Sear archer ioe ce Sees ae Sete cer ener at DL 3% \anq CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY Cornell wee Library PS 2988.J6 18 TTT erin ae = All books are subject to recall after two weeks Olin/Kroch Library DATE DUE GAYLORD PRINTED IN U.S.A. JOHN GODFREY’S FORTUNES: RELATED BY HIMSELF. A STORY OF AMBRICAN LIFE- BY BAYARD TAYLOR. HOUSEHOLD EDITION. NEW YORK / G. P, PUTNAM’S SONS 182 Firrit AVENUE 1879 tw bafube “CORNEL ELL \ |UMIVERSITY) , LIBRARY 5459 wt | & Ft f A G$/. joe » he Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1864, by Gerorce P. Putnam, In the Clerk’s Office of the District Court for the Southern District of New York / Also entered at Stationer’s Hall, London. TO JAMES LORIMER GRAHAM, Jr, Esq, New York. My pear Granam, —I owe it to your kindness that the mechanical labor of putting this book into words has been so greatly reduced as almost to become a pleasure. Hence you were much in my thoughts while I wrote, and I do not ask your permission to associate your name with the completed work. I have found, from experience, that whatever the pre- liminary explanations an author may choose to give, they are practically useless. Those persons who insist — against my own express declaration — that “Hannah Thurston” was intended as a picture of the “Reformers” of this country, will be sure to make the discovery that this book represents the literary guild. Those, also, who imagine that they recognized the author in Maxwell Woodbury, will not fail to recognize him in John Godfrey, although there is no resemblance between the two characters. Finally, those sensitive readers who protest against any represen- tation of “American Life,” which is not an unmitigated glorification of the same, will repeat their dissatisfaction, and insist that a single work should contain every feature of that complex national being, which a thousand volumes could not exhaust. iv DEDICATION. I will only say (to you, who will believe me) of this book, that, like its predecessor, it is the result of observa- tion. Not what ought to be, or might be, is the proper province of fiction, but what is. And so, throwing upon John Godfrey’s head all the consequences of this declara- tion, I send him forth to try new fortunes. Yours always, Bayarp Tayror. Cxrparcrort, September, 1864. CONTENTS. —_e— CHAPTER I. PAGE IN WHICH, AFTER THE VISIT OF NEIGHBOR NILES, MY CUILD- OOD SUDDENLY TERMINATES : . s 7 < SE CHAPTER II. DESCRIBING MY INTRODUCTION INTO DR. DYMOND’S BOARD- ING-SCHOOL . . : . . . . ; 7 16 CHAPTER III. IN WHICH I BEGIN TO LOOK FORWARD . ‘ a z - 82 CHAPTER IV. CONTAINING FEATS IN TIE CELLAR AND CONVERSATIONS UPON THE ROOF s . . 3 7 , a ‘ 43 CHAPTER V. WHICH BRINGS A STERNER CHANGE IN MY FORTUNES . - 58 CHAPTER VI. IN WHICH I DISCOVER A NEW RELATIVE . ° . 75 CHAPTER VII. IN WHICH UNCLE AND AUNT WOOLLEY TAKE CHARGE OF ME 86 CHAPTER VIII. DESCRIBING CERTAIN INCIDENTS OF MY LIFE IN READING 9 CHAPTER IX. IN WHICH I OUGHT TO BE A SIIEEP, BUT PROVE TO BE A GOAT “ 5 . C 5 ‘ . Z . . 110 v1 CONTENTS. PAaGs CHAPTER X. CONCERNING MY ESTABLISHMENT IN UPPER SAMARIA . - 126 CHAPTER XI. CONTAINING BRATTON’S PARTY AND THE EPISODE OF THE LIME-KILN 5 ‘ i x . i ‘ * * . 138 CHAPTER XIL IN WHICH LOVE AND LITERATURE STIMULATE EACH OTHER 157 CHAPTER XIIL tN WHICH I DECLARE, DECIDE, AND VENTURE. . : - 167 CHAPTER XIV. IN WHICH I GO TO MARKET, BUT CANNOT SELL MY WARES 179 CHAPTER XV. CONCERNING MY ENTRANCE INTO MRS. VERY’S BOARDING- HOUSE, AND VARIOUS OTHER MATTERS . . . . . 192 CHAPTER XVI. DESCRIBING MR. WINCII’S RECONCILIATION BALL, AND ITS TWO FORTUNATE CONSEQUENCES . * é % . 202 CHAPTER XVII. WHICH “ CONDENSES TIE MISCELLANEOUS” OF A YEAR. . 216 CHAPTER XVIII. IN WHICH I AGAIN BEHOLD AMANDA s . « ‘ . 226 CHAPTER XIX. RELATING OW I CAME INTO POSSESSION OF MY INIIERITANCE 249 CHAPTER XX. IN WHICH I DINE WITH MR. CLARENDON AND MAKE THE AC- QUAINTANCE OF MR. BRANDAGEE . : : ‘ , . 254 CHAPTER XXI. IN WHICH I ATTEND MRS. YORKTON’S RECEPTION , ‘ . 269 CHAPTER XXII. 1N WHICH 1 ENTER QENTELL SOCIETY AND MEET MY RELA- Tives . : ‘ : : 7 . - j j 284 CONTENTS. vil PAGE CHAPTER XXIII. DESCRIBING MY INTERVIEW WITH MARY MALONEY . . 297 CHAPTER XXIV. A DINNER-PARTY AT DELMONICO’S . . ‘a ° » 806 CHAPTER XXV. CONTAINING, AMONG OTHER THINGS, MY VISIT TO THE ICH- NEUMON . ‘ é ci r ; P . * < . 319 CHAPTER XXVI. IN WIIICH I TALK WITH TWO GIRLS AT A VERY SOCIABLE PARTY . ‘ fs 7 7 si 3 . . ‘ . 882 CHAPTER XXVILI. WHICH SIIOWS THAT THERE WAS SOMETHING MORE ‘ » 843 CHAPTER XXVIII. WHICH GIVES AN ACCOUNT OF A FIRE, AND WHAT FCLLOWED IT 355 CHAPTER XXIX. IN WHICH PENROSE FLINGS DOWN THE GLOVE AND I PICK IT UP . i. i fs . 6 c . ‘ . 869 CHAPTER XXX. WHICH BRINGS A THUNDERBOLT ‘é y ‘ a . 881 CHAPTER XXXI. IN WHICH I BEGIN TO GO DOWNWARDS . “i . ‘ . 893 CHAPTER XXXII. CONCERNING MARY MALONEY’S TROUBLE, AND WHAT I DID TO REMOVE IT ; . s ; ; 7 ‘ ; . . 405 CHAPTER XXXIII. WHICH SHOWS WHAT I BECAME 7 i 7 . . 417 CHAPTER XXXIV. IN WHICH I HEAR FOOTSTEPS - .« + + «© + + 480 CHAPTER XXXV. IN WHICH I HEED GOOD ADVICE, MAKE A DISCOVERY, AND RETURN TO MRS. VERY . é i . ‘ A . . 442 vili CONTENTS. PAG CHAPTER XXXVI. WHICH BRINGS THE SYMPHONY TO AN END, BUT LEAVES ME WITH A HOPE. 3 ‘i ‘5 j : a . . . 454 CHAPTER XXXVII. WHICH BRINGS MY FORTUNE AT LAST. ‘i 5 . - 465 CHAPTER XXXVIII. OF WHICH JANE BERRY IS THE HEROINE < . . - 479 CHAPTER XXXIX. IN WHICH I RECEIVE AN UNEXPECTED LETTER FROM UNCLE WOOLLEY . 5 ‘ 3 é ‘ “ é é é . 491 CHAPTER XL. CONCLUSION e e . . . e . * is « 604 JOHN GODFREY’S FORTUNES; RELATED BY HIMSELF. —— CHAPTER I. IN WHICH, AFTER THE VISIT OF NEIGHBOR NILES, MY CHILDHOOD SUDDENLY TERMINATES. I was sitting at the front window, buried, chin-deep, in the perusal of “ Sandford and Merton,” when I heard the latch of the gate click. Looking up, I saw that it was only Neighbor Niles, coming, as usual, in her sun-bonnet, with her bare arms wrapped in her apron, for a chat with mother. I therefore resumed my reading, for Neighbor Niles always burst into the house without knocking, and mother was sure to know who it was by the manner in which the door opened. I had gotten as far into the book as the building of the Robinson-Crusoe hut, and one half of my mind speculated, as I read, whether a similar hut might not be constructed in our garden, in the corner between the snowball-bush and Muley’s stable. Bob Sim- mons would help me, I was sure; only it was scarcely pos- sible to finish it before winter, and“then we could n’t live in it without a fireplace and a chimney. Mother was hard at work, making me a new jacket of gray satinet, lined with black chintz. My reading was in- terrupted by the necessity of jumping up every ten minutes, jerking off my old coat and trying on the new one, — sometimes the body without the sleeves, sometimes oue of 1 2 JOHN GODFREY’S ‘FORTUNES. the sleeves alone. Somehow it would n’t fit at the shoul- ders, and the front halves, instead of lying smoothly upon my breast as they should have done, continually turned and flew back against my arms, as if I had been running