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verenced. She sat evidently weary, but with a slight smile of exquisite enjoyment; and it burst upon me more strongly even than before, that her inspiration must arise from some full and rich source of ecstacy far beyond all that skill or physical endowment could supply. O!' I thought, that I could sing like her! that I could experience her inward spring of rapture and harmony!' The next moment I blamed my own folly, and felt that this was mean and jealous envy. It flashed across me as something horrible, that, after such abundant and pure delight, I could so soon sink into this wretchedness, and a sharp pang of self-reproach shot through me. I remember that I pressed my hand strongly against my heart, for I completely crushed the little nosegay of lovely flowers which I was wearing. The music and the dancing now again began, and looking up for a moment in sad perplexity, I saw before me a spectacle which altered the whole current of my thoughts. It was a picture of the Saviour by one of the great Italian masters, I think of the Lombard school, and probably Luini. By whomsoever painted, it was so grave, so loving, so awful-but I cannot de. scribe it. For some minutes I had no notion where I was, and sat with my

face turned up towards the canvass, as if I expected to hear it speak. And speak to me indeed it did, though not with audible sounds; for there whispered in my heart words which I had heard and read a hundred times, and learned by rote, without ever reflecting on them. Indeed, perhaps, this mechanical familiarity had deadened their meaning for me. The words were

Be of good cheer! I have overcome the world.'—I remember nothing more that evening, but that in the carriage, on my way home with my aunt, my eyes filled with tears, and my maid remarked the next morning that the front of my dress was stained as if I had been weeping profusely. Thus began a new period of my life, which I do not believe will ever end, not even with earthly life itself."

Collins answered nothing; but when he said he must take leave of her, and go, there was an expression of strong feeling in his face, which could not be mistaken. They had been walking up and down the wood during their whole conversation. It was now the depth of evening. Maria accompanied him to the gate of the enclosure, and they parted as friends for whom an hour had been in place of years of mutual sympathy.

CHAPTER V.

The next day Collins went, in pursuance of his promise, to see the poor basketmaker of whom Maria had spoken, and who was commonly known in the neighbourhood by the name of Jack Fowler. His dwelling was a small hut rather than cottage, close to the road-side. Before his new visitor reached it he heard a rough and cracked voice singing vigorously

"Merry be we from morn till night, Merry be we, merry be we. We old fellows, in dark or light, But ask the young to let us be." Then, when Collins was already close at hand, the tune was changed, and he caught the words—

"The boy he never stops
In the whipping of his tops,
And the men whip each his neighbour;
But in wiser age we lay

Our idle whips away,

And sleep like the tops without labour."

The structure from which these sounds came appeared about ten feet square, and through the open door and window was seen the room which filled this space, and which was partly occupied by a ladder-stair leading to the floor above. Facing the door a man was seated on a bench, and engaged in weaving a basket. He looked up cheerfully as Collins stood before him, and said-" Good morning! good morning! Ah! Mr Collins come to see poor Jack Fowler! Well, you are kindly welcome. They do say you know more about bees than any man in these parts. Take a seat, sir, here on the bench-here's room enough."

Collins sat down and looked more closely at him. Jack Fowler probably considered himself past the middle age, being apparently about seventy-five. He also seemed to be in somewhat reduced circumstances,

for his principal garment, perhaps in some forgotten period a waggoner's frock, exhibited several holes, some of them repaired by patches, and some still unsophisticated and gaping. His person bore the traces of similar and probably more ancient injury, for it had been shorn of a leg, and had received as a substitute only a wooden member, resembling the original in little else than length, as to which the modern supporter had perhaps the advantage over the preceding one. The right hand had apparently lost the use of two of its fingers, for which it had found no remedy but in the dexterity of the others. The bust which crowned this antique trunk was of higher interest, for under the trenched and expansive forehead appeared a face of arch shrewdness and irresistible goodhumour. The fine blue eyes were still bright, the cheek healthily ruddy, and the sunken mouth wore a most gladdening smile. The old man had beside and behind him the osiers which were the materials of his trade, and two or three baskets. The one he was at work on lay before him, and on a three-legged stool, close to his knee, sat, with professorial gravity, a black cat. While he spoke to his visitor he continued to ply his work, and broke out every now and then with some light-hearted stanza.

