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CHAPTER IV.

MR. and Mrs. Fessenden were becoming quite alarmed on account of Elma's prolonged stay, and were about sending for her, when the door opened, and she appeared before them radiant with the light of joyful hope, her eyes beaming as they had not before for many a long month. We were about sending for you, Elma," said Mrs. Fessenden, rather reprovingly. "But I have been so happy in the society of a dear, a very dear friend, whom I met to-day by accident, that I forgot entirely that you might feel uneasy at my prolonged stay," was Elma's reply, as she tossed off her bonnet and looked so much like herself ere touched by the hand of

sorrow.

"Why, Elma," exclaimed Mrs. Fessenden, taking her eyes off from her book, come here and tell me who has brought back as if by magic, the rose to your cheek and the light to your eye?"

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"May I introduce them to you, Harriet ?" Certainly, if it is not Walter Parker." Suiting the action to the word, she bounded to the door and ushered in Mr. Vinton, saying with an arch smile, "Mr. and Mrs. Fessenden, allow me the pleasure of introducing you to Mr. Vinton."

Mrs. Fessenden gave a half serious, half comical glance at her, as she approached with Charles, saying, "You forget, Elma, you have no right to drag along that gentleman in such an unmerciful manner towards me."

“But I will have a right soon, for if you please, Harriet," and then the tears ran down her face to mingle with the 'smiles, "we will have a wedding here this very evening. It is the anniversary of our divorce, and we will celebrate it by a re-union, and do not distort your face in endeavoring to look so grave and wise, Harriet, for I know you will not oppose it. deed we perfectly decided the matter as we came along."

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"Perhaps," said Mr. Vinton, addressing Mr. and Mrs. Fessenden, "you may not think I am again worthy of her, after so easily giving her up once, but, indeed, dear friend, I have endured a long and wearisome exile, an exile made bitter and tedious by self-reproach. Elma has freely forgiven me my errors-will net you, her kind and generous protectors, do the same?"

They grasped his hands warmly, and while a tear stood trembling in her eye, Mrs. Fessenden said, “Yes, take her, and may you both have

learned from the past, ever to forget and forgive."

There was a solemn, quiet wedding that evening in Mr. Fessenden's elegant parlor, but no invited guests. The occasion was too holy and tender for any unsympathizing hearts and eyes --and the still young and beautiful bride in her simple white robe, was really more lovely than she was at her first bridal, in her lustrous satin, bedecked with jewels. There were pure and sad memories in her heart, and as a second time she placed her hand in Charles Vinton's, and promised to love him, thoughts of their lost babe, of their once happy, but now deserted home, came thronging in, and she yearned for the light and beauty of her native skies.

A sunny morning! All nature is joyful-the insects' hum, the murmur of leaves, flowers and running waters make the country a holy place, full of the immediate presence and impress of Deity-but the city, too, is gladsome, and the sunlight sheds a beauty and joy in the humble room of the poor sewing-girl, and on the little rose-tree which sheds its fragrance around, sweetening and hallowing the hours of labor. It shone, too, most brightly into the long unopened parlors of Mr. Vinton's splendid mansion, and among the many plants and flowers in which Elma had so often taken delight. Old Matty, a servant of Mr. Vinton's, who had been in the family ever since his boyhood, and on that account was a privileged character, was very busy in dusting and arranging the ornaments and furniture, assisted by Lucy, another servant, who had lived with him since his marriage. Matty went to the door and said, "Thomas, it is time you started for Mr. Vinton and his lady. The steamboat has come by this time." Then turning to Lucy she said in trembling, sorrowful tones, "How can we ever welcome another mistress here? I know Miss Elma loved Mr. Charles dearly after she left him, for one day she came from Miss Fessenden's and said, 'Matty,' oh how low and mournful her voice did sound, Matty, will you let me go into the parlor ?' The door was not quite closed, and I saw her looking at master's likeness, and sobbing as if her heart would break. And now to think he must forget all about her, and marry some fine foreign lady, whom may be we can't understand." Poor old Matty yielded to her feelings, and so did Lucy.

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Well, we must not cry, Matty, you know that Mr. Vinton wrote he wished to have every thing in perfect order to receive his bride."

"I shall let Mr. Charles see that I ain't in 'perfect order,'" said the old woman with impatience. "The carriage is coming, Matty, and see how pleased Thomas looks. Now Mr. Vinton is out. Come, do see the bride-just such another little body as Miss Elma. You must go forward and receive her, Matty, or master will not like it." But Matty stood apart in solemn silence from the throng of servants, feeling all her dignity as a servant and house-keeper, and with eyes resolutely bent on the floor. Not long, however, did she thus stand-for the bride's long veil was suddenly swept over her head, and then a blooming face lay close to her aged one, and the bride said laughingly, Matty, don't you know me? Is this my reception, after being so long absent from you?"

