Democratic Sentinel, Volume 19, Number 23, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 14 June 1895 — Silence [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Silence

By Miss Melely

CHAPTER XlH—Continued. Sitting down beside his wife, he leaned his head against hersa tired head it was —and laid on hers one of his brown bands, not such handsome hands as they used to be when they did nothing. She clasped it fondly, though she said not a word; she, too, was not given to complaining. Besides, hard as things were, both for him and for her, to see him thus, doing cheerfully what be did not like {through all his tender fictions she knew he could not like the mill very much), fighting with hardships, submitting to poverty, and proudly conquering any false shame about either, taking np his daily burden and carrying it without a murmur or reproach—the felt—ail her pain, the felt something as the mediaeval women must have done—the noble ladies who buckled on their good knights' armor and sent them forth to battle, to live or die, as God willed, but never to be conquered, never ceasing to fight, like true knights, to their last breath. But Bella could not understand this sort of thing at all. She shrugged her shoulders and raised her brows. “It’s an odd taste, Rody, but yon always were so odd. To be out at work all day, and come home tired and dirty, hungry and cold, and then say yon like’ Itl—l wouldn't be you for the world nor Silence either, shut up in this lonely place all the year round. No wonder mamma would not come to Blackhall; it would never have suited her st all,-” and Bella langhed at the bare idea. “But I ought not to find fault with the poor old house, for I may have to come down to it, after all. No telegram or letter?"

1 '"Nothing." "Wall, don’t look so grave about It. Plainly they have all cut me; let mo fall back upon you. Will you take me In. Rody? I’ll sell my jewels—l brought a lot with me, you know—and pay you for my keep. When it’s all gone you can turn me out to starve, only it wouldn’t be creditable to either Thomsons or Jardines if Mrs. Alexander Thomson and her baby had to starve.” ‘What nonsense you talk!” said Roderick, turning away and changing the conversation at once. But that night when the household was all gone to bed, and they three sat over the fire, listening to the wind howling and the sleet pattering against the panes, he resumed the subject, and, somewhat to Silence’s surprise, began very tenderly, but with unmistakable decision, to arrange what his sister should do. His arrangement it was—not his wife’s —as he plainly said, thereby taking from her the weight of a difficult and painful thing. “I will not promise to keep you always, Bella, for I think husband and wifs are better left alone together; but we shall not turn you out, my poor girl, whatever comes,” said he, laying a brotherly hand bn Bella's shoulder. “The little we have ■ —and you see how little it is—you shall Share, till something can be arranged between you and your husband. Then, with what you have of your own —my mother will surely pay it over to you—we will find yon a home close by us, In the manse, perhaps, whero I heard tojday there are two vacant rooms.” “What! to be shut up in a miserable pountry lodging, with only baby and purse! Dreadful!

"Not quite bo bad oa your other alternative —starring. And, Bella, we must look things in the face. If you hare no manage settlement, and my mother keeps Jier money in her own hands during her lifetime, and both she and your husband cast you oft, you hare only your brother to fall back upon. I am not rich now, (you know that; but you know also that, rich or poor, I should nerer let my sister ‘.starve.' " “'No, a thousand times not” cried Silence, taking her hand—for Bella, seeing ■this was no joking matter, had suddenly ■taken fright, and, as usual, burst into ■tears. “It may not come to that; but if lit does, believe me, poverty is not as bad as it seema Tou shall nerer want for love. You will live close beside us; our home will be open to you; and the child—the children" (in a timid whisper) “shall grow up together. Oh, we shall be very happy, never fear.” "No, no; 1 should be miserable I” And she sobbed and moaned, and talked of '"cruelty,” “hard usage,” wished she was /"dead and out of the way”—the usual bitter outcries against fate of those who, having made their own fate what it is, have not the strength to bear it Deeply grieved and not a little wounded, Roderick sat beside his sister, his wife not interfering—who could interfere?—till her misery had a little subsided, and then -said, quietly: "Now, we will speak no more to-night; ibnt to-morrow we will consult a lawyer, •and find out the right and wrong of the •case, and your exact position with regard to your husband. Will that do?* “No, no,” she said. “Don’t be in such a hurry. Wait till I make up my mind. It’s so difficult to make up one’s mind alwaya Money isn’t everything, as Silence says, but I never had her enthusiasm for poverty. And the drink—which to her is such a horror—why, we’re used to it at Richerden. Alexander Thomson isn’t the only drunkard in Scotland. If I could

