Women narrow-chested and grim-visaged, in whom there is no beauty or charm left—pupils of virtue, to whom she gives neither holiday nor reward—toiling up steep flights with bundles of shop-work.
Bedraggled women, that lug heavy baskets down wet area steps into sunless abodes, where they wash all day, while the babes they have not time to fondle want care and comforting, and must want these or bread.
Sinful women, at whom, since Christ is dead in the souls of men, all may cast stones. For them there is but little help or hope in a righteous world.
Those who, by hallowed memories of purer scenes, have been kept from evil.
Those who, though fallen and fouled, still guard, fair and apart, pictures that fill their eyes with tears and their hearts with yearnings—visions of morning stepping down the cliffs into valleys where they dwelt; of sunsets in mountain countries; tropical lands planted with palms that incline exile-ward; snowy regions where blazing hearths and true hearts keep the place of the wanderer warm.
Home dwells pictured in their soul. It is an unpainted road-side house. Sweet-pinks, marigolds, and holly-hocks grow in the front-yard; morning-glories creep up the clap-boards, festoon the windows, and peep into the wren's nest under the eve-trough. In the maple by the doorstep a pair of robins have made their habitation, and amid the green of the elm that roofs the spring and wash-block—the stump of a former mighty tree—is seen the glint of a fire-bird's wing.
Or a farm-house, with gardens and rows of hives, and barns with their swallows, fields of corn and stubble, and upland pasture where cattle are feeding. In "the new piece," between the pasture and higher woodland, buckwheat blossoms for the bees, as it climbs perseveringly up the ridge to overtake the poke, that, bending to its weight of berries, mingles dawning crimson with changing hues of blackberry-vines which hide the rocks. Along stone fences, golden-rod and wild-aster still mingle their blooms untouched, though autumn has reached stained fingers forth to trifle with the leaves of his favorite sumach. In the swamp below, the scarlet lobelia burns amid clumps of green and brown sedge. Beyond the swamp and meadow, and wind-whitened willows by the creek, hills rise and bound the view.
Or it is a homestead, with venerable trees shading a lawn that slopes to a lake in which house and trees lie mirrored. They are playing with their brothers on the lawn, while their mother watches them from her window; or gliding on the lake with companions and loves of youth, steering their boat for a distant headland.
These are living pictures. Their woods sing Eolian measures; their brooks talk of childhood and innocence; their clouds and seasons are always changing; their swallows ever flying homeward, whither the trees beckon. Miraculous pictures! their sun always shines on our brides; their skies rain constant tears on our dead. Yea, in them the dead are risen, and eyes long sealed look down on us with love.