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’AS, l 
the sharp hunger, and the cold were no more 
remembered by her; for she had found the 
r “ Fair}' Prince!” 
All this the girl in the garret read, linger¬ 
ing over the quaint German sweetness of 
the story, and wondering if for her, Rafe 
Sciiaffeb, there loould ever come such an 
ending! 
Raff. Schaffer 1 
She didn’t know why they gave her that 
queer, ugly old name, any more than you do. 
No one seemed to know anything about it, 
only that she was not a boy, and that the 
father’s heart had been set upon her being a 
boy, to be called after her mother’s only liv¬ 
ing relative, the rich uncle who owned the 
fabled money-bags. 
She knew that story well, this girl under 
the old blanket. She knew how that Christ¬ 
mas-time, years before, her mother’s cars 
closed forever to the puny wail with which 
she greeted the world, snow-heaped and 
cold, for her coming; and how nobody 
seemed to feel much joy over the pink baby 
with the great eyes that stared at them so 
strangely,—the baby thut was not a boy, and 
that lost those money-bags to the Schaffers 
forever. Then, it had been only a month 
after, that Richard Schaffer, her father, 
died. He was a helpless, sickly man, and 
his young wife, with her brave, loving heart, 
had patched his soul as well as his garments 
all those wedded years of theirs. So, when 
the rest were all too busy to think of ids 
flannels, Hint sudden cold lie took ended in 
hemorrhage, and in less than six weeks the 
hair-cloth furniture in the best parlor was 
uncovered again, and tbe same people who 
shivered under the bleak sky about that 
other grave, shivered now over the long 
thin gulf beside it, with the suow-llalces sift¬ 
ing down upon the narrow coffin. Not a 
few of them sighed, for there were no family 
mourners to follow him, and at home only 
the helpless child and his bed-ridden old 
mother, now the last of her day and genera¬ 
tion, whom they remembered hale and 
strong in the days when tile old house stood 
in a well-to-do part of the village, and the 
proud Dutch element, was at its highest value. 
Now the house was like a hull stranded bv 
a stonn, for the village life ebbed away and 
left it, lonely, seaward-looking and deserted. 
Richard Schaffer, her lather, bad mar¬ 
ried the ward and niece of Em hu Rafe, 
a banker in a great city, and because this 
marriage with her poor German music 
teacher had offended the stern old man he 
had cruelly deserted her, and left her to bat¬ 
tle with her fate, quitting America as he be¬ 
lieved forever. 
They had lost sight of one another, Rich¬ 
ard Schaffer bringing his wife to this un¬ 
pretentious home of his, where she had made 
his life happy, cared for lm feeble old 
mother, mended his linen, (and he had hut 
little of it, for he was a poor musician and 
hook-worm,) and then, at her child’s birth, 
she died. When her husband, too, had fol¬ 
lowed her, their child came to be called 
“Rafe,” no one know quite how it hap¬ 
pened, or by whom first of all this queer 
name was given. Here she had lived with 
the two women, her grandmother and the 
old servant, Hannah, and now had grown 
to a brown, willful creature, with those 
great, steady eyes, that looked keenly into 
the very heart of everything. 
But just, here she stopped to shiver under 
the old blanket a little. After all, she thought, 
even she had her “ fairy godmother!” 
The rector ot St,. Bede’s, unlike rectors in 
general, had married a fortune. He was a 
dull, stupid Creature of a man, older by fif¬ 
teen years than his charming wife, and yet 
no more devoted couple lived in all the 
parish. When Rafe Schaffer was seven 
years old the Rev. Eustace Ormsby brought 
his beautiful bride to the old house for the 
first time, and she took the brown child into 
her arms and found the keystone to her 
heart was music; and being herself a mu¬ 
sician of no common ability, she had in¬ 
structed the child thereafter. Now Rape 
Schaffer led the chorus in St. Bede’s, and 
what she lived and hoped for was to perfect 
herself in this art, and so support the old 
and helpless invalid. 
She looked down upon the rectory, that 
square, comfortable piece of brown in the 
distance, and thought of the beautiful woman 
to whom she was as her very own, the only 
thing in her forlorn life that gladdened it. 
