ner.

the hearty kindness of Mrs. Lane's tone and manMrs. Lane's eyes also filled, ever and anon; but at the same moment she went on laughing. Mr. Lane's eyes beamed affectionately, and yet quietly on his wife; he again extended his hand with friendly warmth to his guests; and then his eyes wandered toward the dining-room.

"Ah yes, tea you are thinking of, Mr. Lane. Fanny would prepare tea alone; and now it is waiting." Mr. Bartlett turned his eye out again upon the glorious evening, before he was ready to be seated at table; and his sister bent her face to rose sprays which came far into the windows from the yard. Mrs. Lane rejoiced not a little over Fanny's elegant table; and especially she rejoiced over Miss Bartlett's appetite. She could never be satisfied tasting the biscuit of eggs, cream, and flour; the rich custards, so cold and so exquisitely flavored, as is everything sweetened with maple sugar; and above all, the strawberries and cream! Mrs. Lane made them laugh not a little in one way and another; and, as for herself, she felt every moment her heart actually leap up in joy over all the happiness, and sociability, and busy though soft jingle and clatter of cutlery, spoons, and dishes, which she saw and heard before her. They talked of Concord people, and the doings of the legislature from whose session Mr. Lane had just returned, of all they would do there at Massabesic while they remained; and then, although it was a half hour since they had left their spoons in their cups, and their knives and forks across their plates, Mrs. Lane poured them out more tea, and they made no objections. Fanny helped them to more plums, and Mr. Lane to poundcake, which, up to this time, had been left untasted. When Mr. Lane had said "Cake-will you not take some cake?" and when Mrs. Lane had added "Surely, you will take some cake?" they had answered, "No, thank you; but, if you please, some more of your biscuit and strawberries;" or "another custard."

After supper was ended, late though it was, they walked down the avenue, along the border of the lake, at the foot of the high hills; and those who had lately been so loquacious and gay were now thoughtful and still beneath the moonlight and amongst the dark shadows.

CHAPTER II.

Ox the morning after the arrival of the Bartletts at Massabesic-but, then, I wonder who are the Bartletts? I wonder whether they are anybody? whether, after all, it is worth while writing about them? We can know about them by going to their archives, by which I mean, of course, those only archives which we Americans keep-fragmentary and scattered letters, diaries, day-books, family

Bible perhaps, and perhaps a genealogical chart, title-deeds, wills, and sundry other documents; and sundry of their neighbors, together with the oldest inhabitant thereabouts. But this surely would be a wearisome and perplexing process. I know a vastly better and altogether practicable one; but its adoption would be such a daring innovation upon all respectable precedents! "Twould be, to the common method of romancing, perhaps what Fulton's crazy steam-concern was to the mighty old white-winged ships of the line; and I verily fear that people, after they had looked on awhile sidewise, would go off shrugging their shoulders, and muttering self-complacent things about folly, presumption, &c. &c.

"For a' that an' a' that," however, I will venture thus: I have a very dear friend, born on the same day and in the same hour as myself. "Sitting on the same stool, working both on one flower, on one sampler," both weeping when one wept, both laughing when one laughed, and so on, is the tale of our united life up to this day. We never differ at the very core of our hearts; but we have misunderstandings, quite lively quarrels sometimes, and then one pulls one way, and the other the other way. But mutual comprehension and forgiveness follow directly; and with the greatest complacency we say that, although the spirit is always willing, the flesh is sometimes weak; and hence we go wrong. She is of the Pensée family, my friend. You know the Pensées. Not to know the Pensées " argues one's self unknown;" and so it must be that you know the Pensées. A very ancient, honorable family, you know; very powerful, sometimes differing wonderfully the one from the other in their characteristic traits, but alike in this: the whole family are the most active or the most profound thinkers; whether naturally, or only habitually by way of giving significance to their name, cannot be specifically determined. Par parenthèse, it may be that some of my readers need to be told that Pensée, being interpreted, is thought, or fancy, or sketch.

My friend Marie Pensée is an intensely interesting being; she "centres in herself such strange extremes!" Now she is pale, cold, solemn, drawn to her utmost altitude, and stately as an empress, and you fear and worship her from afar; then blooming in her happy excitement, ardently affectionate, holding you in her arms, or sitting like a child at your feet; and you love her, love to lean your head on her and rest. Now she sits with great old tomes all about her, bending over them all day long, getting spine-ache and melancholy; then she goes through the house, yard, and garden, like one of the Graces, hiding your books and pen, making you try with her on the carriage-sweep which can run the fastest, full of all manner of happy and childlike frivolities.

