things that disfigure their poor lives in the eyes
of the fastidious; and perhaps makes the angels of Him, before whose
Face the stars are not spotless, turn from the cold perfection of the
mansion and the castle to gaze lovingly on the squalid lowliness of the
hamlet and the cabin. Well. On the morning that Mrs. Darcy gave me
formal notice of her relinquishment of the solemn office she held, she
bent her steps homeward with a heavy heart. She had done her duty, like
all the other great people who have done disagreeable things; but it
brought no consolation. And she had flung behind her her little cabin,
and all the sweet associations connected therewith, and the pomp and
pride of power, when she officiated at the public offices of the Church,
and every one knew her to be indispensable. For who could tell the name
of a defaulter at the station, but Mrs. Darcy? And who arranged the
screaming baby in the clumsy arms of a young godmother, but Mrs. Darcy?
And who could lay out a corpse like Mrs. Darcy? And who but Mrs. Darcy
found the ring when the confused and blushing bridegroom fumbled in
every pocket at the altar, and the priest looked angry, and the bride
ashamed?

And then her pride in the Church! How wonderful were her designs in
holly and ivy at Christmas! What fantasies she wove out of a rather
limited imagination! What art fancies, that would shame William Morris,
poet and socialist, did she conceive and execute in the month of May for
the Lady Altar! Didn't Miss Campion say that she was a genius, but
undeveloped? Didn't Miss Campion's friend from Dublin declare that
there was nothing like it in Gardiner Street? And when her time would be
spent, and she was old and rheumatized, would not little Jemmy, the
hunchback, who was a born pre-Raphaelite, take her place, and have a
home, for he could not face the rough world? Ah me! and it was all gone;
cast behind her through a righteous feeling of pride and duty. She moved
through the village with a heavy heart; and her check apron went to her
eyes.

She had an amiable habit of never entering her cabin without playing
"Peek-a-boo!" through the window with the baby. For this purpose, the
cradle was always drawn so that the baby faced the window; and when it
saw the round face, which it knew so well, peeping over the speck
blossoms of the mignonette, well--there were developments. On this
particular morning, Mrs. Darcy was in no humor for playacting; but the
force of ha