Page:The Atlantic Monthly Volume 1.djvu/78

70 happy,—happy with a wider and steadier basis than ever before. A new world seemed opened within her; and with a heart raised in thankfulness she placed the veil among her most sacred treasures.

Yes, there by the smiling image of the lost one,—by the curls of her glossy hair,—by the faded flowers taken from her bier, was laid in solemn thankfulness the Mourning Veil.

theatre-going friend pulled up suddenly in his ambling discourse concerning the merits of the last actress, dropped his voice to a whisper, touched my arm, and pointed with his cane.

“Look! the Reverend John Henry Pendlam!”

“Coming out of a bar-room! Ho, ho! Sir Reverend!”

I spoke gayly, but with an indefinably serious sentiment at heart. I was interested in this John Henry Pendlam; not particularly on account of the reputation for eloquence and zeal which he had so early and rapidly achieved, but his approaching marriage with my friend’s second cousin, Susan D, (whom I had myself even barely escaped marrying,) quickened a personal curiosity regarding my successor.

“He is on no base errand,” replied Horatio. “He goes about carrying the Gospel into these dens. The papers you see in his hand are tracts. Shall I introduce you?

Before I could fairly answer, No, (for I felt a repugnance to making the acquaintance of any man who was to marry Susan,) Pendlam, standing a moment in the gas-light before the door of the saloon, observed my friend, and advanced quickly.

“Too late to escape!” cried the young clergyman, seizing Horatio by the collar. “I have you, truant!” And he drew a tract upon him, like a revolver.

“I surrender!” said Horatio. “If it’s you, don’t shoot; I’ll come down, as the treed coon said to the hunter.”

“Don’t think to disarm me by a pleasantry,” replied Pendlam, brandishing his spiritual weapon. “This is my sermon on the theatre, which you engaged to hear me preach; I have had it printed for you.”

“Really,” said Horatio, with a humorous smile, “I had forgotten my promise. Besides, I was engaged,—let me see, it was two Sundays ago, wasn’t it?—yes, I was engaged to dine with Miss Kellerton.”

“The actress! On Sunday!” said Pendlam, with a shocked expression. “But you might have heard me in the morning.”

“In the morning we rode together,” laughed Horatio.

I knew all this was a fiction on the part of my friend, designed to mystify the minister. I said nothing, to avoid an introduction; I had stepped aside, and now stood, amused and observant, under the street lamp. Pendlam especially I studied, with one eye (figuratively speaking) on him, and the other on Susan. I compared him with myself, and had no doubt but she was weak enough to consider him the handsomer man of the two. He was of medium height, slightly built, of a nervous temperament, with bright, quick-glancing eyes, and vehement gestures. The chief characteristic of the man seemed intensity. It manifested itself in his eager movements, in his emphasis and tones of voice, in his swiftly changing expression, in his wild hair, in his neckerchief, which seemed to have been tied with a jerk, and in his dress