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"God bless you, Miss Elma, and Mr. Charles too," said old Matty, and then excusing herself by saying she must see to things in the kitchen, she sat down and cried for joy.

Charles Vinton and his wife roamed from one familiar object to another, happy in each other, happy in being again at their dear home. A numerous gathering of friends in the evening added to their happiness by their gladness at their return. Cousin Walter was honored by an invitation, which, however, he saw fit to decline and soon after he removed into a neighboring city. His loss was not much regretted by the community.

We will take one more' hasty glance into the domicil of Charles Vinton. It is the anniversary of their divorce and likewise of their second marriage, and Elma, with conscious pride and joy, is tenderly holding in her arms an infant a few weeks old, which she is fondly caressing, while Charles sits apart by the window, looking intently upon a small bit of paper, which he reads several times. Elma quietly lays her infant in old Matty's arms, and gliding up to her husband, looks over his shoulder exclaiming, "Ah! now I know what became of my lost rhyme, that I searched for"

"Just one year ago to-day," chimed in Mr. Vinton, as he fondly drew his wife to his side. "I thought it was lost, all this time," said Elma.

"I saw you when you wrote it, and picked it up as soon as you left."

"And why have you not told me of it before?" "As it was addressed to me, I concluded it was mine. Any how, dear wife, it was the means of our re-union, for if you had not returned for it, I should have sought you. I shall ever

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THE death of a child makes the schemes of the wealth-seeking as nothing. A grandson of Baron Rothschild died, and for a long time afterward he gave up all interest in his vast enterprises. His agent came one day and detailed, as usual, the progress of his affairs, and ended with saying that a new advance in the public funds was expected,-" Do you believe in it, M. de Baron? The bereaved one was aroused from his reverie, raised his head and answered with a look and tone full of sadness, "I, sir, I believe only in God."

HUSHED be the song of gladness,

For the young and loved are fled, And a voice to my ear like music,

Is hushed with the silent dead.
I shall hear no more at morning

The sound of his merry glee,
Nor take in the deepening twilight,
The beautiful on my knee.

How hushed, and still, and lonely,

Seems my home since he has gone, Like a sky, whence the light has faded, Or a nest, whence the bird has flown. His mother in vain may call him,

He heedeth her voice no more, And my ear will listen vainly,

For his footstep at my door.

O talk to me not of riches,—

Can they bribe the stern, dark hand, That leadeth the loved and lovely

Away to the spirit land?

Can they give again to the mother

Her living and cherished boy? Or send through her heart's deep anguish, One thrill of rapturous joy?

Oh, all my heaped up riches,

I would lay at the angel's door, Could they give to our sorrowing bosoms, Our beautiful boy once more. Yet vain the wish, for never

Did death bring back his prey, And vain alike our weeping, Above the mouldering clay.

But not in vain are all things,

The hand that knows not gold,

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"BUT over all things brooding slept The quiet sense of something lost." WE stumbled in upon chaos the other morning. The renowned, the classical, the quizzical, the spiritual, the homoegenical, the oceanical "38 Cornhill, Boston," was "being" ruinated! What a spectacle for such a sympathetic nature as ours! What an "intensifying" effect it had upon our tender sensibilities! The "process" was perfectly "exhaustive," and we should have wept in very weakness if the dust had not made every energy necessary to keep away the blinding cloud from filling our eyes. And then too, how could we afford the time to weep, as but a moment was given us to take a last and lingering look at the memorials of the past, so soon to be hewn down by the battle axe of Improvement. And then the thought came, this is the second ruin we have witnessed here! Here stood that fabric which always inspired awe as we passed it in early manhood,-solemn faces, belonging to forms in black clothing, were seen in the dusky light of the stairway ascending and descending, and it seemed as though the fates of the eternities were all arranged above that winding stairway. Many a figure seen going up there, seemed to possess wonderful courage; and the very fact that it was seen going up without trembling, settled the happy issue, and the poet sung right,

"And moving up from high to higher,

Becomes on Fortune's crowning slope
The pillar of a people's hope,
The centre of a world's desire."

