I make no exception, dear—I am neither seen nor mentioned.”
“That is all easy enough, but, my dear girl, what does this anxious charge mean? Who are you afraid should follow you?”
“It does not matter. Nobody must see me.”
“Laura,” sobbed out Bertha, “I dare not ask you whether there is anything that you are—that you are afraid to tell me”
“Nothing, nothing,” said Laura, in her turn colouring deeply, but with a far different reason from that which had crimsoned the face of her sister. “I will tell you all, but promise me that I shall be kept in concealment, come who may.”
“Why, of course I promise. What is such a promise as that between you and me? But I warn you of one thing. He will know it.”
“That I care not for.”
“Then let us go. I know that he is watching us.”
“To what end—to what good?”
“I know not, but it is so. Come.”
And the sisters left the palace, and proceeded to the house in the avenue.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN, PRESIDENT ELECT OF THE UNITED STATES.
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“Honest Old Abe,” as the Americans call Lincoln, was originally a farm-labourer in Illinois. Frederick Douglas, “the little giant,” his defeated antagonist, was a cabinet-maker.
We can in our own country, I know, point to instances of great judges, who have swept out offices; great generals, who have risen (socially) from the ranks; great poets, who have been ploughmen, or the sons of simple yeomen; and great college professors, who have been the sons of carpenters; but in America the instances are so frequent, that they scarcely attract attention. Up and down, men toss in that feverish seething sea of Transatlantic life, so that no one stares to hear that the new inhabitant of the White House on the banks of the Potomac was once a wood-cutter, any more than he would to see the wealthy merchant, with whom he dined last year in his splendid palace in the Fifth Avenue, stirring round oyster soup or “clam chowder” in a gilded refreshment cellar in the Broadway. Rising and falling are both very easy in America.
In one of his “stump speeches,” when lately itinerating the north-west provinces, Frederick Douglas, after informing the crowd that he had first been a school teacher, and then a cabinet-maker, peculiarly skilful in the construction of bureaus and secretaries, and nearly as good at bedsteads and tables, went on to describe how, like Lincoln, he afterwards turned advocate, got into the Legislature, and eventually attained notoriety by his speeches on “squatter sovereignty,” and the Kansas and Nebraska Bill. Having thus sketched himself as a self-made man, “the little giant” went on to praise “Old Abe” as one of those peculiar men who seemed to succeed with admirable skill in all that he undertook. He was the best teller of a story he (Douglas) knew. When he was younger he could throw any of the “boys” wrestling; he would outrun an Indian at a foot-race; he pitched quoits truer and further; he was the luckiest tosser of a copper. He “could spoil more liquor than all the rowdies in the town put together,” and the dignity and impartiality with which he presided at a horse-race, trotting-match, fist-fight, or rifle-match, excited the admiration and won the praise of everybody that was present.”
Old Abe is a gaunt giant more than six feet high, strong and long-limbed. He walks slow, and, like many thoughtful men (Wordsworth and Napoleon, for example), keeps his head inclined forward and downward. His hair is wiry black, his eyes are dark-grey; his smile is frank, sincere, and winning. Like most American gentlemen, he is loose and careless in dress, turns down his flapping white collars, and wears habitually what we consider evening dress. His head is massive, his brow full and wide, his nose large and fleshy, his mouth coarse and full; his eyes are sunken, his bronzed face is thin, and drawn down into strong