Chapter XIV: Breaking the Ice (1)

Shortly after Mr. Rowan’s baptism, a miniature avalanche of letters reached the Yorke family. Mrs. Rowan-Williams wrote to Edith, in a very scrawly hand, in lines that sloped down, in a depressing manner, toward the southeastern corner of the page: “Do come and make me a visit, now that Dick is at home. You have no idea how handsome, and good, and smart he is. Mr. Williams thinks the world of him; and as to Ellen--well, it wouldn’t become me to say what I think. But it’s of no use for her to try. Now, do come. This is the twentieth time I have asked you. We will go everywhere, see all that is worth seeing, and you shall be waited on like a lady, as you are.

“So the old clay bank has slipped down again, and the bushes have tumbled into the mud, and the men have piled their lumber over the ashes of my poor home. O Edith! my heart is buried under those boards. Thank you, dear, for going to see it for me.”

Dick wrote: “Which is Mohammed, and which is the mountain? I must see you, and if you cannot come here, I shall go to Seaton, though that would not be easy for me to do now. Besides, I want you to see your namesake. I have not long to stay, for the ship is about ready to start, and we take our cargo in at New York. It would be almost like a soldier deserting his army on the eve of battle for me to go away now. Do come if you can. It seems to me that you must wish to.”

This young man, we may remark, has got quite beyond the model letter-writer and the practice of penmanship. He writes quite in his own way, and is a very creditable writer, too. He has also a fair education, and can converse more intelligently on most subjects of general interest than many a young man for whom education has done its best. When Dick Rowan spoke, he said something, and one never heard from his lips inanities, meanness, nor malice. Neither did he say much of such things, even in condemnation. He looked on them with a sort of wonder, a flitting expression of disgust, then forgot all about them. His time had been too much occupied, his mind too busy for trifling. He had studied constantly and methodically, and the little library in his cabin on board ship was a treasury of science, art, and _belles-lettres_. So far as it went, it was the library of a man of cultivated mind. His life, too, had educated him, and been a perpetual commentary on, or illustration or refutation of, his books. The phenomena of the sea he had studied not merely as a sailor, but as a student of natural history. Whatever culture can be derived from the intelligent visiting of foreign countries, without going into society there, that he had. He had not spent his time about wharves, and ships, and sailors’ boarding-houses. Aside from his own tastes, he never forgot that he was aspiring toward a girl who, if she should visit these lands, would walk in palaces. Therefore, whatever was 17 famous in nature or art in those places, he sought and examined. Many a traveller who fancied himself perfectly cultivated brought away less pleasant and valuable information than this sailor from the cities they had both visited. Moreover, Dick had studied hard to acquire something of the language of every port he stopped at, and was already able to speak French and Italian with ease, if not with elegance. The elegance he did his best to improve by reading the best authors in those languages, and by a few lessons in pronunciation, when he could find time. Therefore, Miss Edith Yorke’s friend and correspondent was by no means one whom she had reason to be ashamed of.

But the Rowans were not the only ones who insisted on Edith’s visiting Boston at this time. Miss Clinton dictated a letter to Mr. Yorke, and Carl, suppressing his laughter, wrote it: “I have sent three times for that girl, and this is my last invitation to her. Why is she not allowed to come? Has she nothing to wear? I enclose a check for a gown and a pair of shoes. When she reaches here, I will give her what she may need to make her decent. Or is it that Amy Yorke is jealous because her own daughters are not invited? If one of them must come as company for Edith, I will pay her passage up, but I don’t want her here. She can go to Hester’s or Alice Mills’s. Melicent has too ridiculous an idea of her own consequence, and Clara is too sharp and impudent. Bird has read me her book, and I think it a very disagreeable book. She had better learn to cook and mend her stockings, and let writing alone.”

“Have you finished?” the old lady asked, as Carl, with pen suspended, looked up from his writing.

“Yes!”

“Then sign my name.”

“Shall I write ‘yours respectfully’ or ‘yours affectionately’?” Carl asked, with perfect gravity.

“Neither!” she replied curtly. “Sign my name without any compliment.”

“May I add a few lines for myself?” the young man asked, when he had signed the name as directed. “There is a whole page left.”

“Yes.” The answer was given very softly, and a smile of singular sweetness flitted across the old lady’s face as she looked at the writer. Miss Clinton was very fond of Carl, in a tyrannical, tormenting, selfish way, and liked nothing so much as to have him ask favors of her.

He wrote rapidly a few minutes, and was about closing the letter, when she stopped him. “Read me what you have written,” she said.

Carl blushed slightly, and hesitated. “It was not written to read to you,” he answered.

“No matter, it will be all the more interesting,” she persisted. “Read it! You read mine.”