at full speed. A tailor would have done the work better, it can’t be denied, but mother could not afford that. “You can keep it buttoned, Johnny dear,” she would say, “and then I think itll look very nice.” Presently the door burst open, and there was Neighbor Niles, voice and figure all at once, loud, hearty, and bus- tling. Always hurried to “within an inch of her life,” always working “like six yoke of oxen,” (as she was ac- customed to say,) she inveterately gossiped in the midst of her labor, and jumped up in sudden spirts of work when she might have rested. We knew her well and liked her. I believe, indeed, she was generally liked in the neighbor- hood ; but when some of the farmers, deceived by her own chatter, spoke of her as “a smart, doing woman,” their wives would remark, with a slight toss of the head, “ Them that talks the most does n’t always do the most.” On this occasion, her voice entered the room, as nearly as I can recollect, in the following style : — “Good mornin’, Neighbor Godfrey! Well, Johnny, how ’s he? Still a-readin’? He ’ll be gittin’ too much in that head o’ his’n. Jist put my bakin’ into th’ oven, — six punkin-pies, ten dried-apple, and eight loaves o’ bread, besides a pan o’ rusk. IfI had nothin’ else to do but bake, ’t would be enough for one woman: things goes in our house. Got the jacket most done? Might ha’ saved a little stuff if you ’d ha’ cut that left arm more cater- cornered, — ’t would ha’ been full long, I guess, and there a’n’t no nap, 0’ no account, on satinet. Jane Koffinann, she was over at Readin’ last week, and got some for her boys, a fippenny-bit a yard cheaper ’n this. Don’t know, though, as it ll wear so well. Laws! are you sewin’ with silk instead vo’ patent thread ?” JOHN GODFRE@S FORTUNES. 3 “T find it saves me work,” said my mother, as Neighbor Niles popped into the nearest chair, drew her hands from under her apron, leaned over, and picked up a spool from the lap-board. “Patent thread soon wears out at the elbows and shoulders, and then there are rips, you know. Besides, the color don’t hold, and the seams soon look shabby.” I resumed my reading, while our visitor exhausted the small budget of gossip which had accumulated since her last visit, two days before. Her words fell upon my ears mechanically, but failed to make any impression upon my mind, which was wholly fixed upon the book. After a while, however, my mother called to me, — “ Johnny, I think there ’s some clearing up to de in the garden.” I knew what that meant. Mother wished to have some talk with Neighbor Niles, which I was not to hear. .Many a time had I been sent into the garden, on the pretence of “clearing up things,” when I knew, and mother also knew, that the beds were weeded, the alleys clean scraped, the rubbish gathered together and thrown into the little stable- yard, and all other work done which a strong inventive faculty could suggest. It was a delicate way of getting me out of the room. I laid down my book with a sigh, but brightened up as the idea occurred to me that I might now, at once, select the site of my possible Crusoe hut, and take an inventory of the material available for its construction. As I paused on the oblong strip of turf, spread like a rug before”the garden-door, and glanced in at the back-window, I saw that mother had already dropped her sewing, and that she and Neighbor Niles had put their heads together, in a strictly literal sense, for a private consultation. iy The garden was a long, narrow plot of ground, running back to the stable of our cow, and the adjoining yard, which she was obliged to share with two well-grown ‘and voracious 4 JOHN copEgs FORTUNES. pigs. I walked along the main alley, peering into the beds right and left for something to “ clear up,” in order to satisfy my conscience before commencing my castle- or rather hut-building ; but I found nothing more serious than three dry stalks of seed-radishes, which I pulled up and flung over the fence. hen I walked straight to the snow. ball-bush. I remember pacing off the length and breadth of the snug, grassy corner behind it, and discovering, to my grief, that, although there was room for a hut big enough for Bob and myself to sit in, it would be impossible to walk about, — much less swing a cat by the tail. In fact, we should have to take as model another small edifice, which, on the other side of the bush, already disturbed the need- ful solitude. Moreover, not a hand’s-breadth of board or a stick of loose timber was to be found. “If I were only in Charley Rand’s place!” I thought. His father had a piece of woodland in which you might lose your way for as much as a quarter of an hour at a time, with enough of dead boughs and refuse bark to build a whole encamp- ment of huts. Charley, perhaps, might be willing to join in the sport; but he was not a favorite playfellow of mine, and would be certain to claim the hut as his exclusive prop- erty, after we other fellows had helped him to build. it. He was that sort of a boy. Then my fancy wandered away to the real Crusoe on his island, and I repeated to myself Cowper’s “ Verses, supposed to be written by Alex- _ ander Selkirk.” Somehow, the lines gave an unexpected _ turn to my thoughts. Where would be the great fun of playing Crusoe, or even his imitators, Sandford and Mer- ton, in a back-garden, where a fellow’s mother might call him away at any moment? I should not be out of human- ity’s reach, nor cease to hear the sweet music of speech the beasts that roam over the plain (especially McAllister’s bull, in the next field) would not behold my form with in- difference, nor, would they suddenly become. shockingly lame. It would all be a make-believe, from beginning to JOHN GODFREY’S FORTUNES. 5 end, requiring even greater efforts of imagination than T had perpetrated a few years earlier, in playing at the vil lage school, — “Tere come three lords, all out of Spain, A-courting of your daughter Jane,” or in creating real terror by fancying a bear crouching be- hind the briers in the fence-corner. A little ashamed of myself, I walked to the garden-paling, and looked over it, and across the rolling fields, to some low, hazy hills in the distance. I belong to that small class of men whose natures are not developed by a steady, gradual process of growth, but advance by sudden and seemingly arbitrary bounds, divided by intervals during which their faculties remain almost stationary. J had now reached one of those periods of growth, — the first, indecd, which clearly presented itself to my own consciousness. I had passed my sixteenth birthday, and the physical change which was imminent began to touch and give color to the operations of my mind. My vision did not pause at the farthest hill, but went on, eagerly, into the unknown landscape beyond. I had previously talked of the life that lay before me as I had talked of Sinbad and Gulliver, Robert Bruce and William Tell: all at once I became conscious that it was an earnest business. What must I do? What should I become? The few