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The sun was shining brightly through the blue damask curtains when she
awoke, and Sylva was bending over her, parting away the rich masses of
auburn curls which had fallen over her face as she leaned her head over
the arm of the chair. "Your father and Rufus are calling for you," said
the attendant pleasantly.

"Why, how long I have slept!" said Edith, opening her blue eyes with a
wondering expression. "What o'clock is it, Sylva?"

"It is half-past nine," answered the woman.

"I have been dreaming the strangest dream about that beautiful mansion I
was telling you I saw in my ride the other day--that 'Summer Home,' as it
is so sweetly styled. I thought I saw a lovely young girl there, younger
than myself, but far more womanly in aspect, and she said she was my
cousin, and kissed me, and gave me rare flowers and delicious fruit. Did
you say father had called for me? Well, I'll dress and go down in the
parlor. What are you doing there, Sylva?"

"Getting your muff and tippet," answered she.

"Is father going to take me out?" asked Edith with animation.

"Rufus is going to take you to church," said Sylva. "He said you
expressed a wish to go last Sabbath, but it was too cold. To-day is more
pleasant, and he is ready to attend you."

"He is kind," said Edith. "Am I not a naughty girl to murmur when I have
a brother so good, and a father who loves me so dearly?"

"You do not murmur, do you, Miss Edith?"

"Sometimes I wish I had a mother, or that she had lived long enough to
leave her form and features impressed on my memory."

A tear fell as the fair girl spoke thus, but she brushed it quickly away,
and commenced arraying herself for church.

"I shall be delighted to behold the interior of that antiquated looking
building," remarked she, as Sylva placed the dainty hat over the
clustering curls; "and, besides, I can see all the village people, and
form some opinion of those who are henceforth to constitute our
associates and friends."

"And all the people will see you, too," said Sylva, smiling.

"O, I don't mind that!" answered Edith; "they would all see me, sooner or
later, as I'm to go to school, in the spring, at the white seminary on
the hill."

Thus speaking, the beautiful girl descended to the drawing-room. A tall,
elegantly-proportioned man, with a magnificent head of raven black hair,
which hung in one dense mass of luxuriant curls all round his broad,
marble-like brow, and quite over his manly shoulders, was leaning in a
careless, graceful attitude against a splendid mahogany-cased piano, that
stood in the centre of the apartment, and moving his white, taper fingers
over the pearl-tipped keys, waking now rich bursts of song, and, anon,
dwelling long on deep, solemn notes, that pierced the soul with
melancholy. He did not move when the door opened, and Edith crossed the
room and stood beside him ere he noticed her presence.

"Where is brother Rufus?" she asked, drawing on her tiny, lemon-colored
gloves.

The gentleman turned and gazed down upon the fair speaker. The clear
complexion and soft blue eyes of the daughter were exact counterparts of
the father's; so were the rich red lips and pearly teeth. Their only
point of difference was in the color of the hair. "What do you want of
Rufus?" asked he, in a tone almost stern, after he had gazed on her
several moments in silence. She turned her speaking eyes upon his face,
and answered, "Sylva said he would take me to church."

"To church!" said her father, now relaxing his features into a smile,
"what an odd fancy! And are you arrayed in this fine garb to attend
service in an old, dilapidated country church?"

"Do you think me very finely-dressed?" said Edith, archly, as she for a
moment surveyed herself in the large mirror which hung from ceiling to
floor between the eastern windows. She wore a crimson velvet dress and
mantle, a muff and tippet of white ermine, and a chapeau of light blue
satin, with a long, drooping white plume. Her hair was gathered into
luxuriant masses of curls each side of her sweet face, and confined by
sprays of pearls and turquoises.

Rufus now entered. He was very unlike his sister in personal appearance.
His hair was the color of his father's, but far less abundant, and
straight as an Indian's. Eyes and complexion were both dark, and his
countenance indicative of rather low intelligence, and weak intellectual
powers. The father looked on him as though he was not quite satisfied
with the son who was, probably, to perpetuate his name.

"Are you ready, Edith?" asked the youth.

"Yes," she returned. He approached to give her his arm, and, as they were
passing out, Edith caught her father looking grimly on them, and said
quickly, "Do you mind our going to church, papa? We will stay at home if
you wish."

"No, go along!" said he. "I'll not thwart you in so small a matter, and
hope I may never have occasion to in a greater!" Edith looked up in his
face as he uttered these last words. There was a dark shade flitting over
it. It haunted her all the while she was walking to church; but so many
things occupied her attention, after entering, it passed from her mind.