She wears, in summer, white mostly. When she is in pensive mood, a robe of rich white merino,

full, draping her feet, and heavily embroidered in cream-colored silks; when she is gay, a frock of illusion lace, with sleeves and skirt looped and festooned, one can scarcely see how, in delicate fresh flowers. In winter, she wears drab cloth and heavy jewelry when she is thoughtful; otherwise, black mostly, enlivened by the finest embroidery in collar, cuffs, and handkerchief. But in all her moods she maintains one peculiar attribute, a most wonderful prescience; one peculiar characteristic, a kind of lawless, and yet perfectly innocent eecentricity. She is Marie Pensée, and none other, at all times, with all people. And this chiefly, and because we harmonize so well, is why she is my chosen friend of all others.

She is very often at our house. When I sit at my table and write, she keeps quietly on the sofa behind me, employing herself in one way and another as her humor happens to be; and, in candor, I would never know what to do without her in this business of story-telling; because, of whatever I wish to know, she can usually inform me. She is so busy here and there! such a traveller! never fatigued, never in need of resting, and scarcely ever of sleeping. There is no house whose very penetralia she cannot reach. No human heart, when it is perfectly right and proper that she should enter, can shut itself effectually against her ingress; no human countenance can so mark itself that she does not say to me, He frowns, he weeps, and now he smiles again. This is surely a great, a responsibilityinvolving gift. So Marie feels; and she is careful to use it aright; in the love of her neighbor, in the love and fear of her God. Could she act unmindful of this fact one moment, that same moment herself and her power would be parted forever.

As my readers have no doubt conjectured ere this, my plan is to ask Marie about the Bartletts. Perhaps she will attend to me not in the least. She is so in a habit of abstractions and mystifications, and then is still for hours, only turning leaves slowly as I hear her now.

"Marie dear, what are you doing, tumbling over those great books so long? And all those rocks! what can you be doing with them? even the commonest, granite, feldspar, and serpentine. would think that by this day you knew enough about them, their formations, their depositions, their combinations, and all other of their ations."

One

MARIE. You repeat yourself, dearest, when you talk. But just look at this now. See how curiously they are packed together: pyrites-feldspar, rose and white-quartz, white and smoky-mica, black and white-and

"Well, my good Marie-"

MARIE. Well, dearest, I have been studying about things all day. If professors would only agree sometimes, one wouldn't be at such a loss. But between the Huttonian and Wernerian theories, one is wretchedly perplexed. Look at this, please.

Think of things, of seams, strata, deposits, veins, and all such things, and then which seems most likely, that this earth was once melted by heat or dissolved by water? Hutton or Werner, which do you favor?

"Oh, indeed, I don't know. I just wonder and hold my breath over the one supposition and the other; for a moment, long, as I never long for anything else, to understand how it was; and, by that time, I have the heartache and am tired; therefore I run away from it all, saying, 'Who shall decide when doctors disagree?" "

MARIE. That is comfortable, if one can only do so; but. You know what geologists say about primary, transition and secondary rocks. How do you suppose

"Pray don't ask me, Marie! I don't suppose anything; I really don't know anything about it. I studied geology in the schools, you know; and really thought I understood it. But afterwards inquiries and doubts came. I read Lyell, Cleveland, Silliman, Bakewell, and everything else I could get hold of almost made a shadow of myself-only to find it all the time growing darker and darker the farther I went, that is, in some points. Then I folded my hands to wait until the way is better lighted, or the guides are better agreed. I advise you to do the same; or at least to rest a day. You are so pale, your eyes are so large! I am going to pack away these old encyclopedias under the table, thus! You shall sit in this best easy-chair close by me, thus! Now we will have a pleasant time talking about people and things. Together we will make out a story illustrative of some good proposition in household, agricultural, or political economy; and will not this be a better deed, in these days of stumbling and inquiring, than just satisfying yourself whether this earth was baked or boiled?" MARIE. Perhaps so; but please don't burlesque things in this sly way. What are you doing this morning, pray?

"Not much, it must be confessed. I have been thinking about Jeanette Eastman. You remember she married a Lane, a rich old bachelor, of Manchester. He fell in love with her, you know, seeing her in the lobby at the State House; and she with him, hearing him speak on the small-bird act, you remember."

MARIE. Yes indeed! and how people troubled themselves because they were so unlike; because he would marry her when she was so incorrigibly wild and careless; and because she would marry him when he was so old, dignified, and quiet; and how they opened their eyes on me when I tried to make them comprehend that the truest, heavenliest harmony comes not from striking with two fingers both on one key. Heavens! what insipidity there would be then! And what an insipid thing this married life would be, if, when the husband said fa, the wife said fa; and when the wife said

la, if the husband opened his mouth just as wide, and said la. I couldn't live so! I would rather have storms and earthquakes; wouldn't you, dearest? wouldn't you rather have storms and earthquakes? "I don't know, I am sure."

