The Old Homestead.

by Ann S. Stephens.

AUTHOR OF "FASHION AND FAMINE," "THE REIGNING BELLE," "THE GOLD BRICK," "MABEL'S MISTAKE," "THE WIFE'S SECRET," "BELLEHOOD AND BONDAGE," "LORD HOPE'S CHOICE," "BERTHA'S ENGAGEMENT," "THE CURSE OF GOLD," "NORSTON'S REST," "A n.o.bLE WOMAN," "THE SOLDIER'S ORPHANS,"

"THE HEIRESS," "MARRIED IN HASTE," "PALACES AND PRISONS," "DOUBLY FALSE," "MARY DERWENT," "THE REJECTED WIFE," "RUBY GRAY'S STRATEGY,"

"THE OLD COUNTESS," "SILENT STRUGGLES," "WIVES AND WIDOWS," ETC.

"THE OLD HOMESTEAD" is a superb story of quaint New England farm life in the vein now so popular both in fiction and on the stage. With an absorbing plot, effective incidents and characters entirely true to nature, it holds attention as very few stories do. It possesses all that powerful attraction which clings to a romance of home, the family fireside and the people who gather about it. Simplicity and strength are happily combined in its pages, and no one can begin it without desiring to read it through. All the works of Mrs. Ann S.

Stephens are books that everybody should read, for in point of real merit, wonderful ingenuity and absorbing interest they loom far above the majority of the books of the day. She has a thorough knowledge of human nature, and so vividly drawn and natural are her characters that they seem instinct with life. Her plots are models of construction, and she excels in depicting young lovers, their trials, troubles, sorrows and joys, while her love scenes fascinate the young as well as the old. In short, Mrs. Stephens' novels richly merit both their vast renown and immense popularity, and they should find a place in every house and in every library.

CHAPTER I.

THE FATHER'S RETURN.

She kneels beside the pauper bed, As seraphs bow while they adore!

Advance with still and reverent tread, For angels have gone in before!

"I wonder, oh, I wonder if he will come?"

The voice which uttered these words was so anxious, so pathetic with deep feeling, that you would have loved the poor child, whose heart gave them forth, plain and miserable as she was. Yet a more helpless creature, or a more desolate home could not well be imagined. She was very small, even for her age. Her little sharp features had no freshness in them; her lips were thin; her eyes not only heavy, but full of dull anguish, which gave you an idea of settled pain, both of soul and body, for no mere physical suffering ever gave that depth of expression to the eyes of a child.

But all was of a piece, the garret, and the child that inhabited it.

The attic, which was more especially her home, was crowded under the low roof of a tenant house, which sloped down so far in front, that even the child could not stand upright under it, except where it was perforated with a small attic window, which overlooked the chimneys and gables of other tenement buildings, hived full of poverty, and swarming with the dregs of city life.

This was the prospect on one side. On the other a door with one hinge broken, led into a low open garret, where smoke-dried rafters slanted grimly over head, like the ribs of some mammoth skeleton, and loose boards, whose nails had rusted out, creaked and groaned under foot.

They made audible sounds even beneath the shadowy tread of the little girl, as she glided toward the top of a stair-case unrailed and out in the floor like the mouth of a well. Here she sat down, supporting her head with one hand, in an att.i.tude of touching despondency.

"I wonder oh, I wonder, if he will come!" she repeated, looking mournfully downward.

It was a dreary view, those flights of broken stairs, slippery and sodden with the water daily carried over them. They led by other tenement rooms, which sent forth a confusion of mingled voices, but opened with a glimpse of pure light upon the street below.

But for this gleam of light, breaking as it were, like a smile through the repulsive vista, Mary Fuller might have given up in absolute despair, for she was an imaginative child, and glimpses of light like that came like an inspiration to her.

After all, what was it that kept the child chained for an hour to one spot, gazing so earnestly down toward the opening? Did she expect any one?

No, it could not be called expectation, but something more beautiful still--FAITH.

Most persons would call it presentiment; but presentiment is not the growth of prayer, or the conviction which follows that earnest pleading when the soul is crying for help.

"Suffer little children to come unto me, and forbid them not, for of such is the kingdom of heaven."

Again and again Mary Fuller had read these words, and always to creep upon her knees and ask G.o.d to let her come, for she was scarcely more than a little child.

But even upon her knees the trouble of her soul grew strong. She felt as if the air around whispered--

"But you are not a little child--they have no sins of disobedience to confess--no vengeful thoughts or unkind words to atone for as you have."

And all the evil that had yet taken growth in a soul planted among evil arose before the child, to startle her from claiming the privilege of her childhood.

