The national era. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1847-1860, 1856-08-28

Our excellent Julia was at the Mountains,
with her brother Ben, his little bit of q bride,
and half a dozen others, friends from Cincin.
matt, and F., when the sad news of JAMES
death reached his family. They
What, doctor? was trying to get little
grace, If possible, into a paragraph of detail
and didn't hear you"
Let me see if you succeeded in investing
your paragraph with a--little-grace"- He
was reading it, even as he finished speaking.
Rubbing his hands a little, as he drew himself
up, he resumed, "No matter for the grace !;
we've got hold of Julia once more, see. /
am glad to have her large nose come in sight
once more. / like the girl. 1 rather like you
for making me acquainted with her. You keep
her out of sight too much, though"
What if /, perceiving the lurking fondness,
am little jealous of her, and so keep her out
of sight on that ACCOUNT"
Lord! getting up quickly, to walk back
and forth, laughing, and swinging his handker-
chief, in his way. "You're such mischievous
thing, though" he added, walking more slowly,
swinging his handkerchief not at all, but look
ing into my face. "You're 80 mischievous,
that one can't know whether you mean what
you say. 1, for my part, confess one thing
honestly" coming to sit opposite me, with both
arms on the table. "I'm getting to be an old
man now; old enough almost to be your father.
The gray hairs are thick, you see," barring his
here, whenever l have a little leisure, to take
up my habitual rummage of your books papers,
manuscript-of whatever you are doing, think
ing, and feeling, for the nonce. like to be-
lieve that am welcome; that you, child, are
at least half as well pleased to see me in your
door as l am to find myself there. And l con-
fess I've been jealous of your hero more than
once, lest you should be 90 absorbed with him,
with all his ideal graces and his manly quail
ties, as to have no interest for us who grow old,
who take heavy steps, and speak in grum voices.
| see though, | know by your homely face, as
l always do when you are serious, that you are
the old mans friend, if you have ever so many
ideal heroes on the tapis. You are, aren't you,
child?"
"Yes, that is good. Heu |" turning at length,
to look out, at the sound of the autumnal blast.
(for winter is close by, once more; the earth
was white with snow this morning.) "The old
trees are about done for this season." he added,
"with their lazy graceful balancing up and
down; they've got to be tossed and thrashed
about one while. The rose-bushes, too-hear
them scraping harshly along the clapboards.
Would you have believed that of the rose-bush-
es? Heu! it makes me feel bad. look at
you, sitting here so quietly in your warm room,
and ask myself if the hard, wintry circumstan.
ces of life could eyer change you as the seasons
do the rose. bushes and the trees out there. But
if they were to, child, you could bear it, 1 be.
lieve, putting sort of grandeur into your endur-
ance, as the old trees do; knowing that spring
wassurs to come-here, or Immediately beyond
the gateway, Death. After all, this life Is so
short, one need not be afraid of the suffering,
even if it were Invested (which, thank Heaven,
it is not) of its high elements of spiritual good.
Your Mrs. Hadden is a woman to get good out
Of everything her Heavenly Father sends, l
should thinks
eyes, her life is richer for her pain She
hasn't lost jamie. he is very near her, in his
blessed home and this makes his home, also,
seem 30 near, so dear, and beautiful, to her.
She even sheds tears Of transport"
"The father?" asked the Doctor
He is different mana better man. he
has more feeling for the Irish and for every
body. He deprecates las his wife has long done)
master, Christ, y TO soften ito tura it into
love-if he can. And of the hundreds who
looked on jamie in his coffin, there are scores,
at least, who are ready to hear every word that
the father himself once so stiff partissn) has
to say for courtesy and brotherly kindness
are ready to reply to him, or to affirm, turning
to others, Yes, for we are to be here but q
little while we're already on the down-hill
our heads are getting gray; and it won't be
long, you see, before we shall lie down under
the turf-our hands on our breasts--our tongues
still. 1t is time for US to be done with our fiery
disputes, our calumnies, our high-handed action
for party, for men, rather than for what our
consciences and the word of the God we are
soon going to, shoV us to be tAe right"
Mrs. Hadden hears these things said on her
right and on her left, and thanks God that out
of the dust of her bright earthly hope, Mercy
has arisen, white-robed, and with peaceful
aspect to walk among them. Ada, looking out
from a seclusion more complete than ever,
since Jamie died, aees Mrs. Hadden's beaming
as lustrous as ever, her cheek as blooming, and
one moment gluts her heart with the belief that
they forget Jamie. She weeps the next min
Ete-accusing herself-praying for release from
her sin, or from life; and thus the struggle
goes on, wearing her existence away. -
"a miserable piece of business /" said the
Doctor, who had risen to walk the floor with
quick, weighty steps. "Why don't her physi.
clan tell her that she is a sick girl-that what
she needs most, just now, is, not this miserable
isolation ana con- c.:c: Of aonl hut cold water
on her head, in the shape of shower.bath,
and this cold, strengthening air in her lungs
in all her veins and arteries2 A pity that she
Is troubled and ashamed on account of her
deformity! This keeps her down. This she
has no right to be, however, here in this world,
where everybody is more or less distorted in
one way or another, in soul or in body. Don't
she know that there isn't grander thing for
mortals to do, than to master whatever physical
disadvantage may have been laid upon them
deformity, pginess of features, lameness, blind
ness, deafness--so as TO go forth in serene self
possession among men; not envying the beau
tifal or the strongy those that see or those that
hear; but having Joy in life-in their own
victorious souls? All! ifshe only knew, child
if all the deformed and ashamed on the earth
knew-bow admirable and content they might
ne. 4 .hav would master these untoward cif-
ena,sssnces, instead of submitting to be mastered
by them Now, what I ike IS we'll as any
t6inp-better perhaps than anything else-In
your Julia land in yourself too, if the truth is
told) is, that she sad you are homely as the
days; but don't care for it. What do you say
to this7"
81 like it."
"Yes, know you do; knew you ioould.
Confess, though, whether Julia did not some
times, when she was thinking of her handsome
lover, wish that she had been endowed with
beauty?"
"No; she had the greatest delight in his
beauty, in all its details the clear, glowing,
albeit dark, complexion-the wide, smooth fore
head-the perfect teeth, the-the -
al can guess. The handsomely cut beard
and mustache. Is that it? Ia, ha la, ha
Goodl"
"But, for her own strong, ugly features, she
II II
her ugliness, once her ever.present foe, had been
N, ade her ever.present heat friend throu oh her