She knew how the rooms seemed to grow 
magical under her touch; the soft carpets, 
the trailing vines, the rare parians and 
bronzes, the engravings and the music.— 
gems from all the old masters—and reading 
lore from all the busy brains which had 
been dust for centuries! It was from the 
rectory library that Rafe drew so milch of 
her life—from the rectory library that she 
“ mraged” so eagerly when she went up for 
recitations. 
“ Such things ’ll spoil her! I know how 
it be! Books and pictures and music and 
sich was the ruination of him** old Hannah 
muttered. 
But it didn’t I And to-day Rafe Schaf¬ 
fer was as firm a believer in her fairy god¬ 
mother as ever. 
The Christmas-time was coming on. Soon 
they would deck old St. Bede’s in its holly, 
and begin practicing for their chorals! She 
wondered if that was all Christmas meant? 
Aft it meant with its glorious “ Peace on 
earth, good will toward men,” to sit on a 
hair-cloth sofa and hear of the excellences 
of the past generations of Schaffers, till 
she fell asleep reading from Pope or Goethe 
or ScniLLKH to her grandmother! To be 
sure she enjoyed the Christmas dinners ami 
gifts at the rectory, and the services at St. 
Bede’s. 
Christmas was not two weeks away,— no, 
not more than one week,—and with it came, 
of course, her eighteenth birthday. 
She should enjoy it less than usual this 
year. The poor old invalid was not able to 
be moved. And then, that brother of Mrs. 
Ormsby’s, —that artist, lawyer, poet-man,— 
was coming to St. Bede's for Christmas, was 
already there I She heard that his life, bril¬ 
liant, gifted, great as it was, Jacked some 
stimulating influence or good to fuse it into 
all it was capable of becoming Well, she 
should bate him if be was old and stupid, she 
was afraid. Then he was surely near forty, 
and she could never forgive him for being 
learned and old, if he was “her dear fairy 
godmother’s” only brother, and they had 
been parted nearly eleven years. 
To-night a hungry, unsettled pain came 
into the heart of the girl, quiet as her life 
had been, with its repressed pain and long¬ 
ing. She found herself thinking of the two 
bleak graves against t he lead colored sky on 
the hill yonder, and of that old and childless 
man, Emuu Rafic, who, with his wealth, 
still somewhere in the world, lived lonely, 
uncared for. Rafe put aside her book. The 
dull, gray sea lay in the twilight. She crept 
down to the front hall, silently. No sound 
came from the sick room door, where an 
hour before she had left her grandmother 
sleeping, and gone up to her reading. 
Rafe went out into the dusk. The rocks 
were bare, for tbe wind had blown away the 
snow. The restlessness in the great, throb¬ 
bing ocean-heart before her calmed, quieted 
her. 
Sitting there she looked back at the weath¬ 
er-beaten bouse standing bleakly against tbe 
hill. She knew how that, old room looked, 
with its worn carpet, her geraniums in the 
window seat, the old piano that RICHARD 
Schaffer kept for his young wife. She had 
heard how, often in those early homesick 
days, that young wife crept up to his side to 
lay her tear-wet cheek against his arm when 
he sung to her. Rape had heard all this. 
To-night a defiant look flashed across her 
face; and it was a very beautiful face, with 
her dead mother’s look in the eyes! She 
wondered if her 1 ifes would ever change, it 
the path ever would lead to the “ edge of the 
wood,” and—yes, if there was, somewhere, a 
“ fairy Prince?” 
Then she began an okl-fashioncd German 
hymn, one she had so often heard Hannah 
sing, one her own father had loved. 
“ All my times be in Ills hand! 
NoLliing i» that b not right. 
Though wo may not understand, 
If wo walk by feeble eight, 
Wo skull roach the promised hind I 
All our time* ho tn His hand l" 
Quaint, soft, pleasant! The girl's face lost 
something of its tired pain in the singing. 
She let her voice swell out again and again, 
above the noise of the sea, and sang with a 
certain glory on her little brown face. 
Some one, coming across tbe beach, paused 
to listen to the unheard-of music. Then, 
noting the close approach the tide was mak¬ 
ing to the retreat from which the voice came, 
the stern, somewhat moody-faced man, turn¬ 
ed about and went around Ihe path to where 
Rafe sat., She started a little when she saw 
him, and stopped her song. 
