with her white banner to witness his coronation; when she rallied the soldiers on the walls of Orleans; when she wept alone, wounded, dejected in her prison; when she walked firmly to the blazing pile, singing the prayer of the first scene, once more dignified and inspired. The curtain fell; then, and then only, did admiration find a voice, the whole house rose in a tumult of delight—the women waved their handkerchiefs, wet with their tears, the men shouted and threw flowers on the stage, and the pale exhausted singer bowed modestly and withdrew. It was not till there was no hope of coaxing her back, that there was a feeble call for the composer, who instantly rushed on in a wild eccentric fashion, and shook his long mane at the public, who, alas! had nearly forgotten him.
When he withdrew he eagerly sought out the heroine of the night. She was going away as usual alone: it was clear she had no husband, no brother, no belongings; on such a night of triumph who would not have been proud to have appeared as her escort?
“Will you not allow me to see you safely home?” he whispered, as he opened the door of the cab.
She hesitated an instant. “Yes,” she said, “this once you shall see my home.”
He jumped in delighted, exclaiming, “There will soon be an end of hackney cabs; a neat little brougham and a fine horse and stylish liveries—that must soon be yours. And jewels why I'll engage that by this time to-morrow you will be half a dozen diamond bracelets richer than you are to-day. Alas, poor me! what chance shall I have then?”
He looked languishing, but she did not seem to understand him, and he was afraid of going too far lest she should be offended instead of indifferent. At last the cab stopped. They entered a mean dingy-looking house, the door of which was opened by an old female servant, who looked in intense surprise at the hirsute composer. No one came forward, anxious to hear of her triumph: there was no word, no smile of welcome for the lone woman who had that night become the queen of a vast and coveted empire. She took the candle from her servant, and ascended the staircase, followed by the wondering Smith, who noticed that the stair carpet was worn to its last shreds, that the paper, the paint, all he could see, were old, meagre, poverty-stricken. She opened a door on the first landing, and held the candle over a bed where lay sleeping a handsome boy of ten years old. She passed through into another room, where two little girls reposed, side by side, a lovely picture of innocence and confidence. O how beautiful, how tender was the gaze of the mother who contemplated them, and how its very purity rebuked the watcher of the group.
“There, sir, now you have seen my home; these children depend entirely on my exertions; and I have no aim in this life but their welfare—they alone have caused me to exercise my one talent, at any cost. The diamond bracelets you spoke of, the increased salary—all, all would be changed into food and clothing for them. I value no praise, no compliment, but as a means of helping them.”
There was a pause of some moments, whilst the man turned his eyes alternately from the happy children to the pale over-worked mother.
“Have you then lost your husband?” he asked, in a softened tone.
A look of anguish crossed her features, and with a burning blush she answered, “Yes: I have lost him—he is gone!” And the composer understood that she was not a widow. Her husband lived, but he was lost, indeed—he was a drunkard!
“Thank you,” said Smith, with altered mien, “I shall not forget your home; I will intrude on you no longer.” And with a respectful bow he left the poor shabby house, sanctified by the presence of pure maternal love.
FOLLIES IN FOOD.
In the last generation, a family of five brothers and sisters were left, by the death of their widowed mother, to choose their way of life for themselves, at ages varying from fifteen to two-and-twenty. They made a wise choice, which was acquiesced in by the guardians of the younger ones. They had no marked disease, any one of them: but they were of a strumous constitution, their physicians admitted;—not scrofulous, but tending towards it. They resolved to devote five years to the establishment of their health, which they considered would be a good economy of time, if those years could give vigour to all that followed. There was no difficulty about money; so they took an airy country-house on a gravelly soil; bought horses for the five and two grooms, and devised a side-saddle for the girls, which would enable the rider to take either side of the horse at pleasure, a point of some importance for girls still growing, who were to spend so much time on horseback. They were in the open air whenever the weather would possibly admit of it, varying their exercises in every imaginable way. They lived on generous diet, beef and mutton in plenty, and good ale or porter, and, by the medical advice of the day, port wine. At the end of the five years they were as fine a set of young people as could be seen, without a trace of disease or weakness, sound in body and mind.
Another family in a lower rank of life lost their father when they were about the same age. They had had warning; for a brother had died of some form of scrofula, and their father, who had been far from temperate, died consumptive: but they had no idea of health being a matter of choice or of duty in any way. They expected “Providence” to settle all that for them; and the consequence was, that the old mother saw one after another drop from her side, after long periods of disease. It is not necessary to dwell on the particulars. Unhappily, we have all witnessed the fate of scrofulous families, where ignorance and mismanagement aggravated the misery to the utmost. It is enough to say that the young men exposed themselves to heat and draughts without any precautions; that it never entered their heads to unload their skins (beyond their face and hands) of the salts accumulated on the skins of working-men from day to day; and