A dreary sunless December day had drawn to a close, prematurely darkened by a slow drizzling rain, that brought the gloom of early night, where sunset splendours should have lingered, and deepened the sombre desolation that mantled the parsonage. In anticipation of the arrival of the new minister, who was expected the ensuing week, the furniture had been removed and sold, the books carefully packed and temporarily stored at the warehouse of a friend, and even the trunks containing the wearing apparel of the occupants had been despatched to the railway depot, and checked for transmission by the night express.

The melancholy preparations for departure were completed, friends had paid their final visits, and only Esau the sexton waited with his lantern, to lock up the deserted house, and take charge of the keys.

The last mournful tribute had been offered at the grave in the churchyard, where the beloved pastor slept serenely; and the cold leaden rain fell upon a mass of beautiful flowers, which quite covered the mound, that marked his dreamless couch.

Since that farewell visit to her brother's tomb, Mrs. Lindsay seemed to have lost her wonted fortitude and composure, and was pacing the empty library, weeping bitterly, giving vent to the long-pent anguish which daily duties and business details had compelled her to restrain.

Impotent to comfort, Regina stood by the mantlepiece, gazing vacantly at the wood fire on the hearth, which supplied only a dim fitful and uncertain light in the bare chill room, once the most cosy and attractive in the whole cheerful house.

How utterly desolate everything appeared now, with only the dreary monotone of the wintry rain on the roof, and the occasional sob that fell from the black-robed figure walking to and fro.

It had been such a happy, peaceful, blessed home, where piety, charity, love, taste, refinement, and education all loaned their charms to the store of witchery, which made it doubly sad to realize that henceforth other feet would tread its floors, other voices echo in its garden and verandahs.

To the girl who had really never known any other home (save the quiet convent courts) this parsonage was the dearest spot she had yet learned to love; and with profound sorrow she now prepared to bid adieu for ever to the haven where her happiest years had passed like a rosy dream.

The dreary deserted aspect of the house recalled to her mind—

"How some they have died, and some they have left me,
And some are taken from me; all are departed"—

of Charles Lamb's quaint tender "Old familiar faces," as full of melancholy pathos as human eyes brimming with unshed tears; and from it her thoughts gradually drifted to another poem, which she had first heard from Mr. Lindsay during the week of his departure, and later from the sacred lips that were now placidly smiling beneath the floral cross and crown in the neighbouring churchyard.

To-night the words recurred with the mournful iteration of some dolorous refrain; and yielding to the spell she leaned her forehead against the chimney-piece, and repeated them sadly and slowly:

"'We sat and talked until the night
Descending, filled the little room;
Our faces faded from the sight—
Our voices only broke the gloom.
We spake of many a vanished scene,
Of what we once had thought and said,
Of what had been, and might have been,
And who was changed, and who was dead;
And all that fills the hearts of friends,
When first they feel with secret pain,
Their lives thenceforth have separate ends,
And never can be one again.
The very tones in which we spake
Had something strange, I could but mark;
The leaves of memory seemed to make
A mournful rustling in the dark.'"

Attracted by the rhythm, which softly beat upon the air like some muffled prelude striking only minor chords, Mrs. Lindsay came to the hearth, and with her arm resting on the girl's shoulder, stood listening.

"How dearly my Douglass loved those lines."

"And on the night before he died, Mr. Hargrove repeated them, asking me afterward to select some sweet solemn sacred tune with an organ accompaniment, and sing them for him. But what music is there that would suit a poem, which henceforth will seem as holy as a psalm to me?"

"Perhaps after a while you and I may be able to quiet the pain, and set it to some sweet old chant. Just now our hearts are too sore."

"After a while? What hope has after a while? It cannot bring back the lost; and does memory ever die? After a while has not given me my mother; after a while has not taught me to forget her, or made me more patient in my waiting. After a while I know death will come to us all, and then there will be no more heartache; but I can't see that there is any comfort in after a while, except beyond the grave. Mrs. Lindsay, I do not wish to be wicked or rebellious, but it seems very hard that I must leave this dear quiet home, and be separated from you and Mr. Lindsay whom I dearly love, and go and live in a city, with that cold, hard, harsh, stern man, of whom I am so much afraid. He may mean well, but he has such unkind ways of showing it. You have no idea how dreadful the future looks to me."

