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The 8085 Microprocessor Architecture Programming and
Interfacing 1e Kumar Digital Instant Download
Author(s): Kumar, K. Udaya; Umashankar, B. S
ISBN(s): 9788257452247, 8257452246
Edition: Online-Ausg
File Details: PDF, 7.68 MB
Year: 2008
Language: english
udayakumar_fm.qxp 4/21/2008 2:31 PM Page i

THE 8085
MICROPROCESSOR
Architecture, Programming
and Interfacing

K. UDAYA KUMAR,
Principal,
B.N.M. Institute of Technology,
Bangalore, India.

B. S. UMASHANKAR,
Professor,
Department of Computer Science,
B.N.M. Institute of Technology,
Bangalore, India.
udayakumar_fm.qxp 4/16/2008 4:21 PM Page ii

Copyright © 2008 Dorling Kindersley (India) Pvt. Ltd.

Licensees of Pearson Education in South Asia

No part of this eBook may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without the publisher’s prior
written consent.

This eBook may or may not include all assets that were part of the print version. The publisher reserves the
right to remove any material present in this eBook at any time.

ISBN 9788177584554
eISBN 9788131799772

Head Office: A-8(A), Sector 62, Knowledge Boulevard, 7th Floor, NOIDA 201 309, India
Registered Office: 11 Local Shopping Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi 110 017, India
udayakumar_fm.qxp 4/16/2008 4:21 PM Page iii

Dedicated to
the Goddess of Learning
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Contents

Preface xi 5. First Assembly Language Program 38

5.1 Problem Statement 38
Part I 5.2 About the Microprocessor Kit 41
5.3 Using the Microprocessor Kit in
FUNDAMENTALS OF A Serial Mode 51
MICROPROCESSOR 1 Questions 51

1. Evolution of Microprocessors 3 6. Data Transfer Group of

1.1 Early Integrated Circuits 3 Instructions 52
1.2 4-Bit Microprocessors 4 6.1 Classification of 8085 Instructions 53
1.3 8-Bit Microprocessors 4 6.2 Instruction Type MVI r, d8 54
1.4 16-Bit Microprocessors 4 6.3 Instruction Type MOV r1, r2 54
1.5 32-Bit Microprocessors 5 6.4 Instruction Type MOV r, M 55
1.6 Recent Microprocessors 5 6.5 Instruction Type MOV M, r 56
1.7 Microcontrollers and Digital Signal 6.6 Instruction Type LXI rp, d16 56
Processors 5 6.7 Instruction Type MVI m, d8 57
6.8 Instruction Type LDA a16 57
2. Fundamentals of a Computer 7 6.9 Instruction Type STA a16 58
2.1 Calculator 7 6.10 Instruction Type XCHG 58
2.2 Computer 8 6.11 Addressing Modes of 8085 59
2.3 Microcomputer 12 6.12 Instruction Type LDAX rp 62
2.4 Computer Languages 13 6.13 Instruction Type STAX rp 62
Questions 16 6.14 Instruction Type LHLD a16 63
6.15 Instruction Type SHLD a16 63
3. Number Representation 17 Questions 63
3.1 Unsigned Binary Integers 17
3.2 Signed Binary Integers 18
7. Arithmetic Group of Instructions 65
3.3 Representation of Fractions 23 7.1 Instructions to Perform Addition 66
3.4 Signed Floating Point 7.2 Instructions to Perform Subtraction 70
Numbers 25 7.3 Instruction Type INX rp 73
Questions 25 7.4 Instruction Type DCX rp 74
7.5 Instruction Type DAD rp 74
4. Fundamentals of Microprocessor 27 7.6 Decimal Addition in 8085 75
4.1 History of Microprocessors 27 Questions 76
4.2 Description of 8085 Pins 29
4.3 Programmer’s View of 8085: Need for
8. Logical Group of Instructions 77
Registers 34 8.1 Instructions to Perform ‘AND’
4.4 Accumulator or Register A 35 Operation 78
4.5 Registers B, C, D, E, H, And L 36 8.2 Instructions to Perform ‘OR’
Questions 36 Operation 79
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vi
8.3 Instructions to Perform 12. Addressing of I/O Ports 125
‘EXCLUSIVE OR’ Operation 80
8.4 Instruction to Complement 12.1 Need for I/O Ports 125
Accumulator 82 12.2 IN and OUT Instructions 127
8.5 Instructions to Complement/Set ‘Cy’ 12.3 Memory-Mapped I/O 128
Flag 82 12.4 I/O-Mapped I/O 129
Contents

8.6 Instructions to Perform Compare 12.5 Comparison of Memory-Mapped

Operation 83 I/O and I/O-Mapped I/O 129
8.7 Instructions to Rotate Questions 132
Accumulator 85
Questions 88
13. Architecture of 8085 133
13.1 Details of 8085 Architecture 134
9. NOP and Stack Group of 13.2 Instruction Cycle 140
Instructions 90 13.3 Comparison of Different Machine
Cycles 152
9.1 Stack and The Stack Pointer 90 13.4 Memory Speed Requirement 153
9.2 Instruction Type POP rp 92 13.5 Wait State Generation 160
9.3 Instruction Type PUSH rp 93 Questions 161
9.4 Instruction Type LXI SP, d16 94
9.5 Instruction Type SPHL 95
9.6 Instruction Type XTHL 95 Part II
9.7 Instruction Type INX SP 95
9.8 Instruction Type DCX SP 96 ASSEMBLY LANGUAGE
9.9 Instruction Type DAD SP 96 PROGRAMS 163
9.10 Instruction Type NOP 96
Questions 98 14. Simple Assembly Language
Programs 165
10. Branch Group of Instructions 99
14.1 Exchange 10 Bytes 165
10.1 More Details about Program 14.2 Add two Multi-Byte Numbers 169
Execution 100 14.3 Add two Multi-Byte BCD
10.2 Unconditional Jump Instructions 102 Numbers 171
10.3 Conditional Jump Instructions 104 14.4 Block Movement without
10.4 Unconditional Call and Return Overlap 174
Instructions 107 14.5 Block Movement with Overlap 175
10.5 Conditional Call Instructions 109 14.6 Add N Numbers of Size 8 Bits 178
10.6 Conditional Return Instructions 111 14.7 Check the Fourth Bit of a Byte 181
10.7 RSTN – Restart Instructions 113 14.8 Subtract two Multi-Byte
Questions 115 Numbers 182
14.9 Multiply two numbers of Size
11. Chip Select Logic 117 8 Bits 184
11.1 Concept of Chip Selection 117 14.10 Divide a 16-Bit Number
11.2 RAM Chip–Pin Details And by an 8-Bit Number 187
Address Range 118 Questions 189
11.3 Multiple Memory Address
Range 119 15. Use of PC in Writing and
11.4 Working of 74138 Decoder IC 120
11.5 Use of 74138 to Generate Chip Executing 8085 Programs 190
Select Logic 121 15.1 Steps Needed to Run an Assembly
11.6 Use of 74138 in ALS-SDA-85M Language Program 191
Kit 122 15.2 Creation of .ASM File using a
Questions 123 Text Editor 195
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vii
15.3 Generation of .OBJ File using a 17.5 Bubble Sort in Ascending/Descending
Cross-Assembler 195 Order as per Choice 259
15.4 Generation of .HEX File using a 17.6 Selection Sort in Ascending/Descending
Linker 197 Order as per Choice 263
15.5 Downloading the Machine Code to 17.7 Add Contents of N Word
the Kit 199 Locations 266

Contents
15.6 Running the Downloaded Program 17.8 Multiply Two 8-Bit Numbers (Shift
on the Kit 201 and Add Method) 268
15.7 Running the Program using the PC 17.9 Multiply two 2-Digit BCD
as a Terminal 201 Numbers 270
Questions 204 17.10 Multiply two 16-Bit Binary
Numbers 272
Questions 276
16. Additional Assembly Language
Programs 205
16.1 Search for a Number using Linear Part III
Search 206
16.2 Find the Smallest Number 208 PROGRAMMABLE AND NON-
16.3 Compute the HCF of Two 8-Bit PROGRAMMABLE I/O PORTS 275
Numbers 210
16.4 Check for ‘2 out of 5’ Code 212 18. Interrupts In 8085 277
16.5 Convert ASCII to Binary 214 18.1 Data Transfer Schemes 278
16.6 Convert Binary to ASCII 216 18.2 General Discussion about 8085
16.7 Convert BCD to Binary 218 Interrupts 283
16.8 Convert Binary to BCD 221 18.3 EI and DI Instructions 285
16.9 Check for Palindrome 228 18.4 INTR and INTA* Pins 288
16.10 Compute the LCM of Two 8-Bit 18.5 RST5.5 and RST6.5 Pins 291
Numbers 230 18.6 RST7.5 Pin 292
16.11 Sort Numbers using Bubble 18.7 Trap Interrupt Pin 293
Sort 233 18.8 Execution of ‘DAD rp’
16.12 Sort Numbers using Selection Instruction 296
Sort 235 18.9 SIM and RIM Instructions 297
16.13 Simulate Decimal up Counter 237 18.10 HLT Instruction 302
16.14 Simulate Decimal down 18.11 Programs using Interrupts 302
Counter 240 Questions 310
16.15 Display Alternately 00 and FF in
the Data Field 241 19. 8212 Non-Programmable 8-Bit
16.16 Simulate a Real-Time Clock 243 I/O Port 311
Questions 246 19.1 Working of 8212 311
19.2 Applications of 8212 315
17. More Complex Assembly Questions 322
Language Programs 247
20. 8255 Programmable Peripheral
17.1 Subtract Multi-Byte BCD
Numbers 248
Interface Chip 323
17.2 Convert 16-Bit Binary to BCD 250 20.1 Description of 8255 PPI 323
17.3 Do an operation on Two Numbers 20.2 Operational Modes of 8255 327
Based on the Value of X 252 20.3 Control Port of 8255 328
17.4 Do an Operation on Two BCD 20.4 Mode 1–Strobed I/O 331
Numbers Based on the Value 20.5 Mode 2–Bi-Directional I/O 340
of X 255 Questions 342
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viii

