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JOHN CARROLL'S WIFE-A CHRISTMAS

I.

STORY.

BY WM. GEOGHEGAN.

Nearly five years ago she entered that A quaint, old-fashioned room, form- room; that had been her first glimpse ing the setting to a picture as bright of her new home; and a happy smile and pretty as any one of the home in- rippled over her lips as she remembered teriors which the domestic painters of how closely her husband watched her the Academy love to depict-a room to catch the first gleam of pleasure or that might have been built in the reign disappointment.

of Queen Anne, so full was it of nooks "I told him then that I knew I and angles, in which no modern furni- should like it; and I almost think I ture could by any possibility be induced love it now-my dear, happy home," to fit-a room that matter-of-fact murmured Hester, and she tried to people, with an eye to the economical remember exactly how it looked then ; cutting of their carpets, call uncomfort- but that was not so easy; there were able and awkward; but a room which, so many little additions and improvehaving once known, you never forgot. ments, that had come one by one, but that You might have been happy or you seemed part and parcel of the room now. might have been sorry there; but so There were the lace curtains she had surely as in after years you looked bought with her first pocket-money, the back upon your happiness or your couch her husband had got for her sorrow, back came the remembrance during some slight illness, the workof the thick walls, in which the doors table that had been another of his stood as it were in recesses-walls on presents, and the fern case that was her which somehow the modern paper own last extravagance. looked out of character; and you loved or hated the room accordingly as you loved or hated the people you had met

within it.

"It was not so untidy then," thought Hester, looking at the grand piano strewn with loose sheets of manuscript music, and her glance wandering round; Something of this Hester Carroll felt "the things were new, but it looks more rather than thought, as, with her busy home-like now, and I'm a better little hands lying in unwonted idleness manager. I'm sure the arrangement on her lap, she sat waiting for her of the tea-table is a masterpiece; and husband's return on the evening of the I don't believe a professed cook could fifth anniversary of her wedding day. make a better cake. The first I made,

all the currants settled at the bottom. limits of the law, so that until she was I never found out how that was; I-" carried off to bed, John and Hester "Didn't stir it up, perhaps."

"Oh, John, how silly you are!" cried Hester. "You need not come up so quietly another time."

"My boots were so fearfully muddy, that I took them off in the hall, for fear of leaving my trail behind me on the stair-carpet," he replied; "but let's have tea, darling; I'm both hungry and tired."

"And wet through, too, I believe,' said Hester, putting her hand on her husband's coat-sleeve as he kissed her. "Have you walked all the way down Broadway, John?"

were constituted willing subjects of the imperious little fairy.

For some time after Amy's departure John sat playing whilst Hester put away the scattered toys; then, coming to his side, she laid her. hands on his shoulders, saying playfully, "I think you have had enough of shop' by this time, and it is my day, you know, dear; come and talk to me, John."

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Her husband smiled at the eager face bent over him, and closing the piano, rose and put his arms round his wife.

"Your day is it, my Hester? Do "Yes, dear, the stages were more un-you know I am not sure that I don't pleasant than walking, and I could not wish it could be completely blotted out afford a cab." of the calendar?"

"You could afford a cab, it seems to me, John, better than you could afford to catch cold," said Hester, as she cut her cake with a great deal of savage determination; "you have no business to do it you ought to think of Amy and me."

66

"Our wedding day blotted out, John! You are growing tired of me."

"No, I'm not, little wife. There! don't try to look indignant; the fact is, I am beginning to fear-"

"What?" she asked.

"That the tide is turning," he re

"Ah, where is Amy?" he asked, plied. "The first four years after we gone to bed?"

"No; she's asleep on the hearth-rug," replied Hester; "take your coat off and ring the bell, John, before you touch her."

Very obediently, being a model husband, John attended to this injunction, and then very gently, as if she were composed of something extremely likely to break, he lifted the sleeping child from the floor, and Amy, after rubbing her eyes for some time, and becoming gradually aware of the fact that she was to be allowed to share the delights of a "high tea," forthwith proceeded to extend her privileges to the utmost

were married went by so smoothly, without the vestige of a trouble; but this last season has been terribly bad; I have not earned as much as we have spent for some time, Hester."

