you are so brimful of satisfaction that nothing
can add to it."
"And do you think, sir," asked Harry Nor-
ton, who was sitting with Alice at one end of
the piazza, under a closely woven honeysuckle,
"do you think you shall continue satisfied
with your present tranquil enjoyments ? Will
you not miss the occupation of the office '? "
"No, I shall substitute the occupation of
my garden and farm, which are far more
agreeable to me."
1-40 HOME.
" But will you not miss the excitements of
the city '? "
" I think not, Harry. The excitements of
the country are underrated. Here nature is
the kind and healthful minister to the keen
appetite for sensation. The changes of the
seasons, the rising and setting of the sun,
droughts and floods, a good crop, a blight, —
frosts and showers, are all excitements. In the
country the tie of human brotherhood is felt
through the circle, the social electric chain is
bound so closely that the vibration of every
touch is felt. We not only sympathize with
the great joys and sorrows of our neighbors,
but in all the little circumstances that make
up life. The whole village was alive this
afternoon with the running away of Allen's
horse ; and when they heard that the widow
Ray's boy, Sam, had been thrown from the
cart and injured, what sympathy was mani-
fested ! what running to and from the widow's !
what profferings of aid, advice, and consola-
tion ! The wreck of an omnibus in Broadway
would not have caused half so much commo-
tion. The children were as much excited by
their berrying frolic yesterday, as they would
have been by a visit to Scudder's Museum ;
and they are as eager to see Deacon Bennett's
twin lambs, as they would be to see a Chinese,
or a mysterious or invisible lady."
GOING HOME TO GREEN-BROOK. 141
"Oh! I do not doubt, sir, that children may
find excitement any where; but I speak of your-
self an 1 Mrs. Barclay."
â– â– Ah, Harry, it is a sad mistake that some
people, even at our time of lite, make, to
depend on events for excitement. How can
we want for excitement in our brief lives,
while there is BO much knowledge to be gained
and so much good to be done ? We have
not here the abject poverty and brutish igno-
rance that exist among the foreigners in the
city, but 'the poor we have always with USj'
the poor, whose condition may be raised; the
sick, whose sufferings may he alleviated; the
ignorant, who may be instructed; the idle and
vicious, who maybe reclaimed. The excite-
ment must be within ourselves, in a respect for
out species, in a deep, inexhaustible love for
them."
"I ought to have known better," >aid
Harry, ''than to ask you such an idle question,
after living with you eight years. I see but
one deficiency here ; you will miss the society
of town."
- Xo, Harry, I think not. I confess that in
this matter of society, I have been somewhat
disappointed. There has not been so rapid
an improvement as I expected ; but we must
have patience. It takes time to change the
142 HOME.
forms of society ; to give a new direction to a
current that has been wearing into its chan-
nel for centuries. Distinctions in our city are
favored by great disparities of fortune, and
cherished perhaps equally by the pride, arro-
gance, and little vanities of the exclusives, and
the servile imitations, the eager striving, the
want of real independence and self-respect in
the second class. You know, Harry, that I
have no fanciful expectations of a perfect
equality, a dead level; this can only exist
among such savages as the Hottentots. But I
believe the time will come, — not in my day,
perhaps not in yours, — but it will come, as
soon as the social spirit of the Christian religion
is understood, when society will only be an ex-
tension of the intercourse of home, when we
shall meet together for intellectual intercourse,
for the generous exchange of knowledge and
of all the charities of social life. Then the
just and full influence of mind and heart will
be felt on society, and then out religious
emotions and affections will no longer be kept
for the closet and the church. But to realize
those social benefits which our religion has
yet in store for us, we must first realize that
we have a common nature and destiny. I
have made a harangue, instead of giving a
plain answer to your question, whether I
GOING HOME TO GREENBROOK. 143
should not miss the society of town. You
know that what is called society there, was
inaccessible to me.. While I was an actual
printer with a moderate fortune, I was with-
out the barriers. The mechanics in the city
are unfortunately too much absorbed in their
occupations to care for the pleasures of socii
or to prepare their children for it. We had,
you know, a few valuable friends with whom'
we lived on terms of intimacy; but our inter-
course was very limited, and we did not es-
cape the reproach of being unsocial. Now, in
Greenbrook, society — you smile, Harry, but
T do not mean society in the conventional
sense— approaches my standard. The intrin-
sic claims of each individual are known and
admitted. Whether a man be lawyer, farmer,
«»•• mechanic, matters not, if he be* intelligent
••"id respectable. Mr. Barlow, one of the
most eminent lawyers in the state, , Iocs not
esteem my family one grade below his, and I
em no man's below mine provided" —
" Ah, there is a provided then, sir ?"
