The Coward: A Novel of Society and the Field in 1863
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CHAPTER XXIV.
IN THE HOSPITAL AT ALEXANDRIA--THE WOUNDED MAN AND HIS NURSE--SAD OMENS--A REUNION OF THREE--BRAVE MAN OR COWARD?--WHO WAS HORACE TOWNSEND?--A MYSTERY EXPLAINED--HOW ELEANOR HILL WENT BACK TO DR. POMEROY'S--ONE WORD MORE OF THE COMANCHE RIDER--CONCLUSION.
Glimpses now, only glimpses--with great breaks between, which theimagination may fill at pleasure. Events, few in number, not less strange,perhaps, than those which have already occurred, but less enwrapped inmystery, and gradually shaping themselves towards the inevitable end.
The military hospital at Alexandria. Outside, dingy and yet imposing, fittype of the State that held it, in the days before secession was any thingmore than a crime in thought. Within, a wilderness of low-ceilinged rooms,comfortable enough but all more or less dingy like the exterior. Nine outof ten of them filled with cot-bedsteads arranged in long rows with aislesbetween; sacred at once to two of the most incongruous exhibitions of humanpropensity--the blood-thirsty cruelty which can kill and maim,--the angelickindness which can make a dear child or brother out of the merest strangerand bind up the hurts of a rough, hard-handed, blaspheming ruffian, ofblood unknown and lineage uncared for, with all that tender care whichcould be bestowed upon the gentlest and loveliest daughter of a pamperedrace when sick or disabled. One of the many places scattered over the loyalStates and many portions of the disloyal, made terrible to recollection bythe suffering that has been endured within them and the lives that havegone out as a sacrifice to the Moloch of destructive war,--but made holybeyond all conception, at the same time, by the patriotic bravery withwhich many of their lives have been surrendered to the great Giver for aglorious cause; by the patience with which agony has been endured andalmost reckoned as pleasure for the nation's sake; and by the footsteps ofthe nobler men and if possible still nobler women of America, who havegiven up ease and comfort and domestic happiness and health and even lifeitself, to minister to those stricken down in the long conflict.
No need to draw the picture: nothing of war or its sad consequences remainsa mystery in this age and to this people. Too many eyes have looked uponthe wards of our hospitals, the forms stretched there in waiting for deathor recovery, the figures moving around and among them in such ministrationas the Good Samaritan may have bestowed upon the bruised and beaten Jew ofthe parable;--too many ears have listened to the moans of suffering risingup continually like a long complaint to heaven, the sharp screams of agonyunder temporary pang or fearful operation, the words of content under anylot, blending like an undertone with all, and the words of prayer andChristian dependence crowning and hallowing all;--too many of the men ofthis time have seen and heard these things, and too many more may yet havethe duty of looking upon them and listening to them, to make either wise ornecessary the closer limning of the picture that might otherwise bepresented. We have to do with but a little corner of the great buildingthat had been made so useful in the care of the sick and wounded, just asthis narration holds involved the interests of a poor half-dozen among themany millions affected by the colossal struggle.
A small room, on the second floor of the building, the walls once white andeven now scrupulously clean but dingy from smoke and use. Two windows init, opening to the west, the tops shaded by paper curtains with muslininside, while at the bottoms streamed in the soft September afternoonsunlight that lay like a glory over the Virginian woods, so fair to the eyebut so foul and treacherous within, stretching away towards the banneredclouds before many hours to shroud the setting of the great luminary. Notone of the common rooms in which, perforce from their number, sick andwounded soldiers must be more or less closely huddled together,--but onedevoted to the care of wounded officers, with four beds of iron, neatlymade and draped, and at this time only one of them occupied.
We have more than once before had occasion to notice the occupant of thatone bed near the head of the room, with a stream of sunshine pouring in atthe window and flooding the whole foot. We have before had occasion toremark that tall, slight but sinewy form distending the thin covering as itsettled to his shape. Something of his appearance we have _not_ seenbefore--the head of hair of an indescribable mixture, half pale gold orlight blonde and the other or outer half dark brown or black, scarcelyseeming to belong to the same growth unless produced by some mad freak ofnature. Nor have we before remarked the splendidly-chiselled face so paleand wan, the life-fluids seeming to be exhausted beneath the skin, fromloss of blood and severe suffering. Nor yet that other anomaly--a moustachewith the outer ends very dark, almost black, strangely relieved by a cropof light brown beard starting thick and short, like stubble, on the chin.Like this picture in some regards, unlike it in others, the occupant ofthat bed has before presented, as at this moment, an anomaly equallyinteresting and puzzling. Wherever and whenever seen, at earlier periods,the last time he met the gaze he was dropping from his horse, a bulletthrough the body just above the heart, a red sword slipping from his handand insensibility succeeding to delirium, near the railroad-bridge and thecaptured rebel battery at Culpeper.
The wounded man lay with his eyes closed and seemed to be in sleep. Besidethe bed on a low stool and partially resting against it, was one who sleptnot--a woman. One elbow resting on the bed-clothes supporting her head, andthe other hand holding a book in which she was reading. This was evidentlythe nurse, and yet scarcely an ordinary nurse charged with the care of allpatients, or she could not have afforded the time for watching oneconvalescent while he slept. She, too, may have been seen before; forsomething there was in that tall and lithe form, that mass of rich silkybrown hair, that face with its mournful eyes and painfully delicatefeatures--something that, once seen, lingered like a sweet, sad dream inthe gazer's memory. And yet here, too, if there was an identity, change hadbeen very busy. The form had always been lithe--it was now thin tofragility; the hands had always been taper and delicate--now they werefleshless almost to emaciation; the face had always conveyed the thought ofgentleness, helplessness and needful protection--now it seemed lesshelpless but more mournful, the cheeks a little sunken, and the red spotburning in the centre of either not a close enough semblance of ruddyhealth to deceive an eye quickened by affectionate anxiety. She was dying,perhaps slowly, it might be rapidly, but dying beyond a peradventure, withthat friend or foe which has ushered more human beings into the presence ofGod than any other disease swayed as an agency by the greatdestroyer--consumption!
A few moments of silence, unbroken by any sound within the room except thethick breathing of the sleeper: then the girl who sat at his side choked amoment, seemed to make violent efforts to control the coming spasm, but atlast yielded, clapped both hands to her left side just above her heart, andbroke into one of those terrible fits of coughing which tear away thesystem as the earthquake rives the solid ground, and which are almost ashard to hear as to endure. Instantly, as the spasm relaxed, she hurriedlydrew a white handkerchief from the pocket of her dark dress and wiped herlips. It was replaced so suddenly that the awakened sleeper did not seewhat stained it--blood, mingled frightfully with the clear white foam.