21. Programs using Interface 24.3 Description of 8257 DMA

Modules 344 Controller Chip 444
24.4 Programming the 8257 446
21.1 Description of Logic Controller 24.5 Description of the Pins Of
Interface 344 8257 452
21.2 Successive Approximation 24.6 Working of the 8257 DMA
Contents

ADC Interface 353 Controller 456

21.3 Dual Slope ADC Interface 356 24.7 State Diagram of 8085 457
21.4 Digital to Analog Converter Questions 460
Interface 359
21.5 Stepper Motor Interface 363
Questions 366
25. Intel 8253—Programmable
Interval Timer 461
25.1 Need for Programmable Interval
Part IV Timer 461
SUPPORT CHIPS 367 25.2 Description of 8253 Timer 462
25.3 Programming the 8253 463
22. Interfacing of I/O Devices 369 25.4 Mode 0–Interrupt On Terminal
Count 467
22.1 Interfacing 7-Segment Display 370 25.5 Mode 1–Re-Triggerable Mono-
22.2 Display Interface using Serial Stable Multi 468
Transfer 374 25.6 Mode 2–Rate Generator 469
22.3 Interfacing a Simple Keyboard 377 25.7 Mode 3–Square Wave Generator 471
22.4 Interfacing a Matrix Keyboard 380 25.8 Mode 4–Software-Triggered
22.5 Description of Matrix Keyboard Strobe 472
Interface 381 28.9 Mode 5–Hardware-Triggered
22.6 Intel 8279 Keyboard And Display Strobe 473
Controller 384 28.10 Use of 8253 in ALS-SDA-85
22.7 Programs using 8279 402 Kit 475
Questions 414 Questions 475
23. Intel 8259A—Programmable 26. Intel 8251A—Universal
Interrupt Controller 416 Synchronous Asynchronous
23.1 Need for an Interrupt Controller 417 Receiver Transmitter
23.2 Overview of the Working
of 8259 419
(USART) 477
23.3 Pins of 8259 421 26.1 Need for USART 477
23.4 Registers used in 8259 422 26.2 Asynchronous Transmission 478
23.5 Programming the 8259 with 26.3 Asynchronous Reception 481
no Slaves 424 26.4 Synchronous Transmission 483
23.6 Programming the 8259 with 26.5 Synchronous Reception 484
Slaves 436 26.6 Pin Description of 8251 USART 484
23.7 Use of 8259 in an 8086-Based 26.7 Programming the 8251 488
System 439 26.8 Use of SOD Pin of 8085 for
23.8 Architecture of 8259 439 Serial Transfer 492
Questions 440 Questions 493

24. Intel 8257—Programmable 27. Zilog Z-80 Microprocessor 495

DMA Controller 442 27.1 Comparison of Intel 8080 with
24.1 Concept of Direct Memory Intel 8085 496
Access (DMA) 442 27.2 Programmer’s View of Z-80 497
24.2 Need for DMA Data Transfer 443 27.3 Special Features of Z-80 498
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ix
27.4 Addressing Modes of Z-80 499 29.4 Data Memory Structure 551
27.5 Special Instruction Types 506 29.5 Programmer’s View of 8051 556
27.6 Pins of Z-80 517 29.6 Addressing Modes of 8051 557
27.7 Interrupt Structure in Z-80 519 29.7 Instruction Set of 8051 560
27.8 Programming Examples 524 29.8 Programming Examples 568
27.9 Instruction Set Summary 527 Questions 573

Contents
Questions 528
30. Advanced Topics
28. Motorola M6800
in 8051 574
Microprocessor 529
30.1 Interrupt Structure of 8051 575
28.1 Pin Description of 6800 530 30.2 Timers of 8051 579
28.2 Programmer’s View of 6800 531 30.3 Serial Interface 584
28.3 Addressing Modes of 6800 533 30.4 Structure and Operation of
28.4 Instruction Set of 6800 536 Ports 591
28.5 Interrupts of 6800 540 30.5 Power Saving Modes of 8051 595
28.6 Programming Examples 542 30.6 Programming of EPROM in
Questions 545 8751BH 597
Questions 600
29. 8051 Microcontroller 546
29.1 Main Features of Intel 8051 547 Bibliography 601
29.2 Functional Blocks of Intel 8051 548
29.3 Program Memory Structure 550 Index 603
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udayakumar_fm.qxp 4/16/2008 4:21 PM Page xi

Preface

Microprocessors, microcontrollers, and digital signal processor chips are used in business machines,
automotive electronics, home appliances, electronic toys, and a variety of industrial applications. In
this book, we confine ourselves to the study of 8-bit microprocessors Intel 8085, Zilog Z-80 and
Motorola 6800, as well as the popular 8-bit microcontroller—the Intel 8051.
This book has been written after teaching the subject of microprocessors for more than two
decades, keeping in mind the difficulties faced by students in grasping the subject. We have pre-
sented the material in a lucid language, using short, simple sentences to facilitate easy reading and
understanding. Each concept has been articulated with a number of examples with emphasis on clar-
ity, in a logical sequence. To this end, the book is divided into four parts. The first part consists of
Chapters 1 to 13, and deals with the fundamentals of a microprocessor. Chapters 14 to17 make up
the second part, and focuses on assembly language programs. The programmable and non-program-
mable ports are examined in part three from Chapters 18 to 21, while the concluding portion of the
book, consisting of Chapters 22 to 30 deals with support chips.
Chapter 1 introduces the developments in electronics starting with the transistor and the early inte-
grated circuits and provides an insight into the evolution of microprocessors, microcontrollers and
digital signal processors.
Chapter 2 familiarizes students with the various parts of a computer, their main functions and the
evolution of computer languages.
Chapter 3 explains clearly the unsigned and the various signed number representations for integers
and provides an overview of signed floating-point numbers.
Chapter 4 touches upon the history of the microprocessor and deals with the fundamentals of the
8085 microprocessor, which is the main focus of this book. The various registers and the program-
mer’s view of 8085 are also introduced here.
Chapter 5 describes a typical 8085-microprocessor kit and its usage by indicating the steps needed
to write and execute a simple assembly language program.
Chapter 6 gives the classification of 8085 instructions and elaborates on the data transfer group of
instructions with meaningful examples. The various addressing modes of 8085 are also explained.
Chapter 7 deals with the arithmetic group of instructions and explains the various flags used in the
8085 microprocessor.
Chapters 8 to 10 focus on the logical, stack, and branch group of instructions respectively, explain-
ing them with suitable examples.
Chapter 11 dwells on the concept of chip selection and the use of 74138 to generate chip select
logic.
Chapter 12 discusses the need for I/O ports, their addressing and compares I/O mapped I/O with
memory mapped I/O.
Chapter 13 furnishes a detailed architecture of 8085, and explains the various machine cycles
needed for executing a variety of instructions.
Chapter 14 explains simple assembly language programs that are executed on a microprocessor kit
and also illustrates some of the commonly used monitor routines.
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xii
Chapter 15 brings out the use of a personal computer in writing an assembly language program,
translating it to machine language using an assembler, and then downloading it to the microprocessor
kit for execution.
Chapter 16 deals with complex assembly language programs. For these programs students have to
use the PC to enter the program, do the translation using the assembler, download the machine code
Preface

to the microprocessor kit, and run the program using the commands issued by the PC in serial mode.
Chapter 17 is about more complex assembly language problems. For each of these problems, the
flowchart and the program are provided along with trace for test data. This simplifies the understand-
ing of the given solution.
Chapter 18 expounds on data transfer schemes and discusses in detail about the use of interrupts in
the 8085 microprocessor. The interrupt related instructions are explained here, and we look at a num-
ber of assembly language programs that make use of interrupts.
Chapter 19 presents a detailed explanation of the working and application of the Intel 8212—a non-
programmable I/O port.
Chapter 20 is about the popular Intel 8255—a programmable peripheral interface chip. The
description, operational modes and the control words are delineated.
Chapter 21 describes some of the commonly used interface modules like logic controller, analog-
to-digital converter, digital-to-analog converter and stepper motor. A number of interesting programs
using these interface modules are illustrated.
Chapter 22 first deals with interfacing 7-segment display and matrix keyboard using latches and
tri-state gates. Then the Intel 8279—the programmable keyboard and display controller chip is
described at length. A number of useful routines using the 8279 chip are also explained.
Chapter 23 is about the Intel 8259—the programmable interrupt controller. It gives an overview of
the working of 8259, and explains the function of its pins and the programming of 8259 with and with-
out slave 8259s.
Chapter 24 covers the programmable DMA Controller—the Intel 8257. In this chapter the concept
of Direct Memory Access (DMA), the DMA controller chip and its programming are examined in
depth.
Chapter 25 describes the Intel 8253—a programmable interval timer. It explains the need for a pro-
grammable timer and succinctly spells out the various modes of operation of 8253.
Chapter 26 examines the Intel 8251—the Universal Synchronous Asynchronous Receiver Trans-
mitter (USART). It explains the asynchronous and synchronous modes of transmission and reception,
and describes the programming of the 8251.
Chapter 27 reviews the Zilog Z-80 microprocessor. With an in-depth knowledge of the 8085
microprocessor acquired from the first 26 chapters, students would be in a position to understand the
programmer’s view, new addressing modes, and the new instruction types available in Z-80. The
chapter ends with a few programming examples that provide a critical comparison of the Z-80 and
the Intel 8085.
Chapter 28 talks about the M6800 microprocessor from Motorola, which has a very simple archi-
tecture compared to 8085 or the Z-80. It describes the pins, the programmer’s view, addressing modes,
and the instruction set of M6800 and ends with a few programming examples that demonstrate its
power in spite of its simplicity.
Chapter 29 is devoted to the popular Intel 8051 microcontroller. It discusses the basics of the 8051
providing details about its functional blocks, the programmer’s view, addressing modes, and the
instruction set. A number of assembly language programming examples are provided to make students
comfortable with the instruction set of 8051.
Chapter 30, the concluding chapter, reviews the advanced topics in 8051. It deals with the interrupt
structure, timers, serial interface, structure and operation of ports, and power saving modes of 8051.
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xiii
The chapter ends with the programming of EPROM in 8751, which is the EPROM version of the 8051
microcontroller.
Comments and feedback on the various topics discussed in this book are welcome.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Preface
The authors are grateful for the timely help, encouragement and support extended by Narayan Rao R.
Maanay, Secretary, B.N.M. Institute of Technology, as well as Prof. T.J. Rama Murthy, Director, and
Dr. K. Ranga, Dean of the institution. They are thankful to the reviewers for their constructive sug-
gestions, which helped in enhancing the contents of this book. Finally, the authors are indebted to their
family members for their encouragement and forbearance.
K. Udaya Kumar
B. S. Umashankar
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Udayakumar_ch_01.qxp 4/17/2008 7:33 PM Page 1

