From Chambers' Journal. AN APOLOGY FOR HUSBANDS. We do not use this word "apology" in its legitimate sense, as a defence or vindication; we are satisfied with the common meaning assigned to it —that is, an excuse or extenuation of an admitted offence. Husbands, as a general rule, are to blame, there is no doubt of that; only we think there are some small considerations which might be urged in their favor, not by way of exalting, but merely of letting them down easily. The humane idea was long of occurring to us, for one gets so thoroughly accustomed to the condition of affairs in society, that everything seems natural and necessary, and passes on without exciting a thought. But a week or two ago, we had occasion to visit repeatedly a rather large and agreeable family without once chancing to meet with the Offender; and this had the effect of bringing him before our cogitations. Had he been present in the room, he would have passed as a natural and useful piece of furniture, and so have escaped all special survey; but being obstinately absent, we of course turned the bull's-eye of our mind upon him, and had him up. With regard to the family present, it consisted of a wife, one or two children, one or two growing up and a couple of grown-up daughters. All these were busy, from dolls and A B Cs to dress-making and house-keeping. One of the daughters sang and played delightfully; another was an artist of considerable merit for an amateur; and both were adepts at needle-work. They boasted of making all but their best bonnets, and all but their balldresses. The mother was an excellent manager. Under her charge the business of the house went on like clock-work; everything was comfortable, everything agreeable, everything genteel. The boys were at school studying hard and successfully; one intending to be a merchant-prince, another to sit some day on the Woolsack, and the third to be Archbishop of Canterbury. Indeed, they were an exemplary family; and one day when we met the lady in the street, with her two grown-up daughters by her side, and the younger girls walking trippingly behind, all nicely dressed and happylooking, it struck us that there was an expression of pride as well as pleasure in her face, and that she was inwarday, assuming to herself the merit of having made her own position. We did not grudge her the feeling, for her self-satisfaction had been earned; if some such inward reward did not attend good conduct, it would be all the worse for us in this world. was curious to think, that he should be the sun of this social system-that so many individuals should lean supinely upon one, without the slightest idea of mutual support. Yet so it was-and is. Society is composed throughout almost its whole consistence of such circles, each wheeling with more or less harmony, but still wheeling round a centre; and that centre is the Offender we have now up. This individual, let us say, is unconscious of his own predicament. He knows he has a wife and children, a house and servants to provide for, and he does provide. That is all. He takes no merit to himself, and none is due. In supporting this Atlantean burden, he only does what others do. It is the rule. And so he bends his shoulders, and on he goes; sometimes stepping out like a giant, sometimes tottering, sometimes standing still bemoan his fortune-not in having the load to bear, but in being unable to bear it well. If things go smoothly-if his children are well taught, if his dinner and his daughters are well dressed, if his house is tidy and genteel-why, then, if he is a praiseworthy person, he thanks God and his wife. If things go otherwise he grumbles at his hard fate, and makes himself as disagreeable as possible, or else trundles his canister like a stoic; but all this time, be it observed, in utter unconsciousness of his true position. does not think it odd that he is travelling in his round of life with a tail after him like a comet. He does not think about it at all. He only knows that the thing exists, and must be borne. If he is able of his own strength to bear it handsomely, so much the better; but if not, he never speculates on the possibility of deriving comfort and support from what is naturally a burden, any more than the wife and children imagine that they are anything else than a tail, with nothing in the world to think of, or to do, but to stick fast to the body to which they chance to be attached, and make themselves as comfortable as possible. He And this last is the curious part of the story. The amiable family we have described talked of the individual we have laid hold of with the perfect knowledge that he was their Centre, but without the faintest consciousness that there was anything but the mechanical tie between them. They humored him when he was in good-humor, called him a dear, good, old papa, got his slippers ready, and drew in his chair to the hearth, for that made the room all the more cheerful for themselves; but when in bad-humor, they avoided or crossed him, wondering how anybody could look sulky at such a bright fireside, and suspectWe had visited this happy family several times, ing him to be a man incapable of feeling interest when we began to inquire, while walking home- in