What a day was that when we first entered the mysterious retreat-that seven-by-nine little closet over the entry, and by the solitary window saw the transformations of a Monday morning in clerical speech and manners. What merry and what solemn things were there heard! What boundless wit and good humor from the kingly soul of the circle; what shrewd sayings and keen common sense apprehension of the vulnerable point in an argument or illustration from the king's paige; what ecstasies of feeling and felicities of thought and speech from the dear soul whose cough at the late festival came in like the Selah of the Psalms, and reminded us of the old physician's quaint advice, "You must street-her," and only meant that she must have more fresh air. And there too was that balloun wit and wisdom, rising so majestically and gravely, and then sailing off so fancifully and gaily, that you hardly know how it is possible for one so penetrating into the very heart of things, to sport so vivaciously with the bubbles on the surface. And there too with his readiness to take a subscriber's name, sell a book, answer a squib, write an editorial, reply to an argument, or tell a story, was the well fleshed trumpeter, not a whit more disinclined to take part in all social chat and friendly controversy, than if the stores of the magazine were not to be supplied by him. And there was also the warm basin, ready to receive any hand that it could make cleaner and more friendly, and "open as day to melting charity" towards those whose Monday's enjoyment depended on their having in prospect a place for preaching the next Sabbath. And moving in and out were the young aspirants after the honors and martyrdoms of the ministry, like young trees bending and swaying around the "Brave Old Oak." What a benediction was the presence of that old soldier of the Cross! His presence reminded of a thousand battles fought and won; and we took courage as we went out from his sight to pour our earnestness into the labors of the week and the next Sabbath efforts. What a grand progress was made when the room was enlarged-a settee in place of a bench, a desk to write on, and a carpet! It seemed then that the Denomination was really something; and we rose far more proudly up the stairs, conscious that we were entering the audience-chamber of the Great. Down went stairway and room; and when the new building went up, our associations of delight were narrowed by the broadened avenue of entrance. And now the second must

go, with all its eleven years memories,--the floor worn by the passing to and fro of "the brethren," the gyrations on the heel as the puzzled or too happy one ground the boards as he turned round and round on his heel.

What a pleasant front had that pilgrims Mecca! One step and you rose to the threshold of the door, on either side of which were broad windows, so often made alcoves into which "the brethren" would retire by couples, to talk over the tremendous issues of an "exchange," some "agitating sermon," or a new settlement. There the seeker for "a new minister" has stood, holding the button of some hopeful candidate, or pressing the fraternal hand on the shoulder, as though measuring the extent of the breadth there to take the responsibility of the office of a minister for the times. What instances of warfare with the beast and the dragon, have there been related; what items of ministerial exposure and adventure; what quirks in singular developments of human nature, have there been told with all the jocose additions of a clerical imagination affected by the re-action of a Monday morning. These corners were not dark, but richly lighted-for Universalists ought to talk over their affairs and prospects in the light; and we have been amused to see the sun doing its best to make bright the broad back of some black clothed genius, the reflection of the sashes squaring off the divisions of the sunshine, like the various "settlements" of some young and happy minister who knows only of different districts of sunshine. How the morning quiet of some secluded talkers has here been broken in upon by the rapid entrance of some free and easy, noisy-salutation brother, who shakes

"to all the liberal air The dust and din and steam of town.

He brought an eye for all he saw ;

He mixed in all our simple sports;
They pleased him fresh from brawling forts,
And dusty purlieus of the draw"

on Charlestown or some other bridge.

The long line of spectral forms, dotted here and there with a white neckcloth, is to be seen no more; and that sight of passing wonder, beyond the counter and the post, around the Stove. To see that grand centre of so much commotion and order, that had given such warmth with a liberal heart, and had only sizzled when carelessly assaulted by orange peel or the moisture

of the vocal avenue of the human,-to see that

dethroned-removed out of its place-made to give way to the rage of the times for furnaces, was too much for our weak nerves, and had there been any thing of the whale about us, we should have blubbered. Will nobody stop this march of no, this rush and tumble of Improvement! Cannot one old stove be spared! Must we part with our warmest friend! How could the sun look down through that square of lights in the ceiling and give aid to the nefarious business of making that "colored" friend of ours "a fugitive from service." We never saw such meek submission as we witnessed in the "arrest" of that Old Stove. Venerable Friend! would that we could have taken thy part in that hour of destruction! To think what kindly warmth thou had diffused around so many circles-what bowels of mercies had been thinewhat a fiery heart could be tamed to manifest only the warmth that cheers but harms not, like the wine of the gods that exhilarates but does not intoxicate-what a fate to be reserved for such goodness, was that we saw before thee! "New birds for new cages," seemed to be the voice issuing from thy depths, running through thy pipes out upon the morning air. This is a wicked world, Old Stove. No better evidence can be asked for than the treatment reserved for you. What have you done that you should be discarded? To be removed for a time, like a miner to search for new riches in the dusky realms of old things, might be very well; but to be borne away never to be replaced in power and authority, that is too bad! New Building, new Stove! But thou shalt have revenge! When didst thou ever refuse to answer a draught, to make all discounts needed to fill with the one thing needful the exhausted treasuries of the chilled and frozen? And when thy mouth was opened, was it to give any other but the warmest welcome ? Let them have their furnaces, Old Stove, and they will soon wish thee back again. The heat of the hidden furnace is like hearing a friend without seeing him; and if it is pleasant to see the lip move and the eye kindle and the cheek wear the suffusing of sensibility, then is the Stove better than the Furnace. And then, too, what theologian loves to think about furnaces? They are the most difficult things in the world to spiritualize. We cannot help thinking of the plains of Dura and old Nebuchadnezzar and the golden image, (the golden image might be pleasant to some, if it was not by the side of the fiery furnace,) and what comfort is there in the poetry of a furnace that always burns best on