MARIE. Well, I know. I have thought not a little about it; and I feel it more and more that I could never love one who was not unlike me, who was not greater or less than myself. There are plenty of agreeable men who are younger, thinner, or softer than myself. Those I could love with all my heart; but as mother loves you, I fear; and this would be entirely wrong, you know, between man and wife. Enough more are like me-just as tall, just as strong, just as firm. Heavens! I am in torture every time they come near me! I can't endure them! So the man that I love and wed must be prodigiously tall, prodigiously strong and clever, prodigiously old, prodigiously fat, or something of that sort.

"I presume so. Do you know what kind of a wife Jeannette made ?"

MARIE. Why, she went on improving. She still goes on improving, and there is no danger of such people. Here is a letter she sent to her family when she had been married six months. She says:

"I must tell you how I succeed in housekeeping; for I know Em's good, kind heart has feared not a little for me; I know now, too, how much reason it had to fear. Thanks to my husband, thanks to Fanny, and thanks to Heaven, I am gaining day by dayslowly, 'tis true, but surely-in everything that goes to make the good, careful housekeeper. I say this in grateful joy; and I know you will rejoice with me. I used to be downright discouraged whenever I allowed myself to think of my fault. This was seldom, you know; for it seemed to me then that I never could be careful and prudent, like you, sister. But there was only wanting a motive to earnestness. This I have now, in love for my husband and in the sincere desire to be worthy of him, and not to give him pain. You all laughed at me at home-father, mother, you, and all. You were dear good ones. Never girl had kinder. But if you had lain on my shoulders the whole weight of all the displeasure you had reason to feel, then, you know, I really could not have borne that; and I should have set myself at work in earnestness and perseverance to be rid of my wretched habit. But I so loved to make you all and everybody laugh so heartily! A head full of mirthfulness and destructiveness,' you know Professor Grimes told me; and I believe it; for all I wanted to do was to see things going to ruin and people laughing at it. I was never so happy as when I had spoiled myself, clothes and all, unless indeed some one fell down with a peculiar awkwardness and made horribly discomfited faces about it.

"And now-ah, I might confess many recent sins

of this sort!

Husband is kinder than ever to me at such times but sad, so that I half cry and kiss him in the next minute, and then all goes straight. I still love to put myself into bad plights, and I always shall; and if I do grow old, and have babies, I shall amuse them and myself and husband many a stormy day, and making full-moon faces at them; and putting on a queer cap or bonnet bent into all manner of shapes, and putting strange metamorphoses upon their little bodies. Husband likes sport as well as I do; I have ascertained this; that is, if it is not carried too far. He looks slightly sorry or anxious if I go one step too far-he has such a nice sense of propriety!—and is my 'thus far, and no farther.' So you see that, as I told you, he is just the husband I need: and I begin to hope that, as he often declares, I am just the kind of wife he needs. He is naturally so grave, so almost melancholy, and so busy at his work and studies!

"Tea is almost ready, dearest,' Fanny says; and she gives me a loving kiss. The dear girl helps me like a sister. She is helping herself most, she declares; and, indeed, you would all be surprised to see how fresh and plump she is growing. She scarcely ever touches the piano; never embroiders of late; but works and walks here and there, and always upon the spring. In this way her spine is daily getting stronger and freer from pains. Bless her! This is what I say in my heart twenty times a day. The Bartletts too are darlings! so perfectly accomplished! and at the same time so cordial and lively! I assure you we are the happiest family in the world. And now I must go to my beloved ones, after I have said to the beloved ones at my other home, Ah, if you were only here, father, mother, sisters, brothers, to sit at my table! if I might pour tea for you all, and see your eyes brighter over my cooking, the world would not hold a happier child than your Jeannette.'

"9 o'clock. We have supped, and worked, and walked; and now soon we must go to our rest. We have had a busy day of it, all of us; and to-morrow we shall have one busier still; for there will come, before the sun rises, a troop of haymakers to help Mr. Lane. Then do you not think we will have some busy days? Yes, indeed. Every night we shall go to bed tired, but thankful; thankful that we can labor; thankful that labor is pleasant and healthful. Mr. Bartlett too is to put on thick gloves, and wide-brimmed hat, and work in the field; while early in the cool morning, Miss B., Fanny, and I are to go with wide aprons on, hair put smoothly back behind our ears, and in short sleeves, boiling pots full of beef and ham, and baking ovens full of bread and pies. Mr. Lane wants to hire a girl through haying and harvesting, we shall have so many work-people a part of the time; but this is so impossible, you know, finding a girl; for all the farmers' daughters that can possibly be spared are away in the factories. Besides, I should steadily decline,

any way. I shall work no harder than he will; and Heaven help me to bear my full share of the burden and the heat of the day! I am delighted to work; to feel fatigue working for him, he is so good, so dear to me. God bless him! As Tiny Tim says, God bless everybody! God bless us!'

