are a witch and ought to be looked after by the aunt laughed and her eyes at the agreeable compliment i paid to her cleverness then she suddenly became grave i am not sure she said that i should be willing to have your responsibility in making him marry such a girl i the responsibility entirely and declared i had not even suggested the marriage i told her he had done it for the sake of the child and that the proposition was his and his only she contemptuously with an air which seemed to cast doubts on my very likely he did and i don t suppose you did suggest it

2Charles Dickens

in words but it s your doing all the same i will not have the responsibility put on me i protested it is n t for me to determine what tom shall do you can t help it was her answer you can make him do anything you want to then i wish i were wise enough to know what he ought to do i could not help crying out oh aunt i do so want to help him she looked at me with her keen old eyes to which age has only imparted more i should hate to be a criminal brought before her as my judge her the of a saint eyes would bring out my guilty secret from the hiding place in my soul and she would sentence me with the utmost of the law after the sentence had been executed though she would come with sharp tongue and gentle hands and bind up my wounds now she did not answer my remark directly but went on to question me about the girl and the details of her illness only when she went away she stopped to turn at the door and say â the best thing you can do for tom is to believe in him he is n t worth your pity but your caring what happens to him will do him more good than anything else i have been wondering ever since she went how much truth there is in what she said tom cannot care so much for me as that although placed as he is the faith of any woman ought to help him i know of course he is fond of me and that he was always desperate over my engagement but i cannot believe the motive power of his life is so closely connected with my opinions as aunt seems to think if it were he would never have been involved at all in this dreadful business but i do so pity him and i so wish i might really help him i april is very low i have been sitting alone with her this afternoon almost seeing life fade away from her only once was she at all like her old self i had given her some wine and she lay for a moment with her great black eyes gleaming out from the hollows into which they have sunk she seemed to have something on her mind and at last she put it feebly into words don t tell her any bad of me she said april for an instant i did not understand and i suppose that my face showed this she half turned her heavy head on her pillow so that her glance might go toward the place where the baby slept in the broken the sadness of it came over me so suddenly and so strongly that tears blinded me it was the most womanly touch that i have ever known in and for the moment i was so moved that i could not speak i leaned over and kissed her and promised that from me her child should never know harm of its mother she d be more likely to go to the devil if she knew explained now she have some sort of a chance the words were coarse but as they were said they were so pathetic that they pierced me poor little baby bom to a i must save her clean little soul somehow poor she certainly never had any sort of a chance april she is in her grave at last poor girl and it is sad to think that nobody alive regrets her tom cannot and even her dreadful mother showed no sorrow to day somehow the vulgarity of the mother and her behavior took away half the sadness of the tragedy when i think about it the very of it all makes the situation more pathetic but this is an that can be felt only when i have beaten down my disgust when one considers how grew up with this woman and how she had no way of learning the of life except from a mother who had no conception of them it makes the heart ache and yet when mrs broke in upon us at the this morning disgust was the of a saint the strongest feeling of which i was conscious the of always a woman i suppose and when it comes to anything so solemn as services over the dead the lack of decency is shocking and together with a little suggestion besides of miss surprised me by coming over just after breakfast to go to the funeral with me i don t like to have you go alone she said and i knew you would go i asked her in some surprise how in the world she knew when the funeral was to be for we thought that we had kept it entirely quiet aunt told me last night she answered i suppose she heard it from some familiar spirit or other â a black cat or a or something of the kind i could only say that i was completely puzzled to see how aunt had discovered the hour in any other way and i thanked miss for coming though i told the dear she should not have taken so much trouble i wanted to do it my dear she returned cheerfully i am getting to be an old thing and i find rather lively and amusing don t you remember maria used to say that to a pious soul a funeral was a heavenly whatever a heavenly may be the funeral this morning was one of the most ghastly things imaginable tom and mr were in one carriage and miss and i in another we went to the at the where s father and brother were buried a place half overgrown with wild rose and bushes in summer it must be april a