"How do you get on?" said Collins.

"Oh, very well, sir, thank you. I make it a rule to get on well. Never got on ill in my life, except when the waggon went over my leg, and before the doctor came to cut it off, and set me all to rights again. I have never wanted a stocking for that leg since; and only think what a saving that is. Aye, aye, Mr Collins-all for the best.

the trouble of being a gentleman, with all the wearisomeness of a fortune to spend. Great blessing that. Don't you think so, sir?"

"Why, it seems to have been so to you. But every man has not your basketfull of heartiness, and if one wants that, I think a purse full of gold no bad help."

"So many think. I fancied so myself for five minutes once, and then before one could twist an ozier, I saw what a big fool I was. Perhaps, too, you think I had better be young than old. But if you do, I can tell you it is a thumping mistake, for I should have all the work to do over again. I'd as soon have the waggon go over my leg again, just for fun. "O! for the days when I was young! When I thought that I should ne'er be

old,

When the songs came a-bubbling off my tongue,

And the girl that heard the ballad I sung, Never thought if my pocket held copper

or gold;

O! for the days when I was young!
"And yet in the days when I was young,
In the days that now I remember well,
Hot words like sparks around I flung,
And snatching at honey I often was stung,
And what I have lost its hard to tell;
So I had rather be old than young."

"All the old men I know," said Collins, "but you, would be young if they could, and none of the young would be old. So you see most men are not of your way of thinking."

"So much the worse for them. I have tried both ends of life, and I like the last best. And what's more, I am sure so would every body who made the most of what he has. I was a fool when I was young, and I did not know it, so I thought myself ill-treated. I am a fool now, but I do know it, and so I am content."

"It is a queer thing to be content

"Bald is my head, so it wears no lock For age or care to take hold of, And my forehead's a door where grief ed with." may knock,

But as well might he rap on the front of a rock,

For I am not the man he was told of."

"Basket-making," said Collins, seems a merry sort of trade, to judge from you."

"Aye, sir, it is a merry trade enough, like most others I know of, for those that have merry hearts. And mine has never been heavy, since I first found I was not going to have

"Not so queer maybe as you think. Burn those oziers! they're as brittle as glass. All the wise men I have ever seen, and half a dozen have fallen in my way, one how or other, who were thought special wise in their own parishes; all of them who fancied themselves wise, have fancied too, that the world was not good enough for them, and have despised the greater number of men; those, you know, with the rough dirt upon them, but right

good ones many of them, nevertheless. ful when I don't feel it.
These wise men, I say, have always
supposed every thing, and everybody
too coarse for them. I never saw one
of them look right out, straight up,
happy and merry. Now, it all seems
too good for me, and so I should be a
beast if I were not contented; just as
the donkey that got into the hot-house
the other day, and ate up all those fine
flowers and plants, and things, would
have been a wonderful big jackass if
it had not been satisfied, and had
wanted a thistle."

"Your receipt for happiness must be a curious and precious one; I should much like to know it."

"Bless you, I have no receipt, no more than our old women have a receipt for making flour-dumpling! They do it quite naturally. And, the same way, I am as happy as can be, except when I have the rheumatism in my leg; and then I'm thankful that I'm not like to have it in the wooden one, and that, by death or some way, most likely, it won't last for ever."

"Have you no fear of death?" "Fear! No. I'm afraid of nothing I know of, but a lady who once came to see me, and sat on that stool where Pussy is, and talked for five hours without stopping, all about her sympathy-whatever that is-with the poor, and something that she called the poetry of basket-making, and a deal more. I'm told she is gone out of the country, so I suppose too much tonguiness is made transportation now-it used to be only ducking. But even when she was here I kept on making a basket, and sung a song or two while she talked. No fear of interrupting her, you know; you might as well think to stop a windmill by whistling to it. So I could sing on quite comfortable, and not cut my

manners too short either.

"Those with too much cash to think of,
May the cares of life lament;
Give me but a spring to drink of,
Bread and breath, and I'm content.
"While I feel that I am living,

Death's a fool to look so grim;
All who wish me dead forgiving,

When he comes I'll sing to him." "Have you really no fear," asked Collins," of what may happen to you hereafter?"