CHAPTER VII.

"I fain would know why woman is outraged,
And trampled in the very dust by man,
Who vaunts himself the lord of all the earth,
And e'en the mighty realms of sea and air."

Winter was passing away, and Wimbledon was making but slow progress
toward the better knowledge of the new family that had come among them.
The silver plate on the hall door announced the master's name as Col. J.
Corydon Malcome, a sounding appellation enough; and he was often seen
walking up and down the streets in his rich, fur-lined overcoat and laced
velvet cap, placed with a courtly air over his cloud of ebon curls. He
was known to be a widower, and the woful extravagancies into which Mary
Madeline Mumbles cajoled her doting mother, were enough to make one
shudder in relating. Wimbledon was ransacked for the gayest taffetas, the
jauntiest bonnets, and broadest Dutch lace, till, at length, poor Mr.
Salsify went to his wife with a doleful countenance, and told her he
could never "rise in his profession" as long as she upheld Madeline in
such whimsical extravagance. Mrs. Salsify looked lofty, and tossed her
carroty head; but her husband had waxed bold in his distress, and could
not be intimidated by ireful brows, or pursed-up lips. So he proceeded to
free his mind on this wise: "As for Mary Madeline's ever catching that
haughty, black-headed Col. Malcome, I know better; she can't do it, and I
would much rather have her marry Theophilus Shaw, who is a steady, modest
shoemaker. He makes good wages, and can maintain a wife comfortably, and
would treat her well; which is more than I would trust that
murderous-looking colonel to do."

"Well, you will have your own way, I suppose," said Mrs. S., putting on
an injured expression. "I see it is about as Mrs. Pimble and the
sisterhood tell me. Men are all a set of tyrants, and the women are their
slaves."

"Come, come, wife!" said Mr. Salsify, impatiently; "pray, don't get any
of those foolish notions in your head. Depend upon it, nothing could so
effectually put a stop to my 'rising in my profession.' The piazza and
second story could never be built, if you neglected your home affairs,
and went cantering about the country, like those evil-spirited women,
turning everything topsy-turvy, and mocking at all law and order; but I
know my wife has a mind too delicate and feminine to commit such bold,
masculine actions."

Mr. Mumbles had chosen the right weapon with which to combat his wife's
inclinations toward the Woman's Rights mania. A love of flattery was her
weak point. It is with half her sex. We too often say, by way of
expressing our disapproval of a certain man, "O, he is a gross
flatterer!" thus very frequently condemning the quality we most admire in
him;--or, if not the one we most admire, at least the one which affords
us most pleasure and gratification when in his society. But to our tale:

On a certain blustering January day, a sleigh, containing two ladies and
a gentleman, drove to the door of Col. Malcome's elegant mansion, and
were ushered into the spacious drawing-room by the blooming-visaged
housekeeper. Col. Malcome arose from the luxurious sofa on which he had
been reclining among a profusion of costly furs, and received his
visitors with an air of courtly magnificence, which might have had the
effect to intimidate a modest, retiring female; but not king Solomon in
all his glory could intimidate or abash Mrs. Judith Justitia Pimble, or
Mrs. Rebecca Potentia Lawson. As for poor, insignificant Peter Pimble, he
looked quite aghast with terror and astonishment at his own temerity in
penetrating to a presence so imposing and sublime, and cuddled away in
the most obscure corner he could find, while his majestic wife assumed a
velvet-cushioned arm-chair, which stood beside a marble table.

"Perhaps you do not know our names?" said Mrs. Pimble, bending a sharp
glance on Col. Malcome from beneath her shaggy brows.

"I certainly have not that pleasure, madam," answered the colonel, with a
graceful bow.

"I do not like that style of address," said Mrs. Lawson, arising from the
ottoman on which she had been sitting, with her broad, white palms
extended to the warmth of the glowing grate, and throwing her stately
form upon a crimson sofa; "it is a fawning, affected, puppyish manner,
which men assume when speaking to women, as if they were not capable of
understanding and appreciating a plain, common-sense mode of address."

"Ah, yes!" said Mrs. Pimble, "man has so long reigned a tyrant of
absolute sway, that centuries will pass, I fear, before he is dethroned,
and woman elevated to her proper stand among the nations of the earth."

