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THE SUNNY SOUTH.
NOW FIIiST PUBLISHED—FBOM THE AUTHOB 8 ADVANCE PBOOF SHEET8.
ISHMAELITE.
by miss m. e. braddon.
Author of
“Lady Audley’s Secret,” “Nobody’s Daughter,” “John March-
mont's Legacy,” “Vixen,” Etc., Etc.
CHAPTER XX.
“behold, thou abt faib, my loye.”
The eLtgma of Paquerette’s destiny was
solved; there was no more difficulty, no
more doubt or incertitude. She was to be
married to ishmael, otherwise Sebastian
Caradeo, as soou as the law would allow.
Now, the marriage law of France is strict
ly parental, and has been conceived with a
strong feeling for the authority of parents,
the safe-keeping of children. A girl in her
teens and a youth under tive-and-twcnty
can hardly make a foolish marriage; for in
order to be married at all, he or she must
first obtain the consent of the parents, or of
the one surviving parent, or, in the oase of
an orphan, of that next of kin standing in
the place of a parent. The law is a hard
one sometimes for youth aud true love, as
in the case of poor little Criquette, in Mon
week of her life. It was no longer to be
spoken of as that petit brin de voix which
might be just enough for a babyfied patois
song. It was now a pure and fine soprano,
and Paquerette conld sing Gilda’s part in
the great Rigoletto quartette with a force
and a passion that startled her instruc
tress.
“You ought to come out at the opera,”
said Lisette. “It is a sin for you to marry.
Artists should never marry. Marriage is
almost as bad for a genius as a convent.
It means self-sacrifice for life.”
“But you married,” argued Paquerette,
who saw no reason why sheRhould not mar
ry Ishmael first—that good Ishmael who
was so kind to her—aud go on the operatic
stage afterwards.
“I married before I was secure of my
position as an artist,” answered Lisette,
“and I have repented my weakness ever
sieur Ludovic Halevy’s tender story; but it ' since. Moque is a good fellow, but he is a
often works for the protection of “sweet ! clog. I should have been at one of the
sixteen,” who cannot elope with her groom, | boulevard theatres years ago if I had re-
to be bonnd hard and fast iu the bonds of i maiued single.”
matrimony at the nearest registry, and for j Madam Moqne was the only person who
the impetuous youth at the university or the j did U ot cordially approve of Paquerette’s
military depot, who cannot mate himself , betrothal to Ishmael. She praised lshmael’s
for life with the first pretty milliner he | generosity iu wedding the nameless waif,
”—= w s„ j ! but ?he bewailed the waif’s sacrifice of an
artistic career, a career whioh, managed
aud directed by her, must needs have been
triumphant. Ishmael might have made a
much better marriage, she urged. Paqne-
rette would have been happier single. But
iu these opinions Madam Moque was stren
uously opposed by the three Benoit girls,
who came by turns to see Paquerette, who
helped iu the preparation of the trousseau,
and who were never tired of praising Ish
mael and congratulating their little friend
upon.her good fortune.
“If heaven would send me such a man,
said Pauline, nnconscioasly quoting Shake-
meets. Marriage in France is set ronnd
with a perfect chevanx de frise of precau
tions and difficulties; it cannot be hnddled
over in a hole-and-corner manner, without
giving age and wisdom a chance of warning
or remonstrance. Up to the age of thirty
the intending bridegroom must respectfully
call upon his parents to approve of his act,
and must give them ample time in whioh to
say their say upon the subjeot.
Before he lay down to rest on the night of
Easter Sunday, Ishmael wrote a long letter
to Father Bressant, telling him what had
happened, and begged him to obtain Ray
mond Caradeo’s oonsent to his marriage.
“I am earning my own living, with daily
improving prospeots," he wrote. “I am
never very likely to cross my father’s path
in life; I pledge myself never to ask pecu
niary aid from him. I call upon him, there
fore, not to thwart me in this most solemn
act of my life, an act which involves the
happiness and welfare of another.”
And then he went on to describe Paque
rette as an orphan—helpless friendless,
childlike, innocent. He was careful to say
nothing about the lowness of her origin,
but dwelt chiefly on her graces, on her soli
tary condition. It was a letter eminently
calculated to touch the good priest’s heart;
but the effect which such an appeal might
exercise upon Raymond Caradeo remained
an open question. It is difficult to foresee
the conduct of a man who has given up his
life to the governance of a weak aud selfish
woman.
Father Bressant’s reply came by return of
post. It was brief but full of kindness, and
the envelope enclosed the following letter
from Ishmael’s father : “I am told, Sebas
tian, that, having taken your own course in
life, without respect for me, for your name
aud family, or for the rank in whioh you
were born, you now desire to marry an ob
scure and penniless orphan, whose very
name yon shrink from disclosing. This de-
-sire on your part I c 1 '
muurtMiy nmoug tne waifs a cl strays of so
ciety. If I had any hope thiit the seveied
tie between father and sou could ever again
ibe united I should resolutely refuse my con
sent to such a union; but as in every act, of
your life I recognizs the influence of that
tainted blood which makes yon worse than
a stranger to me, aud I feel the impossibil
ity of reconciliation, I am inclined to let
you have your own way; but on the condi
tion that yon never resume the name of Ca:--
p.dec, which I am told you abandoned on
leaving your home, and that you renounce
your portion of the estate whioh I have to
leave to my s ins. That estate divided by
three would be small to insignificance;
for two it will be little better than a pit
tance. Since, ns I understand, you are
earning more than you spend, and see
your way to an increasing income, it
can be a very small sacrifice to you to
surrender this cleim upon (his mod
est heritage, tor the profit of your two
younger brothers, for whom you, as I be
lieve, once entertained a warm affection.