The eyes of the wounded man opened; and there was something more of himselfthat came back in the light of their warm hazel, only a little dimmed bysuffering, and in the play of all the muscles of the face when awake. Bothhands lay outside the bed-clothing; and as she saw the opening of his eyesthe girl stretched out her own and took one of them with such gentlenessand devotion as was most beautiful to behold. She seemed to be touchingflesh that she held to be better than her own--a suggestive rarity in thisarrogant world! Something that man had been to her, or something he haddone for her, beyond a doubt, which made him the object of a feeling almosttoo near to idolatry. And yet what had he given her, to win so much? Notwealth--not love: merely true friendship, respect when others despised, anda little aid towards rescue when others turned away or labored to producefinal ruin! How easily heaven may be scaled--the heaven of love anddevotion if no height beyond,--by that consideration which costs
so little,by that kindness which should be a duty if it even brought no recompense!
"There--I have woke you! I am so sorry!" she said, as she met his eyes andtouched his hand.
"What consequence, if you have?" was his reply, in a voice low andsomewhat feeble, while his thin hand made some poor attempt at returningher kind pressure. "Ever generous, Eleanor--ever thinking of others and notof yourself! They make angels of such people as you--do you know it?"
"Angels? oh, my God, have I lived to hear that word applied to _me_?" Suchwas the answer, and the mournful eyes went reverently upward as she invokedthe one holy Name.
"Angels? yes, why not?" said the invalid. "Every light-tongued lover callshis mistress by that name sometime or other, and--"
"Hush, Carlton Brand, hush!"
Some painful chord was touched, and he appeared to understand, as well hemight, by what word with two meanings he had lacerated a feeling. He wentback to what he had evidently intended to say at first.
"You do not think of yourself, I say. You have been coughing again."
"A little."
"A little? Loudly enough to wake me, and I am a sound sleeper. EleanorHill, you are nursing me, when you more need a nurse yourself. I am almostwell, you know. You are growing thinner and your cough is worse every day."
"No, Carlton, better--much better!"
"Are you sure? Stop, let me see your handkerchief!" He was looking hersteadily in the face, and she obeyed him as if in spite of her own will andbecause she had always been in the habit of doing so.
"I thought so," he said. "Eleanor, you are very ill. Do not deceiveyourself or try to deceive _me_."
"Carlton Brand," she answered, returning that look, full in the eyes, andspeaking slowly--calmly--firmly. "I am dying, and no one knows the factbetter than myself. Thank God that the end is coming!"
"Oh no, you are very ill, but not beyond hope--not dying," he attempted tourge as some modification of the startling confession she had made.
"Yes--the whole truth may as well be told now, Carlton, since we have begunit. I am dying of consumption, and I hope and believe that I shall have butfew more days left after you get well enough to leave this hospital."
"Heavens!" exclaimed the wounded man. "If this is true, do you know whatyou are making of me? Little else than a murderer! I meant it for thebest--the best for the country and yourself, when I took you away from thehouse of your--of Philip Pomeroy, and sent you into this new path of life;but the sleepless hours and over-exertion, the exposures to foul air anddraughts and anxiety to which you have been subjected--oh, Eleanor, is_this_ what I have done?"
She slid from her chair and kneeled close beside the bed, bending overtowards him with the most affectionate interest.
"Oh no," she said, no agitation in her voice. "Do you think that threemonths has done this? My family are all consumptive--my father died of thedisease. What was done to _me_"--her voice faltered for just one moment,then she calmed it again by an obvious effort--"What was done to _me_, wasdone long before and by another hand."
"Stop!" he interrupted her as she was evidently about to proceed. "I _must_say one word about _him_. Did you ever know all the reason why each of usfeared and hated the other so much?"
Merely a sad shake of the head was the negative.
"I will tell you, now. I was a coward, and he knew it. You knew so muchbefore, but nothing else, I believe. He was present once when I fainted atthe very sight of blood--something that I believe I always used to do; andhe knew of my refusing a challenge because I really dared not fight. Hecould expose and ruin me, and I feared him. I knew him to be a scoundrel inmoney affairs as well as in every other way: as a lawyer I could put myfinger on a great crime that he had committed to win a large part of hisfortune. He knew that I knew it, and that I would have exposed him if Idared. So he feared and hated _me_, and each held the other in checkwithout doing more. It is time that you should know that crime: it was hisrobbing you of every dollar left you by your father, and putting them allinto his own pocket, through the pretended machinery of that DunderhavenCoal and Mining Company, of which he was President, Director and all theofficers!"
"Carlton! Carlton! can this be true, even of _him_?" asked the young girl,horrified at this crowning proof of a depravity beyond conception and yetnot beyond _fact_.
"It is true, every word of it, and if I had not been a wretch unfit tolive, I would have exposed and punished him long ago. Lately I think I musthave gone through what they call 'baptizing in fire,' and the very day I amable to crawl once more to Dr. Pomeroy's house, I shall force him to meetme in a duel or shoot him down like a dog!"
"This from _you_, Carlton Brand!" The tone was very piteous.
"Yes--why not?" The tone was hard and decided, for a sick man.
"May heaven forgive you the thought. Now listen to me. You have been thedearest friend I ever had in the world. You have been better and truer tome than any brother; and you have done me the greatest of all favors bysending me here to nurse the sick and wounded, to win back something of mylost self-respect and close up a wasted life with a little usefulnessbefore I die! But after all this I shall almost hate you--I shall not beable, I am afraid, to pray for you in that land I am so soon going tovisit,--if you do not make me one solemn promise and keep it as you wouldsave your own soul."
There was an agonized earnest in her words and in her manner, as she thusspoke, kneeling there and even clasping her hands in entreaty. CarltonBrand looked at her for one instant with a great pity; then he said:
"Eleanor Hill, if the promise is one that a man can make and a man cankeep, I will make it and keep it!"
"Then promise me neither in word nor act to harm Philip Pomeroy. Leave himto _me_."
"To _you_, poor girl?"
"To _me_! _I_ will so punish him as no man was ever punished."
"_You_ punish him? _You_, feeble and dying? How?"
"By going back to his house--if they will obey my last wish when the hourcomes,--_dead_."
"That _will_ be punishment enough, perhaps, even for _him_, if he ishuman!" slowly said the invalid as he took in the thought. "I promise."
"God bless you!" and poor Eleanor Hill fell forward on the bed and burstinto sobs that ended the moment after in a fit of still more violentcoughing than that which had racked her half an hour previously. And thisdid not end like the other, but deepened and grew more hoarse until thewhite froth flew from the suffering lips, followed by a gush of blood thatnot only dyed the foam but spattered the bed-covering.
"Heavens! see how you are bleeding, my poor girl! You must have help atonce!" The face of the speaker, deadly pale and sorely agitated, told howbad a nurse was this choking, dying girl, in his enfeebled condition, witha terrible wound scarcely yet commenced healing.
"No, I do not need help--I shall be better in a moment. But I agitate_you_, and I will go away until I have stopped coughing."
Which would be, Carlton Brand thought, perhaps a few moments before shewent into that holy presence from which the most betrayed and down-troddenmay not be debarred! Ever weakly-loving--ever thoughtless of her ownwelfare and childishly subservient to the good of others--lackingself-assertion, but never wantonly sinful,--had not that strange thinker,yet under the influence of the fever of his wound, some right to rememberMary's tears, and the blessing to the "poor in heart," promised in theSermon on the Mount?
