Brother Christopher

I HAVE never considered myself proud; I have cherished democratic ideas, and scarcely ever observed a poor person thoughtfully, without a wish that there were not those distinctions of rich and poor, cultured and uncultured, and a vision of the blessedness of the millennium, when a fortunate few will not be thus favored above their fellows. My sympathies have always been with the weak, and I have endeavored to cast what little influence I had in that scale.

And yet, — and yet, — is the remark not made every day, “ He is human ” ? Ah, yes, there it is; I am human. I have, in spite of my democratic principles, been all the time conscious of a terrible humanness which brought all my lofty, generous, liberal ideas down to the very earth, and dragged them in its mire.

I pitied the poor. If I could have done so without any detriment to myself, or with none to speak of, I would have enriched every one of them. I believed there were brighter minds and truer hearts and nobler souls among them than are always to be found in the mansions of the rich. I have spoken to my poor acquaintances in the street with nearly as much politeness and carefulness as to my more fortunate friends. I went to call upon them sometimes, even, and was very condescending and affable towards them at all times, and, in my own mind, ready to admit that in reality, and the sight of Heaven, very many of them were my superiors.

But I might as well say it outright, since I have undertaken the confession: I was ashamed of my brother Christopher, and of his wife Sophronia, and of their children.

Now, I can inform persons who have had no experience in the matter, that it is quite a different thing to bow politely and benignly to shabby, inelegant persons in the street, whom one may happen to know, but with whom one has no personal connection, from what it is to go through public civilities toward one’s own blood relations, when they happen to be of the shabby and inelegant class.

We were orphans, my brother and myself. He was the elder, by nine years. Christopher lived around with the different uncles; now in town, going to school awhile, now out on the farm with uncle Ben; there, or wherever he happened to be, doing what tasks were found suited to his age, committing the usual boyish misdemeanors, and getting thrashed for them in genuine Puritanic fashion; also rebelling occasionally against the reasonable or unreasonable government, whichever it was, and gaining the name of being a headstrong, unmanageable boy.

Twice he ran away; but be was found easily enough, and safe enough, as soon as the little money he had taken with him was exhausted. Yet he still managed, in one way or other, to keep me, and all connected with him, in a constant state of anxiety. He delighted in the society of the wildest and commonest boys that could be found, and would listen neither to the warnings nor to the commands of his guardians; he was also inclined to be disrespectful, and in all his conduct, instead of regarding those who had charge of him as friends, he waged a rebellious warfare against them as enemies.

I have never been able to get at any substantial evidence as to the amount of blame due to my relatives for mismanagement or lack of gentle methods of treatment; but as near as I can come to the facts of the case, although the influences which surrounded the boy were far from being as propitious as is the case when a child is brought up under the home roof, with his father and mother, yet my relatives, who were persons of high character, good standing, and no little family pride, appear to have been very anxious that their brother’s child should become a good and useful citizen, and to have done what seemed to them best, under the difficult aspects of the case, to bring about that desirable result; but they found upon their hands a being who could not be molded, and did not of himself incline toward a respectable end. The fact is, he was eccentric from a child. He had opinions of his own, not derived from those around him, and an obstinacy in clinging to them which it was a hopeless task to oppose.

When he began to approach manhood, one of his most strongly expressed determinations was to belong to the common people, and he scoffed at the aristocratic ideas which prevailed in the family to some extent. He preferred the commonest clothes, the commonest manners, and rejected, in spite of the good opportunities which were proffered him in that direction, any but the commonest education.

Another strong predisposition was toward a sea-faring life, a business than which one could scarcely have been found more foreign and displeasing to the family habits and tastes. And, sure enough, his second runaway trip was to a sea-port, where he hired himself out on board a fishing-smack. “ A fishingsmack!” I remember now the shame that thrilled through our little family community when this fact was ascertained, and which burned warmly in my young veins while as yet I had not the remotest idea of what a smack was, except the kind I gave Jennie Wright one day, at her earnest solicitation; which smack made my face burn as warmly as this fishing-smack news, so that, in fact, the two kinds gained an association in my mind beyond what the mere similarity in spelling would have occasioned.