Here she tossed her bonnet on the table, smoothed her bushy hair, and,
drawing a red bandanna from her pocket, gave her long nose a vigorous
rub, and settled herself in her soft chair again. Col. Malcome sat bolt
upright among the furs which were piled up around him, and stared at his
visitors. Yes, refined and polite though he was, he forgot his
good-breeding in surprise at the coarse, singular manners of his
involuntary guests. The figure in the extreme corner of the apartment at
length attracted his notice, and placing a chair in proximity to the
fire, he said, "Will you not be seated, sir?"

The muffled shape moved, but the brawny lady in the rocking-chair spoke,
and it was still again.

"O, Pimble can stand, Mr. Malcome," she said, "that's his name, and mine
is Mrs. Judith Justitia Pimble, author of tracts for the amelioration of
enslaved and down-trodden woman; and this is Mrs. Rebecca Potentia
Lawson, my sister and co-operater in the work of reform."

Col. Malcome bowed; but, recollecting the rebuff one brief remark of his
had received, remained silent.

"The object of our visit," said Mrs. Lawson, "is to see and confer with
the ladies of your household."

"Begging your pardon," said the colonel, "my family contains but one
lady."

"Ah, the one we met at the door, then?" remarked Mrs. Pimble.

"No, madam; that was my housekeeper," returned the colonel.

"Well, what do you call _her_?" asked Mrs. Lawson.

"My housekeeper, madam, as I have just informed you."

"She has no other name, I suppose?" said Mrs. Pimble, in a loud, ironical
tone; "she is to you a housekeeper, as a horse is a horse, or a cow a
cow;--not a woman"----

"O, yes! a woman, certainly," interrupted the colonel.

"A woman, but not a lady?" continued Mrs. Pimble.

The gentleman bowed as if he felt himself understood. "Well, sir," said
Mrs. Lawson, peering on him through her green glasses, "will you please
to inform us of the difference between a woman and a lady?"

Col. Malcome, who loved the satirical, had a mind to apply it here, but
his politeness restrained him, and he merely remarked, "In a general
sense, none: in a particular, very great."

"That is, in _your_ opinion," said Mrs. Pimble. "Now let me tell you
there is no difference, whatever. The wide world over, every woman is a
lady--(the colonel hemmed,)--every woman is a lady," repeated Mrs. P.,
"and every lady is a woman."

"That is, in _your_ opinion?" remarked Col. Malcome.

"In every sensible person's opinion."

"Well, sister Justitia," said Mrs. Lawson, drawing forth a massive silver
watch, by a steel fob-chain; "we are wasting time. There's but an hour to
the lecture, and we have several miles to ride. Let us state the object
of our visit in a form suited to this man's comprehension."

The colonel felt rather small, on hearing this depreciation of his
intellectual powers, but said nothing.

"Well, make the statement, sister Potentia," said Mrs. Pimble, folding
her brawny arms over her capacious chest, and giving a loud, masculine
ahem.

"Mr. Malcome, we would like to see the female portion of your household,"
said Mrs. Lawson, in a slow, measured tone, with an emphasis on every
word.

As the colonel, indignant at the coarse vulgarity of the intruders, was
about to reply in the negative--the door opened, and Edith entered,
accompanied by Sylva, who led a small, white Spanish poodle by a silver
cord. The little animal capered gracefully about, cutting all sorts of
cunning antics, much to the amusement of the young girl, till at length
discovering the muffled shape of Pimble behind the door, he ran up to
him, smelt at his clothes, and commenced a furious barking.

"You had better go out doors, Pimble," said his wife; "you are so
contemptible a thing even insignificant curs yelp at your heels."

Mrs. Lawson laughed loudly at this witty speech, and the poor man was
about disappearing outside the door, when Col. Malcome prevented his exit
by bidding him be seated, and ordering Sylva to drive Fido from the room.
Quiet being restored, and Mr. Pimble having ventured to drop tremblingly
on the extreme edge of the chair offered for his comfort and convenience,
Col. Malcome said, "You wished to see the female portion of my
household:--here are two of them; my daughter and her attendant."

"Her attendant!" remarked Mrs. Lawson, "I do not know as I exactly
understand the signification of that term, as applied by you in the
present instance."

"Her waiting-woman, then," answered the colonel, "if that is a plainer
term."

"Ay, yes; her waiting-woman," resumed Mrs. L. "Well, your daughter looks
rather puny and sickly. She needs exercise in the open air, I should
say,--narrow-chested,--comes from a consumptive family on the mother's
side?"

"Madam," said Col. Malcome, with a sudden anger in his tone and manner,
"I don't know as it is any business of yours, from what family my
daughter comes."

