He hears the voice of his companion subdued to a low whisper, bidding the boy wake up his mother, or get a light. He hears the little bare feet pattering about in the darkness, and then he hears them stumble. There is an incoherent sound of other children's voices from a room within, talking and crying blended. Then there is a low moan, and the child begins to cry. Is it something white, stirring there within on the floor? Hush! another moan; another stir of that white, formless something! The child is still crying, but in a hushed, forlorn way. He hears his companion fumbling in his clothes, and then he sees the blue scratch of a lucifer on the adjacent wall. Another, and another, and the match spits bluely and ignites. Before it fairly flames, Ginn has stepped softly into the room, shading it with his hand. It lights, and the darkness vanishes. Good God! what is this! There is a man lying on his back on the floor, and a woman huddled near him in her nightdress! The light only glares for an instant on her agonized and ashen face, and the glassy stare of her eyes, and then goes out, leaving them in a more dreadful darkness. What is it? what is it? A hundred whispering voices seem to gibber the words upon the air. He had only one glimpse of his companion, in which he had seen him standing with the basket on his arm, and the match in his raised hand; but he had seen him in that moment turn deadly pale, and open his mouth like one who gasped for air. Quick, Ginn, quick! for God's sake! there's something the matter here! The match will not light, Ginn tries another, succeeds, and gets a lamp lighted which he has found on the chimney-piece. The awful secret of the room is laid bare!

They have raised the woman from the floor, and laid her, feebly moaning, in the bed. They have touched the body on the floor. It is moist and warm to their touch, but the life is there no longer. He is quite dead. It is a dreadful sight to see the corpse in its torn, soiled, laborer's clothes, lying there amidst the squalid confusion of the room, the burly limbs all relaxed, and the yellow, rigid, brutal face, and bleared eyes wide open, staring at the low ceiling. A lamp, which had fallen from her hand, lies there beside him, with its tube and wick soaking in a small prol of oil. There is a black

bottle lying on the floor near his hand. Rum, of course. He has drunk himself to death. Take it up! smell of it! No: he drank much rum in his poor, besotted life; but for his last and most effectual draught, he chose another poison. There is nothing in the bottle, now, but the smell of the laudanum that killed him.

Take the question to your heart, Dark Student, and meditate it well! Judge between a deed attempted and a deed done; compute the difference, and decide whose is the greater sin! You would, after your manner, have drunken poison from a dainty glass, because you were weary of the world, which had done nothing to weary you-and you knew too little, and cared too little, what it had done. This poor extinguished clod-perhaps, he too, was weary of the world; and I will give you odds that he had some good, substantial, desperate reason for being so, where you had none. He, too, after his coarser manner, drank his poison from a vulgar bottle, with no dark, romantic thought of Aqua Tofana, the subtile poison of Italian vengeance, and fatal wine of the Borgias; but, perchance, with some unutterable, savage, and frightful rage at the life which he had never known how to command, and turn to profit or to honor; and with a violent desire to drown it with the liquid death which is now within him. Think of it! He was a poor, ignorant, besotted, brutalized Irish laborer. Generations past, and a generation present, of a selfism of which yours is but the microcosm and pigmy symbol, resulted in him, as in millions like him, making him all he was, and never to rise above that level, but to sink lower and lower forever. You are not poor, nor ignorant, nor besotted. nor brutalized, nor branded, even in the Christian land where all are free and equal, with the stigma of an alien birth and low condition; nor have you ever done the fair day's work for the unfair day's wages, which cursed him with the unequal curse of the race of Adam. He lies there on the bare floor of this wretched chamber, stark dead, with a hundred reasons for his death written on his miserable visage. You, too, could you have had your way, would have lain thus in to-morrow's sunlight; but not upon a bare floor, nor in a squalid chamber, nor with one excuse legible on your face, or on the his

tory of your luxurious life, for such an act; but only your base and selfish weariness of a world in which men like you should be healers and redeemers -only that excuse which is a pretext and a lie! Think of it, Dark Student! Think of it while the crust around your heart is shattering before an agony and a sorrow not your own. Think of it while you hear the heart-broken moans of the wife who clung to him, and loved him, though beaten and abused; and think of it while you listen to the frightened sobbing of his child!

