authority to promise pardon, nor had he any inclination to grant a suspension of hostilities, asked for no other purpose than to have delay give strength to the insurgents. He therefore prepared to move forward. The Legislature met at the close of January. Shays and other leaders sent in a petition, in which they acknowledged their error in taking Pursuit of the rebels was immediately commenced. Lincoln crossed the Connecticut River on the ice with the greater portion of his troops, to disperse some armed insurgents at West Springfield, while Shepard, with the Hampshire militia, pursued Shays up the river. Those on the west side of the stream retreated in disorder to Northampton, and those under Shays to Amherst. The insurgents still held out and defied the Gov-up arms against the Government, and promised ernment. Their leaders, expecting no mercy, hoped, with a gambler's faith, that some turn of affairs might give them success. They also counted on large support not yet developed, believing that there was a divided Commonwealth, the preponderance of strength being on the side of those who were "fighting for independence." They even expected "foreign aid" from sympathizers in the border States. Lincoln's movements were so energetic that he prevented the concentration of insurgent bands. The service was formidable. The snow was deep and the weather was intensely cold. It was difficult to subsist a large force in that then comparatively sparsely populated country. Some of Shepard's troops were made prisoners by a band of insurgents; and for a while it seemed doubtful whether Lincoln or Shays would be the successful leader. to lay them down under a guaranty of unconditional pardon for all. The Government would not listen to rebels in arms, but adopted measures for reinforcing Lincoln. Shays meanwhile had marched with his main body to Petersham (about twelve miles from Pelham), where subsistence would be more certain. Lincoln pursued him. He left Hadley late in the evening, and reached Petersham early the next morning, having marched thirty miles in a severe snowstorm, and the mercury at zero. Many of his men were badly frozen; but all their discomforts were forgotten when the result of this extraordinary march was found to be complete success. The insurgents were surprised. They fled in every direction, and in the greatest disorder, without firing a gun. One hundred and fifty of them were made prisoners. The leaders and the remainder escaped. Some returned quietly to their homes, and others, more active and criminal, fled from the State. At this time there was a class of men in Massachusetts who were really favorable to the insurgents, but were too cowardly to declare their With the dispersion of Shays's followers the opinions, or to openly engage in the rebellion. back of the rebellion was broken. Yet it conThey formed a treacherous Peace Party, more tinued to show signs of life for weeks afterward, despicable than the armed leaders of the rebellion. especially in Berkshire County, where the malThey affected to censure the conduct of the in- contents were very numerous, and where they surgents for overt acts of opposition to the Gov-expected and received aid from discontented men ernment. They attempted to hold conventions in New York and Vermont, who were chiefly in several counties, declaring that such meet-natives of Massachusetts. Their hostility conings were necessary, on account of the great discontents of the people, to avert the horrors of civil war. To avoid that they were ready to yield every thing to the insurgents-to them peace was professedly preferable to law and good government. But many of the leaders of this peace party were known to be sympathizers with the rebels, and hypocritical in their professions; and their deceptive movement was so frowned upon by every loyal citizen that they soon withdrew from the presence of public contempt. tinued to be so bold and menacing that about five hundred loyal citizens of Berkshire formed themselves into a Home Guard for mutual protection and the support of the Government. Some collisions between them and the insurgents ensued; but the spirit of the latter soon began to falter, and at length the greater portion of them laid down their arms and took the oath of allegiance, while some of the most criminal fled from the State. Similar movements occurred in other parts of the Commonwealth. They were the dying convulsions of a rebellion whose hideous apparition haunted for a long time the peaceful citizens of the counties of Mas the blossoms of spring appeared it was dead and buried. From Hadley General Lincoln addressed a letter to Shays at Pelham (in the same county, about twenty miles distant), in which he set forth the criminality of his proceedings and the per-sachusetts bordering on Connecticut. Before sonal consequences that would ensue to all under his banner of rebellion to the Government. In the name of that Government, as its authorized agent, he directed him to read the letter to his deluded followers, assuring him that if he did not comply, he should march upon him with increased energy. Shays replied, proposing as a condition for such submission, unconditional pardon for all. If this could not be granted, heels within their respective jurisdictions; and evasked for a suspension of hostilities until the matter could be brought before the Legislature, then about to assemble, and the result of their deliberations might be known. Lincoln had no The Legislature authorized special sessions of the Supreme Judicial Court in the counties where the rebellion had been most