But though she did not know it, those very feelings were an answer to the unrevealed want that had become clamorous in her soul; it was the promise of a bright revelation yet to come; her heart was being unfolded to the sunshine, leaf by leaf, and G.o.d's angels might have smiled benignly as they watched the development of good in that little soul, amid the depressing atmosphere that surrounded it.

From the day that her poor father left home and went up to the hospital a pauper to die there, these feelings had grown stronger and stronger within the bosom of the child. His words, unheeded at the time, came back to her with power. The pa.s.sages read over so often to a careless ear from his Bible, seemed to have taken music in their remembrance, that haunted her all the time.

She did not know it, but the atmosphere of prayers, unheard save in heaven, was around her. From its pauper bed at Bellevue a strong earnest soul was pleading for that child, and thus G.o.d sent his angel down to trouble the waters of life within her.

As we grow good, a sense of the beautiful always awakens within us; and this became manifest in Mary Fuller. For the first time the squalid misery of her home became a subject of self-reproach, and with a thoughtful cloud upon her brow, she set herself patiently to work drawing out all the scant elements of comfort that the place afforded. Out of this grew a longing for the presence of her father, that he too might enjoy the benefit of her exertion.

Never in her life had she so yearned for a sight of that pale face.

It seemed as if the trouble and darkness in her soul must turn to light when he came. With this intense desire arose a thought that he might return home without warning. The thought grew into hope, and at last strengthened into faith.

Mary Fuller not only believed that her father would come, but she felt sure he would be with her that very night. Thus she sat upon the stairs waiting.

But time wore on, and anxiety made the child restless. She began to doubt--to wonder how she could have expected her father without one word or promise to warrant the hope. That which had been faith an hour before, grew into a sharp anxiety. She folded her arms upon her knees, and burying her face upon them, began to cry.

At last she arose with her eyes full of tears, and walked sadly into the attic room where she sat down looking with sorrow on all the little preparations that she had made. She crept to the window, and clinging with both hands to the sill, lifted herself up to see, by the shadows that lay among the chimneys, and the slanting gold of the sunshine which, thank G.o.d, warms the tenement house and the palace towers alike, how fast the hours wore on.

"Oh, the sun is up yet, and the long chimney's shadow is only half way to the eves," she exclaimed, hopefully, dropping down from the window, while a flush, as of joyful tears, stole around her eyes.

"Is there anything else I can do?" and she looked eagerly around the room.

It had been neatly swept. A fire burned in the little coffee-pot stove that occupied one corner, and the hum of boiling water stole out from a tea-kettle that stood upon it.

"Everything nice and warm as toast--won't he like it--clean sheets upon the bed, and--and--oh, I forgot--it always lay back of his pillow--he mustn't miss it"; and opening a worn Bible that had seen better days, she found a pa.s.sage that cheered her heart like a prophecy, and read it with solemn attention as she walked slowly across the room.

She placed the Bible reverently beneath the single pillow arranged so neatly on the bed, and turned away murmuring--

"At any rate, I will have everything ready."

She opened the drawer of a pine table and looked in. Everything was in order there, and the table itself; she employed another minute in giving its spotless surface an extra polish; then arranged a fragment of carpet before the bed, and sat down to wait again.

It would not do; her poor little heart was getting restless with impatience. She went into the open garret closing the door after her, that no heat might escape, and sat down on the upper flight of stairs again. How she longed to run down--to hang about the door-step, and even go as far as the corner to meet him! But this would be disobedience. How often had he told her never to loiter in the street or about the door? So she sat, stooping downward, and looking through the gleams of light that came through the open hall over flights of steps below, thrilled from head to foot with loving expectation. Half an hour--an hour--and there poor Mary Fuller sat, her heart sinking lower and lower with each moment. At last she arose, went back to her room with a dejected air, and sat down by the stove weary with disappointment.

An old house cat that lay by the stove looked at her gravely, closed her eyes an instant as if for reflection, and leaped into her lap.

Anything--the fall of a straw would have set Mary Fuller to crying then, and she burst into a pa.s.sion of tears, rocking herself back and forth and moaning out--

"He will not come--it is almost dark now--he will not come. Oh, dear, how can I wait--how can I wait!"

As she moaned thus, the cat leaped from her lap and walked into the garret, stood a moment at the head of the stairs, and came back again looking at his little mistress wistfully through the door.

Mary started up. Surely, that was his step! No! there was no firmness in it. Whoever mounted those stairs, moved with a staggering, unsteady walk, like that of a drunken person.

Mary turned very pale and hardly breathed.

"Oh, if it should be mother," she thought, casting a startled look back into the little room, "staggering, too!" and trembling with affright, she stole softly to the top of the stairs and looked down.