Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851.

During the twelve months that elapsed after her husband's death there was a "great calm" over Gabrielle – a tranquillity, like that exhibited by an individual walking in sleep. I had expected despair and passion when her lofty spirit was thus trampled to the dust; but no, as I have said, she was strangely tranquil – strangely silent. There was no resignation – that is quite another thing; and, except when my sister listened to Mr. Dacre, she never read her Bible, or suffered me to read it to her: but his deep, full, rich voice, inexpressibly touching and sweet in all its modulations, ever won her rapt, undivided attention. She attended the church where he officiated; and though the Erminstouns had a sumptuously-decorated pew there, it was not to that the young widow resorted; she sat amid the poor in the aisle, beneath a magnificent monument of the Treherne family, where the glorious sunset rays, streaming through the illuminated window, fell full upon her clustering golden hair and downcast eyes.

There was pride in this, not humility; and Gabrielle deceived herself, as, with a quiet grace peculiarly her own, she glided to her lowly seat, rejecting Lord Treherne's proffered accommodation, as he courteously stood with his pew door open, bowing to the fair creature as if she had been a queen. The five Misses Erminstoun knelt on their velvet cushions, arrayed in feathers and finery, and strong in riches and worldly advantages; but my pale sister, in her coarsely-fashioned mourning-garb, seated on a bench, and kneeling on the stone, might have been taken for the regal lady, and they her plebeian attendants.

Spiteful glances they cast toward Gabrielle, many a time and oft, when my Lord Treherne so pointedly paid his respectful devoirs; and there was as much pride and haughtiness in Gabrielle's heart as in theirs. Poor thing! she said truly, that "early shadows had darkened her soul," and what had she left but pride? Not an iota of woman's besetting littleness had my sister – noble, generous, self-denying, devoted where she loved; her sweetness had been poisoned, nor had she sought that fountain of living water which alone can purify such bitterness. Gentle in manner, pure in heart, affectionate in disposition, Gabrielle's pride wrought her misery. Lord Treherne never came in person to our humble home – he had but once paid his respects to Gabrielle since her widowhood; but the rarest exotics continued to decorate our poor room, constantly replenished from Treherne Abbey, and sent, with his lordship's card, by a confidential domestic. He was always at church now, and people remarked "how pious my lord had latterly become." I was far too young and inexperienced then to understand or appreciate this delicacy and propriety on Lord Treherne's part. But Mr. Dacre understood it; nor would he have intruded on our privacy, save in his ministerial capacity, and for the purpose of aiding and assisting me in the studies I endeavored to pursue. There was a "halo of sanctity" around Mr. Dacre, which effectually precluded any approach to freedom or frivolous conversation, in any society wherein he might be placed. He gave the tone to that society, and the gay and dashing Misses Erminstoun became subdued in his presence; while Lord Treherne, with excellent taste, not only showed the outward respect due to Mr. Dacre's sacred and high office, but the regard which his personal qualities deserved.

I have often looked back on that time immediately after my brother-in-law's decease, with wonder at our serenity – nay, almost contentment and happiness; despite the anguish and humiliation I knew Gabrielle must endure, her smile was ever beautiful and sweet, and illumined our poor home with the sunshine of heaven.

Our baby was, I think I may say, almost equally dear to us both – it had two mothers, Gabrielle said; and what with nursing the darling little thing, and learning my lessons, and Mr. Dacre's visits, time flew rapidly.

On the appearance of each fresh token of Lord Treherne's remembrance, I observed an expression flit across my sister's face which I could not define; it was of triumph and agony combined, and she always flew to her baby, clasping it convulsively to her bosom, and whispering words of strange import. On Mr. Dacre's expressive, serious countenance, also, I noticed passing clouds, as Gabrielle bestowed enthusiastic admiration on the superb exotics. Why this was I could by no means satisfactorily decide, as Mr. Dacre, so kind and generous, must approve the disinterested delicacy exhibited by Lord Treherne, in his offerings to the fatherless and widow. But the disinterestedness of my lord's attentions was a myth which I soon discarded: for in twelve months subsequent to Mr. Thomas Erminstoun's decease, a letter from Treherne Abbey was brought to Gabrielle, sealed with the armorial bearings of the Trehernes, and signed by the present representative of that noble race. We were seated at our fireside, busy with domestic needlework, and I saw Gabrielle's hands tremble as she opened it, while that strange, wild expression of triumph and pain, flitted more than once over her face as she perused the missive. She silently gave it to me, and with amazement I read its contents – such an idea had never once entered my simple brain. Lord Treherne made Gabrielle an offer of his hand and heart, signifying that if she would graciously incline her ear to his suit, a brilliant destiny awaited her infant daughter – on whom, and on its lovely mother, the most munificent settlements should be made. I laughed heartily as I read his lordship's rhapsodies, becoming a young lover; and I said, returning the epistle to Gabrielle, "What a pity, dearest, that we can not have such a noble father for our little Ella!" the possibility of Gabrielle's marrying a man of nearly seventy never entered into my calculations for a moment. Therefore my astonishment was overwhelming when she seriously answered,