anything but his business, or his clerks, or his ward in our usual meditative mood, what it was banker's book. Was not his wife to be pitied, that held them together in so enviable a position. after all she had done to make him happy and Their labors were all for themselves, for their own respectable? And was not this a sorry return to comfort, amusement, gentility, advancement. They his daughters, for saving him a mint of money by purchased nothing else with all this outlay of time making their own dresses? These excellent ladies and money. There they were, with no object but had nothing to do with the stability of their that of passing the day, of enjoying life, of rising Centre. The house might be on fire, but they to some condition of still higher distinction or were only lodgers. They had no interest in the contentment. How did they find this possible? Offender when he was out of their sight. They By what power were they sustained immovable in knew nothing of his crosses and losses, of his disthe shocks of social life, surrounded by all the appointments and vexations, of his faintness and cares and anxieties, and competitions and heart-weariness; they saw nothing but discontent on burnings, and tear and wear, and hurry and his wrinkling brow, nothing but approaching age scurry of the world? Here we caught with our in his whitening hair, nothing but ill-humor in mind's-eye the absentee, and immediately sus- his querulous voice, nothing but selfish apathy in pected that he was at the bottom of it! But it his spiritless eye and sinking heart. They loved the husband and the father when he was agreeable | of taste. The wife, they say, should comprehend enough to be loved; but they had no sympathy and feel interested in her husband's pursuits; she with the struggling man. This is the ground of our apology. That the husband is a bad fellow is only too clear, but we would suggest that there are extenuating circumstances. The world is a hard taskmaster, and he who strives with it must submit sometimes to the hard word and the hard blow. His brow cannot always be clear or his mind present. He cannot always be in the mood to feel the comfort he sees; and he will sometimes sit down even at a bright fireside, with bright faces round him, and feel as if he were in a desert. Is sympathy, dear ladies. only for the happy? Is not his business yours? Is it not politic as well as kind to protect from feeling the rubs of the world that intelligent and susceptible machine to which you owe your all? In low life, in middle life, in high life, however, the same curious arrangement prevails, hitherto, 80 far as we know, undescribed or misunderstood. Ebenezer Elliott felt it without knowing what it was. His Poor Andrew feels his heart grow faint, when on going home from his work he approaches his own door, behind which he knows there are living things, as silent to his bosom as the dead. He has one consolation, however; it lies in his dog and cat; and the poor soul, yearning for sympathy, is at his wits' end when he does not meet the welcome of these, his only true friends. My cat and dog, when I come home, They listen for my homeward steps, When down my heart sinks, deathly down, My heart grows faint when home I come- If 't were not for my dog and cat, I think I could not live. Why come they not? They do not come A heavier darkness on me falls I cannot lift my feet. O yes, they come ! - they never fail My poor heart brightens when it meets The people's poet, we say, feels this without understanding it; for he attributes the want of sympathy to the want of knowledge-to the want of a power of response, on the part of the family, to the new ideas that are gushing up in the mind of the intelligent workman. Alas, Ebenezer ! there is something in a case like this even better than knowledge. The most ignorant of all possible wives may do more, by a single look, to sustain and advance her husband, than the most acutely argumentative of all she-philosophers. The French, as a nation, make a similar mistake. They are not so domestic as the English, and care less about that external comfort which commonly bounds the duties and ambition of an English wife. They run less risk, therefore, of taking the show for the substance, and see clearly enough that there ought to be some electrical rapport between the husband and his harem. The desideratum they consider to be a sympathy should be able to talk to him intelligently of what has occupied him through the day-to plunge with him into business, or politics, or literatureand to advise with him on the circumstances of his position. What is this but repeating the lessons that have wearied him, the annoyances that have worried him, the labors that have sent him home jaded and spiritless, or dissatisfied and irritable? Nature herself shows the impropriety of this arrangement; for, in nine cases out of ten, when men and women are left to their own choice in marriage, they are attracted by antagonism rather than homogeneousness, in at least the external points of the character, and even in personal appearance. A similarity of taste is doubtless desirable, if on one side unobtrusive or undemonstrative; but what is really wanted is sympathy with the manconsideration