After suitable deliberation and consultation, it was concluded to let him fish it, or smack it, until he grew tired of the amusement, which happened after about two years of rough knocking about in this business, when he came back and signified his willingness to learn a trade. Therefore, although a trade was something unknown in the family, our friends bestirred themselves, and found him a good place for obtaining the trade he had chosen, even this turn being more than they had expected, so decided an inclination for a roving life had he displayed.

And behold! shortly, this wild fellow, in whose very wildness my own boyish partiality for an elder brother had found something upon which to build both hopes and admiration, settled down into a plodding, contented journeyman; as mild and harmless and tame a specimen as could ever have been produced by continual adherence to a mother’s apronstrings.

If you could but know him, and then be told that this man was once a wild, irrepressible, runaway boy, keeping his friends in a continual flutter of alarm, you would be tempted to express an utter disbelief in the statement. He is as steady as any eight-day clock.

This, however, did not all happen in a day. After the trade was learnt, he went, now and then, on a “ spree,” and still continued to set us on nettles occasionally.

At length, when he had, by seeking common society, wearing the commonest clothes, and adopting the commonest manners, fully settled himself among the commonest of the respectable class of people (for he never descended to mean company, or, that I ever knew, did a mean act in his life), thus achieving the height of his youthful ambition, he selected from the very commonest of this respectable common class a wife who had also the commonest manners, and looks which were only redeemed from commonness by being very uncommonly plain. She was a factory girl, who had not been to school since she was eleven years of age. She was a trifle older than Christopher himself, and in her manners that which cannot be adequately described by any other word than “outlandish.” Yet she was a kindhearted woman, and not deficient in mind. This was the climax. It was a terrible blow to the family pride; for although we were not aristocrats, either by rank or wealth, that generation was one of superior intelligence and energy, its members were among the substantial part of the community, and their ancestors had always belonged to the respected middle class. Every generation looks forward to some progress in its descendants; my uncles had risen above the place in which they started,—being sons of a worthy farmer, — and would fain have had the coming generation rise yet higher. There was some talk, among the prouder members of the family, of disowning Christopher. But he could hardly have been disowned. Who could disown him? he was only a nephew. I could have disowned him, but I was a mere boy of twelve. Disown him! Well, I have unworthy traits enough, and I have just begun the story of one of my meannesses, but I have never come to that yet. It is no easy thing to disown your own mother’s son. If he had been only a brother on the father’s side, perhaps I could have done it, although that is very doubtful; but there is something in a man’s heart that makes him true to his mother, even if, as in my case, he only beheld her with the unconscious eyes of early infancy.

After Christopher’s marriage, he left off the sprees. This was not hard for him; he never had any fondness for liquor, and drank merely because he was in drinking company and imagined he had no one to keep sober for. Thus, abandoning the last symptom of youthful wildness, he at once became, as I have stated, as steady as any machine, a faithful workman, a good husband, always at home when not at the shop, and as fond and faithful to this homely factory girl, who could not put three words together correctly (to his praise be it spoken), as if she had been one of the fairest and most accomplished ladies of the land.

Now I, the little brother, though having the same father and mother, was as great a contrast to Christopher in everything but a physical family resemblance of features, as could have been possible had one of us been born of Eastern origin, on the opposite side of the globe.

My very first instincts, as far as I can remember, were ambitious ones. I inherited, to a degree which exceeded the inheritance, if I may so speak, the love of books and literature which prevailed in the family. I was almost morbidly sensitive in regard to appearances. I was anxious to far exceed the hopes of any one who might be inclined to take an interest in me; which last was, indeed, an easy matter; for so inclined are persons to believe in family likenesses in character, as well as in looks, that my best efforts excited but feeble expectations in the minds of my relatives, who were always looking for me, sooner or later, to develop some of the traits so noticeable in Christopher. But, however these traits may have lain dormant in my character, they have as yet only developed in the characteristic of which I spoke in the opening of this chapter: a warm sympathy with the humble and despised, and a wish that social distinctions were not so marked. Yet how far I ought to thank my brother Christopher for this state of mind, and how far it is inherent in my own character, I cannot tell.