"O, no particular business," continued Mrs. Lawson, with undisturbed
equanimity; "I only judged her to come of a consumptive race by her face
and form. Public speaking would be an excellent remedy for her weakly
appearance. That enlarges the lungs, and creates confidence and reliance
on one's own powers. Miss Malcome, would you not like to attend some of
our lectures and reform clubs?"

"I don't know," answered Edith, tremblingly. "I think I would if father
is willing;" and she turned her sweet blue eyes up to his face, as if to
read there her permission or refusal.

"A slave to parental authority, I see," remarked Mrs. Pimble; "but this
lady, grown to years of maturity; she, surely, should have a mind of her
own. Don't you think woman is made a galley-slave by the tyrant man?" she
demanded, turning her discourse on Sylva, who looked confused, as if she
did not quite understand the speech addressed to her. At length, she
asked timidly, "What woman do you refer to, madam?" "To all women upon
the face of the earth!" returned Mrs. Pimble, vehemently. "Are they not
loaded with chains and fetters, and crushed down in filthy mire and dirt
by self-inflated, tyrannizing man?"

"O, no!" answered Sylva, innocently; "no man ever put a chain on me, or
on any woman of my acquaintance, or ever pushed one down in the dirt."

"Poor fool!" exclaimed Mrs. Pimble, with great indignation; "you are
grovelling in the mire of ignorance, and man's foot is on your neck to
hold you there."

The figure that trembled on the edge of the chair was now heard calling
faintly, "Mrs. Pimble--Mrs. Pimble."

"Pimble speaks, sister Justitia," said Mrs. Lawson.

"What do you want?" asked the lady, turning sharply round.

"'Tis four o'clock, ma'am," gasped he.

"Four o'clock! didn't I tell you I wished to be at the lecture-room at
that hour?"

"I didn't like to interrupt you," he answered feebly.

"What a fool of a man!" exclaimed the enraged wife. "Bring the sleigh to
the door, instanter;" and Pimble rushed out, the ladies following close
on his heels, vociferating at the top of their voices, without even a
parting salutation to the family they had been visiting.

CHAPTER VIII.

"It is a hermit.
Well, methinks I've read
In romance tales of such strange beings oft;
But surely ne'er did think these eyes should see
The living, breathing, walking counterpart.
Canst tell me where he dwells?
Far in the woods,
In a lone hut, apart from all his kind."

OLD PLAY.

The pale moonbeams peeped through the rents and crevices of Dilly
Danforth's wretched abode, as the poor woman sat on the hearth with
Willie's head lying in her lap, while he read by the flickering
fire-light from the pages of a well-worn Bible. The little fellow had
never fully recovered from that long, painful illness that had nearly
cost him his life, and from which it is very possible he would never
have arisen but for those little bundles of firewood that were so
providentially laid on poor Dilly's threshold, by some charitable, though
unknown, hand. They still continued to be placed there, and it was well
they were so, for Mrs. Danforth's health had failed so much she was not
able to perform half her former amount of labor; and had it not been for
these small armfuls of fuel, which very much resembled those Willie used
to collect, the washerwoman and her boy must have perished during the
long, cold winter season. Yes, perished in the very midst of Wimbledon;
within a stone's throw of many a well-filled woodyard, and under the nose
of a Mrs. Pimble's philanthropic efforts for the amelioration of her
species. Dilly's neglect on the part of the many arose, not so much from
inhumanity and covetousness, as from a wrong bias, which a few words had
created in the people's minds. A report had passed through the village,
several months before, purporting to come from a reliable source, which
represented Mrs. Danforth as not so poor as she appeared; that she
assumed her poverty-stricken garb and appearance to excite sympathy, and
thus swindle, in a small way, from the purses of her wealthy neighbors.
There is nothing of which people have a greater horror than of being
humbugged, if they know it; so, for the most part, the Wimbledonians
turned a deaf ear and cold shoulder on the washerwoman's sorrowful
supplications for charity. Little Edith Malcome pitied the pale, sad face
that appeared at the kitchen door every Monday morning, and always asked
her father's permission to give her a basket of victuals to carry home,
which were always received with many grateful expressions by the poor
woman.

Edith sat by the drawing-room window, one bleak, stormy winter morning,
watching the snow as it fell silently to the earth, when a man of
singular appearance, walking slowly along the opposite side of the
street, attracted her notice.

"O, father!" exclaimed she quickly, "come here; the oddest-looking man is
going past."