but put up with him a little longer!” Both Roderisck and his wife looked exceedingly surprised. They made no remark—they always had carefully avoided making any remarks to Bella about her husband. But when she was gone, and they stood alone together over the dying fire, they spoke of her with a pity deeper than either had ever yet expressed. “Mark my words; she will go back to him yet Do you think, my wife, she would be right or wrong?” “Wrong f was the answer, clear and firm. , “Why?' “Because she will do it neither for love, nor duty, nor even pity, but only for expediency. Thiuk! the horror of a married life begun and continued for the sake of expediency!” Silence looked up in her husband’s face —her husband whom she was ready to live for, however hard a life, ready to die tor, and be knew it "You are right” he said. “And yet hath erred—both ought to suffer,” “But not more than they. And the sins of the parents shall be visited on the children even unto the third and fourth generation.” She spoke in a low, solemn voice. “I told her once, and I shall tell her agaiu, if she asks me, that she who makes a bad man the father of her children is little better than a murderess.” Bells, however, did not seem at all to deserve or to desire the epithet “poor.” She appeared at breakfast next morning

in the best of spirits, nor did she fall Into her usual half hour of despondency after the post went by. She watched the weather with a slight anxiety, bat that was aIL She even began to take an interest in Blackball affairs, and especially in an invitation for New Year’s ere st Symington, which her brother and sister were discussing together. “Of course you will go and take me with yon? I had no idea, Silence, that yon had such grand friends. Do yon often see them?” “Not very often. It’s a good way to walk, and besides " “Walk? You don’t mean to say your husband lets you walk?” A sharp quiver of pain passed over Roderick’s face. “I let her, as I am obliged to let her do many things which cut me to the heart, but we bear them. Bella, when you an<f I were children, we had no need to think of money; now we have—at least I have. If I hired a carriage and took my wife and yon to Symington, it would cost me fifteen shillings, and my earnings are just two pounds a week. Now, yon see? Let us say no more.”

They did not, for Bella afterwards owned to being “quite frightened” by her brother's manner; bat several times that morning she fell into brown studies, as If something was secretly vexing her, and In the afternobn was suddenly missing for an honr, having gone herself—“for the good of her health,"she said—to the village, and as, by mere chance they afterward discovered, to the postoffice. Had she, after refusing so often, at last written to her mother? They did not like to ask, and she did not tdl, bat being not at all of a reticent nature, ahe soon betraysd that something was on her mind. For three days after that ahe was in a restless, slightly irritabls condition, very difficult to please in trifles, snd noticing mors than ever, In that annoyingly condescending way she had, the weak points of the establishment. “And so Cousin Silence left yon the honge just as it stands, my dear, as it must have been in papa’s time, of course? Well, no wonder mamma did not care for it Such poky rooms, such shabby old furniture. In your place I would have turned out every stick of it, and refurnished It from top to bottom. But you can do this by and by, if you stay here.” ‘1 have no wish to go." "Probably not a quiet soul like you; it suits you exactly. But my brother, you sorely would not keep him shut up all his days at Blackhall, he who would be an ornament in any society? Do think better of it Poke him np, make him push himself forward fa the world and get rich; there’s nothin i like money, after all. If mamma saw hit a well off, so that be conid come back to Richerden, and live in good Richerden style, such as we have all of us been brought np to, she might forgive him; who knows?” “Who knows?” repeated Silence, assenting. She would have been amused, but for the sting which Bella's good-natured words often carried. She did not mean it; it was simply that she should not understand. “Just think of what I say,” continued Mrs. Thomson, as she gazed lazily out of the window, down the winding glen, at the end of which curled upward in a fairy-like pillar the smoko of the mill. “I wonder you can endure the sight of it—that horrid place where Body works all day—Rody that used »o be such a gentleman.