His child. Ginn has seated himself in horror and stupefaction, and the little fellow cowers near him, terrified, and crying. There is more crying, too, hard by. In an adjoining room there are two little girls. They are to be seen sitting in a trundle-bed, afraid to leave it, and weeping bitterly. None of the children know precisely what has happened. Their childish lamentations, mingled with the low moans of the mother, hardly disturb the fearful inner hush of the room. Ginn gets up, and motioning his companion to silence, takes the boy in his arms, carries him into the room, and, putting him into the bed with them, bids him stay there, and sitting down on the bedside, questions the little girls. They are more intelligent and less stupefied than the boy. He learns from them that mother was in bed, and father came home swearing. He cursed very loud. Mother was frightened, and came into our room. Father didn't come into our room. Father wasn't drunk, because he didn't stagger. Father stopped cursing and swearing, and drank out of a bottle which he took from his pocket. Then he breathed very loud for ever so long. Then he opened the window, and cursed two or three times. Then, in a little while, he fell down very hard. Mother was frightened, and ran in with the lamp to him. Mother tried to lift him up, but she couldn't. Then mother screamed very loud, and fell down, and the lamp went out, and they heard her groan. Nobody came up stairs. We didn't go in to mother, because we were afraid. We sat in the dark, and called for Jimmy. We didn't know where Jimmy had gone to. We don't know any more. What ails father, Mr. Ginn?

Mr. Ginn soothes them as well as he can-tells them to keep quiet-and, coming back, rehearses what they have

told him to the Dark Student. He drank laudanum a little while before you tried it, Dark Student-about the time when your egoistical life had brought you to the conclusion of doing a dreadful something with a razor to that fine throat of yours. And she shrieked just in time to postpone your thirst-that is, just in time to keep you from your purpose, till God could send you here to learn a wholesome and an awful lesson. Learn it well, young man. Think of it when you next ponder the philosophy of Each and All; and when you remember that nothing is bound to itself alone, but that everything serves all things, think that the shriek of stricken agony which eased this poor woman's heart, went out on the Autumn night with another ministry for you, and was the angel cry which pierced and dissolved your madness!

He does think of it, and can only stammer out some incoherent words in reply, so miraculous and awful is the thought of it. The thought of it keeps him deathly white, and bathes his forehead with a cold sweat, and makes him tremble. Ginn is white, also; and, when he speaks, there is an emotion in his hoarse and whispering voice, which subdues whatever is gro tesque in his speech, and makes it tragic with simple horror and wonder.

This is a awful case," he says. "Just look at that woman, and them children, and that man there! What'r we goin' to do about it? Where'd he get the pison? Who's the 'pothecary sold it? Its laud'num ye know, an' where's the label on the bottle? 'Taint there! A-just want to know what 'pothecary sells that amount of laud'num to an Irishman like Gilhooley, an' don't put no label on the bottle, ye know!"

The Dark Student does not answer, but he remembers that he himself purchased laudanum that very day at a druggist's near by, where the counter was tended by a boy, who sold it to him without asking any questions, or labeling the vial. If to him, why not to Gilhooley?

"Where'd he get the money, an' he not in work? That's the question," demands Ginn.

A terrible supposition darts into the young man's mind. He goes quickly to the children's room.

"Boy," he whispers, "what did you do with the silver I gave you to-day?"

"Father took it away from me," whimpers the child.

The young man totters back again, with a burning mist in his eyes.

"It's awful-a-say it's awful!" continues Ginn, with a fierce energy of manner, but keeping his voice down to the horrified whisper. "Look at it. The last time a-looked at that poor, dead cuss, a-yanked him down, an' licked him for beatin' that woman on the bed; an' now we come in, twelve o'clock o-night, an' we find him stiff dead with pison. Damned if it don't make yer uncle's hard heart soft!" He stops a minute to wipe away something from his eyes, with a red handkerchief. Perhaps it was a tear, which the hard heart had overflowed them with in softening.

"Look a-here," he resumes; "a-am a regular, ugly devil, an a-know it. A-am a total cuss, an' keepin' a eatin' saloon don't improve no man's temper, but this does take the starch out o' me. A-am down on that man for committin' suicide, an' when he lammed that woman, a-was onto him; but you just put yerself in his boots, an' consider it. Look a-here-a-am posted up in the facts. Miss Gilhooley, there, she told me that he got seventy-five cents a day for totin' brick an' mortar up a ladder, from mornin' to night. That's four dollars an' a half a week, ye know, an' will ye have it now, or wait till ye get it, 's the principle, you understand, with the man that hires him. How'd you like to do that amount o' work, an' have a wife and three young uns to feed, for four dollar an' a half a week? Mind-he don't get his wages any way regular, but takes it out in store-pay-orders on a grocery, ye see, which takes off aprofit. A-say it's hard! A-say a-don't blame no man for gettin' desperate an' takin' to drink under them circumstances. An' when a man's in liquor, he does get ugly, an' don't care who he hits. Hadn't no education, ye see, an' don't know different. An' it does rather strike yer uncle that, if he was in that po-sition, and saw big-bugs wallowin' in cash, and not willin' to do anything for him, he'd feel uncommon savage-well, he would, now."

He stops again, and, with a strong contortion, chokes down a tremble in his voice.