"Don't fail to come at the time you have promised. Tell Charley to see well to the snow-white gosling which is to be fatted for the Thanksgiving dinner. Tell Susan to be a quiet girl, and keep her drawers in order. Tell them all that Jeanette loves them. Tell them that, happy as she is in her new home, she yet finds her heart aching to see them; and believe me ever,

"A dear good creature, isn't she, Marie? But I pity her, I am sure, with such a troublesome fault, and so painfully conscious of it."

MARIE. She would be the more to be pitied if she had the fault, and still was unconscious of it. Still it is best to feel for her, dearest. It is best to feel for everybody who has faults and who mourns over them; and this would be feeling for everybody that lives.

"Everybody does not-everybody has faults certainly, enough of them. But then some people care nothing about it. I know some people who have a thousand times worse faults than Jeannette's, who yet care nothing about it. Whenever you see them, they are upon the qui vive, flitting like butterflies, and mouths wide open in laughter."

MARIE. This is nothing. You never know how they feel in their still chambers. You never know how they feel at the very moment. Think if you never laugh and talk folly when you feel like sitting down alone and weeping over this same folly? when you long to go away and fall on your knees begging for mercy, for strength, and clearness to reach a nobler life, a higher comfort! And who of all those that look on your laughter and folly know this? Who but the great Searcher of hearts knows how much people everywhere suffer? Think what He said, dearest, and this was because "He knew what was in the heart of man:" "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." He does not add, "If he seem good; if he seem sorrowful after going wrong; if he seem penitent;" but simply, "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." What sublimity there is in this, when we think who and what our neighbors are Have you never thought, dearest, how the whole life of the good Saviour was one unwavering, beautiful comment on this text! Wherever we see him, you know, there He was loving his neighbor, doing good to his neighbor, to the rich and poor, to the good Mary and the woman of Samaria, to the learned rabbi and the poor fisherman; for he saw the heart, and knew that all suffered in one way or another, and that all had need of kindness and love.

"You say what is true, Marie; and would to Heaven that we all, that everybody might feel this every moment! Then how kind and loving we would all be! How we would go taking people by the hand, looking them kindly in the face, saying, 'brother,'' sister.' Then how the degraded would lift their heads! How their poor, dull hearts would be stirred, and what warmth and light would go round into the cold, dark, shut chambers of a soul here and a soul there! Heavens! I do believe, Marie, that every spot, every heart might be made light, and good, and comfortable, if only those who have so many candles burning under bushels, so much benevolence, so many good impulses in their hearts, so much love, so many kind words on their tongues-if they would only let them come out into the world, and spread and diffuse themselves. Ah, I mean to"

MARIE. Well, dearest, after all, don't mount up thus. This is what you are often saying-I mean to. I presume you do mean to. So does everybody; but, pardon me, I never see any great thing that you do, that anybody does. You all mean to. Still, you all go on rocking in your easy-chairs, and so the kind word is never spoken. The poor creatures are never taken by the hand; nor do they hear it said kindly in their ears, Brother, Sister. Hence they go on, never thinking that there is kindness anywhere in the wide world; that in any heart they are thought of, cared for.

"Oh dear, yes, I know it is just as you say; and it is vastly too bad that there should be so much despondency in the world, such degradation, when just speaking and acting out the goodness there is in us would make people so hopeful, and so much better, too. I am sure I hope that I, for one, shall do better some day. But I want to ask you, Marie. Jeanette mentions the Bartletts in her letter. Were they"

MARIE. The Bartletts, of State Street, Concord. Mrs. Jones's relatives, you remember.