Col. Malcome rose from his seat by the fire and approached the window.
"What a disgusting appearance he presents!" said he, gazing on the
slowly-receding figure. "It angers me to see a man degrade himself by
such uncouth apparel."

"O, not disgusting! is he, father?" said Edith, "only odd and droll; and
his face looked so pale and mild, I thought it really pretty. If he only
wouldn't wear that short-waisted, long-tailed coat, with those funny
little capes on the shoulders, and leave off that great tall-crowned hat
with its broad, slouching brim, and have a little cane instead of that
long pole he carries in his hand, he would be quite a pretty man,--don't
you think so, father?"

"Well, really I don't know how he might look were he thus transformed,"
answered Col. Malcome. "I only expressed my opinion of his present
appearance."

"Don't you know who he is?" asked Edith.

"No," said her father, returning to his seat.

"Well, I wish you would try and learn his name," pursued the fair girl.

"What for?" asked Col. M., resuming the perusal of the volume he had left
to obey her summons to the window.

"Because I would like to know it," returned she. "I fancy he is some
relation of that pale Dilly Danforth's, for he has just such mournful
eyes."

"I do not wish to see them then," said her father, with some impatience
of manner, "for I don't like the expression of that woman's eyes."

"They are very sad," said Edith, "but sorrow has made them so. I think
they were once very beautiful. But won't you learn this strange man's
name? Perhaps he is very poor, and we could alleviate his wants by kind
charities."

"No," answered Col. M. in a tone which dismissed the subject; "I cannot
run about the country to hunt up old stragglers for you to bestow alms
upon."

Edith looked on her father's stern brow, and, feeling it was useless to
urge her plea any longer, stole away to her own apartment, where she
found Sylva engaged in feeding her canaries and furnishing them with
fresh water. The little bright creatures were singing sweetly, but Edith
did not heed their songs. She stood apart by a window, and gazed out on
the falling snowflakes. At length she saw Rufus enter the yard, and soon
heard him ascending the stairs. "Where have you been, brother?" she
asked, as he came in, his face reddened by exposure to the cold, biting
atmosphere.

"Down on the river, skating with some of the village boys," answered he,
drawing a chair close to the glowing fire; "and O, such a fine time as we
had! I shall be glad when we go to school, Edith; it will be so much more
lively and pleasant."

"I shall be glad when the snow is gone, so I can run out doors, and sow
my flower-beds," returned Edith, thoughtfully. Then she sat gazing in the
fire a long time, as was always her wont when thinking deeply on any
subject. Sylva had finished her care of the birds, and brought forth Fido
from his little cot-bed in her room. He sprang into Edith's lap, then
into Rufus', kissing their cheeks and evincing his joy at beholding them
in various pleasing, expressive ways. But Edith pushed him away and told
Sylva to put him to bed again. So the brisk little fellow was carried
off, looking very sorry, and wailing piteously, as if he pleaded
permission to remain by the warm fire.

Rufus was younger than his sister, and of an intelligence and refinement
so far below hers, that she seldom evinced much pleasure or enjoyment in
his society, but she looked towards him now with an eager expression of
interest, as he said,

"O, Edith, I saw the funniest man this morning!"

"Where?" she asked quickly.

"Down by the side of the river among a clump of brushwood, gathering
little bundles of sticks. Charlie Seaton and I spoke to him, but he did
not answer us."

"Did he wear a long overcoat with small capes on the shoulders, and a
slouching-brimmed hat?" inquired Edith earnestly.

"Yes," said Rufus. "Have you seen him, then?"

"Passing along in the street," returned she. "Did Charlie know his name?"

"No; but he said it was a man who lived alone in a small hut, far off in
the forest, made of the boughs and branches of cedar trees, curiously
twisted together; and he is thence styled the _Hermit of the Cedars_."

"A hermit!" exclaimed Edith. "I have read of such beings in old books,
but I never supposed they really existed, or at least never expected I
should see one with my own eyes. I shall like this place better than
ever, now; it will be so romantic to have a hermit in our vicinity. What
do you suppose he was going to do with his bundles of sticks, Rufus?"

"Use them for firewood, probably," said he.

"But I should have thought he might have obtained that in the forest
where he lives, and not been obliged to travel all the way down here,
this stormy day, to pick up wood from among the snow, and then carry it
two or three miles in his arms," said Edith, in a ruminating tone.

"O, hermits are strange beings, sis!" answered Rufus, whistling a vacant
tune as he stood before the window gazing forth on the dismal storm which
debarred him from his accustomed diversion of skating on the frozen
surface of the river.

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