"But why not? On this wild, stormy night, when other little ones may be out in the dashing rain and moaning wind, is it not right to pray, 'God bless our home?'"

"But how long will we have a home, Patty? Think of to-morrow! oh, Heaven help me to-morrow! Ruined, disgraced, going out from the home where I was born, and forced into exile. I cannot bear it. We shall never have a home again, and our child will grow up homeless!"

"Dear Mark, you cannot go out disgraced when you have done no wrong; and homeless you will not be, for home is where the heart is, and in any land we three will be together, and Heaven over all."

"I cannot feel as you do, Patty. I am not gentle and good as you. I blame myself that by going security for that smooth-tongued rascal, whom may a curse – "

"Hush!" said Patty, with sudden authority. "Mark, you shall not curse friend, neighbor, nor enemy. It is not your nature; it is wrong. If you curse any one how can you look to have prayer answered?"

"Prayer!" said Mark, bitterly. "I begin not to believe in prayer, or goodness, or any such thing. You have prayed, and that innocent little victim on your bosom has prayed, in her baby way, and has Heaven heard? No! We lose our home, and I was born here!"

Heavier grew the round brown head of the two-year-old child on Patty's breast, the little tanned hands fell apart with a sleepy grace, and the plump, sunburnt face took the moist flush of childhood's deep rest.

Patty looked at her husband. He leaned against the wooden mantel-shelf, the ruddy light of the fire leaped across his sorrowful face, and the wife saw his bronzed cheek wet, with not unmanly tears.

Beyond him, in the range of her vision, was the window looking toward the garden, and between the bushes of lilac and guelder-roses, Patty had a swift vision of a tall woman, robed in black, a thin white face, looking eagerly into the cheerful farm-kitchen.

She leaped to her feet. But the vision had faded; only the wind swept the wet lilac boughs against the pane, only the guelder-roses looked like tall, dark, draped forms in the stormy night.

"What is it?" said Mark, as she started.

"Nothing," said the wife; "little Mattie sleeps; I must carry her up to bed." She chided herself for her fancies.

"Nothing!" said Mark. "I have become nervous and womanish with my misery. Do you know, Patty, even now I keep looking for some one or something to come and save me."

"It is never too late," said Patty. "Heaven could save you now – save you even by so frail a thing as this baby child."

She passed to the upper room, and left Mark still in his misery hastily retracing his past, in gloomy thought. Patty returned and stood wistfully, her hand on his arm.

"Don't despond, Mark. We are young, strong, loving. We will give honest work for honest bread."

"It is not right for the innocent to perish with the guilty," cried Mark, vehemently; "for you and baby Mattie to perish with me."

"You are not perishing, and how have you been guilty."

"I seem to have been guilty, somehow, all along. My father left me this farm in fairly good order, the lease for my life and one after me. I could not rest content. I must improve the land, and improve the outbuildings, and improve the breed of my cattle and sheep, like a fool."

"No, like neither a knave nor a fool; like an enterprising farmer, wanting to improve his prospects and grow with the age. Did not the Duke of Downsbury say you were one of his best tenants, and that you were a pattern of good farming and industry?"

"And then," said Mark, intent on saying bitter things of himself, "I had a thousand pounds, my father's savings, and instead of leaving it where he placed it, at safe, low interest, I must let the men of the great new Bank of Downsbury persuade me to give all to them for big interest; and that bubble burst, the bank collapsed, swindled every one, and left me nothing."

"No blame to you, and you were left your good name. Are you not known, in all the country, as Honest Mark Brace?"

"I must be a scoundrel some way, Patty, to have such luck."

"Go on and tell your sins," said Patty. "You married a girl without money, Patty Leslie by name; you took care of her widowed mother till she died; and you were so foolish as to have a little girl-child, who can only eat and not earn."

"Heaven bless her and you!" said Mark. "Marrying the best wife in the world was about the only good deed I ever did – What do you start that way for again, Patty?"

"Hark! I heard such a strange noise – a pitiful wail."

"Not further off than my heart," said Mark. "I heard nothing. Once married, Patty, think how harvest after harvest has been poor, and seasons bad, so I could not lay up a penny."

