Читать книгу The New Penelope, and Other Stories and Poems - Frances Fuller Victor - Страница 8

"In short, you were preparing to become much more subject to the second love than the first; a not infrequent experience," I interrupted. "You certainly must have loved a handsome, agreeable, courteous, and manly man, who would have interposed between you and the rude shocks of the world; and you had begun to realize that you could, in spite of your first love?"

"And to have a feeling of disappointment when the possibility presented itself that after all these blessings might be wrested from me; of horror when I reflected that in that case my last estate would be inexpressibly worse than the first."

"There was a terrible temptation there!"

"No; that was the one thing I was perfectly clear about. Not to be dragged into crime or deserved disgrace, I was determined upon. How I should avoid it was where I was in doubt."

"I am very anxious to know how you met him on his return."

"There was no one in the house except myself, and Benton, who was now quite well again for the time. I was standing by the dining-room window, arranging some ferns in a hanging basket, and Benton was amusing himself with toys the boarders were always giving him. I heard a footstep, and turned my head slightly to see who it was. Mr. Seabrook stood in the door, regarding us with a pleased smile.

"'How is my wife and boy?' he said, cheerily, advancing towards me, and proffering a kiss of greeting.

"I put up my hand to ward him off, and my heart stood motionless. I seemed to be struck with a chill. My teeth chattered together, while the ends of my fingers turned cold at once.

"Naturally, he was surprised; but thinking perhaps that the suddenness of his return, under the circumstances, had overcome me, he quickly recovered his tenderness of manner.

"'Have I frightened you, my darling?' he asked, putting out his arms to fold me to his breast. Not being able to speak, I whirled round rapidly, and hastened to place the table between us. Of course, he could not comprehend such conduct, but thought it some nervous freak, probably.

"Turning to Benton, he took him up in his arms and kissed him, asking him some questions about himself and toys. 'Could you tell me what is the matter with your mamma, Bennie?' he asked, seeing that my manner remained inexplicable.

"'I tink see has a till,' answered Benton, who by this time knew the meaning of the word 'chill' by experience.

"'She has given me one, I know,' said Mr. Seabrook, regarding me curiously. I began to feel faint, and sat down, leaning my head on my hand, my elbow on the table.

"'Anna,' said he, addressing me by my Christian name for the first time, and giving me a little shock in consequence—for I had almost forgotten I had ever been called 'Anna'—'if I am so disagreeable to you, I will go away again; though I certainly had reason to expect a different reception.'

"'No,' I said, suddenly rousing up; 'you must not go until I have told you something; unless you go to stay—which would perhaps be best.'

"'To stay! go to stay? There seems great need of explanation here. Will you be good enough to tell me why I am to go away to stay?'

"'The reason is, Mr. Seabrook,' I answered, 'that your true wife, and your own children expect you at home, in Ohio.'

"I had worded my answer with the intention of shocking the truth out of him, if possible. If he should be innocent, I thought, he would forgive me. There was too much at stake to stand upon niceties of speech; and I watched him narrowly."

"How did he receive such a blow as that? I am curious to know how guilty people act, on being accused."

"You cannot tell an innocent from a guilty person," Mrs. Greyfield returned, with a touch of that asperity that was sometimes noticeable in her utterances. Then, more quietly: "Both are shocked alike at being accused; one because he is innocent; the other, because he is guilty. How much a person is shocked depends upon temperament and circumstance. The guilty person, always consciously in danger of being accused, is likely to be prepared and on the defensive, while the other is not.

"What Mr. Seabrook did, was to turn upon me a look of keen observation, not unmixed with surprise. It might mean one thing; it might mean another; how could I tell? He always impressed me so with his superiority that even in that moment, when my honor and life's happiness were at stake, I was conscious of a feeling of abasement and guiltiness that I dare accuse him to his face. Perhaps, he saw that I was frightened at my own temerity; at all events he was not thrown off his guard.

"'Do I understand you to charge me with crime—a very ugly crime, indeed?' he asked pointedly.

"'You know,' I said, 'whether you are guilty. If you are, may God so deal with you as you have meant to deal with me.'

"I fancied that he winced slightly at this; but in my excitement could not have seen very clearly. He knitted his brows, and took several turns up and down the room.

"'If I knew who had put this monstrous idea into your mind,' he finally said with vehemence; 'I would send a bullet through his heart!'

"'In that case,' I replied: 'you could not expect me to tell you;' and I afterwards made that threat my excuse for concealing the name of my informant.

"Mr. Seabrook continued to pace the floor in an excited manner, stroking his long blonde beard rapidly and unconsciously. I still sat by the table, trying to appear the calm observer that I was not. He came and stood by me, saying: 'Do you believe this thing against me?'

"'I do not know what to believe, Mr. Seabrook,' I replied, 'but something will have to be done about this rumor.' I could not bear to go on; but he understood me. He leaned over my chair, and touched my cheek with his:

"'Are you my wife, or not?' he asked. I shuddered, and put my face down on my hands. He knelt by my side, and taking my hands in his, so that my face must be seen, asked me to look into his eyes and listen to him. What he said, was this:

"'If I swear to you, by Almighty God, that you are my true and only wife, will you then believe me?'"

Mrs. Greyfield was becoming visibly agitated by these reminiscences, and paused to collect herself.

"You dared not say 'yes,'" I cried, carried away with sympathy, "and yet, you could not say 'no.' What did you do?"

"I burst into a passion of tears, and cried convulsively. He would have caressed and consoled me, but I would have none of it.

"'Anna, what a strange home-coming for a bridegroom!' he said, reproachfully.

"'Go away, and leave me to myself,' I entreated; 'You must not stay here.'

"'What madness?' he exclaimed. 'Do you wish to set everybody to talking about us?' Ah! 'talking about us,' was the bugbear I most dreaded, and he knew it. But I wanted to seem brave; so I said that in private matters we were at liberty to do as we thought right and best.

"'And I think it right and best to stay where my wife is. Anna, what is to be the result of this strange suspicion of yours, but to make us both unhappy, and me desperate! Why, I shall be the laughing-stock of the town—and I confess it is more than I can bear without flinching, to have it circulated about, that Seabrook married a wife who cut him adrift the first thing she did. And then look at your position, too, which would be open to every unkind remark. You must not incur this almost certain ruin.'

"'Mr. Seabrook,' I said, more calmly than I had yet spoken; 'what you have said has suggested itself to me before. Stay here, then, if you must, until I can take measures to satisfy myself of the legality of our marriage. You can keep your own counsel, and I can keep mine. I have spoken to no one about this matter, nor will I for the present. There is your old room; your old place at the table. I will try to act as natural as possible; more than this you must not expect of me.' This business-like tone nettled him.

"'May I inquire, Mrs. Seabrook, how long a probation I may anticipate, and what measures you intend taking to establish my good or bad character? A man may not be willing to wait always for a wife.'

"'Very well,' I replied to this covert threat; 'when you tire of waiting, you know what to do.' But my voice must have trembled, for he instantly changed his manner. There was more chance of winning me through my weakness than of intimidating me, coward though I was.