She spoke drearily, and in the fitful flashes of the firelight the young face looked unnaturally stern.

"My dear child, you must not despond; at your age one must try to see only the bright side. If I expected to remain in America, I would not give you up without a struggle; would beg your mother's permission to keep you until she claimed you. But I shall only wait to learn that Douglass has arranged for my arrival. As you know, my sister and brother-in-law are in Egypt, and if I were with them in Cairo, I could hear more regularly and frequently from my dear boy. I wish I could keep you, for you have grown deep into my heart, but my own future is too uncertain to allow me to involve any one else in my plans."

"I understand the circumstances, but if mother only knew everything, I believe she would not doom me to the care of that man of stone. Oh, if you could only take me across the ocean, and let me go to Venice to mother."

Mrs. Lindsay tightened her arm around the erect slender figure, and gently stroked back the hair from her temples.

"My dear, you paint your future guardian too grimly. Mr. Palma is very reserved, rather haughty, and probably stern, but notwithstanding has a noble character, I am told, and certainly appears much interested in and kindly disposed toward you. Dear Peyton liked him exceedingly, and his two letters to me were full of generosity and kind sympathy. As I believe I told you, his stepmother resides with him, and her daughter Miss Neville, though a young lady, will be more of a companion for you than the older members of the household. Mr. Palma is one of the most eminent and popular lawyers in New York, is very ambitious, I have heard, and at his house you will meet the best society of that great city; by which I mean the most cultivated, high-toned, and aristocratic people. I am sorry that he has no religious views, habits, or associations, as I inferred from the remarks of the lady whom I met in Boston, and who seemed well acquainted with the Palma household. She told me 'none of that family had any religion, though of course they kept a pew in the fashionable church.' But, my dear little girl, I hope your principles and rules of life are sufficiently established to preserve you from all free-thinking tendencies. Constant attendance at church does not constitute religion, any more than the bon fide pulpit means the spiritual Gospel; but I have noticed that where genuine piety exists, it is generally united with a recognition of church duties and obligations. The case of books I packed and sent with your trunks contains some very admirable though old-fashioned works, written by such women as Hannah More, Mrs. Chapone, Mrs. Opie, and others, to mould the character of girls, and instruct them in all that is requisite to make them noble, refined, intelligent, useful Christian women. Hannah More's 'Lucilla Stanley' is one of the loveliest portraitures of female excellence in the whole domain of literature, and you will find some of the passages marked to arrest your attention. In this age of rapid deviation from the standard rules that governed feminine deportment and education when I was a girl, many of the precepts and admonitions penned by the authors I have mentioned are derided and repudiated as 'puritanical,' 'old-fashioned,' 'strait-laced,' 'stupid and prudish'; but if these indeed be faults, certainly in the light of modern innovations they appear 'to lean to virtue's side.' In fashionable society, such as you are destined to meet at Mr. Palma's, you will find many things that no doubt will impress you as strange, possibly wrong; but in all these matters consult the books I have selected for you, read your Bible, pray regularly, and under all circumstances hold fast to your principles. Question and listen to your conscience, and no matter how keen the ridicule, or severe the condemnation to which your views may subject you, stand firm. Moral cowardice is the inclined plane that leads to the first step in sin. Be sure you are right, and then suffer no persuasion or invective to influence you in questions involving conscientious scruples. You are young and peculiarly isolated, therefore I have given you a letter to my valued old friend Mrs. Mason, who will always advise you judiciously, if you will only consult her. I hope you will devote as much time as possible to music, for to one gifted with your rare talent it will serve as a sieve straining out every ignoble discordant suggestion, and will help to keep your thoughts pure and holy."

"I suppose there are wicked ways and wicked people everywhere, and it is not the fashion or the sinfulness that I am afraid of in New York, but the loneliness I anticipate. I dread being shut up between brick walls: no flowers, no grass, no cows, no birds, no chickens, none of the things I care for most."