Carl hesitated yet a moment longer, then, casting his eyes up to the ceiling, read, as if he saw it written, in the painting there, a preposterous eulogy of Miss Clinton, with a minute account of her cat’s health.

“I won’t have it!” she cried out. “Read what you have written there, or give it to me, and Bird shall come and read it. If you were a decent writer, I should have eyes enough left to read it myself.”

Carl dropped his laughing manner. “Miss Bird will write a letter for you,” he said, and was about holding the one he had in the flame of a taper, when she stopped him. “Oh! send it as it is, since you are so stubborn; though I haven’t a doubt that you have written the most 18 dreadful things of me.”

The Yorkes were highly amused by this letter. “You see, Edith, she is a dragon,” her uncle said. “You will have to carry yourself very gingerly.”

“I am not sure that is the best way to keep the peace with her,” Mrs. Yorke remarked. “It would do with some, but she grows more overbearing with indulgence. If she were touched by sweetness and submission, it would be different. I have thought of late years that such persons are benefited by a firm resistance.”

Clara also wrote: “Let mamma come with Edith, and stay at my house, of course. It is really a shame that she has never visited me in the city yet. Come right away, and we will all go back to Seaton together. You should come for poor Carl’s sake, to cheer him up a little, if for nothing else, for he must lead a miserable life with that awful old woman. You would not have believed he could be so patient. Indeed, he would have left long ago, if it had not been for the hope of bringing you all back here again. If he were the only one in question, he would not stay a day.”

Miss Mills also wrote in the same strain, and the result of it all was that the invitations were accepted, with a difference. “I will stop at Miss Clinton’s, since you think it better,” Edith said to her aunt. “But I must see a good deal of the Rowans.”

“Certainly, dear,” Mrs. Yorke replied. “But say as little as possible of the Rowans to Miss Clinton. It will only make her disagreeable. Hester will be happy to see the young man and his mother, and since he is a Catholic, I should think that Alice might be civil to him.”

Her invitation accepted, Miss Clinton began to look at the dark side. “Are you sure that the girl is not very green, Carl,” she asked. “I detest country manners.”

“Oh! she is very green--very!” was the reply.

Carl sat looking out into the garden, unconscious that his companion was observing him curiously.

“Are you in love with that girl?” she asked after a moment.

Bold and hardened as she was, she started and shrank at the glance he gave her. No words could have been more haughty and repelling.

“Well,” she said pettishly, “you need not look daggers at me, if the question is not to your liking. You are not obliged to answer it.”

He looked out the window again, and said nothing. “She shall learn to keep her claws off me,” he thought.

No one but himself knew what a price Carl Yorke was paying for his expected inheritance. The ceaseless irritation and annoyance, the enforced giving up of his studies, and those literary labors which now seemed to him his vocation, and the constant confinement, were almost more than he could bear. But one thought supported him, and that was that he should some day be able to restore his family to their lost home, and to pursue those plans of his own which their reverses had interrupted.

He was also, not quite unconsciously, gaining something better than gold. He was seeing all the deformity of selfishness, and the unloveliness of that wit whose chief power is to wound. In asking the bitter questions, What is this woman living for? what good does her life do the world? echo had repeated the same questions in his own soul--What are you living for? what good does the world derive from 19 your being in it? What in him and in others had been vices or faults, veiled with a certain decorum so as to look almost like virtues, in this woman’s character were stripped of the veil, and showed in all their native hatefulness. Here, too, were free-thinking and atheism _au naturel_, without the crown on their brows, the lustre he had fancied their faces radiated, and without their airy grace. He saw a scoffer, and it was as though he saw a devil. He had not the consolation of thinking her really worse than himself, for he could not shut his eyes to the fact that the difference between them had been in manner, not in essence. He had shown more good taste and delicacy, that was all.

“After all,” he thought, as he sat there that day, looking out the window, “however it may be with men, women need religion. I would not trust a woman without it. I will not retract my saying that religion is a strait-jacket, and intended only for those who cannot stand straight without it, but I begin to think that we are all of us partial lunatics.”

“I have heard say that parlor means a place to parle in,” remarked Miss Clinton presently.

“The orioles are building in this tree,” Carl said, quite as though nothing unpleasant had happened.

She tossed her head. What did she care about orioles?

“How blood will show, both good blood and bad,” she said with the air of one who has just discovered a great truth. “Wealth, associates, travel, occupations, education, neither will efface the signature. The original stamp remains in spite of circumstances.”

At the beginning, Carl scented battle, but he assumed an air of great cheerfulness. “You are quite right,” he said. “That great _parvenu_, Adam, and that still more frightfully new person, his wife, have left an indelible stain upon their progeny. We can see it to this day, faintly in some, more strongly marked in others. And, on the other hand, that prince of the _ancien régime_, Lucifer--”

“Nonsense!” interrupted Miss Clinton. “I was going to say, if you can stop your most disagreeable and disrespectful mocking--I was going to say that you have some of the Bohemian lounging ways of your father, though you never saw him, and though you have been under the training of Charles Yorke since your babyhood.”