occupations which found a place in our little village re- pelled me. My frame was slight, and I felt that, even if I liked it, I could never swing the blacksmith’s hammer, or rip boards like Dick Brown, the carpenter. Moreover, I had an instinctive dislike to all kinds of manual labor, except the light gardening tasks in which I assisted my mother. Sometimes, in the harvest-season, I had earned a little pocket - money on the neighboring farms. It was pleasant enough to toss hay into cocks on the fragrant meadows, but I didn’t like the smother of packing it in 6 JOUN GODFREY’S FORTUNES. the steaming mows, and my fingers became painfully sore from binding sheaves. My ambition — at this time but a vague, formless desire — was to be a scholar, a man of learning. Ilow this was to be attained, or what lay beyond it, I could not clearly see. I knew, without being able to explain why, that the Cross-Keys (as our village was called, from its tavern-sign) was no place for me. But, up to the afternoon I am describing, I had never given the subject a serious thought. Many a boy of ten knows far more of the world than I then did. I doubt if any shepherd on the high Norwegian Jjelds lives in greater seclusion than did we, — my mother and myself. The Cross-Keys lay aside from any of the main highways of the county, and the farmers around were mostly descendants of the original settlers of the soil, a hundred and fifty years before. Their lives were still as simple and primitive as in the last century. Few of them ever travelled farther than to the Philadelphia market, at the beginning of winter, to dispose of their pigs and poul try. A mixture of the German element, dating from the first emigration, tended still further to conserve the habits and modes of thought of the community. My maternal grandfather, Hatzfeld, was of this stock, and many of his peculiarities, passing over my mother, have reappeared in me, to play their part in the shaping of my fortunes. My father had been a house- and sign-painter in the larger village of Honeybrook, four miles distant. Immedi- ately after his death, which happened when I was eight years old, my mother removed to the Cross-Keys, princi- pally because she had inherited the small cottage and gar- den from her spinster aunt, Christina Hatzfeld. There was nothing else, for my great-aunt had only a life-interest in the main estate, which —I do not know precisely how —had passed into the hands of the male heirs. My mother’s means were scarcely sufficient. to support us in the simplest way, and she was therefore in the habiflof uid, JOHN GODFREY’S FORTUNES. 7 “taking in sewing” from the wives of the neighboring farmers. Her labor was often paid in produce, and she sometimes received, in addition, presents of fruit, potatoes, and fuel from the kindly-hearted people. Thus we never reached the verge of actual want, though there were times when our daily fare was plainer than she cared to let the neighbors see, and when the new coat or shawl had to be postponed to a more fortunate season. For at least half the year I attended the village school, and had already learned nearly as much as a teacher hired for twenty dollars a month was capable of imparting. The last one, indeed, was unable to help me through quadratic equations, and forced me, unwillingly, upon a course of Mensuration. Between mother and myself there was the most entire confidence, except upon the single subject of my future. She was at once mother and elder sister, entering with heart and soul into all my childish plans of work or play, listening with equal interest to the stories I read, or relat- ing to me the humble incidents of her own life, with a sweet, fresh simplicity of language, which never lost by repetition. Her large black eyes would sparkle, and her round face, to which the old-fashioned puffs of hair on the temples gave such an odd charm, became as youthful in expression, I am sure, as my own. Her past and her pres- ent were freely shared with me, but she drew back when I turned with any seriousness towards the future. At one time, I think, she would have willingly stopped the march of my years, and been content to keep me at her side, a boy forever. I was incapable of detecting this feeling at the time, and perhaps I wrong her memory in alluding to it now. God knows I have often wished it could have been so! Whatever of natural selfishness there may have been in the thought, she weighed it down, out of sight, by all those years of self-denial, and the final sacrifice, for my sake. No truer, tenderer, more single-hearted mother ever lived than Barbara Godfrey. 8 JOHN GODFREY’S FORTUNES. She was so cordially esteemed in our little community that no reproach, on my account, was allowed to reach het jears. A boy of my age, who had no settled occupation, was there considered to be in danger of becoming a use- less member of society ; antipathy to hard, coarse manual labor implied a moral deficiency ; much schooling, for one without means, was a probable evil: but no one had the heart to unsettle the widow’s comfort in her child. Now and then, perhaps, a visitor might ask, “ What are you going to make of him, Barbara?” whereupon my mother would answer, “He must make himself,” — with a con- fident smile which put the question aside. These words came across my mind as I leaned against the palings, trying to summon some fleeting outline of my destiny from the vapory distance of the landscape. I was perplexed, but not discouraged. My trials, thus far, had been few. When I first went to school, the boys had called me “ Bricktop,” on account of the auburn tinge of my hair, which was a source of great sorrow until Sam Haskell, whose head was of fiery hue, relieved me of the epithet. Emily Rand, whose blue eyes and yellow ringlets confused my lessons, (I am not certain but her pink-spotted calico frock had something to do with it,) treated me scornfully, and even scratched my face when it was my turn to kiss her in playing “ Love and War.” The farmers’ sons also laughed at my awkwardness and want of muscle; but this annoyance was counterbalanced in the winter, when they came to measure another sort of strength with me at school. I had an impression that my value in the neighborhood was not estimated very highly, and had periodical attacks of shyness which almost amounted to self-distrust. On the other hand, I had never experienced any marked unkind- ness or injustice ; my mother spoke ill of no one, and I did not imagine the human race to be otherwise than honest, virtuous, and reciprocally helpful. T soon grew tired of facing the sober aspect of reality, JOHN GODFREY’S FORTUNES. 