In a word, this is my ullimntum : Send me
a formal renunciation of your claim upon
my estate, aud I will send you mj formal
consent to jour marriage with the young
person whose name I have yet to learn.”
Ishmael smiled a bitter smile as he read
the paiernalletter.
“Monsieur de Caradeo knows howtomake
a bargain,” he said to himself: “but he is
right iu thinking that it will cost me very
little to give up my birthright. I will let
it go as lightly as Esau parted with his, and
1 will shed no idle tear afterward for the
loss of it. I once loved my brothers. Yes,
and with me once means forever.”
He answered his father’s letter two days
afterward, inclosing a document which he
had executed with all due formality iu a no
tar j ’s oilice.
I renounce the name which I have iong
since ceased to bear, he wrote: 1 formally
surrender a heritage ou which I had never
calculated. I began life a year and a half
ago, with no capital but a stroug arm and a
strong will. My affection for my brothers
is not a thing of the past, it belongs to the
present and to the future; and if tv r the day
come that they need my help, they will find
that fraternal love is something more than
a phrase, i willingly, ungrudgingly forego
whatever right I have upon your property for
the benefit of those two dear boys; and I am,
even in severance, your dutiful son,
Sebastian.
On Paquerette’s side there were difficulties
—but these were more easily overcome.
Mere Lemoine was bound to her by no legal
tie, but Mere Lemoine had brought her up,
and the law recognized the claim of a puta
tive grandmother who had given food and
shelter from infancy upwards to a nameless
grandchild. But Mere Lemoine had disap
peared, and taking her habits into due con
sideration, had in ali probability gone to
people the tranchee gratuite. It was held
therefore, after due inquiry and some delay
that the banns of marriage might be pot up
and that, after a certain interval, Ishmael
and Paquerette might be united by civil and
ecclesiastical ordinances, as they might
themselves ordain.
These considerations and preliminaries
occupied nearly three months, during whioh
time Ishmael was working hard and gaining
ground with his employers, while Paquer
ette, still a lodger over the pork butcher’s
6hop, seemed to be very happy. Sh%had a
good deal to do for Madam Moque, who was
clever in saving herself trouble when a pair
of younger hands and feet were at
her disposition. She had also to prepare
her trousseau bought with a little sum
of money given her by Ishmael, and this
involved much plain sewing; at whioh
Paquerette was not particularly expert, al
though she had made considerable pro
gress since those early days when Lisbeth
Benoit taught her to mend her gown and
her a present of a thimble.
For recreation, for delight, she had the
wheezy little piano, and never did a Madam
Pleyel or a Lipzt derive more raptore from
the chet d ceuvre of an Erard or a Kriegel-
«tem than wafted Paquerette’s young soul
akywaxd, npon the oraeked and tiny tones
or that little worn oat oottage piano. Her own
voioe ripened and strengthened with every
6peare. ...
Ishmael had made all his arrangements
for his wedded life. He had descended
from his eyrie uuder the tiles to a comfort
able aud comparatively spacious apartment
on the second floor, consisting of a salon,
bed-room aud kitchen, with a little fourth
room—a mere closet, with a narrow window
commanding a back lane—whioh would do
for his study. Paquerette and he, accom
panied by Lisette, had made numerous
voyages of discovery among the second
hand" dealers of Paris, and had brought
home treasure iu the shape of chairs, ta
bles, aud armoires made under the I* irst
Empire, in that pseudo-classical style of
art which has so long teen a drug in the
market. Ishmael, with his discriminating
eye for form and mechanism, was the last
person to be content with cheap newly
made furniture, all trick and varnish and
green wood. He wandered from broker to
broker, till his glance alighted on some
tine old piece of furniture wheeled into a
corner, rejected by the frivolous, scorned
by the fashionable, but as solid in its con
struction aud as true iu its lines as an old
woodeu man-of-war. And thus for a few
hundred francs he secured a few choice old
pieces of cabinet-work which gave his little
4;uU»u„u .look of sombre gti'udeur. It no
_ ' . ‘ . r' 3 '..,*tlii ik. 1 workman’?
turn. Lisette shrugg uip, '/ears. ” ’
said that the room was trlsie.““" - • ■*** ’-
“Yon must have yellow curtains like
mine,” she protested, “or your salon will
be the gloomiest in all Paris.”
But Ishmael resolved that he would not
have yellow curtains, least of all yellow cur
tains like Lisette’s. He and Paquerette
took their Summer evening’s rambles in all
the faubourgs of Paris, and one night, not
very remote from the dome of Sainte Ge-
nieve, Ishmael found some old tapestry cur
tains iu a shabby little bric-a-brac shop,
which he felt were the things he wanted for
his sitting room. Paquer6tte at first con
demned them as diugj; but on their merits
beihg explained to her, and on her being
toid that they exactly resembled some cur
tains which Ishmael had seen in a chateau
in Brittany, she began to think better of
them. Her education in the little yellow
salon over the pork butcher’s shop was not
without fruits. She was beginning to have
grand ideas, vague yearnings for spleudor
and finery, a dim fancy that Nature had in
tended her to be a lady.