“If 1 might venture n suggestion, little 
girl, you had better stop that old hymn, 
(alllio’ it’s very fine I acknowledge,) and go 
home to supper. Unless you are suieidally 
inclined, then, I beg pardon for interrupting 
your plans. You will probably be drowned 
in about ten or fifteen minutes I” he said. 
“ How stupid in me, and I ought to know 
these tides so well,” Rafe exclaimed, grow¬ 
ing a little pale and scrambling to her feet 
at once. 
He gave her his hand to help her down. 
Then, in a minute they came to the open 
beach. 
“ I am nearly home now, sir, good-night,” 
she said, 
“ Ah ! good-niglit! I say though, I would 
like, sometime, to hear the rest of that old 
hymn,” lie answered. 
Rafe ran up the hill without stopping till 
she came to the gate. Then she suddenly 
remembered that he had probably saved her 
life and she had never even thought to thank 
him 1 
He was out of sight now; and what a 
queer man he seemed, with a kind voice 
though. What if the “Fairy Prince” had 
only come then, with slashed doublet, in¬ 
stead of that shaggy coat, and in plumed 
hat and sword 1 She laughed at. thinking of 
him as the “ Fairy Prince,” and ran up the 
walk. 
CHAPTER II. 
“ Clara,” said Sirs. Ormsby’s brother, 
John Montague, coming into the rectory 
library a few moments after this,—“ Clara, 
I’ve seen a ghost! A creature that sat on 
the rocks and sung. Not exactly a mer¬ 
maid, who combed her liair with a golden 
comb, but a brown-faced elfin, who would 
make a good study for a 4 Mignon,’ and w ho 
would have been as drowned as a seaweed 
in a little while, for the tide was creeping in 
behind her, and she was peacefully singing 
that quaint gem of a German aong that, 
made me feel like a fossilized sinner! So, 
my love, if I look a little pale, don’t blame 
me, for I tell yon I’ve seen a ghost!" 
“ You’ve seen Rafe Schaffer,” she 
laughed, stooping over him as he sat in the 
“sleepy hollow” chair, and kissing him. 
lie caught her hand in his own, and sat 
upright. 
“Who? Rafe,—Rafe Schaffer?” lie 
asked, hurriedly. “Clara, I’ve found the 
missing link of a lost chain ! Listen to me. 
Truly the combination,of startling things 
you get up in this village nearly crazes a 
mail. 
Then, in the gathering dusk, he told her a 
story. 
There were strange, sweet lights, and 
smiles and tears on her face, and when the 
Rev. Eustace came in a short time after, 
she flew at him, and without evincing the 
slightest reverence for his cloth or calling, 
damaged Ins clerical tie by hugging him se¬ 
verely. From this process be emerged with 
rumpled hair and the expression of a man 
who lias been cut down from hanging by a 
reprieve, and gaspingly began,— 
“ Well, really,C lara, my love, what is it? 
Are you not a little excited?” 
“Not a bill Listen, that’s a good man,” 
slic replied, turning an admiring look on the 
mild-faced man who was loosening his tie 
by several inches. “ Not. a hit! And John 
shall go, (won’t you, dear?) to New York to¬ 
morrow morning and bring him back to us 
for Christmas, which is next week, and we 
w ill have him at Si. Bede’s at the morning 
service, and after that I can manage to se¬ 
crete her in the studja and Eustace shall 
watch the door, to see that no one comes in 
and-” 
My love,” began her spouse, timidly, 
when she had stopped, perforce, to recover 
herself, “ you r-i!I;r must explain. Am I to 
understand that 1 am to secrete a young 
person in the preserve closet off the study 
and guard the door against a fierce villain ? 
Really, you must explain, my dearest. What 
if the Bishop should hear of it, or one of the 
vestrymen should happen In? Upon my 
word, it is nil very extraordinary, very ex- 
i raordinnry indeed!” And the Rev. Eustace 
rumpled his hair and looked like an abused 
Newfoundland. 
“Hush, my dear old boy, you will spoil 
our plans. We’ve arranged them all, ro 
beautifully, too. Yes, John, as I said before, 
Eustace shall guard the door, and, at a 
given signal, I will let him in, and O ! I can 
see them this blessed moment In one an¬ 
other’s arms!” and, as if in illustration, she 
precipitated herself into those members of 
the clerical body near at hand. For a mo¬ 
ment the clergyman stood regarding her 
beautiful head a little as though it had sud¬ 
denly gone insane, and an expression of utter 
perplexity spread itself over his good- 
humored face. Through this a ray of hope 
struggled. 