9 so unexpectedly presented, and wandered off, as was the habit of my mind, into vague and splendid dreams. If I had the Wonderful Lamp, — if a great roc should come sailing out of the western sky, pick me up in his claws, and carry me to the peaks overlooking the Valley of Diamonds, —if there were still a country where a cat might be sold for a ship-load of gold, — if I might carry a loaf of bread under my arm, like Benjamin Franklin, and afterwards become rich and celebrated, (the latter circumstance being, of course, a result of the former,) — there would be no dif- ficulty about my fate. It was hardly likely, however, that either of these things would happen to me; but why not something else, equally strange and fortunate? A hard slap on a conspicuous, but luckily not a sensitive portion of my body caused me to spring almost over the paling. I whirled around, and with a swift instinct of re- taliation, struck out violently with both fists. " “No, you don’t!” cried Bob Simmons, (for he it was,) dodging the blows and then catching me by the wrists. “I did n’t mean to strike so hard, John; don’t be mad about it. I’m going away soon, and came around to tell you.” Bob was my special crony, because I had found him to be the kindest-hearted of all the village boys. He was not bright at school, and was apt to be rough in his language and manners; but from the day he first walked home with me, with his arm around my neck, I had faith in his affection. He seemed to like me all the better from my lack of the hard strength which filled him from head to foot. He once carried me nearly a quarter of a mile in his arms, when I had sprained my ankle in jumping down out of an apple-tree. He had that rough male nature which loves what it has once protected or helped. Besides, he was the only com- panion to whom I dared confide my vague projects of life, with the certainty of being not only heard, but encouraged. “Yes,” said Bob, “I am going away, maybe in a few weeks.” LG JOHN GODFREY’S FORTUNES. “Where? Not going away for good, Bob?” “ Like as not. I’m nearly eighteen, and Dad says it.’ time to go to work on my own hook. ‘The farm, you know, is n’t big enough for him and me, and he can get along with Brewster now. So I must learn a trade; what do you think it is ?” “ You said, Bob, that you ’d like to be a mason?” “Would n’t I, though! But it’s the next thing to it. Dad says there a’n’t agoin’ to be many more stone houses built, — bricks has got to be the fashion. But they ’re so light, it’s no kind o’ work. All square, too; you ’ve just to put one atop of t’ other, and there ’s your wail. Why, you could do it, John. Mort! Mort! hurry up with that ’ere hod!” Here Bob imitated the professional cry of the bricklayer with startling exactness. There was not a fibre about him that shrank from contact with labor, or from the rough tus- sle by which a poor boy must win his foothold in the world. I would, at that moment, have given my grammar and alge- bra (in which branches he was lamentably deficient) for a quarter of his unconscious courage. A wild thought flashed across my mind: I might also be a bricklayer, and his fel- low-apprentice ! Then came the discouraging drawback. “But, Bob,” I said, “the bricks are so rough. I don’t like to handle them.” “Should n’t wonder if you did n’t. Lookee there!” And Bob laid my right hand in his broad, hard palm, and placed his other hand beside it. “Look at them two hands! they ’re made for different kinds 0’ work. There ’s my thick fingers and broad nails, and your thin fingers and nar- row nails. You can write a’most like copy-plate, and I make the roughest kind 0’ pot-hooks. The bones 0’ your fingers is no thicker than a girl’s. I dunno what I’d do if mine was like that.” I colored, from the sense of my own physical insignifi- cance. “Oh, Bob,” I cried, “I wish I was strong! [ll JOHN GODFREY’S FORTUNES. 11 nave to get my own living, too, and I don’t know how to begin.” “Oh, there ’s time enough for you, John,” said Bob, con- solingly. “You need n’t fret your gizzard yet awhile. There’s teachin’ school is n’t so bad to start with. You’ll soon be fit to do it, and that’s what I’d never be, I reckou.” We went into the little hay-mow over the stable, and sat down, side by side, in the dusky recess, where our only light came through the cracks between the shrunk clap- boards. Bob had brought a horse to the smith to be shod all round, and there were two others in before him ; so he could count on a good hour before his turn came. It might be our last chat together for a long time, and the thought of this made our intercourse more frank and tender than usual. “Tell me, Bob,” said I, “what you ’ll do after you ’ve learned the trade.” “Why, do journey-work, to be sure. They get a dollar and a half a day, in Phildelphy.” “ Well, — after that?” “Dunno. P’raps I may be boss, and do business on the wholesale. Bosses make money hand-over-fist. I tell you what, John, I’d like to build a house for myself like Rand’s, — heavy stone, two foot thick, and just such big willy-trees before it, — a hundred acres o’ land, and prime stock on’t,; would n’t I king it, then! Dad’s had a hard time, he has, — only sixty acres, you know, and a morgidge on it. Don’t you tell nobody, —I ’m agoin’ to help him pay it off, afore I put by for myself.” I had not the least idea of the nature of a mortgage, but was ashamed to ask for information. Sometimes I had looked down on Bob from the heights of my superior learning, but now he seemed to overtop me in everything, — in strength, in courage, and in practical knowledge. For the first time, I would have been willing to change places wih him, —ah, how many times afterwards! When we went down out of the hay-mow it was nearly 12 JOHN GODFREY'S FORTUNES. evening, and I hurried back to our cottage. The fire which I was accustomed to make in the little back-kitchen was al- ready kindled, and the table set for supper. Mother was unusually silent and preoccupied; she did not even ask me where I had been. After the simple meal — made richer by the addition of four of Neighbor Niles’s rusks — was over, we took.our places in the sitting-room, she with her lap-board, and I with “Sandford and Merton.” She did not ask me to read aloud, as usual, but went on silently and steadily with her sewing. Now and then I caught the breath of a rising sigh, checked as soon as she became conscious of it. Nearly an hour passed, and my eyelids began to grow heavy, when she suddenly spoke. “Put away the book, John. Youre getting tired, I see, and we can talk a little. I have something to say to you.” I shut the book and turned towards her. “Tt’s time, John, to be thinking of making something of you. In four or five years—and the time will go by only too fast — you'll be a man. I’d like to keep you here always, but I know that can’t be. I must n’t think of my- self: I must teach you to do without me.” “ But I don’t want to do without you, mother!” I cried. “T know it, Johnny dear; but you must learn it, never- theless. Who knows how soon I may be taken from you? I want to give you a chance of more and better schooling, because you ’re scarcely strong enough for hard work, and I think you ’re not so dull but you could manage to get your living out of your head. At least, it would n’t be right for me not to help you what little I can. I’ve looked forward to it, and laid by whatever I could, — dear me, it’s not what it ought to be, but we must be thankful for what’s allowed us. I only want you to make good use of your time while it lasts; you must always remember that every day is an expense, and that the money was not easy to get.” “What do you want me to do, mother?” I asked, after a pause. JOUN GODFREY’S FORTUNES. 