"Not your fault – Mark, I know I hear a cry."

"No, no; my ears are keen; I hear nothing. It is the storm. Even the wind and rain are crying after the out-going of the Brace blood from the farm of Brackenside. Oh, Patty, why could I not let well enough alone, and not go and sign security for that villain, Amwell?"

"You did it out of pure heart-kindness. You thought him honest and in trouble; you helped him."

"And he left me with a hundred pounds to pay. He meant to do it all along. He robbed me; I robbed you; and to-morrow my goods must be seized. The crops will be bid off as they stand in the ground, and the farm tools and the house goods with them, for this terrible security. I have tried everywhere to get help. I spent all to-day seeking for some one to lend to me. But since Farmer Dobbs holds a mortgage on my live stock for the debt the burning of the big barn brought me into, I cannot get any help. The lease must be sold to finish paying up Dobbs. I will not run off in debt like that scoundrel Amwell, and, with what is left, we can emigrate. Patty, oh, how can I go! I love every stick, and every tree, and every sod. My mother and father lie here in yon churchyard, and I had hoped to lie by them."

Honest Mark Brace covered his face with his hands, and his strong, tall figure shook with the storm of his sorrow. He loved every foot of this land, where, boy and man, he had sung at his work and lived popular and respected. A fine, stalwart young Englishman, intensely a home-lover, it seemed to him impossible that other skies could be so blue, other breezes so jocund, other fields so green, as these that blessed his birthplace.

Patty, in mute sympathy, clasped her arms about his neck, friend in woe as in joy. She, too, loved and suffered. But hers was a cheerful, hopeful, pious soul: she could not despair as Mark did. Mark had been loudly accusing himself where he was guiltless; now, with the inconsistency of misery, he turned to declare his own uprightness and, by implication, the injustice of Heaven.

"Why has this come to me? Other worse men have happier fortune. Have I swindled men like the bankers, who carried off my all? Have I lied like Ned Amwell? Did I ever cheat in my men's wages? Have I sent the poor empty from my door? Have I failed to pay my tithes, or missed church on Sundays? Do I drink? Do I swear? Do I ever go to sleep in church? Why, then, have I such trouble?"

The wild minglings of crimes, errors, and peccadilloes might have made a disinterested listener laugh. It did not make Patty laugh, nor did it call forth an answer. She turned an intent ear to the outer world and said, uneasily:

"Mark, listen! Other souls are in pain. It is not the wind that I hear – not the dashing rain. I have heard sobs, and moans, and crying in the night – a child crying – like a little baby soul that has lost its way and can find neither earth nor heaven."

"Your fancies make me mad," cried Mark, angrily.

"My troubles are real, and so will yours be to-morrow – "

Shrill and clear the cry quivered on the air. He, too, heard it.

"It is little Mattie," he cried. "Run to her."

And he followed Patty, fleet-footed, up the stairs.

But little rosy Mattie slept tranquilly, and the two came slowly down. Patty opened the kitchen window, and the swirling rain drenched her dark hair as she leaned into the darkness.

"Come in; there will be nights enough to face storms," said Mark, hardly. "We are only both fanciful; or, as my old grannie used to tell me, since we are flitting from the hearth where we have kept warm so long, the souls of my ancestors are mourning for my sorrow. Poor old grannie! little she knew how I should leave the old roof-tree."

Patty sprung to her feet.

"Mark, come with me! It is no fancy – no spirit. It is real; some human being out in this tempest. Let us search everywhere, and give the homeless a shelter this last night that we have a home."

She ran from the room, and Mark followed her into the stone-flagged entry. Her vehemence carried him away. He reached over her shoulder, and aided her trembling hands to undo the door-bolt.

Starless the night; no balm on the summer air; the raw chill of autumn brooding under the beating rain; a murky heaven over land and sea; and once again that wild, only half-human wail, coming up now from their very feet!

Patty sprung into the dark, vine-draped porch; the red light from the kitchen crept fitfully to the threshold, and close beside the door-sill, lay a bundle in the poor shelter of the latticed porch.

From that bundle came, shrill and piteous, that miserable cry.