apparent, for the trial of insurgents. The Governor made application to the executives of the several adjoining States for the arrest of the fugitive reb ery proper measure was used to bring the chief criminals to justice. But toward the great body of the malcontents who had taken up arms extreme lenity marked the course of the Govern ment. It was well known that the rebellion was the work of a few designing politicians, who, by means of falsehood and sophistry, had deceived the illy-informed people. Three Commissioners were appointed to consider the cases of these deluded ones, and the result was, that in April no less than three hundred who had taken up arms against the Government were pardoned. Others, more culpable, were indicted for treason, fourteen of whom were convicted and sentenced to death. Eight of them received pardon from the Governor, and the remainder were reprieved conditionally. Others, among whom were some magistrates, were convicted of seditious practices and punished; and one member of the State Legislature, found guilty of open opposition to civil authority, was sentenced to sit upon the gallows, and pay a heavy fine. Shays, the chief leader in the rebellion, who fled to the State of New York, escaped arrest. Finally, the legal veil of oblivion was drawn over that episode in our national history known as SHAYS'S REBELLION. The chief was pardoned, and he lived many years as a respected citizen in the village of Sparta, in Livingston County, New York. He died there on the 29th of September, 1825, at the age of eighty-five years. "IS er. MY SPECIAL CONTRIBUTOR. S the editor in? Can I see him?" I heard the words before I saw the speakThe voice was sweet, rich, and youthful, with a certain quality of strength and hope in it. I think one often hears in a voice a great deal besides the words it utters. I was a man of notions, of whims, if you will-an old bachelor. Not so very old though-don't busy your imagination with dyed whiskers and a scratch. I was thirty-five, and that is what Mr. Dickens and the rest of the middle-aged novelists call a young man. At any rate, my heart was neither withered nor frozen, old bachelor's heart as it was. I did not believe all men knaves, and all women schemers. That I was not married was not owing to any distrust of the sex, any cold cynicism, or mocking incredulity. It was simply that while I had admired some women, and esteemed many, I had never happened to love any. So much by way of explaining the interest I felt in youth and beauty every where; the spontaneous kindness and championship which certain acquaintances of mine-already blasé at twenty-four-were wont to laugh at as Quixotic knight-errantry. I looked up after the words I had heard, and the speaker was just coming round the tall desk which hid the door from my view. Young-her voice had told me so-not more than seventeen, and with a sunny, winsome countenance, not beautiful exactly, but better than that. Looking into her face it needed no subtle physiognomical lore to know what manner of woman she was. Those large brown eyes, shy yet honest, full of pride as well as of tenderness; that brow, broad and fair and open, with the hair brushed back like a child's above the delicate little ear; the straight nose, with the thin, expressive nostril; the mouth, which could close in calm scorn, or dimple into sweetest gentleness-looking at them, I knew her as well as if I had known her all her life-understood the quick impulses of that warm, rich nature. She was very plainly dressed. It was little that I knew about feminine fashions, but I recognized in the simple muslin frock, the plain straw bonnet, and the untrimmed mantle indications of delicate taste and a slender purse. Do not fancy that I looked at my visitor for the space of time which it has taken you to read this description. I made my observations along with my bow, and gave her my approbation and a chair together. There was a suggestive-looking white roll in her hand. Her errand was evident enough, even if she had not made it known at once, with a straight-forward simplicity quite in accordance with her face. "Do you buy manuscripts, Mr. Fraser ?" "When they please me, yes." The smile with which I answered her provoked a responding one, and she said, with a little blush, "Of course I was not quite inexperienced enough to think you bought them without reading. I wanted to ask if you would read mine, and purchase it if you should like it." "Certainly," I said, reaching my hand for the neat little roll. "I will look over it, and let you know my decision." "I know, of course, that you have a great deal to do; but if you could read it soon I should be glad. It is my first venture, and its success is very important to me. Indeed I have taken great pains with it." Of course my sympathies were aroused. Speaking in a business point of view, tender-heartedness was my besetting sin. I seemed to read a whole life-story in her crimson cheek, the eagerness of her manner, and the tremor which quivered through her voice. My fancy began picturing sick parents, hungry brothers and sisters, and I know not what other fantastic shapes of gloom and wretchedness. I resolved to find out for myself if she were in need; and I answered her as if it were the most customary thing in the world for the editor of a magazine that receives more than a hundred manuscripts in a month to call at the house of each anxious and waiting contributor with his sentence of hope or despair. She would know no better, she had seen so little of life: "Where shall I find you, when I have read your story and am ready to