But there was real danger to the invalid in this agitation, and the willof another stepped in to remove the danger. Before the poor girl had quiteceased coughing, one of the physicians of the hospital, a gray-haired,benevolent-looking man, stood by the bedside and touched her upon theshoulder.
"Coughing again, and so terribly! What, blood? Fie, fie!--this will neverdo!" he said. "If the sick nurse the sick, both fare badly, you know. Ifthe scripture doesn't say so, it ought to. You must go away to Mrs.Waldron, Nellie, and keep quiet and not stir out again to-day."
"Yes, Doctor," she answered, rising obediently. "Good-night, Carlton!
" Shestooped and pressed her lips to the thin hand so touchingly that thedoctor, who could scarcely even guess the past relation between the two,almost felt the tears rising as he looked.
"Good-night, and God bless you, Eleanor."
The doctor's eyes followed her as with slow, weak steps she passed out ofthe room, her pale, mournful face with its hectic cheeks and sad eyeslooking back to the bed for an instant as she disappeared. Then he turnedaway with a sigh--such a sigh of helpless sorrow as he had no doubt oftenheaved over the living illustrations of those two heart-breakingwords--"fading away."
"I am sorry she was here," he said, when she had gone. "I am afraid thatshe has used up strength that you needed. There are visitors to see you."
"To see _me_?"
"Yes--now keep as cool as possible, or I will send them away again. I hatemysteries and surprises; but poor Eleanor does not, and she sent for them,I believe."
"She sent for them? She? Then they are--"
"Keep still, or I will tell you no more--they are two from whom you havebeen estranged, I think--your father and--"
"My sister?"
"No, the lady is not your sister, I think. She is tall, dark-haired, verybeautiful and very queenly. Is that your sister?"
"No--no--that is not my sister--that is--heavens, can this be possible, oram I dreaming? Doctor, this agitation is hurting me worse than any presencecould do. Send them in and trust me. I will be quiet--I will husband mylife, for if I am not mad and you are not trifling, there may yet besomething in the world worth living for."
The doctor laid his hand on the pulse of his patient, looked for a momentinto his face, and then left the room. The next, two stepped within it--anold man with gray hair rapidly changing to silver, and a woman in the verybloom of youth and beauty. The eyes of the wounded man were closed. Whatwas he doing?--collecting strength, or looking for it where it ever abides?No matter. Only one instant more, and then the two were on their knees bythe bedside, where Eleanor Hill had just been kneeling--the father with thethin hand in his and murmuring: "Carlton! my brave, my noble son!" andMargaret Hayley leaning far over the low couch and saying a thousand timesmore in one long, tender, clinging kiss, light as a snow-flake but lovingand warm as the touch of the tropic sun,--that shunned cheek and brow andlaid its blessing on the answering lips!
Some of the words of that meeting are too sacred to be given: let them beimagined with the pressure of hands and the hungry glances of eyes thatcould not look enough in any space of time allotted them. But there wereothers, following close after, which may and must be given. Whole volumeshad been spoken in a few words, and yet the book was scarcely opened,--whenMargaret Hayley rose from her knees and bending over the bed ran thosedainty white fingers through the strangely mottled hair on the brow of theinvalid. Then she seemed to discover something incongruous in differentportions of the face; and the moment after, stooping still closer down, sheswept away the hair from the brow and scanned the texture of the skin atits edge. A long, narrow scar, its white gloss just relieved on the pallidflesh, crossed the forehead from the left temple to the centre of its apex.She seemed surprised and even frightened; then a look of mingled shame andpleasure broke over that glorious face, and she leaned close above him andsaid, compelling his eyes to look steadily into hers:
"Carlton Brand, what does this mean? I know that scar and the color thathas once covered that hair and moustache! You are Horace Townsend!"
"I _was_ Horace Townsend once, for a little while, Margaret," was thereply. "But it won me nothing, and you see for what a stern reality I havegiven up masquerading."
"And _you_ plunged into the Pool to save that drowning boy. _You_ went downinto that dreadful schute and brought up the Rambler! _You_ spoke to theOld Man of the Mountain at midnight and carried me away with your words onEcho Lake. And _you_--heaven keep my senses when I think of it!--_you_ madelove to me along the road down the Glen below the Crawford!
"I am afraid I was guilty of all those offences!" answered the invalid,with something nearer to a smile of mischief glimmering from the corner ofhis eye than had shone there for many a day.
"I did hear something in your voice the first night that I saw you there,and afterwards," Margaret Hayley went on, "which made me shudder from itsecho of yours; and more than once I saw that in your face which won me toyou without my knowing why. Yet all the impression wore off by degrees,and--only think of it!--I was nearly on the point, at one time, ofbelieving that I had found a truer ideal than the one so lately lost, andof promising to become the wife of Horace Townsend! Think where _you_ wouldhave been, you heartless deceiver, if I had fallen altogether into the trapand done so!"
"I think I might have endured _that_ successful rivalry better than anyother!" was the very natural reply.
"And this man," said Robert Brand, standing close beside the bed, lookingdown at his son with a face in which pride and joy had mastered its greattrouble of a few days before, and apparently speaking quite as much tohimself as to either of his auditors--"this man, capable of such deeds ofgodlike bravery in ordinary life, and then of winning the applause of awhole army in the very front of battle,--I cursed and despised as a coward!God forgive me!--and you, my son, try to forget that ever I set myself upas your pitiless judge, to be punished as few fathers have ever beenpunished who yet had the sons of their love spared to them! Margaret--howhave we both misunderstood him!"
"The fault was not all yours, by any means," said the invalid. "How couldeither of you know me when I misunderstood and belied _myself_!"
And in that remark--the last word uttered by Carlton Brand before heyielded to the exhaustion of his last hour of imprudent excitement and fellaway to a slumber almost as profound as death, just as the old doctorstepped back to forbid a longer interview, and while the shadows of eveningbegan to fall within the little room, and Margaret Hayley sat by hisbedside and held his hand in hers with what was plainly a grasp never to bebroken again during the lives of both, and Robert Brand, sitting but alittle farther away, watched the son that had been lost and was found, witha deeper tenderness and a holier pride than he had ever felt when bendingover the pillow of his sleeping childhood,--in that remark, we say, lay thekey to all which had so affected his life, and which eventually gave causefor this somewhat singular and desultory narration. _He had misunderstoodhimself_; and only pain, suffering and a mental agony more painful than anyphysical death, had been able to bring himself and those who best knew himto a full knowledge of the truth. Only a part of that truth he knew eventhen, when he lay in the officers' ward of the Alexandria hospital: it isour privilege to know it all and to explain it, so far as explanation canbe given, in a few words.