Fundamentals of
a Microprocessor

Chapter Heads

1 Evolution of Microprocessors
2 Fundamentals of a Computer
3 Number Representation
4 Fundamentals of Microprocessor
5 First Assembly Language Program
6 Data Transfer Group of Instructions
7 Arithmetic Group of Instructions
8 Logical Group of Instructions
9 NOP and Stack Group of Instructions
10 Branch Group of Instructions
11 Chip Select Logic
12 Addressing of I/O Ports
13 Architecture of 8085
Udayakumar_ch_01.qxp 4/2/2008 2:41 PM Page 2

INTRODUCTION
This part comprises of chaps. 1 to 14. Chapters 1 and 2 are intro-
ductory chapters which discuss the evolution of microprocessors
and the fundamentals of a computer, respectively. The following
chapters deal with the framework and internal architecture of a
microprocessor.
Udayakumar_ch_01.qxp 4/17/2008 7:33 PM Page 3

1
Evolution of
Microprocessors

Early integrated circuits


4-bit microprocessors


8-bit microprocessors


16-bit microprocessors


32-bit microprocessors


Recent microprocessors


Microcontrollers and digital signal processors

This chapter gives a crisp outline of the various stages in the evolution of today’s microprocessors.
Explicit information is given right from the integrated circuits through the 4-, 8-, 16- and 32-bit micro-
processors to the present-day microprocessors and microcontrollers.

1.1 EARLY INTEGRATED CIRCUITS

The 1939–45 world war posed stringent envorinmental and operation requirements like standardiza-
tion, miniaturization, reliability, maintainability and the like on electronic communication equipment
components. Key improvements took place in the design and manufacture of electronic components.
After the war, the semiconductor transistor came into widespread use.
The concept of integrated circuit (IC), also known as ‘chip’, which integrates a circuit of several
electronic components into a solid block was envisaged in 1952. In 1959, the invention of planar
process with aluminium metallization by Robert Noyce and Jean Hoerni at Fairchild Semiconductor
enabled large-scale production of ICs.
The progress of integration of circuitry was very rapid. The small-scale integration (SSI) chip having
digital logic gates circuitry was introduced in 1964. Gordon Earle Moore at Fairchild Semiconductor
predicted that the number of transistors on a silicon chip would increase from 50 in 1965 to 65,000 in
1975. It was recognized as his first articulation of Moore’s law suggesting that the number of transistors
on a chip will double every year. Moore’s prediction indeed was true and medium-scale integration (MSI)
chip with a complete register circuit appeared in 1968. The large-scale integration (LSI) memory chip
(256-bit RAM) was produced by Fairchild in 1970. In 1971, the LSI chips with 1024-bit dynamic random
access memory (RAM) and Universal Asynchronous Receiver Transmitter (UART) were developed.
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4

1.2 4-BIT MICROPROCESSORS

The advent of microprocessors was accidental. Intel Corporation founded by Moore and Noyce in 1968
was initially focused on creating semiconductor memory (DRAMs and EPROMs) for digital comput-
The 8085 Microprocessor

ers. In 1969, a Japanese calculator manufacturer – Busicom approached Intel with a design for a small
calculator, which required 12 custom chips. Ted Hoff, an Intel engineer felt that a general-purpose logic
device could replace the separate multiple components. This idea led to the development of the first
microprocessor. Microprocessors made a modest beginning as the drivers for calculators.
Federico Faggin and Stanley Mazor realized Ted Hoff’s ideas into hardware at Intel. The result was
the Intel 4000 family comprising the 4001 (2K ROM), the 4002 (320-bit RAM), the 4003 (10-bit I/O
shift-register) and the 4004, a 4-bit central processing unit (CPU). Intel introduced the 4004
microprocessor to the worldwide market on November 15, 1971. It was a 4-bit PMOS chip with 2,300
transistors. It was not truly a general-purpose microprocessor as it was basically designed for a calcu-
lator. About the same time, Texas Instruments also developed the 4-bit microprocessor TMS 1000.
Texas Instruments is recognized as the inventor and owner of the microprocessor patent.

1.3 8-BIT MICROPROCESSORS

Federico Faggin and his team at Intel designed a chip for controlling a CRT display produced by
Computer Terminals Corporation, later called Datapoint. This chip did not meet Datapoint’s functional
requirement of speed and they decided not to use it. Intel introduced this chip as world’s first 8-bit
general-purpose microprocessor 8008 in 1972. The Intel 8008 was used in the famous Mark-8
computer kit. On realizing the potential of this product, Intel introduced the improved 8008, the 8080
microprocessor in 1974. The Intel 8080 really created the microprocessor market. The other notable
8-bit microprocessors include Motorola 6800, designed for use in automotive and industrial applications,
and Rockwell PPS-8, Signetics 2650 having innovative and powerful instruction set architecture.
With improvements in integration technology, Intel was able to integrate the additional chips
required by the 8080, that is, the 8224 clock generator and the 8228 system controller along with the
8080 microprocessor within a single chip – the Intel 8085. The other improved 8-bit microprocessors
include Motorola MC6809 designed for high performance, Zilog Z-80 and RCA COSMAC designed
for aerospace applications.
In 1975, Moore recalled that his prediction of exponential growth in the complexity of integrated
circuits was true. He also forecast a change for the next decade indicating that the pace of complex-
ity increase would slow to a doubling every two years during the maturation of design capabilities.
With increase in processing power the microprocessors dominated as the CPU of digital comput-
ers. Earlier to the arrival of microprocessors, CPU was realized from individual SSI chips. The
digital computer that uses a single chip microprocessor as its CPU is referred to as a microcomputer.

1.4 16-BIT MICROPROCESSORS

Intel introduced the 16-bit microprocessor 8086 (16-bit bus) in 1978 and 8088 (8-bit bus) in 1979. It
had 29,000 transistors. IBM selected the Intel 8088 for their personal computer (IBM-PC) introduced
in 1981. Intel released the 16-bit microprocessor 80286 (having 1,34,000 transistors) which was used
Udayakumar_ch_01.qxp 4/2/2008 2:41 PM Page 5

5
as CPU for the advanced technology personal computers (PC-AT) in 1982. It was called Intel 286 and
was the first Intel processor that could run all the software written for its predecessor Intel 8088. This
backward software compatibility was important for its commercial success. It is important to note that
this software compatibility remains a hallmark of Intel’s family of microprocessors.

Evolution of
1.5 32-BIT MICROPROCESSORS

Microprocessors

In 1985, Intel announced the 80386 a 32-bit microprocessor with 2,75,000 transistors. It supported
multitasking. Introduced in 1989, Intel 486 microprocessor was the first to offer a built-in math co-
processor. It had 1.2 million transistors.
In 1993, Intel Pentium microprocessor with 3.1 million transistors was introduced. It allowed
computers to process real-world data like speech, sound, handwriting and photographic images. The
7.5-million transistor Intel Pentium II microprocessor, introduced in 1997, was designed specifically
to process audio, video and graphics data efficiently. Intel Celeron processors range designed for the
value PC market segment were released from 1999.
Intel Pentium III processors with 9.5 million transistors designed for advanced imaging, 3D,
streaming audio, video and speech recognition applications and Intel Pentium III Xeon processors for
workstation and server market segments were introduced in 1999. Intel Pentium IV processors with
more than 42 million transistors introduced from 2000 are used in the present PCs. Users can create
professional quality movies, deliver TV-like video via the internet, communicate with real-time video
and voice, render 3D graphics in real time, quickly encode music for MP3 players and simultaneously
run several multimedia applications while connected to the Internet.
Intel Xeon processors introduced from 2001 are targeted for high-performance and mid-range,
dual-processor workstations, dual and multiprocessor server configurations coming in the range.

1.6 RECENT MICROPROCESSORS

The Itanium processor is the first in a family of 64-bit products from Intel introduced in 2001. It is
well suited for the most demanding enterprise and high-performance computing applications like
e-Commerce security transactions, large databases, mechanical computer-aided engineering and
sophisticated scientific and engineering computing.
Introduced from 2003, the Intel Pentium M processor, the Intel 855 chipset family and the Intel
PRO/Wireless 2100 network connection are the three components of Intel Centrino mobile techno-
logy. Intel Centrino mobile technology is designed specifically for portable computing, with built-in
wireless local area network (LAN) capability and breakthrough mobile performance. It enables
extended battery life and thinner, lighter, mobile computers.