As a child, I looked upon the deeds of others to wish and hope that I might yet do as well or better. I regarded all greatness and grandeur with a passionate desire to realize it in my own experience, and, though an orphan, little regarded and encouraged, I never lost heart, nor thought it worth while to stop trying to be “ somebody,” believing I had it in me to become that indefinite personage, even if every one around me did seem to be perfectly unsuspicious of any such possibility.

I made a success finally in a small way by getting the name of a somewhat remarkable scholar at school, which so emboldened me that, after what was supposed to be my graduation, as far as education was concerned, I asked if there was n’t some possibility of my going to college.

“ College! ” Why, I created almost as much commotion as Christopher stirred up when he ran away and went smacking. “ College! ” Why, not even one of my uncles, who considered themselves very grand in comparison with Christopher’s little brother Reuben, had been to college, although in their youth every one of them had longed for the opportunity.

“I’ll make the opportunity,” I said with quivering lip but beaming eye. “ Only let me go, and I’ll make the opportunity.”

“Go? Make the opportunity ? Pshaw! Go and make it, then,” they said in derision.

And I went. They helped me somewhat, and I helped myself more. I worked my way, and a year after I left college, beyond my own support I had earned enough to pay my uncles back, with interest, all they had forwarded for my assistance. I chose the law for my profession, and, while I studied that, supported myself by reporting for the papers, assistant editorship, and other newspaper work. Step by step, although not without varied difficulties and discouragements, I have been enabled to advance, until now I feel myself gaining a substantial footing in my profession, as well as in some other directions. I am petted and flattered in society to a degree very far beyond my deserts, and have learned by experience the truth of the old saying, that not only will every one give the man who is going down hill a push in that direction, but will also lend a helping hand to a person who is already on the ascent. I have received so much of this gratuitous hoisting, recently, that the climbing process has been not a little accelerated. I some time since left in the rear, as regards the social scale, the relatives who naturally enough, in my childhood, looked with distrust upon my future, and have far outstripped any of their offspring; and if so, how far have I left behind my poor brother Christopher !

I say this in no boastful spirit; it is for those who possess inherited rank thus to boast, if any one, not he who in the winning it has found how small and poor a thing it is, — a thing which a man may gain for himself with his own puny energies, which he can hold only for a brief period, and which, while he has it, seems, thus safe in hand, dull and commonplace to what it appeared when glistening in the distance. It is more a symbol of might than of merit, and I know that when we come to be ranked according to this latter standard I may take a lowly place, while many a one now beneath me goes above. Then (and my heart leaps gladly at the thought) my brother Christopher may have a chance. For indeed, a kindlier spirit than his never lived. That is where the difficulty lies. If a man is malicious, mean, mischievous, our consciences uphold us for declining to associate with him; but if he merely eats onions, smokes poor tobacco, wears seedy, ill - made clothes, changes his linen but once a week, and has no ambitions beyond the commonest necessities of existence, where shall we condemn him? As well condemn the lower animals because their capacities are so limited. If I were to seek to lay my finger upon one mean or evil trait in my brother Christopher’s character, I believe I should seek in vain. Kindly, affectionate, generous, honest, forgiving, faithful, unenvious, uncomplaining — what a list of good qualities I might make out, and still adhere closely to facts. On the other hand, what does he lack? Energy, ambition, superior capacity, a refined taste, self-esteem, aristocratic ideas. Are these virtues ? Is any one of them essential to true worth and goodness? I cannot say “ Yes,” — and can any one?

Where then is my excuse for being ashamed of my brother Christopher, and of his wife and children? For against the latter I can say no more than I can say against him, and all I have said in his favor I can say in theirs.

I find no argument in my own behalf. Therefore I tell my story and make my confession, with my head, figuratively speaking, covered with sackcloth and ashes.

Christopher loves me, and I love Christopher. The ties of blood are strong, and let who will dispute it, he deals falsely with his own heart.