Carlton Brand had been gifted, and cursed, from childhood, with an intenseand imaginative temperament, never quite regulated or even analyzed. Hissense of honor had been painfully delicate--his love of approbation sostrong as to be little less than a disease. Some mishap of his weak,hysterical and short-lived mother, no doubt, had given him one terribleweakness, entirely physical, but which he believed to be mental--_hehabitually fainted at the sight of blood_. (This fact will explain,parenthetically, why he fell senseless and apparently dead at that periodin the encounter with Dick Compton when the blood gushed over the face ofthe latter from his blow; and why after each of the excitements of the Pooland Mount Willard he suffered in like manner, at the instant when his eyesmet the fatal sign on the faces of the rescued.) High cultivation of theimaginative faculty, the habit of living too much within himself, and aconstitutional predisposition in that direction, had made him painfully_nervous_--a weakness which to him, and eventually to others, assumed theshape of cowardice. Recklessly brave, in fact, and never troubled by thatnervousness for one moment when his sympathies were excited and his reallymagnificent physical and gymnastic powers called into play,--that faintingshudder at the sight of blood had been all the while his haunting demon,disgracing him in his own eyes and marring a life that would otherwise havebeen very bright and pleasant. On
e belief had fixed itself in his mind,long before the period of this narration, and never afterwards (until now)been driven thence--that _if he should ever be brought into conflict amongdeadly weapons, this horror of blood would make him run away like apoltroon, disgracing himself forever and breaking the hearts of all wholoved him_. This belief had made his commission in the Reserves amelancholy farce; this had placed him in the power of Dr. Philip Pomeroyand prevented that exposure and that punishment so richly deserved; thishad made his life, after the breaking out of the war, one long struggle toavoid what he believed must be disgraceful detection. Once more, so thatthe matter which informs this whole relation may be fairlyunderstood,--Carlton Brand, merely a high-strung, imaginative, nervousman, with the bravery of the old Paladins latent in his heart and burstingout occasionally in actions more trying than the facing of any battery thatever belched forth fire and death,--had all the while mistaken thatnervousness for cowardice;--just as many a man who has neither heart,feeling nor imagination, strides through the world and stalks over thebattle-field, wrapped in his mantle of ignorance and stolidity, believinghimself and impressing the belief upon others, that this is indomitablebravery.
What Carlton Brand had believed himself to be when untried--what CarltonBrand had proved himself to be when hatred to Captain Hector Coles and adespairing hope of yet winning the love of Margaret Hayley moved him to thetrial--how thorough a contrast!--how exact an antagonism! And how many ofus, perhaps, going backward from the glass in which we have more or lessclosely beheld our natural faces, forget, if we have ever truly read, "whatmanner of men" we are!
And here another explanation must follow, as we may well believe that itfollowed between the three so strangely reunited, when rest and repose hadworn off the first shock of meeting and made it safe for the petted invalidto meet another pressure from those rose-leaf lips that had forsaken alltheir pride to bend down and touch him with a penitent blessing--safe tospeak and to hear of the many things which the parted always treasureagainst re-union. That explanation concerns the mystery of the passenger bythe Cunarder, the American in England, and the man who under the name ofCarlton Brand perished from the deck of the Emerald off Kingstown harbor?Had he a double life as well as a double nature? Or had there been someunaccountable personation? The latter, of course, and from causes and undercircumstances not one whit surprising when the key is once supplied.
It will be remembered that Carlton Brand, very soon after his purchase of aticket for Liverpool by the Cunard steamer and his indulging thatnervousness which he believed to be cowardice with a little shudderinghorror at the mass of coal roaring and blazing in the furnaces of thegovernment transport, early in July,--had a visiter at his rooms at theFifth Avenue Hotel--Henry Thornton, of Philadelphia, a brother lawyer andintimate friend. It will also be remembered that the two held a long andconfidential conversation, very little of the purport of which was thengiven. The facts, a part of them thus far concealed, were that CarltonBrand, flying from his disgrace, really intended to go to Europe as he hadinformed Elsie; that he made no secret of that disgrace, to Thornton; thatthe latter informed him, incidentally, of what he had heard of the summerplans of Margaret Hayley and her mother, whom he knew through his family;that the passage-ticket, lying upon the table, came under the notice ofThornton, inducing the information that he was also on his way to England,in chase of a criminal who had absconded with a large sum of moneybelonging to one of the Philadelphia banks, and whom he had means, if oncehe could overtake him, of forcing to disgorge; that Thornton half-jestinglyproposed, remembering their partial resemblance, that if his friend hadgrown ashamed of his name, he would take that and the ticket and pursue thecriminal with less chance of being evaded, his own cognomen being kept inthe dark; that Brand, suddenly taken with the idea and struck with thefacility which the use of his name by the other would furnish for creatingthe belief that he had himself gone abroad, and thus concealing hisidentity while remaining at home, adopted the suggestion and supplied hisfriend at once with name and ticket, for his travelling purposes; that itwas Henry Thornton and not Carlton Brand who ran that mad quest aboutEngland, a hidden criminal always in view, and frequenting the mostdoubtful places and the most disreputable society to accomplish the objectof his search; and that it was poor Thornton and not Carlton Brand whoperished in the Irish Channel and met that lowly grave in the Howthchurch-yard. All this while the real owner of that name, shaving away hiscurling beard, tinging his fair skin with a very easily-obtained chemicalpreparation, dyeing black his hair and moustache and making himself up asnearly as possible like Thornton, under the assumed designation of HoraceTownsend, suggested by the initials of his "double," was carrying out thatlong masquerade which we have been permitted to witness.
The peculiarities which he developed in that masquerade, should by thistime be reasonably well understood; the motives which kept him near thewoman who had once loved him but afterwards cast him off forever, mayeasily be guessed by many a man, correspondingly situated, who has thusfluttered moth-like around his destroying candle; the half-maddening effectproduced upon him by the magnificent scenery of the mountains, the displaysof reckless courage made by Halstead Rowan and the marked admiration ofMargaret Hayley for those displays, was no matter for surprise when suchsurroundings for such a temperament were considered; the attempt to becomehis own rival and win the woman he so wildly worshipped from himself, wasnot crazier than might have been expected from the man who could haveexhibited all the preceding anomalies; and after Margaret had declared herunalterable love but her invincible determination never to marry the manwho dared not fight for his native land,--the feeling compounded of hopeand despair, which sent him down to the Virginia battle-fields, first as amere spectator under the favor of his old friend Pleasanton and then as amad Berserk running a course of warlike fury which made even gray-beardedveterans shudder,--this need astonish no one who has seen how humancharacter changes and develops its true components in the crucible of love,shame and sorrow!
Be sure that Margaret Hayley, too, in that day of the clearing away ofmists and mysteries, made one explanation--not to the ears of Robert Brand,but to those of Carlton alone. An explanation that was really aconfession, as it told him of the means through which the property held byher family (oh, how the magnificent face alternately flushed and paled whenopening this sore wound of her pride!) had been acquired many years before.But be sure that all this was made a recommendation rather than a shame inthe eyes of Carlton Brand, when he knew that from the day of his owndismissal her knowledge of that family stain had been used to keep Mrs.Burton Hayley quiet and subservient, to hold Captain Hector Coles at a safedistance, and to enforce what she had truly intended if _he_ should neverhonorably beckon her again to his bridal bed--a life of loneliness for hissake!