"But," he continues, "here's the

worst look at the matter. That man aint had no work for a month. No, sir! Not for a month, an' he couldn't get it, an' he has a wife an' three chil'ren to feed. What's yer opinion of life now, under similar circumstances? Yo know ye were a-goin' to tell me, one of these days. Supposin' ye just let it out now!"

66

My God! Ginn, how did they live?" exclaims the appalled listener.

Well, a-guess some of 'em didn't live," answers the caterer, with something like a ghastly smile creeping out on his face.

"A-didn't want to let ye know," he resumed, fiercely; "a-didn't want to have ye up here to-night-though its well you've come-but ye'r in for it. That basket-ye needn't look in it. It aint towels. Its bread an' its meat for that woman an' her little chil'ren. Don't you say a word. A-don't want to be buttered for nothin'. Yer uncle don't leave no money in his will to the charitable institu-tions, an' get his name put in the papers; nor he don': stick up big posters round the stree when he gives a dollar. But he c-a-n' let a woman and chil'ren starve before his eyes, no how. A-'ve fed 'em, and that's the way they lived. A-'ve fed ’em for three weeks-cuss the expense, asay, but a-couldn't ha' done it forever. That's the story."

There is a tear on his face, and this time he does not wipe it away. The Dark Student sees it roll slowly down, and drop from his cheek, to be lost in the air. Lost? No; not lost.

"An' now, look o'here," he bursts out, starting up; "there's something to be done. Hear that woman moaning! Somebody ought to be called in. A-can't bear the idea of gettin' a stupid watchman, who couldn't do nothin'! An' if a-wake up somebody in the house, we'll on'y have a lot of Irish women yellin' an' kickin' up the devil for nothin'! Say-you stay here, an' a-'ll drop over to Miss Miles-that's where my room is-an' she'll come. She's used to treatin' sick folks, and dead folks, an' a-'ll be back soon."

He goes off suddenly, on tip-toe, leavleaving the Dark Student alone. Alone in that fearful room-the dull gleam of the lamp showing the dead man staring at the smoky ceiling-the low moans of the heart-broken woman, on the bed, in his ears he can yet only think of

the good things in the man he had so despised, and his heart does justice to Mr. Ginn. Not Sir Philip Sidney nor Roger L'Estrange, debonair and stately gentlemen of a poetic day; but a man who, if they were what the world believes them, would have shone in their honor and esteem. Not Fenelon or Channing, but a creature with a very human heart.

He comes back, at last, with Mrs. Miles. She is a little, middle-aged woman, with mild, bulging, blue eyes, and a yellow handkerchief tied round her head, under her chin. She is very much horrified just now, but not quite as agitated as might be expected. For Mr. Ginn has prepared her mind with the whole story outside, and she has got over the worst effects of it. While the two men lift up the body to a table, and close the staring eyes, and decently compose the limbs, she applies herself to the task of reviving the poor woman in the bed. This she succeeds in doing to some extent at last. Her efforts at consolation are, of course, fruitless. They serve little other purpose than to touch the heart of the Dark Student, and revive his fallen respect for human

nature.

"Ginn," whispers the young man, "why didn't she-what's her name ?— Mrs. Gilhooley-why didn't she apply for relief to somebody? Why didn't she go to the City, and represent that she was in want?"

Mr. Ginn looks at him steadily, and purses up his lip, as if he would whistle. Then he smiles faintly.

"Why didn't the City go to her?" he answers sententiously. "Supposin' she didn't want to be bundled to the poor-house?—that's all the City'd do for her. Supposin' she had a streak of pride, and didn't want to be a pauper? Why didn't the City fix things so's her husband could get work, an' why didn't they shut up the rum shops, an' indict a man who lets such a house as this, which aint fit for no decent hog to live in, though poor folks have to? Say? Why didn't somebody come an' see to her, without waitin' to be asked? I did. Didn't send up no card, but walked straight in, you know, with her boy under my arm. Say-why didn't you come yourself? Saw you to-day, on the sidewalk, when you asked that small boy of hers why he didn't have no shoes. 'Aint got none,' says he.

Saw ye give him a half a dollar then, and walk off. Why didn't ye føller him up then, when ye'd a chance? Don't blame ye, ye understand, but you see ye're one of them kind that don't get up an interest in such things, because ye don't know what they are. Yer uncle does! Somebody aint got no time, nor no cash for everybody that wants it. Ye see?"