“He Is a gentleman,” said the young wife, with a flush of the eye. “And Ido not dislike—l like the mill. It has helped to make him what ho Is, and show him what he could do; and he does it, does It cheerfully for me. Bello, if I die—and 1 may die; who can tell? this spring”—with a sudden appeal to this woman, so like herself, but yet a woman—“if I die, remember we were perfectly happy, my husband and I. We never have regretted anything, never shall regret anything, except perhaps that his mother—l always feel so for mothers.” Her voice broke with emotion, but It was with emotion quite thrown away. Bella scarcely heard what her sister-in-law was saying. She sat listening, as she had listened a good many times tho last few days, to auy sound outside. “Hnrkt What is that? Carriage wheels?' , “Possibly. We do have visitors sometimes, even here,” said Silence, with a smile. But Bella heeded her not. She ran to the window and watched, in a tremor of anxiety, the arrival. A large, handsome carriage, with post-horses, postilion and two liveried footmen behind, coming slowly up to the door. “It is! ft Is our carriage! Perhaps she has come herself, poor dear mamma! I did not tell you, my dear, but I wrote to mamma, and sold, if she thought it best, I would come home. And I suppose she has sent for me. Look there! look there! No, It Is not mamma—oh, God help met It is my husband.’’

Horror, disgust, despair, were written on every feature of her face, as she watched Mr. Alexander Thomson descend, leaning on his two footmen, and In a loud, Imperious voice inquired “If Mrs. Thomson were here.” How she shuddered, the miserable woman who had not had strength enough to free herself from her misery! But this was its last outcry. In another minute her worldy up-bringing, her love of ease and luxury, and a certain pride to preserve appearances, asserted their sway. “Yes, that is our carriage; isn’t it a nice one? And he has brought it to fetch me. Well, he is not so bad, after all. I suppose he wants to get back in time for the New Year; the Thomsons always have a grand family gathering at the New Year. They are a highly respectable family, and in an excedingiy good position, I assure you, my dear,” added she, with a mixture of haughtiness and deprecation, as if she thought her sister would blame her. But Silence merely said:

“Shall I go and receive your husband, or will you go?” “You. No; perhaps I had better do it myself. Send him in here. I’ll manage my own affairs.” And she did manage them—how was never accurately known. But half an hour after Mr. and Mrs. Alexander Thomson were seen sitting together on the drawing-room sofa, as comfortable as If they had never been separated. And most likely half the world would say the wife was quite right in thus fulfilling to the letter her marriage vow, condoning everything, shutting her eyes to everything, making believe that wrong was right, and going back in the most respectable manner to her husband’s house, there to sustain the character of a blameless British matron. She did it “for the best,” as many women would argue, or “for the sake of the child,” which is the argument of hundreds more who deliberately continue in wealthy dishonor; for what dishonor can be worse than marriage without respect and without love?’ But, as the proverb says, Bella had “made her bed, and must lie in it” Nobody had a fight to interfere or advise. Silence never attempted to do either. She sat with the child in her lap, the poor pitiful little creature whom she had grows fond of, and was almost sorry to