At last, in the golden days of early June,
while the white flowers of th6 chestnut trees
iu the Tuileries gardens were falling in
feathery showers upon the grass, like snow
in Summer, when the hawthorns were still
in bloom in the bois, and the delicate fra
grauce of acacias glorified the air of the
suburbs, came tho morning of Paqnerette’s
wedding day. It was a Saturday, favorite
day for humble weddings, since it leaves
the interval of Sunday for the bridal party
to take their pleasure before bridegroom
and bride go back to the daily round of
toil. Lisette had suggested Saturday, and
Ishmael had obeyed. Lisette had iurther
suggested a weddiug dinner in the Palais
Royal on Saturday evening aud n jauut to
Bougivai, with a picnic by the waterside, on
Sunday. But here, to the lady’s disappoint
mehl, Ishmael announced that he had plans
of his own. He had obtained leave of ab
sence for the Monday and Tuesday after
his wedding, and he meant to take Paque
rette on a little excursion to the woods of
Marly and St. Germain, and then on to
Fontainebleau, traveling by diligence as far
as possible, so as to see tbe most they could
of the country, taking their valise with
them and stopping at humble inns on the
road.
“Paquette adores the woods,” he said.
“I have never forgotten how enchanted she
was with the flowers and butterflies at
Marly last year. I want to renew that ex
perience.”
Lisette smiled a bitter smile.
“Experiences of that kind are not so easi
ly repeated,” she said. “I don’t think
Paquerette cares very much about flowers
and butterflies now she has seen the fash
ionable faubourgs of Paris.”
“Instead of a wedding dinner next Sat
urday, I shall ask you and Moque and other
friends to dine with ns the Sunday after our
return, and then you will be able to judge
what kind of housekeeper Paquerette will
make,” pursued Ishmael, without noticing
Madam Moque’s interruption.
The marriage thus arranged was conduct
ed very quietly. The only guests were the
three Benoit girls, Monsieur and Madam
Moque and a fellow-workman of Ishmael’s,
an esprit fort and orator of the elubs, who
acted as best man. The marie on this sun
lit Saturday morning was a nest of bridal
parties, fathers and mothers, sisters and
brothers, from youth to infancy, all in new
clothes, washed, frizzed, pomaded for the
oocasion. The maire with his trieolored
scarf and little red morocco book, the gref-
fier with his big register, had a formidable
air, and the little crowd rose en masse at
the entranee of these authorities. Then
came solemn questions, bridegrooms and
brides were each addressed by name, and
formally interrogated; fathers and mothers
present were qnestioned as to their oonsent
to eaoh union, the answers to be clearly and
loudly given, so as to be heard by all present,
whioh in most cases they were not. The
greffier read oertain articles of the civil
code, setting forth the duties and rights of
husband and wife—all t»is being done with
the summer wind blowing freely through
wiila nnan ilnnpa fn ahn« fhof tka na>n *
mony is a publio act; and then the maire
declared these persons united in marriage,
the registers were signed, the ceremonial
wa« finished.
“Remember the poor, if yon please,
cried one of the officials, and each as he or
she went by dropped an offering into a bag
upon the table. Very microscopic some
of these offerings; but there are many of
them verily like the widow’s mite, the gift
of those who have but little to give.
Ishmael was too good a Catholic to dis
pense with the blessing of the church on
this solemn sacramental act of his life.
Within half an hour after leaving the maine
Paquerette and he were kneeling before the
high altar in a shadowy old church on the
edge of the eleventh arrondisement, and in
the parish in whioh Ishmael had his domi
cile. When this solemnity was accomplished
the bridal party repaired to a small and
quiet little restaurant near Madam Monce s
shop, where the grocer and his J 1 ’ 6 ,
them, and where a comfortable breakfast
had been ordered for the party. And here
at 2 o’clock, Paquerette and her husband
bade their friends adien and started with
their modest luggage in a fly for the office of
the diligence which still plied between 1 aris
and Marly le Roi. They were to begin their
wedded life iu the little inn with the garden
where they had dined last St. John s Hay.
CHAPTER XXL
“AND IT BROUGHT FOETH WILD GRATES.”
Nearly two years had gone by since that
wedding morning at the mairie. It. was the
springtide of 18i>4, and and */ '<i^er-
ette had lived together through the sunshine
and cloud of a married iife which some
what long to look back upon in the mirds
of both. It had been a period cf ;*>y and
sorrow—of joy, for Paquerette hau found it
a sweet and happy fate to be the beloved of
an honest aud noble-minded husband: of
sorrow, for the first fruits of their love ha.d
been garnered yonder in the field of many
graves, l^aqaerette conld S66 the multitude
of headstones, the Egyptian sarcophaguses
and Greek temples, white and ghostly on the
slope of the hill, when she looked out of her
bedroom window on moonlit nign’s; and
she fancied she could see the very spot where
her baby girl lay. under a little garden
of flowers. For many months of .Paquer
ette’s life she never went to bed without
looking out of that window, and towards
that grave, while she murmured a prayer
for her dead. Not a week passed in which
she did not make her pious pilgrimage to
the cemetery and spend an hour beside her
baby’s grave. Hers were the hands that
kept the flowers in order in that tiny gar
den, among so many other such gardens—
some tawdry, some fine—in the overcrowd
ed city of the dead. Ishmael had bought
the concession perpetuelle of this little plot
of ground. The leasehold, which sulnces
for middle-class Paris in a general way,
was not lasting enough for his and Paqne
rette’s sorrow for the fair flower that had
withered in its earliest bloom. They want
ed to be sure that no lapse of years would
make any difference to that little bed.
