The morning star and Catholic messenger., 1869-10-31

ness, and pitched his tent on the spot wher,
we lind his descendants. In the course of tim.
he built his modest homestead, which consist
ed of this low-raftered, oak-hoored room and s
smaller, sleeping apartment. Those were the
times when the Indians, taxation and intoler
ance--sometlmes one, sometimes another, and
sometimes all togetber-Ipade the lines hard
Tor the dwellers in the land; but he and his
brave sons, and their descendants after them
defended their home against savage violence
and destruction, and afterwards through the
hre and blood of seven years revolutionary
war spared no sacrifice to serve their country,
shrRnk from no toll to raise their children to q
| better condition of their own, and fill their
home with every domestic comfort within their
reach.
In the best room of their dwelling they all
sat, that stormy winters night their comely
honest faces fairly glorified by the golden radi-
ance of the fire, almost inclning one to believe
the old Saxon superstition that angels were
always basking in the light of a wood fire a
very truth.
Eva and Hope Flemming sat together, their
young faces bent over wonderful blocks of
PATCHWORK, brilliant geometricaf problem
known as Jobs trouble,n which they were
uniting with much taste, while they chattered
together in an undertone of the quilting bee
they would have when it was finished. Very
talr and comely were these two daughters of
the house, in the first flush of a healthy and
pure womanhOod; their forms well developed
and synmetricallY rQundels theif features
like pearls between their red lips, and their
beauty crowned by thick saits of soft golden
brown hair, which was pushed back loose and
curling from Eva'S rounded forehead, but
which fell in smooth heavy bands on each side
of Hopes more intellectual brow, and was
twisted together in n heavy coil at the back of
her finely formed head. Their father, Wsffert
Flemming, sat n little apart from them, at a
table upon which was outspread the large fam
lily Bible, arelic of early English printing, for
which the savatfs and literary people who some
times came to spend their holidays amongst
the romantic scenery of the neghborhood, had
time and again offered him large sums; but no
money could have purchased it, and no induce
ment persuade him to part with 1t. He liked
the lookS5of it, the obsolete spelling, the quaint
letters, the rude line engravings, and above
all the family record of his house for genera
fions back. Tie book was open at the sixth
chapter of st. Johns Gospel, and he was read
ing to himself, with Teverent but troubled
look upon his countenance. He was tall
muscular man, broad-shouldered and well
formed, his lower jaw square and firmly set,
with a cleft in the chin just redeeminS his coun-
tenance from grimness his eyebrows were dark
and heavy, and overhunG PAIR OF large intel
ligent gray eyes; his forehead broad and mod
erately high, crowned with n full crop. of soft
-bfIrfc-htir- r-tlfiekly-sPFit4lea !
Dressed in a suit of brown homcspuns whTch
hung loosely upon him without any thing to re-
lieve its hofnel3iess Of color style eXcepttf1c
exquisite whiteness of his coarse linen collar,
turned well back from his throat, and the spot
less cuffs fastened around his sincwy wrists by
a pair of old fashioned gold sleeve buttons,
there yet in the appearance and attitude
of the man Il dignity aud power as remarkable
1t is difficult 10 dGScTTDG. th6rU was Il va
cant chair near-one of those priul, low seated
high backed chairs, rich in beading and gro
tesque carving, all filed in with fine cane work
which people who own them declare with due
solemnity, were brought over in the May
ElOwer;H bat the Flemmings had no such ira
dition of this one, and yet they never doubted
but that it was brought in the old Puritan days
from England by some. of the carly settlers;
and wished sometimes that it might speak its
own history, for it may have belonged to Miles
Standish himself. Its Origia-bewever gave.
them small anxiety; it was so well filled that
their-eyes, hearts and minds were fully satisfied
when it's usual occupant, their little mother,
was throned upon it; and had she by any in
exorable event been forced to vacate it, it
would never have been used again, but put by
as precious relic of the best wife and mother
who ever lived. They had all of them very
good idea of relics in limited sense, and would
only have regarded them as superstitous If re-
ligion had invested them with n sacred OF spir-
itual meaning. Mrs. Plemming had Just fit
ted from her chair, knitting in hand, to see
after the welfare of q calf which was so unfor-
tunate as to be born i'll the middle of Il New Eng
land winter; and about which all her rgotherly
liRsbi hets " ere aroused was yet another
OF the family group present., VINO sat leaning
against angle of the fireplace, poring over
the pages of a well worn book, while the & low
of the yellow flames fell around and .npOn him
with a radiance that brought him out from the
dark back ground like one of those celestial
figures one sees in the pictures of Domenichino
and Nelasquez. He slight aud delicately
formed, his forehead broad and serene; his eyes
large, blue and tender; while his pale golden
hair, parted in the middle, fell in soft wayy
masses over his checks and neck. This was
Reuben FIemming the youngest of the chill
dreB, puzzle aud sweet torment well
mystery to the strong, practical, wholesome
minds of his kindred, who were utterly at
loss to know what he WIS good for, because
hard, energetic work did not agree with him,
but set him To faint if he attempted to do what
his sturdy brother Nicholas did, or turn white
and trembling with strange sickness which
neither he nor they could understand. Bnt
Reuben Flcmming had marvellous energy for
books: indeed all of them were fond of books
and read intelligentIy, bat with him it was q