Something that occurred a month later--in October, when nature had put onthose gorgeous but melancholy robes of gold and purple with which inAmerica she wraps herself when Proserpine is going away from Ceres to thedarkness and desolation of winter.
One day during that month a close carriage drove down the lane leading fromthe Darby road past the house of Dr. Pomeroy. It was drawn by a magnificentpair of horses, but they were driven much more slowly than we have onceseen them pursuing the same course. A single figure was seated in it, withface at the window, when it drew up at the doctor's gate; and out of itstepped Nathan Bladesden, the Quaker merchant.
The face was calm, as beseemed his sect, but very stern. A little changed,perhaps, since the early summer, with a shadow more of white dashed intothe trim side-whiskers and one or two deeper lines upon the brow and at thecorners of the mouth. A step, as he said a word to the driver and enteredthe gate, which comported with the stern gravity of the face and the slowrate at which he had been driven. Something in the whole appearanceindicating that he had come upon a painful duty, but one that he would doif half the powers of both worlds should combine to prevent him.
He saw no one as he approached the piazza and the c
losed front door; but ashe was about to ring, a female servant came out, closed the door againbehind her and stopped as if surprised at seeing him.
"Is Doctor Philip Pomeroy at home?" he asked.
"Yes," was the answer, after one instant of hesitation,--"yes, but--"
"That was all I asked thee, woman!" answered the Quaker, sternly. "I cameto see him and I must do so. Show me to him at once."
The girl hesitated again, looked twice at him and once at the one openwindow of the parlor, then obeyed the behest, opened the front door,pointed to that leading into the parlor from the hall, and said:
"He is there, Mr. Bladesden. If you _must_ see him, you had better knock,for he may not like to be disturbed."
She went out at once, leaving the front door half open, and glancing back,as she passed it, at the tall, powerful man with the gray hair andside-whiskers, just applying his knuckles to the panel. There was somethingstrange and even startled in her look, but she said no more, left him soand went on upon her errand.
The Quaker knocked twice or three times before there was any answer fromwithin. Nor was the door opened even then, but the voice of the doctorsaid: "Come in!" and he entered. Doctor Philip Pomeroy sat alone in theroom, in a large chair, leaning far back, his arms folded tightly on hisbreast and his head so thrown forward that he looked up from beneath bentbrows. He evidently saw his visitor and recognized him, and yet he did notrise or change his position. And quite a moment elapsed before he said, ina voice frightfully hoarse:
"What do you want here, Nathan Bladesden?"
"I have business with thee, Doctor Philip," was the reply.
"And I do not choose to do business to-day, with any one, nor with _you_ aslong as I live!" said the same hoarse voice.
"And I choose that thee _shall_ do business to-day and with _me_!" was thesecond reply, still equable in tone but still terribly earnest.
Doctor Philip Pomeroy unfolded his arms and rose slowly from his chair. TheQuaker, as he did so and was thus thrown into a better light, saw that hisface was haggard, that his sharp, scintillant eyes were wild, and that helooked years older than when he had beheld him last, four months before.Standing, and with one hand on the chair as if he needed support, he said:
"Nathan Bladesden, I told you, the last time that you visited this house,never to come near it again, and I thought that you knew me too well tointrude again uninvited."
"It is because I know thee very well indeed, that I _have_ intruded, asthee calls it!" answered the Quaker, with what would have been a sneer onanother face and from other lips. "I remember the last time I came here,Doctor Philip, quite as well as thee does, and I promised thee some thingsthen that I am quite as likely to fulfil as thee is to carry out any of thythreats. Besides, thee may be sure that I have business, or I should nothave come, for thy company is not so attractive as that men of goodcharacter seek it of their own will!"
The Quaker had no doubt expected that by that time he would break out intorough violence, as before; but he had misjudged. From some cause unknown hedid not, though the wild eyes grew more than scintillant--they glared likethose of a wild beast at once in pain and at bay. And he made no answerexcept a "Humph!" that seemed to be uttered between closed lips--half anexpression of contempt and half a groan.
Nathan Bladesden, intent upon his "business," went on.
"I will not trouble thee long, Dr. Philip, but thee had better payattention to what I say, for I am very much in earnest and not to betrifled with, to-day, as thee will discover. If thee remembers, I came herethe last time to rescue Eleanor Hill from thy villainous hands--"
"Eleanor Hill!" This was not an exclamation of surprise, but a veritablegroaning-out of the name.
"Yes, Eleanor Hill," pursued Bladesden,--"after thee had broken off mymarriage with her by poisoning my mind against the poor girl thee hadruined in body and soul and I believe robbed in fortune. The morning ofthat day I had been weak, and driven away by thee: that afternoon I hadbeen moved to do my duty and to take her away from the hands of a seducerand a scoundrel--to shelter the lamb from the wolf, though it was torn andbleeding--to make her my sister if I could not make her my wife."
"Is that all--all? If not, go on!" groaned out the hoarse voice through theset teeth.
"No, there is somewhat more, Dr. Philip--and that of the most consequence,"the Quaker continued. "When I came, the poor girl was gone--gone from theeas well as from me. Then I heard that she had gone among the soldiers ofthe army, doing the work of the Master and healing the sick. She was awayfrom _thee_ and doing the duty of merciful woman, and I was content to waituntil she had finished. But to-day I learned that yesterday she came backagain."
"Oh, my God!--he will kill me!" groaned the answering voice, deeper andmore hoarse than ever. But the Quaker went mercilessly on.
"No, I think that I shall not have need!" he said. "Thee is cowardly aswell as base, and thee will obey and save thy life. I heard, I say, thatshe had come back to this house of pollution, and I have come to take heraway. Give her up to me, at once, that I may place her where thee can neverharm her and never even see her more, and that is all I ask of thee: refuseme or try to prevent my removing her, and I will take thee by the throat,here, now, with these hands that thee sees are strong enough to do the dutyof the hangman--and strangle thee to death!"
There was fearful intensity, very near approaching momentary madness, inthe voice and whole manner of Nathan Bladesden, before he had concludedthat startling speech; but if he could have looked keenly enough he mighthave seen on the face of the doctor something more terrible than any wordhe had uttered or any gesture he could make. His eyes rolled wildly with aglare that was only one remove from maniacy; his whole countenance was sofearfully contorted that he might have seemed in the last agony; and hisframe shook to such a degree that the very chair he held jarred andshivered on the floor with the muscular action.
"God of heaven, Nathan Bladesden!" he said, the hoarseness of his voicechanged into a wild cry. "Are you mad, or am _I_? You know that EleanorHill came back here yesterday, and you have come to take her away from meto-day?"