CHAPTER II

A FAIRY CHANGELING

"Mark! Mark! it is a child, a poor forsaken baby," said Patty, stooping down and gathering into her womanly arms the weeping waif-fragment of the seething sea of humanity so strangely drifted to her door. "A child! Dear Heaven! such a very little child!"

She hurried into the kitchen and laid the bundle on the table in the circle of lamplight, and with careful, eager fingers, began to loosen the wrappings.

"A child!" said Mark, amazed and dull – "a child!"

Then with sudden anger he cried out:

"A child, to the homeless! A child to us, who will not be able to care for our own – a child for forced exiles! Why did they not carry it to the poor-house? There, at least, it might have stayed!"

"Hush, dear!" said Patty. "God only asks of us duty for to-day. To-night we have a home, and can take the stranger in. God will take care of it to-morrow."

"Not that I grudge the poor little wretch," said Mark, looking over his wife's shoulder.

Patty unpinned the tartan shawl, and snugly wrapped within lay a little babe; a delicate veil covered the small face within the lace and satin cap, and Patty lifted in motherly hands one of the most singularly lovely infants that sun had ever looked upon. Dimpled, snow-white, with exquisitely molded features, and neck and hands; soft rings of golden, silken hair, a faint perfume of costly odors breathing from its garments.

Patty's tender heart melted at the divine innocence, loveliness, helplessness of the little one, and raising the rosebud face to her own, she kissed it softly again and again.

This motion caused the white cashmere cloak to fall back, and Mark gave a cry at some dark thing broadly pinned against the quilted satin lining.

As his wife kissed the babe, murmuring: "Little, lovely angel! Who sent you? Who could abandon you?" Mark unpinned this object and held it near the light. Then he gave such a cry that his wife, clasping the babe closer, turned to him in alarm. In his shaking hand he held a packet of bank-notes. He cried out:

"Patty! Patty! Did God send this? See! Just the amount of my debt! Patty! Patty! am I safe? Is this ours?"

"How much is there?" she demanded, breathlessly.

"Twenty fives! A hundred pounds!"

"Mark, just what we owe?"

"Just that. Oh, Patty, we are saved!"

He staggered to a seat, white and weak, and then, first, Patty realized what his anguish of soul had been. The strong young farmer shook like a reed; drops of perspiration rolled over his face.

"But is it ours?" demanded Patty, sitting down also, and beginning to unfasten the baby's cap and cloak.

"See if there is anything more – any message – any word – quick – oh, Patty, Patty. I am weak!"

Patty rose up, stroked his cheek, kissed him, said: "Courage, Mark! Heaven has helped us!" and then she set to searching the child.

On the lace bosom of the little dress was sewed a letter. She unfastened it and held it to her husband.

"You read it, Mark. I am so frightened, my eyes are dim. See, it is to us; it says on the outside – 'To Mark and Patty Brace.'"

Mark restrained himself, and as Patty softly rocked the child to and fro on her breast, he read aloud:

"To you a most sorrowful mother sends this little child. You have never seen that mother, probably you never will; but she has heard of you – of honest Mark Brace and Patty Brace, his kind, good wife. Oh, be tender to this little child, deprived of father and of mother. Be patient with it; think how its mother's heart ached at parting: think of your own little child. Let this baby be yours, and your child's sister. It is lovely and white as an angel. Will you try to keep its soul white and pure, and bring it up simply, like your own, just to be good? There is a little mark on the right shoulder – a little red leaf. But I may never be able to claim my own again. Then let it be yours, and rear it, as you will answer for it to God. With the child the mother sends you a hundred pounds, and every year will send you the same. This is a child of noble blood and honest birth. Its mother prays you, for the sake of mercy and pity, to make no effort to find her. Never show this letter, never try to learn the child's surname; her Christian name is Doris. Will you say you have taken charge of the child for a lady who has gone abroad? Say only that, and night and day a heart's best prayers will go up for you, who are good to little Doris."

Mark and Patty looked at each other in silence.

"Oh, Mark! you doubted – doubted God and prayer!"

"Did I? May God pardon me – I was wild with misery!"

"Whose child can this be?" said Patty.

