attending the conference, which lasted a week, I returned home by another route.

On my arrival, there were several letters awaiting me, and anong them, one in her then familiar hand. I hastily tore it open. It expressed her deepest regrets at her absence, and, withal, was so tender in tone, so exquisite in sentiment, that I felt ready to forgive the whole world, if necessary. I confined myself, however, to forgiving her moth

er.

I now felt that my failure to see her had but added to my affection. And, acting upon the encouragement given in her letter, I wrote and told her of my love.

In every life there are secrets that are sacred, sacred only as long as they are secret. Therefore, I shall not draw aside the veil, and let in the light of common day upon the thoughts and happenings of those few weeks. It is enough to say that I was accepted, and my life seemed complete.

Our intercourse now, naturally, became more intimate. I shared her every thought. I lived the complete intellectual life. Yet, in spite of the spiritual calm this gave me, I longed to meet her. She also was anxious to see me, and expressed herself to that effect several times. I made excuses for my delay, but promised to be with her before the end of the month. In reality, I was engaged upon a long descriptive poem. I wished to finish this, and carry it to her as the first offering of my love.

About this time my lady wrote me that she had just finished a story, on which she had been engaged for some months. She said she felt some pride in the result of her efforts, and had great hopes of its success.

I immediately wrote, asking to be allowed to read the production. She complied with my request, and I received the manuscript by the next mail.

On looking into the story, I found many slips and inaccuracies that even my affection could not keep me from seeing. I felt it was my duty to write to her on the subject, which I did without delay. I endeavored to make my letter mild and dispassionate. I pointed out that, although the story was cleverly

told, and interesting from beginning to end, it contained blemishes my grammatical sense would not allow me to pass unnoticed. The use of "as" as a relative, and the continual occurrence of "that" in a non-restrictive sense, were particularly objectionable. I admitted that some might overlook these errors; still, no scholar would tolerate them. The letter was very delicate in its wording, but I took good care that the principles upon which I made my points should be very evident.

In the course of a few days I received an answer, in which, among other things, she said she could not see why I "made so much of things so small," and that it looked to her as though I wished to "quarrel" with her.

I have never been one of those who submit to palliations and compromises. For me, there are no intermediate shades between absolute right and absolute wrong. And it is a source of gratification to me that I am able to say, at no time when I have once taken my position upon a subject, has force or persuasion sufficed to move me. Nor did I flinch from duty in the present instance. I immediately replied, strengthening my arguments, and saying that these things were not small matters to me; they involved questions of principle which, to me, was never small.

I waited anxiously for her answer. It was characteristically feminine. She said if I persisted in clinging to these "trifles," she must ask to be released from her engagement. If in the first flush of affection I could be so intolerant, she feared for the future when love had cooled.

Though racked with grief, I did not waver. I at once wrote to her, reiterating my former utterances. I pointed out what seemed to me the path of duty. And, in conclusion, seeing that she desired it, I told her that henceforth I should consider our engagement at an end: my position as a minister of the gospel did not allow me to sacrifice principle even for love.

Summer passed into autumn, and autumn faded into winter, and my grief was still

One day a man came to me, and asked me if I would read the marriage service at a wedding in the country. Hardly noticing him, for I was deeply engrossed in my books, I assented, and he promised to call for me with a conveyance. It had been raining all day. Towards night the man came for me with a close carriage, and we set out in the storm. I had not even taken the trouble to ask where we were going, and as we rolled along, I lay back on the cushions, and reflected as to what would be the probable effect that the study of Coptic would have upon future civilization. This was a favorite subject of mine, and one to which I had devoted considerable time.

In a few hours we reached our journey's end. As I stepped from the carriage I was taken in hand by several ladies, who conducted me to a room where I could make my toilet. Having divested myself of my

At the head of the stairs I was met by a gentleman, who introduced himself as Mr. Evans, and by him I was presented to many of the wedding guests.

After we had waited for some time, the bride came into the room, accompanied by several ladies. The ceremony was performed at once. As this was my first experience, I felt somewhat nervous. In my trepidation I forgot to ask if they had a license. The bride also lost her self-possession, and made several blunders in the responses, at which I heard some half-suppressed laughter.

When all was done, and the couple were united, Mr. Evans led me up to the confused bride, and presented me to Mrs. Henry Smith, formerly Miss Karen Storey. It was some moments before I realized my situation. Then I saw it all at a glance. I had officiated at the wedding of the only woman I had ever loved. G. M. Upton.