"Why can not Lord Treherne be a father to my child, Ruth?"

"Because, dearest, you could not marry him – he is so old."

"But I mean to marry him, Ruth: could you doubt it? Could I have lived on as I have done without prophetic hope to support me? Think you, if Lord Treherne were double the age, I would refuse rank, wealth and power? Oh, Ruth, were I alone, it might be different." She spoke in a tone of suppressed anguish and passionate regret. "But look on her," pointing to the sleeping cherub, "for her sake I would immolate myself on any altar of sacrifice. Her fate shall be a brighter one than her mother's – if that mother has power to save and to bless! She must not be doomed to poverty or dependence. No, no! I give her a father who can restore in her the ancient glories of our race; for my Ella is a descendant of the chivalrous O'Briens and the noble De Courcys."

"And of the Erminstouns of Erminstoun Hall," I gently suggested, for Gabrielle was greatly excited.

"Name them not, Ruth; name them not, if you love me. To change their hated name, what would I not do?"

Alas! thought I, you are deceiving yourself, my poor sister, in this supposed immolation on an altar of sacrifice; it is not for your child's sake alone, though you fancy so. But Blanche Erminstoun will be disappointed, revenge obtained, and pride amply gratified, and truly "the heart is deceitful above all things."

Mr. Dacre entered the apartment as Gabrielle ceased speaking, for we had not heard his modest signal, and he was unannounced. My sister colored to the very temples on seeing the young pastor, and her hands trembled in the vain endeavor to fold Lord Treherne's letter, which at length she impatiently crushed together. I heard a half-smothered hysterical sob, as, with a faltering voice, she bade our guest "Good-evening." Ah! when the heart is aching and throbbing with agony, concealed and suppressed, it requires heroic self-command to descend to the commonplaces of this workaday world; but women early learn to conceal and subdue their feelings, when premature sorrows have divided them from real or pretended sympathies.

I read my sister's heart, I knew her secret, and I inwardly murmured, "Alas for woman's love, it is cast aside!"

My sister's marriage with Lord Treherne was a strictly private one (Gabrielle had stipulated for this), his lordship's chaplain performing the ceremony. My thoughts reverted to Gabrielle's first marriage, when the clerk gave her away, and she was clad in muslin; now she was arrayed in satin and glittering gems, and a peer of the realm, an old friend of the bridegroom, gave her lily hand at the altar to her noble lover. Twice she was forsworn; but the desecration to her soul was not so great on the first as on the present occasion, for then her heart was still her own; while now, alas for woman's love, it was cast aside!

In a few weeks after the marriage we all departed for the Continent, where we remained for the six following years, Gabrielle and myself receiving instructions in every accomplishment suitable to our position. It was charming to witness with what celerity my beautiful sister acquired every thing she undertook, for she was as anxious as her lord to adorn the high station to which she now belonged. Wherever we went the fame of Lady Treherne's beauty went with us, while her fascination of manner and high-bred elegance perfectly satisfied her fastidious husband that he had made a wise and prudent choice. There was one drawback to his lordship's perfect contentment, and this was the absence of the much-wished-for heir, for Gabrielle presented no children to her husband; and our little Ella, a fairy child, of brilliant gifts and almost superhuman loveliness, became as necessary to Lord Treherne's happiness as she was to her doting mother's. It was settled ere we returned to England, that Ella was to drop the name of Erminstoun, and as Lord Treherne's acknowledged heiress, legal forms were to be immediately adopted in order to ratify the change of name to that of the family appellation of the Trehernes.

With a murmur of grateful feeling I saw Gabrielle kneel beside her aged husband, and thank him fondly for this proof of regard; triumph sparkled in her eyes, and Lord Treherne laid his hand on her fair head, blessing her as he did so. She had made him a good wife, in every sense of the term: he had never forgot that her blood equaled his own. But Gabrielle did, for that very reason; her gratitude made her humble toward him, because he was humble toward her: nor did Lord Treherne ever cease to think that Gabrielle had conferred a favor in marrying him.