"'My dear Anna,' he said kindly, 'this is a most mortifying and trying predicament that I am in; and you must pardon me if I seem selfish. I do not know how I am to bear several months of this unnatural life you propose; and in thinking of myself I forget you. Yet your case, as you see it, is harder than mine; and I ought to pity and comfort you. If my darling would only let me!' He stretched out his arms to me. It was all I could do to keep from rushing into them, and sobbing on his breast. I was so tempest-tossed and weary!—what would I not have given to lay down my burdens?"

"That is where the unrecognized heroism of women comes in. How few men would suffer in this way for the right! Had you chosen to ignore the tale that you had heard, and taken this man whom fortune had thrown with you upon this far-off coast, he might have been to you a kind friend and protector. Do you not think so?"

"Very likely. Plenty of bad men, when deferred to, have made good husbands, as men go. But I, by resisting the will of one bad man, made infinite trouble for myself. Are you becoming wearied?"

"No, no; go on."

"I must pass over a great deal; and, thank God! some things have been forgotten. Mr. Seabrook took his old room down stairs. As before, he sat at the foot of the table and carved, but now as master of the house. Servants not being easily obtained, it was not remarked that my duties prevented my sitting down with my supposed husband at meals. He marketed for me, and received the money of my boarders when pay-day came; and at first he did—what he failed to do afterwards—pay the money over to me.

"You are curious to know how Mr. Seabrook conducted himself toward me personally, and in particular. For a few days, well; so that I began to feel confidence that so honorable a gentleman would be proved free from all stain. But he soon began to annoy me with the most persistent courtship, looking, as I could see, to breaking down my reserve, and subjecting me to the domination of a passion for him. If I had ever really loved Mr. Seabrook, it would have been a love of the senses, of interest, of the understanding, and not of the imagination and heart. I was just on the eve of such a love when it was fortunately put in check by my suspicions. For him to endeavor to create a feeling now that might, nay, that was intended to subvert principle and virtue, appeared even to my small worldly sense, an insult and an outrage.

"When I talked in this way to him, he half laughingly and half in earnest always declared that I should get into the habit of forgetting our marriage before my 'proofs' came from Ohio, unless he every day put me in mind of it! and this willingness to refer to 'proofs' threw me off my guard a little. He designed very cunningly, but not quite cunningly enough. As time wore on and he feared the proofs might come before he had bent me to his will, his attempts lost even the semblance of love or decency. Many and many a night I feared to close my eyes in sleep, lest he should carry out his avowed purpose; for locks and bolts in a house in those days were considered unnecessary, and I improvised such defenses as I could. I used to threaten to call in my little German neighbor, to which he replied she would probably recognize a man's right to occupy the same apartment with his wife! Still, I think he was deterred somewhat by the fear of exposure from using violence."

The recital of such sufferings and anxieties as these; endured, too, by a young and lonely woman, affected me powerfully. My excited imagination was engaged in comparing the Mrs. Greyfield I saw before me, wearing her nearly fifty years with dignity and grace, full of a calm and ripe experience, still possessing a dark and striking beauty, with the picture she had given me of herself at twenty-three. What a wonder it was that with her lively temperament either for pain or pleasure; with her beauty and her helplessness, she had come out of the furnace unscathed, as she now appeared.

"How could you," I said, with a feeling of deep disgust, "how could you allow such a man to remain in your house?"

"How could I get him out? We were legally married, so far as anybody in Oregon knew, except himself. Everybody presumed us to be living amicably together. He was careful to act the courteous gentleman to me in the presence of others. If we never went out together, it was easily explained by reference to my numerous household cares, and Benton's frequent illness. As I before said, no one could understand the position who had not been in it. I could not send him away from me; nor could I go away from him. He would have followed me, he said, to the 'ends of the earth.' Besides, where could I go? There was nothing for me but to endure until the answer to my letter came. Never was letter so anxiously desired as that one; for, of course, I fully expected that whatever news it contained, would bring relief in some way. But I had made up my mind to his guilt, rightly judging that, had he been innocent, he would either have found means to satisfy me, or have gone away and left me altogether.

"It had been six or seven months since my marriage. I had a large family of boarders to cook for, and Benton giving me a great deal of worry, fearing I should lose him. Working hard all day, and sleeping very little nights, with constant excitement and dread, had very much impaired my health. My boarders of ten said to me: 'Mrs. Seabrook, you are working too hard; you must make Mr. Seabrook get you a cook.' What could I say in return, except to force a smile, and turn the drift of the conversation? Once, carried away with indignation, I replied that 'Mr. Seabrook found it as much as he could do to collect the money I earned!'"

"And you were set down at once as a vixen!" I said, smiling.

"Well, they were not expected to know how matters stood, when I had taken so much pain to conceal the truth. I was sorry I had not held my peace a little longer, or altogether. Men never can understand a woman's right to resent selfishness, however atrocious; even when they are knowing to it, which in this case they were not. I might as well have held my tongue, since every unguarded speech of mine militated against me afterwards."

"You allowed Mr. Seabrook to have all your earnings?"

"I could not prevent it; he was my husband. Sometimes I thought he meant to save up all he could, to take him out of the country, when the hoped-for proofs of his crime should arrive. And in that light I was inclined to rejoice in his avarice. I would have given all I had for that purpose. Oh, those dreadful, dreadful days! when I was so near insane with sleeplessness and anxiety, that I seemed to be walking on the air! Such, indeed, was my mental and physical condition, that everything seemed unreal, even myself; and it surprises me now that my reason did not give way."

"Did you never pray?"

"My training had been religious, and I had always prayed. This, I felt, entitled me to help; and yet help did not come. I felt forsaken of God, and sullenly shut my lips to prayer or complaint. All severely tried souls go through a similar experience. Christ himself cried out: 'My God, my God, why hast forsaken me!'"

"No wonder you felt forsaken, indeed."

"You think I was as tried as I could be then, when I had a hope of escape; but worse came after that—worse, because more hopeless."

"You were really married to him then?" I cried in alarm: "I thought you told me in the beginning, that you were not."

"Neither was I; but that did not release me. When at last I received an answer to my inquiries, confirming the statement of the immigrant from Ohio, it was too late."

"You do not mean!"—I interrupted, in a frightened voice.

"No, no! I only mean that I had committed a great error, in keeping silence on the subject at the first. You can imagine one of your acquaintances who had been several months peaceably living with a man of good appearance and repute, to whom you had seen her married, suddenly declaring her husband a bigamist and refusing to live with him; and on no other evidence than a letter obtained, nobody knew how. To me the proof was conclusive; and it made me frantic to find that it was not so received by others."

"What did he say, when you told him that you had this evidence? How did he act?"

"He swore it was a conspiracy; and declared that now he had borne enough of such contumelious conduct; he should soon bring me into subjection. He represented himself to me, as an injured and long-suffering man; and me, to myself, as an unkind, undutiful, and most unwomanly woman. He told me, what was true, that I need not expect people to believe such a 'cock and bull story;' and used every possible means of intimidation, except actual corporeal punishment. That he threatened long after; and I told him if he ever laid a finger on me, I should certainly shoot him dead. But we had not come to that yet."

"Long after!" I repeated. "You do not, you cannot mean that this wretch continued to live under the same roof with you, long after he knew that you would never acknowledge him as your husband?"