"I have come for that purpose, and I will do it, Doctor Philip," repliedthe Quaker. "Thee has my warning, and thee had better heed it. Let me seeher at once, and then if she does not herself ask to be left with thee andthe disgrace of thy house, thee shall see her no more, if I can prevent it,until the judgment!"
For one moment, then, without another word, Dr. Philip Pomeroy looked atthe speaker steadily as his own terrible situation would permit. Then heseemed to have arrived at some solution of a great mystery, or to havesprung to a desperate resolution, for he sprang forward, grasped the Quakerso suddenly that the latter for the moment started in the expectation ofpersonal violence, dragged him to the door separating the parlor from asmaller one at the rear, and dashed it open, with the words:
"There is Eleanor Hill! Ask her if she will go with you or remain with_me_!"
The room was partially shaded by heavy curtains; and Nathan Bladesden,stepping hastily therein, did not at first see what it contained. But whenhe did so, as he did the instant after, no wonder that even his stern,strong nature was not quite proof against the shock, and that he recoiledand uttered an exclamation of affright. For Eleanor Hill was there indeed,but scarcely within the reach of human wish or question--coffined for thegrave, the glossy brown hair smoothed away from a forehead on which restedneither the furrow of pain nor the mark of shame, the sad eyes closed inthat long peaceful night which knows no waking from sleep until theresurrection morning, the thin hands folded Madonna-like upon the breast,and one lingering flush of the hectic rose of consumption in the centre ofeither pale cheek, to restore all her childish beauty and carry theflower-symbol of human love into the very domain of death.
"That is Eleanor Hill--why do you not ask her the question?" Oh, what agonythere was in that poor attempt at a taunt!
"No, thee has made her what she is--thee may keep her, now!"
The Quaker'
s words were a far bitterer taunt than that which had fallenfrom the lips of the doctor. Then he seemed to soften, went up to thecoffin, looked steadily on the dead face for a moment, stooped and pressedhis lips on the cold, calm brow, and said, with a strange echo of whatCarlton Brand had uttered in the hospital but a few weeks before:
"They have such people as thee in heaven, Eleanor! Farewell!"
He turned away and seemed about to leave the room and the house, but thehand of Dr. Philip Pomeroy was again upon his arm, grasping it and holdinghim while the frame shivered with uncontrollable emotion and the brokenvoice groaned out:
"Nathan Bladesden, you hate me, and perhaps you have cause. You are a cold,stern man, with no mercy, and my tortures must be pleasure to you. Enjoythem all! And if any man ever doubts the existence of hell in yourpresence, tell him that you have seen it with your own eyes in the house ofPhilip Pomeroy, when the only woman he ever loved in the world lay deadbefore him, murdered by his own hand, and a devil stood by, taunting himwith his guilt!"
"I will taunt thee no more, Doctor Philip!" fell slowly from the Quaker'slips. "I hate thee no longer. I pity thee. Thy Maker is dealing with theenow, and thy punishment is enough!"
He turned away, then, and left the suffering man still within the roombeside the dead. Once as he passed into the hall he looked back and sawthrough the still open door a dark form fall forward with a groan, the headagainst the coffin and the arms clasping it as if it had been a livingthing.
There are two endings to the story of "Faust"--that marvellous wierdhistory of human love and demoniac temptation which alike in drama andopera enraptures the world, and once before alluded to in this narration.In the older and coarser version, when the ruin is full accomplished andthe hour of penalty full ripe, Marguerite is seen ascending heavenward,while Mephistopheles laughs hoarsely and points downward to the lower pit,whence arise blue flames and horrible discords, and into which the doomedFaust is seen to be dragged at the last moment by the hands of the swarmingand gibbering monsters. In the other and yet more terrible version,Maguerite is seen ascending, and the laugh of the demon is heard, but it isonly a faint, fading, mocking laugh, as even _he_ flies away and leaves theman accursed kneeling in hopeless agony over the dead form from which thepure spirit has just gone upward--condemned, not to the pit and the flame,but to that worse hell of living alone and without hope, racked by lovethat has come in its full force when too late, and by a remorse that willworse clutch at his heart-strings than all the fiends of perdition could doat the poor body which coffers his soul of torment. Who does not know howmuch the more dreadful is that second doom? Who does not--let him nevertempt God and fate by making the rash experiment!
Nathan Bladesden was right--even for such sins as those Doctor PhilipPomeroy had committed, the reckoning was fearful!
Poor Eleanor Hill had been right, too, when she said: "Leave him to me! * ** I will so punish him as no man was ever punished!"
* * * * *
Shall there not be one glimmer more of sunshine after the dark night andthe storm? Thank heaven, yes!--in a far-off glance at fortunes left long inabeyance but not forgotten.
Lying on the sofa at Mrs. Burton Hayley's, one evening when the first firesof winter had not long been lighted,--still taking the privilege of theinvalid though no longer one, and making a pillow of the lap of MargaretHayley, her dainty white fingers playing with his clustering golden blondehair as they had erewhile done among the summer rose-leaves,--a quick,warm, happy kiss stolen now and again when the dignified lady, of themansion was too busy with the devoutly-religious work that she was reading,to be horrified by such immoral practices,--lying thus, and the two talkingof dear little Elsie's coming happiness and their own which was not to bemuch longer deferred; of the restored pride and renovated health of RobertBrand--quite as dear to Margaret, since that day in the garden, as to theson and daughter of his own blood; of the delirious joy and dreadfullybroad Scotch of old Elspeth Graeme since the return of her "bonny bairn;"of poor Eleanor Hill and Captain Hector Coles, dead so differently on thefatal Virginian soil; of these and others, and of all the events which hadbeen so strangely crowded within the compass of little more than half ayear,--lying thus and talking thus, we say, Carlton Brand drew from hispocket a little fragment clipped from a newspaper, and said:
"By the way, Margaret, here is something that I found in one of theBaltimore papers yesterday. It concerns some friends of ours, whom we maynever meet again, but whom neither of us, I think, will ever quite forget.Read it."
Margaret Hayley took the slip and read, what writer and reader may bepardoned for looking over her fair rounded shoulder and perusing at thesame moment--this satisfactory and significant item:
MARRIED. ROWAN--VANDERLYN.--On Wednesday the 9th inst., by Rev. Dr. Rushmore, Major Halstead Rowan, of the Sixth Illinois cavalry, to Clara, daughter of the late Clayton Vanderlyn, Esq., and Mrs. Isabella Vanderlyn, of Calvert St.
"She was a sweet girl, and he was one of nature's gentlemen," saidMargaret. "I saw enough to know how dearly they were in love with eachother before they left the mountains; and I am glad to know that they havehad their will, in spite of"--and here she lowered her voice, so that Mrs.Burton Hayley could not possibly hear her--"a proud, meddling mother and abrother who should have been sent back to school until he learned manners!"
