One little bit of candle, and a few old school-books, and a mind swelling with big desires after knowledge, were beside the small window, long after the midnight hour had struck and the noisy city was hushed into a comparative calm.  It did not signify that the bowed frame was wearied by a day of physical toil, or that the aching head pleaded for “tired nature’s sweet restorer,” or that a voice from the outer room came often to his ear, with the petition that he would no longer rob himself of his needful rest; there were new and holy impulses that refused to be put aside, and hungerings and thirstings that must be satisfied, and not until the candle gave out its last flicker did Archibald Mackie spare himself the pittance of slumber that was to prepare him for another toilsome day.  Even in his fitful and nervous sleep was he mentally solving some abstruse problem, or following out some philosophical train of reasoning, while all the time in his dreams the strange lady would urge him onward in his tasks, smiling upon him with the sweet and gentle face.  Forgetful of the simple hovel and its uncouth accompaniments, unmindful of the deformed figure, and the tattered raiment, and the taunts and jeers of an unfeeling multitude, the poor boy reveled amid visions of knowledge, and wisdom, and beauty, and love, as happy as if an angel form were resting where the hideous body lay.

The morning beams struggled feebly in at the little window as Archie tore himself from his pillow, again to apply himself to his books.  It was such a wonder to him that he could for so long a period have cast them away for less satisfying pleasures.  The bright dawn, too, was so filled with peace and purity, and he had hitherto dozed it off, never thinking that he had lost the most precious part of his existence.  The air came in so refreshingly upon his brow, and the open space had not one revolting object to distract him from hallowed and exalted thoughts.  The only sound that reached him was the slow and measured breathing of his grandmother through the thin partition, or the nasal performances of his father from the loft above.  Archie’s room was the one his mother had occupied ever since his remembrance, and miserable and empty as it was, to him there was an atmosphere of the purest delight.  All other spots were trivial and commonplace compared to the one where the maternal blessing had been pronounced, and the maternal breath had ceased; and hardened indeed must the heart have been that could resist his desire that this one sacred spot might be consecrated alone to him.  Here were the books from which her thin and tremulous fingers had pointed out to him the rudiments of that knowledge which his spirit so longed to compass.  Here were gathered the few mementoes of her maidenhood the trinkets from her early schoolmates, and the love-tokens from her rough but kind and affectionate husband all disposed by her own hand, within the tiny cupboard, that came to be a sealed place to every eye but that of the child, whose mature mind could take in all their value.  These alone, of all the objects about him, linked him to the dead mother.  To be sure his fond old grandmother doted on the boy in her childish and simple way, and his father gave him all the love of which his nature was capable, but there seemed to him no connection between the spiritual image that so continually hovered about his pathway, and the coarse and material beings who seemed only to live for the things that give life and support to the body; and his high communings and yearnings found no sympathy in either of his well-meaning but obtuse relatives.  To look upon the lad’s occasional bursts of enthusiasm with a wondering and frightened stare, was all that the poor old woman could do to show that she even observed them, and as for the father, it was quite impossible to beguile him from his old and commonplace notions.  The idea of listening to reading, or to the explanation of any of the mysteries of science, formed no part of his mental machinery.

“Book larnin’ll do well enough for you, Archie, my boy,” he would say; “but this thing,” holding up his trowel in a fond sort of way, “has found me a good living for many a year, and as for amusement, my pipe keeps my mind off the trouble, so don’t pester yourself trying to turn me into a new way, child, the old one suits me better!” It was not well for the imaginative and sickly youth to be left to his own wild and untutored fancies; but there was no help for it now, and he gave himself up to his studies and his dreams, looking no longer for sympathy from those around him, but gathering inward strength and self-dependence with every struggle for the mastery over his sensitive and morbid nature.

Little, however, as there was in Archie’s home to aid him in his efforts after a higher attainment, he was not without a hidden but blessed influence.  His mother’s grave was just without the city, in the beautiful cemetery, and thither his weary feet often wandered when he was spared from his labor early enough, or on the precious Sunday, the day of days, especially to the poor.  Glorious monuments of the most elaborate workmanship, temples, and majestic columns, and angel figures, were all nothing to Archie compared to the simple mound that told him of an undying love for the lonely and crippled one.  No marble arose there in wonderful grace and beauty, no reclining seraph imaged the departed saint; but low down, beneath the green turf was the heart that leaped at the advent of her first-born son, and the eye that overlooked the blemish that all other eyes seemed to dwell upon, and the hand that was laid upon his head in the last sad moment.  Naught else was needed to the few souls that cared for her memory.  Was she not ever before them in the garb of purity and love! and yet among the boy’s visions was a sacred spot remote from the common ground where necessity had placed his idolized parent, and a slab that should speak of a son’s gratitude, and shrubs and flowers around to breathe their sweet odor above the lowly bed.  So long as his mother’s memory was kept fresh and green within him Archibald Mackie was not cut off wholly from the companionship and sympathy that is a need of every nature.