1.7 MICROCONTROLLERS AND DIGITAL SIGNAL PROCESSORS

A microcontroller is a highly integrated chip that contains all the components comprising a controller.
Typically, this includes a CPU, RAM, some form of read only memory (ROM), input/output (I/O)
Other documents randomly have
different content
and you will lose as many credit marks as would be taken from the
ringleader were he detected."
"I can afford to lose those better than my own self-respect," Max
said, stoutly, and then added, "I think you would have done the
same, President King, when you were at my age."
Hal waited to hear no more, but edged cautiously from his place of
concealment. He thought he was not above profiting by Max's
generosity. He tried to think Max was a fool, but there was an inner
voice in his heart which whispered that there was something sublime
in such folly, and, try as he might, this inner voice would not
altogether be silenced.
The days went on swiftly. Max kept his scholarship up to the highest
standard, but the twenty credit marks taken from his list put all hope
of his attaining the leadership out of the question.
It was the very night before the examination when President King
answered a tap on his door with his well known, resonant "Come in."
His visitor was Hal Somers.
The next morning, after prayers, the president said, very quietly,—
"Young gentlemen, before the examination commences I have to
detain you long enough to perform a simple act of justice. I acquit
Max Grenoble of all complicity in the misdemeanor committed on the
night of the 14th of June; the entire burden of the same having
been assumed by Henry Somers, in behalf of himself, William
Graves, George Saunders, and John Morse. And as this confession
was voluntary, I shall visit upon the offenders no severer penalty
than the loss of all their credit marks for the last quarter."
Poor little Molyneux Bell forgot time and place, and threw his
handkerchief into the air with one glad shout:—
"I knew Max would come out right at last; I knew he would."
So Max went back the next year to Eagleheight, as the head boy;
and under his leadership a new state of affairs was brought about.
He led them not only in class, and in athletic exercises, but in all true
manliness. They had found out at length that he had plenty of "pluck
and grit," even though he might not emulate Sayers or Heenan. One
of his warmest friends was Hal Somers, in whose character enough
nobility was latent to recognize at last the sterling worth even of his
rival.
 AGATHA'S LONELY DAYS.

They had buried Agatha's mother,—put her away under a sheltering

tree, beloved of bird and breeze, which waved its boughs between
her and the bending, changeful summer sky. Agatha thought no
other spot in the world could be so pleasant or so dear; and she
longed, from the depths of her little, ten-years-old heart, to stay
there with bird, and breeze, and tree, and the buried mother, who
must hear her voice, she thought, even though she could never
reply to it again in all the years.
Her father, pale with sorrow himself, had never come near enough to
his child to be her comforter now. He talked little to any one of
either his joys or his sorrows. Agatha loved him, partly because she
had always been taught to love and have faith in him; and, partly,
too, because she knew well, with that childish and intuitive
perception which discovers every thing, how dear he was to her
mother; but she did not feel near to him, and she could not possibly
have told him how she longed to stay there beside that grave. She
made no protest when he took her hand to lead her away, though it
seemed to her that she left her heart behind her, and that the lump
in her breast was a cold stone to which warmth would never come
back any more.
She went home, and some one took off her little black hat, and put
on an apron over her mourning gown, and then she was left in
peace to sit at the window, and look out toward the spot where they
had laid her mother, and wonder what was to become of her. They
called her to supper, but she was not hungry,—she thought she
never should be again,—and there was no mother to beguile her
with dainty morsels. When they found she did not want to come
they let her alone, and still she sat there and wondered.
At last the twilight fell, and in the dusk her father came to her. He
loved her very dearly; and especially now, that her mother was
gone, and only she was left to him, he felt for her an unspeakable
tenderness; literally unspeakable, for he did not know how to utter
one word of it to his child. He longed to comfort her,—to tell her how
dear she was to him,—but he could not. He sat down beside her,
and looked at her little pale face, outlined against the western
window, with such a depth of pity that it seemed to make his voice
quieter and colder than ever when he spoke, because it required
such an effort to speak at all.
"To-morrow, Agatha, I shall take you to your Aunt Irene. Every girl
needs a woman's care, and she will watch over you as faithfully as if
you were her own."
Agatha never dreamed of objecting. She tried to think that she
might as well be in one place as another, for she shouldn't live long
anywhere without her mother. But she dreaded Aunt Irene's
watching, as she dreaded few things in the world. She had made
visits now and then at the quiet old homestead of which this aunt
was mistress, and it seemed to her, on such occasions, that Aunt
Irene did nothing but watch her from the time she entered the
house; and in those days it had taken all the sunshine of her
mother's joyous nature to gild the visits into some substitute for the
pleasures other children took in their vacations. Now, to go without
her mother—all alone—and be "watched over" by her aunt! She
began to know that she had a heart, after all, by its frightened
fluttering.
Aunt Irene was her father's sister, with all the Raymond peculiarities
of pride, and reserve, and silence, which made him half a stranger to
his own child, intensified in her by her life of seclusion and of
absolute authority over herself and her possessions. Her experiences
had been narrow, and her aims had been narrow also. Mr. Raymond
saw this, his one sister, always at her best; and, through long
knowledge of her, he understood her really trustworthy and excellent
qualities. He felt that he was doing for Agatha the best which fate
now permitted him to do, in confiding her to this guidance, so sure
to be wise, as he believed, even if not loving.
The long car-ride next day was almost a silent one. Agatha would
have rejected with hot juvenile scorn, the idea that the presence or
absence of any material comforts could affect her grief; and yet she
would have felt a little less desolate, I think, if the heat had not been
so intense, the dust so choking, and the seat so hard and straight.
When she had made the journey in other years with her mother,
how much shorter the way had seemed. The fresh linen frocks she
used to wear were so much easier and cooler than the stifling black
gown she had on to-day; and somehow her mother knew just when
to open the windows and when to shut them, and if the seat was
straight and hard, there was always mamma's lap or shoulder to
lean against; and she forgot to be weary when mamma beguiled the
time by poem or story. But her father rode silently, looking into
vacancy for a face he would never see again; and after he had once
bought Agatha's ticket, and seated her beside him, it did not occur
to him to do any thing to relieve the monotony of the long, dusty
ride.
It was dusk when the stage from the railway station set them down
at Aunt Irene's door. Agatha walked up the path timidly. It was a
long, straight path, and either side of it grew thoroughly well-
disciplined flowers; a rosebush on one side, just opposite to a
rosebush on the other,—Agatha wondered if either of them would
have dared to bear one rose more than the other did,—a peony on
one side and its mate opposite; so of a syringa bush, a flowering
almond, and a root of lilies. Between the well-marshalled ranks of
flowers, which somehow made the child think of soldiers on guard,
she followed her father up to the door, where Aunt Irene waited,
grim chatelaine.
Mr. Raymond shook hands with his sister, and then said gravely,—
"Irene, I have brought you my poor, motherless little girl," and Aunt
Irene put out her firm, strong, unyielding hand and took the child's
into it, then bent and—not kissed her, kisses belonged to the dead
days—but laid her lips on her cheek, and so Agatha went in.
Every thing was good and substantial in Aunt Irene's house. You
found there no frail stands which a careless touch might throw over,
no brittle ornaments, no egg-shell china. The carpets were dark and
rich and sombre. The tables and chairs were all of solid wood, and
stood high and square. The sofas were heavy and firm, and the
whole air of the place was grave and respectable, as Aunt Irene's
surroundings should have been. I am not sure that any light,
modern, fancy articles, suggestive of elegant idleness, had they
been placed in her rooms, would not themselves have perceived
their unsuitableness, and trundled off on their own castors.
The supper which awaited the travellers followed the prevailing
fashion of the house. The biscuits were three times as large as the
biscuits on other tea-tables. There were no frisky rolls, no light-
minded whips or wafers. But there were good old-fashioned
preserve, serious-looking cake, and substantial slices of cold meat.
Aunt Irene herself, sitting behind the tea-urn—solid silver, of course
—comported with all the rest. She was a solid woman, with no
superfluous flesh, and yet with a well-fed, well-to-do aspect, which
was unmistakable. Her head was high and narrow, her features
good, her strong hair had disdained to turn gray, and her eyes were
keen if cold. Her lips, which had never cooed over babies, or soothed
the sorrows of little children, or talked nonsense to any listener, were
thin, as to such seldom-used lips seemed natural. They shut tightly
over all her secrets.
Agatha's head began to ache furiously, and she could not eat. The
room swam round and round till she felt as if she were the centre of
a rolling ball, and her chair rocked, she thought, and she was