A succession of fêtes and entertainments were given at Treherne Abbey after our return, and Gabrielle was the star on whom all gazed with delighted admiration. All the country families flocked to pay their homage, but the Erminstouns came not until Lady Treherne extended a hand of welcome to her first husband's family; she was too exalted, both in station and mind, to cherish the pitiful remembrances of their former unkindness. There were but two Misses Erminstoun now, the others were well married (according to the world's notion, that is); and the youngest, who had not given up hopes of yet becoming Mrs. Dacre, had transformed herself into a nun-like damsel, something between a Sister of Charity and a Quakeress in exterior: perhaps Mr. Dacre read the interior too well; and, notwithstanding the lady's assiduous visits to the poor, and attendance on the charity-schools, and regular loud devotions at church, Mr. Dacre remained obdurate and wedded to celibacy. It might be that he disapproved of the marriage of the clergy, but I think he was at one time vulnerable on that point.

How delighted I was to see him once more, to hear him call me his "wise little friend," with his former sweet smile and affectionate manner; six years had changed him – he looked rather careworn, and well he might, for he was a true worker in the Lord's vineyard: nor was his mission confined to the poor; the rich and noble also felt his influence. Lord and Lady Treherne greeted him as an old and valued friend; nor could I detect the slightest agitation in Gabrielle's manner, and my former suspicions almost faded away. She brought our fair Ella to welcome "papa and mamma's friend" to Treherne; and Ella, with her winning, gentle ways, soon made Mr. Dacre understand that she loved him very much indeed: she was a holy child, and the principal joy of her innocent life was to hear me tell her those stories in which I used to take delight in my early days – how contrasted to hers! She would sing her pretty hymns, seated on a low footstool at Lord Treherne's feet; and the stately nobleman, with tears in his eyes, used to exclaim with pathos,

"Sister Ruth, sister Ruth, my heart misgives me; the angels surely will take this child to themselves, and leave us desolate."

Mr. Dacre came not frequently to Treherne, but he was a quick observer, and he saw we had set up an idol for ourselves in this child, he cautioned us, but Gabrielle shivered – yes, shivered with dismay, at the bare suggestion he hinted at – that God was a "jealous God," and permitted no idolatrous worship to pass unreproved.

Poor young mother, how can I relate the scenes I lived to witness!

Ella died, aged ten years. The mother sat by her coffin four days and nights, speechless and still; we dared not attempt to remove her, there way an alarming expression in her eyes if we did, that made the medical men uncertain how to act. She had tasted no food since the child died; she was hopeful to the last: it was impossible, she said, that her child could die; her faculties could not comprehend the immensity of the anguish in store for her. So there she sat like stone – cold, and silent, and wan, as the effigy she watched. Who dared to awaken the mother?

Mr. Dacre undertook the awful task, but it was almost too much for his tender, sympathizing heart; nerved by strength from above he came to us – for I never left my sister – and we three were alone with the dead.

It harrows my soul to dwell on this subject, and it seemed cruel to awaken the benumbed mother to reality and life again, but it was done; and then words were spoken far too solemn and sacred to repeat here, and hearts were opened that otherwise might have remained sealed till the judgment day. Gabrielle, for the first time in her life, knew herself as she was; and, prostrate beside her dead child, cried, "I have deserved thy chastening rod, for thou art the Lord, and I thy creature; deal with me as thou seest best." Pride abased, hope crushed, heart contrite and broken, never, never had Gabrielle been so dear to me; and during many weeks that I watched beside her couch, as she fluctuated between life and death, I knew that, she was an altered being, and that this bitter, affliction had not been sent in vain. She came gently home to God, and humbly knelt a suppliant at the mercy-throne, forever crying,

"Thou art wisest! Thou art best! Thou, alone knowest what is good for us! Thy will be done!"

The blow had fallen heavily on Lord Treherne, but for two years my sister lived to bless and comfort him; then it became evident to all that the mother was about to rejoin her child in the mansions of the blessed. She expressed a wish that Mr. Dacre should read the funeral service over her, and he administered the last blessed consolations to her departing spirit; no remnants of mortal weakness lurked in his heart as he stood beside the dying, for he knew that in this world they were as pilgrims and strangers, but in that to which Gabrielle was hastening they would be reunited in glory – no more partings, no more tears. She died calmly, with her hands clasped in Lord Treherne's and mine; while Mr. Dacre knelt absorbed in prayer she passed away, and we looked on each other in speechless sorrow, and then on what had been my young and beautiful sister.

