DARKNESS AND LIGHT. BY MAY CLIFTON. DARKNESS. The wind is sobbing drearily, And in the sky nor moon nor stars Hoarse whispers murmur thro' the pines, That wildly toss their arms aloft, Oh! blacker than the starless night, Which from the cold North blow, A dark, and shadowy, nameless dread, Oh, save me, or I perish, Lord, LIGHT, The sun is shining gloriously, Soft zephyrs fan the whispering woods, Through meadows spangled o'er with flowers, O, brighter than the morning sun, And sweeter than the birdling's song, Are these bright hopes that fill my soul, And where thick darkness erst had power, No longer now I seek for peace, A blessed and immortal hope Of heaven beyond the skies; To say that because of wild fanaticisms and absurdities the whole mechanism of religion is all superstition, would be to say that the white mist at Niagara indicates only a mist, instead of bearing witness to the awful depth of the torrent-sweeps that are below. So out of the soul of man comes the mists of superstition; but, instead of proving that the whole is superstition, they prove the awful depth, the legitimate flow of the great God-given, God kindled love that is in the heart of man. INEQUALITIES OF LIFE. BY MISS M. REMICK. CHAPTER I. "Each one has her share of trials, Frances, If we could penetrate into each others' hearts, we should see much less of the great disparities in life which strike us on the surface." "I cannot think so, Jane; there is Laura Elden, what sorrow has she ever known? rich, beautiful, prosperous, idolized by her father, indulg. d by her stepmother, she has never known a want." "I do not know Frances, but I believe the general truth I have mentioned holds good in her individual case as in others." What shadows were there in the prosperous lot of Miss Elden to whose unusual gifts of fortune these young friends reverted? Let us see, even if our researches finally carry us out of the present into a point in the not very distant future. Laura lost her mother when she was an infant, too young, her nurse said, to realize her loss. I do not think so. Children's feelings are strong, and their memories reallow, and the vision of her beautiful, patentive, beyond what we are disposed to tient mother, with her love and watchfulness, was nearly as distinct to her girlhood as in her tender childhood. Her father had married again. The step-mother who came to preside over her home was indulgant and kind; she had little motive to be otherwise to the obedient child, but for her little charge she had nothing of the real love of a parent. Laura's quick eyes saw that her father's fondness for herself secretly annoyed her step-mother, and she soon grew to shrink fron its exhibition in her presence. Years went by, she approached womanhood, and took her place in the circles which her father's wealth and position opened to her. Here a second secret grief hid itself under outward splendor and happiness. She saw herself in her step-mother's eyes again a rival. Flattering words, admiring homage, these detracted from the still beautiful woman at her side. A wife's ambition should centre itself in her home, in diffusing happiness there, Elanour's did not. Laura's instincts were too noble not to be pained, by the contrast. Outwardly abandon her ground. "You will think all was kindness, but the serpent lay coiled beneath. 46 better of it, Laura," she said, blandly, with your strong common sense Don't answer this letter at once, take time to think it over," and she rose to go out. "It is hard, very hard," mused the young girl, as the door closed upon her. "I cannot marry Mr. Crawford; it would be wrong for me to do so. If dear mamma had lived. "she broke off with a sigh, and went to her writing desk. Perhaps she feared the effects of fresh arguments upon her resolution, and acted prudently what she saw was right; but however this may be, the letter went into Mr. Crawford's hands on that very day. On this morning while the conversation we have quoted was going on a few streets beyond, Laura sat in her chamber, her head reclining dejectedly on her hand. An open letter lay before her. It was a respectful avowal of attachment, closing with an offer of marriage. The lover was rich, still young, of a graceful exterior; but, judged by those fine instincts which some women possess, Laura knew him to be wholly unsuited for her choice. She could not think of such a marriage; discordant as her home was to her in some respects, nothing remained but a quiet refusal. Her step-mother came in. What event of her daily life ever escaped those watchful eyes? She had anticipated the offer, and perhaps the reflection. Laura had no alternative, but to take her into her confidence. She would gladly have avoided it, but the open letter, the merry banter, were not to be put aside. "My dear," said Mrs. Elden, with an air of surprise, which she wore in an extremely natural Months went by, the same outward manner, "I am sure you will reconsider seeming, the same hidden thorns, but now this decision. Mr. Crawford is immensely a new emotion dawned upon her; she lovwealthy, a flattering conquest, too; he has ed and was beloved. been so long blind to all attractions, your father, as well as myself, will be proud of your good fortune. "I do not love him, mamma," said Laura quietly. "My love, how long is it since you left boarding school? three years? But not to speak of any such nonsense, what is there disagreeable in Mr Crawford? his address is charming, his exterior by no means plain." Mrs. Elden frowned as she encountered her step-daughter on the stairs on her way down with her letter to the post, and quite forgot her usual graciousness in their tetea-tete afternoon drive, but Laura felt that she had acted for the best, and that consciousness was her sufficient reward. Certainly Laura Elden's life was not without its trials. Here again were discordant elements at work. Her lover was poor; rich in all the noble attributes of manhood, but penniless in stores or lands. He was a distant relative of her mother's, a cousin, and to