slipping off it, when her father saw her white, strange face and
wavering figure, and sprang up just in time to catch her in his arms.
"She is sick, Irene," he said. "Where is her room? Let me carry her
there."
While he went upstairs with her she revived, and lifted her tired
head from his shoulder to look into his eyes.
"I wish you were not going away, papa," she ventured to say.
"I can't stay on in the old places, where I have lived with your
mother, without her," was the answer which came, and which was
like giving her a key wherewith to unlock her father's heart, and so
made the two nearer to each other than they had ever been before.
"Some time will you come back, and let me live with you?" she
whispered, wondering at her own rashness.
"If you are good, dear, and learn to be womanly and helpful, and to
take care of yourself, I will come back for you, or you shall come to
me, and we will be together always."
No one knew with what passionate yet timid hope Agatha's little
heart beat as she lay there alone on her strange, high bed. Womanly
and helpful,—that was what he had said, and she would be just that.
She would do all Aunt Irene said, and never mind how much she
was watched, since watching might help to make her nearer right,
and get her ready all the sooner to go to her father and be his
comfort.
The very next day he left her. The death of his wife had seemed to
sweep away all his old landmarks. He had been, hitherto, a quiet
unadventurous man contented with his narrow routine of daily duty,
which always brought him back to the tenderness of her welcoming
smile. Now that smile was frozen for ever on her cold lips, and a
strange restlessness possessed him. He had meant to stay a few
days with Agatha in her new home, but he felt as if the inaction
would drive him mad, so he hurried away; and a week afterward
Aunt Irene showed Agatha his name in the passenger list of a
European steamer.
It was June then, and the gay summer went on working its daily
miracles round Agatha's quiet home. Bright birds sang to her, and
gay flowers bloomed for her picking; and nature ran riot in a wood a
quarter of a mile away, where the flowers asked no leave of Aunt
Irene to blow, or the birds to sing. The child used to go there when
her daily tasks were done, but she carried with her so sad a heart
that nothing seemed to cheer her. She wondered what all the
growing things were so glad about, in the summer weather, and,
remembering an old phrase she had heard, she concluded it was
because nature was their mother, and nature never died.
"Oh, Mother Nature, I wish you were a relative of mine!" she used to
cry, sometimes, with unconscious quaintness; but before the
summer was over, leaning her head so much on the mosses, a sense
of kinship began to thrill in her pulses, and before she knew it the
pain in her heart was eased a little, and she began to think of her
mother, not as buried up and hidden away from her, but as near to
her and waiting for her.
Meantime she never forgot her father's words,—"Womanly and
helpful,"—they were the keynote of her life. Aunt Irene wondered at
her. She had thought her a mischievous little elf in the old days, but
there was no mischief in her now. She herself respected no more
religiously the rules of the household than did this little quiet child.
As for trouble, why the creature gave none,—she was learning to do
every thing for herself. At last even Aunt Irene grew half frightened
at this still patience, which she felt must be unnatural to childhood.
She began to wish that she could hear Agatha laugh or shout,—that
sometimes the child would tear her gowns, when she had on her
oldest ones, at least,—that she would show some self-will, some
little trace of her descent from apple-eating Adam of the old time.
She wrote to her brother how good and quiet his little girl was; but
her heart misgave her. She did not know what more she could do to
make her small inmate comfortable, but she had a vague sense that
Agatha was living an unchildlike life, and was less happy than in the
old days when the little girl and her mother came there together.
Mother Nature has her own methods of exacting compensation, and
for Agatha's overstrained and unnatural life pay-day came in the
autumn. It had grown too cold to lie with her ear on the mosses,
listening to the earth's pulse-beats, and the child sat quietly within
doors, until one day she turned very pale and rolled off her stiff,
straight chair to the carpet, and Aunt Irene picked her up, a lighter
weight now than in the spring-time, and carried her to her room.
Dr. Greene was sent for at once, and he looked at his little patient
very gravely, and then whispered "typhoid" to her aunt.
Aunt Irene wrote a hurried line to Agatha's father, and then took up
her post at the bedside, which for five weeks she scarcely left. She
had a heart, only long ago she had concluded it was an
inconvenience and locked it up; but now it broke loose from its
confinement and half frightened her by its throbbings.
Her brother was very dear to her. She had loved him all his life, after
the deep, silent, undemonstrative fashion of those who love but few;
and now if this fresh grief was to come upon him how could she
bear to see him suffer? But she did not allow these thoughts to
interfere with her usefulness at Agatha's bedside. Day and night she
watched over the child, who never once knew her, but who
constantly mistook her for her mother, and clung to her passionately
in the delirium of her fever.
"O mother!" she would say, "I thought I never, never should see you
again. No one was cross to me, mamma darling; but no one loved
me since you went away. I've been trying to grow womanly and
helpful, so papa would be glad to have me with him by and by; but
now you've come and you'll love me whether I'm good or not."
Then again she seemed roaming through the woods.
"Hark," she would say, "hear how the birds sing, and see the gay
flowers swing in the wind! Their mother doesn't die, and they have
no aunts. O birdies! you don't know how cold Aunt Irene's lips are."
And Aunt Irene, listening, bent over the bed with tears blinding her
eyes. Had her life been all a failure? she asked herself. She had tried
to do her duty: was it all nothing, because she hadn't loved? Oh! if
Agatha would but get well she would find some way to make her
happy.
Before the crisis of the child's fever came, her father had arrived.
The letter found him in Paris, and he had set out in twenty-four
hours upon his homeward journey.
"Is she alive?" he asked, when his sister met him at the door, and
started back, shocked by his haggard face.
"Yes, she lives, and the doctor says her fever must turn soon. Come
and see her."
The little flushed face had never been so beautiful in its brightest
days of health and joy, as now, with the clustering rings of hair
framing in scarlet cheeks and large, strangely brilliant eyes. The
father's heart almost broke as he stood there, unable to make her
recognize his presence. While he watched, she said what she had
said so often during the hours of that wasting sickness,—
"I have tried to be womanly and helpful. I think papa will want me
after awhile. I hope so for Aunt Irene's lips are cold."
How keenly he reproached himself then for having left her, only God
knew. He was a silent man, as I have said, and silently he shared
Aunt Irene's vigil without even thinking of rest after his journey.
The next night Dr. Greene waited also by that bedside for the crisis
he foresaw. At last the child slept.
"When she wakes we shall know what to expect," he said, and went
away into the next room for a little rest. But the father and the aunt
never moved. It was midnight, and every thing was strangely,
unnaturally still, as it always seems to watchers in the middle of the
night, when they heard Agatha call out of the hush and the stillness,
with a sudden, glad cry of recognition,—
"O mamma! mamma!"
"Is she dying?" Mr. Raymond's look asked, for his lips refused to
speak, and his sister's face made answer, "Not yet."
The hours, the long, slow hours went on. The night grew darker and
deeper. Then above the hills there stretched a faint line of dawn-light
which deepened at length to rose, and then was shot through by a
golden arrow from the rising sun. And then, as the dawning glory
touched the little white, still face upon the pillows, the eyes opened,
and a voice—Agatha's own natural voice, but oh, so faint and low!—
said, softly but gladly,—
"I have seen mamma. I wanted to go with her, but she said papa
and Aunt Irene both needed me, and I was to stay here and grow
well and happy. And so I shall."
"And so, please God, you shall," Dr. Greene said, cheerily, having
come in from the next room; and the father sank upon his knees by
the bedside, with some murmured words, which only the Father in
heaven understood, upon his lips; and Aunt Irene hurried off, she
said, to get something for the child to take, but she stopped a long
time upon the way.
"I knew you were here, papa," and Agatha reached out her thin little
fingers to touch the bowed head beside her. "I knew, because
mamma told me."
Strangely enough, all her timidity had vanished. Mamma had said
that papa and Aunt Irene needed her, and that was enough. Soon
her aunt came in, and she looked up, gratefully.
"You have been so good to me, Aunt Irene," she said, "so good that
I thought it was mamma who was tending me, but I know now it
was you, and I think you must love me, because you have kept me
alive."
And so my story of Agatha's lonely days ends; for after this she
never was lonely any more. Her father and aunt had learned that
little hearts need something more than to be clothed and fed; and
Agatha had learned, by their care for her, their love for her, and
never doubted again that she had her own place in their hearts.
But had she seen her own mamma? you ask. Ah, who knows the
mysteries of the border land between life and death? Some of you
will believe that she but dreamed a dream; and others, perchance,
will think the Father, who has so often sent His angels to comfort His
earthly children, sent to her the home-faced angel whom her heart
loved. I cannot tell. I only know that Agatha believed always that a
beloved voice not of this world had spoken to her.
 THIN ICE.