communicate my decision ?" She handed me a card on which her address was delicately penciled. It was in a quiet, respectable part of the town, through which I passed daily on my way to and from my office.. "I hope it will please you," she said, rising to go, and there was a wistful pathos in her voice, an expression on her face of mingled hope and apprehension, which haunted me all day. I did not undo the manuscript until I had reached home at night. It should have the benefit of my after-dinner mood—of the hour when I could look most complacently on men and things. What a neat little affair it was! No question that she had, as she said, taken great pains with it. It was a pleasure to me, bored with such reams of paper covered with worse than Egyptian hieroglyphs, only to glance at that free, clear, yet dainty chirography. But there, alas! its excellence ended. She had evidently read a great many novels, and seen very little of life. The door was opened by a boy twelve years old, perhaps, in whose face I could trace a strong family likeness to my visitor of the day before. I inquired for Miss Hastings. "Sister is not in just now, but my mother is. Won't you walk into the parlor and speak to her?" This was not exactly what I had hoped. If I must pay for matter which I could not use, I felt at least determined that I would be thanked by those brown eyes. I went in, resolving, if possible, to lengthen my stay until Miss Ruth's return. A delicate, gentle-looking woman rose to meet me as I entered. She had one heroine who was constantly drawing herself up to her full height—a stately creature, with raven hair and flashing, midnight eyes. Then there was the inevitable contrast-a gentle girl, with blue eyes and wealth of sunny tresses, who always bounded into the room; who wore white dresses even in January, and had no end of roses and myrtle flowers, with whose petals it seemed to be her chief business to litter the carpet. The hero, whom they both loved, what a desperado he was, to be sure! Picture to yourself his Spanish cloak, in which his martial figure was wrapped at all hours; his pale, sad face, with wild eyes, and haggard lines of care; his contempt of the world, which he had not loved and which had not loved him. Imagine the "Oh yes, Ruth was expecting you. kisses and blisses with which the pages were would be very sorry to miss your visit. She embalmed; the impassioned thee-and-thou dec- went out of an errand for me, and I am sure she larations, the stolen meetings, and grand climax ; can not be gone much longer. If you are not the wedding of the hero and the blue-eyed sis-in too great haste, perhaps you would sit down ter, and the black convent veil falling between the dark-eyed one and the world. It was clear enough that any genius which Miss Ruth Hastings possessed lay in a far different channel from the writing of stories. The stuff-I spoke of it with editorial contempt and indifference-was execrable! Of course I must return it. And yet, poor little thing! she had said it was of great importance to her, and she had taken so much pains with it! My good angel suggested that I should buy it-for myself, of course, not the firm-and pay her for it at our usual rates. I could make her understand how much accepted manuscript our safes contained, and that she must not look immediately for the appearance of her story. This plan settled, I felt a great deal better. I took out my meerschaum, one of my bachelor comforts, and tipping back my chair and putting up my feet, like a born Yankee as I was, watched for an hour the blue smoke curling so gracefully upward, and saw, through or in it, a hazy vision of a girl's face, frank and innocent as a child's, earnest and tender as a woman's. "My name is Fraser," I said, answering her glance of inquiry. "I had a little matter of business which I wished to arrange with your daughter." She smiled. and wait till her return." She I explained that I was in no haste at allcould wait just as well as not; better, in fact, since it would save me the trouble of coming again. So I sat and talked for half an hour with Mrs. Hastings. I do not think I am an inquisitive person. I do not ask many questions, and I abhor above all things the man who cross-examines his friends as if he were a lawyer, and they were on the witness stand. I certainly never knew how it was that I contrived, in that half hour, to learn so much of the personal history of the Hastings family. I discovered that Mrs. Hastings had been left a widow two years before; that she was not by any means in actual want, though her income was so small since the death of her husband that there were many luxuries she must resign, unless there were some way of increasing the family fund. Ruth had always been her father's pet. She was not used to exertion of any kind. She had no vocation for a teacher, and the only resource she had been able to think of was her pen. They had always said at Rutgers that Ruth had a fine gift for composition, Mrs. Hastings remarked, with a little motherly pride. It was past seven o'clock in the afternoon of the next day that I found myself at the locality indicated by the card of my little contributor. I would not for the world have wounded her The house was a small, modest one, neat and by suggesting the difference between the elepleasant-looking, standing behind two horse- ments required for a pretty school theme and chestnut trees, blazing with their June wealth those necessary for the success of a story in a of blossoms. There was no indication surely popular magazine. I was becoming every moof destitution or