"But, my dear child, you forget that you have entered your fifteenth year, and as you grow older you will gradually lose your inordinate fondness for pets. Your childish tastes will change as you approach womanhood."

"I hope not. Why should they? When I am an old woman with white hair, spectacles, wrinkled cheeks, and a ruffled muslin cap like poor Hannah's, I expect to love pigeons and rabbits, and all pretty white things, just as dearly as I do now. Speaking of Hannah, how I shall miss her? Since she went away, I shun the kitchen as much as possible,—everything is so changed, so sad. Oh! the dear, dear old-dead-and-gone-days will never, never come back to me."

For some time neither spoke. Mrs. Lindsay wept, the girl only groaned in spirit; and at length she said suddenly, like one nerved for some painful task:

"When we separate at the depot, you to take one train and I another, we may never meet again in this world, and I must say something to you, which I could mention to no one else. There is a cloud hanging over me. I have always lived in its cold shadow, even here where there is, or was, so much to make me happy, and this mystery renders me unwilling to go into the world of curious, harsh people, who will wonder and question. I know that Orme is not my real name, but am forbidden to ask for information until I am grown. I have full faith in my mother: I must believe that all she has done is right, no matter how strange things seem; but on one point I must be satisfied. Is my mother's name Minnie?"

"I cannot tell you, for it was the only secret dear Peyton ever kept from me. In speaking of her, he always called her Mrs. Orme."

"Do you know anything about the loss of a valuable paper, once in Mr.
Hargrove's possession?"

"A great many years ago, before you came to live with us, some one entered this room, opened the secret drawer of Peyton's writing desk, and carried off a tin box containing some important papers."

"And suspicion rested on my mother?"

"My darling girl, who could have been so cruel as to distress you with such matters? No one——"

Regina interrupted her, with an imperative motion of her hand:

"Please answer my question. Truth is better than kindness, is more to me than sympathy. Did not you and Mr. Hargrove believe that mother took—stole that box?"

"Peyton never admitted to me that he suspected her, though some circumstances seemed to connect the disappearance of the papers with her visit here the night they were carried off. He accused no one."

Regina was deeply moved, and her whole face quivered as she answered:

"Oh! how good, how truly charitable he was! I wonder if in all the wide borders of America there are any more like him? If I could only have told him the facts, and satisfied him that my mother was innocent! But I waited until Hannah could get away in peace, and before she was ready to start God called him home. In heaven of course he knows it all now. I promised Hannah to tell no one but him, and to defer the explanation until she was safe, entirely beyond the reach of his displeasure; but since you suspected my mother, it is right that I should justify her in your estimation."

Very succinctly she narrated what had occurred on the evening of the storm, and the incidents of the ensuing morning, when she followed Hannah into the churchyard. As she concluded, an expression of relief and pleasure succeeded that of astonishment which had rested on Mrs. Lindsay's worn and faded face.

"I am heartily glad that at last the truth has been discovered, and that it fully exonerated your mother from all connection with the theft; for I confess the circumstances prejudiced me against her. Let us be encouraged, my dear little girl, to believe that in due time all the other mysteries will be quite as satisfactorily cleared up."

"I can't afford to doubt it; if I did, I should not be able to——"

She paused, while an increasing pallor overspread her features.

"That is right, dear, believe in her. We should drink and live upon faith in our mothers, as we did their milk that nourished us. When children lose faith in their mothers, God pity both! Did you learn from Hannah the character of the paper?"

"How could I question a servant concerning my mother's secrets? I only learned that Mr. Hargrove had given to my mother a copy of that which was burned by the lightning."

"In writing to her, did you mention the facts?"

"I have not as yet. I doubted whether I ought to allude to the subject, lest she should think I was intruding upon her confidence."

"Dismiss that fear, and in your next letter acquaint her fully with all you learned from poor Hannah; it may materially involve her interest or welfare. Now, Regina, I am about to say something which you must not misinterpret, for my purpose is to comfort you, to strengthen your confidence in your mother. I do not know her real name, I never heard your father's mentioned, but this I do know,—dear Peyton told me that in this room he performed the marriage ceremony that made them husband and wife. Why such profound secrecy was necessary your poor mother will some day explain to you. Until then, be patient."