The little village of Westbrook seemed to have been standing still,

while all the rest of the world had gone on. The people lived very
much as their fathers and grandfathers had lived before them. They
were all farmers except the doctor and the minister.
The doctor was a very skilful man; but he had been reared on a
Westbrook farm, and when he went out into the world to get his
medical education he had brought back with him, to quiet
Westbrook, only the knowledge he sought, and none of the airs and
graces of town life.
The minister, too, was Westbrook born and bred, and his wife had
scarcely ever been outside the town in all her days, so that there
was no one in the simple community to set extravagant fashions, or
turn foolish heads by gayety or splendor.
 THIN ICE.—Page 100.
It was, therefore, as much of an event as if Queen Victoria herself
were to come and spend the winter in Boston, when it became
generally known that a rich widow lady and her son were to come,
the last of September, and very probably stay on through the winter
under Dr. Simms's roof. A famous city physician, with whom Dr.
Simms had studied once, had recommended him and Westbrook to
Mrs. Rosenburgh, when it became necessary for her to take her
puny boy into some still, country retreat.
They came during the last golden days of September, and all
Westbrook was alive with interest about them. The lady looked
delicate, but she was as pretty as she was pale, and her boy was
curiously like her,—as pale, as pretty, almost as feminine.
There was plenty of opportunity to see them, for the city doctor had
given orders that the young gentleman should keep out of doors all
the time; so, mornings, he and his mother were always to be seen in
their low, luxurious carriage, drawn by high-stepping bay horses,
and driven by a faithful, careful, middle-aged man, with iron-gray
hair and an impenetrable face.
Sometimes, in the afternoons, they would all be out again, but
oftener Mrs. Rosenburgh remained at home, and her son drove, for
himself, a pair of pretty black ponies, while the impenetrable, iron-
gray man sat behind, ready to seize the reins in case of accident.
At first the boy's face seemed often drawn by pain, or white with
weariness, and he would look round him listlessly, as he drove, with
eyes that saw nothing, or at least failed to find any object of
interest. But the clear autumn air proved invigorating, and when the
glorious, prismatic days of late October came he looked as if, indeed,
he had been re-created.
And now one could see that he began to take a natural, human
interest in what went on around him. He would drive up his little
pony carriage to the wall, and look over it to watch the apple-pickers
and the harvesters. No one spoke to him, and he spoke to no one.
The lads of his own age, who watched his ponies with boyish envy,
never dreamed that the owner of these fairy coursers could be as
shy as one of themselves, and, indeed, as much more shy as
delicate weakness naturally is than rosy strength. They thought his
silence was pride, and felt a half-defiant hatred of him accordingly.
Yet many and many a day he went home to his mother, and sitting
beside her with his head upon her knee, cried out, in very bitterness,
—
"Oh if I only could be like one of those healthy boys! How gladly I'd
give up Pease-blossom and Mustard-seed, to be able to run about as
they do! Shall I never, never be strong, mamma?"
And she would comfort him with the happy truth that every day he
was growing stronger, and that she expected him to be her great,
brave boy, by and by, who would take care of her all the days of her
life.
Meantime, other boys, in other homes, talked to other mothers. For
the very first time the evil spirit of envy had crept into quiet
Westbrook.
Why should Ralph Rosenburgh have every thing he wanted, and
they nothing? What clothes he wore,—and a watch, a real gold
watch they had seen him take out of his pocket,—and those ponies;
for wherever they began they always ended with those ponies. And,
as not all the mothers in Westbrook were wise, any more than
elsewhere in the world, while the wise ones would say that strong
boy-legs were worth more than horses' legs, the weak ones would
foster the evil spirit, and answer,—
"He ain't a bit better than you are, with all his watches and ponies.
Pride will have a fall some day, see if it don't, and he may be glad
enough to stand in your shoes yet, before he dies."
Jack Smalley was the son of one of these injudicious mothers, and
so his envy grew, unchecked; till he nourished a vigorous hatred for
Ralph Rosenburgh in his heart, without ever having exchanged a
single word with him.
It was a hatred, however, of which its object never could have
dreamed. He had been so accustomed to be petted and pitied, and
he was so very sorry for himself, that he could not be a wide-awake,
vigorous, ball-playing, leaping, running boy, it would never have
occurred to him that any one else could fail to see his condition in
the same light.
So he went steadily on the even tenor of his way, gaining something
day by day and week by week, and hoping—how earnestly no one
knew—for the happy time when Pease-blossom and Mustard-seed
might stand idle in their stalls, and he go about on his own feet with
the rest.
The cold weather came on early that year. Before the middle of
December Westbrook pond was frozen over, and then began the
winter's fun. Every afternoon Ralph Rosenburgh drove his ponies
down to the very edge of the pond, and sat there for awhile, a
patient looker-on at the frolics he could not share.
With Christmas, however, there came to him from the fond, maternal
Santa Claus, a chair constructed on purpose for pushing over the
ice, and then he became a daily partaker in the festivities upon the
pond. The chair was modelled after a certain kind of invalid, garden
chair, which is arranged to be either propelled by some one else
from behind, or by the occupant turning a kind of crank at the sides.
Ralph soon learned to manage it for himself, and finding himself
strong enough to do so, he used to make the iron-gray man stay
with the ponies, while he himself moved round among the skaters.
And, now that he seemed really one of themselves, the young
people, all except Jack Smalley, began to feel a kindly interest in
him. Jack alone went on hating him more and more, finding daily
fresh causes of offence in this boy who wore velvet and fur in place
of his own coarse gray cloth, and woollen, hand-knit comforter. What
was he, this puny wretch, without pluck enough to stand on his own
legs, that he should wear the garments of a young prince? You see
that Master Smalley had the primitive idea of young princes, and
supposed them clad in everlasting velvet and ermine. But there were
no princes in America, thank Heaven, and nobody in Westbrook
wanted fools round who tried to look like king's sons. Very innocent
of trying to look like any one was poor Ralph, if the truth had been
known,—this mother's darling of a boy, who took no more thought
of his attire than a weed, but whom Mrs. Rosenburgh wrapped
assiduously in all that was softest and warmest, as she had, all his
life, surrounded him with warmth and softness.
After a while there came a January afternoon, over which a gray,
moist sky brooded. Already the ice had shown some symptoms of
breaking up, and everybody was out, making the most of it while it
lasted.
Among the rest Ralph Rosenburgh came down to the pond,—left
Pease-blossom and Mustard seed in the iron-gray man's charge, as
usual, and began to propel himself over the ice, with arms whose
increasing vigor was a daily and happy astonishment to himself.
At last he wandered away a little from most of the skaters. He felt
himself and his chair rather in their way, they were wheeling and
zigzagging so swiftly, and he moved along the pond quite rapidly
toward the eastern end.
It chanced that no one noticed his course except Jack Smalley, and
Jack knew that he was going directly toward a place where the ice
had been recently cut, and where it was thin and treacherous now.
Slowly Jack followed him.
"I'd like to see him and that fine chair of his get a good ducking,"
Jack muttered. "It would serve him right. I guess all them prince's
feathers and fineries would look a little more like common folks',
after they'd been soused."
I do not think another and darker possibility crossed Jack's mind.
Hating Ralph Rosenburgh though he did, I do not think one wish for
his death had ever entered his heart. He himself had been in the
water, time and again, and got no other harm from it than perhaps a
hard cold. He did not realize what a different thing it would be for
this delicate invalid, seated in his heavy chair. And so Ralph
propelled himself along toward destruction, and Jack, with an evil
sneer on his face, skated slowly after him.
Suddenly a third figure shot from the group of skaters,—the fastest
skater of them all, and the one boy in the world whom Jack Smalley
loved,—his own cousin, Nelson Smalley.
He, too, had turned his eyes and seen in what fatal direction the
chair with the delicate, golden-haired invalid in it was tending. He
did not speak a word: he had but one thought,—to reach Ralph
Rosenburgh in time to save him. He skated on, with the swiftness of
light. And Jack Smalley saw him coming, nearing him, passing him,
on toward the thin ice. Now, indeed, he shrieked at the top of his
voice,—
"Nell, Nell, come back. The ice out there is thin. Come back—come
back. Don't you hear?"
"I hear," floated backward on the wind from the flying figure; "I
hear, but don't you see Rosenburgh? I must save him."
Then Jack himself skated after, making what speed he might. But he
seemed to himself slow as a snail; and already Rosenburgh was very
near the treacherous ice, and Nelson was almost up with him, flying
like the wind. He heard Nelson's voice:
"Stop, Rosenburgh, stop. The ice beyond you is just a crust. Stop,
you will be drowned."
And then he heard a plash, and looked. It was Nelson, who had
gone on, and gone under, unable to arrest, in time, his own
headlong speed. And then, while he himself was shrieking madly for
help, he saw Rosenburgh, prince's feathers and all, just throw
himself out of his chair, and down into the cold, seething water
where Nelson Smalley had gone under.
The ice grew thin suddenly, just where the saw had cut it squarely
away, so the chair stood still upon the solid ice, and by that
Rosenburgh held with one hand, while with the other he grasped the
long hair of Nelson Smalley, who was rising for the first time.
Excitement was giving him unnatural strength, but for how long
could he hold on?
Now, at last, the skaters had perceived the real state of the case,
and such a wail as one might hear afterwards through his dreams
for ever, went up to the bending sky. Hurry, all who can. Run, iron-
gray man, as you never ran before, or how shall you drive home to
that boy's waiting mother?
How was it done? How is it ever done? Who can ever tell in such a
crisis? I do not know how long they were in reaching the thin ice, for
at such times moments seem hours, and seconds are bits of eternity.
But Rosenburgh held on, and the iron-gray man threw himself flat
upon the cracking ice, with the boys holding fast to him, and drew
them both out, and then Rosenburgh turned limp and white on his
hands, and whether he was dead or not he could not tell.
There were enough others to care for Smalley, and already the older
ones had begun trying to restore him, and some of the younger
were running in various directions for wiser aid. So the iron-gray
man just lifted his own young master in his arms, and got him
straight into the pony wagon, and drove Pease-blossom and
Mustard-seed home as they had never been driven before.
At the gate he met Dr. Simms coming out, and told his story in a few
words. It was almost an hour before the blue eyes opened again,
and the mother felt sure that her boy was still hers to have and to
hold, to love and to cherish. Indeed, it was many days before she
felt altogether safe and sure about him. She was constantly
expecting some after consequences from his exposure,—some fever,
or cough, or terrible nervous prostration. But, strangely enough, he
seemed to be none the worse; and one day, after a careful
examination of him, Dr. Simms said to her,—
"I venture to tell you, now, what I have thought all along. This has
been the very best thing for him that could possibly have happened.
The severe shock was exactly what he needed, though certainly it
was what I should not have dared to take the responsibility of
subjecting him to. He is going to be the better and stronger for it."
"And the brave, splendid fellow who was risking his own life to save
him?"
"Is all right too. Duckings are good for boys, not a doubt of it. Trust
me, this cold bath will go far to make a man of yours."
And the doctor was right. The languid pulses which that awful peril
had quickened never throbbed so languidly again. It was Ralph
Rosenburgh's awakening to a new life. Somehow the shyness in him
passed away with the weakness, and he became a general favorite.
The boys no longer envied him his ponies, when one or other of
them was always asked to share his drives; and their cure was
completed when he grew strong enough to take part in all their
sports, when Pease-blossom and Mustard-seed were left to "eat their
heads off" in their stall, and Ralph Rosenburgh and his chosen and
dearest friend, Nelson Smalley, scaled rocks and climbed hills with
the best of them.
This strong friendship would have cost Jack Smalley some envious
pangs, perhaps, if the awful terror of that January afternoon had not
made him afraid of the evil in his own soul.
 MY LOST SISTER: A CONFESSION.