“ Jonx, you will explain this! Is it mi 
elopement? Must 1 be a participator in 
anything that will at all compromise my 
clerical dignity ? 1 beg of you to elucidate (” 
But John was evidently past elucidation, 
and as absorbed in the mysteries as his sis¬ 
ter ; although he lay hack in his chair and 
laughed immoderately in. Ids brother-in-law’s 
confusion, he soon recovered himself, and 
sat, up, not without a twinkle of fun jn his 
handsome eyes. 
“My dear fellow, it is a matter of vital 
importance, I assure you; and concerns the 
future happiness of two lives. You will 
know <all in time ! At present put a double 
load into your revolver, padlock the 
wliulows and ‘read tip' on the Frenen Rev¬ 
olution," and he laid himself hack to laugh 
as before, while the Rev. Eustace, with nn 
expression of injured innocence, (beautiful 
indeed in a cherub,) retired. 
"John, how could you?” Clara began 
when she could speak. 
“ now coitid I ? That caps the climax 
superbly! Here you've tortured the man 
into a fever, ruined Ids best neck-handker¬ 
chief, and Ids appetite for supper, and when 
I try manfully to go to his rescue you put in 
that feminine paddle again and adroitly cap¬ 
size the boat! O, woman, woman, 1 get thee 
to a nunnery, go!’ ” 
“ I’ll go and smooth his ruffled feathers,” 
she said, laughing at his mock IIaailet, and 
hurrying out. 
“ Yes, do! Such a night for plumage,” he 
said, shiv wing lazily, as he looked at the 
snow beginning to fall through the dusk. 
At the door she paused. 
“I’ll send Margaret In to light the study 
lamp for you. The new magazines and re¬ 
views came in to-night’s mail. You’ll find 
them on the table. Tea will be ready in a 
half-hour, John.” 
“Send that Hibernian damsel at your 
peril! I want to think. Don’t stare at me 
as though it was a crime I anticipated. I 
own thinking to be an expensive luxury: I 
only indulge in it at odd intervals. B it I’ll 
hum your reviews and light my cigar with 
your magazines if Margaret comes,” he 
threatened. 
“You are a malicious wretch! No, you 
are a blessed old darling, only you are lazy, 
and need scolding, because you live on your 
money and let your magnificent old brain 
rust. Anyhow, I love you better than any¬ 
one next, to Eustace, (and I’m sure that 
man will choke himself trying to unfasten 
that tic!) and I can’t begin to thank you for 
your surprise and this great chance of con¬ 
ferring good. I'm sure he will, John dear !” 
and she came slowly hack and leaned over 
the green chair before the grate this time, 
stooping over him to push back It is hair 
already a little silvery about his ears, and to 
kiss his face, leaving a tear on his brow as 
she went out. 
John Montague, sat in the dusk and 
thought. 
“ Bless the girl,” he said to himself, “she 
is a happy little thing and she makes this 
home a heaven for that man !” 
Then ho sighed a little wearily, and fell to 
smoking with a vengeance. As he smoked 
lie caught the fragments of that quaint old 
German hymn floating bade to him. And 
again it came, tins clear, rich voice, tlie 
beach in the brisk,chill dusk, and the queer 
feeling the hymn woke in his heart. 
“All our times be in Hits hand," he thought. 
And it did him good!—[To be continued. 
I'ocial I'ftpics. 
FASHIONABLE LYING. 
Upon the last page of this week’s Rural 
we illustrate a social sin which is growing 
far too common. It does not as yet obtain 
in the country,—lor which we are truly 
thankful; but in cities, and in many of the 
larger towns, it is extensively practiced. 
Does Mrs. Smith desire to devote herself 
exclusively to her domestic duties for a day, 
or does she chance to feel dull and lazy after 
last night’s late hours and dissipation, she 
forces a lie upon Bridget’s tongue, and 
blackens her own life with a needless false¬ 
hood. 