"Thank you, Mrs. Lindsay. It does comfort me to know that Mr. Hargrove was the minister who married them. Of course it is no secret to you that my mother is an actress? I discovered it accidentally, for you know the papers were never left in my way, and in all her letters she alluded to her 'work being successful,' but never mentioned what it was; and I always imagined she was a musician giving concerts. But one day last June, at the Sabbath-school Festival, Mrs. Potter gave me a Boston paper, containing an article marked with ink, which she said she wished me to read, because it would edify a Sunday-school pupil. It was a letter from Italy, describing one of the theatres there, where Madame Odille Orme was playing 'Medea.' I cut out the letter, gave it to Mr. Hargrove, and asked him if it meant my mother. He told me it did, and advised me to enclose it to her when I wrote. But I could not, I burned it. People look down on actresses as if they were wicked or degraded, and for awhile it distressed me very much indeed, but I know there must be good as well as bad people in all professions. Since then I have been more anxious to become a perfect musician, so that before long I can relieve mother from the necessity of working on the stage."

"It was wickedly malicious in Mrs. Prudence to wound you; and we were all so anxious to shield you from every misgiving on your mother's account. Some actresses have brought opprobrium upon the profession, which certainly is rather dangerous, and subjects women to suspicion and detraction; but let me assure you, Regina, that there have been very noble, lovely, good ladies who made their bread exactly as your mother makes hers. There is no more brilliant, enviable, or stainless record among gifted women than that of Mrs. Siddons'; or to come down to the present day, the world honours, respects, and admires none more than Madame Ristori, or Miss Cushman. Personal characteristics must decide a woman's reputation, irrespective of the fact that she lives upon the stage; and it is unjust that the faults of some should reflect discreditably upon all in any profession. Individually I must confess I am opposed to theatres and actresses, for I am the widow of a minister, and have an inherited and a carefully educated prejudice against all such things; but while I acknowledge this fact, I dare not assert that some who pass their lives before the footlights may not be quite as conscientious and upright as I certainly try to be. I should grieve to see you on the stage, yet should circumstances induce you to select it as a profession, in the sight of God who alone can judge human hearts, your and your mother's chances of final acceptance and rest with Christ might be as good, perhaps better, than mine Let us 'judge not, lest we be judged.'"

"The world has not your charity, but let it do its worst. Come what may, my mother is still my own mother, and God will hold the scales and see that justice is done. Perhaps some day we may follow you to India, and spend the remainder of our lives in some cool quiet valley, under the shadow of the rhododendrons on the Himalayan hills. Who knows what the end may be? But no matter how far we wander, or where we rest, we shall never find a home so sweet, so peaceful, so full of holy and happy associations, as this dear parsonage has been to me."

The fire burned low, and in its dull flicker the shadows thickened; while the rising wind sobbed and wailed mournful as a coranach around the desolate old house, whence so many generations had glided into the sheltering bosom of the adjoining necropolis.

Across the solemn gloomy stillness ran the sharp shivering sound of the door-bell, and when the jarring had ceased Esau entered with his lantern in his hand.

"The carriage is at the gate. The schedule was changed last week, and the driver says it is nearly train time. Give me the satchels and basket."

Slowly the two figures followed the lantern-bearer down the dim bare hall, and the sound of their departing footsteps echoed strangely, dismally through the empty, forsaken house. At the front door both paused and looked back into the darkness that seemed like a vast tomb, swallowing everything, engulfing all the happy hallowed past.

But Regina imagined that in the dusky library, by the wan flicker of the dying fire, she could trace the spectral outline of a white draped table, and of a tall prostrate form bearing a Grand Duke jasmine in its icy hand. Shuddering violently, she wrapped her shawl around her and sprang down the steps into the drizzling rain, while Mrs. Lindsay slowly followed, weeping silently.

"Were it mine I would close the shutters,
Like lids when the life is fled,
And the funeral fire should wind it,
This corpse of a home that is dead."