The first year of Paquerette’s married life
h id been perfectly happy. First, there had
been the delight, the pride, the importance
of being mistress of her little menage, her
salon, with its fine old furnitnre aud tapes
try curtains; her own piano—Iahmael’s wtd-
dinc gift, and a gift far beyond his means
at that period—a new piano, with full, rich
tono, whioh was ns the organ of hi. Eustache
in comparison with the worn ont tin kett.e
upon which Lisette accompanied tier nasal
melodies. Paquerette adored her piano,
and, at Ishmael’s suggestion, she took mu
sic lessons from a little old professor whose
father had helped Jean-Jacques Rousseau
in the partition of his operettas, and had
played the violin in the little theatre at \ er-
sailles where Marie Antoinette acted, liie
professor was a frail old link with the his
toric past, faded p-pd withered and snuffy,
very proud of reliving those souvenirs of
the gracious days] befma, the Revolution
whnL, things s/. otefef ? tlie «*
to oonfountr i»is i£ht
‘Wittrhis own, and tot talk as if . . ^nif-ne
who had been in t.ae orchestra when the
the Queen sang, as if he had been a col-
laboruteur of that wonderful Jean Jacques.
“I can see it all as I tell you the story,”
he would say ; “the place, the people, they
are all before me, vivid, real. I kr.ew them
all so well, you see.”
Ishmael had a fancy for the little old man,
who had the refinement and somewhat over-
accentuated oourtesy of those long-departed
days, an air of impalable powder, invisible
patches and pigeon wings. He asked him
to dinner sometimes on a Winter Sunday,
and let him tell his stories all the evening.
The professor was Legitimist to tiie tips of
his nails and held the house of Charlatans
and the house of Bonaparte in equal con
tempt.
“Charlatans both,” he said, “only one is
cleverer than the other. He is not afraid
of spending money as the Citizen King was,
and he knows how to make Paris more com
fortable for the Parisians. And since to
govern Paris is to govern France, he is
likely to reign Iong and merrily.”
For music Monsieur Yielbois, the little
old professor, gave Paquerette only the
works of the eighteenth century composers
—quaint old melodies by Rameau, Lulli,
Gretry, Monsigny—gavottes, minuets, bal
let music of the old, eld school. These
prettinesses. which did not reqr ire much
execution, Paquerette played charmingly,
with airy lightness, with delicate shades of
expression, with perfect phrasing.
“She has the finest ear of any pupil I ever
taught,” protested Monsieur Vielbois, “and
she has a voice that would have made her
fortune on the operatic stage.”
That suggestion of the “might have been”
always evoked a sigh from Paqneiette. She
thought of that possible operatic career—
those visionary successes and triumphs—as
of a treasure she had sacrificed in order to
marry Ishmael. He was very good to her.
He did all he conld to make her life happy,
and she told herself that she was happy; but
that other life shone upon her fancy some
where in oloudland like a dream of bliss.
In the summer of 1853 Paquerette’s baby
waB born, a lovely infant, with eyes that
had a heavenly look which gave the father a
thrill of fear as he bent over the cradle.
Such a look was fitter for the skies than
this dull earth—it seemed li'.e a warning.
The child lived for six months, and was the
delight of the little home, t’aquerette
nursed her baby, idolized her, bat treated
her a little too much as a child treats her
doll, and had intervals of carelessness in
the midst of her devotion. One such inter
val occurred in the winter when the snow
was on the roofs of Menilmontant, and the
graves in Fere Lachaise were hidden under
one great white pall. Monsieur Vielbois
brought his pupil tickets for the opera,
when the honses were thin on acoount of
the hard weather. And Paquerette, flurried
and feverish all day in anticipation of the
evening’s bliss, hurried off to the Rue
Lepelletier at night with one of ;he Benoit
girls, leaving the baby in her cradle to the
chance ministrations of a friendly neigh
bor on the third floor.
One such night the little one caught cold
—a mere nothing—a baby ailment—a touch
of fever, the apothecary said, whioh a pow
der and a tisane would set right. But be
fore Paris and the world was twenty-four
hours older the fever was a raging fever,
the delioate little frame was attacked with
mortal disease; and within a week the little
ooffin was being made, and tbe cradle was a
piece of stillness, shrouded under white
cambric.
Paquerette grieved intensely—lamented
passionately—would not be comforted.—
When spring flowers and sunshine oame
back to the land Ishmael sent her to Fon
tainebleau with one of the Benoit girls,
hoping that ohange of air and soene would
restore her to peace of mind and give her
the healthful sleep whioh had forsaken her
pillow sinoe the child’s death. The ohange
did something and time did more; and now
the year was growing old whioh had been a
new year while the earth was fresh above
baby Claire’s grave. Ishmael had named
IKa /IIaiba Lea fatfiav^c mnthAP.