M. F. Rowntree.

In the preface to that exquisite little biographical sketch, "The Story of Ida," John Ruskin says:

"I have been asking every good writer whom I know to write some part of what was exactly true in the greatest of sciences-Humanity. The lives we need to have written for us are of the people whom the world has not thought of, far less known of, who are yet doing the most of its work, and of whom we may learn how it can best be done."

Such a life has recently been ended here in California. It is well worth our while to study its simple but sublime annals.

On the 15th of April, 1816, in a farm house in Washington County, New York, not far from Whitehall, a little woman-child was born, and named by her parents the sweet scriptural name Mary. The home into which the child came was one of poverty and toil, unvaried by any remarkable experiences. Here, among brothers and sisters, she grew and thrived, and was well trained in all homely virtues. The father, Mr. Day, was a farmer and blacksmith, honest, thrifty, and independent. After a little time, he had the usual western impulse of enterprising men, and removed his family to Meadville, Pennsylvania.

In this frontier town the little maiden Mary grew to a tall, slender girl of sixteen, full of womanly wisdom and gentleness, but with unusual firmness and strength, physical and mental. Here and now there came to woo her a grave, plain man, a widower with five young children. He bore the common name of John Brown, and had but scanty wealth or personal charm, save such as lies in manliness, evident uprightness, and a reserved tenderness. However, he asked this plain young woman to become his wife, to go with him to his humble home in Richmond, Pennsylvania, to share his joys and sorrows, and be a mother to his motherless children; and she put her firm young hand in his, and followed him thereafter through

evil and through good report, even to prison and the scaffold-for this man is immortal in our history as John Brown, of Ossawatomie.

Long years afterward, her husband wrote to her in his quaint fashion:

Dear Mary: It is the Sabbath evening, and nothing so much accords with my feelings as to spend a portion of it conversing with the partner of my own choice, and the sharer of my poverty, trials, discredit, and sore afflictions. I do not forget the firm attachment of her who has remained my fast and faithful affectionate friend when others said of me: 'Now

that he lieth, he shall rise up no more.'”

Looking back at that wedding of fifty years ago, it seems incredible that a girl of sixteen could have undertaken such responsibilities with any adequate comprehension of them ; but the uniform testimony in regard to this child-wife and mother is that she was a cheerful and capable burden-bearer. Her courage and devotion were simply heroic, for John Brown was not the man to woo a girl with honeyed phrases, or to gloze over the hardships and self-sacrifices which she must endure. Perhaps, with womanly discernment, she saw in him those traits which have made all women love him-single-hearted devotion to truth and duty, self-abnegation, even unto death; and, doubtless, he saw in that plain young girl "a perfect woman, nobly planned."

In the new home she found the eldest boy only four years younger than herself, while the four younger children's ages ranged downward to babyhood. What skill and tact, what kindliness and true motherliness, must have been hers; for, to her dying day, these children, grown to be gray-haired men and women, still called her with tender dutiful"Mother."

ness,

The years came and went, bringing only fresh occupants for the old red cradle, added care and toil to John and Mary Brown. But these were comparatively old times, and this

was a home of primitive piety. The babies were ever taken as gifts from God, and were made welcome, clothed and fed in simple fashion, educated to be useful rather than accomplished, and above all, to fear God and keep his commandments. It was a home of peace and love, of thrift and intelligence, and of world wide sympathy wlth every good cause, especially with the cause of the downtrodden and oppressed. To such a home there could come no experience which was not borne with cheerful submission, as being of divine ordinance. When the mother was laid aside by her frequent woman's burden (she bore thirteen children in twenty years), her husband was, as she testified in old age, her best, and often her only, nurse, many a time sitting up all night, after a day of hard work, to keep the fire burning lest she should be chilled, and always refusing any rest if he thought she needed his loving ministry.

The Browns were given to moving from one town to another, which must have added materially to the cares and labors of the house mother; but the reason of these changes seems to have been that John Brown was energetic and enterprising, eager to extend his business as tanner, stock-dealer, and wool-merchant, and so to do the best possible things for those dependent upon him.

The usual chances and changes of life came to them. Sickness and death invaded the household again and again. Once a little child met its death by a shocking accident; once a lovely little girl faded slowly away, from some hidden disease; and once the destroyer came, not to take a single lamb from the flock, but in a devastating pesti lence. Three little children were buried in one wide grave, and another followed in less than a week. Picture the desolation of that home! One cannot speak of such grief save with awe; yet the time came to these trustful souls, when such tender and sacred bereavements seemed but as light afflictions, compared with the tragic depths of sorrow yet to be endured.