ioee, till ahe was sent for Into the draw-ing-room, and then, to make things lees difficult, she entered with baby in bar arms. Its father civilly noticed it and her, and there waa a slight gleam of pleasure in his dull fishy eyes, aa if ha were proud, after a fashion, of his good-looking, eWrsr wife, and of his new paternal dignity. “Nice little thing! And Mra. Thomson tells me you have been so kind to It sad to her, airs. Jardine. Accept my my very best thanks. It was quite a good idea of my wife’s, this—coming to yon for change of air.” "Yes, Blackhall la an exceedingly healthy place,” said Bella, with a laugh—her old careless laugh. If there was a ring of mockery, even contempt In it, the man was too dnll to find it oat Hs eyed her with extreme respect—nay, admiration—and pat his arm round hat waist with a pompons demonstrativeness, as if to provs to all the world what as exceedingly happy coaple they were. The tragedy had melted into genteel comedy, nay, almost into broad fares, were it not for the slender line that so often is drawn between the ludicrous and the ghastly. “I suppose we had better leave at once. By changing horses we shall post fast enough to reach home to-night, and go to your father’s on New Year's evt,” said Bella, hurriedly. “80, my dear Silence, we won’t wait till my brother comes home. Mr. Thomson is decent enough now,” she added in a whisper; “but, by snd by, after dinner—l don’t want Rody to see him after dinner. We shall poet all the way,” she said aloud, “and by midnight we shall be at home." “Where I hope soon to have the pleasure of seeing Mrs. Jardine,” continued Mr. Thomson, with ponderous politeness. ’’Assure yonr husband that he will be always welcome at our place, and I’ll give him the best glass of wine, or whisky, if he likes it, to be found in all Scotland. And—sad —•” “Come away, Silence. I’ll get my things ready and the child's in ten minutes. Make haate.” Bat even when the two sisters were alone together both carefully avoided any confidential word. Bella made no explanation, and never named her husband but once, when Silence proposed to give him some refreshment “Oh, he has taken care of himaelf already; trust him for that. He always takes care of himself. Why, my dear, if there is one creature in the world whom that men never forgets, it is Alexander Thomson.” No answer. None was possible. And Bella kept up her hard, gay, reckless manner, neither shedding a tear nor ottering one grateful or regretful word all the time Silence was dressing the baby. Only at the very last minute, when she saw its aunt press a last tender kiss on the poor little pinched-up face, the woman in her could not help showing itself, even through the "grand air” which had now wholly returned to Mrs. Alexander Thomson. “God bless you, and give yon one of your own.” said she, pressing her sister’s hand. "You havo been very kind to me and mine, and always would have been; I know that. But it’s better as it is. I couldn’t stand poverty. I always did enjoy life, and I always mast. He is in very good circumstances, and he promisee me I shall have everything I can wish for. So, good-by, Silence. I suppose nobody is ever very happy, except you.” Bella went down stairs, the other following and accepting mutely her voluminous public thanks for the “great kindness” she lmd received, and how she hoped to come again soon to Blackhall. “And, my dear, mind you clear out by then all Cousin Silence’s old sticks, and have the house thoroughly done up, modern fashion. There is a man at Richerden who will do it well; Rody knows him. By the by, tell Rody—"she turned a shade paler, and her lip quivered for a moment “No; tell him nothing; he won't care. He will be only to glad to find his house empty, and have his wife all to himself—some husbands are. Come, Mr. Thomson"—she always called him Mr. Thomson—“if we don’t make haste we shall be benighted, and you will have to dine in some horrid road-side inn, which you know you couldn’t stand on any account Good-by, Silence, a thousand thanks and a happy New Year! It’s close at hand now. I suppose I shall dance the old year out and the new year in, as usual at the Thomsons’ house. Ta-ta! good-by." She kissed her hand out of the cariage window, and thus, in the most commonplace and cheerful manner, departed with her husband, as if there had never come a cloud between them, and as if he were the best husband in the world. Not a poetical or dramatic denouement certainly, but scarcely unnatural—to her. She was one of those who have, and must have, the good things in this life. She found them once more about her, and possibly they satisfied her; at any rate she could not do without them. But young Mrs. Jardine, poor all her days, a poor man’s wife this day, with little prospect of ever being anything else, as she saw that splendid carriage drive away, felt almost as sad at heart as if she had been watching her sister-in-law’s fnneral.

When Roderick found his sister had gone, gone without even waiting to say to him “Good-by and thank you,” he looked grieved, but neither surprised nor angry. “We will not judge her,” was all he said. “We ought not—we that are so happy.” “But there 1j something beyond both happiness and misery—the question of right and wrong.” “Nevertheless, I still say, ‘Judge not, that ye be not judged,’ especially in a question of husband and wife. Each individual case has its different aspect, which no outsider can quite understand. My darling, let ns say no more about it.” And she knew by his manner that he was determined to say no more about it: so, being a wise woman, she also held her tongue. But all that evening they seemed to breathe freer—certainly he did—thoroughly enjoying the empty house and the <iuiet fireside, where there was nt> need to make conversation, but the two sat together in the sweet unreserve and complete rest of married life, as free as being alone, and yet’without any of the dreariness of solitude. “Nevertheless, I mean you to go out into ‘the world’ to-morrow night," said Silence. “Have you forgotten the dinner at Symington?” This was the New Year’s eve party which they had discussed before Bella, and which Silence had urged him to accept, as it was half pleasure, half business. A certain “man of letters” (good old-fashioned words, and very appropriate in this case, as contra-distinguished from “man of genius”) who had talked much with Roderick at the first dinner, had been rash enough to express a wish to see the rejected novel, now lying, forlorn and dust-enshrouded, on the top shelf of the old oaken press. Silence made her husband lift it down, and watched his eye brighten as he turned it over. “ ‘Nothing venture, nothing win,’ ” said she, as she rearranged it tenderly and tied it up afresh. “As you say in this very book, dear, ‘Take the world at its best, and it will not give you its worst; believe in it, and it will believe in you.’ ” “To convict me out of my own mouth, you traitor!” said he, laughing. He had been half inclined to hide his bead at home, having grown very weary of late in body and mind, but the light in his wife’s eyes lighted up his own courage once more; he consented to do as she wished, “But you, my darling?” “I shall be glad to get rid of you—l have plenty to do at home.”