'•Stop, my dear fellow, hear me out,— pro-
vided my neighbor is a man of good morals,
that he has knowledge and is willing to impart
it, or, being ignorant, that he wishes to be en-
lightened ; and provided he does not offend
against the usages of civilized society."
144 home.
" But is there not a barrier in what you call
the usages of civilized society, that m ill be
effectual against some of your rough neigh-
bors ? "
" I think not. They lack some refinements
and graces, but these are not essential ; and if
they never learn, their children will be very apt
to do so, from a good example among their
contemporaries. City families that remove into
the country, so far from endeavoring to bene-
fit their country neighbors by communicating
any real refinements, alarm their pride by arti-
ficial manners, and by keeping up the modes
of town life. "We shall not be apt to do this.
Mrs. Barclay arranges our domestic matters
with such plainness and simplicity, that there
is nothing appalling to our country neighbors ;
and as to my girls, if they should give them-
selves any city airs, I will dump them in
Greenwich street again ; and let Miss Alice
show off her style in the establishment offered
by her rich lover."
"Father!— pray" —
" I beg your pardon, my dear girl. I thought
Harry knew before this time to whom and to
what you had preferred him."
" He knows," replied Alice blushing, " that
I prefer him to all the world."
"That is quite enough, Alice, and you shall
GOING HOME TO GREENBROOK. 145
tell or not tell particulars, as you like. But
come, Harry, adjourn your whisperings to
Alice, and hear me out. You know I have a
notion that wherever we are placed in life,
ther we have a mission. 1 do not mean to
assume the invidious character of a reformer,
in Greenbrook. No, hut I mean to be a fellow-
worker with my good friends and neighbors
hen Many things they know better than I;
I some, better than they. All society should
he a school of mutual instruction, and in this
school much is effected by the silent and
gentle force of example. I hope to do some-
thing in this way towards elevating the pur-
suits of my Greenbrook friends. We may
perhaps teach them that more than they have
thought of may be done in a well-regulated
home."
k ' Yes, sir, and they might imitate you, if
there were more Mr. and Mrs. Barclays in the
world."
"Ah, Harry, it is not the superior capacity
that accomplishes most, but setting out with a
firm purpose to attain a certain object. Your
mother, Alice, began lite with a determination
to make a happy home. As she is not present,
I may say of her what she would not permit
me to say, if she were here."
" Oh, let me speak of her, sir," interrupted
Harry Norton. 10
146 HOME.
" Let me speak of her," said the modest
Emily.
" Oh, I guess we all love to speak of mother,
if speaking means praising," cried little Effie.
Grandmamma's tremulous voice hushed all
others. " l Her children arise up and call her
blessed,' " she said ; " ' her husband also, and
he praiseth her.' "
" Yes, ma'am," said Harry ; " that, and every
other verse in Scripture that describes a vir-
tuous woman, might be applied to her ; and
those who have not the natural rights of
children might rise up too and call her blessed,
— those on whom she has bestowed a mother's
care and tenderness. And what, that woman
should do, has she left undone ? How faith-
.fully she has performed all the duties of her
lot , how generously undertaken those that
were not imposed on her! What sense she
has manifested, what beautiful order and neat-
ness in her domestic economy ; and in a higher
moral economy, how she excels all others. How
she sees and foresees, provides against all wants,
avoids irritations and jealousies, economizes
happiness, saving those little odds and ends that
others waste ! How she employs the faculties of
all, brings the virtue of each into operation, and,
if she cannot cure, shelters faults ! She shows
each in the best light, and is herself the light
that shines on all, — the sun of her home."
CROSS-PURPOSES. 147
"Do not flatter, Harry," said Mr. Barclay,
in a voice, however, which proved that he felt
this was no Mattery.
"Oh, Mr. Barclay," said Emily, "we must
sometimes speak out our hearts, or they would
burst ! "
" It is testimony, not flattery," added Harry.
CHAPTER XII.
C'ROSS-PUIIPO-
"Tho worst fault you have, is to l>o in love."