2Charles Dickens

picturesque of wild shrubs and blossoms but now it is only chill and barren and neglected the spring has and the tips of the twigs but not enough to make the bushes look really alive yet the heap of clay by the grave too was of a hideous tint and horribly and just as the coffin was being lowered a wild figure suddenly appeared from somewhere behind the of and low which skirt the fence on one side it proved to be old mrs who with rags and and even her gray hair fluttering as she moved half ran down the path toward us she must have been hiding in the woods waiting and i found afterward that she had been seen lurking about yesterday though for some reason she had not been to her house now she had evidently been drinking and she was a dreadful thing to look at i wonder why it is that nature which makes almost any other ruin picturesque never in making the wreck of humanity anything but hideous an old tower an old tree even an old house has somehow a quality that is but an old man is apt to look and an old woman who has given up taking care of herself is repulsive perhaps we cannot see humanity with the impartial eyes with which we regard nature but i do not think this is the whole of it somehow and for some reason an ruin is generally attractive while a human ruin is ugly mrs seemed to me an of the repulsive she made me shudder with some sort of a feeling that she was wicked through and through even the pity she made me feel could not prevent my the of a saint sense that she was vicious i wanted to wash my hands just for having seen her i was ashamed to be so and of course it was because she was so hideous to look at but i do not think i could have borne to have her touch me stop she called out i m the mother of the corpse don t you dare to bury her till i get there i glanced at tom in spite of myself he had been stern and pale au the morning not saying a word more than was necessary but now the color came into his face all at once i could not bear to see him and tried to look at the mother but and pity made me choke she was panting with haste and by the time she reached us and stumbled over something in the path she caught at tom s arm to save herself and there she hung up into his face you did n t mean for me to come did you she broke out half and half she was mine before she was yours you killed her too tom kept himself still though it must have been terribly hard he must have been in agony and i could have sobbed to think how he suffered he grew white as i have never seen him but he did not look at the old woman she was perhaps too distracted with drink and i hope with grief to know what she was doing she turned suddenly and looked at the coffin which rested on the edge of the grave my handsome she oh my handsome i they re all dead now what did you put on her did you make a or put on a dress she has a white i said quickly i saw to everything myself april she turned to me with a air and let go her clasp on tom s arm i m grateful miss she said we ain t much but we re grateful i hope you won t let em bury my handsome till i ve seen her she went on with a manner she was my before she was anybody else s and it ain t goin to hurt nobody for me to see her i d like to see that how much natural grief how much vanity how much excitement was in her wish i cannot tell but there was nothing to do but to have the coffin opened when the face of the dead woman had once more been uncovered to the light the dreadful mother hung over it and now she shrieked for her handsome and in a way that pierced to the then she would fall to laughter over the just like a lady s â but then was a lady after she was married miss tom and i stood apart while mr tried to get the excited creature away and the grave looked on with open curiosity i could not help thinking how they would tell the story and of how tom s name would be about in connection with it sometimes i feel as if it were harder to bear the of life than actual sorrows father used to say that pain is personal but vulgarity a of general principles this is one of his sayings which i do not feel that i understand entirely and yet i have some sense of what he meant a thing which is vulgar seems to fly in the face of all that should be and our sense of the fitness of things well somehow we got through it all it is over the of a saint and is in her grave i cannot but think that it is better if she does not remember if she has gone out like an ill burning candle nothing is left now but to consider what can be done for the lives that we can reach i am afraid that the mother is beyond me but for tom i can perhaps do something for baby i should do much april it is so strange to have a child in the house i feel queer and disconcerted when i think

2Charles Dickens

of it although things seem to go easily enough the responsibility of taking charge of a helpless life me and i do not dare to let my thoughts go when they begin to picture possibilities in the future i wonder that i ever dared to undertake to have baby and yet her surroundings will be so much better here than with the dreadful grandmother that she must surely be better for them in any case i had to help tom i proposed a permanent nurse for baby but and took up arms at once and all but me with having cast doubts on their ability and surely we three women among us should be able to take care of one morsel although none of us ever had babies of our own april nothing could be more absurd than the way in which the entire household now about baby all of us are completely slaves already although the way in which we show it is naturally different has surrendered frankly and without she and at the idea of having the child of that creature in the house she did not venture to say this to me april directly of course but she relieved her mind by making remarks to when i could not help hearing from the moment baby came however without a struggle it is evident she is born with the full maternal instinct and i see if she does not marry her or some more eligible lover and take herself away before baby is old enough to be much affected the child will be spoiled to an unlimited extent as for her method of showing her affection is to exhibit the greatest solicitude for baby s spiritual welfare mingled with the keenest jealousy of s claims on baby s love i foresee that i shall have pretty hard work to protect my little daughter from s well meant but not very wise and how to do this without the good old soul s feelings may prove no easy problem as for myself â of course i love the little helpless pink thing the from some outside unknown brought here into a world where everything is made so hard to her from the start she woke this afternoon and looked up at me with tom s eyes lying there as sweet and happy as possible so that i had to kiss and her and love her all at once it is wonderful how a baby comes out of the most dreadful surroundings as a comes out of the mud so clean and fresh i said this to aunt yesterday and she yes she answered but a weed grows into a weed no matter how it looks when it is little the thought is dreadful to me i will not believe that because a human being is born out of weakness and wickedness there is no chance for it the difference it seems to me is that every human being has the of a saint at least the of good as well as of bad and one may be developed as well as the other baby must have much that is good and fine from her father and the thing i have to do is to see to it that the best of her grows and the worse part dies for want of nourishment surely we can do a great deal to aid ture perhaps my baby cannot help herself much at least not for years and years but if she is kept in an atmosphere which is completely wholesome whatever is best in her nature must grow strong and crowd down everything less noble may may baby is more every day she is so wonderful and so lovely that i am never tired of watching her the miracle of a baby s growth makes one stand speechless in delight and awe when this little morsel of life hardly as many days in the world as i have been years and smiles and stretches out those tiny fingers only big enough for a fairy i feel like going down on my knees to the mystery of life i do not wonder that people pray i understand entirely the impulse to cry out to something mighty something higher than our own strength some heart of nature somewhere the desire to find by leaning on the invisible a relief from the of the emotions we all must feel when a sense of the greatness of life takes hold on us if it were but possible to believe in any of the many gods that have been offered to us how glad i should be father used to say that every human being really makes a deity for himself and that the difference between and is whether they can allow the church to give a name to the god a man has himself created i cannot accept any name from authority but the sense of some brooding power is very strong in me when i see this being growing as if out of nothing in my very hands when i look at baby i have so great a conscious the op a saint ness of the life outside of us the life of the universe as a whole that i am ready to agree with any one who talks of god the trouble is that one idea of deity seems to me as true and also as inadequate as all the rest so that in the end i am left with only my overwhelming sense of the of the mystery of existence and of the unity of all the life in the universe may to day we named baby i would not do it without consulting her father so i sent for tom and he came over just after breakfast the day has been warm and the windows were open a soft breath of wind came in with a feeling of spring in it