"Yes, for years! For years after he knew that I knew he was what he was, he lived in my house and took my earnings; yes, and ordered me about and insulted me as much as he liked."

"But," I said, "I cannot understand such a condition of things. Was there no law in the land? no succor in the society about you? How could other women hold still, and know that a young creature like you was being tortured in that way?"

"The inertia of women in each other's defense is immense," returned Mrs. Greyfield, in her most incisive tone. "You must not forget that Portland was then almost a wilderness, and families were few, and often 'far between.' Among the few, my acquaintances were still fewer; for I had come among them poor and alone, and with all I could do to support myself, without time or disposition to visit. The peculiar circumstances I have related to you broke my spirit and inclined me to seclusion. However, I did carry my evidence, and my story together, to two or three women that I knew, and what do you suppose they said? That I 'should have thought of all that before I married!' They treated it exactly as if, having gone through the marriage ceremony, I was bound, no matter how many wives Mr. Seabrook had back in Ohio."

"They could not have believed your story," I said; not being able to take in such inferior morality.

"What they believed I do not know: what they said I have told you. I incline to the opinion that they thought I might be a little daft—I am sure I must have looked so at times, from sheer sleeplessness and exhaustion. Or they thought I had no chance of establishing the truth, and would be better off to submit quietly. At all events, not one encouraged me to resist Mr. Seabrook; and to overflow my cup of misery, he contrived to find the important letter, which I had hidden, and destroy it."

"Did you never go to men about your case, and ask for assistance?"

"At first I was afraid to appeal to them, having had so many unpleasant experiences; and when I at last was driven to seek counsel, I was too late, as I before explained."

"Too late?"

"Yes; I mean that the idea of my being Mr. Seabrook's wife was so firmly seated in their minds that they could not see it in any other light. The fact of my having written and received a letter did not impress them as of any consequence. You will find this to be a truth among men; they respect the sense of ownership in women, entertained by each other; and they respect it so much that they would as soon be caught stealing, as seeming in any way to interfere with it. That is the reason that, although there is nothing in the wording of the marriage contract converting the woman into a bond-slave or a chattel, the man who practices any outrage or wrong on his wife is so seldom called to account. In the eyes of these men, having entered into marriage with Mr. Seabrook, I belonged to him, and there was no help for me. For life and until death, I was his, to do what he pleased with, so long as he did not bruise my flesh nor break my bones. Is not that an awful power to be lodged with any human being?"

"But," I said, "if they were told the whole truth, that the marriage had never been consummated, and why, would they not have been moved by a feeling of chivalry to interfere? Your view of their sentiments pre-supposes the non-existence of what I should call chivalry."

"There may be in men such a sentiment as you would call chivalry; but I never yet have seen the occasion where they were pleased to exercise it. I would not advise any other young woman to tell one of them that she had lived alone in the same house with a man reputed to be her husband, for seven months, without the marriage having been consummated. She would find, as I did, that his chivalry would be exhibited by an ineffectual effort to suppress a smile of incredulity."

"Can it be possible," I was forced to exclaim, "that there was no help for you?"

"You see how it was. I have outlined the bare facts to you. Nobody wanted to be mixed up in my troubles, and the worst of it was that Mr. Seabrook got more sympathy than I did, as the unfortunate husband of a terrible termagant, who made his life a burden to him. He could talk in a certain way around among men, and put on an aggrieved air at home before the boarders, and what was the use of my saying anything. If it had not been for my little German neighbor, I should have felt utterly forsaken by all the world. But she, whatever she thought of my domestic affairs, was sorry for me. 'What for you cry so much all de time?' she said to me one day. 'You makes yourself sick all de time mit cryin'; an' your face be gettin' wite as my hankershif. De leedle boy, too, he sees you, an' he gets all so wite as you are, all de same. Dat is not goot. You gomes to see me, an' brings de boy to see my Hans. You get sheered up den.' And I took her advice for Benton's sake."

"What object had Mr. Seabrook in remaining where he was so unwelcome? He certainly entertained no hope that you would finally yield; and his position could not have been an agreeable one, from any point of view; for whether he was regarded as the monster he was, or only as a sadly beshrewed husband, he must have felt himself the subject of unpleasant remark."

"He could afford to be remarked upon when he was a free pensioner upon a woman's bounty, and in receipt of a fine income which I earned for him by ceaseless toil. I can see him now sitting at the bottom of the table, my table, flourishing his white hands, and stroking his flowing blonde beard occasionally as something very gratifying to his vanity was said; talking and laughing with perfect unconcern, while he fattened himself at my expense; while I, who earned and prepared his dinner for him, gasped half fainting in the heat of a kitchen, sick in heart and body. Do you wonder that I hated him?"

"I wonder more that you did not kill him," I said; feeling that this would have been a case of 'justifiable homicide.'

"The impulse certainly came to me at times to kill him; or if not exactly that, to wish him dead. Yet when the opportunity came to be revenged upon him by fate itself, I interfered to save him. That was strange, was it not? To be suffering as I suffered at this man's hands, and yet when he was in peril to have compassion upon him?"

"You could not alter your nature," I said, "which is, as I told you before, thoroughly sound and sweet. It goes against us to suffer wrong; but it goes still harder with us to do wrong. Besides, you had your religious training to help you."

"I had the temptation, all the same. It happened in this way: One night I was lying awake, as I usually did, until I heard Mr. Seabrook come in and go to his room. He came in rather later than usual, and I listened until all was still in the house, that I might sleep the more safely and soundly afterwards. I had, however, become so nervously wakeful by this time that the much needed and coveted sleep refused to visit me, and I laid tossing feverishly upon my bed when I became aware that there was a smell of fire in the air. Rapidly dressing, I took Benton in my arms and hastened down stairs, to have him where I could save him, should the house be in danger. There was a still stronger odor of burning cloth and wood in the lower rooms, but very little smoke to be detected. After looking into the kitchen and finding all right there, I feared the fire might be in the other part of the house, and was about to give the alarm, when it occurred to me that the trouble might be in Mr. Seabrook's room.

"Leaving Benton asleep on the dining-room table, I ran to his door and knocked. No answer came; but I could smell the smoke within. Pushing open the door I discovered him lying in a perfectly unconscious state, and half undressed, on the bed, sleeping off the effects of a wine supper. A candle which he had lighted, and left burning, had consumed itself down to the socket, and by some chance had ignited a few loose papers on the table beside the bed; the fire had communicated to the bedding on one side, and to some of his wearing apparel on the other. All was just ready to burst into a blaze with the admission of fresh air, which I had the presence of mind to prevent, by closing the door behind me.

"There I was, in the presence of my enemy, and he in the clutches of death. I shudder when I think of the feelings of that moment! An evil spirit plainly said to me, 'Now you shall have rest. Let him alone; he is dying by his own hand, not yours—why do you interfere with the decree of fate?' An exulting yet consciously guilty joy agitated my heart, which was beating violently. 'Let him die!' I said to myself, 'let him die!'

