The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No 3, September, 1862

'Time—time—it takes time. The fact is, I shall like the girl all the better for her playing off at first. Shan't forget it though—not quite!'

He drove back to Hampton that afternoon. His feelings were placid and complacent as usual. He had asked the Lord in the morning to prosper his journey and to grant him success in gaining his object, and he now returned thanks for this new mark of God's grace and favor.

Mr. Burns did not inquire of the Rev. Mr. Goddard, nor of either of the deacons mentioned by Hiram. He wrote direct to Thaddeus Smith, Senior, whom he knew, and who he thought would be able to give a correct account of Hiram. Informing Mr. Smith that the young man had applied to him for a situation of considerable trust, he asked that gentleman to give his careful opinion about his capacity, integrity, and general character. As there could be but one opinion on the subject in all Hampton, Mr. Smith returned an answer every way favorable. It is true he did not like Hiram himself, but if called on for a reason, he could not have told why. As we have recorded, every one spoke well of him. Every one said how good, and moral, and smart he was, and honest Mr. Smith reported accordingly.

'Well, well,' said Mr. Burns, 'if Smith gives such an account of him while he has been all the time in an opposition store, he must be all right.... Don't quite like his looks, though … wonder what it is.'

When at the expiration of the week Hiram went to receive an answer from Mr. Burns, he did not attempt to find him at his house. He was careful to call at the office at the hour Mr. Burns was certain to be in.

'I hear a good account of you, Meeker,' said Mr. Burns, 'and in that respect every thing is satisfactory. Had I not given you so much encouragement, I should still hesitate about making a new department. However, we will try it.'

'I am very thankful to you, sir. As I said, I want to learn business and the compensation is no object.'

'But it is an object with me. I can have no one in my service who is not fully paid. Your position should entitle you to a liberal salary. If you can not earn it, you can not fill the place.'

'Then I shall try to earn it, I assure you,' replied Hiram, 'and will leave the matter entirely with you. I have brought you a line from my father,' he continued, and he handed Mr. Burns a letter.

It contained a request, prepared at Hiram's suggestion, that Mr. Burns would admit him in his family. The other ran his eye hastily over it. A slight frown contracted his brow.

'Impossible!' he exclaimed. 'My domestic arrangements will not permit of such a thing. Quite impossible.'

'So I told father, but he said it would do no harm to write. He did not think you would be offended.'

'Offended! certainly not.'

'Perhaps,' continued Hiram, 'you will be kind enough to recommend a good place to me. I should wish to reside in a religious family, where no other boarders are taken.'

The desire was a proper one, but Hiram's tone did not have the ring of the true metal. It grated slightly on Mr. Burns's moral nerves—a little of his first aversion came back—but he suppressed it, and promised to endeavor to think of a place which should meet Hiram's wishes. It was now Saturday. It was understood Hiram should commence his duties the following Monday. This arranged, he took leave of his employer, and returned home.

That evening Mr. Burns told his daughter he was about to relieve her from the drudgery—daily increasing—of copying letters and taking care of so many papers, by employing a confidential clerk. Sarah at first was grieved; but when her father declared he should talk with her just as ever about every thing he did or proposed to do, and that he thought in the end the new clerk would be a great relief to him, she was content.

'But whom have you got, father,' (she always called him 'father,') 'for so important a situation?'

'His name is Meeker—Hiram Meeker—a young man very highly recommended to me from Hampton.'

'I wonder if it was not he whom I met last Saturday!'

'Possibly; he called on me that day. Do you know him?'

'I presume it is the same person I saw at Mrs. Crofts' some weeks since. Last Saturday a young man met me and almost stopped, as if about to speak. I did not recognize him, although I could not well avoid bowing. Now I feel quite sure it was Mr. Meeker.'

'Very likely.'

'Well, I do hope he will prove faithful and efficient. I recollect every one spoke very highly of him.'

'I dare say.'

Mr. Burns was in a reverie. Certain thoughts were passing through his mind—painful, unhappy thoughts—thoughts which had never before visited him.

'Sarah, how old are you?'

'Why, father, what a question!' She came and sat on his knee and looked fondly into his eyes. 'What can you be thinking of not to remember I am seventeen?'

'Of course I remember it, dear child,' replied Mr. Burns tenderly; 'my mind was wandering, and I spoke without reflection.'

'But you were thinking of me?'

'Perhaps.'

He kissed her, and rose and walked slowly up and down the room. Still he was troubled.

We shall not at present endeavor to penetrate his thoughts; nor is it just now to our purpose to present them to the reader.

Hiram Meeker had been again successful. He had resolved to enter the service of Mr. Burns and he had entered it. He came over Monday morning early, and put up at the hotel. In three or four days he secured just the kind of boarding-place he was in search of. A very respectable widow lady, with two grown-up daughters, after consulting with Mr. Burns, did not object to receive him as a member of her family.

AN ARMY CONTRACTOR

Lived a man of iron mold,
Crafty glance and hidden eye,
Dead to every gain but gold,
Deaf to every human sigh.
Man he was of hoary beard,
Withered cheek and wrinkled brow.
Imaged on his soul, appeared:
'Honest as the times allow.'

LITERARY NOTICES

Why Paul Ferroll Killed his Wife. By the Author of Paul Ferroll. New-York: Carleton, 413 Broadway. Boston: N. Williams & Co.