He shrank from calling her by his own
mother’s name. It would have seemed an
evil omen.
Paquerette was not a good housekeeper.
She was impulsive, a creature of whim and
fancy, doing things by fits and starts, some
times working tremendously, sometimes
abandoning herself to idleness for days to
gether.
Ishmael was at his work all day, and asked
no troublesome questions when he came
home in the evening, so long as Paquerette
was there to receive him. He was careless
as to what he ate, and took a good or a bad
dinner with equable indifference. Some
times the dinner was a cold collation, some
times fetched hurriedly from the charcu-
tier’s, Paqnerette having forgot the dinner
question altogether. Sometimes there was
a decent pot-au feu.
She employed a charwoman, the deaf old
portress who kept the door below, who came
to the second floor every morning to do all
the rough work, so that Paquerette’s hands
were never coarsened by domestic drudgery.
Her husband admired those pretty white
hands.
“You must have good blood in your veins,”
he said; “you have the hands and feet of a
patrician.”
Paqnerette gave her head a little toss.
“I have a conviction that my father was a
gentleman,” she said, “and that was why he
would not own me.”
“If he was alive and knew of your exist
ence, and abandoned j'ou to that den yon
der, he was a scoundrel, whatever his birth
might be,” answered Ishmael, warmly.
He had a knack of calling things by their
right names.
“Ah ! yon don’t know: he may have beep
some great person, hemmed round by diffi
culties—a tyrannio father, a proud mother.
Who knows ?”
Paquerette had read plenty of novels in
her iong hours of leisnre, the novels of the
day—Georges Sand, Feydean, Sue, Durans,
Father and Son. Her little head was stuffed
with the romantic and impossible side of
life. She despised Ishmael’s dry-as-dust
studies, far away' from the flowery fields of
sentiment and poetry. So different from
his friend, Hector de Valnois, lately re
turned to Paris, and full of interest in
Paquerette, whom he found wondrously
improved and refined by an education
which had consisted for the most part of
rnnsic lessons and novel-reading. Paque
rette was fascinated with his sympathetic
nature, his delightful way of looking at
everything from the standpoint of art and
beauty. Sue knew that her husband was
clever; but his was a kind of cleverness
upon which she set no value—a cleverness
which made bridges, aud built markets and
slaughter houses, and drained cities through
loathsome subterraneous sewers. What was
such a talent as this compared with the ge
nius which conld extemporize a song, words
and music, aud sing it divinely en passant
—whioh could embody jest and fancy with
the delicate lines of an airy pencil ? Wit,
mirth, art, comedy, tragedy, mu ic, song,
were all within the domain of Hector de
Valnois; while Ishmael was distinguished
only by an inordinate passion for h»rd
work, a love of sheer drudgery, which seem
almost a mania.
What society could such a husband afford
to a young wife, eager for new pleasures,
now that the anguish of a first grief was a
pain of the past, a sad, thrilling memory?
Ishmael grudged his wife do indulgence,
thwarted her in no whim. But he conld
rarely share her pleasures. His days were
full of toil, thonght, anxiety. He had pros
pered beyond his most ardent hopes. He
was the head and front of all things in the
builder’s yard at Belleville, that yard which
he entered less than four years ago as a
gacheur. There was a talk of his being ta
ken into partnership—a well-deserved re
ward, since it was his enterprise, his strength
of character, and thorough mastery of the
science of construction which had obtained
from the house an important Government
.contract for a great slaughter-hoise on the
confines of the city, a contract which
“Tie Women of tie Late War.”
An Address Delivered in Hibernian
Hail, Charleston^. C., Feb
ruary 11th, 1874
In Behalf of the Confederate Home,
Charleston. S. C., by the Rev.
Charles Wall ace Howard,
4^ say tyjmst xri^Cnyrikb ofPeto~and p.assey; but
it was the largest business the Belleville
yard had ever had yet, and it scored high for
Ishmael.
With increasing success cameever-inorea-
sing labor, plans, estimates, quantities, the
whole science of mathematics as applied to
iron aud stone; and when the long day of
practical werk was over, it was Ishmael’s
custom after a brief interval of rest to shnt
himself in his little study, the hermit-like
cell opening ont of his bedroom, and there
to devote himself to figures and theory,
sometimes working on till late in the night.
“It is not very lively,” Paquerette said
sometimes, with a shrug of her shoulders,
when she spoke to Lisette Moque of her do
mestic life.
[to be continued.’
Love,, the Crowned Grace.
Here are the three divine graces in holy
emulation: Love, the crowned one, though
not to the dishonor of the rest; Faith be
lieves God and all His promises; Hope
stretches out her hand for their fulfillment,
and Charity is the assurauce of both Faith
and Hope. This inseparable trio, we are
clearly told, will survive the wreck of time
when our imperfect wisdom, made np of
generations, conjectures and analogies, will
lie put away as the toys of a child. Faith
is the positive, hope the comparative and
love the superlative; faith is the seed, hope
the stalk and love the crowning harvest.