for the Atlas who carries the household on his shoulders. We readily pardon the fretfulness of the sick; we consent without hesitation to tread lightly by the couch of pain; but who can tell what sickness of the heart, what torture of the head, may be indicated in that troubled look, that gloomy eye, that rigid lip, that thoughtful brow? Is it more than womanly to bear with a harsh word-to steal round the Offender with a noiseless step-to soothe him with a soft word or a loving look-to remember that to him his family owe their comfort and tranquillity—that he is like a rock, in the lee of which they recline in safety, while on its bald and whitened head break the thunder and the storm? Yes; in his case there are extenuating circumstances. But let him beware that he does not plume himself upon them, instead of regarding them as merely something that would justify a humane judge in recommending him to mercy. Sympathy cannot long exist unanswered; and the action and response cannot take place but between minds that are in a state of rapport. We will take you, sir, as your own witness. Do you take care to place yourself habitually in this state with your family? If you do not enter into their feelings, do you expect them to enter into yours? Are you content to be defined as merely "the gentleman who draws cheques? Or do you teach them that you are a little community of individuals, sifted together by God and nature for mutual solace and support, with one moral being, one interest, one love, one hope? Do not answer in a hurry. Think of it, dream of it, ponder over it. There-that will do. Stand down, sir. THE WAR. JONES VERY. I SAW a war, yet none the trumpet blew, Nor in their hands the steel-wrought weapons bare, And in that conflict armed, there fought but few, And none that in the world's loud tumults share; They fought against their wills-the stubborn foe That mail-clad warriors left unsought within, And wordy champions left unslain below The ravening wolf, though dressed in fleecy skin; They fought for peace-not that the world can give, Whose tongue proclaims the war its hands have ceased, And bids us as each other's neighbors live, Ere haughty Self within us has deceased; They fought for him whose kingdom must increase, Good will to men, on earth forever peace. KATIE STEWART. PART V.-CHAPTER XXVII. "LORDIE, you 're only a laddie. I wonder how | ets say, that these are the last times, and that the you can daur to speak that way to me!" "But it's true, for all that, Katie," said the young Earl of Kellie. Katie Stewart is leaning against a great ashtree, which just begins, in this bright April weather, to throw abroad its tardy leaves to the soft wind and the sun. A tear of anger is in Katie's blue eye, a blush of indignation on her cheek; for Lordie-Lordie, whom she remembersa little tiny boy," who used to sit on her knee-has just been saying to her what the modest Sir Alexander never ventured to say, and has said it in extravagant language and very doubtful taste, as the most obstreperous Strephon might have said it; while Katie, desperately resentful, could almost cry for shame. Before her stands the young lord, in the graceful dress of the time, with one of the beautiful cambric cravats which Katie made about his neck, and the rich lace ends falling over "the openstitch hem" of his shirt-Katie's workmanship too. A tall youth, scarcely yet resolved into a man, Lordie is, to tell the truth, slightly awkward, and swings about his length of limb by no means gracefully. Neither is his face in the least degree like Sir Alexander's face, but sallow and transitionist, like his form; and Lordie's voice is broken, and, remaining no longer a boy's voice, croaks with a strange discordance, which does not belong to manhood. The youth is in earnest, however; there can be no question of that. "I'll be of age in three years, Katie." "I'm eight-and-twenty, my Lord Kellie," said Katie, drawing herself up; "I'm John Stewart of the Milton's daughter, and troth-plighted to one William Morison, master of the Poole. Maybe you didna hear, or may have forgotten; and I'm Lady Anne's guest in Kellie, and have a right that no man should say uncivil words to me as far as its shadow falls." "But, Katie, nobody's uncivil to you. Have you not known me all my life?" "I've carried ye down this very road, Lordie," said Katie, with emphasis. "Well, well; what of that?" said the young man, impatiently. "Katie, why can't you listen to me? I tell you-" "If you tell me another word mair, I'll never enter Kellie Castle again, as lang as ye 're within twenty mile," exclaimed the angry Katie. "You'll be in a better humor next time," said the young lord, as, a little subdued, he turned away. war will never end, or that the war will end without bringing safety to Willie; and the tears rise into her grave woman's eyes, and she puts up her hand to wipe them; for now they seldom come in floods, as the girl's tears did, but are bitterer, sadder drops than even those. Ten years! but her eyes are undimmed, her cheek unfaded; and you could not guess by Katie Stewart's face that she had seen the light so long; only in her heart Katie feels an unnatural calmness which troubles her-a long stretch of patience, which