Those who remember Paul Ferroll, probably recall it as a novel of merit, which excited attention, partly from its peculiarity, and partly from the mystery in which its writer chose to conceal herself—a not unusual course with timid debutantes in literature, who hope either to intriguer the public with their masks, or quietly escape the disgrace of a fiasco should they fail. Mrs. Clive is, however, it would seem, satisfied that the public did not reject her, since she now reäppears to inform us, 'novelly,' why the extremely ill-married Paul made himself the chief of sinners, by committing wife-icide. The work is in fact a very readable novel—much less killing indeed than its title—but still deserving the great run which we are informed it is having, and which, unlike the run of shad, will not we presume—as it is a very summer book—fall off as the season advances.

The Channings. A Domestic Novel of Real Life. By Mrs. Henry Wood. Philadelphia: T. B. Peterson. Boston: Crosby and Nichols.

Notwithstanding the praise which has been so lavishly bestowed on this 'tale of domestic life,' the reader will, if any thing more than a mere reader of novels for the very sake of 'story,' probably agree with us, after dragging through to the end, that it would be a blessing if some manner of stop could be put to the manufacture of such books. A really original, earnest novel; vivid in its life-picturing, genial in its characters; the book of a man or woman who has thought something, and actually knows something, is at any time a world's blessing. But what has The Channings of all this in it? Every sentence in it rings like something read of old, all the incidents are of a kind which were worn out years ago—to be sure the third-rate story-reader may lose himself in it—just as we may for a fiftieth time endeavor to trace out the plan of the Hampton Labyrinth, and with about as much real profit or amusement.

It is a melancholy sign of the times to learn that such hackneyed English trash as The Channings has sold well! It has not deserved it. American novels which have appeared nearly cotemporaneously with it, and which have ten times its merit, have not met with the same success, for the simple and sole reason that almost any English circulating library stuff will at any time meet with better patronage than a home work. When our public becomes as much interested in itself as it is in the very common-place life of Cockney clergymen and clerks, we shall perhaps witness a truly generous encouragement of native literature.

The Pearl of Orr's Island. A Story of the Coast of Maine. By Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe. Boston: Ticknor and Fields.

In reading this quiet, natural, well-pictured narrative of Northern life, we are tempted to exclaim—fresh from the extraordinary contrast presented by Agnes of Sorrento—O si sic omnes! Why can not Mrs. Stowe always write like this? Why not limit her efforts to subjects which develop her really fine powers—to setting forth the social life of America at the present day, instead of harping away at the seven times worn out and knotted cord of Catholic and Italian romance? The Pearl of Orr's Island, though not a work which will sweep Uncle Tom-like in tempest fashion over all lands and through all languages, is still a very readable and very refreshing novel—full of reality as we find it among real people, 'inland or on sounding shore,' and by no means deficient in those moral and religious lessons to inculcate which it appears to have been written. Piety is indeed the predominant characteristic of the work—not obtrusive or sectarian, but earnest and actual; so that it will probably be classed, on the whole, as a religious novel, though we can hardly recall a romance in which the pious element interferes so little with the general interest of the plot, or is so little conducive to gloom. The hard, 'Angular Saxon' characteristics of the rural people who constitute the dramatis personæ, their methods of thought and tone of feeling, so singularly different from that of 'the world,' their marked peculiarities, are all set forth with an apparently unconscious ability deserving the highest praise.

The Golden Hour. By Monoure D. Conway, Author of the 'Rejected Stone,' 'Impera Parendo.' Boston: Ticknor and Fields.

The most remarkable work which the war has called out is beyond question the Rejected Stone. Wild, vigorous, earnest, even to suffering, honest as truth itself, quaint, humorous, pathetic, and startlingly eccentric. Those who read it at once decided that a new writer had arisen among us, and one destined to make no mean mark in the destinies of his country. The reader who will refer to our first number will find what we said of it in all sincerity, since the author was then to us unknown. He is—it is almost needless to inform the reader—a thorough-going abolitionist, yet one who, while looking more intently at the welfare of the black than we care to do in the present imbroglio, still appreciates and urges Emancipation, or freeing the black, in its relation to the welfare of the white man. Mr. Conway is not, however, a man who speaks ignorantly on this subject. A Virginian born and bred, brought up in the very heart of the institution, he studied it at home in all its relations, and found out its evils by experience. A thoroughly honest man, too clear-headed and far too intelligent to be rated as a fanatic; too familiar with his subject to be at all disregarded, he claims close attention in many ways, those of wit and eloquence not being by any means the least. In the work before us, he insists that there is a golden hour at hand, a title borrowed from the quaint advertisement, of 'Lost a golden hour set with sixty diamond minutes'—which if not grasped at by the strong, daring hand will see our great national opportunity lost forever. We are not such disbelievers in fate as to imagine that this golden hour ever can be inevitably lost. If the cause of freedom rolls slowly, it is because even in free soil there are too many Conservative pebbles. Still we agree with Conway as to his estimate of the great mass of cowardice, irresolution, and folly which react on our administration. If the word 'Emancipationist,'—meaning thereby one who looks to the welfare of the white man rather than the negro—be substituted for 'Abolitionist' in the following, our more intelligent readers will probably agree with Mr. Conway exactly:

'If this country is to be saved, the Abolitionists are to save it; and though they seem few in numbers, they are not by a thousandth so few as were the Christians when JESUS suffered, or Protestants when Luther spoke. There is need only that we should stand as one man, and unto the end, for an absolutely free Republic, swearing to promote eternal strife until it be attained—until in waters which Agitation, the angel of freedom, has troubled, the diseased nation shall bathe and be made every whit whole.