"No; I cannot honestly say that I have, and I'm too old to speak bash

To be sure

I once took an osier, and said to myself, Now, I'll cut a notch on this for every sin I can remember in all my life.' I began going through the job from the time I was a baby, and a pretty lot of notches I soon had, and some of them terrible deep ones, too, that very nigh cut the twig right through. When I had done with it I took another, and another, till at last I had five osiers, and nigh five hundred notches,-for I told them off quite regular, a hundred on each. And when I got the five all in my hands, so-nice likely switches they were, too, before I had hacked them in that cruel sort of way-I said to myself,

Well, here are the rods to give my conscience a drubbing, at all events.' Then I fell a-thinking and a-pondering what would come of it all, and at last I settled it all off as neat as a lady's work-basket. So I took and shoved the osiers into the fire; and though they were too green to burn well, I got them all burned to ashes at last, and then I was a deal easier."

"An ingenious way of burning up your offences, at all events," said Collins.

"Not at all-by no means. You're on a wrong scent there. "The greyhound, for all he looks so fine, Has no more nose than this donkey of

mine.

But I began That wasn't it at all. Said I to myto see it in this way. self,- Here's a pretty baddish lot of But things against me, to be sure. then I don't know what kind of tally other folk might have to show if they worked as many hours as I did, and cut as clean notches.' Nay, I have a pretty good guess that there are some sullen, hard sort of men, I have seen

in my time, that would be a deal worse off than I; for my notion is, that I'm no worse than most, and better than some. That's no help, you'll say. Right-very true-none in the world. For I must be judged not by this man or t'other man, but by what I knew and might have done myself, if I had been so minded. And I don't believe, in my own mind, there's one that would have much to boast of, no, not Miss Maria Lascelles, that's as like what they say of angels as any one I know. If so be, then, that we are all of us what we are, that

we have none of us any right to boast, and must all be brought to nothing if we were served right, then, I want to know, is the whole world to be swept clean away and destroyed? and, if so, why was it made at all? Thinks I, that's not my way of doing with my baskets. It is a bad workman that finds his work good for nothing when all's done, and must break it all up again. So I'm pretty certain there must be some help somewhere, if one could only find it out. Then, all of a sudden, like a flash of lightning, there came into my head all the stories I had ever heard about Jesus Christ. That silenced and steadied me all that day. I got a little boy from the school to come and read me a bit of the Bible in the evening; and then I woke up once or twice in the night and thought about it, and then I saw the whole thing as clear as daylight. I have known ever since, as sure as possible, that God never meant me to be entirely done away with because of my sins, or he would not have sent any one into the world to save me. And ever since that time, which is a good while ago, I dare say a matter of thirty years or more, I have never set to work upon the tallies again or troubled my head about them, though I know well enough that I should not make any more such deep notches if I began to cut again now. But osiers, you see, are dear, and I want them for my baskets, so I don't try. Ever since I've been as gay as a lark. Many a time, when I have seen people pulling long faces about death, I have said to

myself Well, I'm not clear that I would give an osier-chip to save myself dying any night of the year, only I should like to finish a basket when once I begin it.' Often and often I think I would give a trifle to wake up some morning in another world, and see what we shall look like there-and whether I shall have my old leg again, or must make wings do instead."

Collins soon took leave of him. He afterwards discovered from others that the old man had experienced a life of misfortune; had lost wife and children and his little property in comparatively early life, and that he had now for many years worked at his trade without obtaining from it enough to supply the scantiest wants, the deficiency being made up chiefly by the charity of some neighbouring families. He was said to have preserved through life the same kindly cheerfulness which rendered him in Collins's eyes the very archetype of a happy temperament.

"Well," said the recluse to himself, with a deep sigh, "I do not envy him. His poverty-stricken contentment in such circumstances is mean and slavish; and it is sad to see a rational being so satisfied with such a state of ignorance. Ignorance, indeed, is what the wisest must put up with. Let us prize, however, what largeness of existence and fulness of knowledge we can attain to-and, comparing this lot with that of others, of such as the basketmaker, therein rejoice."

But while he thus reflected, his look and bearing were far from indicating perfect comfort and serenity.

CHAPTER VI.