"Very rapidly such thoughts whirl through the brain under great excitement. The instant that I hesitated seemed an age of cool deliberation to me. Then the wickedness of my self-gratulation rushed into my mind, making me feel like a murderer. 'O, God,' I cried in anguish of spirit, 'why have I been put to this test?' The next instant I was working with might and main to extinguish the fire, which with the aid of blankets and a pitcher of water was soon suppressed.

"Through it all he slept on, breathing heavily, an object of disgust to my senses and my feelings. When all was safe I returned to my room, thankful that I had been able on the spot to expiate my murderous impulses. The next day he took occasion to say to me, 'I shouldn't have expected a visit of mercy from you, Mrs. Seabrook. If I had known you were coming, I should have tried to keep awake!' 'If ever you refer to such a subject again,' I replied, 'I will set fire to you myself, and let you burn;' and either the threat deterred him, or some spark of generosity in his nature was struck by the benefit received, but he never afterwards offered me any annoyance of that kind."

"How did Mr. Seabrook usually treat your son? Was he kind to him?"

"He was not unkind. Perhaps you cannot understand such a character; but he was one who would be kind to man, woman, or child who would be governed by him; yet resistance to his will, however just, roused a tyranny that sought for opportunities to exhibit itself. Such a one passes in general society for a 'good fellow,' because 'the iron hand in the velvet glove' is scarcely perceptible there, while its ungloved force is felt most heavily in the relations of private life. If I had been in a position to flatter Mr. Seabrook, undoubtedly he would have shown me a corresponding consideration, notwithstanding his selfishness. It would have been one way of gratifying his own vanity, by putting me in a humor to pander to it. But knowing how I hated and despised him, he felt toward me all the rancor of his vain and tyrannical nature. It is always more dangerous to hate justly than unjustly, and that is the reason why domestic differences are so bitter. Somebody has always done wrong and knows it, and cannot bear to suffer the natural consequences—the disapprobation of the injured party, in addition to the stings of conscience."

"I suppose, then," I said, "it has been the perception of this truth that has caused the sweetest and purest women in all time to ignore the baser sins of man, while calling their own sex to strict account. And yet I cannot think but that this degree of mercy is injurious to their own purity and derogatory to their dignity. I remember being excessively shocked several years ago by having this trait of forgiveness in woman placed in its true light by an accidental publication in a New York paper, which was intended to have just the opposite effect. It was headed 'A Model Woman,' and appeared in the Evening Post—Bryant's paper. With a curious desire to know the poet's model for a woman—though the article may have never come under his eye—I commenced reading it. It ran to this effect: A certain man in New York had a good wife and two interesting little children. But he met and fell in love with a handsome, dashing, and rather coarse girl; and the affair had gone so far as to lead to serious expostulation on the part of the wife. The writer did not relate whether or not the girl knew the man to be married; but only that the two were infatuated with each other.

"As the story ran, the wife expostulated, and the husband was firm in his determination to possess the girl at all hazards, concluding his declaration with this business-like statement: 'I shall take the girl, and go to California. If you keep quiet about it, I will leave a provision for you and the children; if you do not, I shall go just the same, but without leaving you anything.' The wife acquiesced in the terms. Her husband went to California with his paramour, and tired of her (it was in old steamer times), about as soon as he got there. Very soon he deserted her and returned to New York a la prodigal, and was received back to the arms of his forgiving wife. The girl followed her faithless lover to New York, and failing to win a kind word from him by the most piteous appeals, finally committed suicide at her hotel in that city. The wife continued to live with the author of this misery upon the most affectionate terms.

"That was the whole story. Is it possible, I asked myself, that the writer of that article, whoever he may be, could have meant its title in anything but irony? Yet, there it stood on the front page of a most respectable journal, indorsed by an editor of the highest reputation. To my way of thinking, the wife was accessory to the crime; had no womanly self-respect, no delicacy, no Christian feeling for her husband's victim; was, in short, morally, as guilty as he was; and yet a newspaper of high standing made her out to be a model for wives. For what? Plainly for consenting to, or for forgiving three of the most heinous crimes in the decalogue, because committed by her husband. I confess that since that day I have been prone to examine into the claims of men to be forgiven, or the moral right of women to forgive them certain offenses."

"When you examine into the motives of women," said Mrs. Greyfield, "I think you will find there is a large measure of sordid self-interest in their mercy, as in the case you have just quoted. While some women are so weak, and so foolishly fond of the men to whom they became early attached, as to be willing to overlook everything rather than part with them; a far greater number yield an unwilling submission to wrongs imposed upon them, simply because they do not know how to do without the pecuniary support afforded them by their husbands. The bread-and-butter question is demoralizing to women as well as to men, the difference being that men have a wider field to be demoralized in; and that the demoralization of women is greatly consequent upon their circumscribed field of action."

"Do you think that the enlargement of woman's sphere of work would have a tendency to elevate her moral influence?"

"The way the subject presents itself to me is, that it is degrading to have sex determine everything for us: our employments, our position in society, the obedience we owe to others, the influence we are permitted to exercise, all and everything to be dependent upon the delicate matter of a merely physical function. It affects me so unpleasantly to hear such frequent reference to a physiological fact, that I have often wished the word female stricken from our literature. And when you reflect, that we are born and bred to this narrow view of ourselves, as altogether the creatures of sex, you cannot but recognize its belittleing, not to say depraving effect, or fail to see the temptation; we have to seize any base advantage it may give us."

When we had canvassed this, to us interesting, topic a little further, I begged Mrs. Greyfield to go on with the relation of her history.

"I find I must be less particular," she said, "to give so many and frequent explanations of my feelings. By this time you can pretty well imagine them, and my story is likely to be too long, unless I abbreviate.

"I had been living in the way I have described, for two years, and had learned to do a good many things in my own defence, very disagreeable to me, but nevertheless very useful. I had gotten a little money together by asking some of my boarders for pay before pay-day came, or by making such remarks as prompted them to hand the money to me instead of Mr. Seabrook. It was my intention to save enough in such ways to take me to California, where I felt confident, with the experience I had gained, I should be able to make myself a competence. This plan I had nourished in secret for more than a year, when I was tempted to do a very unwise thing.

"I ought to say, perhaps, that with every year that had passed since my arrival in Portland, the population had increased, and with this increase there was a proportionate rise in the value of property. Hearing business topics discussed almost every day at table, I could not help being more or less infected with the spirit of speculation; and it often almost drove me wild to think how profitably I might have invested my earnings could I have gained possession of them for myself.

"Having an opportunity one day to speak on the subject to a gentleman in whose honor I placed great confidence, I mentioned that I was tempted to buy some property, but that my means were so limited I feared I could not do so. He immediately said that he would sell me a certain very good piece of land in the best business locality, on the installment plan, and at a bargain, so that when it was paid up I could immediately sell again at an advance. Thinking this would accelerate the carrying out of my scheme of fleeing from my master, to a land of freedom, I eagerly accepted the proposition, and paid down all the money I had, taking a bond for a deed. The transaction was to be kept a secret between us, and he was to assist me in selling when it came the proper time, by deeding direct to my purchaser. I felt almost light-hearted in view of the fact that I should be able, after all, to achieve a kind of independence in the course of time."