"Patty," said Mark, "if we use this money, as we must and shall, it is part of a bargain, you know – a bargain to keep the child tenderly and faithfully, and make no effort to discover who sends it. We must keep faith."

"It will be very easy to be loving and tender to such a lovely baby," said Patty. "Look, did you ever see anything so wonderful, so beautiful, in all your life?"

"Fair as an angel," said Mark, gently kissing the wee white hand. "God bless the baby, the little angel baby that saved us."

"A hundred a year! This is very much money, just for keeping one little child," said Patty.

"We must pay ourselves what is fair, and keep the rest to educate the child, or make her dower."

"And we must keep her soul white and fair. The letter says, we are to train her like our own, Mark."

"Only, Patty, it is a child of noble blood, and if, some day, the mother claims her, she must not be ashamed of the child, Patty."

"Oh, Mark!" cried Patty, in terror, "suppose the mother is in all this storm? Go, Mark – take a light and look for her. Do go!"

"She cannot possibly be lingering here, Patty."

"Oh, Mark, she is no doubt waiting to see what we will do. I am sure I saw her looking in the window before I took Mattie to bed."

Mark took a lantern from its hook by the chimney-side, and went out into the storm. There was no trace of any one. The gate was fastened, no foot-print marked the gravel walk; nothing but sighing wind and plashing rain filled the darkness. He returned to the house.

"There is no one. Whoever was here has done the errand and gone. I cannot believe it yet, Patty. My debt is paid! my home is saved! I shall live where my fathers lived, and die where they died; and all by means of this little child. I feel as if I could never love it enough!"

Patty looked at the babe on her arm. She cried:

"How could a mother give up such a lovely creature! I would rather die! Oh, poor mother! Mark, a heart has broken to-night in this storm."

"I wonder if the poor soul was married?" said Mark.

"She must have been! Look at the letter, Mark. It is the letter of a good woman. She wants the child's soul kept white and pure. A wicked woman would think of the body, but not of the soul!"

The child opened its eyes – eyes like spring violets, softly blue. It stirred uneasily. Patty went for milk to feed it.

"There are no clothes with it, Mark. Whoever knew us to write to us, knew about little Mattie, and expected us to let this baby wear her clothes, and be reared just like our own."

She went for a night-dress that had been worn by Mattie a year before, and taking off the infant's rich clothes, put on instead the simple little gown. About the child's neck was a gold chain, with a locket; in the locket was a tress of curly golden hair, and one of dark shining brown.

"Mark," said Patty, "let us put the letter and the locket and these rich clothes away. Some day they may be needed to show whose child this is."

Mark folded the articles together and locked them in a strong box, which for years had held the especial valuables of the owners of Brackenside Farm. Never before had such singular treasures been placed among those simple rustic relics.

"Now," said Patty. "I shall take this baby up and put her in Mattie's trundle bed; they are sisters now."

She carried the wee stranger up-stairs and laid it by her own little daughter. Mark held the light.

"There is a great difference between them," said Patty, as she looked at the two little ones in the same bed. "It is not only that one is two years and one is two months, but one looks like a child of the nobles, the other like a child of the people."

"The people are the bone and sinew of the land, and the heart, too," said Mark, sturdily. "I don't believe a mother of the people would give such a baby away in this fashion. You note my words, wife; it is pride, rank pride, that has cast this child out among strangers."

Patty sighed, still looking at the children. Little Doris, a jewel child, pearly skin, golden hair and brows, and a little red mouth like a thread of rubies; Mattie, brown, plump, sturdy, child of soil, wind, and sun.

"I like my own best," said Mark, bravely, "if she is not half so fair. Our Mattie has what will last all her life – a warm, true, honest little heart in her strong little body."

"Of course you will like our own best," said Patty half offended. "It would be a fine story if the coming of this little beauty could crowd our girl out of the first place in our hearts."

"I wonder if they will love each other," said Mark.

"Of course they will, as they are to be sisters," said Patty, with edifying faith in humanity.

"And I wonder if she will love us?"

"Surely, since we are to be her parents, and will be always kind and faithful to her."

