"This is the priest; he brings you the Evangelists,' said Don Sebastian, gravely, returning with a tall and solemn figure. "Let me remove my hat. Now, venerable priest, further into the light, and hold the Holy Book before me that I may touch it. "So help me Heaven, and on my honor, the story I have told ye, gentlemen, is, in substance and its great items, true. I know it to be true; it happened on this ball; I trod the ship; I knew the crew; I have seen and talked with Steelkilt since the death of Radney." IT THE MOURNING VEIL BY HARRIET BEECHER STOWE (1811-1896) Then in life's goblet freely press New light and strength they give. LONGFELLOW. T was sunset. The day had been one of the sultriest of August. It would seem as if the fierce alembic of the last twenty-four hours had melted it like the pearl in the golden cup of Cleopatra, and it lay in the West a fused mass of transparent brightness. The reflection from the edges of a hundred clouds wandered hither and thither, over rock and tree and flower, giving a strange, unearthly brilliancy to the most familiar things. A group of children had gathered about their mother in the summerhouse of a garden which faced the sunset sky. The house was one of those square, stately, wooden structures, white, with green blinds, in which of old times the better classes of New England delighted, and which remain. to us as memorials of a respectable past. It stood under the arches of two gigantic elms, and was flanked on either side with gardens and grounds which seemed designed on purpose for hospitality and family freedom. The evening light colored huge bouquets of petunias, which stood with their white or crimson faces looking westward, as if they were thinking creatures. It illumined flame-colored verbenas, and tall columns of pink and snowy phloxes, and hedges of August roses, making them radiant as the flowers of a dream. The group in the summer-house requires more particular attention. The father and mother, whom we shall call Albert and Olivia, were of the wealthiest class of the neighboring city, and had been induced by the facility of railroad traveling, and a sensible way of viewing things, to fix their permanent residence in the quiet little village of Q-. Albert had nothing in him different from multitudes of hearty, joyous, healthily constituted men, who subsist upon daily newspapers, and find the world a most com From The Atlantic Monthly, November, 1857; copyright, 1857, by Phillips, Sampson & Co. Republished in Stories, Sketches and Studies (1896), by Harriet Beecher Stowe; copyright, 1896, by Houghton, Mifflin & Co. Republished by special arrangement and permission. place to live in. As to Olivia, she was in the warm noon of life, and a picture of vitality and enjoyment. A plump, firm cheek, a dark eye, a motherly fulness of form, spoke the being made to receive and enjoy the things of earth, the warm-hearted wife, the indulgent mother, the hospitable mistress of the mansion. It is true that the smile on the lip had something of earthly pride blended with womanly sweetness the pride of one who has as yet known only prosperity and success, to whom no mischance has yet shown the frail basis on which human hopes are built. Her foot had as yet trod only the high places of life, but she walked there with a natural grace and nobleness that made every one feel that she was made for them and they for her. Around the parents were gathered at this moment a charming group of children, who with much merriment were proceeding to undo a bundle the father had just brought from the city. "Here, Rose," said little Amy, a blue-eyed, flaxen-haired pet, who seemed to be a privileged character, "let me come; don't be all night with your orderly ways; let me cut that string." A sharp flash of the scissors, a quick report of the bursting string, and the package lay opened to the little marauder. Rose drew back, smiled, and gave an indulgent look at her eager younger sister and the two little ones who immediately gathered around. She was one of those calm, thoughtful, womanly young girls, that seem born for pattern elder sisters, and for the stay and support of mothers' hearts. She watched with a gentle, quiet curiosity the quick and eager fingers that soon were busy in exposing the mysteries of the parcel. "There's a dress for Rose," said Amy, triumphantly drawing out a delicate muslin; "I can always tell what's for her.' "How?" put in the father, who stood regarding the proceeding with that air of amused superiority with which the wearers of broadcloth look down on the mysteries of muslin and barège. Now "How?" said Amy, "why, because they look just like her. If I were to see that lilac muslin in China, I should say it was meant for Rose. this is mine, I know-this bright pink; isn't it, mamma? No half shades about me!" "No, indeed," said her mother; "that is your greatest fault, Amy." "Oh, well, mamma, Rose has enough for both; you must rub us together, as they do light red and Prussian blue, to make a neutral tint. But, oh, what a ribbon! oh, mother, what a love of a ribbon! Rose! Rose ! look at this ribbon! And, oh, those buttons! Fred, I do believe they are for your new coat! Oh, and those studs, father, where did you get them? What's in that box? a bracelet for Rose, I know! oh, how beautiful! perfectly exquisite! And here - oh!" Here something happened to check the volubility of the little speaker; for as she hastily, and with the license of a petted child, pulled the articles from the parcel, she was startled to find lying among the numerous colored things a black crape veil. Somber, dark, and ill-omened enough it looked there, with pink, and lilac, and blue, and glittering bijouterie around it! Amy dropped it with instinctive repugnance, and there was a general exclamation, "Mamma, what's this? how came it here? what did you get this for?" "Strange!" said Olivia: "it is a