warm days, and will not let you see what it is that is blessing you when you cry, "Poor Tom's a cold!"

Many a sound was heard and a fun-eral note

As the Stove from its place they hurried;
And the sound was sad when the pipe they broke,
And the noble old hero they buried.

They buried him darkly,—for dark he was—
Some cellar doors up turning;

And because there was none to plead his cause,
They left him there unburning.

We are serious in our regard for our venerable friend. Our readers will not doubt our seriousness. They must have felt it. And "is there not a cause?" "Thy friend and thy father's friend, forsake not," and especially when there has been a great warmth of friendship-giving a full return for all bestowments-kindled to intensity of heat by every appropriate appliance, keeping even its ashes alive that no man should make a lye out of them. We should have secured a daguerreotoype of our venerable colored friend, had there been any opportunity, but there was not. It seems too bad that it should be so. It would be some comfort to look upon even the shadow of his ebony phiz and his tall form so evidently made for use, not for mere ornament. He was tall and compact, bearing every evidence of having been well fed and with fine digestive organs. He was never troubled with the dyspepsia. His coat was generally clasped -he disdained buttons-but when it was thrown open, there was every evidence that he had a kindly bosom and a warm heart. He wore a pointed frill about his neck, very much after the Queen Elizabeth fashion, the points thereof were very sharp, seemingly to give warning of the character of the old hero, Touch me rashly, and you will get hurt. Despite all the changes in the fashions, he stuck to the conical hat, and was always as prim as any could desire a great personage to be. He had a queer way with his arms, they were always stretched up over his head, reaching up to the sky-light, to waft away, as with a blessing, the incense of his smoking pipe. Whatever of wrong thought may have been indulged in at any time in presence of our old friend, no man can say that that venerable African ever pointed to any thing earthly, for he always piped a heavenward suggestion, like the lark "soaring as he sings." What a song he would pipe some blustering winter morning, when his whole vocal appara

tus had an extra clearing and the whistle was in perfect order! Sometimes people would look in as they rushed through Franklin Avenue, to see if the law had not been invaded by a steam engine being placed in the store. And what a warm backer did many a one find our friend to be while writing a letter at the desk,—many a greeting being sent forth abounding with a warmth that the writer or reader little thought of attributing to the right source. And then when a backer was not needed, how the toe-tality of the heat came to the understanding and sole, as the Pilgrims sat on the exchange paper table or in the ample arm-chairs on the opposite side. What a richness of color-strange as it may seem-did our black friend bring to the countenances of those who stood up and faced him! Wrinkled faces have been smoothed as clothes by a heated flat, (not that our friend was ever a flat, for he was as round as his owner,) and what a rose hue has tinted the cheek late so pale and sallow-"sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought." When the ladies came, (for, old friend, many and beautiful did come to thy charmed circle,) so readily did they receive the cordial welcome of their ardent servant, that they always expressed a fanciful want, and a trumpet was transformed into a fan to cool their "intensified" cheek and brow. What gushing mirthfulness, what sharp shootings of wit, what dodgings of the question, what melting letters, what mock poetry and sentimental sayings, have made the palace of thy greatness ring, Old Stove! Many a hopeful one has taken a letter from the rack and found it a rack, while others have received messages that made their heart burn within them as bravely and joyfully as ever did thine, thou exiled servant of the saints. A strange life did our old stove live. How nobly did it stand up there half way between discussions of business and the knotty things of theology! What changes of opinions and methods has it heard plead for and adopted! What greetings for new comers into the circle-the critical as ready to penetrate to the salient points of character, as its warmth was to enter the flesh and vivify the circulation! What a transformation of feeling in a western or eastern brother, who had been dreaming that "distinctive Universalism" was exiled from Boston, but who found that the Old Stove had still its Murray fire, and among the "notions" still prized were Ballouns-made to rise heavenward and

bring reports of celestial phenomena. We well remember the coming of a dear brother from the

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