I visit Christopher two or three times a year, and stay part of a day. If I stay longer than this it depresses my spirits, and I fall into a fault-finding mood and say things which I regret very much afterwards. For instance, once when I had committed the blunder of stopping with him over Sunday, I asked him why he did n’t have his clothes cut in a later style. I also inquired if it was the fashion to put a child of three years into trousers, and offered to buy Sophronia a chignon. Then I suggested that a tenement in a house containing less than five families might be preferable. I noticed, at the time, that my queries and suggestions did not have any pleasanter effect than might have been anticipated, and heard afterwards that my brother and his wife had felt “ deeply hurt ” at some remarks which I made at that visit. Now, of all things, I have one of the greatest antipathies to the word “hurt.” I have learned to be thick-skinned myself, and if anything ever does make me smart, I never “ let on,” as the boys say, and generally get something out of the smart by learning a lesson of some kind from it, as I used from a whipping in my boyhood, so that it serves me a good turn in the end. But I knew that in Christopher’s and Sophronia’s case the hurt meant simply a hurt which had not done any good, and which was merely cruel. So, whenever I went afterwards, I made no more sharp queries or suggestions out of the ordinary line.

My brother and his wife have several times since my settlement in B— stated that they were coming up to see me sometime, and to this I have always replied, “ Let me know when you are coming, and I will meet you at the depot.” I did not urge the visit, for I did not feel anxious about it; or rather I did feel anxious in one sense, inasmuch as the very thought of it filled my mind with a dread, of which I was then, and am now, thoroughly ashamed, but which, it seemed to me, I could no more help than I could an ague chill. But if they would come, they must. I thought very likely they would, and made up my mind that, sooner or later, the ordeal awaited me; but the period being indefinite, and a long space of time having passed away without the fulfillment of the intention, I had at length almost ceased to think of it, except once in a great while, as a possible future infliction.

I seemed to grow more and more popular every day, in my profession and in society, and I was even a favorite in the fashionable world of the place, with the wealthy and stylish ladies generally, as well as with their fathers and brothers. I was not transported, however, with these gay ladies of the bon ton; for only two or three of them did I feel half the inward respect which I cherished for my unlettered, uncouth sister Sophronia. But their adulation had not yet lost the charm of novelty, while for me it had at this time something also of the charm of conquest, and I should have been chagrined to lose it. They had a certain dignity and prestige in virtue of their wealth and position, the influence of which I felt as much as any one could,—I who had just risen from the ranks, as it were.

I have, for more than a year past, had a very comfortable and pleasant suite of rooms at one of the best hotels in B—. I can very well afford this, in the. present state of my income; yet I should not have incurred the expense, — as I am not of an extravagant turn of mind,—had I not considered it at first, and afterwards proved it to be, the best policy. I have by this means been brought in contact with a very much larger number of people than I could otherwise have met; and it has given me excellent opportunities for the study of human nature and character, a knowledge of which is of great value in my profession. There is at this house quite a large number of regular boarders, persons of wealth and high social standing, with whom I am on very friendly terms, and with whom I exchange frequent and informal calls.

One morning, as I was looking over the mail which my office-boy had just brought in, I found a note from brother Christopher. It was like all his letters, brief and to the point, and ran as follows: —

DEAR REUBEN, — Sophronia and I thought, as mother Hendricks is down, and can take care of the children, we would run up and see you to-day, and bring Willie and Frank with us, as it won’t hurt them to travel a little. I thought I ’d write, and let you know, as you spoke about it. Yours truly,

CHRISTOPHER.

The time of trial had come. I have had several teeth extracted; I underwent a painful surgical operation once; I was also in a very severe battle at the time of the war: and in every such position which I can remember, however much I may have felt a cowardly dread beforehand, when the critical moment arrived, “ Let the worst come, I can stand it,” was the language of my thoughts. I have shaken inwardly until the dentist’s steel clinched the tooth, and then, although I could not set my teeth, I set my resolution with a will, and thought, “Pull away, old fellow, all you please;” and after the surgeon’s knife had once cleft the skin, I felt as if I could be cut up into delicate slices with a good grace. So, on the battlefield, although I marched to the encounter with trembling limbs, after the first peal of artillery, I could have fought hand to hand with genuine pleasure. And now, after I had read brother Christopher’s letter, I felt as though should he bring a troop like himself and his Sophronia, I could endure. Still, as in the case of the dentist’s forceps, the surgeon’s knife, the battlefield, there was a call for stolid endurance in every nerve; there was a coward heart within me to be vanquished, and it all but conquered me.