13 “T have been talking with Neighbor Niles about it, and she seems to see it in the same light as Ido. She’s a good neighbor. and a sensible woman. Charley Rand's father is going ce send hii this winter to Dr. Dymoid’s school, a mile the other side of Honeybrook. It’s the best in the neighborhood, and I wouldn’t want you to be far away from me yet awhile. They ask seventy-five dollars for the session, but Charley goes for sixty, having his wash- ing and Sunday’s board at home. It seems like a heap of money, John, but T’ve laid away, every year since we came here, twenty dollars out of the interest on the fifteen hun- dred your father left me, and that’s a hundred and sixty. Perhaps I could make out to let you have two years’ schooling, if I find that you get on well-with your studies. I’m afraid that I couldn’t do more than that, because I don’t want to touch the capital. Jt’s all we have. Not that you would n’t be able to earn your living in a few years, but we never know what’s in store for us. You might become sickly and unable to follow any regular business, or I ” Here my mother suddenly stopped, clasped her hands tightly together, and turned pale. Her lips were closed, as if in pain, and I could see by the tension of the muscles of her jaws that the teeth were set hard upon each other. Of late, I had several times noticed the same action. I could not drive away the impression that she was endeavor- ing not to cry out under the violence of some mental or physical torture. After a minute or two, the rigidity of her face softened ; she heaved a sigh, which, by a transition infinitely touching, resolved itself into a low, cheerful laugh, and said, — “But there ’s no use, after all, in worrying ourselves by imagining what may never happen. Only I think it best not to touch the capital; and now you know, Johnny, what you have to depend on. There’s the money that I’ve been saving for you, and you shall have the benefit of it 14 JOHN GODFREY’S FORTUNES. every penny. Some folks would say it’s not wiscly spent, but it’s yow must decide that by the use you make of it. If I can see, every Saturday night when you come home, that you know a little more than you did the week before, I shall be satisfied.” I was already glowing and tingling with delight at the prospect held out to me. The sum my mother named seemed to me enormous. I had heard of Dr. Dymond’s school as a paradise of instruction, unattainable to common mortals. ‘The boys who went there were a lesser kind of seraphs, sitting in the shade of a perennial tree of knowl- edge. With such advantages, all things seemed suddenly possible to me; and had my mother remarked, “I expect you to write a book as good as ‘The Children of the Abbey,’ —to make a better speech than Colonel McAllis- ter, — to tell the precise minute when the next eclipse of the sun takes place,” — I should have answered, “ Oh, of course.” “When am I to go?” I asked. “It will be very soon, — too soon for me, for I shall find the house terribly lonely without you, John. Charley Rand will go in about three weeks, and I should like to have you ready at the same time.” 7 “Three weeks!” I exclaimed, with a joyous excitement, which I checked, feeling a pang of penitence at my own delight, as I looked at mother. She was bravely trying to smile, but there were tears in her black eyes. One of her puffs fell out of its place; I went to her and put it back nicely, as I had often done before, —I liked to touch and arrange her hair, when she would let me. Then she began to cry, turning away her head, and saying, “Don’t mind me, Johnny; I did n’ mean to.” It cost me a mighty effort to say it, but I did say, — “If you’d rather have me stay at home, mother, I don’t want to go. The cow must be milked and the garden looked after, anvhow. I did n’t think of that.” JOHN GODFREY’S FORTUNES. 15 “But I did, my child,” she said, wiping her eyes with her apron. “ Neighbor Niles will take Muley, and give me half the milk every day. Then, you know, as you will not be here on week-days, I shall need less garden-stuff. It’s all fixed, and must n’t be changed. I made up my mind to it years ago, and ought to be thankful that I’ve lived to carry it out. Now, pull off your shoes and go to bed.” I stole up the narrow, creaking ladder of a staircase to my pigeon-hole under the roof. That night I turned over more than once before I fell asleep. I was not the same boy that got out of the little low bed the morning before, and never would be again. 16 JOHN GODFREY’S FORTUNES. CIIAPTER II. DESCRIBING MY INTRODUCTION INTO DR. DYMOND’S BOARDING-SCHOOL. From that day the preparations for my departure went forward without interruption. Mother quite recovered her cheerfulness, both permitting and encouraging my glowing predictions of the amount of study I should perform and the progress I should make. The jacket was finished, still retaining its perverse tendency to fly open, which gave me trouble enough afterwards. I had also a pair of trousers of the same material; they might have been a little bage in the hinder parts, but otherwise they fitted me very well. A new cap was needed, and mother had serious thoughts of undertaking ,its construction. My old seal-skin was worn bare, but even a new one of the same material would scarcely have answered. Somebody reported from Honeybrook that Dr. Dymond’s scholars wore stylish caps of blue cloth, and our store-keeper was therefore commis- sioned to get me one of the same kind from Philadelphia. He took the measure of my head, to make sure of a fit; yet, when the wonderful cap came, it proved to be much too large. “J will all come right in the end, Mrs. Godfrey,” said the store-keeper ; “his head ’ll begin to swell when he’s been at school a few weeks.” Meanwhile, it was carefully accommodated to my present dimensions by a roll of paper inside the morocco lining. A pair of kip-skin boots — real top-boots, and the first I ever had — completed my outfit. Compared with my previous experience, I was gorgeously JOHN GODFREY’S FORTUNES. 