2Charles Dickens

and a faint hint of a summer coming by and by i was upstairs in the nursery when tom came for we have made a genuine full nursery of the south chamber and and the baby there when they told me that he was here i took baby all pink and sweet from her bath and went down with her tom stood with his back to the parlor door looking out of the window he did not hear me until i spoke and said good morning then he turned quickly at sight of baby he changed color and forgot to answer my greeting he came across the room toward us so that we met in the middle of the floor good god i he said to think of see s y baby in your arms the words hurt me for myself and for him tom i cried out excitedly i will not hear you say anything against baby it is neither hers nor yours now it is mine mine you shall not speak may of her as if she were anything but the sweetest purest thing in the whole world he looked at me so intently and so while i the pink ball up to me and kissed it that it was rather to change the subject i went straight to the point tom i said i want to ask you about baby s name oh call it anything you like he answered but you ought to name her i told him he was silent a moment then he turned and walked away to the window again i thought that he might be considering the name but when he came back abruptly he said â can t pretend with you i have n t any love for that child i wish it were n t here to remind me of what i would give anything to have forgotten if i have any feeling for it it is pity that the poor little wretch had to be into the world and shame that i should have any responsibility about it i told him he would come to love her some time that she was after all his daughter and so sweet he could n t help being fond of her if i ever endure her he said almost it will be on your account nonsense tom i retorted as briskly as i could when i wanted to cry you be fond of her because you can t help it see she has your eyes and her hair is going to be like yours he laughed with a trace of his old spirit what i was his reply her eyes are any color you like and she has only about six hairs on her head anyway i denied this indignantly partly because it was the of a saint not true and partly i am afraid with feminine to divert him we fell for a moment almost into the boy and girl tone of long ago and only baby in my arms reminded us of what had come between well i said at last it is evident that you are not worthy to give this nice little dear little little girl a name so i shall do it myself i shall call her what an name i it is your own so you need n t abuse it do you agree i don t see how i can help myself for you can call her anything you like of course i shall i told him but i thought you should be consulted he shrugged his shoulders with a laugh having made up your mind he said you ask my advice i should n t think of consulting you till i had made up my mind was my retort now i want you to give her her name give it to her how her name is to be i repeated it is an absurd name tom commented that s as it may be was all i would answer but that s what she s to be called you re to kiss her and â he looked at me with a sudden flush he had never i am sure so much as touched his child with the tip of his finger much less her the proposition took him completely by surprise and evidently disconcerted him i did not give him time to consider i made my tone and manner as light as i could and hurried on may you are to kiss her and say i name you i suppose that really you ought to say thee but that seems rather theatrical for us plain folk he hesitated a second and then he bent over baby in my arms i name you he said and just brushed her forehead with his lips then he looked at me solemnly you will keep her he said yes i promised so baby is named and tom must have felt that she belongs really to him however he may shrink from her may i have had a dreadful call from mrs she came over in the middle of the and the moment i saw her determined expression i felt sure something painful was to happen good morning she said abruptly i have come after my son s infant what i responded my wits scattering like chickens before a hawk i have come after my son s infant she repeated we are obliged to you for taking care of it but i won t trouble you with it any longer i told her i was to keep baby always she looked at me with lips i don t want to have disagreeable words with you she said but you must know we could never allow such a thing i asked her why you must know she said you are not fit to be trusted with an immortal soul i fear that i let the shadow of a smile show as

2Charles Dickens