I must play the brother’s part; I must show them the town; I must take them in to dinner with my friends, and to tea, too, if they would consent to remain until after that meal; I must introduce them to such of my acquaintance as they should chance to meet. I laid out as elaborate a programme, indeed, as if I were to receive a visit from some high dignitary and his wife, and in the sudden valor of my heart resolved to carry it out like a man, let what would come.

When I went to the depot at ten o’clock to meet my relatives, I felt like a valiant hero about to perish in a good cause. But alas for lofty human resolutions! As soon as I saw my brother Christopher and sister Sophronia, every good purpose deserted me on the instant, and I, who had faced every other trial that I could recall to mind with some show of courage, turned and fled, figuratively speaking, before nothing but my own brother and his wife.

My brother is a little dumpy, oddlooking man in figure, scarcely reaching to my shoulder, and with a large head which used to perplex our relatives not a little, since they could not understand how a broad square forehead like his could help having something in it; and I believe they for a time cherished hopes that some talent hidden closely away at present in that generous cranium might yet come to development. His wife, also, is short and dumpy after a square and angular fashion. They were as usual, on this occasion, attired in a style not recognizable as that of any particular kind or period, but certainly a caricature of that of the present day.

I don’t know much about the technicalities of feminine apparel, and the only thing which I was certain was lacking in my sister’s outfit, to which consciousness I am able to give expression, was the entire lack of — I hope I shall get the word right — bustle. I do not admire this invention. I detest the Grecian bend, but it did seem to me that, in the present universal prevalence of this fashion, a small newspaper or some such thing, which I have been told ladies of less ambitious toilets sometimes use as a substitute, would have made Sophronia a trifle less likely to attract attention, a result which seems to me very desirable in the way of dress, as a general rule. Further than this, language fails me in a description of Sophronia’s appearance. I only felt the fresh conviction which comes over me every time I see her, that she is thoroughly nondescript; and so, in a masculine style, was my brother. He wore a striped shirt, a suit of clothes each member of which was of a different color and texture from either of its neighbors, a new felt hat of a peculiar and unbecoming shape, and he carried in his hand a rough, covered basket, in which, as afterwards appeared, the dear fellow had brought some choice apples for me, knowing my partiality for that fruit. I went up and shook hands with them, with as much apparent pleasure and cordiality as I could possibly counterfeit. The boys tumbled out of the cars after them, two bright, pleasant little chaps, but not as handsome or graceful as if they had been got up in better style, and kept in genteel and careful habits.

Instead of asking them to walk up to the hotel with me, in the bright, pleasant October sunlight, what did I do? I said, “ Step into the ladies’ room a moment, please ; I ’ll be back presently,” and hurried off to procure a carriage, into which I speedily put my visitors, and ordered the driver to take us, first, around the suburbs.

After a whirl about the outskirts of the town, I rallied a little of my recreant courage, and took my friends around the park, past the principal public buildings, down several of the aristocratic streets, with, however, the inward reflection that no one would dream of their being my connections. Ladies and gentlemen were bowing to me on all sides, and there was evident on most of the faces a look of passing wonder and curiosity; but all my friends knew of my democratic and condescending manners, and probably thought I was playing the agreeable to some country acquaintances or clients — at least, so I said to myself. I was where I was not called upon to introduce my guests, and the thought now occurred to me that, after all, I might be able to get through the day without showing any lack of attention and politeness to them, and yet without presenting them to any of my friends. And no sooner did this dastard thought enter my mind than it summoned to its aid all my ingenuity to carry out the project. For the first time, it now occurred to me that I might, as I sometimes did when I had company, order a dinner in my own parlor. And having made my company at home in my apartments, I went directly and gave information that I had friends from out of town with me who were accustomed to dine early, and that I would like to have dinner served in my rooms as soon as possible. After dinner I left my guests to entertain themselves a while, having some important business to attend to that afternoon. In fact, a trial in which our whole community was greatly interested was to come off, and I was to make a plea upon which some important interests were supposed to depend to a considerable degree. I had expended more time and labor on that plea than on almost any other I had been called upon to prepare since my very first efforts in that line, although it was a by no means lengthy affair. I had felt no little enthusiasm in my subject, but this sudden and exciting diversion had, for a few hours, driven it almost out of mind. Usually I pay but slight after-attention to my MS., finding that in working it up I get it fully established in my mind; but now, for almost the first time in my experience as a speaker, I distrusted myself, and felt more anxious over this coming plea than over my maiden plea. I put my speech in my pocket, concluding to go down to my office and get into the spirit of it by reading it over alone, for it seemed to me that the whole fabric had fallen out of my memory since ten o’clock that morning.