"Oh, Rowan told me that he was going into the army, before he left theCrawford," answered the happy lounger. "You see he has done so and become aMajor, and that makes him gentleman enough even for the Vanderlyns.George!--what a dashing officer he must make! Some day, when I go back tothe army--"
"When _I let you_ go back, mad fellow!"
"Some day I want to ride a charge with him, side by side. He was theboldest rider and the most daring man I ever knew."
"The bravest that _I_ ever knew, except _one_!" said Margaret Hayley,stooping down her proud neck and for some unexplainable reason stopping foran instant in the middle of her speech. "And he had even the advantage ofthat _one_ in a very important respect."
"And what was that, I should like to be informed, my Empress!"
"He _knew it_!"
THE END.
* * * * *
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COOK BOOKS
Petersons' New Cook Book; or Useful Receipts for the Housewife and the uninitiated. Full of valuable receipts, all original and never before published, all of which will be found to be very valuable and of daily use. One vol., bound. Price $1.50.
Miss Leslie's New Cookery Book; Being her last new book. One volume, bound. Price $1.50.
Widdifield's New Cook Book; or, Practical Receipts for the Housewife. Cloth. Price $1.50.
Mrs. Hale's New Cook Book. By Mrs. Sarah J. Hale. One volume, bound. Price $1.50.
Miss Leslie's New Receipts for Cooking. Complete in one volume, bound. Price $1.50.
MRS. HALE'S RECEIPTS.
Mrs. Hale's Receipts for the Million. Containing 4545 Receipts. By Mrs. Sarah J. Hale. One vol., 800 pages, strongly bound. Price $1.50.
LADIES GUIDE TO TRUE POLITENESS, etc.
The Ladies Guide to True Politeness and Perfect Manners. By Miss Leslie.Cloth, full gilt back. Price $1.50.
The Ladies Complete Guide to Needlework and Embroidery. 113 Illustrations. Cloth, gilt back. Price $1.50.
Ladies Work Table Book. Plates, cloth, crimson gilt. Price $1.25.
FRANCATELLI'S FRENCH COOK.
Francatelli's Celebrated French Cook Book. The Modern Cook. A Practical Guide to the Culinary Art, in all its branches; comprising, in addition to English Cookery, the most approved and recherche systems of French, Italian, and German Cookery; adapted as well for the largest establishments, as for the use of private families. By CHARLES ELME FRANCATELLI, pupil to the celebrated CAREME, and late Maitre-d'Hotel and Chief Cook to her Majesty, the Queen of England. With Sixty-Two Illustrations of various dishes. Reprinted from the last London Edition, carefully revised and considerably enlarged. Complete in one large octavo volume of Six Hundred pages, strongly bound, and printed on the finest paper. Price Five Dollars.
J. A. MAITLAND'S GREAT WORKS.
The Three Cousins. By J. A. Mait
land. One vol., paper. Price $1.25; or in one vol., cloth, $1.50.
The Watchman. Complete in one large vol., paper cover. Price $1.25; or in one vol., cloth, $1.50.
The Wanderer. Complete in one volume, paper cover. Price $1.25; or in one vol., cloth, for $1.50.
The Diary of an Old Doctor. One vol., paper cover. Price $1.25, or bound in cloth for $1.50.
The Lawyer's Story. One volume, paper cover. Price $1.25; or bound in cloth for $1.50.
Sartaroe. A Tale of Norway. One vol., paper cover. Price $1.25 or in cloth for $1.50.
MRS. DANIELS' GREAT WORKS.
Marrying for Money. One vol., octavo, paper cover. Price fifty cents; or one vol., cloth. Price $1.00.
The Poor Cousin. Price 50 cents.
Kate Walsingham. Price 50 cents.
ALEXANDER DUMAS' WORKS.
Count of Monte-Cristo. By Alexander Dumas. Beautifully illustrated. One volume, cloth, $1.50; or paper cover, for $1.00.
The Conscript. One vol., paper cover. Price $1.25.; or in one vol., cloth, for $1.50.
Camille; or the Fate of a Coquette. Only correct Translation from the Original French. One volume, paper, price $1.25; cloth, $1.50.
The Three Guardsmen. Price 75 cents, in paper cover, or a finer edition in cloth, for $1.50.
Twenty Years After. A Sequel to the "Three Guardsmen." Price 75 cents, in paper cover, or a finer edition, in one volume, cloth, for $1.50.
Bragelonne; the Son of Athos: being the continuation of "Twenty Years After." Price 75 cents, in paper, or a finer edition, in cloth, for $1.50.
The Iron Mask. Being the continuation of the "Three Guardsmen." Two vols., paper cover. Price One Dollar; or in one vol., cloth, $1.50.
Louise La Valliere, or, The Second Series and end of the "Iron Mask." Two volumes, paper cover. Price $1.00, or in one vol., cloth, $1.50.
The Memoirs of a Physician. Beautifully Illustrated. Two vols., paper cover. Price One Dollar; or bound in one volume, cloth, for $1.50.
The Queen's Necklace. A Sequel to the "Memoirs of a Physician." Two vols., paper cover. Price $1.00; or in one vol., cloth, for $1.50.
Six Years Later, or, Taking of the Bastile. A Continuation of "The Queen's Necklace." Two vols., paper cover. Price One Dollar; or in one vol., cloth, for $1.50.
Countess of Charny; or, The Fall of the French Monarchy. Sequel to Six Years Later. Two vols., paper cover. Price One Dollar; or in one volume, cloth, for $1.50.
Andree de Taverney. A Sequel to and continuation of the Countess of Charny. Two volumes, paper. Price $1.00; or in one vol., cloth, for $1.50.
The Chevalier. A Sequel to, and final end of "Andree De Taverney." One vol. Price 75 cents.
The Adventures of a Marquis. Two vols., paper cover. Price 1.00; or in one vol., cloth, for $1.50.
The Forty-Five Guardsmen. Price 75 cents, or a finer edition in one volume, cloth. Price $1.50.
The Iron Hand. Price 75 cents, in paper cover, or a finer edition in one volume, cloth, for $1.50.
Diana of Meridor. Two volumes paper cover. Price One Dollar; or in one vol., cloth, for $1.50.
Edmond Dantes. Being a Sequel to Dumas' celebrated novel of the "Count of Monte-Cristo." Price 50 cts.
Annette; or, The Lady of the Pearls. A Companion to "Camille." Price 50 cents.
The Fallen Angel. A Story of Love and Life in Paris. One volume. Price 50 cents.
The Man with Five Wives. Complete in one volume. Price 50 cts.
George; or, The Planter of the Isle of France. One volume. Price Fifty cents.
Genevieve; or, The Chevalier of Maison Rouge. One volume. Illustrated. Price 50 cents.
The Mohicans of Paris. 50 cts.
Sketches in France. 50 cents.
Isabel of Bavaria. Price 50 cts.
Felina de Chambure; or, The Female Fiend. Price 50 cents.
The Horrors of Paris. 50 cents.
The Twin Lieutenants. One vol. Price 75 cts.
The Corsican Brothers. 25 cts.