"It seems to me," I said, "that I should have grown reckless before this, and have done something of a desperate nature—committed suicide, for instance. Did the thought never occur to you to end your bondage in that way?"

"My desperation never took that form, because I had my child to take care of. If I killed myself, I should have to kill him, too. But many and many a night I have felt it so impossible to be alive in the morning, and go right on in my miserable round of life, worn out in mind and body, with Benton always ailing—often very ill, that I have prepared both myself and him for burial, and laid down praying God to take us both before another day. But Death is like our other friends—he is not at hand to do us a service when most desired.

"I have told you that I used to cry a good deal. Weeping, though a relief to us in one way, by removing the pressure upon the brain, is terribly exhausting when excessive, and I was very much wasted by it. An incident occurred about the time I was just speaking of, which gave me comfort in a strange manner. I used sometimes, when my work for the day was done, to leave Benton with my German friend, and go out for a walk, or to call on an acquaintance. All the sights and sounds of nature are beautiful and beneficial to me in a remarkable degree. With trees and flowers and animals, I am happy and at home.

"One evening I set out to make a visit to Mrs. ——, my old neighbor, who lived at some distance from me. The path led through the fir forest, and at the time of day when I was at liberty, was dim and gloomy. I walked hurriedly along, fearing darkness would overtake me; and looking about me as I went, was snatching a hasty pleasure from the contemplation of Nature's beneficence, when my foot caught in a projecting root of some tough shrub, and I fell prostrate.

"In good health and spirits I should not have minded the fall; but to me, in my weak condition, every jar to the nervous system affected me seriously. I rose with difficulty, and seating myself upon a fallen tree, burst into tears, and wept violently. It seemed as if even the sticks and stones were in league to injure me. Looking back upon my feelings, I can understand how man, in the infancy of the race, attributed power and will to everything in Nature. In his weakness and inexperience, Nature was too strong for him, and bruised him continually.

"As I sat weeping with pain and an impotent resentment, a clear sweet voice spoke to me out of the dusky twilight of the woods. 'Don't cry so much!' it said. Astonishment dried my tears instantly. I looked about me, but no one was near; nor any sound to be heard, but the peculiar cry of a bird that makes itself heard in the Oregon woods at twilight only. A calm that I cannot explain came over my perturbed spirit. It was like the heavenly voices heard upon the earth thousands of years ago, in its power to move the heart. It may make you smile for me to say so; but from that hour I regained a degree of cheerfulness that I had not felt since the day of my marriage to Mr. Seabrook. I did not go to Mrs. ——'s that evening, but returned home and went to my bed without putting on clothes to be buried in!"

We talked for a little of well attested instances of similar incidents of the seeming supernatural. Then I said:

"And how did your investment turn out?"

"As might have been expected by a more worldly-wise person. After succeeding, almost, I was defeated by the selfishness and indifference of the man I had trusted to help me through with it. He sold out his property, including that bonded to me, when nearly the whole indebtedness was paid, without mentioning his design, or giving me an opportunity to complete the purchase. The new proprietor went immediately to Mr. Seabrook, who, delighted with this unexpected piece of fortune, borrowed the small amount remaining to be paid, and had the property deeded to himself. A short time after he sold it at a handsome advance on the price I paid for it, and I had never one dollar of the money. The entire savings of the whole time I had been in a really profitable business, went with that unlucky venture."

"You were just as far from getting to California as ever? O, what outrageous abuse of the power society gives men over women!" I exclaimed with vehemence.

"You may imagine I was bitterly disappointed. The lesson was a hard one, but salutary. I took no more disinterested advice; I bought no more property. There are too many agents between a woman and the thing she aims at, for her ever to attain it without danger of discomfiture. The experience, as you may guess, put me in no amicable mood towards Mr. Seabrook. Just think of it! There were three years I had supported, by my labor, a large family of men, for that is what it amounted to. My money purchased the food they all ate, and I had really received nothing for it except my board and the clothes I worked in. The fault was not theirs; it was Mr. Seabrook's and society's."

"I will tell you what you remind me of," I said: "You are like Penelope, and her train of ravenous suitors, in the Odyssey of Homer."

"In my busy life, I have not had time to read Homer," Mrs. Greyfield replied; "but if any other woman has been so eaten out of house and home, as I was, I am sorry for her."

"Homer's Penelope, if we may believe the poet, was in much better circumstances to bear the ravages of her riotous boarders, than you were to feed yours gratuitously."

"Talking about suitors," said Mrs. Greyfield, "I was not without those entirely, either. No young mismated woman can escape them perhaps. The universal opinion among men seems to be that, if you do not like the man you have, you must like some other one; and each one thinks it is himself."

The piquant tone in which Mrs. Greyfield uttered her observations always provoked a smile. But I caught at an intimation in her speech. "Sometimes," I said, "you speak as if you acknowledged Mr. Seabrook as your husband, and it shocks me unpleasantly."

"I am speaking of things as they appeared to others. In truth, I was as free to receive suitors as ever I had been; but such was not the common understanding, and I resented the advances of men upon the ground that they believed themselves to be acting unlawfully, and that they hoped to make me a party to their breaches of law and propriety. I laugh now, in remembering the blunders committed by self-conceit so long ago; but I did not laugh then; it was a serious matter at that time."

"Was Mr. Seabrook jealous in his behavior, fearing you might fancy some one else?"

"Just as jealous as vain and tyrannical men always are when they are thwarted in their designs. No real husband could have been more critical in his observations on his wife's deportment, than he was in his remarks on mine. If I could have been guilty of coquetry, the desire to annoy him would have been incentive enough; but I always considered that I could not afford to suffer in my own estimation for the sake of punishing him. When I recall all these things, I take credit to myself for magnanimity; though then I was governed only by my poor uncultivated judgment, and my impulses. For instance, Mr. Seabrook fell ill of a fever not long after he appropriated my real estate. Of course, I was as bitter towards him in my heart as it is possible to conceive, but I could not know that he was lying unattended in his room, without offering assistance; so, after many struggles with myself to overcome my strong repulsion, I visited him often enough to give him such attentions as were necessary, but not more. I had no intention of raising any false expectations."

"I hope you took advantage of his being confined to his room, to collect board-money," I said.

"I found out, in time, several ways of managing that matter, which I would once have thought inadmissible. When I had begged some money from a boarder, Mr. Seabrook discovered it when payday came, very naturally. He then ordered me to do the marketing. Without paying any attention to the command, I served up at meal-time whatever there was in the house. This brought out murmurs from the boarders, and haughty inquiries from the host himself. All the reply I vouchsafed was, that what he procured I would cook. In this way I forced him to pay out the money in his possession, at the expense of my character as a good wife, and a polite one. He took his revenge in abusive language, and occasional fits of destructiveness in the kitchen, which alarmed my little German neighbor more than it did me. So long as he secured all my earnings, and deceived people thoroughly as to his real conduct, he maintained, before others at least, a gentlemanly demeanor. But this was gradually giving way to the pressure of a constant thorn in his flesh, and the consciousness of his own baseness. He could swear, threaten, and almost strike at slight provocation now. He never really attempted the latter, but once, and it was then I told him I should shoot him, if he dared it.