Faith is God’s gift, born of the Spirit, and
comes of hearing; it is the perceptive and
receptive sense of the renewed soul. Hope
is the unseen hand, sustaining the soul in
the trials of life, and lighting it in the dark
ness of death; on our journey to our Father’s
house, hope goes before faith as the rays
before the lantern. Faith shall be swal
lowed up in victory, hope in fruition; but
love is eternal, having its life in God, who
commendeth His great love in the gift of
His Son to us. Angels aud the redeemed
shall join in songs of love to Him who first
loved ns. Faith and hope do not make
heaven, bnt love does. Love conqners evil,
binds the universe together, us to God and
God to ns. It evolves unity out of diversity,
confederating men, with all their peculiar
characteristics of tempers, tastes, endow
ments, or colors, into one—the greatest
unity with the greatest diversity. Love is
greater, because whatever more God is, He
is love. God cannot be said to be belief or
hope, bnt we know that He is love; it dwells
in God aud has God dwelling in it.—Presby
terian.
Almost every person has some form of
scrofulous poison latent in his veins. When
this develops in scrofulous sores, ulcers, or
eruptions, or takes the form of rheumatism,
or organic diseases, the suffering that en
sues is terrible beyond description. Hence
the gratitude of those who discover, as
thousands yearly do, that Ayer’s Sarsaparil
la will thoroughly eradicate this evil from
the system.
At the Grosvenor, Clara Morris is de
scribed as making one think of a figure out
of a Florentine picture of long ago. She
wears an ample mantle down to her feet of
deep red silk, with open sleeves descending
to the hem thereof; sleeves and cloak are
edged with brown fur; a close-fitting hat of
red silk is placed upon her flowing hair,
with feather trimmings of deeper brown;
coffee lace rnohings round throat and wrists
were peculiarly rich and pretty in effect.
the ohild Claire, after his father’s mother,
wide open doors, to show that the oere- 1 whom he had only known as a tradition.
To most children the bare suggestion of a
dose of castor oil is nauseating. Why not,
then, when physio is necessary for the lit
tle ones, nse Ayer’s Cathartic Pills? They
combine every essential and valuable prin
ciple of a cathartic mediome, and being
sugar-ooated are easily taken.
Miss Ellen Chase, of Boston, says that
there will be three women to one man in
heaven, but she doeen’t tell where the re3t
of the men will go. j
[Conclusion.]
And there are others whom God has still
spared to us: Joseph E. Johnson, his former
enemies being judges, the first of living
masters of the art of war; and Beauregard,
the hero of Manassas; and Gordon, and
Hampton, and Lawton, and a host of lesser
military rank. These were all men of pure
life, of honest, earnest convictions—men to
be trusted in Jheir private relations, and,
therefore, in their public acts. The confi
dence of our soldiery in them was implicit.
They could not do wrong when following
men so pure and good, who would not and
could not lead them iuto wrong doing.
This sentiment, prevalent among the men,
was intensified in trn->tfnl woman, and this,
combined with her own convictions, inspired
a devotion to the cause which is perhaps
without a parallel.
There was still another method which il
lustrated the power of woman in the prosecu
tion of the war. In waging it, so far as
earthly supports were c mcerned, we were
alone. Europe stood aloof—nominally by
reason of our institution, which European
rulers either did not understand or design
edly perverted. Effete Spain would not
help us, as she subordinated her interest to
her fears. Ambitions France did not help
ns, as she w«s bent on schemes of conqnest.
“Perfidons Albion” did not help us—that
country which, more than twenty-five years
ago. endorsed and snstained with more than
G~aliic enthusiasm the remarkable utterance
of Mr. Canning—remarkable for its arro
gance, as if he were a God to kill and make
alive; remarkable for its honesty, for it
proclaimed the boasted generosity of Eng
land in the recognition of Mexico and the
Sonth American Republics to have been a
cool calculating measure. “I,” said the
Minister, “have called into existence the
New World, in order to redress the balance
of the Old;” and in 1864 the same wary,
sleepless eye to her interest enabled Eng
land to look coolly ou this terrible war
among her descendants, in hope by an op
posite^ process, that by the destruction of
the New World, the disturbed balance of
the Old World might be redressed.
The same end was tu be attained at both
periods. Then it was by the creation of
national life—it was by the extinction of
natural life afterwards. The means are
indifferent to that government, cold as the
dismal fogs which are its native air, and
which the blessed sun scarce ventures to
penetrate.
See that man whom detraction has as
sailed, whose friends ha—e abandoned him,
who is pressed by a malignant aud unscru
pulous enemy, who is straggling bravely
against adversity, yet who cannot help the
depression which distortion and calumny
and possible ruin mnst produce. See him
when the business of the weary day is done,
and he turns his face homeward; as he ap
proaches. that dear spot, his steps become
lighter, the bent form more erect, the wrin
kles are disappearing from his brow, the ice
at his heart is thawing, and when the door
opens and the streaming light illumines his
own heart, and the arms of a loving wife
encircles him, aud his children clamber
over his knee, the hollow-hearted world is
all forgotten, and he blesses God for
“Home, sweet home:” there is no false-
ii.ii Vfac...of 4£ f ,-antipp havg
ones do uot desert him; they give him brave
words of cheer; and thus refreshed and in
vigorated when morning comes, he goes
forth again to fight life’s battle with re
newed and unconquerable energy.