this relationship, slight as it was, she owed their acquaintance in the circles to which as a poor clerk, he was seldom admitted. It was Mrs. Elden's hour now to retaliate the resentment, she had long smothered at her step-daughter's disregard of her former counsel. Such a marriage was not to be thought of; it was simply preposterous; the acquaintance must be "Give him an opportunity to try, there at once broken off. She did more in this is no reason why you should not. A few instance than remonstrate. She wrote to months hence you can tell better about your feelings. "I know, mamma, but I have no preference for him. He is just the same to me as any other man.' "No, mamma, I shall not change. I fcel rather a repugnance to Mr. Crawford than an attraction. It would be wrong to encourage him.” Mrs. Elden's lips compressed with a sudden tightness, but she did not at once the young man coolly avowing her knowl edge of his partiality, and assuring him with affected kindness of its hopelesness. 66 Laura may have her school dream, she wrote, "of love in a cottage, and its et ceteras," but she has had no experience of the kind. Her father will never con sent to such a mis-alliance between wealth and poverty; his decision is unalterable. By the sincerity of your love, then, which I do not question, reflect before you involve her in a wretchedness, which will be sure to lead to mutual regrets and dissatisfactions." but she answered no; Laura would soon come to herself, and at no distant day thank them for the part they had acted. Months went by; three years. Mr. Elden was suddenly attacked by apoplexy and died after a few hours' sickness. It was a great shock to the widow and daughMrs. Elden passed from one fainting fit to another; Laura aroused herself to meet it with more composure. She sat by her step-mother's couch, whose excited nerves shrank from the stillness and gloom; she gave directions for the funeral; the servants looked to her for orders; only in the few hours snatched in the solitude of her own chamber did she give way to tears. Francis Harland was proud; it would seem as if some knowledge of his character. ter must have guided Mrs. Elden in penning this note, though they had met but once, on which occasion she had received him coolly on his appe: rance at her house as her daughter's acquaintance. His inmediate act on receiving it, was to re-infold it in an envelope, and forward it to Laura's address, with a few lines accepting his rejection, declaring to his lady-love that he would not stand in the way of her prospects, and that he relinquished his rash claims to her hand, at least until the day should arrive when her own family might acknowledge him her equal. Perhaps he was hasty. He thought so himself when the letter was gone, but it was then too late to recall it. Laura shed a few silent tears over the sheet; he might have writ- "How sorrowful! how sudden! very ten more kindly, she thought; she, at was the general exclamation. "What least, had no part in the offence; but she will Mrs. Elden do? what a change for took up her step-mother's note again, and Laura!" Perhaps there was little symconfessed that he had some excuse for an-pathy breathed in the last remark; the ger. happy and prosperous are often objects of envy. I think quiet natures take all sorrows of this kind more keenly than those which are gay and susceptible to excitement. Laura uttered no complaints; she treated her step-mother with her usual respect and complaisance, but somehow the light was gone out from her face, and the elasticity from her step. People thought Miss Elden had changed, yet they could not tell why, or in what the change consisted. Her father proposed a trip to the seashore; it was in the sultry summer months. Mrs. Elden eagerly seconded the proposition, and went with her. It was useless to hope that change of scene would work wonders. Laura was unhappy, and she found it very difficult to reconcile herself to her position. She came back pale and languid, looking as if years, rather than a few weeks, her father thought, had passed in their short separation. He suggest ed to his wife that they had been harsh, On examination of Mr. Elden's affairs, a few weeks after his demise, it was found to the astonishment of all, that his large property had crumbled into comparatively nothing. The great losses he had sustained, with the entangled condition of his affairs, had no doubt preyed upon his mind and bastened his death. Laura's straightforward good sense now came into use. Mrs. Elden submitted despiringly to the sale of the house and rich furniture, which indeed, they were powerless to retain, and Laura took two rooms in a quiet street, and endeavored to obtain pupils for music lessons, among her old friends. Here to her disappointment, she was entirely unsuccessful. Perhaps her applications were made in wrong quarters, but she was amazed at the coldness which had suddenly succeeded to the warmest professions. The plan of a dayschool was more successful, though it necessitated more labor, and no small inconvenience. Mrs. Elden felt the change in their condition even more keenly than Laura. It was a bitter thing, too, to find herself dependent on the noble exertions of her step-daughter. CHAPTER II. would intervene. She still shed some secret tears over her father's death, but a Admired, envied Laura Elden no long-ray of light penetrated through that darker. What a fall! said the world. Poor girl, how unfortunate! The nine days' talk ceased; Mr. Crawford, by this time a bridegroom, purchased and fitted up the handsome mansion of the Eldens, and the ruined merchant and his beggared widow and orphan were forgotten. Was Laura as unhappy as the world judged? Did she repent now her refusal of the rich Mr. Crawford, a refusal which had lingered very bitterly in that gentleman's recollection, and with which her mother in this wreck of their circumstances, sternly reproached her? It would not seem so. The look of care had deepened upon her face, yet under this there was a new light, and her