Of my own deep grief and lacerated heart I will not speak; Lord Treherne required all my care and attention, nor would he hear of my quitting him – indeed, he could scarcely bear me to be out of his sight; the heavy infirmities of advanced years had suddenly increased since his double bereavement, and I felt very grateful that to my humble efforts he owed any glimpse of sunshine.

He was a severe bodily sufferer for many years, but affliction was not sent in vain, for Lord Treherne became perfectly prepared for the awful change awaiting him, trusting in His merits alone. Those were blessed hours when Mr. Dacre spoke to him of the dear departed, who had only journeyed on before – of God's ways in bringing us to Himself, chastening pride and self-reliance, and tolerating no idol worship. Lord Treherne, with lavish generosity, made an ample provision for his "wise little Ruth," as he ever smilingly called me to the last. He died peacefully, and the Abbey came into the possession of a distant branch of the Treherne family.

Wood End Cottage was vacant, and I purchased it; and assisted by Mr. Dacre in the labor of love for our blessed Master, life has not passed idly, and, I humbly trust, not entirely without being of use in my generation. Previous to his decease, Lord Treherne caused a splendid monument to be erected in Wood End church to the memory of Gabrielle, and Ella his adopted daughter: the spotless marble is exquisitely wrought, the mother and child reposing side-by-side as if asleep, with their hands meekly folded on their breasts, and their eyes closed, as if weary – weary.

The last fading hues of sunset, which so often rested on Gabrielle's form as she knelt in her widowhood beneath the monumental glories of the Trehernes, now illumines the sculptured stone, which mysteriously hints of hidden things – corruption and the worm.

I love to kneel in the house of prayer where Gabrielle knelt: dim voices haunt me from the past: my place is prepared among the green grass mounds, for no tablet or record shall mark the spot where "Ruth the cripple" reposes, sweetly slumbering with the sod on her bosom, "dust to dust."

THE WASTE OF WAR

Give me the gold that war has cost,Before this peace-expanding day;The wasted skill, the labor lost —The mental treasure thrown away;And I will buy each rood of soilIn every yet discovered land;Where hunters roam, where peasants toil,Where many-peopled cities stand.I'll clothe each shivering wretch on earth.In needful; nay, in brave attire;Vesture befitting banquet mirth,Which kings might envy and admire.In every vale, on every plain,A school shall glad the gazer's sight;Where every poor man's child may gainPure knowledge, free as air and light.I'll build asylums for the poor,By age or ailment made forlorn:And none shall thrust them from the door,Or sting with looks and words of scorn.I'll link each alien hemisphere;Help honest men to conquer wrong;Art, Science, Labor, nerve and cheer;Reward the Poet for his song.In every crowded town shall riseHalls Academic, amply graced;Where Ignorance may soon be wise,And Coarseness learn both art and tasteTo every province shall belongCollegiate structures, and not few —Fill'd with a truth-exploring throng,And teachers of the good and true.In every free and peopled climeA vast Walhalla hall shall stand;A marble edifice sublime,For the illustrious of the land;A Pantheon for the truly great,The wise, beneficent, and just;A place of wide and lofty stateTo honor or to hold their dust.A temple to attract and teachShall lift its spire on every hill,Where pious men shall feel and preachPeace, mercy, tolerance, good-will;Music of bells on Sabbath days,Round the whole earth shall gladly rise;And one great Christian song of praiseStream sweetly upward to the skies!

A NIGHT WITH AN EARTHQUAKE.[6]

The sound had not quite died away, when the feet I stood on seemed suddenly seized with the cramp. Cup and coffee-pot dropped as dead from Don Marzio's hand as the ball from St. Francis's palm. There was a rush as if of many waters, and for about ten seconds my head was overwhelmed by awful dizziness, which numbed and paralyzed all sensation. Don Marzio, in form an athlete, in heart a lion, but a man of sudden, sanguine temperament, bustled up and darted out of the room with the ease of a man never burdened with a wife, with kith or kin. Donna Betta, a portly matron, also rose instinctively; but I – I never could account for the odd freak – laid hold of her arm, bidding her stay. The roar of eight hundred houses – or how many more can there be in Aquila? – all reeling and quaking, the yells of ten thousand voices in sudden agony, had wholly subsided ere I allowed the poor woman calmly and majestically to waddle up to her good man in the garden. That, I suppose, was my notion of an orderly retreat. Rosalbina had flown from a window into the lawn, like a bird. Thank God, we found ourselves all in the open air under the broad canopy of heaven. We began to count heads. Yes, there we all stood – cook, laundry-maid, dairy-maids, stable-boys, all as obedient to the awful summons as the best disciplined troops at the first roll of the drum.