"I ought to say here, that in the last year I had two or three families in the house for a short time. I don't know what these real wives thought of me; that I was a termagant probably; but they were not the kind of women I could talk to about myself, and I made no confidences. A plan was maturing in my mind that was to make it a matter of indifference what any one thought. I had relinquished the idea of getting money enough together to make a sure start in California, and was only waiting to have enough to take me out of the country in any way that I could go cheapest. Another necessary point to gain was secrecy. That could not be gained while I was surrounded by boarders, nor while Mr. Seabrook was in the house, and I resolved to be rid of both."

"Oh," I cried, delighted and relieved, "how did you manage that?"

"I am going to tell you by how simple an expedient. I starved them out!"

"How strange that in all those years you never thought of that," I said laughing. "But, then, neither did Homer's heroine, who kept a first-class free boarding house for twice or thrice as long as you. Do tell me how you accomplished the feat of clearing your house."

"It is not quite true that I had not thought of it; but I had not dared to do it. Besides, I wanted to get some money, if possible. Perhaps I should not have done it at the time I did, had not a little help come to me in the shape of real friends. I was all the time like a wild bird in a cage, and the continual attempts to escape I was making, only bruised my wings. It occurred to me one day to go to a certain minister who had lately come to Portland, and whose looks pleased me, as did his wife's, and tell them my story. This I did.

"Instead of receiving it as fiction, or doubting the strange parts of it in a way to make me wish I had never spoken of them, they manifested the greatest interest and sympathy, and promised me any assistance they could give. This was the first recognition I had gotten from anyone as being what I was; a woman held in bondage worse than that of African slavery, by a man to whom she owed nothing, and in the midst of a free, civilized, and Christian community. They were really and genuinely shocked, and firmly determined to help me. I told them all the difficulties in the way, and of the expedient I had almost decided upon, to free my house from every one; for I thought that when his income stopped, Mr. Seabrook would be forced to go away, and seek some other means of living. They agreed with me that there appeared no better way, and I decided to attempt it.

"It did not take long, of course, to drive away the boarders, for they were there only to eat; and when provisions entirely failed, or were uncooked, there was nothing to be done but to go where they could be better served. I did not feel very comfortable over it, as many of them were men I liked and respected, whose ill opinion it was disagreeable to incur, even in a righteous cause; and then no woman likes to be the talk of the town, as I knew I must be. The 'town talk,' as it happened, in time suggested my further course to me.

"Pray tell me if Mr. Seabrook followed the boarders, or did he stay and compel you to cook for him?"

"He stayed, but he did not compel me to cook for him. That I peremptorily refused to do. Neither would I buy any supplies. If he wanted a meal, he must go out, get his provisions, and cook them for himself. Then he refused to buy anything to come in the house, lest I should share his plenty. This reduced our rations to nothing. I used to take Benton out and buy him good, wholesome food, myself eating as little as would support nature. Occasionally, now that I had time on my hands, I spent a day out among my few visiting acquaintances; and sometimes I took a meal with my German friend. In this way I compelled my former master to look out for himself.

"One night, there not being a mouthful in the house to eat, I went out and bought a loaf of bread and some milk for Benton's breakfast; for I was careful not to risk the child's health as I risked my own. In the morning when I came down stairs the bread and milk were gone. Mr. Seabrook had breakfasted. 'Bennie' and I could go hungry. And that brings me back to what 'town talk' did for me.

"It soon became noised about that Mr. and Mrs. Seabrook, who had never got on well together, were now going on dreadfully, and that probably there would be a divorce. 'Divorce!' I said, when my new friend, the minister, mentioned it to me, 'divorce from what? How can there be a divorce where there is no marriage?' 'Nevertheless,' he replied, 'it is worth considering. If the society you live in insist that you are married, why not gratify this society, and ask its leave to be legally separated from your nominal husband?'

"At first I rebelled strongly against making this tacit admission of a relationship of that kind to Mr. Seabrook. It appeared to me to be a confession of falsehood to those few persons who were in my confidence, some of whom I felt had always half-doubted the full particulars, as being too ugly for belief. And what was quite as unpalatable as the other was that my enemy would rejoice that for once, at least, and in a public record, I should have to confess myself his wife. My friends argued that it could make little difference, as that was the popular understanding already, which nothing could alter; and that so far as Mr. Seabrook was concerned his triumph would be short-lived and valueless. They undertook to procure counsel, and stand by me through the trial."

"What complaint did you purpose making?" I interrupted.

"'Neglect of support, and cruel treatment;' the general charge that is made to cover so many abominable sins, because we women shrink from exposing the crimes we have been in a measure partners to. My attorney assured me that, under the circumstances, Mr. Seabrook would not make any opposition, fearing we might prove the whole, if he did so; but would let the case go by default. This was just what he did; and oh, you should have witnessed his abject humility when I at last had the acknowledged right to put him out of my house!

"Up to the time the divorce was obtained, he kept possession of the room he had first taken, on the lower floor, and which I hired an Indian woman to take care of as one of the chores assigned her about the house. For myself, I would not set my foot in it, except on the occasions referred to; but the rent, and the care of it, he had free. Such was the moral degradation of the man, through his own acts, that after all that had passed, he actually cried, and begged of me the privilege to remain in that room, and be taken care of, as he had been used to be."

"What did you answer him?"

"I told him never to darken my door—never to offend my sight again; that I should never be quite happy while his head was above the sod. O, I was very vindictive! And he was as mild as milk. He 'could not see why I should hate him so, who had always had so high a regard for me. He had never known a woman he admired and loved so much!' Even I was astonished at the man's abjectness."

"It is not uncommon in similar cases. Dependence makes any one more or less mean; but it is more noticeable in men, who by nature and by custom are made independent. And so you were free at last?"

"Free and happy. I felt as light as a bird, and wondered I couldn't fly! I was poor; but that was nothing. My business was broken up; but I felt confidence in myself to begin again. My health, however, was very much broken down, and my friends said I needed change. That, with the desire to quit a country where I had suffered so much, determined me to come to California. It was the land of promise to my husband—the El Dorado he was seeking when he died. I always felt that if I had come here in the first place, my life would have been very different. So, finally, with the help of my kind friends I came."

"I should have felt, with your experience, no courage to undertake life among strangers, and they mostly men."

"On the contrary, I felt armed in almost every point. The fact of being a divorced woman was my only annoyance; but I was resolved to suppress it so far as I was able, and to represent myself to be, as I was, the widow of Mr. Greyfield. I took letters from my friends, to use in case of need; and with nothing but my child, and money enough to take me comfortably to the mines on the American River, left Oregon forever."

"To behold you as you are now, in this delightful home, it seems impossible that you should have gone through what you describe; and yet there must have been much more before you achieved the success here indicated."

"It was nothing—nothing at all compared with the other. I proceeded direct to the most populous mining town, hired a house, bought furniture on credit, and took boarders again. I kept only first-class boarders, had high prices—and succeeded."

"Did you never have the mining-stock fever, and invest and lose?"