I have a confession to make. When I went home from my

grandmother's,—being set down at the home-door by the stage-
driver, in whose care I had been placed,—and found my little sister
in my mother's arms, a quick growing hate of her struck its black
roots in my heart. I know that this seems unnatural. In most houses
the baby is the very light and joy of them,—the little idol to whom,
from the least to the greatest, the whole family do willing homage.
But remember that I had grown to be ten years old, with no rival
near the throne, accustomed to be the first object with my father
and mother, petted, indulged, as much "the baby" as if I had worn
white long clothes. It was not strange that it should come hard to be
deposed from my throne of babyhood in one moment.
When I went into the house, Nurse Sikes met me with a smile which
struck me like a blow.
"Somebody's got her nose broke, I guess," she said, with a
tantalizing laugh.
Before this, no one had spoken to me about the new-comer, and
there, I think, was where the wrong began; but the woman's
meaning flashed into my mind in a moment, and I tossed my head
scornfully, without speaking. Nurse Sikes was probably not an ill-
natured woman,—she could not have been, since no face was so
welcome as hers in the sick rooms of all the neighborhood,—but she
was a very injudicious one. I suppose my idle, vain contempt and
indignation amused her, and so she went on provoking me.
"Ho, ho, Miss Fine Airs! doesn't want to see her baby sister, don't
she? Well, to tell the truth, I don't think you'll be much missed. Papa
and Mamma are pretty well wrapped up in Miss Baby. She's a
novelty, you know, and I guess she'll be taken care of, even if you
don't trouble yourself."
I would not for worlds have let her see the passion of grief and rage
which shook me. I went out of her sight, and fled, not to my own
room, which opened from my mother's, but to a remote spare
chamber, and there I bore my pain alone.
To cry would have infinitely relieved me, but my evil pride restrained
me from that. They should not see my eyes red, and know how I
felt; I would die first, I said, bitterly, to myself, I, who had cried out
every sorrow of my life, hitherto, on my mother's tender bosom.
After a while I heard them calling me,—
"Annie! Annie! Annie! Why, the child came in half an hour ago.
Where is she?"
Then I knew I must go down. So I looked at myself in the glass, and
saw a face which, indeed, no tears stained, but which was disfigured
by pride and passion; and thinking to myself,—'No one will notice
how I look, now,' I went to my mother's room.
"Come here, my darling," her gentle voice said, "come and look at
baby."
Baby! Could she not say a fond word to me, after I had been away
from home two weeks, without bringing in baby! I moved reluctantly
toward her.
"Baby is twelve days old," she went on, wistfully, seeing my sullen
mien. "I wouldn't let any one tell you, for I thought it would be such
a surprise."
"A surprise, indeed!" I echoed her word with a scorn in my voice,
which must have pained that gentle heart sorely.
"Isn't she sweet?" and, still trying to win my love for her new
treasure, mamma uncovered the little, dimpled, rosy face, and held
it toward me.
"I suppose so; I don't think I care for babies," I said, ungraciously.
"But you do care for mamma, and you haven't so much as kissed me
yet, my darling."
Perhaps if, even then, she could have put her arms around me, and
held me fast against her loving heart, as she used to when I was
grieved or naughty, it might have driven away the evil spirit, and
made me her own child again; but she could not, for there, in her
lap, was baby. So I took her kiss passively, returned it coldly, and
then went away.
It seems so incredible to my grown-up self, looking back upon it,
that I could have gone on hating my baby sister more and more,
that I can scarcely expect you to believe it; and I think I would
hardly write out this, my confession, did I not hope it might lead
some other, tempted as I was, to examine her heart in time, and
root out from it the evil weed of jealousy, which bears always such
bitter fruit.
From the first, little Lilias, or Lily, as they all called her, was a
singularly lovely child. As a baby, she cried very little, and never in
anger. Nothing but real pain ever made the red lips quiver, or filled
the violet eyes with tears. She never could see any face more grave
than usual without trying, in her baby fashion, to brighten it. I can
remember, oh, how distinctly, times when my father would come
home, worn and tired, and she would, quite untold, go through her
little rôle of accomplishments till she won a smile from him, clapping
her fairy hands, nodding her gleaming, golden head, showing her
two small teeth,—all the little winning wiles she had.
She was a very frail, delicate child, always, and she did not walk
nearly as early as other children. But she talked very soon indeed.
She was scarcely ten months old, when she learned to call us all by
our names; and, strangely enough, mine was the first name she
spoke. "Nan! Nan! Nan!" she would call me, half the day, like a little
silver-voiced parrot.
She was very fond of me, in a certain way. I never tended her unless
I was obliged, and my mother, noticing with deep grief my spirit
toward my little sister, waited for the evil feeling to wear itself out,
and seldom called on me to amuse the child, or to give up for her
sake any whim or fancy of my own. Lily was not used, therefore, to
have me hold or play with her.
Perhaps she thought I could not, but it seemed to afford her infinite
satisfaction just to have me in her sight. It may be she felt, in some
vague way, that I was nearer babyhood than the rest, and so more
of her kind. At any rate, she always seemed perfectly happy and
content when she could watch me, at any of my pursuits; and when
I left the room, the little silvery voice would call after me,—
"Nan! Nan! Nan!"
She was a full year and a half old before she began to walk, and
then she was so small and delicate that she looked as you might
fancy a baby out of fairy land would look, flitting round on her tiniest
of feet, her yellow hair glinting goldenly in every chance sunbeam,
and her wistful eyes blue as a blue flower.
How could I help loving her? Ay, how could I?
I fancy I must have loved her a little, even then, only I had grown so
in the habit of regarding her as an interloper, a rival, an alien, who
was taking from me all which had formerly been mine, that I never
owned, even in the silence of my own heart, to any softening toward
her.
Father and mother were good to me beyond my deserts, and beyond
my poor words to describe. I have known, since, with what infinite
love and grief they sorrowed over me, while waiting for this evil
growth in my heart to be uprooted, as they felt sure it would be,
some time. They had the wisdom to know that reproof would be
vain, and simply to love me and be silent.
But if they loved me, and were to me most patient and kind, they
were devoted to little Lily, as was natural. She was so frail and so
fair, so needed their constant watchfulness, that it is not strange she
had it.
One day, when she was two years old and I was twelve, I sat in a
corner of the sitting-room, putting a dissected map together, while a
lady was calling upon my mother. She looked earnestly and long at
Lily; but that was not uncommon; the child's dainty beauty was a
pleasant thing to watch. At last, after she had risen to go, she said,
as if she couldn't help saying it,—
"Take good care of that little one, Mrs. Allen. She looks to me like
one of the children the angels love."
I saw the quick dew suffuse my mother's eyes, as she made some
answer which I failed to hear, and then went to the door with her
guest.
Am I to tell all the sad and bitter truth? I understood, as well as they
did, that they thought our Lily so frail we should have hard work to
make her flourish in the cold soil of the earth; and for one moment a
feeling of evil triumph swelled my heart. When she was gone, I
should be all to my father and mother, as I used to be before she
came. They would love me, when they had no one else to love.
I felt a guilty flush mounting to my cheeks, and I swept my map into
its box hastily, and got up to leave the room. As I went out of the
door Lily's voice followed me, sweetly shrill,—"Nan! Nan! Nan!" and,
for the very first time in my life, a conviction smote me that there
would be a sense of loss when that voice could never follow me
again, with its soft calling, through all the years.
The next summer was a strange, warm, oppressive summer,—the
summer of '56. With its July heats our Lily began to droop. Such
care as she had, such nursing, such love! But she had been always
like a blossom from heaven, sprung up by mistake in the rough soil
of this world, and she needed for her healing the wind which blows
for ever through the leaves of the tree of life.
She soon grew so weak that she could not run about any more, but
would lie all day, except when, for a change, my mother held her in
her arms, in a little rose-curtained crib, out from which the blue,
wistful eyes followed all our movements, with a sweet, loving,
lingering look, which I cannot describe. On me, in especial, that long
gaze used to rest; and never could I leave the room without that
sweet, small voice calling after me plaintively.
There came a day, at last, when the doctor sat half an hour by Lily's
side, watching her with grave, silent face, and then went into
another room alone with my mother. He came out first, and went
away, and when she followed him, her eyes were very red. I knew
afterwards, what I suspected the moment I saw her face, that he
had been telling her that she must make up her mind to part with
her little darling.
My heart was not quite stone, after all, for it grew strangely soft and
strangely afraid then. She was going home to God, this little Lily of
heaven; and would she tell Him that I had hated, all through, the
baby sister He had given me? I went away by myself and prayed. I
had said my prayers night and morning, all my life, but this was
quite another thing, this cry of the child's heart becoming conscious
of its guilt and woe, to the pitying Father.
At last, I went to my mother. Lily was asleep, and mamma sat by her
side, pale as death, but with face that made no complaint. I knelt
down beside her.
"O mother!" I cried, "I have been so wicked,—and now I cannot
undo it! Oh, if I could! Oh, if I could only die,—I who am not fit to
live,—and let you keep Lily!"
She bent over me, and drew me into her arms, against her bosom.
"If you are not fit to live, my darling, you are not fit to die," she said
gently. "I can better part with Lily, for she is pure yet as when God
gave her to me. I have seen your sin and your suffering, and I have
known your repentance would come."
"Oh, it has, it has! Mother, how can I bear it? Will she go home to
God, and tell Him I have hated her?"
"Do you think she could tell Him any thing which He does not know?
But Lily has never found out what hate means. She has always loved
you, and she does not know but that all the world loves her. The
pain which your sin has caused has not rested on Lily,—thank God
for that."
"But I might have made her happier,—I might have been good to
her,—and now, perhaps I shall never have any little sister any more
in all the world."
Just then the child awoke, and put out her frail little hands, with a
low, sweet call I was destined to listen for in vain through all the
empty, after years. I ran to her, and took her in my arms. She saw
the tears upon my face, and touched them with her mites of fingers.
"Naughty Nan," she said, in fond reproach, "naughty Nan, to cry,—
make Lily cry too."
And then I wiped away my tears, and tried to be cheerful; but, oh,
how heavy my heart was! and, mourn as I would, I could not bring
back the dead months and days wherein I might have loved my little
sister, and had hated her instead.
What else?
Nothing, but that, with the fading summer flowers, she, too, faded
and died. In her case was wrought no miracle of healing. "We all do
fade as the leaf;" but she had never been a strong, green leaf,
tossed by summer winds, freshened by summer rains, gay in
summer sunshine. Just a pale, sweet day-lily, that lived her little life,
and died with the sunset. And the first words she ever spoke, were
the last words, also. She opened her tender eyes after a long
silence, during which she had scarcely seemed to breathe, and they
rested on me.
"Nan! Nan! Nan!" she cried, as if it were a call to follow her into the
strange, new life, the strange, new world, whither, a moment after,
she was gone.
If there has been any good in my life since then, if I have striven at
all to be tender and gentle and unselfish, let me offer such struggles
as a tribute to her memory, as one lays flowers upon an altar or a
grave. Whither she has gone, I pray God to guide my feet also, in
His own good time and way; and I shall know that I have reached
the place whither my longings tend, when I hear, soft falling through
the eternal air, her low, sweet call,—
"Nan! Nan! Nan! Welcome, Nan!"
 WHAT CAME TO OLIVE HAYGARTH.