It was February, as I have twice observed; and we were in the heart of the highest Apennines. The day was rather fine, but pinching cold; and when the fever of the first terror abated, the lady and young lady began to shiver in every limb. No one dared to break silence; but Don Marzio's eye wandered significantly enough from one to another countenance in that awe-stricken group. There was no mistaking his appeal. Yet, one after another, his menials and laborers returned his gaze with well-acted perplexity. No one so dull of apprehension as those who will not understand. My good friends, I was three-and-twenty. I had had my trials, and could boast of pretty narrow escapes. I may have been reckless, perhaps, in my day. I smiled dimly, nodded to the old gentleman, clapped my hands cheerily, and the next moment was once more where no man in Aquila would at that moment have liked to be for the world – under a roof. I made a huge armful of cloaks and blankets, snapped up every rag with all the haste of a marauding party, and moved toward the door, tottering under the encumbrance. But now the dreadful crisis was at hand.

Earthquakes, it is well known, proceed by action and re-action. The second shock, I was aware, must be imminent. I had just touched the threshold, and stood under the porch, when that curious spasmodic sensation once more stiffened every muscle in my limbs. Presently I felt myself lifted up from the ground. I was now under the portico, and was hurled against the pillar on my right; the rebound again drove me to the post on the opposite side; and after being thus repeatedly tossed and buffeted from right to left like a shuttlecock, I was thrust down, outward, on the ground on my head, with all that bundle of rags, having tumbled head-long the whole range of the four marble steps of entrance. The harm, however, was not so great as the fright; and, thanks to my gallant devotion, the whole party were wrapped and blanketed, till they looked like a party of wild Indians; we stood now on comparatively firm ground, and had leisure to look about us. Don Marzio's garden was open and spacious, being bounded on three sides by the half-crumbling wall of the town. On the fourth side was the house – a good, substantial fabric, but now miserably shaky and rickety. Close by the house was the chapel of the Ursuline convent, and above that its slender spire rose chaste and stainless, "pointing the way to heaven." Any rational being might have deemed himself sufficiently removed from brick and mortar, and, in so far, out of harm's way. Not so Don Marzio. He pointed to the shadow of that spire, which, in the pale wintry sunset, stretched all the way across his garden, and by a strange perversion of judgment, he contended that so far as the shadow extended, there might also the body that cast it reach in its fall, for fall it obviously must; and as the danger was pressing, he deemed it unwise to discuss which of the four cardinal points the tower might feel a leaning toward, whenever, under the impulse of the subterranean scourge, it would "look around and choose its ground." Don Marzio was gifted with animal courage, and even nerve, proportionate to the might of his stalwart frame. But then his was merely a combative spirit. Thews and sinews were of no avail in the case. The garden was no breathing ground for him, and he resolved upon prompt emigration.

The people of Aquila, as indeed you may well know, of most towns in Southern Italy, have the habit of – consequently a peculiar talent for – earthquakes. They know how to deal with them, and are seldom caught unprepared. Two hundred yards outside the town gate, there is half a square mile of table-land on the summit of a hill – a market-place in days of ease, a harbor of refuge in the urgency of peril. From the first dropping of the earth-ball from the hand of their guardian saint, the most far-sighted among the inhabitants had been busy pitching their tents. The whole population – those, that is, who had escaped unscathed by flying tiles and chimney-pots – were now swarming there, pulling, pushing, hauling, and hammering away for very life: with women fainting, children screeching, Capuchins preaching. It was like a little rehearsal of doomsday. Don Marzio, a prudent housekeeper, had the latch-key of a private door at the back of the garden. He threw it open – not without a misgiving at the moss-grown wall overhead. That night the very stars did not seem to him sufficiently firm-nailed to the firmament! His family and dependents trooped after him, eager to follow. Rosalbina looked back – at one who was left behind. Don Marzio felt he owed me at least one word of leave-taking. He hemmed twice, came back two steps, and gave me a feverish shake of the hand.