like the side
of a tortured and choking brute. Falling to the ground, she writhed,
and struggled, and kicked convulsively, as though seized with some
inward pang. Then she rose slowly to her shattered little feet, and
drew an old cupboard to the middle of the wretched cave and beat her
head against it.

"It was the child's first taste of that great mystery of perfect love
which woman is doomed to share with the thing called Man.

"'Yo'air indulging in secret cachinnation, at the expense of my sair
heart.'

"The child meant that he was laughing at her.

"John Smith helped himself to some more pork and beans, and sat back in
his stern, dark chair. What were his thoughts as he looked down on that
miniature fragment of womanly humanity? Perhaps he thought that there
might be angels way up in heaven just like her. Bright seraphs, with
ruby eyes, and silver wings, and golden harps, and just such pale,
haggard, gaunt, sunken, bleared little faces.

"'Girletta,' he said, 'I hereby make thee mine. Take some of these pork
and beans.'

"She fell upon his bosom.

"There let us leave them. Do you think they were any less happy,
because they were way down in a dreamy, rayless coal-mine, where men
work their souls away to give others warmth? If you think so, you have
never felt what true love is. Your degraded and starless nature has
never had one true soul to lean upon. When you lean upon a soul, you
see everything through that soul, which gives its own hue to
everything. Man's love is a pane in his bosom, and through that pane
the eyes of woman look forth to see the new world. The medium is the
ultimatum. God gives us love that we may live more cheaply and happily
together than if we were separate. A bread-pudding is richer where
there are two hearts, than plum-pudding is to one alone. The world will
learn this yet, and then the lion will lie down with the lamb, and even
you will be less depraved. The First of April found John Smith
unmarried, but it left him nearly wedded. Let us think of this when the
spring birds sing again. It will make us more human, more charitable,
and fitter to be blest."

As Samyule finished reading this excellent religious tale, my boy, I
stole from the tent to meditate in silence upon the terrible revelation
of human nature. Are there not dozens of Smiths in this world,--ay,
even John Smiths? I should think so, my boy,--I should think so.

On Friday morning, I went to Accomac, to attend the fu