A letter was one morning brought to Mrs.
Barclay, while she was Bitting amidst her fam-
ily. She read it twice over, and then without
speaking laid it on the table. "No bad news,
[ hope, mother?" said Alice, inquiringly.
"It ought to be good news. Alice, and yet I
am afraid we shall all feel as if it were very
bad."
Mis. Barclay took up the letter, and read it
aloud. It proved to be an application from a
Carolinian lady, to whom Emily had been
recommended as a governess. There were
three young children to be instructed, and
very generous terms were offered. Mrs. Bar-
clay made no comments.
148
HOME.
"I am sure I ought to be very glad and
thankful," said Emily, in a voice that indi-
cated how far I ought was from I am.
" Glad and thankful," echoed Alice, « for an
opportunity to leave us, just as we have all
come to be so happy here ! No indeed, Emily,
you shall not leave us now."
"Now nor ever," thought Wallace, "if I-
can prevent it." He looked eagerly towards
his mother, in the hope she would put in a
discouraging word ; but she did not speak, and
he ventured to say, " It is very little in the
lady's favor, that she asks Emily to go to the
South at this season."
" That is quite conclusive against the project,
mother," said Charles.
"Neither you nor Charles, Wallace," replied
their mother, "seems to have noticed that the
lady states her residence to be a very healthy
one, on a plantation."
The young men had received but one impres-
sion from the letter. The word plantation
struck on Effie's ear. "What, mother," she
exclaimed, " let Emily go and live where there
are slaves! Oh, no, that we will all vote
against ; won't you, Alice ? and you ? and you ? "
she continued, addressing each person in the
room.
The vote was unanimous till she came to her
CROSS-PURPOSES.
149
mother, who said, « I am afraid we should
always find some good reason against Emily a
Leaving us."
« And why need she ever have us, mother ?
Why not stay and teach us?"
•• 1 have already taught yon, dear Effie, all I
know."
"Ah, but now we are at Greenbrook, yoy
can have a new scholar."
"Who, Effie?" asked Emily, little awar%
of the toils into which she was foiling.
"Charl.
" And what in the world can I teac.
Charles
- What you have taught all the rz*\ of US, -
what you teach best, — and without seeming
to try, too."
" And what can that be, Eflie ? "
The little girl threw her arms round Emily's
neck, and, looking fondly in her lace, replied,
" To love yon.''
Wallace was standing by the window, appar-
ently absorbed in playing with a pet Bquirrel
which Charles had tamed for Emily. His eye
involuntarily turned towards her, and encoun-
tered hers. A blush suffused her cheek. Wal-
lace flung the squirrel from him. "Did Bob
bite voir? " asked Eftie, observing the sudden
change of her brother's countenance.
150 HOME.
"Yes, — no, no," he replied, and hurried out
of the room in no very tranquil frame of mind.
He went he knew not where, and did he knew
not what, till Alice ran down the steps of the
piazza exclaiming, « Wallace ! Wallace ! don't
break off those carnations ; don't you see how
nicely Emily has shaded them from the sun to
preserve them as long as possible? Oh, what
a pity you have broken this off! Charles has
taken such pains to have it as fine as possible
for Emily."
"For Emily?"
There was a world of meaning in this con-
cise inquiry, but Alice did not comprehend it.
"Yes, for Emily. What is there strange in
that? Emily is very fond of carnations."
The impetuosity which had appeared in out-
creakings of temper in Wallace's childhood,
was now manifest in decision, energy, and
ardent affections. Natural qualities may be
modified by moral education, not extirpated ;
— the stream will flow, its course may be
directed. "Come with me down this walk,
Alice," said her brother ; "I have something
to ask you, and you must answer me frankly."
His voice became tremulous, but he proceeded :
"Alice, you girls have a way of finding out one
another's feelings ; — I do not ask you to be-
tray confidence, but you may have observed
CR088-PURP08E8. 151
something, — there may have been some acci-
dental betrayal, — tell me at once, Alice."
"Tell you what, Wallace ?"
"You certainly understand me."
" Indeed I do not."'
" Then in plain English, do you think Emily "
— he stammered, but in plain English it
must be spoken, and he proceeded, "has any
partiality for Charles?"
" Wallace!" exclaimed Alice, on whom the
truth now for the first time glimmered.
"Answer me truly, my dear sister; all I
wanl is, to know the truth."