discomfort-perhaps the twenty-ment more interested in the Hastings family, and more anxious to assist them, if possible, without wounding their pride. I am not of those who can not recognize any destitution except the absence of bread and potatoes. I confess to a yet keener sympathy for the genteel poorfor delicate women, accustomed to being sheltered from all the cares and worries of life, and then suddenly left to confront the world alone, and turn the thoughts which have hitherto been tinged with no sadness, present or prophetic, to the gloomy problem of getting through the year on an insufficient income. I understood now why that poor little thing had taken so much pains, and how truly that first venture was very important to her. After a while she came. I heard the door open, and a light, quick step cross the hall. "Oh, mamma!" cried the young, cheery voice -a voice that would be young, and cheery, and hopeful, no matter how dark the clouds were which might encompass her life; and then seeing me, she paused in the door, and I had an instant, before she spoke again, to engrave on my heart another picture of her simple, girlish loveliness. She wore the same dress, and the same black silk mantle flung round her shoulders with careless grace, but she had pulled off her bonnet in the hall, and was holding it by its strings. I could see the shape of her head, and the outline of the hair waving away from her face, and coiled heavily at the back of her slender neck. I had not quite realized how pretty she was before. In a moment she came up to me. "How kind of you," she said, extending her hand with a frank smile, "to have read my manuscript so soon. But I have felt almost sure, ever since I left it, that you would have to reject it. People never do succeed at first, I believe, and you must not think I shall be disappointed to meet the same fate with so many others." "If your expectations have been so moderate you will be all the more gratified to hear that the story is accepted. I have come to pay you for it." I placed the money in her hand. "So much?" she said, blushing in that pretty, girlish way of hers. "Surely this must be more than you pay to beginners ?" "We pay at one rate for all manuscript which we take. If good enough for our use it is no matter whether the author has ever written before or not. She thanked me heartily; and then with a shy joy, very pretty to see, she crossed the room and laid the money in her mother's lap. to discover into what a refined and pleasant family circle chance had brought me; and to wish that, instead of being a solitary bachelor, living in lodgings which nobody cared to make pleasant, I was a son or brother in that little household, and had a right to sit down at night in that quiet, home-like room. Before I left I intimated that it would be some time, perhaps, before the story would appear-we had so many on hand accepted previously. "When I see it in print," she answered, "you must not be surprised if I send you another;" and then I went away. The family interested me more than I had ever been interested on such brief acquaintance in my whole life. I could not bear to lose sight of them; but what possible pretext could I find for continuing my visits? Miss Ruth had intimated that she should not write again until she saw her story in print, and no one knew better than I what a long day off that event was likely to be. Two weeks passed away and the very apparent impossibility of meeting again my little brown-eyed special contributor-I called her that because no eyes save mine were ever likely to read her story-only stimulated my wishes into eagerness. I confess to thinking of her a good deal. I even took out, now and then, her remarkable manuscript, and reperused it until I actually began to feel a kindly and familiar interest in the blue-eyed and black-eyed heroines, and to look with more complacency on the formidable hero with his Spanish cloak. If things had gone on for any length of time in that manner, I am not sure that I shouldn't have persuaded myself that the story was good enough to publish, were it only for the hope of her bringing me another. It happened that I found my good fortune at length, where I least looked for it, in the columns of a morning paper. In the list of board and lodging advertisements I saw one of a room, with breakfast and tea, at No. 11 Blank Street; the very house. My resolve was taken in a moment. I had no ties to bind me where I was. A week's rent in advance would be a sufficient compensation to a landlady, who had never tried to oblige me, for the loss of her lodger. If possible I would become an inmate of that quiet, pleasant house behind the horse-chestnut trees. Evening found me again in the little parlor. Mrs. Hastings was alone, and I did my errand, making the excuse that the location was so much nearer my place of business than my present lodgings. She seemed heartily rejoiced at my application. There were so many similar ad 'My first earnings!" she said, in a voice that tried to be gay, but had a note of pathos thrill-vertisements, she said, that she had hardly vening through it. Mrs. Hastings looked at me with a smile half apologetic, and said, "You must not think the poor child loves money too well. You can hardly understand how many pleasant and comfortable things such a sum as this represents to us." I staid a few moments after that-long enough tured to hope hers would attract any one, still she had thought the experiment worth trying. She owned her house, and with a responsible lodger they could get along very comfortably. It was certainly an