“Only too much,” said he, sighing. “Tell me honestly, was your visitor a trouble to you?” “Yes, in some ways. But she could not help it, and I did not mind.” “Why did you not tell me?” She smiled in hiß face with that halfplayful, half-tender, yet wholly determined look she had at times. “Roderick, if you think I shall inform you of all my little household affairs —you, a man with quite enough cares of your own —you are greatly mistaken; I never shall. We will have fair division of labor you the bread-winner, I the bread-dis-penser. Did you not once tell me ‘lady’ was a Saxon word and meant ‘loafgiver?’ which implies that the wife should manage the house and take care of the money. I intend to do it. I can’t do your work, but I should be ashamed of myself if I could not do my own without laying the burden of it upon you, who are—slightly incapable.” Roderick laughed outright. “My queen! —as I used to call you—you are beginning to govern in good earnest But your husband is not afraid.” “He need not be,” she said, softly, taking his hand and kissing it. “He will al-> ways be stronger and wiser than I, in his own way. And now go to your grand dinner at Symington.” Though he had not liked going, when he really was there Roderick found he liked it very much. He had always been that best type of his sex—a man whom men appreciate, even as the woman whom women are fond of is certainly the noblest kind of woman. And now that his fate was settled, his wife chosen, his home made, taken his place among men as a man and a citizen, ready to help on in the world’s work, without doubts or drawbacks, he found his position both pleasant and honorable. Sure of it and of himself, and finding himself among people who evidently neither knew nor cared how much he had a year, and whether he kept two servants or twenty, the young man’s spirits rose, and he enjoyed himself heartily—so heartily that it was not until Lady Symington said something about a New Year’s gift to his wife, that he remembered what night it was, and how Silence was sitting alone at home. All the party were to wait up together, Scotch fashion, to see “the old year out and the new year in,” but he hastily made his adieus and walked off, rather vexed with himself, and yet not much, since he kad good news to bring home. And he knew his wife was not one of these foolish women who exact endless outside observances; she was content to lie safe in his’ heart, knowing that she was as completely a part of himself as that true heart which went on silently beating, keeping fresh all the springs of life, whether he ever noticed it or not. Walking rapidly through the starlighted night, strangely mild and still, as often happens on New Year’s eve, just us though nature took- a pleasure in this motionless watch over the old year that “lies a-dying,” Roderick felt a softness almost like spring in the air. It seemed to stir all his young blood—he, with life all before him to will and to do. And some of the talk that night had given him a rehewed impulse both as to will and deed. “I must tell her at once. I know she Will approve of it,” said he to himself. “It” was an idea started by the kindly “man of letters”—that did Mr. Jardine’s imaginative writing fail, there was a subject very popular just now, and likely to attract attention, which, with a little pains, he might examine, read up for, and write about, so as to make an excellent quarterly article, sure of at least a moderate audience. The first step on the ladder, which, if token cautiously and firmly, might lead him either by literature or politics, or both, to the very top. “ ‘Fain would I climb, but that I fear to fail.’ Only she will never say to me “ ‘lf thy heart fail thee, do not climb at all.’ She would keep my heart up so that I could not fall. Bless her! lam sure of that.” So thinking, he came to his own door, stepping lightly across the grassy lawn, half in boyish mischief to look in at the