Amid all these toils and griefs, John and Mary Brown found room to think of others. Each had "a heart at leisure from itself,"

and full of sympathy for the poor slave. With John Brown it grew to be a consuming passion. It was the subject of his thoughts, of his conversation, of his prayers. To the cause of emancipation he consecrated, at length, all his tremendous energies; and this singleness of purpose lifted him from the common ranks of men into the high company of heroes.

He carried all his family with him in this enthusiastic devotion. They moved up into the wilds of the Adirondack region, because there they thought they could best teach and help the poor fugitives from slavery; and here they became missionaries, as genuine and devoted as any who ever went to Africa. The young men of the family went to Kansas, because the cause of freedom seemed to need strong supporters there; and when, as the result, they encountered persecution and loss of all things, the gray-headed father could see but one line of duty for himself— to join his sons, and fight, if need be die, for the good cause. The mother was left at home in the little cabin, penniless, and surrounded by little children who must be clothed, and fed, and kept warm, through an almost arctic winter. But John Brown had an helpmeet, indeed—

"No timid dove of storms afeared,
She shared his life's distress;
A singing Miriam alway,

In God's poor wilderness."

With a true woman's resource she saved, and planned, and toiled, and made the ends meet, enduring the loneliness and privation with fortitude and even good cheer, remembering her husband's words of parting: "If it is so dreadful for us to part, with the hope of meeting again, how dreadful must be the separation for life of hundreds of poor slaves." Her courage and zeal scarcely needed the stimulus of his written words: "Mary, let us try and maintain a cheerful self composure while we are tossing up and down, and let our motto be 'Action, action, for we have but one life to live.""

The record of the family for the next four years was one ofloss, hardship, self-sacrifice, and on the part of the women, patient en

dividual; he became disrespectful and obstreperous, and when called to order, withdrew in disgust and declared that he would

not return.

This conduct on the part of Pio Pico, and certain recent action on the part of Mariano Guadalupe Vallejo, who, on account of his disgusts, already referred to, was scheming against the admininistration, and similar action on the part of José Antonio Carrillo, who, though just named second minister of justice, was entirely dissatisfied, and took occasion to publicly abuse the government, induced Alvarado to call an extraordinary and secret session of the junta, on April 1, for the purpose of settling accounts with those persons. When it convened, he made a statement of what had occurred, and remarked that, though the government regarded the schemes of its enemies as of small importance, yet it might be prudent to take some measures of precaution against them; and that, at all events, it was due to the junta to vindicate its dignity against their insults.

The subject being referred to a committee, consisting of Casarin and Arguello, they reported that Vallejo was evilly disposed but afraid of taking responsibilities; that Carrillo, when appointed minister of justice, was supposed to be an adherent of the government, as he had publicly professed, but if he were unwilling to perform his duties as a good citizen, he ought to be punished as a bad one; and that as to Pico's contemptuous conduct, it should be left to the discretion of the Governor to apply such fine and other correction as he thought proper. They further reported and recommended, and the junta ordered, that, in view of possible disturbances by Vallejo or the others, the Governor might at any time call for such armed force and take such other measures as he should find necessary to sustain the honor and dignity of the government, at the same time providing for the

equipment and pay of any such force as might be raised.

The prompt action of the junta accomplished the object designed. Vallejo, the first offender, immediately changed his tone. Though he complained that his services as comandante, on account of the want of forces, were useless to California, he protested that he was ready with his single sword to augment the ranks of the country's defenders, and that the junta and the government could always count upon him to defend their honor and integrity. Pico, the next offender, was, at the suggestion of the Governor, summoned before the junta in such a manner that he did not deem it safe to resist; and, upon his submission and apologiz ing for his conduct, the fine and punishment, which would have otherwise have been im posed, were withheld. Carrillo, the third of fender, was subsequently arrested at Los Angeles for alleged conspiracy, the specific charge being that he had incited rebellion against the departmental government in favor of his brother Carlos, and in connection with Ensign Macedonio Gonzalez, of Lower California. There was a great noise made over the affair, and many official papers written in regard to it. He indignantly denied the charge, and insisted that his accuser was none other than a low and despicable for eigner, by the name of Joaquin Pereira, a Portuguese doctor, who was entirely unwor thy of credit. Though his friends offered bail for his appearance, he was kept under a strict guard until an investigation could be had. It then appeared that his characterization of his accuser was substantially correct The government was, at any rate, not disposed to be severe, and soon allowed him his personal liberty; and a year or two af terwards, when the troubles that gave rise to his arrest were almost forgotten, it not only acquitted but expressly restored him to his former good name, fame, and reputation.

Theodore H. Hittell