unexpected piece of good fortune that I, with whom they already felt acquainted, should be disposed to come. I did not see that night the brown-eyed au- | look into certain brown eyes, to hear a certain thoress of "The Rival Sisters; or, The Myste- gladsome voice. Hatred is a habit, and to this rious Lover," but that mattered little when I day I can not meet that fellow-Augustus Deerwas presently to be an inmate of the same dwell- ing his name was-without an inclination to ing. cross over to the other side of the street. The next evening I joined them at tea. My possessions had previously arrived, and my room was in readiness for me. I felt at once comfortable and at home. They received me as one who was to belong to the family, to share their household interests, and be one of themselves. How I blessed my stars that I found myself at last among people who had never known what it was to keep lodgers "for a living." Of course my acquaintance with Ruth progressed rapidly. She regarded me, or I thought so, as a kind of safe, elderly friend. She borrowed my books; she came to me with all her little difficulties, sang me her new songs, and deferred so much to my opinion that I ought to have been both grateful and satisfied. But I wasn't. I began to discover that I wanted something more and different. It is not pleasant to be met with the simple gayety and frankness of a niece or a sister by the woman whom you would fain woo to love you. And I found out, by my very vexation at Ruth's innocent friendliness, that it was her love I wanted-that at last my day of doom had come. The blind god, whose shafts had been powerless against me for so long, had found the one spot which the waters of the Styx had never touched. I used to think, sometimes, while I sat smoking in my room at night, what my life would be with her to share it. Looking into the blue smoke, curling up and away, I saw pleasant home-pictures-scenes which even in such dim vision made heart and pulse thrill with something dearer and sweeter than the lost youth which was slipping away from me. She would make me young again-she, with her fair child's face, her cheery voice, her gay, pleasant ways. If I could only win her love! But was there any hope of that, when her little brother did not receive my kindness or claim my attentions with any more simplicity and unconsciousness than she? Toward autumn my condition grew yet more forlorn. A young gentleman, a friend of the family, who, it seemed, had been rusticating for a few months, returned to town, and began very often to form one of the family circle. Two or three evenings in the week he was sure to drop in. I was told what a fine young man he was, but-tastes differ-I hated him. I did not like his looks; he was too slender, too handsome for a man; foppish, decidedly; and then his singing! It might be very well, but if Ruth Hastings were all I had thought her, would she not want a husband with some higher ambition than to stand behind her chair and sing airs from "The Bohemian Girl?" To confess the truth, I believe I hated him because he was younger and handsomer than I, and because he had somehow found out that it was a pleasant thing to At last I was taken very ill. I do not know whether my mental disquiet had any thing to do with it. Perhaps it was staying in town all summer, and being somewhat overworked. At all events, sick I was, and for weeks I was hardly able to think at all. No one would talk to me-the physician had enjoined perfect quiet, and I lay there too weak to be any thing but obedient. After a while I commenced to mend. Before any one else saw it I felt a change in myself. My mental power began to come back to me. I began to think. The old heartache kept me company, and my mind moved on again in the same troubled channel. I lay and pondered gloomily on my life, half tempted to curse my fate, which had taught me my heart's needs only to laugh at the tantalizing mockery of my vain desires. Ruth waited on me more than any one else. My symptoms had not been severe enough to require a professed nurse, and she and her mother had tended me as if I were indeed one of themselves. I was ungrateful. That sweet face in my room gave me no pleasure. I shrank from the light touch of the kindly hands, and one afternoon, with a sick man's exacting and unreasoning petulance, I asked her why her mother could not just as well sit with me. Her eyes filled with sudden tears, and her voice had a sad, reproachful cadence I had never heard in it before. "Have I neglected you?" she asked, gently. "Do I not do what you wish? Why do you dislike my being here?" "No," I grumbled. "You don't neglect me, you do all I wish, but I know you are tired of sitting here. It is about the time Mr. Deering is in the habit of coming. You had better go and see whether he is in the parlor." She smiled. "Oh no, he hasn't been here this long time. I believe he is very busy." Then she was silent again, going on with some fanciful feminine trifle on which she was at work. As I lay and thought how I had treated her, my heart smote me. I felt that I had behaved like a brute. I had manifested my gratitude for her care by almost turning her out of the room. And then I wondered if there were another woman in the world sweet-tempered enough not to have taken me at my word and gone out, leaving me to bear alone my mortification and self-reproach. After a while I murmured, half involuntarily— "Ruth, come here." She came in a moment, laying down her work. "What did you wish ?" in those cheery tones whose very blitheness went farther toward my healing than any medicine. |