wearied step had put on a sudden elasticity. She had less time now to brood over regrets, and though the changed manners of her late companions must have deeply wounded her pride, they could hardly be said to wound her affections. She had known something of the worth of such things when she had been in the world, she had seen the slights distributed to others, and though she could not anticipate them for herself, she could not be said, after the first shock, to have been wholly unprepared. One recollection certainly came up with bitterness, in these hours. If her step-mother's voice had been silent she would now have had a friend to assist and counsel her; perhaps have been happy in a humble home of her own. She had not met Harland since the day when his parting letter arrived. She had learned accidentally a few weeks after that he had resigned his place in the store in which he was employed, and had quitted New York. They would never meet again-she felt so to herself. It was true the last clause in his letter held out a fragment of hope, but she understood the general course of the world too well to build upon it. Fortunes were not laid in a day; it was the tortuous course of years which was required to build up from such slender fabrics; long ere that his constancy would die out, and he would wed some more fortunate bride, or accident, or death ness. The change for him was clearly for the best. Had he survived his misfortunes his mind would probably have succumbed to them. He could not have gone out in his approaching age to build up a new fortune, and how agonizing the sorrow of setting down hopelessly to such circumstances. Mrs. Elden was the most serious subject of pity. These bitter misfortunes came upon her with an overwhelming shock. She could not conform herself to the small room-the other littered through the day with troops of children, with their noisy buzz; the coarse fare, the isolation from society, the utter forgetfulness to which she was consigned. She had no religion, no philosophy to meet it. Here within these four walls was the hardest trial of Laura's days, to listen to the querulous complainings, or meet the sullenness of mood, and the profound despair. If her mother had loved her, if she had been indeed her daughter, perhaps she might have won some influence over her, but, as we have already shown, this was hopeless. At least it seemed so to Laura. The poor girl bore up bravely under her heavy burdens, and the total absence of sympathy. There came a change, however, but one which, in the beginning, seemed only to usher in a more intense darkness. Mrs. Elden was taken dangerously ill. A slow nervous fever, no doubt the result of constant repinings. Laura was compelled to dismiss her pupils, there was no help for it, and to take her place as a nurse by the sick bed. Weeks passed before Mrs. Elden was able to quit her couch, and then Laura saw that the prospect of resuming her school was hopeless. Her place was already filled in this long interval, and she resigned herself to the disappointment. She had now no resource but to take up her needle, at which barely a livelihood could be obtained. Her step-mother's sickness had made a sad inroad their little store, the scanty remnant they had received from the wreck, and her thoughts upon turned for the first time, anxiously toward the long, bleak winter that was at hand. One consolation dawned in this dreary hour. Her mother rose up from her sick bed with an awakening consciousness of her daughter's kindness. This, in itself, was worth all her labors. December came on. Laura plied steadily her needle, but the late hours began to tell upon her strength and spirits. She knew that she now needed more relaxation than the hurried evening walk to the store from which she obtained her employment. On one of these occasions she encountered Mr. Crawford, who glanced at her coarse shawl, and the unfashionable package she held, as he favored her with his most courteous bow. The incident, trifling as it was, discomposed her for the evening. She blamed herself for her folly. She had no regrets for the past; she could never have married Mr. Crawford, yet the encounter awoke a keen sense of mortification and humiliation. Mrs. Elden, still feeble from sickness, slept softly on her pillow, and Laura, bending lower over her work, went off for the hundredth time in one of those pleasant day-dreams which might and should have been realized. Winter to the poor! Whoever dreams what it can be, in the home of plenty? how the white drifting snows, the chill north winds, the glittering tracery of ice, come with a dismal chill, where the eye sees only the naked hearth and the scanty board. Day and night Laura worked on, now actually nerved to keep want from the door. Mrs. Elden's complainings grew less, and her eyes took in uneasily her daughter's wan appearance. Pride and the consciousness of necessity were beginning to struggle in her bosom, but the latter conquered. "O, mamma! I cannot; she laid down the pen, an uneasy glow mantling her face. - "Then I will make the attempt," and Mrs. Elden drew the sheet towards her. "My Dear Sir," she began, with a hand still tremulous from weakness, 'your friendship for my late husband encourages me to write you to beg your assistance for my daughter. I cannot see her stitching her life away day after day, and remain silent. At first she obtained a small school, but the care she was obliged to bestow upon me in a late long and severe illness, lost her this situation, and she is thrown entirely upon her needle. If you could recommend her to some available employment, such as she is fitted for by her education and circumstances, you would confer upon us a great favor, and earn our deepest thanks." Mrs. Elden folded the note without submitting it to her daughter's perusal. "This goes out by to-morrow's post," she said, resolutely. CHAPTER III. Mr. Hawly answered the note. He answered it in person. Perhaps Mrs. Elden would have thrank from the interview in these impoverished circumstances; cer |