17 arrayed. It was fortunate that my Sundays were to be spent at home, as a second suit, much less a better one, was quite beyond my mother’s means. Mr. Rand, Charley’s father, made all the necessary ar: rangements with Dr. Dymond, and kindly offered to take me over to the school in his “ rockaway,” on the first Mon- day of November. The days dragged on with double slow- ness to me, but I have no doubt they rushed past like a whirlwind to mother. I did everything I could to arrange for her comfort during my absence, — put the garden in winter trim, sawed wood and piled it away, sorted the sup- plies of potatoes and turnips in the cellar, and whatever else she suggested, — doing these tasks with a feverish haste and an unnecessary expenditure of energy. Whenever I had a chance, I slipped away to talk over my grand pros- pects with Dave Niles, or some other of the half-dozen vil- lage boys of my age. I felt for them a certain amount of commiseration, which was not lessened by their sneers at Dr. Dymond’s school, and the damaging stories which they told about the principal himself. I knew that any of them — unless it was Jackson Reanor, the tavern-keeper’s son — would have been glad to stand in my new boots. “T know all about old Dymond,” said Dave; “he licks awfully, and not always through your trousers, neither. Charley Rand ’d give his skin if he had n’t to go. His fa- ther makes him.” “ Now, that’s a lie, Dave,” I retorted. (We boys used the simplest and strongest terms in our conversation.) “Old Rand would n’t let Charley be licked; you know he took him away from our school when Mr. Kendall whacked his hands with the ruler.” ' “Then hell have to take him away from Dymond’s too, I guess,” said Dave. “Wait, and you'll see. Maybe there Il be two of you.” I turned away indignantly, and went to see Bob Sim- mons, whose hearty sympathy was always a healing-plaster 2 18 JOHN GODFREY’S FORTUNES. for the moral bruises inflicted by the other boys. Bob was not very demonstrative, but he had a grave, consmon-sense way of looking at matters which sometimes brought me down from my venturesome flights of imagination, but left me standing on firmer ground than before. When I first told him of my mother’s plan, he gave me a thundering slap on the back, and exclaimed, — “She’s a brick! It’s the very thing for you, Johnny. Come, old feliow, you and me ’Il take an even start, — your head aginst my hands. I would n’t stop much to bet on your head, though I do count on my hands doin’ a good deal for me.” Finally the appointed Monday arrived. I was to go in the afternoon, and mother had dinner ready by twelve o’clock, so that Mr. Rand would not be obliged to wait a minute when he called. Her plump little body was in con- stant motion, dodging back and forth between the kitchen and sitting-room, while ske talked upon any and every sub- ject, as if fearful of a moment’s rest or silence. “It will only be until Saturday night,” she repeated, over and over again. How little I understood all this intentional bustle at the time, yet how distinctly I recall it now. After a while, there was a cry outside of “ Hallo, the house !”— quite unnecessary, for I had seen Rand’s rocka- way ever since it turned out of the lane beyond Reanor’s stables. I hastily opened the door, and shouted, “I’m com- ing!” Mother locked the well-worn, diminutive carpet- bag which I was to take along, gave me a kiss, saying cheerfully, “Only till Saturday night !” and then followed me out to the gate. Mr. Rand and Charley occupied the only two seats in the vehicle, but there was a small wooden stool for me, where I sat, wedged between their Jegs, holding the carpet-bag between mine. Its contents consisted of one shirt, one pair of stockings, a comb, tooth-brush and piece of soap, a box of blacking and a brush. I had never heard of a night-shirt at that time. When I opened the bag, after: JOHN GODFREY’S FORTUNES. 19 wards, I distovered two fall pippins and a paper of cakes snugly stowed away in one corner. “ Good-day, Mrs. Godfrey!” said Mr. Rand, squar ing himself on his seat, and drawing up the reins for a start; “Il call on the way home, and tell you how 1 left ’em.” “T shall be so much obliged,” my mother cried. “ Do you hear, Johnny? I shall have word of you to-night now, good-bye !” Looking back as we drove away, I saw her entering the cottage-door. Then I looked forward, and my thoughts also went forward to the approaching school-life. I felt the joy and the fear of a bird that has just been tumbled out of the nest by its parent, and flutteringly sustains itself on its own wings. I did not see, as I now can, my mother glance pitifully around the lonely room after she closed the door; carefully put away a few displaced articles; go to the window and look up the road by which I had disappeared ; and then sink into her quaint old rocking-chair, and cry without stint, until her heart recovers its patience. Then I see her take up the breadths.of a merino skirt for Mrs. Reanor, and begin sewing them together. Her face is calm and pale; she has rearranged her disordered puffs, and seems to be awaiting somebody. She is not disappointed : the gate-latch clicks, the door opens, and good Neighbor Niles comes in with a half-knit stocking in her hand. This means tea, and so the afternoon passes cheerfully away. But when the fire is raked for the night on the kitchen-hearth, mother looks or listens, forgetting afresh every few minutes that there will be no sleeper in the little garret-room to-night ; takes up her lamp with a sigh, and walks wearily into her chamber ; looks long at the black silhouette of my father hung over the mantel-piece ; murmurs to herself, — is it a prayer to Our Father, or a whisper to the beloved Spirit? —and at last, still murmuring words whose import I may guess, and with tears, now sad, now grateful, lies down in 20 JOHN GODFREY’S FORTUNES. her bed and gives her soul to the angels that protect the noly Sleep ! Let me return to my own thoughtless, visionary, confident self. Charley and I chattered pleasantly together, as we rode along, for, although he was no great favorite of mine, the resemblance in our destined lot for the next year or two brought us into closer relations. Being an only son, he had his own way too much, and sometimes showed him- self selfish and overbearing towards the rest of us; but I never thought him really ill-willed, and I could not help liking any boy (or girl, either) who seemed to like me. Mr. Rand now and then plied us with good advice, which Charley shook off as a duck sheds water, while I received it in all earnestness, and with a conscientious desire to re- member and profit by it. He also enlarged upon our fu- ture places in the world, provided our “ finishing” at the school was what it ought to be. “TJ don’t say what either o’ you will be, mind,” he said ; “but there ’s no tellin’ what you might n’t be. Member 0’ the Legislatur’ — Congress — President: any man may be President under our institootions. If you turn out smart and sharp, Charley, I don’t say but what I might n’t let you be a lawyer or a doctor,— though law pays best. You, John, ll have to hoe your own row; and I dunno what you ’re cut out for, — maybe a minister. You ’ve gotasort o’ mild face, like ; not much hard grit about you, I guess, but ‘t a’n’t wanted in that line.” The man’s words made me feel uncomfortable — the more so as I had never felt the slightest ambition to become a clergyman. Ididn’t quite know what he meant by “hard grit,” but I felt that his criticism was disparaging, con- trasted with his estimate of Charley. My reflections were interrupted by the latter saying, — “I’m agoin’ to be what I like best, Pop!” T said nothing, but T recollect what my thoughts were “I’m going to be what I can; I don’t know what; but it will be something.” JOHN GODFREY’S FORTUNES. 