"Then we must spend less," was the determined reply; and Hester looked at the fire, half wondering whether she ought not to begin retrenching at once, and take off a large lump of coal she had just put on, but John understood the look, and laughed outright.

"We won't give up fires just yet, darling," he said, "and don't you worry about what I have told you. Things must take a turn sooner or later,

'tis only a question of time; and, "I can't help it, darling," he said, thank God, we can afford to wait a one morning as he seated himself at the little. The fact is, I have'nt felt very breakfast table; "it does annoy me well the last few days, and perhaps to have so much idle time on my that makes me look on the dark side of hands. I feel as if it must be my

the picture."

Hester glanced up anxiously into her husband's face, and she fancied he seemed unusually pale and tired; but she answered cheerfully, striving to divert his attention, although she felt instinctively that the shadow of a great dread had fallen upon her heart and home.

fault."

"It would not mend matters to have a doctor's bill to pay, John, dear; and I know you will end by making yourself ill. Amy, where's papa's paper?"

John took the paper from the child, and sat reading it whilst he drank his coffee. Hester was busy in attending to Amy's numerous wants; but after a few moments she spoke to John, and, receiving no answer, looked up at him, as she repeated her question, the words dying away on her lips as she noticed the strange, fixed looked on his face. "John," she cried, starting to his side, "what is it, dear? Are you

For a week after that John Carroll went on working, and thinking, and composing, with the feverish energy of a man who feels that anxiety for the future is weighing more heavily on his mind than he would care to confess. Hitherto, at the end of every year, there had been something saved; but this ill?" There was no answer to the last season had been very dull; and terrified inquiry, her husband simply now that it was ended, John knew that pointed to a paragraph in the paper; no exertions on his part during the then putting his arms on the table, he autumn months, when pupils were out rested his head on them, whilst Hester of town and publishers disinclined to read the account of the failure of the bring out new music, could make the bank in which was placed their little money he earned sufficient for their fortune of two or three thousand dollars, expenses. John's temperament was every cent of which represented more not sanguine, and he had had to work or less hard work and self-denial. too hard, had had too many knocks in winning the place he held in his profession, to have remained so, had he been naturally inclined to such a feeling. He had married early-too early, friends said; but had never repented the step. He loved his wife and child very dearly, and his jealous fear least sorrow should cross their paths, was never absent from his mind. Hester saw all this, and tried hard to banish the depression that was settling upon him; but her efforts met with small success.

With a sinking heart Hester laid down the paper. It needed no explanation to show her the full significance of the blow that had fallen upon them; but, like a true woman, her first thought was for her husband's grief, and scarcely knowing what to say, she stood smoothing his hair with that soft, caressing touch that sometimes tells a more eloquent tale than words, and that is often longed for when the fingers are in the grave.

For a minute, that seemed like an

hour, the silence remained unbroken;

John Carroll hid his face in his hands,

then Amy, who had put down her mug with something that sounded like a sob.

of milk, and sat looking on in quiet astonishment, said, timidly, "Papa!" and Hester, noticing that John started at the sound, lifted the child down and bade her go to the servant. Then, kneeling beside her husband, she put her arms round him, and drew his head on her shoulder.

"Don't, John, my love, my husband,' cried Hester. "Oh, if you knew how this pains me ; there must be some way out of this difficulty; it can't be intended that we are to yield to it without a struggle. Let us leave here as soon as pos

sible. Amy is very little trouble now, and I can easily manage without a "John, dear John," she whispered, servant. We have had so much sun"don't let us give way under the first shine, dear love, that we have no right difficulty that comes in our path. to complain of this passing cloud." Think how much worse it might have Thus the wife argued, endeavoring been. We might have lost Amy, or to infuse some of her own hopeful spirit you might have been ill; the money would have seemed of little importance in comparison with that. We are very young, dear love, too young to sit down and repine. We must make a fresh beginning, and though I cannot help you in your work, I can help you at home. You don't know how economical I can be; only you must try and be cheerful. No sorrow can crush us whilst we are together; no trouble can overwhelm us whilst we trust in heaven and in each other. Perhaps, after all, it is for the best; for we have been so very, very happy since we were married that we were growing forgetful that there was any trouble in the world.”