"Not to any dangerous extent. One or two parties, in whose judgment I knew I might confide, indicated to me where to invest, and I fortunately lost nothing, while I made a little. My best mining-stock was a present from a young man who was sick at my house for a long time, and to whom I was attentive. He was an excellent young fellow, and my sympathies were drawn out towards him; alone in a mining-camp, and sick, and, as I suspected, moneyless. When he was well enough to go away, he confessed his inability to pay up, and presented me with several shares in a mine then but little known; saying that it might not be worth the paper it was printed on, but that he hoped it might bring enough to reimburse my actual outlay on his account; 'the kindness he had received could not be repaid with filthy lucre.' A few months afterwards that stock was worth several thousand dollars. I made diligent inquiry for my young friend, but could get no news of him from that day to this. I have been fortunate in everything I have touched since I came to California. Benton grew well and strong; I recovered my health; Fortune's wheel for me seemed to remain in one happy position; and now there seems nothing for me to do but to move slowly and easily down the sunset slope of life to my final rest."

Mrs. Greyfield smiled and sighed, and remarked upon the fact that the hour-hand of the clock pointed to two in the morning. "It is really unkind of me to keep you out of bed until such an hour as this," she said, laughing a little, as if we had only been talking of ordinary things. "But I am in the mood, like the 'Ancient Mariner;' and you are as much forced to listen as the 'Wedding Guest.'"

"There is one thing yet I desire to be satisfied about," I replied. "As a woman, I cannot repress my curiosity to know whether, since all the troubles of your early life have been past, you have desired to marry again. Opportunities I know you must have had. What I want to be informed about is your feeling upon this subject, and whether any man has been able to fill your eye or stir your heart."

The first smile my question called up died away, and an introspective look came over Mrs. Greyfield's still handsome face. She sat silent for a little time, that seemed long to me, for I was truly interested in her reply.

"I think," she said at last, "that women who have had anything like my experience, are unfitted for married life. Either they are ruined morally and mentally, by the terrible pressure; or they become so sharp-sighted and critical that no ordinary man would be able to win their confidence. I believe in marriage; a single life has an incomplete, one-sided aspect, and is certainly lonely." Then rallying, with much of her usual brightness: "Undoubtedly I have had my times of doubt, when I found it hard to understand myself; and still, here I am! Nobody would have me; or I would not have anybody; or both."

"One more question, then, if it is a fair one: Could you love again the husband of your youth; or has your ideal changed?"

Mrs. Greyfield was evidently disturbed by the inquiry. Her countenance altered, and she hesitated to reply.

"I beg your pardon," I said; "I hope you will not answer me, if I have been impertinent."

"That is a question I never asked myself," she finally replied. "My husband was all in all to me during our brief married life. His death left me truly desolate, and his memory sacred. But we were both young, and probably he may have been unformed in character, to a great degree, as well as myself. How he would seem now, if he could be restored to me as he was then, I can only half imagine. What he would now be, if he had lived on, I cannot at all imagine. But let us now go take a wink of sleep. My eyelids at last begin to feel dry and heavy; and you, I am sure, are perishing under the tortures of resistance to the drowsy god."

"The storm is over," I said. "I thought you felt that something was going to happen!"

"It will be breakfast, I suppose. By the way, I must go and put a note under Jane's door, telling her not to have it before half-past nine. There will be a letter from Benton, by the morning mail. Good night; or, good morning, and sweet slumber."

"God be with you," I responded, and in twenty minutes was sleeping soundly.

Not so my hostess, it seems, for when we met again at our ten o'clock breakfast, she looked pale and distraught, and acknowledged that she had not been able to compose herself after our long talk. The morning was clear and sunny, but owing to the storm of the night, the mail was late getting in, a circumstance which gave her, as I thought, a degree of uneasiness not warranted by so natural a delay.

"You know I told you," she said, trying to laugh off her nervousness, "that something was going to happen!"

"It would be a strange condition of things where nothing did happen," I answered; and just then the horn of the mail-carrier sounded, and the lumbering four-horse coach rattled down the street in sight of our windows.

"There," I said, "is your U. S. M. safe and sound, road-agents and land-slides to the contrary and of no effect."

Very soon our letters were brought us, and my hostess, excusing herself, retired to her room to read hers. Two hours later she sent for me to come to her. I found her lying with a wet handkerchief folded over her forehead and eyes. A large and thick letter laid half open upon a table beside the bed.

"Read that," she said, without uncovering her eyes. When I had read the letter, "My dear friend," I said, "what are you going to do? I hope, after all, this may be good news."

"What can I do? What a strange situation!"

"You will wish to see him, I suppose? 'Arthur Greyfield.' You never told me his name was Arthur," I remarked, thinking to weaken the intensity of her feelings by referring to a trifling circumstance.

"Why have I not died before this time?" she exclaimed, unheeding my attempt at diversion. "This is too much, too much!"

"Perhaps there is still happiness in store for you, my dear Mrs. Greyfield," I said. "Strange as is this new dispensation, may there not be a blessing in it?"

She remained silent a long time, as if thinking deeply. "He has a daughter," she at length remarked; "and Benton says she is very sweet and loveable."

"And motherless," I added, not without design. I had meant only to arouse a feeling of compassion for a young girl half-orphaned; but something more than was in my mind had been suggested to hers. She quickly raised herself from a reclining posture, threw off the concealing handkerchief, and gazed intently in my face, while saying slowly, as if to herself: "Not only motherless, but according to law, fatherless."

"Precisely," I answered. "Her mother was in the same relation to Mr. Greyfield, that you were in to Mr. Seabrook; but happily she did not know it in her lifetime."

"Nor he—nor he! Arthur Greyfield is not to be spoken of in the same breath with Mr. Seabrook."

The spirit with which this vindication of her former husband was made, caused me to smile, in spite of the dramatic interest of the situation. The smile did not escape her notice.

"You think I am blown about by every contending breath of feeling," she said, wearily; "when the truth is, I am trying to make out the right of a case in which there is so much wrong; and it is no easy thing to do."

"But you will find the right of it at last," I answered. "You are not called upon to decide in a moment upon a matter of such weight as this. Take time, take rest, take counsel."

"Will you read the letter over to me?" she asked, lying down again, and preparing to listen by shielding her face with her hands.

The letter of Arthur Greyfield ran as follows:

"My Dear Anna: How strange it seems to me to be writing to you again! It is like conversing with one returned from another world, to you, too, no doubt. There is so much to explain, and some things that perhaps will not ever be explained satisfactorily to you, that I know not where to begin or what to say. Still Benton insists on my writing before seeing you, and perhaps this is best.

"To begin at the beginning. When I was left for dead by my frightened comrades on the plains, I had not died, but was only insensible; and I do not believe they felt at all sure of my death, for they left me unburied, as if to give me a chance; and deserted me rather than take any risks by remaining any longer in that place. How long I laid insensible I do not know. When I came to myself I was alone, well wrapped up in a large bed-quilt, and lying on the ground close by the wagon-trail. Nothing was left for my support, if alive, from which I concluded that they agreed to consider me dead.

"When I opened my eyes again on the wilderness world about me, the sun was shining brightly, and the wind blowing cool from the near mountains; but I was too much exhausted to stir; and laid there, kept alive by the pure air alone, until sunset. About that time of day I heard the tread of cattle coming, and the rumbling of wagons. The shock of joy caused me to faint, in which condition I was found by the advance guard of a large train bound for the mines in California. I need not tell you all those men did for me to bring me round, but they were noble fellows, and earned my everlasting gratitude.