A CHRISTMAS STORY.

It was the afternoon of the 24th of December, a dull, gray afternoon,

with a sky frowning over it which was all one cloud, but from which
neither rain nor snow fell. A certain insinuating breath of cold was in
the air, more penetrating than the crisp, keen wind of the sharpest
January day.
Olive Haygarth shivered as she walked along the bleakest side of
Harrison Avenue, down town. She was making her way to Dock
Square, to carry home to a clothing store some vests which she and
her mother had just completed.
After a while she turned and walked across into Washington Street,
for an impulse came over her to see all the bright Christmas things
in the shop windows, and the gay, glad people, getting ready to
keep holiday.
She had meant, when she set out on her walk, to avoid them, for
she knew that her mood was bitter enough already. She had left no
brightness behind her at home. There were but two of them, herself
and her mother, and they were poor people, with only their needles
between them and want.
They had never known actual suffering, however, for Mrs. Haygarth
had worked in a tailor's shop in her youth, and had taught Olive so
much of the intricacies of the business as sufficed to make her a
good workwoman.
Accordingly they did their sewing so well as to command constant
employment and fair prices. But after all it was ceaseless drudging,
just to keep body and soul together. What was the use of it all? Not
enjoyment enough in any one day to pay for living,—why not as well
lie down and die at once?
She walked on sullenly, thinking of these things. An elegant carriage
stopped just in front of her, and a girl no older than herself got out,
trailing her rich silk across the sidewalk, and went into a fashionable
jeweller's.
Olive stopped, and looking in at the window, ostensibly at the vases
and bronzes, watched the girl with her dainty, high-bred air. She
noted every separate item of her loveliness,—the delicate coloring,
the hair so tastefully arranged, the pure, regular features. Then she
looked at the lustrous silk, the soft furs, the bonnet, which was a
pink and white miracle of blonde and rosebuds. How much of the
beauty was the girl's very self, and how much did she owe to this
splendid setting? Olive had seen cheeks and lips as bright and hair
as shining when she tied on her own unbecoming dark straw bonnet
before her own dingy looking-glass.
She went on with renewed bitterness, asking herself, over and over
again, Why? Why? Why? Did not the Bible say that God was no
respecter of persons? But why did He make some, like that girl in
there, to feed on the roses and lie in the lilies of life,—to wear silks,
and furs, and jewels, and laces, and then make her to work
buttonholes in Butler & Co.'s vests? Was there any God at all? or, if
there was, did He not make some people and forget them
altogether, while He was heaping good things on others whom He
liked better? She could not understand it. And then to be told to love
God after all; and that He pitied her as a father pitied his children!
Why! that girl in the silk dress could love God, easily,—that
command must have been meant for her.
Going on she caught a glimpse of an illumination in the window of a
print shop.
"Peace on Earth and Good-Will toward Men" was the legend set forth
by the brilliantly colored letters.
What a mockery those words seemed to be! There had never been
peace or good-will in their house, even in the old days when they
were tolerably prosperous, before her father went away.
She walked very slowly now, for she was thinking of that old time.
She had loved her father more than she had ever loved any one
else. To her he had always been kind; he had never found fault with
her, and had smoothed all the rough places out of her life. Her
mother had been neat and smart and capable, as the New England
phrase is. Higher praise than this Mrs. Haygarth did not covet. But
like many capable women, she had acquired a habit of small
faultfinding, a perpetual dropping, which would have worn even a
stone, and George Haygarth was no stone.
The woman loved her husband, doubtless, in some fashion of her
own, but to save her life she could not have kept from "nagging"
him. She fretted if he brought mud upon his shoes over her clean
floor, if he spent money on any pleasure for himself, any extra
indulgence for Olive; above all, if he ever took a fancy to keep
holiday.
Just five years ago things had come to a climax. Olive was thirteen
years old then, and he had brought her home for Christmas some
ornaments,—a pin and earrings, not very expensive, but in Mrs.
Haygarth's eyes useless and unnecessary. She assailed him bitterly,
and for a marvel he heard her out in dumb silence. When she was all
through, he only said,—
"I think I can spare the eight dollars they cost me, since I am not
likely to give the girl any thing again for some time. It will be too far
to send Christmas gifts from Colorado."
Mrs. Haygarth's temper was up, and she answered him with an evil
sneer,—
"Colorado, indeed! Colorado is peopled with wide-awake men. It's no
place for you out there."
He made no reply, only got up and went out; and, going by Olive, he
stooped and kissed her. How well she remembered that kiss!
Through the week afterward he went to his work as usual, but he
spent scarcely any time at home, and when there made little talk. All
his wife's accustomed flings and innuendoes fell on his ears
apparently unheeded. The night before New Year's he was busy a
long time in his own room. When he came out he handed Mrs.
Haygarth a folded paper.
"There," he said, "is the receipt for the next year's house rent, and
before that time is out I shall send you the money, if I am
prospered, to pay for another year. I have taken from the savings-
bank enough to carry me to Colorado and keep me a little while
after I get there; and the bank book, with the rest of the five
hundred dollars, I have transferred to you. If I have any luck you
shall never want,—you and Olive. You'll be better off without me. I
think I've always been an aggravation to you, Martha,—only an
aggravation."
He went back again into his room, and came out with a valise
packed full.
"I think I'll go away now," he said. "The train starts in an hour, and
there is no need of my troubling you any longer."
Then he had taken Olive into his arms, and she had felt some
sudden kisses on her cheek, some hot tears on her face; but he had
said nothing to her, only the one sentence, gasped out like a groan,
— "Father's little one! father's little one!"
Olive shivered and then grew hot again, as she remembered it; and
remembered how wistfully he had looked afterwards at his wife,
reading no encouragement in her sharp, contemptuous face.
"I guess you'll see Colorado about as much as I shall," said Martha
Haygarth, sneeringly. "Your courage may last fifty miles."
He did not answer. He just shut the door behind him and went out
into the night,—and she had never seen him since, never heard his
voice since that last cry,—"Father's little one!"
She felt the thick-coming tears blinding her eyes, but she brushed
them resolutely away, and looked up at the Old South clock just
before her.
Almost five. The sun had set nearly half an hour ago, and the night
was falling fast. How long a time she had spent in walking the short
distance since she came into Washington Street! How late home she
should be! She quickened her steps almost to a run, went to the
clothing store, where she had to wait a little while for her work to be
looked over and paid for, and heard the clocks strike six just as she
reached the corner of Essex Street, on her homeward way. The
dense, hurrying crowd jostled and pressed her, and she turned the
corner. She would find more room on the Avenue, she thought.
She had not noticed that two young men were following her closely.
They would have been gentlemen if they had obeyed the laws of
God and man. As it was, there was about them the look which
nothing expresses so well as the word "fast." Their very features had
become coarse and lowered in tone by the lives they led; and yet
they were the descendants of men whose names were honored in
the State, and made glorious by traditions of true Christian
knighthood.
On the other side of the way, alike unnoticed by Olive and her
pursuers, a man walked on steadily, never losing sight of them for a
moment. At last, as she came into a quiet portion of the street, the
two young men drew near her. They were simply what I have said,
"fast." They perhaps meant no real harm, and thought it would be
good fun to frighten her.
"'Where are you going, my pretty maid?'" said one, the bolder and
handsomer of the two.
"'My face is my fortune, sir, she said,'" responded the other, in a
voice which the wine he had taken for dinner made a little thick and
unsteady.
"You ought not to be out alone," the first began again. "You are
quite too young and too pretty."
"That she is," a loud, stern voice answered, "when there are such
vile hounds as you ready to insult an unprotected girl."
Surely it was a voice Olive knew, only stronger and more resolute
than she had ever heard it before.
She turned suddenly, and the gas light struck full on her flushed,
frightened, pretty face, which the drooping hair shaded. The man,
who had crossed the street to come to her rescue, looked at her a
moment, and then, as if involuntarily, came to his lips the old, fond
words, the last she had ever heard him speak,—
"Father's little one!"
He opened his arms, and she, poor tired girl crept into their shelter.
The two young men stood by waiting, enough of the nobility of the
old blood in them to keep them from running away, though their
nerves tingled with shame. George Haygarth spoke to them with
quiet, manly dignity.
"When I saw you following this girl I had no idea she was my girl,
whom I had not seen for five years. It was enough for me that she
was a woman. To my thinking it's a poor manhood that insults
women instead of protecting them. I meant to look out for her, and,
be she who she might, you should not have harmed her."
"We never meant her any real harm," the elder of the two said
humbly; "but we have learned our lesson, and I think we shall
neither of us forget it. Young lady, we beg your pardon."
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