CHAPTER IX.
When from the skies falls the fire that consumes our fields and destroys our flocks, but leaves our neighbor's very boundary-lines in bloom and peace, is it a special providence that smites us but smiles on him, or is there in some of us a magnetic power that attracts all that is malignant? I have seen those who by no ill ways of life or of temper deserve such a fate, spend all their days in fighting misfortunes. And it was not one kind of trouble, such as might come because of this or that condition in life, but it seems as if no wind, whether of war, pestilence, or famine, could pass them by, but as if each was compelled to wheel about and blow bitterly upon them. They are like
Ships that spell-bound roam the deep,
And pass by many a happy shore,
upon which they may never touch nor land, while others go gayly along, fanned by winds of fortune only, and tarrying at any port they fancy.
But no such thoughts as these came to me one afternoon in early June, when Sophie was over eighteen months old, and I went peacefully home, carrying her a dainty blue plate for her own simple dinners. Little did I think, my mind being partly on the baby and partly on the organ rehearsal in which I had just taken part, that Misfortune had overtaken me and was walking by my side, and that when I entered my door and closed it I should shut out Happiness and see her no more for many long days. I remember how I tarried on our little porch and looked at the small garden all in bloom. The vines had grown heavy and shaded the house, and the woodbine was in bloom. The roses and the white lilies were crowding together against the fence, and the pinks were all in bud, just ready to burst. Over on the tiny grass-plot lay a forlorn little rubber doll, close at the side of the porch stood the baby's carriage, and near it Juliet's wicker chair, with a book left open. I looked on all these signs of home peace and blessedness, and my heart was filled with thankfulness. Back in the house I could hear our little maid singing, for in our house every one sang, and her voice was low and pleasant. Then suddenly I heard Juliet moan as if she was in great distress, and I ran into the house, and up into her room, only to see her sitting quietly with the baby asleep in her arms.
"Why, that is absurd," she replied, smiling. "What should I moan about? Certainly I should not wake the baby by any such performance as that! It was a noise in the street, or a shutter that creaked."
But it was nothing of the kind. It was Juliet's voice, and it was a stifled cry of anguish, such as I knew well in after-days, but which I then had never heard from her.
It disquieted me greatly; and when Bernard came home, and Juliet laughed about it as she told him, for over such little things we gossiped