Why? Why not be perfectly honest in 
the matter? Why not admit that she is too 
busily engaged to see company, or that she 
is physically incapacitated ? Does not such 
a course ns Mrs. Smith pursues put to shame 
all true womanliness? Aye, and more than 
this. It accustoms the lady herself to de¬ 
ceit and untruth, and tells in a sad way 
against her character. No one can practice 
deception of any kind without feeling its 
dire effects. And the little deceits of society, 
among which Mrs. Smith probably numbers 
this, are provocative of much harm. 
But this is not a little deceit.. It is a 
direct, unqualified untruth, requiring two 
persons to make it complete. It is the more 
culpable because utterly without reason,— 
even apparent reason; and because, the con¬ 
ception of one untruthful mind, it necessi¬ 
tates sin upon the part of nn agent. If 
housekeepers expect to have truthful, holiest 
servants while themselves practicing, and 
employing those same servants in, deception 
and dishonesty, they are very unreasonable, 
and will reap the fruit of their own sowing. 
■--—- 
FAULT-FINDING. 
Why be such merciless fault-finder? ? 
‘•Judge not that ye be not judged,” said the 
Great Teacher. But let anything go wrong, 
from Buidget washing dishes to the Hon. 
Mr. So-and-so, Private Secretary, &c., and 
the "uto is, a clap of thunder, constant 
..entity with lightning variable. I seriously 
doubt if it helps matters; but, that entirely 
aside, the first question is, Do the victims of 
such explosions deserve it? Do they not 
suffer enough without our licip, and if it seem 
not, who is man, that lie should add to the 
measure Heaven inflicts ? 
See what a wrong-doer must endure at the 
very least. No man can do a wrong and 
hear the harmony that sings in the soul of 
the virtuous forever. So far as wc know, 
everything is subject to law—planets and 
suns not more than the remorseless con¬ 
science in the moral world. Neither planet, 
sun, nor moral being, can wander from its 
course without running into evil and involv¬ 
ing itself in confusion and horror. The right 
way is the easy way. the pleasant and happy 
way. If yottr friend is ungrateful,—cannot 
lend you half a dollar to-day, forgetting the 
five hundred you lent him six months ago,— 
what will you say? No matter what the 
world says; the world was never remarkable 
for any intemperate indulgence in magnan¬ 
imity or common sense. 
One thing is certain, if a man do wrong, 
yon may be sure that the inexorable law of 
God will send the venomous tooth of remorse 
gnawing deep in the quivering sensibilities 
of his soul. You might as well say fire will 
not burn, or water drown, as that this should 
fail. He who injures us, then, injures him¬ 
self most. Pity and compassion, not anger 
and condemnation, arc fitting from us. "\Vc 
can profitably remember two things when 
tempted to violate this maxim: — First, 
“ Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the 
Lord.” And second, 11 Father, forgive them: 
for they know not what they do.” 
J. W. Quinby. 
■ - 4 »»- 
Guxtus and Labor.—I t is no man’s busi¬ 
ness whether he has genius or not; work he 
must, whatever he is, but quietly and steadi¬ 
ly; and the natural and unforced results of 
such work will he always the thing that God 
meant him to do, and will be his best. No 
mies nor heart-rendings will enable him 
to do any better. If lie he a great man, they 
will be great things; if a small man, small 
tilings; but always, if tints peacefully done, 
good and right; always, if restlessly and am¬ 
bitiously done, false, hollow and despicable. 
isrfisi 
5 . 
GUSTAVE DORE'3 PAINTINGS. 
Two large painting's by this French artist have 
been, and -till are. attracting crowds of visitors 
at the Done Art Union. The dissemination of 
Done'S sketches inul illustrated works lias been 
-n general tli.it ’.lie public are quite familiar 
with Hie power, boldness and expression of his 
pencil. Lint it has been reserved, until the 
present year, for Amcvicnasut home to Judge of 
Gustave Doue's paintings. 