seems to have benumbed her spirit-and she thinks she is growing old. Poor, vain, boyish Lordie! He thinks she is ruminating on his words, as he sees her go slowly home; but his words have passed from her mind, with the momentary anger they occasioned; and Katie only sighs out the weariness which oppresses her heart. It does not overcome her often, but now and then it silently runs over; weary, very weary-wondering if these days and years will ever end; looking back to see them, gone like a dream; looking forward to the interminable array of them, which crowd upon her, all dim and inarticulate like the last, and thinking if she could only see an end-only an end! Bauby Rodger stands under the window, in the west room, with a letter in her hand. You could almost fancy Bauby a common prying waitingwoman, she examines the superscription so curiously; but Bauby would scorn to glance within, were it in her power. "Miss Katie, here's ane been wi' a letter to you," said Bauby, not without suspicion, as she delivered it into Katie's hand. A ship-letter, but not addressed by Willie Morison; and Katie's fingers tremble as she breaks the seal. But it is Willie Morison's hand within. "MY DEAR KATIE:-I am able to write very little-only a word, to tell you not to be feared if you hear that I'm killed; for I'm not killed just yet. There's a leg the doctor thinks he will need to have, and some more things ail me-fashious things to cure; but I never can think that I've been so guarded this whole time, no to be brought home at last ;-for God is aye kind, and so (now that I'm lamed and useless) is man. If I must die, blessings on you, Katie, for minding me; and we 'll meet, yet, in a place that will be home, though not the home we thought of. But if Í live, I'll get back-back to give you the refusing of a disabled man, and a lamiter. Katie, fareKatie stood by the ash-tree a long time, watch-ye-well; I think upon ye night and day, whether ing him; and after he was gone remained still, I live or die. silently looking down the avenue. Ten yearsten weary years-have passed since Willie "Katie Stewart my bairn! my lamb!" exMorison was taken away; for little Katie Stewart, claimed Bauby, hastening to offer the support of whom he left at the close of her eighteenth spring, her shoulder to the tottering figure, which sadly has now seen eight-and-twenty summers; and to- needed it; for the color had fled from Katie's morrow will complete the tenth twelvemonth since very lips, and her eyes were blind with sickness. the cutter's boat stole into Anster harbor, and "What ails ye, my darlin'? What's happened, robbed the little town of her stoutest sons. Miss Katie? O, the Lord send he binna killed !” And Katie looks away to the west, and prays "He's no killed, Bauby," said Katie, hoarsely, in her heart for the ending of the war, though" he 's no killed; he says he's no killed; but no sometimes, sickened with this weary flood of suc- ane near him that cares for him; no ane within a cessive days, she believes what the village proph- thousand miles but what would make as muckle VOL. XXXVI. 17 CCCCLV. LIVING AGE. W. MORISON." of another man; and the hands of thae doctors on my puir Willie-my puir Willie! Bauby, Bauby! do ye think he's gane?" 66 hard | lieves that it was built by the Picts, and has withOh, stood these fierce sea-breezes for more than a thousand years, though the minister says it was founded by the holy King David, that "sair saunet for the crown ;"-a doctrine at which the elders shake their reverend heads, apprehending the King David to be of Judea, and not of Scotland. But though its graceful spire still rests upon the solid mason-work of the old times, at this period, while Katie stands before it, the rain drops in through the gray mouldering slates, and the little church is falling into decay." No, my lamb! he's no gane, "cried Bauby gravely. Do ye think the spirit that likit ye sae weel could have passed without a sign? and I've heard nae death-warning in this house since the earl departed. Ye may plead for him yet with the Ane that can save; and, oh! be thankful, my bairn, that ye needna to gang lang pilgrimages to a kirk or a temple, but can lift up your heart wherever ye be !" And Bauby drew her favorite close to her breast, and covered the wan, tearful face with her great sheltering hand, while she too lifted up her heart -the kind, God-fearing, tender heart, which dwelt so strangely in this herculean frame. CHAPTER XXVIII. It is a June day, but not a bright one, and Katie has left the coroneted gate of Kellie Castle, and takes the road downward to the Firth; for she is going to the Milton to see her mother. Why she chooses to strike down at once to the sea, instead of keeping by the more peaceful way along the fields, we cannot tell, for the day is as boisterous as if it had been March instead of June; and as she gradually nears the coast, the wind, growing wilder and wilder, swells into a perfect hurricane; but it pleases Katie-for, restless with anxiety and fear, her mind cannot bear the summer quietness, and it calms her in some degree to see the storm. For it is two months now since she received the letter which told her of Willie's wounds; and since, she has heard nothing