"You can imagine that the first thought in my mind was about you and Benton. When I was able to talk about myself and answer questions, my new friends, who had laid by for a couple of days on my account, assured me that they should be able to overtake the California train, in which I supposed you were, before they came to the Sierras. But we had accidents and delays, and failed to come up with that train anywhere on the route.

"At last we arrived in the mining country, and my new friends speedily scattered abroad, looking for gold. I was still too feeble to work in the water, washing out, or to dig. I had no money or property of any kind, and was obliged to accept any means that offered of earning a subsistence. Meanwhile I made such inquiry as I could under the circumstances, and in such a country, but without learning anything of any of my former friends and acquaintances, for two years. Before this time, however, my health was restored, notwithstanding great hardships; and being quite successful in mining, I was laying up considerable gold-dust.

"About this time a man came into our camp from Oregon. As I was in the habit of inquiring of any newcomer concerning you, and the people in the train you were in, I asked this man if he had ever met a Mrs. Greyfield, or any of the others. He replied that he thought there was a woman of my name living in Portland, Oregon, a year or two before—he was sure he had heard of a young widow of that name. I immediately wrote to you at that place; but whether the letter was lost on the way, or whether it was intercepted there (as by some intimations I have from Benton, it might have been), no reply ever came to it. I also sent a letter to Mr. ——, in whose care I had left you, but nothing was ever heard from him.

"When I had waited a reasonable length of time I wrote again to the postmaster of the same place, asking him if he knew of such a person as Mrs. Greyfield, in Oregon. The reply came this time from a man named Seabrook, who said that there had been a woman of the name of Greyfield in Portland at one time, but that both she and her child were dead. This news put an end to inquiries in that direction, though I continued to look for any one who might have known you, and finally found one of our original party, who confirmed the intelligence of your having gone to Oregon instead of California, and so settled the question, as I supposed, forever.

"You may wonder, dear Anna, that I did not go to Oregon when I had the barest suspicion of your being there. The distance and the trouble of getting there were not what deterred me. I was making money where I was, and did not wish to abandon my claim while it was producing well, for an uncertain hint that might mislead me."

"Stop there!" interrupted Mrs. Greyfield. "Do you think I should have hesitated in a case like that? But go on."

"I knew you had considerable property, and thought I knew you were with friends who would not let you suffer—"

"Though they had abandoned him while still alive, in the wilderness! Beg pardon; please go on again."

"And that Oregon was really a more comfortable, and safe place for a family than California, as times were then—"

Mrs. Greyfield groaned.

"And that you, if there, would do very well until I could come for you. I could not suspect that you would avail yourself of the privilege of widowhood within so short a time, if ever."

"Oh!" ejaculated my listener, with irrepressible impatience.

I read on without appearing to observe the interruption.

"To tell the truth, I had not thought of myself as dead, and that is probably where I made the greatest mistake. It did not occur to me, that you were thinking of yourself as a widow; therefore, I did not realize the risk. But when the news came of your death, if it were really you, as I finally made up my mind it must be—"

An indignant gesture, accompanied by a sob, expressed Mrs. Greyfield's state of feeling on this head.

"I fell into a state of confirmed melancholy, reproaching myself severely for not having searched the continent over before stopping to dig gold! though it was for you I was digging it, and our dear boy, whom I believed alive and well, somewhere, until I received Mr. Seabrook's letter.

"My dear Anna, I come now to that which will try your feelings; but you must keep in view that I have the same occasion for complaint. Having made a comfortable fortune, and feeling miserable about you and the boy, I concluded to return to the Atlantic States, to visit my old home. While there I met a lovely and excellent girl, who consented to be my wife, and I was married the second time. We had one child, a girl, now eighteen years of age; and then my wife died. I mourned her sincerely, but not more so than I had mourned you.

"At last, after all these years, news came of you from a reliable source. The very man to whose charge I committed you when I expected to die, returned to the States, and from him I heard of your arrival in Oregon, your marriage, and your subsequent divorce. Painful as this last news was to my feelings, I set out immediately for California (I had learned from him that you were probably in this State), and commenced inquiries. An advertisement of mine met Benton's eye only two days ago, and you may imagine my pleasure at the discovery of my only and dear son, so long lost to me. He is a fine, manly fellow, and good; for which I have to thank you, of course."

"You see, he appropriates Benton at once. Never so much as 'by your leave.' But Benton will not quit me to follow this new-found father," Mrs. Greyfield said, with much feeling.

"He may not be put to the test of a choice. You have a proposition to consider," I replied. "Let me read it."

"No, no! Yet, read it; what do I care? Go on."

"My daughter, Nellie, is the very picture of her mother, and as sweet and good as one could desire. Benton seems to be delighted with her for a sister. And now that the young folks have taken such a fancy to each other, there is something that I wish to propose to you. It cannot be expected, after all that has passed, and with the lapse of so many years, we could meet as if nothing had come between us—"

"Who suffered all this to come between us?" cried Mrs. Greyfield, much agitated.

"But I trust we can meet as friends, dear friends, and that possibly in time we may be re-united, as much for our own sakes, as the children's."

"Oh, how can I ever forgive him? Does it not seem to you that if Mr. Greyfield had done his duty, all this terrible trouble and illegal marrying would have been avoided? Do you think a man should consider anything in this world before his wife and children, or fail of doing his utmost in any circumstances for them? How else is marriage superior to any illicit relation, if its duties are not sacred and not to be set aside for anything? I could never have done as he has done, blameless as he thinks himself."

The condition of Mrs. Greyfield's mind was such that no answer was written or attempted that day nor the next. She sent a brief dispatch to Benton, asking him to come home, and come alone. I wished to go away, thinking she would prefer being left quite to herself under the circumstances, but she insisted on my remaining until something had been decided on about the meeting between her and Mr. Greyfield. Benton came home as requested, and the subject was canvassed in all its bearings. The decision arrived at was, that an invitation should be sent to Mr. Greyfield and daughter to visit Mrs. Greyfield for a fortnight. Everything beyond that was left entirely to the future. When all was arranged, I took my leave, promising and being promised frequent letters.

The last time I was at Mrs. Greyfield's, I found there only herself and her daughter Nellie.

"I have adopted her," she said, "with her father's consent. She is a charming girl, and I could not bear to leave her motherless. Benton is very much attached to his father. They are off on a mountaineering expedition at present, but I hope they will come home before you go away."

"Are you not going to tell me," I asked, "how you finally settled matters between Mr. Greyfield and yourself."

"He is a very persistent suitor," she replied, smiling, "I can hardly tell what to do with him."

"You do not want to break bark over his head?" I said, laughing.

"No; but I do almost wish that since he had stayed away so long he had never come back. I had got used to my own quiet, old-maid ways. I was done, or thought I was done, with passion and romance; and now to be tossed about in this way, on the billows of doubt—to love and not to love—to feel revengeful and forgiving—to think one way in the morning and another way by noon, is very tiresome. I really do not know what to do with him."