mourning veil. Of course I did not order it. How it came here nobody knows; it must have been a mistake of the clerk." "Certainly it is a mistake," said Amy; "we have nothing to do with mourning, have we?" "No, to be sure; what should we mourn for?" chimed in little Fred and Mary. "What a dark, ugly thing it is!" said Amy, unfolding and throwing it over her head; "how dismal it must be to see the world through such a veil as this!" "And yet till one has seen the world through a veil like that, one has never truly lived,” said another voice, joining in the conversation. "Ah, Father Payson, are you there?" said two or three voices at once. Father Payson was the minister of the village, and their nearest neighbor; and not only their nearest neighbor, but their nearest friend. In the afternoon of his years, life's day with him now stood at that hour when, though the shadows fall eastward, yet the colors are warmer, and the songs of the birds sweeter, than even in its jubilant morning. God sometimes gives to good men a guileless and holy second childhood, in which the soul becomes childlike, not childish, and the faculties in full fruit and ripeness are mellow without sign of decay. This is that songful land of Beulah, where they who have traveled manfully the Christian way abide awhile to show the world a perfected manhood. Life, with its battles and its sorrows, lies far behind them; the soul has thrown off its armor, and sits in an evening undress of calm and holy leisure. Thrice blessed the family or neighborhood that numbers among it one of these not yet ascended saints! Gentle are they and tolerant, apt to play with little children, easy to be pleased with simple pleasures, and with a pitying wisdom guiding those who err. New England has been blessed in numbering many such among her country pastors; and a spontaneous, instinctive deference honors them with the title of father. Father Payson was the welcome inmate of every family in the village, the chosen friend even of the young and thoughtless. He had stories for children, jokes for the young, and wisdom for all. He "talked good," as the phrase goes not because he was the minister, but because, being good, he could not help it; yet his words, unconsciously to himself, were often parables, because life to him had become all spiritualized, and he saw sacred meanings under worldly things. The children seized him lovingly by either hand and seated him in the arbor. "Isn't it strange," said Amy, "to see this ugly black thing among all these bright colors? such a strange mistake in the clerk!" "If one were inclined to be superstitious," said Albert, "he might call this an omen." "What did you mean, sir," asked Rose, quietly seating herself at his feet, "by 'seeing life through this veil'?" "It was a parable, my daughter," he said, laying his hand on her head. "I never have had any deep sorrow," said Olivia, musingly; "we have been favored ones hitherto. But why did you say one must see the world through such a medium as this?" "Sorrow is God's school," said the old man. "Even God's own Son was not made perfect without it; though a son, yet learned he obedience by the things that he suffered. Many of the brightest virtues are like stars; there must be night or they cannot shine. Without suffering, there could be no fortitude, no patience, no compassion, no sympathy. Take all sorrow out of life, and you take away all richness and depth and tenderness. Sorrow is the furnace that melts selfish hearts together in love. Many are hard and inconsiderate, not because they lack capability of feeling, but because the vase that holds the sweet waters has never been broken." "Is it, then, an imperfection and misfortune never to have suffered?" said Olivia. Father Payson looked down. Rose was looking into his face. There was a bright, eager, yet subdued expression in her eyes that struck him; it had often struck him before in the village church. It was as if words had awakened an internal angel, that looked fluttering out behind them. Rose had been from childhood one of those thoughtful, listening children with whom one seems to commune without words. We spend hours talking with them, and fancy they have said many things to us which, on reflection, we find have been said only with their silent answering eyes. Those who talk much often reply to you less than those who silently and thoughtfully listen. And so it came to pass that, on account of this quietly absorbent nature, Rose had grown to her parents' hearts with a peculiar nearness. Eighteen summers had perfected her beauty. The miracle of the growth and perfection of a human body and soul never waxes old; parents marvel at it in every household as if a child had never grown before; and so Olivia and Albert looked on their fair Rose daily with a restful and trusting pride. At this moment she laid her hand on Father Payson's knee, and said earnestly: "Ought we to pray for sorrow, then?" "Oh, no, no, no!" interrupted Olivia, with an instinctive shudder -such a shudder as a warm, earnest, prosperous heart always gives as the shadow of the grave falls across it 'don't say yes s!" "I do not say we should pray for it," said Father Payson; "yet the Master says, 'Blessed are they that mourn,' not 'Blessed are they that prosper.' So heaven and earth differ in their judgments." "Ah, me!" said Olivia, "I am afraid I have not courage to wish to be among the blessed.” "Well," said Albert, whom the gravity of the discussion had somewhat disturbed, "let us not borrow trouble; time enough to think of it when it happens. Come, the dew is falling, let us go in. I want to show Father Payson some peaches that will tempt his Christian graces to envy. Come, Rose, gather up here." Rose, in a few moments, gathered the parcel together, and quietly flitted before them into the house. "Now," said Albert, "you'll see that girl will have everything quietly |