"Yes, indeed; and how she was always talking about them, always losing herself amongst their cool verandahs and shady balconies, mazy shrubbery and splendid exotics, magnificent hangings of damask, chenille, velvet, and embroidery; their antiques and their marbles, limestone marbles, ruinjasper marbles, and serpentine marbles; their ottomans, and taborets, and brioches; carriage, lap-dog, servants, and paintings- splendid paintings! by Charles himself, and by the masters even, brought from Italy! And then their circle, so select !—but really I must go-their friends and themselves contributing the very cream of the élite! Oh, you have no idea-but, I declare, eleven o'clock and Fanny knows no more about getting dinner than a child But I never know how to get away from you. And I haven't told you half. So like a palace their house is-granite front, marble steps, white as if they were never stepped on; but, then, Vinia is so

nice! She is just right for Uncle Eates, I am always telling them both. And I sha'n't wonderbut I shall go now; so, this very minute, good morning-good morning. Do call; remember now. Ah, good morning-a beautiful morning! I can never find the unfastening of your gate. Oh, don't trouble yourself; here it is. Good morning, again!' Now, Marie, wasn't that just like Mrs. Jones?"

MARIE. Yes; but, although I laugh, I certainly don't think it very pretty in one who says so much about benevolence, charity, politeness, and so on, as you do, to take one off in this way.

""Tis for your good, child. Don't you see? I always do these things for your good, of course, or for somebody's good."

MARIE. Heavy shocks! To say the truth, there is a certain proverb which I think you ought to wear in your bosom-pin, or else to hang before you in a frame. Guess what it is.

"This, of course, Let him that is without sin,' et cetera. I humble myself not a little over your suggestion. But now let this all pass. And the Bartletts were really so superb!"

MARIE. Yes; they were eminently good, accomplished, and true-hearted. They had their faults, like other people, nevertheless. Vinia, as Mrs. Jones calls her, and as we will call her, if you please -Vinia had ennui, because she was idle; because, with a brain active and powerful enough to bear her out in any undertaking, she yet undertook nothing but waking, dressing, eating, trying one thing and another to be rid of the long, dull days, and then sleeping again without relish and without thankfulness. Thus, with all her wealth, talent, and strength of mind and body, she yet drivelled. No one was very much better for her being in the world; and she herself, at times that is, was consumed by a yearning to be away in Heaven, where she might move freely, and reach and clasp the beautiful and the pure, which here she perceived so dimly and afar off, and which here she could never reach. She was a poor child; and there are a great many such sufferers in this world, more than the "hewers of stone and drawers of water" and the poor wayfarers think, else they would not so often repine when they see the rich roll by them in carriages, leaving them plodding far behind. It is the truth, that Vinia's ennui was a heavier burden on her than are all the toils and privations of the industrious and virtuous poor on them.

"I have no doubt of it; idleness is so horrible! I could never be idle and live. I have such energies, such-I don't know what, bounding hither and thither through my veins and nerves, if I walk, I must go bounding, if it isn't becoming in a lady of my years and of my altitude. And, when I write, I must make my pen go scratch, scratch, like this, Marie, if the editors and compositors can never make it out what it all means."

MARIE. Except in the evening twilight hours,

you mean, I suppose. I don't know anybody so idle and hazy as you are then.

"Ah yes, I must except evening twilight time." MARIE. And who, pray, holds her hands and rocks so much as yourself, and is so languid in midsummer?

"Well, it is so hot then-so hot then; but now"— MARIE. But now-yes; and even Vinia has her nows, and so has everybody.

"I suppose it is so. And this is the way it always is, Marie; between you and Truth, I can never exalt myself, that straightway I am not justly abased. I remember Mrs. Jones told us a pretty story of Mr. Bartlett's western travels; of his painting the portrait of a very beautiful young girl, just as she sat, à l'abandon, among the prairie flowers, with her hat and work-basket on the turf at either side. She said he carried the picture everywhere; she expected he said his prayers to it. He had returned to Illinois, to make a wife of her,' nobody doubted. But he came back looking blue. He had had reasons of looking blue ever since; for he missed her. She had moved, with her family, to these regions somewhere; nobody could tell him where."

MARIE. That is all true. And there is a great deal more that you would be intensely interested in hearing about, and which yet I cannot to-day stop to tell you. "Do." MARIE.

NO.

Well, tell me about the Malones, then. I just know about them up to the time of the Bartletts going to Massabesic. I know that Captain Malone paid his devoirs chiefly to Napoleon Bonaparte ; that he called his beautiful little spot 'The Briers,' in memory of him; and that, to give the name an appropriateness, he brought sweetbriers, an abundance of them, to his yard and wayside. I know he named his son Napoleon, and his daughter Josephine; and that, as one grew in beauty and the other in manliness, as one elegance after another came to their home, he found greater and still greater satisfaction in calling them the emperor' and the empress.' I know, also, that still they were comparatively poor, still struggling. It would delight me not a little to learn that the rich artist had the wisdom to lay his little prairie flower away in some old hortus siccus, and to take to himself, in lieu thereof, a fresh, sweetbrier of Massabesic. Did he, Marie? Do tell me just this."