On the following morning a packet was brought to Collins, which, as he very seldom received any communication, seemed to him an important oecurrence. He looked for some time at the outside with surprise, but could guess nothing from this. On opening it, even before he had read a word, he was much moved. The handwriting of the first letter he came to was that of a woman of whom he had seen nothing and heard little for ten years. She was the siren of whom he had spoken to Maria, from whose charms he had escaped with the help of the advice of Mrs Lascelles. The handwriting was, in general, of the same

beautiful and bold character which he so well remembered, but had become rather weaker and less steady. The contents were to this effect:

"You will be much surprised at hearing from me, but not more than I should have been till lately, had any one proposed to me to write to you. I have never, indeed, ceased to feel for you warmly; but I knew that you had deliberately avoided me. Nay, I owned to myself that you were right in doing so. I need not bid you endeavour to recall the days when we saw each other frequently. I have no doubt that you remember them

well. Although we never came to an avowed understanding of each other's hearts, it was a shining glowing time for both when we exchanged passion for passion; when your earnestness and my fancy encountered timidly yet most fondly; and we said to ourselves that this in truth was love, while we dared not say it to one another. That all this was guilt and disgrace to me, that my affection for you was crime against him to whom my fidelity was vowed, I well know. I will not add to my offence by now alleging the excuses which his character, and conduct, and utter indifference towards me, then seemed to furnish; and to which in living apart from me, as entirely for his own gratification he did, he appeared to give almost a publie sanction. True as all this was, I nevertheless knew the right and chose the wrong, and the dwelling on these things as justifications was but a new breach of duty. I may, however, say, that I trust you have never known what it is, in the full strength of emotion and imagination to have no one to love, to see that all the treasures of the soul have been bestowed in vain on one who has no value for them, nay, no conception that they could have a worth, and who finds in the vulgarest pleasures more than a compensation for the devoted faith which he throws away as a cast garment. Such was my state when I knew you. I can still, after so many years and such years!-recall the deep rapture, mingled with trembling self-reproach, and I have sometimes fancied, heightened by it, which filled my breast, when I learned to read in you all I had so vainly hoped for in another. I had no design of captivating you, but your sympathy was dearer to me than the admiration and homage of all the world, and I may now say that I am persuaded I should have given up all to possess it fully. You acted wisely, rightly, heroically, when you left me; and I can more than forgive you, I can thank you, for all the tears and groans you cost me. I then went to the seaside for my health, and lived in a lonely farmhouse away from all my acquaintances. I used to spend hours sitting on the shore thinking of you, and so strong was the impression this period of my life made on me that I have never since been able to hear the

sound of waves without seeing your image before me as you then were

young, buoyant, and enthusiastic, with your kindled cheeks and raven hair falling wildly round your forehead. Your strange but stirring and heartfelt words have always seemed to me mingled inseparably with the murmur of the waters. In happy dreams which renewed my musing youth, for when I knew you I was little more than twenty, I have sometimes believed that we are twin spirits of the ocean, floating with visionary forms beneath the stars, and with airy feet skimming over the white foam.

"But I did not propose to write to you on this subject. My love for you

I now dare call it by its namewhat should I not now dare? has been to me a source of countless, pleasant, and painful thoughts. But the events which have led me now to write to you are of a very different character, and the recollection of them perpetually corrodes me with grief and shame. For some years after we parted I lived in a state of dreary indifference, occupying myself as I could with society, literature, and all the beautiful arts. I had become acquainted with an illustrious musical composer, whose music had a character of strong feeling and sublime imagination, to me peculiarly elevating and delightful. Sometimes I visited the infirm old man, who was almost blind, and could not rise from his chair, yet under the inspiration of his art awoke into divine energy. Isang to him the favourite airs of his own composition, while he touched the piano, and now and then gave me a suggestion or a criticism of memorable felicity. There was a poet also familiar with him, for whose words some of his most perfect melodies had been created. He, too, was in the habit of visiting this harmonious enchanter, who sometimes laid before me a song newly produced by both, and asked me to sing it for him. I willingly did so, and some of these strains were so exquisite, and gave me such high enjoyment, that I probably sang with more force and expression in the dark and narrow room of the old man, with none but him near me, than I ever gave to the most admired of my performances, such as they were, in the midst of crowded and applauding circles. In the musician's study, near

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