21 From the crest of a long, rolling wave of farm-land we now saw the village of Honeybrook, straggling across the bottom of a shallow valley, in the centre of which, hard against the breast of a long, narrow pond, stood its flour- and saw-mills. I knew the place, as well from later visits as from my childish recollections ; and I knew also that the heavy brick building, buried in trees, on a rise of ground off to the northeast, was the Honeybrook Boarding-School for Boys, kept by Dr. Dymond. CHAPTER VI. IN WHICH I DISCOVER A NEW RELATIVE. Why should I enter into all the dreary details of the funeral preparations, — of those black summer days, which still lie, an unfaded blot, in the soft and tender light of resignation now shining over my sorrow? I passed through the usual experience of one struck by sudden and bitter calamity: my heart was chilled and benumbed by its inabil- ity to comprehend the truth. My dull, silent, apathetic mood must have seemed, to the shallow-judging neighbors, a want of feeling; only Neighbor Niles and her husband guessed the truth. J saw men and women, as trees, come and go; some of them spoke to me, and when I was forced to speak in turn, it was with painful unwillingness. I heard my voice, as if it were something apart from myself; I even seemed, through some strange extraverted sense, to stand aside and contemplate my own part in the solem- nities. When I look back, now, I see a slender youth, dressed in an ill-fitting black suit, led through the gate in the low churchyard wall by my uncle Woolley. It is not myself; but I feel at my heart the numb, steady ache of his, which shall outlast a sharper grief. His eyes are fixed on the ground, but I know — for I have often been told so — that they are like my mother’s. His hair cannot be described by any other color than dark auburn, and hangs, long and loose, over his ears; his skin is fair, but very much freckled, and his features, I fancy, would wear an earnest, eager expression in any happier mood. TI see this boy as 76 JOHN GODIFREY’S FORTUNES. some mysterious double of mi standing, cold and pale, beside the open grave ; but the stupor of his grief is harder to bear, even in memory, than the keen reality to which I afterwards awoke. I let things take their course, knowing that the circum. stances of my immediate future were already arranged. My uncle Woolley, as my guardian and the executor of my mother’s little estate, assumed, without consulting me, the disposal of the cottage and furniture. Mr. Rand purchased the former, as a convenient tenant-house for some of his farm-hands, and the latter, with the exception of mother’s rocking-chair, which she bequeathed to Neighbor Niles, was sold at auction. This, however, took place after my return to the school, and I was spared the pain of seeing my home broken to pieces and its fragments scattered to the winds. My uncle probably gave me less credit for a practical com- prehension of the matter than I really deserved. His first conversation with me had been unfortunate, both in point of time and subject, and neither of us, I suspect, felt in- clined, just then, to renew the attempt at an intimacy befit- ting our mutual relation. In a few days I found myself back again at Honeybrook Academy. The return was a relief, in every way. The knowledge of my bereavement had, of course, preceded me, and I was received with the half-reverential kindness which any pack of boys, however rough and thoughtless, will never fail to accord, in like circumstances. Miss Hitchcock, it is true, gave me a moment’s exasperation by her awkward at- tempt at condolence, quoting the hackneyed * pallida mors,” &c., but Mother Dymond actually dropped a few tears from her silly eyes as she said, “ I’m so sorry, Godfrey ; I quite took to her that time she was here.” Penrose met me with a long, silent pressure of the hand, and the stolid calm with which I had heard the others melted for the first time. My eyes grew suddenly dim, and * IT turned away. JOHN GODFREY’S FORTUNES. 77 I had already profited by nearly two years’ experience of human nature, or, ati eynniare, and was careful not to let my knowledge of his sympathy lead me into advances which might, notwithstanding all that had happened, be repelled. I had a presentiment that he esteemed me be- cause I imitated his own reticence, and that he was sus- picious of any intimacy which did not proceed from himself. In spite of his beauty, which seemed to be dimly felt and respected by the whole school, and the tender spot in my heart, kindling anew whenever I recalled the night he had taken me to his breast, I was not sure that I could wholly like and trust him — could ever feel for him the same open, unquestioning affection which I bestowed, for example, on Bob Simmons. In my studies I obtained, at least, a temporary release from sorrow. The boys found it natural that I should not join in the sports of play-hours, or the wild, stolen expedi- tions in which I had formerly taken delight. When I closed my Lempriere and Leverett, J wandered off to the nearest bit of woodland, flung myself on the brown moss under some beech-tree, and listened idly,to the tapping of the woodpecker, or the rustle of squirrels through the fallen leaves. There was a little shaded dell, in particular, which was my favorite haunt. A branch of Cat Creek (as the stream in the valley was called) ran through it, murmuring gently over stones and dead tree-trunks. Here, in moist spots, the trillium hung its crimson, bell-like fruit under the hori- zontal roof of its three broad leaves, and the orange orchis shot up feathery spikes of flowers, bright as the breast of an oriole. In the thickest shade of this dell, a large tree had fallen across the stream from bank to bank, above a dark, glassy trout-pool. One crooked branch, rising in the middle, formed the back of a rough natural chair ; and hither I came habitually, bringing some work borrowed from Dr Dymond’s library. I remember reading there Mrs. Fle 73 JOHN GODFREY’S FORTUNES. mans’s “ Forest Sanctuary,” witha delight whi.h, alas! the poem can never give again, even™with such accessories. One day I was startled from my book by hearing the dead twigs on the higher bank snap under the step of some one descending into the glen. I looked up and saw Pen rose coming leisurely down, cutting now and then at a wood- moth or dragon-fly with a switch of leather-wood. Almost at the same moment he espied me. “ Hallo, Godfrey! Are you there?” he said, turning towards my perch. ‘“ You show a romantic taste, upon my word !” The irony, if he meant it for such, went no further. The inocking smile vanished from his lips, and his face became grave as he sprang upon the log and took a seat carelessly against the roots. Fora minute he bent forward and looked down into the glassy basin. “ Pshaw!” said he, suddenly, striking the water with his switch, so that it seemed to snap like the splitting of a real mirror, —“ only my own face! I’m no Narcissus.” “ You could n’t change into a flower, with your complex- ion, anyhow,” I remarked. “ Curse my complexion!” he exclaimed; “it’s a kind that brings bad blood, — my father has it, too!” I was rather startled at this outbreak, and said nothing. He, too, seemed to become conscious of his vehemence. “Godfrey,” he asked, “do you remember your father ? What kind of a man was he?” “ Yes,” I answered, “ I remember him very well. I was eight years old when he died. He was quiet and steady. I can’t recall many things that he said; but as good ° and honest a man as ever lived, I believe. If he had n’t been, mother could n’t have loved him so, to the very end ° of her life.” “T have no doubt of it,” he said, after a pause, as if speaking to himself; “there are such men. I’m sorry you lost your mother, — no need to tell you that. You ‘re go a JOHN GODFREY’S FORTUNES. 