"Why, — it is difficult to judge of Emy 3 Bhe
has a way of always laughing about such mat-
ters. She is not in the least sentimental, you
know.
"Not foolishly sentimental, but she has
strong feelings."
"Very strong."
"Then if she lias a preference, I am sure she
must at some time have betrayed it."
"Not of course, Wallace. I am sure your
feelings are strong enough, and yet I never
suspected" —
"There were reasons for that; but girls are
always confidential. Come, Alice, do put me
out of misery."
« If I could, Wallace."
152 HOME.
" Then you do think she loves Charles ? "
" Yes, I think she cares more for him than
for any one else."
" I don't believe it ! " The exclamation was
involuntary. Wallace was ashamed : he tried
to keep down his rising heart. "I beg your
pardon, Alice," he said : « but — I may have
been dreaming ; what indications have you ob-
served ? "
" When we are together, she talks ten times
as much of Charles, as you." — "That is no
proof," thought Wallace. — « When he was at
Greenbrook and we in town," continued Alice,
" Ave agreed to write to him alternately ; her let-
ter was always ready in time, filled and crossed,
and often she wrote in my turn. Charles used
to say it was like being at home to get one of
her letters. To be sure there was nothing
particular in them ; they were such as a sister
might write."
Wallace thought over the only two letters
he had ever received from Emily. Snatches
of letters they were, rambling and indefinite ;
but he thought they were not such as a sister
would write, and he felt a painful sort of tri-
umph in thinking they were not. " A little
circumstance occurred not long ago," continued
Alice, " that, as I thought, let me into the real
state of Emily's feelings. The evening Harry
CROSS-PURPOSES.
153
and I made our engagement, we were walking
on the Battery all the evening. The family
believed I had been walking with Charles,
and I did not feel like undeceiving them; but
when I went to our room with Emily, it
seemed as if my heart would burst if I did not
speak. I threw my arms around her neck,
and called her my future sister. She mi-
understood me ; I felt her tears on my cheek,
and she said something about my being too
good, and Charles too good, and all that J so I
was forced to relieve her embarrassment, and
tell plainly my meaning. I believed she had
only anticipateda little, for I was sure Charles
loved her; are you not, Wallace?"
"Yes, Alice, too sure; but I have been
strangely blind, — it never occurred to me till
within the last two hours. I am not equally
sure that "— Emily loves him, he would have
added; but he could not communicate the rea-
sons of his long-cherished opinions, or rather
hopes, on the subject of Emily's affections, and
he abruptly turned away ami left his sister to
solitary and painful reflection. "Poor Wal-
lace! "she thought, " it would have been far
easier for Charles to have gotten over it;
his feelings are so much more gentle and
manageable."
Hour after hour pasted away while Wallace
154
HOME.
unconsciously wandered along the river's bank
revolving the past, balancing every trifling
circumstance to which love, and hope, and
fear gave weight, and painfully meditating on
the future, — on what he could do and what
he ought to do ; the ought soon becomes the
could in a virtuous mind.
Circumstances had led the brothers very
innocently into the indulgence of these jarring
hopes. Nothing was more natural, than that
an intimate intercourse with a girl very lovely
in person and character, and attractive iii
manners, should excite their affections, and
that affection in the boy should ripen into love
in the man. It was not so natural that each
should indulge his own hopes, form his own
plans, and never suspect the sentiments of
his brother. For the last half dozen years,
Charles had been for nine months of every
year at Greenbrook, and when the brothers
were together, they found the frank and affec-
tionate intercourse of the family a safe and
convenient shelter for their private feelings.
Neither of them had for a long time had a dis-
tinct purpose, or been himself aware of the exist-
ence of an all-controlling sentiment. But, for a
few months past, they had been waiting for the
moment when their affairs should wan-ant the
disclosure of their attachment, or any crisis
CE06S-PUKP0SES. 155
(on the brink of which lovers always seem to
themselves to be) should render it inevitable.
In the mean time, Emily's entrance on her
vocation of teacher had been, on some pretext,
deferred from spring to fall, ami from fill to
spring. The truth was, none of the family
could bear to part with her, ami even Mr. and
Mrs. Barclay were tor once betrayed into the
delay of a most excellent plan in favor of a
present indulgence.