Yes. The Dark Student does see, not exactly through Mr. Ginn's unstatesmanlike, unphilosophic eyes, it is true; but then, he sees. He sees that individuals and institutions have each their own special fish to fry, and are pre-occupied, to the sore detriment of the Gilhooleys. He sees that the separation of Church and State has been accomplished a little too effectually -religion being one thing, and politics another. He sees that there must be some victims to the spirit of societythe selfism which binds upon its forehead like a frontlet, and writes upon its broad phylacteries the words, Every Man for Himself, and God (why not the devil, too?) for us all, -until its tardy charity, scared into Christian remembrance by a thousand starving cries, denies its selfish philosophy, and starts up in make-shift plans for public soup and calico balls! When shall the beautiful and wise compassion that fed the Syrian multitudes, eighteen centuries ago, be poured into the heart of this world's life, and animate its hand to work a social miracle, and feed forever the multitudes to-day?

"Besides," resumes Mr. Ginn, sinking his voice to a lower whisper, and putting his hand over his mouth as if to keep the voice down, "Miss Gilhooley there aint no beggar. She's an uncommon fine Irishwoman, ye know; an' if she hadn't had him for a husband, or if it hadn't gone wrong with 'em both -he wan't in work half the time, ye see-an' he got down-hearted, an' took to drink, she told me-she'd have been somebody. She's got her own notions of pride, though she's come pretty low; an' she'd rather work, if she knew how, than beg a favor, ye see. Tell ye what, my boy, there's a good many stripes and shades o' poor folks, an' you'll get your eyes peeled to that fact one of these days-well, ye will !”

"Well, Ginn, he's dead now, and what are they going to do?" asks the young man, sadly.

"Don't know," replies Mr. Ginn. "Something 'll turn up, I reckon. Something does, generally. He's dead, anyway, an' a-don't know as he'd have done any good by livin' longer. Fello de se, the coroner's jury 'll find him guilty of, to-morrow. Can't blame him, all things considered, for times was hard with him, an' that's a fact."

The Dark Student turns away for a minute. When he faces Mr. Ginn again, there is a strange trouble in his face.

"Ginn," he says, faintly, "I'm going home. I want you to give this to her when she recovers, and I'll see to it that she does not come to want."

"No, Ginn, it is not," interrupts the young man. "It is you who are generous, and not me. You were a poor man, and out of your narrow means you sustained the poor. I am not poor, and-O I blame myself for not knowing more about the poverty-the want and misery, under my very windows. But I'll do better."

So be it. You were sick with self, young friend, and are now convalescent. This humble and thoughtful charity, this dawn of sympathy with your suffering kind, and this promise of a better future, are worth far more than all the careless silver you have ever given at a street-corner-far more than the murderous coin you blindly gave.

"Look a-here!" Mr. Ginn foams over with enthusiasm. "Well, I swear! I say ye'r a brick-with a gilt edge! Yer uncle's proud of ye!"

"Hush! Ginn," says the young man, with a motion towards the bed. Ginn understands it, and is mute.

"She'll get it," he whispers, subsiding. "It'll help the poor creatur'; and, maybe, when she gets up again, she'll find somethin' to do for her chil'ren."

'I'll see to that," replies the young man. "I've found the way here, and I'll come again. This is an awful --awful lesson. Oh, God forgive me!"

The victualler is mute before this sudden burst of an emotion which his simple

heart cannot understand, and, without a word, suffers the young man to pass. from the room, and leave him and his landlady there alone.

Alone, while the Dark Student blindly gropes his way down the stairs, his eyes blotted with repentant tears. The same low murmurs and whisperings he had heard, when he brought his hard and careless heart up to that fearful room, awake again behind the closed doors of the many families the wretched house contains, as he descends; and attend him going down-no longer with a hard and careless heart-until he passes out from the filthy portal into the pure air. The stars shine, with an ancient and an awful beauty, over wood and field, and sea and sleeping city, and on the darkened continent. Their signs and cyphers of holy fire burn solemnly above a world gone wrong. Yet trust that the world gone wrong, and still going wrong from year to year beneath their sacred and passionless rebuke, shall yet go right! for they shine to-night above an altered heart; and wherever, on the wide globe, one such awakens from its baleful dream of self, and renews its early vows of service to humanity,— there is born a beam of that struggling morning, destined to rise in human souls, and broaden grandly down blessed ages yet to be.

The Magian of the world's hope, pondering known laws of the contagion of example, will calculate what space of time must elapse before the process of the reduplication of the Dark Student's life is complete in fifty such as he, presaging the blissful era. Yet, now he waits, and must wait, for the man perfect in self-forgetfulness and heart, the genius of whose example shall work the beginning of the end. Ah! must he wait long? You, who read this page, perhaps it is you who were the Dark Student whose episode I have just told. If so-if so in any resemblance or experience-it is with you the question lies! Let him not, then, wait long. Let him, the Magian of the world's hope, at least, at some not too distant time, have it to answer-" The star of the Human Commonwealth is in the sky," when some sad questioner, pale with watching for the day, shall sigh to him the words whose legendary music floats from the grave of Roger Williams-"WHAT CHEER, BROTHER,WHAT CHEER?"