79 ing to leave school at end of the term. Where will you go? You have othé lations, of course ? * Encouraged by the interest which Penrose showed in my condition, I related to him what had been decided upon by my mother and my uncle, without concealing the unfavora- ble impression which the latter had made upon me, or my distaste at the prospect before me. “But you must have other aunts and uncles,” he said, “or relatives a little further off. On your father’s side, for instance?” “J suppose so,” I answered; “but they never visited mother, and I shall not hunt them up now. Aunt Peggy is mother’s only living sister. Grandfather Hatzfeld had a son, — my uncle John, after whom I was named, — but he never married, and died long ago.” “ Hatzfeld ? Was your mother’s name Hatzfeld ?” “Yes,” Penrose relapsed into a fit of silence. “It would be strange,” he said to himself; then, lifting his head, asked : “ Had your grandfather Hatzfeld: brothers and sisters ? ” “Oh, yes. Aunt Christina was hisisister : she left mother our little place at the Cross-Keys wh he died. Now, I recollect, I have heard mother speak of another aunt, Anna, who married and settled somewhere in Nee Jersey; I for- get her name, — it began with D. Grandfather had an older brother, too, but I think he went to Ohio. Mother never talked much about him: he did n’t act fairly towards grandfather.” “D?” asked Penrose, with a curious interest. “Would you know the name if you were to hear it? Was it Den- ning?” “Yes, that’s it!” I exclaimed; “why, how could you guess ” — “ Because Anna Denning was my grandmother — my mother’s mother! When you mentioned the name of Hatz feld, it all came into my mind at once. Why, Godfrey 80 JOHN GODFREY’S FORTUNES. your mother and mine were gees are cousins, therefore |!” * He sat upright on the log and stretched out his hand, which I took and held. “Penrose!” I exclaimed, “ can it be possible ? ” “ Plain as a pike-staff.” “ Qh, are you serious, Penrose? I can hardly believe it.” I still held his hand, as if the newly-found relationship might slip away on releasing it. The old mocking light camé, into his eyes. “Do you want me to show the strawberry-mark on my left arm?” he asked ; “or a mole on my breast, with three long black hairs growing out of it? Cousins are plenty, ' and you may n’t thank me for the discovery.” “Tam so glad!” I cried; “I have no cousin: it is the next thing to a brother!” His face softened again. “You ’re a good fellow, God- frey,” said he, “or Cousin John, if you like that better. Call me Alexander, if you choose. Since it is so, I wish I had known it sooner.” “Tf my poor mother could have known it!” I sighed. “That ’s it!” . “ the family likeness be- tween your mother"and mine. It puzzled me when Y saw her. My mother has been dead three years, and there’s a—Iwon’t say what—in her place. As you’re one of the family now, Godfrey, you may as well learn it from me as from some one else, later. My father and mother did n't live happily together; but it was not her fault. While she lived, my sister and I had some comfort at home; she has it yet, for that matter, but I There ’s no use in going over the story, except this much: it was n’t six months after my mother’s death before my father married again. Mar- ried whom, do you think? His cook!—a vulgar, brazer wench, who sits down to the table in the silks and laces ot the dead! And worse than that,—the marriage brought shame with it,—if you can’t guess what that means, now JOHN GODFREY’S CORTUNES. 81 you Tl find out after a ile don’t ask me to say anything more! Iam as proud mother was, and do you think I could forgive my father this, even if he had not always treated me like a brute?” Penrose’s eyes flashed through the indignant moisture which gathered in them. The warm olive of his skin had turned to a livid paleness, and his features were hard and cruel. I was almost afraid of him. “He to demand of me that I should call her ‘mother’!” he broke gut again, his lip quivering, but not with tender- ness, — “it was forbearance enough that I did not give her the name she deserved! And my sister,—but I suppose she is like most women, bent in any direction by anybody stronger than themselves. She stays at home, — no, not at home, but with them,— and writes me letters full of very good advice. Oh, yes, she’s a miracle of wisdom! She’s a young lady of twenty-one, and — and — The Cook finds it very convenient to learn fashionable airs of her, and how to eat, and to enter a room, and hold her fan, and talk with- out yelling as if at the house-maid, and all the rest of their damnable folly! There! How do you like being related to such a pleasant family as that?” I tried to stay the flood of bitterness, which revealed to me a fate even more desolate than my own. “ Penrose,’ I said, — “ Cousin Alexander, you are so strong and brave, you can make your own way in the world, without their help. I’m less able than you, yet I must do it. I don’t know why God allows some things to happen, unless it ’s to try us.” “None of that!” he cried, though less passionately ; “I’ve worried my brain enough, thinking of it. I’ve come to the conclusion that most men are mean, contemp- tible creatures, and their good or bad opinion is n’t worth a curse. If I take care of myself and don’t sink down among the lowest, I shall be counted honest, and virtuous and the Lord knows what; but I sometimes think that, if 6 82 JOHN GODFREY’S FORTUNES. there are such things as honé&ty and virtue, we mist look for them among the dregs of Abe; The top, J know, is nothing but a stinking scum.” I was both pained and shocked at the cynicism of these utterances, so harshly discordant with the youth and the glo- tious physical advantages of my cousin. Yes! the moment the new relation between us was discovered and accepted it established the bond which I felt to be both natural and welcome. It interpreted the previous sensation which he had excited in my nature. Some secret sympathy had bent, like the hazel wand in the hand of the diviner, to the hidden rill of blood. But the kinship of blood is not always that of the heart. “