CHAPTER VII.

THE DEAD BOY.

MR. HUMPHREYS was sitting in his chamber, one evening, writing busily. All day long, except when he had been out to take his usual exercise, he had been occupied with reading; there was so much to be read, and soʻsmall a beginning had as yet been made. Towards night he seemed to feel the spirit of composition visiting him, as if he must put pen to paper forthwith. And so he sat down to it.

The fire was very pleasant, and threw its yellow blaze into his face, and played along the curtains, and danced merrily with the shadows of the bed curtains on the wall. The scene was a quiet and pleasant one. Brightly glistened the old firedogs, brilliant and brazen, staring into the fire as if they would outgaze the flames. The carpet spread out its agreeable figures in the light, inviting repose, and quieting the thoughts. And the brands snapped; and the coals gleamed, red, and white, and glowing; and the blaze kept dancing with the shadows on the ceiling and on

the wall; and the figures of the carpet grew bright and ruddy by turns, and then faded slowly away into one unrelieved brown; and still the busy pen of the young clergyman kept travelling over the paper, scratch, scratch,

----

while ever and anon he paused and bit its troad

scratch, feather end.

Now and then he glanced at the fire, and looked likewise half round the room. A stray feeling of comfort, and delight, and gratitude might have shot swiftly past his severer thoughts and stolen into his soul. Even within the framework of his meditations, there might, for a moment, - brief enough, perhaps, have risen a sweet picture of a home all his own, a fire blazing like this fire on the hearth, the blaze flickering and flaring just like this blaze, the curtains shutting out the world at the windows, the carpet looking ruddy and cheerful, and one other heart, dear to his own, intwining all his thoughts with its quick and warm sympathies.

But if so he dreamed even for the briefest moment, he instantly shattered the vision into a thousand fragments; for he took the feather of his pen from his mouth, and bent over to the prosecution of his labor again.

For nearly an unbroken hour his busy work went on. Sentence followed sentence, and paragraph succeeded paragraph, till the sheets presented a long array of tasking thoughts, and impressive appeals, and earnest admonitions. He ran his quick eyes backward over it all, from time to time, considering, and weighing, and comparing, till he felt

critically satisfied. He paused to reflect, to gather the impetus for his thought again, and to cast his expression in the proper mould; and then on he went once more with his pen, the same steady scratch, scratch, scratch resounding all through the otherwise silent room.

A step was to be heard upon the chamber stairs. He listened a moment. It came straight to his door. And then a knock.

Opening the door, he found Lucy standing there, light in hand. Her face was pale, and her looks betrayed evident emotion. Mr. Humphreys looked at her for an explanation of her excitement.

"Mrs. Murphy has sent up for you, Mr. Humphreys," said she, "and wishes to know if you cannot come down and see her this evening.

She has been in great distress

for the loss of her boy; and she wants some one to comfort her. They thought she might go crazy with her trouble. It's her only child, you see. Poor woman! I pity her!" The light trembled in Lucy's hand as she narrated the simple but touching story.

"But

"Yes, I'll go directly," said the clergyman. where does she live? I believe I've never seen her, have I?"

"I guess not; but she has been out to meeting pretty constantly, and carried her boy with her always when she went. She's a poor woman, and lives in the little brown house but a short ways on the back road. You turn in just beyond the academy road, and then it's on your right hand. Mrs. Murphy is the name."

"I think I know the house now," replied he. "I have passed it, I recollect now, in my walks that

go over there at once."

way. I will

Lucy withdrew, and the clergyman put aside his papers. His was the duty to visit the sick and comfort the afflicted; yet no more his than the duty of us all. We are but brothers and sisters, and no social differences can break the great family tie asunder. Yet to their pastors do the flock most naturally look for sympathy when earthly sympathies can do little to heal the gaping wounds, for his seems the halm given only of Heaven.

After a quick walk, — for it was a cold evening in December, the frozen ground meeting his feet like a pavement of stone, he arrived at the little brown house, and stopped a moment to take breath before going in. The bereaved woman was an Englishwoman, who had, by some fate or fortune undiscovered as yet by any one, been tossed on the tempestuous ocean of life, and finally drifted into the safe and quiet little haven of Brookboro'. Here she had supported herself with her own hands, devoting all her care and affection to the welfare of this, her only son. He had just grown old enough and large enough to be serviceable to her; and at this age had died.

He knocked, and was admitted by Mrs. Upton, the blacksmith's wife. As he stepped through the small entry and opened the inner door, his eyes fell upon a sight that moved him deeply. There stood the poor woman, holding up her checked apron with her left hand, while with her

right she was gently smoothing down the hair over the white forehead of her dead boy.

"Poor, dear Jamie!" said she aloud; "I didn't think I should ever see this sight; did you, Jamie? It never seemed as if 'twould come to this! O, poor, poor Jamie! Just when you was growin' into your mother's heart so; and you was always such a good boy, and loved me so much, and never made me speak a quick word to you!" She stopped, and carried her apron to her eyes, sobbing bitterly.

And then she fell to caressing his forehead again, passing her hand over it continually.

"O, if I'd only been taken first!" said she; "if I'd only gone before you! But then you'd have been left behind, darlin', and I couldn't have died happy so. No, no, dear boy, I must follow after; and I shall follow soon. There's nothing worth livin' for now! The world's nothin' to me any longer! Poor boy!-if I could only look into your eyes once more, jest a single minute - those blue eyes, so much like your own mother's when could only hear you speak again! darling? Won't you never move Let me kiss them once more, Jamie jest once more, before they take you away from me forever! O, dear, dear heart!-how can I bear to see you put in the cold ground out of my sight, and all so dark, and still, and dead! nobody to come near you any more! nobody to ask you if you are hungry, or cold, or if you want to see your poor,

she was a girl! If I Won't you speak again,

your cold lips again?