"I hope so," said Mark, shaking his head; "but there are some things, Patty, that do not mix well – as, say, oil and water – and belike blood will tell, and this little lady will not take to our homely ways. Besides, we shall always be considering how much is due her for that hundred pounds a year; and I, for one, will always be remembering how she came like a little angel to save a home that is like my heart's blood to me."

Then they went down-stairs, leaving the dark child and the fair child sleeping together.

CHAPTER III

A DAUGHTER OF PATRICIANS

Mark and Patty Brace sat down again by their hearth-stone. They were too much excited to think of sleep. Mark made up the fire and trimmed the lamp, and ruddy glow and golden gleam seemed the joyful reflection of their strangely-brightened fortunes.

Honest Mark, who seldom thought of even locking his door when he went to bed, suddenly felt that thieves might break in to steal that blessed hundred pounds that saved him from ruin. He buttoned the notes up in his waistcoat, and longed for the day-dawn when he might pay his debt and be free.

Upon Patty's simple heart rested the shadow of a new care. It was to her upright spirit a terrible responsibility to rear a stranger's child. What disposition would this little one inherit?

Could she obey that unknown mother's behest and keep this soul white and pure? Suppose the child should be willful, full of faults, proud, hard to govern, in all points the opposite to her own simple, gentle, good little girl – would she be able by love and kindness to govern and mold her into goodness? And suppose the child grew day by day into her heart, until it seemed like her very own, and then that unknown mother came and took her away? Suppose, too, that after all her humble cares, when the mother came, she should be dissatisfied and complain of the rudeness of the child's rearing?

But Patty need not have feared that; she had herself the best of good breeding, that which comes from a generous, thoughtful, unselfish spirit.

Then she began to wonder who was the mother of this babe. She told over to herself all the ladies of the adjacent village of Brakebury; not one had a hundred pounds a year to spare. She thought of all the ladies she had met in the narrow limits of life, in which she had never been fifty miles from her home. There was not one whom it would not be the utmost absurdity to charge with the maternity of this charge.

"I give it up," said Patty aloud, with a sigh.

"Give what up?" asked Mark, starting from a reverie.

"Guessing who is the mother of this little Doris."

"So you should give it up," said honest Mark, stoutly. "A bargain is a bargain, Patty, and you know all that money is not to pay for one baby's milk, tendance, and bits of clothes; nor is it to buy our faith, for faith cannot be bought; but it is given us as pledge of a secret kept with that child's mother, and to use to defend that secret; and so we must. Questions, Patty, we must not ask nor answer; if curiosity is troublesome, we'll even bear it till it dies out naturally; we are paid for the trouble of bearing our neighbor's curiosity."

"That is true," said Patty; "we will make silence our rule."

So they sat by the fire, while the storm ceased, the winds fell, the rain-heavy grass and leaves lifted themselves, the east brightened with a new day, the birds broke forth into matin-song, and then a broad bar of sunshine fell over the kitchen floor, through the very window where the black-veiled figure had stood the night before.

"Mark," said Patty, "here is a new day."

"And a very happy day," said Mark. "I shall go pay my debt the first thing; and then, Heaven helping me, when this harvest is gathered in, I can settle with neighbor Dobbs and stand up a free man. After that, Patty, I'll starve before I beg, borrow, steal, or go security. In my eye, it's all one; it's robbing your own or your neighbors in any case."

How happy felt Mark Brace that morning, as, with springing step, and whistling like a mavis, loud and clear, he strode off to Brakebury to pay his debt. His sinewy hand trembled convulsively as he took his receipt.

"I'm as thankful as you are, Mark," said his creditor; "it would have gone to my heart to ruin you. I lay awake all night thinking of it; but I must have this money or be sold out myself, and my wife is ill in bed, and my old mother blind, and cleaving to this home she was born in as ivy cleaves to the wall."

"I know how it goes," said Mark; "I've felt it. And after this, I'll hold the Scripture rule, to owe no man anything but to love one another."

Mark felt his heart large enough to love all the world that morning, especially that golden-haired mystery who had brought him safety. He hurried home, longing to be at work again. He felt energy for everything. Never had there been such a fair day, never such a lovely home, never such beautiful fields, standing thick to the sickle. Heaven be praised, he was his own man again!

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