Year: 1872

daring TO 60 too often, lest she should be
warned away altogether.


She found him always serious, but try
ing. Tor her sake, not to seem unhappy
always noble in word or thought, blaming
no one for that one hasty moments work
his lot was cast in forever with that of the
perpetrators of bloody butchering, with
ravislers and thieves. She learned to
look at free and contented people when
she came out of these cruel ga.es, with
the burning sense that Iphigenias mother
might have had-her child was the sacri.
nee to the laws that gave them their free.
dom and content.


One day letter came to her from Alice.
from Alice, whom the years had brought
face to face with sorrow, until she had
been laid low by her husbands sins and
perfidies, by his neglect and waste, and
who now lay Ill and wretched, humbled
and forsaken, in poverty.


You must 60 for her, mother" said
Philip at their last INTERVENTION the
warden of the prison was kinder to hi.
mother than the laws-''and you must not
come back to me. am glad to be here.
am expatiating the blood shed. lam
to work it of my hands. do very well;
but the prison, the shadow of it is killing
you. You will live again in Alice's chii-
dren; dream, hope, work for them. You
must forget me. Life does not last for
ever here, you know; and in the next life
our wrongs will all be righted, mother"


She went to Alice, far away in south.
western town on the verge of the forest,
not to obey Philip, after all, so much as
duty. She meant to return again the mo-
ment she could be spared. The moment
never came; there was not day In the
year that she could get away, that she
could find it in her heart to get away.
Alice fingered, and child after child sick
ened and went before her, and Alice fol-
lowed. She had been with Alice to the
end, and Mrs. Hamilton would have been .
hypocrite to weep for her. She was free
once more, free to 60 back and sit down
at the prison-gates, behind which her boy
wasted and withered. She was going
whenever she could sell the little house in
garden that she had bought to suit the
sick whimsy of Alice, who was pursued
by dread of being turned upon the
street. that showed how we'll she knew
the rigors of it, The house was all that
she had left. She had been year vainly
trying to get its price that she might have
the wherewithal Just to draw breath in
us IL
seemed to her in desperate moods that
fate was against her, and she never should
be able to turn her steps eastward again.
SO Mrs. Hamilton sat alone with her
Christmas eve. The hearth was clean,
the fire was bright, it sparkled on woman
whose fiftyodd years had changed her less
| than You might think, for the hair was
brown and the cheek was smooth; the
heart. indeed, was bitter, but tending the
sick children had kept the eye and voice
soft and sweet. Never once, in all the
twenty years since her boy went under
cloud. had her thoughts left the sugges-
tions of one theme, had done aught, in
very truth, but sit at the prison-gates.


She was thinking the one thought still;
recalling her boys beauty, his lofty
figure, his manly grace, that he had been
degraded in the convict's garb; recalling
his pride, his honor and truth that moth
ing could degrade; recalling that brilliant
promise that had been put out like light;
thinking with dull and bitter anger still OF
the vigor and power and talent dying out
like a spark trodden into the ashes;
thinking Of that splendid spirit to be slow
ly leveled with mere clods and clay;
thinking if only she could have him now.
bowed, and old though he might be before
his time. If they, alone in this Western
town, far from cid scenes and faces, could
| finish their days together, she with her
house and garden. he with some prison.
taught trade, never signing for the cid
luxurious surroundings of their high-bred
youth, crust shared with Philip sweeter
than ieasts in palace! What an ecststic
thought it was TO her, what throb and
thrill of bliss the mere passing fancy Of
the impossible thing gave her. when she
pictured him going up and down. bend
ing to the little children who followed him
to his garden-gate, honored for his integ-
rity, beloved for his gentleness, and, ii
any rumor of the long trouble ever spread
wings above him. making it incredible to
any who looked at him and saw how the
| fires had burned out and the volcano was
''healed with snow ~


y was too much to think of-that love.
that sympathy, and support that presence.
She leaned back In her chair, and closed
the eyes from which such slow and heavy
tears welled and coursed down her cheeks.
Oh no; instead of that there was solitude
and WEAKNESS and the grave for her. and
by and by. when the prison discipline
should have made an end OF him, q lonely
death in cell Tor her child, no love near
MN, Il Pit IN the potter Heiu. fOr tney
had no influence, no friends, no money
even the places that knew them knew
them new no more. What were the
Christmas bells ringing for? Why were
the children carrying their hemlock and
holly in the streets Why were the chimes
pealing so persistently their peace on
earth. good will to menp 1t was good will
to men that poured out her boys life,
unused. like blood spilled at an altar.
What wicked ancestor, she was asking.
gave him the temper that did the deed
Was he predestined before his birth to
this damnation?


The wind was rising as she sat there:


it brought "a sound of distant storms win


it, shuddering sense of homelessness ior


those exposed to it in great cities OF On
bleak moors. The windows raftled ana
startled her eyes open she thought sae
saw face against the pane, but knew she
did not, and the apparition led her away


nm instant into the hearts Of sa.i-eyed


women and civil men, and she remem-
bered that there were worse crimes than
her sons had been, worse destinies; the