Therefore I informed my friends I had some important business at my office, and added that before I came home I should have to deliver a plea at the court-house. As this building was near the hotel, and I had pointed it out to my brother as we were riding, I told Christopher if he should step in there about three o’clock or sooner he would have the opportunity of criticising my speech, and perhaps Sophronia and the boys would like to go with him.

They were all highly pleased at the idea, and I rather liked it myself; it would serve as an entertainment for them destitute of any embarrassment and difficulty for me, and would while away the chief portion of the time remaining before their return home.

I had noted considerable amusement depicted upon the faces of clerks and waiters at the peculiarities noticeable in the looks and manners of my guests, and had wondered that the feeling was not more repressed, as all belonging to the establishment were in the habit of showing the greatest deference to me and those whom I chose to favor; but as I then suspected, and afterwards ascertained, it was the general impression that the family were witnesses in this very case.

At my office, behind lock and key, I soon worked myself into the spirit of my plea so thoroughly that, for the time being, I forgot brother Christopher and everybody else, myself included, except my client and the various characters concerned in his case. My fears in regard to the success of this day’s speech had not been prophetic ones. I went to the court-room as full of my theme and as oblivious of all other matters as if nothing out of the usual course had diverted my mind that morning.

I don’t know how I spoke, except by the account of others; but I know I thought of nothing but making a desperate effort to gain the case for my client, feeling, with all my heart, that right was on his side.

I was not even aware, until the plea was finished, that my head was aching terribly. I felt so dizzy and ill when it was over that I dreaded to sit there and await the delivery of the verdict, especially as the room was oppressively close where I sat, and if I awaited the conclusion I might have to encounter interminable hand-shakes and greetings. So, without even looking about to see what impression I had produced, being conscious that I had done as well as I could, and consequently less anxious in regard to the result, I left the platform and slipped quietly out at a side door.

When I reached my rooms, I found the boys already there before me, the exhibition having lost its interest for them when uncle Reuben ceased to be the actor. They were playing checkers very happily at the centre-table with my chess-men, jumping knights over castles, and bishops over knights, and so on, in a style quite as amusing to me as to themselves. I threw myself wearily on the sofa and watched the pleasant little fellows, listening to their boyish prattle and bright repartee, while turning over in my mind what could be done for their interests, for they were evidently capable little boys, and not deficient in energy. As the excitement which my recent effort in the courtroom had induced began to subside, my mind recurred to the dilemma in which I was placed by the presence of my visitors. I looked at my watch. It was nearly five o’clock. At seven the train left which was to bear away my brother Christopher and his family. Two hours! I drew a breath of relief, yet almost hated myself for doing it. Just then brother Christopher and Sophronia came in, very happy and beaming.

“ That was pretty well done, brother,” said the former, with a look of pride stealing into his honest, affectionate eyes. “But they couldn’t make out what had become of you. I should think there were fifty waiting to congratulate you, and asking where you were.”

“ Oh,” said I, thinking of the result for the first time, “ do you know how it came out? ”

“Yes, we stayed it through. Mr. G— got the case by a unanimous verdict.”

I went and ordered tea in my room at six, after which I sat conversing with Christopher and Sophronia in regard to the boys, inquiring into their progress at school, their individual traits, etc., when a light tap came at the door, accompanied by a murmur of voices.

It flashed upon my mind in an instant that some friends had probably called to talk over the favorable result of the case with me. The time of trial had come, after all. A cold sweat seemed to break out over me in an instant, and my limbs almost trembled as I stepped to the door. But as I threw it open, and met that brilliant little assembly, full half of them ladies in their rich dinner costumes, got up, too, with especial care for this occasion — did I grow faint ? did I become embarrassed ? Well, I might have done so with scarcely less credit to myself than I could claim for the courage and resolution which nerved me on the instant, and sent the warm, invigorating blood coursing again through my veins, for it was but the courage and animation of sheer despair.

