"No, no; not now," was the answer.

For a time there was silence, and then Lenora, again speaking, said, "Mother, I have often been very wicked and disrespectful to you, and if you should die, I should feel much happier knowing that you forgave me. Will you do it, mother--say?"

Mrs. Hamilton comprehended only the words, "if you should die," so she said: "Die, die! who says that I must die? I shan't--I can't; for what could I tell her about her children, and how could I live endless ages without water? I tried it once, and I can't do it. No, I can't. I won't!"

In this way she talked all night; and though in the morning she was more rational, she turned away from the clergyman, who at Lenora's request had been sent for, saying:

"It's of no use, no use, I know all you would say, but it's too late, too late!"

Thus she continued for three days, and at the close of the third it became evident to all that she was dying, and Hester was immediately sent to the hotel, with a request that the old porter would come quickly. Half an hour after Lenora bent over her mother's pillow, and whispered in her ear, "Mother, can you hear me?"

A pressure of the hand was the reply, and Lenora continued: "You have not said that you forgave me, and now before you die, will you not tell me so?"

There was another pressure of the hand, and Lenora again spoke: "Mother, would you like to see him--my father? He is in the next room."

This roused the dying woman, and starting up, she exclaimed, "See John Carter! No, child, no! He'd only curse me. Let him wait until I am dead, and then I shall not hear it."

In ten minutes more Lenora was sadly gazing upon the fixed, stony features of the dead. A gray-haired man was at her side, and his lip quivered, as he placed his hand upon the white, wrinkled brow of her who had once been his wife. "She is fearfully changed," were his only words, as he turned away from the bed of death.

True to her promise, Margaret came to attend her stepmother's funeral.

Walter accompanied her, and shuddered as he looked on the face of one who had so darkened his home, and embittered his life. Kate was not there, and when, after the burial, Lenora asked Margaret for her, she was told of a little "Carrie Lenora," who with pardonable pride "Walter thought was the only baby of any consequence in the world.

Margaret was going on with a glowing description of the babe's many beauties, when she was interrupted by Lenora, who laid her face in her lap and burst into tears.

"Why, Lenora, what is the matter?" asked Margaret.

As soon as Lenora became calm, she answered, "_That name_, Maggie. You have given my name to Walter Hamilton's child, and if you had hated me you would never have done it."

"Hated you!" repeated Margaret; "we do not hate you; now that we understand you, we like you very much, and one of Kate's last injunctions to Walter was that he should again offer you a home with him."

Once more Lenora was weeping. She had not shed a tear when they carried from sight her mother, but words of kindness touched her heart, and the fountain was opened. At last, drying her eyes, she said, "I prefer to go with father. Walter will, of course, come back to the homestead, while father and I shall return to our old home in Connecticut, where, by being kind to him, I hope to atone, in a measure, for my great unkindness to mother."

CHAPTER XIV.

FINALE.

Through the open casement of a small, white cottage in the village of P----, the rays of the September moon are stealing, disclosing to view a gray-haired man, whose placid face still shows marks of long years of dissipation. Affectionately he caresses the black, curly head which is resting on his knee, and softly he says, "Lenora, my daughter, there are, I trust, years of happiness in store for us both."

"I hope it may be so," was the answer, "but there is no promise of many days to any save those who honor their father and mother. This last I have never done, though many, many times have I repented of it, and I begin to be assured that we may be happy yet."

Away to the westward, over many miles of woodland, valley, and hill, the same September moon shines upon the white walls of the "homestead," where sits the owner, Walter Hamilton, gazing first upon his wife and then upon the tiny treasure which lies sleeping upon her lap.

"We are very happy, Katy darling," he says, and the affection which looks from her large blue eyes as she lifts them to his face is a sufficient answer. Margaret, too, is there, and though but an hour ago her tears were falling upon the grass-grown graves where slept her father and mother, the gentle Carrie, and golden-haired Willie, they are all gone now, and she responds to her brother's words, "Yes, Walter, we are very happy."

In the basement below the candle is burned to its socket, and as the last ray flickers up, illuminating for a moment the room, and then leaving it in darkness, Aunt Polly Pepper starts from her evening nap, and as if continuing her dream mutters "Yes this is pleasant and something like living."

And so with the moonlight and starlight falling upon the old homestead, and the sunlight of love falling upon the hearts of its inmates, we bid them adieu.

RICE CORNER

CHAPTER I.

RICE CORNER.

Yes, Rice Corner! Do you think it a queer name? Well, Rice Corner was a queer place, and deserved a queer name. Now whether it is celebrated for anything in particular, I really can't at this moment think, unless, indeed, it is famed for having been my birthplace! Whether this of itself is sufficient to immortalize a place future generations may, perhaps, tell, but I have some misgivings whether the present will. This idea may be the result of my having recently received sundry knocks over the knuckles in the shape of criticisms.

But I know one thing--on the bark of that old chestnut tree which stands near Rice Corner schoolhouse, my name is cut higher than some of my more bulky contemporary quill--or rather steel--pen-wielders ever dared to climb. To be sure, I tore my dress, scratched my face, and committed numerous other little rompish _miss_-demeanors, which procured for me a motherly scolding. That, however, was of minor consideration when compared with having my name up--in the chestnut tree, at least, if it couldn't be up in the world. But pardon my egotism, and I will proceed with my story about Rice Corner.

