CHAPTER XXXIV.

CLEAR SHINING AFTER RAIN.

CLAYTON had occasion to visit New York on business.

He never went without carrying some token of remembrance from the friends in his settlement to Milly, now indeed far advanced in years, while yet, in the expressive words of Scripture, "her eye was not dim, nor her natural force abated."

He found her in a neat little tenement in one of the outer streets of New York, surrounded by about a dozen children, among whom were blacks, whites, and foreigners. These she had rescued from utter destitution in the streets, and was giving to them all the attention and affection of a mother. "Why, bless you, sir," she said to him, pleasantly, as he opened the door, "it's good to see you once more! is Miss Anne?"

How

Very well, Milly. She sent you this little packet; and you will find something from Harry and Lisette, and all the rest of your friends in our settlement. Ah! are these all your children, Milly?"

"Yes, honey; mine and de Lord's. Dis yer's my second dozen. De fust is all in good places, and doing well. I keeps my eye on 'em, and goes round to see after 'em a little, now and then."

"And how is Tomtit?"

"O, Tomtit's doing beautiful, thank 'e, sir. He's 'come a Christian, and jined the church; and they has him to wait and tend at the anti-slavery office, and he does well."

"I see you have black and white here," said Clayton,

glancing around the circle. "Laws, yes," said Milly, looking complacently around; "I don't make no distinctions of color, I don't believe in them. White chil'en, when they 'haves themselves, is jest as good as black, and I loves 'em jest as well."

"Don't you sometimes think it a little hard you should have to work so in your old age ??

"Why, bress you, honey, no! I takes comfort of my money as I goes along. Dere's a heap in me yet," she said, laughing. "I's hoping to get dis yer batch put out and take in anoder afore I die. You see," she said, "dis yer's de way I took to get my heart whole. I found it was getting so sore for my chil'en I'd had took from me, 'pears like the older I grow'd the more I thought about 'em; but long's I keeps doing for chil'en it kinder eases it. I calls 'em all mine; so I's got good many chil'en now."

We will inform our reader, in passing, that Milly, in the course of her life, on the humble wages of a laboring woman, took from the streets, brought up, and placed in reputable situations, no less than forty destitute children.*

When Clayton returned to Boston, he received a note written in a graceful female hand, from Fanny, expressing her gratitude for his kindness to her and her brother, and begging that he would come and spend a day with them at their cottage in the vicinity of the city. Accordingly, eight o'clock the next morning found him whirling in the cars through green fields and pleasant meadows, garlanded with flowers and draped with bending elms, to one of those peaceful villages which lie like pearls on the bosom of our fair old mother, Massachusetts.

Stopping at station, he inquired his way up to a little eminence which commanded a view of one of those charming lakes which open their blue eyes everywhere

*These circumstances are true of an old colored woman in New York, known by the name of Aunt Katy, who in her youth was a slave, and who is said to have established among these destitute children the first Sunday-school in the city of New York.

through the New England landscape. Here, embowered in blossoming trees, stood a little Gothic cottage, a perfect gem of rural irregularity and fanciful beauty. A porch in the front of it was supported on pillars of cedar, with the rough bark still on, around which were trained multitudes of climbing roses, now in full flower. From the porch a rustic bridge led across a little ravine into a summer-house, which was built like a nest into the branches of a great oak which grew up from the hollow below the knoll on which the house stood.

A light form, dressed in a pretty white wrapper, came fluttering across the bridge, as Clayton ascended the steps of the porch. Perhaps our readers may recognize in the smoothly-parted brown hair, the large blue eyes, and the bashful earnestness of the face, our sometime little friend Fanny; if they do not, we think they'll be familiar with the cheery "ho, ho, ho," which comes from the porch, as our old friend Tiff, dressed in a respectable suit of black, comes bowing forward. "Bress de Lord, Mas'r Clayton, -it's good for de eyes to look at you! So, you's come to see Miss Fanny, now she's come to her property, and has got de place she ought for to have. Ah, ah!- Old Tiff allers know'd it! He seed it- he know'd de Lord would bring her out right, and he did. Ho! ho! ho!"

"Yes," said Fanny, "and I sometimes think I don't enjoy it half as well as Uncle Tiff. I'm sure he ought to have some comfort of us, for he worked hard enough for us, did n't you, Uncle Tiff?"

"Work! bress your soul, did n't I?" said Tiff, giggling all over in cheerful undulations. "Reckon I has worked, though I does n't have much of it to do now; but I sees good of my work now'days, does so. Mas'r Teddy, he's grow'd up tall, han'some young gen'leman, and he's in college, only tink of dat! Laws! he can make de Latin fly! Dis yer's pretty good country, too. Dere's families round here dat's e'enamost up to old Virginny; and she goes with de best on 'em - dat she does."

Fanny now led Clayton into the house, and, while she tripped up stairs to change her morning dress, Tiff busied himself in arranging cake and fruit on a silver salver, as an apology for remaining in the room.

He seemed to consider the interval as an appropriate one for making some confidential communications on a subject that lay very near his heart. So, after looking out of the door with an air of great mystery, to ascertain that Miss Fanny was really gone, he returned to Clayton, and touched him on the elbow with an air of infinite secrecy and precaution.

"Dis yer an 't to be spoke of out loud," he said. "I's ben mighty anxious; but, bress de Lord, I's come safely through; 'cause, yer see, I's found out he's a right likely man, beside being one of de very fustest old families in de state; and dese yer old families here 'bout as good as dey was in Virginny; and, when all's said and done, it's de men dat's de ting, after all; 'cause a gal can't marry all de generations back, if dey 's ever so nice. But he's one of your likeliest men.'

"What's his name?" said Clayton.

-

Russel," said Tiff, lifting up his hand apprehensively to his mouth, and shouting out the name in a loud whisper. "I reckon he'll be here to-day, 'cause Mas'r Teddy's coming home, and going to bring him wid him; so please, Mas'r Clayton, you won't notice nothing; 'cause Miss Fanny, she's jest like her ma, she'll turn red clar up to her har, if a body only looks at her. See here," said Tiff, fumbling in his pocket, and producing a spectacle-case, out of which he extracted a portentous pair of gold-mounted spectacles; "see what he give me, de last time he's here. I puts dese yer on of a Sundays, when I sets down to read my Bible."

"Indeed," said Clayton; "have you learned, then, to read?"

"Why, no, honey, I don'no as I can rightly say dat I's larn'd to read, 'cause I's 'mazing slow at dat ar; but, den,

I's larn'd all de best words, like Christ, Lord, and God, and dem ar; and whar dey's pretty thick, I makes out quite comfortable."

We shall not detain our readers with minute descriptions of how the day was spent: how Teddy came home from college a tall, handsome fellow, and rattled over Latin and Greek sentences in Tiff's delighted ears, who considered his learning as, without doubt, the eighth wonder of the world; nor how George Russel came with him, a handsome senior, just graduated; nor how Fanny blushed and trembled when she told her guardian her little secret, and, like other ladies, asked advice after she had made up her mind. Nor shall we dilate on the yet brighter glories of the cottage three months after, when Clayton, and Anne, and Livy Ray, were all at the wedding, and Tiff became three and four times blessed in this brilliant consummation of his hopes. The last time we saw him he was walking forth in magnificence, his gold spectacles set conspicuously astride of his nose, trundling a little wicker wagon, which cradled a fair, pearly little Miss Fanny, whom he informed all beholders was "de very sperit of de Peytons."