I asked them in with punctilious politeness, those lively, well-dressed, sparkling ladies and gentlemen.

“ What under the sun did you do with yourself, Patterson? Every one said you had gone out of town in a hurry, you left so mysteriously. We’ve been discussing your whereabouts all dinner-time, and not in the best of humor either, for we had got up something extra in your honor. If you had come past the dining-room just now, instead of round the other way, you 'd have heard some scolding, on the part of the ladies, at least.”

By this time I had ushered in the whole company and closed the door. As soon as it became evident to all that I was not alone, a genteel hush occurred, and then, of course, tongues being tied, eyes were called into extra requisition. There sat my group of Christopher, Sophronia, and the boys, a target for all those keen though polite glances.

It touched even my dastard heart, this pleasant, honest, unassuming family, in their simplicity and plainness facing these gay aspirants to rank and wealth and culture, and with my desperate courage there did mingle, at length, I firmly believe, some straggling remnants of true, democratic feeling, and honest, unblushing brotherly allegiance and love.

“ Gentlemen and ladies,” I said, turning to Christopher and Sophronia with, I think, a trifle more coolness and urbanity than if I had been presenting a princely guest, “ allow me to introduce to you my brother, Mr. Patterson, and his wife, and their sons, Willie and Frank, who have come up from G— to-day to make me a little visit. We had an early dinner in my rooms, which accounts for my not dining with you as usual. I left the court-room early on account of a severe headache which the close air seemed to aggravate, and was not aware, until my brother just informed me, of the favorable verdict.”

Apologies were profuse. They were not aware that I had company with me, they would not thus have intruded, etc. Some of the ladies were evidently a little inclined to smile and exchange glances at Sophronia’s costume, but politeness kept the mastery.

Sophronia talked with perfect freedom and vivacity, not being of a diffident disposition, and displayed her Down-East dialect to good advantage; but Christopher, who is not much of a society man, did not speak except when addressed; and if I had not become possessed of a stolid indifference which would have endured almost anything within the region of possibilities, I could scarcely have told which was most embarrassing, Christopher’s statue-like silence or Sophronia’s peculiar eloquence.

As for me, I astonished myself. Nothing annoyed me. I cared not in the least what any one thought. The Rubicon was crossed, —not, it is true, by my own courage; I had been plunged in headlong, and had swum for my life,— but it was crossed, nevertheless, and fear or hesitancy as to my course was over for good. I forgot my headache; Christopher and Sophronia caused me no more anxiety than if they were some other man’s relatives instead of mine. I was as collected, as cheerful, as unconscious as if there were nothing out of the ordinary course.

The visit was a somewhat constrained one on the part of my guests; but I did my best to entertain them, and I don’t think they could complain of any lack of cordiality and sociability on my part. They left just in time to be out of the way when the waiters brought in the early tea I had ordered.

It was one of the pleasantest meals I had ever known, with Frank and Will sitting, one on either side of me, and Christopher and Sophronia opposite, and I a happier man, it seemed to me, than I had ever been before. The mean and false pride within me which shrank from owning my honest and true-hearted brother, because he lacked brilliant graces and endowments, was, as I hoped, laid forever.

I was the personification of jollity. Not a vestige remained of the headache which I had almost regarded as a premonitory symptom of typhoid or brain fever. I kept the boys in a high state of merriment, while Christopher and Sophronia looked admiringly on.

After tea, when all were arrayed for departure, I took Sophronia on my arm, and, with Christopher and the boys following, walked down the brightly lighted hall, past the open parlors, where the beauty and fashion of the house were assembled, out at the ladies’ entrance and towards the depot, where I waited until the train was off, and I had made a last bow to my friends at the car windows.

Before I received the visit I have described, I was but half a democrat compared with what I am to-day. I have also put aside all condescending airs toward my less worldly-prosperous fellows, and, in owning my brother, I have owned them all.

Yet when I see, as I do daily, some persons of aristocratic feelings and expression, I can only say: “It is not so much to be wondered at; he has no brother Christopher.”

E. S. Thayer.