The Confederate army in its isolation,
turned to the women of the South, as the
husband and father turns to his own do
rnestic circle. It is the same home feeling
more widely extended. It was a grand fam
ily—this Confederacy; our hopes, our fears,
our interests were one. Abroad we were
met with averted eyes. No voice of sym
pathy swept across the Atlantic. Our insti
tutions weve maligned. The rights of na
tions were denied ns by powers professedly
nentral. Our ruin was predicted. Onr ports
were blookaded by an implacable foe. His
hosts pressed ns on our northern frontier.
We were shut out from communication with
onr kind. Beyond onr limits the sky was
black and lowering. Bnt we looked within,
and how changed the scene. The change
from black night to full orbed day, from
icy winter to genial spring, is not greater.
Beautifnl forms welcomed us. Bright eyes
hearned upon ns. Kind voices greeted us.
The arms of loved oues were around us.
They told ns—these heroine womeu of the
Confederacy—thongh the world desert ns,
they would not desert or forsake us; though
all others be false, they would be true;
thongh the enemy triumph in his numbers
and resources, they would cling the more
closely to us; that in privation they would
share with us: in suffering they wonld min
ister to ns, and that in death or victory
they would not he divided from ns. It is
au anomaly to behold weakness snstainirg
strength. It were a strange spectacle to
behold the oak of an hundred winters reel
ing and staggering before the fury of the
storm, yet upheld by the pliant vine which
had twined itself around his gnarled aud
knotted trunk. Yet it baa often happened
that a bold, stern, strong man, when almost
giving way before the pressure of difficulty,
has been snstained by the arms of a feeble
woman whioh have enciroled him. From
her hope he learns trust; from her sympa
thy he reoeives a solace; by her confidence
he dispels despondency; in her affection he
anticipates reward; and thus inspired, he is
endowed with relentless might. Beautiful,
holy mission of woman ! Engaged in this,
her errRnd of love, whioh is heaven-born,
the radiance of a better world shines
around about her. When this light fails,
“the shorn Samson” gropes feeble and
darkly on his uncertain way.
The several particulars in which the wo
meu of the late war have illustrated their
devotion to their country’s cause have now
been considered It may not be amiss to
recapitulate them. You have been directed
to their untiring efforts to relieve the phys-
ical wants of the soldier, to the fortitude
with whioh they have borne privation and
want, to the readiness with whioh they have
surrendered their loved ones, to the hazards
of battle, to the heroic firmness with whioh
they have sustained heart-rending bereave
ments, to their unshaken confidence in the
rectitude of our cause, leading them to
earnest prayer to Almighty God, and to the
fact that these particulars have been devel
oped not in rare and unusual oases, but by
the great mass of our female population.
A comment on the aggregate of character
thus exhibited is natural and worthy of at
tention. That character in all its parts and
in each form of its manifestation is striotly,
beautifully feminine.
In wars of the people in which women
have taken part, there has ordinarily oc
curred one of two extremes, either of whioh
have unsexed them. One of these extremes
is the horrible ferocity which has some
times been exhibited by women of the lower
classes; the other, that disposition to oabal
and intrigue, which has made woman the
most dangerous oonspirator, at times pre
cipitating fearful national eatastrophes.
We cannot read withont a shudder, of the
tiger-like thirst for blood whioh has charac
terized a portion of the womtn of Paris, in
the suooeesive revolutions which have con
vulsed that splendid yet unhappy metropo
lis. The assassination of Marat freed the
world of a monster; but we shrink with
loathing from Charlotte Corday, that young
and beautiful woman who forgot her eex in
her purity, her fascination, her el 'l ^
her energy, her counsels, hermagmm^
ence, prominently hastened th dy
hour in human history—the terrible trag y
of the French revolution. Our war
figured by neither of those extremes,
was no intrigue, there were no savage u
feminine excesses. In the con ^ n P^nthina
women of the Confederacy, we had nothing
to regret, everything to admire. This a
votion was entire. Its symmetry ■ P
fee' It required but this orownmg combi
nation to diffase over it that gentle excel
lency whioh makes it the heroism
The arch is the symbol of strength, but it
demands the blended hues of the rainbow to
give its marvelous beauty. The daughters
of the South took full share in oar stern
contest, but it reqnired the rare union of
feminine qualities to invest their devotion
with the loveliness and significance of the
b °It was* stated in the outset of these re
marks, that their purpose was twofold. One
that we may enjoy the pleasures which arise
from the contemplation of a theme so’ 8® 1 "
tie as the devotion of onr women daring
the war; the other, that the sterner sex might
revive a sense of obligation to them.
By some persons it seems to be supposed
that such reminiscences must have the
feet of perpetuating animosities and pro
ducing disloyalty to the government. In
really noble minds this supposition will
occur. They will sympathise with us. The
knight who is worthy of his spurs, wall not
fail to render homage at the shrine of fe ^
patriotism, whether found on friend y
suffered defeat. We are proud of the^cour
ulou . It is a sad pleasuro to recall andlm-
uer over the memory of both; ^ot to _
animosites, but to inspire our ch,ldr f“ wU"
heroic sentiment; not to Produce disloyalty,
but to fortify ourselves for the- fȣarge of
present and future duty. It wiU be_ founa
that those who do their duty to the Confea
eracy, who glory in the past, and who at the
rlose of the war accepted the situation,
swearing to obey the laws and Constnut.on
of the United States, are the men who would
die rather than break their oath. Ttiej lare
not break their oath. The highest earthly
tribunal their conscience, would condemn
them. “Noblesse oblige.” The government
might as well suspect Cmsar s wife of dis
loyalty as a Southern gentleman wno has
gI I e practical question presents itself to the
men of the South; an imperfect review has
been made of our obligation to onr women.