Wallace passed a sleepless night, the first in
his healthy and happy life. It was not profit-
less; for, during the silent watches, he firmly
resolved upon an immediate and frank disclos-
ure to Charles. This he believed would pre-
vent, as fir as it was possible to prevent them,
all future regrets and anhappiness. He could
not bear to risk for a moment, that the har-
mony and sweet affections, which had made
their home a heaven, should give place to sus-
picion, secret jealousy, selfish competition, and
possible hatred. "No," he said; "lie who
has commanded us to pluck out an eye if it
offend us, will enable me or Charles to root
out an affection which we have both innocently,
though one of us blindly, cherished."
Wallace was (what all are not) true 1<> the
resolution formed in solitude; and early the
next day he sought an interview with
150 HOME.
Charles. At first it was embarrassed and pain-
ful. Charles's delicate and somewhat reserved
nature was shocked by having the secret he had
so long cherished, known and canvassed. But
by degrees the hearts of both were opened.
Their mutual confidence called forth all the
vigor of their mutual affections. The noblest
powers of their nature were roused ; and such
was the glow of fraternal love, that each felt
that success with Emily would be almost as
hard to bear as failure. Emily's preference
must of course decide the matter, and the
sooner that decision was known, they felt to
be the better. Charles proposed that the whole
affair should be confided to their mother, and
that she should ascertain for them which way
Emily's heart leaned. Wallace was disinclined
to this. He had always thought he would have
no medium, not even his mother in an affair
of this sort. "If denial comes, it does not,
Charles, matter how ; but if acceptance, I would
first know it from Emily's eye and lips."
The sensation that darted through Charles's
bosom at this expression of Wallace, made
him realize the precipice on which they stood,
and stimulated his desire to have his fate de-
cided at once. He again urged the mode he
had suggested. " Let Emily," he said, " know
the happiness she bestows, but never the pain
CROS - IM BPOSES. 157
ahe inflicts. If I am to be her brother, Wal-
lace, I would not for worlds that the frank
affection she lias shown me" ("ah, how mis-
interpreted I" he thought), "should be with-
drawn, or shackled with reserve, — a sour*
suffering to us both, to us all."
Wallace at length acquiesced, and felt and
said that Charles was always more considerate,
more generous than he. The brothers parted,
and Charles hastened with his painful confi-
dence to his mother. The mother, always
ready to hear her part in the hope and fears,
success and disappointments, of her children,
received his communication with tears of Bym-
pathy. But over every other feeling, — regret
thai the catastrophe had not been foreseen and
avoided, anxiety for the future, and perplexity
with the present, — the holy joy of the Chris-
tian mother triumphed ; and from the depths
of her heart arose a silent, fervent thanksgiving,
that the religious principle of her sons had
swayed their affections and been victorious
over the temptations of the mosl subtile of
the human passions.
The application of the southern lady was
the theme on which Mrs. Barclay began her
soundings of Emily; but how she discharged her
delicate office, need not be told. A woman's
management on such occasions is so marked by
^
m
HOME.
the adroitness and sagacity manifested by the
lower orders of creation, that we might call it
by the name we give to the inspiration of the
bee and the bird, and say that one woman in-
stinctively finds the clew that leads through
the labyrinth of another's heart.
When Charles again met his mother, he read
his fate in her face. " It is as I expected," she
said ; " Emily herself asks ' how it could be
otherwise.' "
" Mother ! you did not tell her that I " —
" Xo, no, my son, she does not suspect the
nature of your feelings ; but, as I was going
to tell you, she said, amid the blushes and tears
of her confession, that *he feared it was very
wrong, received as she had been into the family,
to indulge such an affection for Wallace ; but
she could not help it. If he had gone away,
as you did, she should have loved him as she
does you and her brother Harry; but to be
with him every day, and every clay find him
more and more " —
" You need not check yourself, mother ; I
can bear to hear why she loves Wallace."
Mrs. Barclay was proceeding : Charles
again interrupted her. " Never mind, dear
mother; some other time I will hear the
rest ; " and he left her to still in solitude the
throbbings of his heart. Something must be
CROSS-PURPOSES. 159
allowed to human infirmity. Charles had for-
tunately a pretext of business, and in a few
hours, without again seeing his brother or
Emily, he was on his way to a distant part
of the state.
Those hours which should have been the
happiest of Wallace's life were clouded; but
the clouds which are fraught with generous
consideration for another are better than sun-
shine. It is good to have the joy of success