FRANK E. SMEDLEY'S WORKS.
Harry Coverdale's Courtship and Marriage. One vol., paper. Price $1.25; or cloth, $1.50.
Lorrimer Littlegood. By author of "Frank Fairleigh." One vol., paper. Price $1.25; or cloth, $1.50.
Frank Fairleigh. One volume, cloth, $1.50; or cheap edition in paper cover, for 75 cents.
Lewis Arundel. One vol., cloth. Price $1.50; or cheap edition in paper cover, for 75 cents.
Fortunes and Misfortunes of Harry Racket Scapegrace. Cloth. Price $1.50; or cheap edition in paper cover, for 50 cents.
Tom Racquet; and His Three Maiden Aunts. Illustrated. 50 cents.
* * * * *
GET UP YOUR CLUBS FOR 1864!
NEW AND SPLENDID PREMIUMS!
PETERSON'S MAGAZINE THE BEST AND CHEAPEST IN THE WORLD!
This popular Monthly contains more for the money than any Magazine in theworld. In 1864, it will have nearly 1000 pages, 25 to 30 steel plates, 12colored patterns, and 900 wood engravings--and all this for only TWODOLLARS A YEAR, or a dollar less than magazines of its class. Every ladyought to take "Peterson." In the general advance of prices, it is the ONLYMAGAZINE THAT HAS NOT RAISED ITS PRICES, EITHER TO SINGLE SUBSCRIBERS OR TOCLUBS; and is, therefore, emphatically,
THE MAGAZINE FOR THE TIMES!
The stories in "Peterson" are conceded to be _the best published anywhere_.Mrs. Ann S. Stephens, Ella Rodman, Mrs. Denison, Frank Lee Benedict, theauthor of "Susy L's Diary," T. S. Arthur, E. L. Chandler Moulton, GabrielleLee, Virginia F. Townsend, Rosalie Grey, Clara Augusta, and the author of"The Second Life," besides all the most popular female writers of Americaare regular contributors. In addition to the usual number of shorterstories, there will be given in 1864, Four Original Copy-righted Novelets,viz:
THE MAID OF HONOR--a Story of Queen Bess,By ANN S. STEPHENS.
THE LOST ESTATE--a Story of To-Day,By the author of "The Second Life."
MAUD'S SUMMER AT SARATOGA,By FRANK LEE BENEDICT.
FANNY'S FLIRTATION,By ELLA RODMAN.
In its Illustrations also, "Peterson" is unrivaled. The publisherchallenges a comparison between its SUPERB MEZZOTINTS AND OTHER STEELENGRAVINGS and those in other Magazines, and one at least is given in everynumber.
COLORED FASHION PLATES IN ADVANCE,
It is the ONLY MAGAZINE whose Fashion Plates can be relied on.
Each number contains a Fashion Plate, engraved on steel, and colored--fromFashions later than any other Magazine gives; also, a dozen or more NewStyles, engraved on Wood; also, a Pattern, from which a Dress, Mantilla, orChild's Costume can be cut, without the aid of a mantua-maker--so that eachnumber, in this way, will SAVE A YEAR'S SUBSCRIPTION. The Paris, London,Philadelphia and New York Fashions are described, at length, each month.Patterns of Caps, Bonnets, Head Dresses, &c., given. Its
COLORED PATTERNS IN EMBROIDERY, CROCHET, &C.
The Work-Table Department of this Magazine IS WHOLLY UNRIVALED. Everynumber contains a dozen or more patterns in every variety of Fancy-work;Crochet, Embroidery, Knitting, Bead-work, Shell-work, Hair-work, &c., &c.,&c. Every month, a SUPERB COLORED PATTERN FOR SLIPPER, PURSE or CHAIR SEAT,&c., is given--each of which, at a retail store, would cost Fifty Cents.
"OUR NEW COOK-BOOK."
The Original Household Receipts of "Peterson" are quite famous. For 1864our "COOK-BOOK" will be continued: EVERY ONE OF THESE RECEIPTS HAS BEENTESTED. This alone will be worth the price of "Peterson." Other Receiptsfor the Toilette, Sick-room, &c., &c., will be given.
NEW AND FASHIONABLE MUSIC in every number. Also, Hints on Horticulture,Equestrianism, and all matters i
nteresting to Ladies.
TERMS:--ALWAYS IN ADVANCE.
One Copy for One year, $2.00Three Copies for One year, 5.00Five Copies for One year, $7.50Eight Copies for One year. 10.00
PREMIUMS FOR GETTING UP CLUBS!--Three, Five, or Eight copies, make a Club.To every person getting up a club an extra copy of the Magazine for 1864will be given.
_Address, post-paid_, CHARLES J. PETERSON,
No. 306 Chestnut St., Phila.
All Postmasters constituted Agents; but any person may get up a club.Specimens sent gratuitously, if written for.
* * * * *
CHEAPEST BOOK HOUSE IN THE WORLD.
To Sutlers! Pedlars! Booksellers! News Agents! etc.
T. B. PETERSON & BROTHERS,
No. 306 Chestnut Street, Philadelphia,
PUBLISH THE MOST SALEABLE BOOKS IN THE WORLD
AND SUPPLY ALL BOOKS AT VERY LOW RATES.
The cheapest place in the world to buy or send for a stock of all kinds ofBooks, suitable for all persons whatever, for Soldiers, and for the Army,and for all other reading, is at the Bookselling and Publishing House of T.B. PETERSON & BROTHERS, Philadelphia.
Any person wanting any books at all, in any quantity, from a single book toa dozen, a hundred, thousand, ten thousand, or larger quantity of books,had better send on their orders at once to the "CHEAPEST BOOKSELLING ANDPUBLISHING HOUSE IN THE WORLD," which is at T. B. PETERSON & BROTHERS, No.306 Chestnut Street, Philadelphia, who have the largest stock in thecountry, and will supply them and sell them cheaper than any other house inthe world. We publish a large variety of Military Novels, with IllustratedMilitary covers, in colors, besides thousands of others, all of which arethe best selling and most popular books in the world. We have just issued anew and complete Catalogue, copies of which we will send gratuitously toall on their sending for one.
Enclose one, two, five, ten, twenty, fifty, a hundred, or a thousanddollars, or more, to us in a letter, or per express, and write what kind ofbooks you wish, and they will be packed and sent to you at once, per firstexpress or mail, or in any other way you may direct, just as well assorted,and the same as if you were on the spot, with circulars, show bills, &c.,gratis. All we ask is to give us a trial.
Address all orders for any books you may want at all, no matter by whompublished, or how small or how large your order may be, to the _CheapestPublishing and Bookselling House in the world, which is at_
T. B. PETERSON & BROTHERS,
No. 306 Chestnut Street, Philadelphia,
And they will be packed and sent to you within an hour after receipt of theorder, per express or railroad, or in any other way you may direct.
Agents, Sutlers, and Pedlars wanted everywhere, to engage in the sale ofour popular selling Books, all of which will be sold at very low rates.