parlor window—she liked to keep her light visible—and see what his wife was doing now the household has all gone to bed. Sitting quitely and alone, beside her a pretty box of sandalwood, which looked like a present, for it had a Christmas card on the top, aha waa emptying It, layer after layer, and spreading its contents on her lap. Only little clothes—the little clothes that women and mothers think the prettiest in all the world. One after the other she unfolded them, patting her fingers through the tiny empty sleeves, looking at them admiringly, smilingly, \and yet again with a strange sadness. All at once Roderick called to mind what Lady Symington had said to him, and her tone of saying it; he had been full of his own affairs just then, and had not noticed much else, but now, as he slipped quietly in-doors, and kneeling down beside his wife, helped her to examine her New Year’s gift—man as he was—lt touched him deenlT. - “And the little fellow only lived seven years, yet his mother has remembered him all this while! Poor Lady Symington!”

He said it with a curious awe, as with his slightly awkward fingers he helped his wife to refold the wonderful little garments, and replace them, as they had lain, untouched, for nearly forty years. Then they put the box away and sat down by the fire, hand in hand, and he told her all his new hopes, new ambitions —the life that somehow seemed opening before him, if only he had strength to carry it ont. “I shall do nothing rashly. ‘Authorship,’ they say, ‘is a capital staff, but a very bad crutch.’ I shall stick to the mill at present. But you were right to send me away to-night. It does me good to have something beyond the mill, to mix with men and feel myself one of them, with life all before me, and power to do my work in it, with what poor old Tommy Moore calls, conceitedly, “ “The mind that burns within me, And pure smiles from thee at home.” That quiet home smile, serene and pure, it beamed upon him now, and his whole heart was satisfied. “This is the first new year we ever spent together, my wife. Shall we go outside and greet it in the open air, as Is our Scotch fashion? My father always did so, and my mother, too —my poor mother!” he sighed. “I wonder whether Bella’s being with us will do good or harm? whether they will be thinking of me just now? We always had a grand family gathering at Hogmanay—my two elder sisters, their husbands and children. They never cared for me much; I was a mere boy when they married. Still, to hare quite forsaken met Well, well, I wish them all a happy new year—my ‘aln folk,’ as we say in Scotland.” Silence had no “aln folk”—only two far-away graves—but she had her husband.- He and she walked np and down in front of the hall-door talking of this and that, and especially of his work in the future, which seemed already to have taken a strong hold on his imagination, till in the dead stillness the distant stable clock at Symington was heard beginning to strike twelve.

, Until then there had not been a breath stirring, the night was so wonderfully calm and mild, and dusk rather than dark; the half moon, slowly sloping westward behind the house, still showed faintly the belt of trees round the lawn, and even the dim outline of the distant hills. Above, the sky was parseme—no English word expresses it—with myriads of stars. When the last stroke of the clock ceased, there seemed to descend from it, right down from these mysterious stars, a sough of wind equally mysterious. It rustled through the tree-tops, wandered round the house, and then passed away into stillness, almost like a living thing. “Listen, listen, Roderick!” “It is the sough of the air—the old year’s last breath. I have often noticed it, and heard other people notice it, too. And now—our new year is begun. May it be a very happy one to you—to us—my darling!” He kissed her, and then seeing how mute and passive she was, made a little innocent joke about not being able to add the usual Scotch wish of “a happy New Year, and afore the end on't,” because she had already got her “man,” and must make the best of him, bad as he was, to the end of the chapter. “Which is such a long way off, my love. Quite alarming. Only to think that thirty, forty, even fifty years hence, you and I may be standing—two old people, old and gray-headed—under these very stars. I remember looking up at them this time last year, and thinking of you, and wondering if we should ever be married.” “You were ‘in love’ with me then; yon love me now. And you will love me even when I am ‘old and gray-headed’ as you say. I shall love you, Roderick, efen when yon are an elderly gentleman, and—not handsome at all. Nothing on earth could ever part us; nothing—nothing ” “What is wrong, dear? Are you cold? We will go in.” “No; wait—just one minute.” He wrapped her closely in his plaid, and she nestled in his arms, but still kept gazing up, far up, into that mystic floor of heaven, which, though we see it every night pt our lives, never loses its wonder, glory, and beauty.