of him-if he lives, or if he has died. It is strange how short the ten years look, to turn back on them now-shorter than these sunny weeks of May just past, which her fever of anxious thought has lengthened into ages. Poor Willie! she thinks of him as if they had parted yesterday-alone in the dark cabin or dreary hospital, tended by strange hands-by men's hands-with doctors (and they have a horror of surgery in these rural places, and think all operators barbarous) guiding him at their will; and Katie hurries along with a burning hectic on her cheek, as for the hundredth time she imagines the horrors of an operation-though it is very true that even her excited imagination falls far short of what was then, in too many cases, the truth. And now the graceful antique spire of St. Monance shoots up across the troubled sky, and beyond it the Firth is plunging madly, dashing up wreaths of spray into the air, and roaring in upon the rocks with a long, angry swell, which in a calmer hour would have made Katie fear. But now it only excites her as she struggles in the face of the wind to the highway which runs along the coast, and having gained it pauses very near the village of St. Monance, to look out on the stormy sea. At her right hand-its green enclosure, dotted with gravestones, projecting upon the jagged, bristling rocks, which now and then are visible, stretching far into the Firth, as the water sweeps back with the great force of its recoil-stands the old church of St. Monance. Few people hereabout know that this graceful old building-then falling into gradual decay-is at all finer than its neighbors in Pittenweem and Anstruther ;-but that it is old," awfu' auld," any fisher lad will tell you; and the little community firmly and devoutly be Further on, over that great field of green corn, which the wind sweeps up and down in long rustling waves, you see ruined Newark projecting too upon the Firth; while down here, falling between two braes, like the proverbial sitter between two stools, lies the village. sea. A burn runs down between the braes, and somewhere, though you scarcely can see how, finds its way through these strangely scattered houses, and through the chevaux-de-frise of black rocks, into the But at this present time, over these black rocks, the foaming waves dash high and wild, throwing the spray into the faces of lounging fishers at the cottage doors, and anon recede with a low growling rush, like some enraged lion stepping backward for the better spring. Out on the broad Firth the waves plunge and leap, each like a separate force; but it is not the mad waves these fishers gaze at, as they bend over the encircling rocks, and eagerly, with evident excitement, look forth upon the sea; neither is it the storm alone which tempts Katie Stewart down from the highroad to the village street, to join one of the groups gathered there, and while she shades her eyes with her hand-for now a strange yellow sunbeam flickers over the raging water-fixes her anxious gaze on one spot in the middle of the Firth, and makes her forget for the moment that she has either hope or fear which does not concern yonder speck upon the waves. What is it? A far-off pinnace, its gayly painted side heeling over into the water which yawns about it, till you feel that it is gulfed at last, and its struggle over. But not so; yonder it rises again, shooting up into the air, as you can think, through the spray and foam which surround it like a mist, till again the great wave turns, and the little mast which they have not yet been able to displace, as it seems, falls lower and lower, till it strikes over the water like a floating spar, and you can almost see the upturned keel. There are fishing-boats out at the mouth of the Firth, and many hearts among these watching-women quail and sink as they look upon the storm; but along the whole course of the water there is not one visible sail, and it is nothing less than madness to brave the wrestle of the elements in such a vessel as this. It engrosses all thoughts-all eyes. "She canna win in-she 's by the Elie now, and reach this she never will, if it binna by a miracle. Lord save us!-yonder she 's gane !" "Na, she's righted again," said a cool young fisherman, "and thae 've gotten down that unchancy mast. They maun have stout hearts and skeely hands that work her; but it's for life, and that learns folk baith pith and lear. There! but it's owre now.' "There's a providence on that boat,” cried a woman; 66 twenty times I've seen the pented side turn owre like the fish out of the net. If they 've won through frae Largo Bay to yonder, they'll win in yet; and the Lord send 1 kent our boats [ated-unable to go on her way, and thinks that were safe in St. Andrews Bay." "Oh, cummers! thinkna o' yoursels!" said an old woman in a widow's dress; "wha kens whose son or whose man may be in that boat; and they have daylight to strive for themselves, and to see their peril in ;-but my Jamie sank in the nicht wi' nane to take pity on him, or say a word o' supplication. Oh! thinkna o' yoursels! think o' them yonder that 's fechting for their life, and help them wi' your heart afore Him that has the sea and the billows thereof in the hollow of Ilis hand. The lord have