“ Jepiulirili’# Daughter 
and her companions" idnmlnntM o canvas sev¬ 
enteen by twelve feet, and t? intended as a rep¬ 
resentation of that unfortunate maiden and her 
ytnpnthizing fellows on the morning of the last 
day of her life—the expiration of the two months 
given Iter to bewail her untimely and tragic 
fate. There may tie a decidedly peculiar atmos¬ 
pheric difference between a sunset nod sunrise; 
but one may, nevertheless Vie unable to dis¬ 
tinguish one from the other on canvas. How¬ 
ever, DottE says this is a morning sky, mid a 
very brilliant and radiant foreshowing it is of 
the rising sun, i'ortnfngn distinctive and effect ivo 
Ixialcgrouud fur the dusky figures of I lie Gilond- 
it i h maidens. On the pinnacle, or brow of the 
mountain, sin; .TEPirni AH'S daughter, her shape¬ 
ly hands falling listlessly lit her lap. Her body 
mid head are erect, betokening the pride and 
loftiness of her spirit, which even n terrible 
grief could not destroy. The violence of tho 
first anguish has passed away. Submission to 
tier fate lias been wrought In tier soul In those 
days of sorrow on the mountain. But now tho 
final, Saerifiei.il day Is dawning, and the end is 
very near. Her face, with closed eyelids, ex¬ 
presses a feeling ftl.in to that which possesses 
one, when death lias shut out. Ilic lust, hope of 
cart lily existence on the 1'aco of tho best beloved 
one; tho moment when one feels thut. all is lost; 
the brief space of transient but forced resigna¬ 
tion; an expression pitiful inul touching to tho 
uttermost, ami a sorrow that no sympathy can 
alleviate. At her right droops a maiden, bowed 
in sorrow, endeavoring to give comfort in the 
mute but eloquent way of nearness, of human 
touch ami presence. Around, on oltber side, 
are grouped her follows, their profiles clear, 
against the gorgeous horizon. There is no active 
demonstration of grief, but a fettled despair, a 
hopeless, helpless expression characterizes them, 
and a realization of the stubborn fact that their 
fated companion is passing beyond tho limits of 
human sympathy. 
The painting at first view undoubtedly im¬ 
parts a meaningless sense, eight isolated maid¬ 
ens silting on the top of a mountain, destitute 
of any cine or reason for their being there. But 
the strength and freedom and largeness of tho 
picture takes one ns “by storm," grows upon 
job, wins your sympathy, holds you by the spell 
of its silent anguish, until heaviness of Spirit 
becomes a burden, and you turn away from its 
depressing inllnence to the horrors depicted on 
tho oilier canvas, sixteen by twelve feet in size, 
and illustrating 
“Dante and Virgil 
visiting the frozen regions of hell," tho ninth 
circle, abode of tho embodied spirits of traitors. 
Those who have read Dante's Inferno will 
readily recall the account lie gives of the frozen 
circle, and how lie and Vinoii.cnmo upon Count 
Uoot.ixo feeding upon the skull of Cardinal 
ItCGGinui. Ugouno Is said to have betrayed 
Pisa into tho ha mis of the Florentines, for which 
crime flic Cardinal shut him up, and his four 
children, in a tower and starved them all to 
death. DORC seized upon that meeting for tho 
central horror of Uls picture. Virgij. calm and 
serene, with n super-human expression, laurel- 
crowned, and roned in classic drapery of bluish- 
green hue, rests his glance upon the Wretches 
beneath trim, while Dante, at hie side, in a 
gown of ml, looks thoroughly tin man and hor¬ 
rified. Their footing is Indistinct, and back of 
them the indistinctness yields finally to thick 
gloom. But ns far as one can penetrate glaring 
eyes, distorted faces, writhing muscular limbs, 
rue awfully plenty, and in various degrees above 
the frozen surface. In some Instances tho strug¬ 
gling wretches have broken the lee. as in the 
case of UGOLtNO. Tho blood from his victim’s 
skull flows fresh and healthy upon the ice. The 
swelling veins in arms the tension in muscles, 
the very hair on the doomed heads, are so pain¬ 
fully natural as to produce pain in tlie beholder. 
But one woman is to beseem nmOngtheice-bound 
creatures. Fire and brimstone are no longer 
tho only necessaries for tho construction of a 
hell horrible enough to satisfy the most inordi¬ 
nate desire for such n reality. What the partic¬ 
ular object such art is to subserve we don't pre¬ 
tend to say. It may be of some use, however. 
It Ison exhibition on Broadway, and hundreds 
of men and women look upon it daily. The 
Government might buy it to adorn the cell of 
the first trail or It has the moral courage to hold 
and brand and convict as such. 
j 69 
