The national era. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1847-1860, 1858-07-29

way, and singing, "The Lord is my shepherd"
in low, full, sweet tone, like that of a subdued
pipe, TO his favorite air of Adeste Fdeles,
long, though low, and fitted up in rich,
strange, fantastic style. Part of the furniture
was antique, of carved black walnut; and the
rest, though modern, carefully made to match.
The curtains and carpet were dark. Busts,
globes, relics, and oddities, stood queer little
tables against the walls, looking very weirdly
in the Pickering freight; and the walls were
hung above with old engravings, pictures, and
so forth. Everything in the room seemed in
stinct with some kind of significance, and to
have been carefully selected to suit the pecu-
liar taste of the occupant. Edward once told
him that his very andirons were emblematic."
Over the mantelpiece was a skull from the
catscombs of Rome, which the boy had crown
ed with amaranth, and set Up there, 10 self.
mockery, as the likeness of his idol, Fame.
| On one side, against the wall, the ftful light
played on q large plaster bas relief, which had
been sent him from Rome by prosperous
sculptor, who, on his way thither, years before,
when poor, i'll, and alone, had been befriended
by the Arden family, and, much struck by
Herman's singular turn of mind and preco-
cious fancy, had taken the design from one
of his ludicrously ill-executed drawings. 1t
represented the Angels of Life and Death,
| floating about each other-the one robed, gar
landed, and buoyant, sweeping upward and
onward in chase of butterfly, which lowered
before it, just beyond its reach; the other, dull
and naked, sinking blindly and heavily down
ward, with closed eyes, like a sleeping alba
tross, fading morningglory clutched in one
unconscious hand, and the other closing in
stinctively on one furling wing of its Needless
companion, the Angel of Life with the motto
below, in letters also raised:
| 81 am the sianchest hunter, playmate, see
| Thou chasest butterflies, while catch The e."
In an alcove, which seemed to be used as
an oratory, at the further end, opposite to the
| fire, cleaned the furnished gliding of two
tablets, containing the creed and ten COM
mandments, which Herman had rescued from
destruction, when small private ante Revolu-
tionsry chapel was pulled down. and set up
here, where they seemed to hallow all the room.
On one side of the alcove hung an engraving
of Schefer's Dead Christ" and on the other,
one of his Christus Remuneya tor.
In the midst of this abundance there was,
however, no disorder. Everything kept its
most tasteful and appropriate plac. except,
indeed, that the sofa, where Herman had thrown
himself again, was strewn with books; for it
was one of his peculiarities, and of old Sally's
few complaints against him, after he came in
measure under her care, that Master Herman
| couldn't never read no fewer than dozen
books at time" The most of these things
| Clara saw with her memory, quite as much as
with her eyes for, though Herman bad evi
IDENTIFY been reading and writing, he had turned
down his gas, as she suspected, when he heard
her coming, that she might not see.his face too
distinctly. On the writing table she espied,
when jet of flame blszed up from the Goals,
freshly written paper, glistening and blotted,
apparently, with something besides ink.
"You look rather literary" said Clara, COM
pleting her survey, and pausing in her hymn,
What have you to read2"
"Nothing very new the Bible, the /" Imitatio
Christi" St. Francis de Sales's Introduction d
la Vie Dsuote." Jeremy Taylor, Henry Ware,
and so forth. Clara, what do you suppose
those worthless would have said, to stand in my
window, as did this cold morning, and see
the poor folks go by?" He had never quite
thrown aside his old habit of halfinquiring,
half meditative soiloquy, when alone with her.
"That they were sorry for them; as you
we're yourself, no doubt" He shook his head.
"Why, what should they have said2"
"Standing here in the midst of all these
selfish superfuities !.He who hath this
worlds goods, and seeth his brother have need,
and shutteth up his compassion from him, how
dwelleth the love of God in him perhaps as
the prayer book did to-day"
"Do you think that means that you should
teach them wants they never knew?'"
"Wants of engravings, and cushioned chairs,
and carved bookcases? No. / should have
an easier conscience, though, tonight, if had
spared little time and money to supply some
of the wants which, l fear, their fortunes have
taught them already-want of work, fuel, food,
and innocence"
"Cheer up, then, and do it now, if you think
you ought. You have not lost much time.
You have your life before you"
"Yes;" and he sighed heavily.
"Herman, don't you want to tell me what
the matter is?"
"MatterI WhyP What makes you think any
thing is the mstter?"
because know. Tell me now, and you
will feel great deal better; you always did;
will make you. Ny fortitude is so great-equal
to any emergency-it is pity not TO prove it.
| am aware already that you must have done
something dreadful-fraudulently paid away
six cents instead of four-pence halfpenny-or
said you were glad to see somebody you wished
in Vienna, or something equally terrible. Ger
tainty would be better than suspense. Come,
let me know the worst at once. Herman, if
you won't, shall be obliged to come and kiss
you"
| "Kiss me, and WILL"
| She Aoated towards him instantly. and bent
over the arm of his sofa, and, as her golden
shower of ringlets fell upon his face, he clasped
his arms around her neck, cried Mother ~
and burst into tears. She was deeply touched.
1t carried them both back to the time when such
outbreaks of feeling had been more common
with him than now, and when her tender min.
istrations had healed the desolate little orphan
of his sickness of mind and body and the sor-
row of his young manhood soon flowed out to
her, almost Is freely as his boyish condolences
had been wont to do, except that he could not