pity on them! and He hears the desolate suner than the blessed." "Wha will they be-where will the pinnace come from-and do ye think there's hope?" asked Katie Stewart. this concerns her not-with her eyes fixed on the laboring boat, her heart rising and falling as it sinks and rises, yet more with excitement than fear; for a strange confidence comes upon her as she marks how every strain, though it brings the strugglers within a hair's-breadth of destruction, brings them yet nearer the shore. For they do visibly near it; and now the widow prays aloud and turns away, and the young fisherman clenches his hands, and has all his brown fingers marked with blood from the cut which he can neither feel nor see; but near they come and nearer-through a hundred deaths. "They'll be on the rocks-they'll perish within reach of our very hands!" cried Jamie Hugh, throwing down the knife and snatching up a coil of rope from a boat which lay near. The group "Let me be-it is for pity's sake, Mary," said the young man; and in a moment he had threaded the narrow street, and, not alone, had hurried to the rescue. An anxious half-hour passed, and then a shout from the black rocks yonder, under the churchyard, told that at last the imperilled men were saved-saved desperately, at the risk of more lives than their own; for there, impaled on the jagged edge of the rocks, lay the pretty pinnace which had passed through such a storm. "It was naething less than madness to venture into the Firth, in such a wind-if they werena out of anxious watchers opened-the young wife laid afore the gale came on," said a fisherman ; "and a faint detaining grasp upon his armas for hope, I would say there was nane, if I was "Jamie, mind yoursel-for pity's sake dinna out yonder mysel, and I've thought hope was flee into danger this way!" owre fifty times this half-hour-but yonder 's the sun glinting on a wet oar, though she 's lying still on the side of yon muckle wave. I wadna undertake to say what a bauld heart and guid luck, and the help of Providence, winna come through.' And a bold heart and the help of Providence surely are there; for still-sometimes buried under the overlying mass of water which leaps and foams above her, and sometimes bounding on the buoyant mountain-head of some great wave, which seems to fling its encumbrance from it like the spray-the resolute boat makes visible progress; and at last the exclamations sink as there grows a yearning tenderness in the hearts of the lookerson, to those who, in that long-protracted struggle, are fighting hand to hand with death;-and now, as the little vessel rises and steadies for a moment, some one utters an involuntary thanksgiving; and as again it falls, and the yellow sunbeam throws sinister glimmer on its wet side, a low cry comes unconsciously from some heart-for the desperate She had gone far, and, still sometimes looking danger brings out here, as always, the universal out mournfully upon the troubled Firth, had nearly reached the first straggling houses of Pittenweem, when steps behind her awakened some languid attention in her mind. She looked back-not with any positive interest, but with that sick apprehension of possibilities which anxious people have. Two men were following her on the road-one a blue-jacketed sailor, whose wooden leg resounded on the beaten path, lagging far behind the other; but she did not observe the other-for this man's lost limb reminded her of Willie's letter. If Willie should be thus ! human kindred and brotherhood. It is a strange scene. That cool young fisherman there has not long returned from the fishingground, and at his open door lie the lines, heavy with sea-weed and tangle, which he has just been clearing, and making ready for to-morrow's use. With his wide petticoat trousers, and great sea-boots still on, he leans against a high rock, over which sometimes there comes a wreath of spray, dashing about his handsome, weather-beaten face; while, with that great clasp-knife which he opens and closes perpetually, you see he has cut his hard hand in his excitement and agitation, and does not feel it, though the blood flows. His young wife sitting within the cottage door, as he did on the stone without, has been baiting, while her husband "redd" the lines; but she, too, stands there with not a thought but of the brave pinnace struggling among yonder unchained lions. And there stands the widow with clasped hands, covering her eyes so long as she can resist the fascination which attracts all observation to that boat; while other fishermen edge the group, and a circle of anxious wives, unable to forget, even in the fate of this one, that "our boats" are at the mouth of the Firth, and that it is only a peradventure that they are sheltered in the bay, cluster together with unconscious cries of sympathy. And Katie Stewart stands among them, fascin-. And, with some reluctance, Katie Stewart turned and went upon her way. Strong natural curiosity, and the interest with which their peril had invested them, prompted her to linger and see who these desperate men were; but remembering that they could be nothing to her, and that the day was passing, and her mother expecting her, she turned her paled face to the wind, and went on. |