“I should like to live to be an old woman; I should like ns both to be old, and yet love one another as dearly as when we were young It makes one feel immortal, this love. I should like, as you say, fifty years hence to stand With you under these stars, feeling that nothing could kill our love—or us. But if things were to be different; if this time next year I am—not here, but away—beyond the stars!” “What do you mean?’ She turned upon him those eyes of hers “heavenly eyes” he had called them since the day he first saw them on the Terasse at Berne. “I may die this spring. Sometimes, you know, women do.” He shivered, but violently controlled himself. “Yes, I know that; but—you are not afraid?” < “No, I am afraid of nothing—neither life nor death—now. And I would have died, if I might have chosen—died gladly! to have been for this one year—this one happy year—my Roderick’s wife, and—his child’s mother.” There was such a rapture in her face, that whatever dread her words might have aroused in him sunk down. It was one of those supreme moments when two who are wholly united, as these were, feel that no real parting is possible, that “whatever happens” (as people say), they are one through all eternity. “Hush!” Roderick said at last, in a broken voice. “God knows best. Let us leave it all.” And then taking her in-doors, he declared that the first of January was no time for moonlight rambles, and that he should abolish them altogether till the summer nights came. Which seemed a long way off now; for not unusual in the north, “As the days lengthened, So the cold strengthened, and a long frost and snow shut up Silence entirely within her own peaceful home.

A AuO time to most people; but nothing ever seemed to make her dulL Not even when some weeks after Bella’s departure, her husband was restless and troubled, evidently expecting some news which never came. One formal letter of thanks, announcing her safe arrival, a month after date, but explaining nothing further, waa all Mrs. Alexander Thomson vouchsafed to her brother and sister. She never mentioned her mother at ail. “Evidently Biackhall is tabooed,” said he, with a bitter laugh. “Never mind, my darling. Let us give it up, and not vex ourselves about the Inevitable.” And by that she knew how, until this moment, he had not given it np; had never ceased to hope and crave for something—the one blessing which no man gets twice in a life-time. He may have as many wives and children as fate allows; hi never can have two mothers. But—and some mothers world do well to remember this—when a man has a wife and his home, his Interests a&d.hls work, he does not mourn eternally; as Roderick said, he “accepts the inevitable,” and turns his mind to other things. Though the young Jardines had a shut-up and rather lonely life, it was anything but an idle one. The MS. novel came back once more —alas! historical novels always do come back nowadays—bat the “solid” article did not, until it had become transmuted into a bundle of those delightful proof-sheets which raise into the seventh heaven of happiness young authors, and even old authors can hardly see, withont a certain thrill of pleasure, a faint teflectlon of the time when, as now with Roderick, “The world was all before them, which to choose; Reason their guard and Providence theii guide.” And both reason and Providence seemed to have taken in charge this young author. Roderick had “no nonsense about him.” He did not start in literature with a picturesque and Imaginative view oi his own deservings, and how they were to be appreciated; he worked heartily at whatever came to his hand to do, and consequently he did good work. It might not have been the highest work, or the utmost he was capable of doing—Sileucs often ihonght so. She copied his MSS., taught herself to criticise them fairly, to see all the faults she could, “in order to prevent the world from seeing them,” as she one day said. “You see, dear, if you had to be killed, I would much rather kill you myself than let another person do It.” At which he laughed heartily and submitted to all fault-finding and subsequent correction with the best grace In the world “Who knows! Such a severe domestic critic ought to make me a celebrated author In no time. I think I will begin another magnum opus—not a novel, though; and by working at all leisure moments I may finish it before the year is out” “Before the year is out” repeated Silence, softly. “Yes, yes; but will you not begin it now ?” And she not only got him to begin it but she kept him steadily at it copying in the mornings what he wrote over night, and arranging all that he had to “read up,” according to his literary friend’s orders, so as to give him the least trouble possible. It was hard work, but the mill-work happened to be slack just then, and Mr. Black was very kind and friendly—touchingly so. And thus, from day to day, Roderick’s time was kept full, and his mind also. (To be continued.)