The St. Cloud journal. [volume] (St. Cloud, Minn.) 1866-1876, 1870-03-10
sweet, placid face, over which a smile

| would break now aud then-not very
often. She sat there in her long white
| dress, with her soft hair tied up simply
| with blue ribbon, and the light Of the
lamp falling upon her face and the old
cures bald head. 1t seemed incongru-
Gus, somehow, that she should be play
| ing dominoes, with that Madonna ike
head-still and tender at once. She
had been vowed to the Virgin by her
father from the day she was born. Her
lite had been saved by miracle, it was
said, aud Marthc grew up strong and
sell, but never like other people. Sic
had vocation from her earliest youth :;
never changed her mind or faltered for
QUO minute. She was four-and-twenty
DOW. In year she would be of an
age, according to the French law to de-
eide for herself. No one could infu.
ence her; not Jean, who could not
bear the subject named before him
not her mother, widow, who, wistful,
half timid, half angry, scolded, en-
treated, cried, and lmplored and tor
bade in vain. Ernes.iue, her sister;
vas the OILY one Of them who did not
really object; on the contrary, such de-
yotion seemed to reflect certain cred
it on the family. But all the same ];
Madame de Tracy, at her mothers de-
sire, did her best to distract her sister
from her intentions by taking Marthe
all one year into the world. Madame
de Coetlogon, TOO, accompanied her
daughter. Toilettes, parts, music,
gaJeties, Of every description, poor
Marthe endured in patience; but all
these wcll-meant distractions had very
different effect to that which the poor
mother hoped and longed for.
1t seems strange to US, commonplace,
common-sense Protestant people, in
these days of commonplace and COM
nonsense, living in the rough and
ready world of iron, of progress, of
matter of fact, to hear of passionate re-
vival, and romance, and abstract spccu-
!ation, to be told of the different ex-
periences Of living beings now existing
together. While the still women 20
gliding along their convent passages to
the sound of the prayer-bells, With their
long wells hanging between them and
the coarse, hard world of every day,
the vulgar, careworn toilers, the char
women and factory l':aas Of life are at
their uncoasing toll, amid squalor, and
CRIME, and oaths, and cruel denseness
the hard-worked mothers of sickly
children are Shaving, day alter day, in
common lodgiug-houses, feeding on
hard fare, scraps and ends from the
butchers shops, or refuse and broken
victuals from some rich neighbor's
kitchen; while others, again, warmed
and fed in the body, wearing and starv-
ing mentally, are struggling through
passionate sorrow and privation.
Are work and suffering the Iitanies
Of some lives, one wonders? are "a.
ticnce, and PAIN, aud humiliation, tie
fasts and penances Of others? Novels
hang between the hard, brazen faces
and the world no convent bars iDclose
them other than tha starting, ilLbuilt
brick walls of their shabby homes and
[oaging-places. But who shall say
that the struggles, the pangs, prayers,
'utcries Of all these women, differently
expressed and experienced though they
ire, do not go up together in one COM
non uttcrancc 20 that plsce where
here is pity Cor the sorroBful and CON-
passion for tue weary?
Dick Butler, who had tender heart
himself, said on, day, smoking his
olpc, to some one Who had cried out
hat she could not understand how the
good God who made the littlo ones so
pretty and so touching could bear to
hear them weep for pain, "People
seem to think themselves in some way
superior to Heaven itself when they
complain of the sorrow and want round
about them. And yet it is not :he
Devil for certain who puts pity in their
hearts,"
1t is vain to try to answer such
questions, but it is difficult not to won
der and speculate, as every day one
sees stranger and subtler contrasts and
forms of life. There is the good moth
er Of the famiiy-useful, happy, bright
eyed and light-hearted, approaching her
home, of which the simmer seems to
cheer and warm her as shc sees it
cleaning from distance. There is
the forlorn little traveller from Jerusa-
lem whose wounds have been bound
up with wine and oil, coming in her
charge to the inn.
Ga the sofa, like a little lady out of
Vatican, eating bonbons, sits young
Madame de Tracy, occasionally smiling
at the good old cu,c's compliments.
She is 4 graceful young woman, with
with bright blue eyes, with plaintive
expression and as she really has every
thing in the world she wishes for, no
wonder she Is dissatisfied. Her life
lies before hei quite smooth, fat, unin-
tercst,ng, all sunshine, and not bit Of