Have we in any fitting and enduring form,
exhibited our gratitude to them. If so,
when, where, and how?
When our poorer soldiers enlisted, we
told them if they fell the survivors wonld
take care of their families. It was a prom
ise carrying with it the sanctity of an oath.
Have we kept it ? Do we remember that
the widows of hundreds of these brave men
are now suffering from want of the com
mon necessaries of life, pinched with hun
ger aud cold? Do we remember that their
daughters, in some instances, have been
driven by sheer want to a iife of shame ?
Do we remember that some of their sons
are the gamins of the cities, living by beg
ging aud theft ? And as we remember, do
our cheeks tingle with honest shame at the
unfulfilled promise ?
Iu-criptions on coin and monumental
marble nave sometimes a great value. We
have erected monuments to the Confed
erate dead. The sentiment prompting to
them was pure and noble. But has not the
lesser duty been preferred to the greater ?
The dead can wait.
They rest quietly in the cold grave; that
grave will become no colder. “Life’s fitful
fever over, they sleep well,” to be awaken
ed only by the clangor of the last trumpet.
But the living cannot wait. Hunger gnaws,
ignorance and vice ever inbrnte. If is a re
vision has been ma(Te~for the widows al
orphans of our Confederate dead.
There is, however, so far as my knowledge
extends, a simple exception, occurring 7n
this stricken and impoverished city. There
is here a Home—not a poor house or hos
pital—for the widows and orphans of the
Confederate soldiers. With the origin and
establishment of this Home, the citizens of
Charleston are familiar. Both should be
understood throughout the whole South.
Soon after the dose of the war, a lady of
this city was impressed with the importance
of establishing such a Home iu this city.
While ruminating the importance of the
subject, she chanced to be in Baltimore, ai.d
visited a Home in that city. In conversa
tion with a widowed inmate she mentioned
her desire for sach a home in Charleston ;
the poor widow immediately handed one
dollar to the visitor, who deoiined the gift.
“\\ hat,” said the widow, “do you reject my
gift because it is so small ?” ‘Oh no ” was
the reply, and this one dollar given’ by a
pens ouer on publiccharity, was the begin
ning of the Charleston Home.
Tbe lady returned to Charleston, and af
ter a conference with friends, determined
to make a beginning. It was decided to
take a house; the rent of which was si 800
The proprietor reasonably demanded secu-
rity for the rent; the lady iu question imme
diately mortgaged her house and lot as se
canty; noble gentlemen stepped forward
and paid the rent as it fell due. Such was
the beginning of the Charleston Home. Now
it sustains forty widowed inmates and sixty
pupils. It is not a charity, but the fulfill
ment of an obligation. The names of some
of the most distinguished families of South
Carolina are found among the inmates of
this noble institution; inmates from ali sec
tions of the State. The house which shelte;*
these minates has been bought, but paid for
in part. I am not by birth a Carolinian,
though circumstances have caused the
strongest feelings of my whole nature to
f Carolina. I cannot believe
that her sons, after all that Carolina women
did and suffered during the war, will allow
these women to labor alone in the amelio
ration of its effects. Let the debt be paid
by men of all portions of the State. And
when the last Confederate widow has rejoin
ed her husband in a better land, and the last
indigent orphan has been nurtured and ed
ucated, the Home will bo ever open as an
asylum of the unfortunate. •
The good that we do is accretive. It’s
as it were, a nuoleus of crystalization. it
both draws and reproduces. The touching
story of the origin of this home found its
way into the newspapers. The eye of a
weaUhy American gentleman, Mr Corco
ran of Washington, then in France, fell
upon the statement; his check for 0(Y1
was immediately forwarded to this home-
hLt R h ‘° ^° pe l° r the benefit of The
health of a sick daughter; that daughter
dmd. Ou his return he ereoted a magniti-
oenthome in \V ashington, for the widows
of Confederate soldiers; sustains it still
an expense of twelve or fifteen thousand
dollars per annum, and has left ample mo
vision for it after his death. It beareThe
name of his beloved daughter 1 it i*
Louise Home. Behold thlresuits of that
tlmore Home. P °° r Widow in the Bal -
But the end is not yet. The n. mn i.
Charleston must and will be followed by
her more prosperous sisters of the South
B is a reproach to us that she is thus fm
alone. The noblest monument that non
ereot in token of our gratitude for the
l 0nr WOme “- - ia the establishment
of these horn os m sufficient number in A o^k
of the Confederate States. ThSS^uldTS
more enduring than brass or marble. The.
will be more grateful to those to whom we
wish to signify our gratitude, and when es
h Th U be “Snwed over the dowj
Ereoted by the survivors of the late war. in
honor of their mothers, wives, sisters and
daughters—the women of the late war. M
PALMFR’S Tna'ifi 69, EXQUISITE.
piKJitii ■?'fifash.
PALMER’S Manual of Gage Birds fn.
U
i