into her husband's less trusting nature; and she succeeded, at last, in persuading him from brooding over his troubles, that by a series of little loving stratagems she left him seated at the pianoforte, and the aching heart the young wife carried about her as she attended to her household duties seemed in some measure soothed and strengthened by the wild, fitful music of Heller's “Promenades d'un Solitaire"; but to her husband it was only a chaos of sound that told no story, conveyed no meaning. His hands wandered mechanically over the keys, but his ears were deaf to the poetry of the: sic. His overexcited imagination conjured up a picture of his wife, grown pale and thin, and Amy, with all the gladness gone out of her childish features. "Had I been a common workman," he thought, "I could go from shop to shop, until I found work; there's no such ready market for brains or talent.”

“Well, we are not likely to forget it now," returned John. "Hester, do you know that we have not thirty dollars in the world! I meant to have got some money from the bank to-day. Now, where is it to come from, heaven only knows! There's none owing to me, and there are no signs of any busi- John Carroll spoke bitterly, but he ness doing. What am I to do? It spoke as his own experience had taught will drive me mad to see you or the him. He had worked his way in his little one want any of the comforts you profession, every step he took being have been accustomed to have."

won by his own exertions; and he had

thoroughly learned the harsh truth that over the bed; and then, forgetting every

poverty in New York, if not confessedly reckoned a crime, is tacitly treated as such. Had he been stronger at the time, he might have been less despondent, but his physical weakness made the trouble seem greater, and he thought and thought until the music before him appeared covered with dancing notes. The last thing he recollected was a vain attempt to strike an impossible chord; and Amy, coming in shortly after with some childish request, ran back half frightened, half amused, to tell her mother that "Papa was asleep on the floor."

The terrified wife rushed upstairs to find her worst fears verified. John was unconscious; and the doctor, who was summoned, pronounced the unconsciousness the first stage of brain fever. Hester did not give way under this new trouble; there was too much to plan, too much to be done, for her to spare time for any idle indulgence in grief. If it pleased God to restore John to health, she would need all her energies in nursing him; if not-and she shuddered as the thought crossed her mind-"I shall have a lifetime for tears then."

II.

"Hester!" The voice that uttered the word was so low, that Hester, writing quickly at a little table placed so that the light of the shaded lamp might not fall upon the bed, thought her fancy must have deceived her, and she paused to listen before moving; but again, and this time more distinctly, the whisper thrilled through the room, "Hester, my darling!"

thing in her great joy that the boon for
which she had pleaded so earnestly was
likely to be granted, she buried her
face in the pillow, murmuring, 'Oh,
John, John! my
my dear! love! you
my

will remain with me now.
God for this great mercy!"

Oh, thank

"Why, little wife, are you crying?” he asked. "Have I been very ill?"

"There, you must not talk any more; go to sleep again, if you can, darling; but at all events keep quiet, and get well, for Amy and I are so lonely without you. You see I have done crying

now."

So saying, Hester smoothed her husband's pillows, gave him his drink, and then, after kissing the thin hand lying on the coverlet, drew the curtain between the bed and her table, and with a heart so filled with gratitude that there was no room left for fatigue, she resumed her writing, and wrote far on into the night.

Sweet, patient Hester, type of the purest kind of womanly excellence, surely there is a high place in heaven reserved for your gentle sisterhood.

The next morning John was still better, and his wife began to dread the questioning that she knew must come sooner or later; but it was not until the doctor had been, and Amy had settled down for her afternoon sleep, that her husband mentioned the subject of ways and means, and then, after watching her for some minutes, as she sat mending a heap of Amy's socks, he said, quietly, "You must be terribly in debt by this time, Hester."

"Indeed I am not," she replied, "with the exception of the doctor's "Hush, dear!" she said, as she bent bill, I don't owe a cent."

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