Does any one wish to know whereabout on this rolling sphere Rice Corner is situated? I don't believe you can find it on the map, unless your eyes are bluer and bigger than mine, which last they can't very well be. But I can tell you to a dot where Rice Corner should be.

Just take your atlas--not the last one published, but Olney's, that's the one _I_ studied--and right in one of those little towns in Worcester County is Rice Corner snugly nestled among the gray rocks and blue hills of New England.

Yes, Rice Corner was a great place, and so you would have thought could you have seen it in all its phases, with its brown, red, green, yellow, and white houses, each of which had the usual quantity of rose-bushes, lilacs, hollyhocks, and sunflowers. You should have seen my home, my New England home, where once, not many years ago, a happy group of children played. Alas! alas! some of those who gave the sunlight to that spot have left us now forever, and on the bright shores of the eternal river they wait and watch our coming. I do not expect a stranger to love our old homestead as I loved it, for in each heart is a fresh, green spot--the memory of its own early home--where the sunshine was brighter, the well waters cooler, and the song-bird's carol sweeter than elsewhere they are found.

I trust I shall be forgiven if in this chapter I pause awhile to speak of my home--aye, and of myself, too, when, a light-hearted child, I bounded through the meadows and orchards which lay around the old brown house on my father's farm. 'Twas a large, square, two-storied building, that old brown farmhouse, containing rooms, cupboards, and closets innumerable, and what was better than all, a large airy garret, where on all rainy days and days when it looked as if it would rain, Bill, Joe, Lizzie, and I assembled to hold our noisy revels.

Never, since the days of our great-grandmothers, did little spinning wheel buzz round faster than did the one which, in the darkest corner of that garret, had been safely stowed away, where they guessed "the young ones wouldn't find it."

"Wouldn't find it!" I should like to know what there was in that old garret that we didn't find, and appropriate, too! Even the old oaken chest which contained our grandmother's once fashionable attire was not sacred from the touch of our lawless hands. Into its deep recesses we plunged, and brought out such curiosities--the queerest-looking, high-crowned, broad-frilled caps, narrow-gored skirts, and what was funnier than all, a strange-looking thing which we thought must be a side saddle--anyway, it fitted Joe's rocking horse admirably, although we wondered why so much whalebone was necessary!

One day, in the midst of our gambols, in walked the identical owner of the chest, and seeing the side-saddle, she said somewhat angrily, "Why, children, where upon airth did you find my old stays?" We never wondered again what made grandma's back keep its place so much better than ours, and Bill had serious thoughts of trying the effect of the stays upon himself.

In the rear of our house, and sloping toward the setting sun, was a long, winding lane, leading far down into a widespreading tract of flowery woods, shady hillside, and grassy pasture land, each in their turn highly suggestive of brown nuts, delicious strawberries, and venomous snakes. These last were generally more the creatures of imagination than of reality, for in all my wanderings over those fields, and they were many, I never but once trod upon a green snake, and only once was I chased by a white-ringed blacksnake; so I think I am safe in saying that the snakes were not so numerous as were the nuts and berries, which grew there in great profusion.

A little to the right of the woods, where, in winter, Bill, Joe, Lizzie, and I dragged our sleds and boards for the purpose of riding down-hill, was a merry, frolicking stream of water, over which, in times long gone, a sawmill had been erected; but owing to the inefficiency of its former owner, or something else, the mill had fallen into disuse, and gradually gone to decay. The water of the brook, relieved from the necessity of turning the spluttering wheel, now went gayly dancing down, down, into the depths of the dim old woods, and far away, I never knew exactly where; but having heard rumors of a jumping-off place, I had a vague impression that at that spot the waters of the mill-dam put up!

Near the sawmill, and partially hidden by the scraggy pine trees and thick bushes which drooped over its entrance, was a long, dark passage, leading underground, not so large, probably, as Mammoth Cave, but in my estimation rivaling it in interest. This was an old mine, where, years before, men had dug for gold. Strange stories were told of those who, with blazing torches, and blazing noses, most likely, there toiled for the yellow dust. The "Ancient Henry" himself, it was said, sometimes left his affairs at home, and joined the nightly revels in that mine, where cards and wine played a conspicuous part.

Be that as it may, the old mine was surrounded by a halo of fear which we youngsters never cared to penetrate.

On a fine afternoon an older sister would occasionally wander that way, together with a young M.D., whose principal patient seemed to be at our house, for his little black pony very frequently found shelter in our stable by the side of "old sorrel." From the north garret window I would watch them, wondering how they dared venture so near the old mine, and wishing, mayhap, that the time would come when I, with some daring doctor, would risk everything. The time _has come_, but alas! instead of being a doctor, he is only a lawyer, who never even saw the old mine in Rice Corner.

Though I never ventured close to the old mine, there was not far from it one pleasant spot where I loved dearly to go. It was on the hillside, where, 'neath the shadow of a gracefully twining grapevine, lay a large, flat rock. Thither would I often repair, and sit for hours, listening to the hum of the running water brook, or the song of the summer birds, who, like me, seemed to love that place. Often would I gaze far off at the distant, misty horizon, wondering if I should ever know what was beyond it. Wild fancies then filled my childish brain. Strange voices whispered to me thoughts and ideas which, if written down and carried out, would, I am sure, have placed my name higher than it was carved on the old chestnut tree.

"But they came and went like shadows, Those blessed dreams of youth,"