“Do you think I have my father’s ways?” Carl asked, with an air of delight. “How glad I am! No one else ever told me so, and I was afraid I might be all Arnold. My mother is, of course, an angelic lady; but some of her family have had traits which--really--well, I should a little rather not inherit. And so you think me like my father? Thank you!”

“The Arnolds and the Clintons, sir, are families from whom you may be proud to inherit anything!” the old lady cried, beating the table with her fan. “They were among the _élite_ of Boston and New York when this country was a British province. We had colonial governors and judges, sir, when your father’s people were painting signs and door-steps. It is rather late in the day, young man, for you to have to be told what my descent is!”

She stopped, choking with anger.

The young man seemed to be much interested in this recital. “Indeed!” he said, “this is very delightful to know, and it makes such a difference! Though I had always understood that your descent had been very--precipitous!”

Miss Clinton glared at him, unable to utter a word, and seemed only 20 just able to restrain herself from throwing her snuff-box at him.

He rose wearily, and went out of the room, having half a mind to run away altogether.

But ah! who met him at the door, bringing sunshine and peace in her fair face, holding out two dear little hands, and scattering with a word all his annoyance?

“Dear Carl,” Edith said, “are you really glad to see me--really glad?”

“How could you imagine such a thing?” he replied.

“Then I will go back to Seaton again. Good-by!”

She took a step toward the street-door, only a step, both her hands being strongly held.

“You forget, then, silvern speech and golden silence,” the young man said.

“No,” she replied. “But solid silver is better than airy gold. If people say kind things to you, then you are sure, and have something to remember; but looks fade, and you can think that you mistake, or mistook. Oh! I like silence, Carl, but it must be a silence that follows after speech. That is the sole golden silence.”

“I am glad to see your face and hear your voice once more, Edith,” he said seriously. “I have many a time longed for both.”

“Dear Carl!” she exclaimed. “But what is that I hear? Is it a parrot?”

Carl laughed. “Hush! It is Miss Clinton. She is calling out to know who has come. We will go in and see her.”

Miss Clinton had one pleasant expression, and that was a smile, when she was so delighted by something out of herself as to forget herself. This smile brightened her face as she watched the young couple approach her, hand in hand. She leaned back in her chair, and contemplated Edith, without thinking of returning her greeting.

“I’m sure that is a golden silence,” Carl said, laughing. “But what do you think of her, aunt? She likes to have people speak first, and look afterward.”

“You are welcome, dear!” the old lady said softly, and extended her hand, but without leaning forward. To take it, therefore, Edith had to come very near, and was drawn gently down to the footstool by Miss Clinton’s chair.

The old lady took off the girl’s hat, and dropped it on to the carpet, then studied her face with delight. She loosened one of the braids of hair wound around her head, and held it out to a sunbeam to see the sparkle of it. She pushed it back from the face. “Did you ever see such ears?” she said to Carl. “They are rose-leaves! There must be a large pearl hung in each. She drew her finger along the smooth curve of the brows. “A great artist and physiognomist once told me that such brows show a fine nature. Broken brows, he said, indicate eccentricities of character, brows bent toward the nose a tyrannical disposition, heavy brows reserve and silence, but this long, smooth brow versatility and grace. Read Lavater if you want to know all about eyebrows.” She took the cheek, now glowing with blushes, in the hollow of her hand, and held the eyelids down to admire the lashes. “They make the eyes look three shades darker than they really are. But what color are the eyes? They are no color. Did you ever see a shaded forest spring, Carl? These eyes are as limpid.”

“Oh! please don’t!” the girl begged, trying to hide her face. 21

“My dear, I shall call you Eugénie, and shall adore you,” Miss Clinton continued. “I hope they have not told you horrible stories about me, or that, if they have, you will not believe them. People are fond of saying that I am sharp, but I quote Victor Hugo to them, ‘_La rose du Bengale, pour être sans épines, est aussi sans parfum._’ A character without any sharpness would be like an ocean without salt. Temper sweetens. When any person is recommended to me as of a very mild and placid position, never getting angry, I always say, Keep that person out of my sight! Yes, I shall call you Eugénie. I dislike the Edith on account of old Mrs. Yorke. She and I always quarrelled, dear. We were what some one has called ‘intimate enemies.’ But I don’t mean to quarrel with her grand-daughter. You have your father’s eyes and hair, Eugénie, but your mother’s features. I hope you have not her disposition. She was too positive, and, besides, she ran away with another woman’s beau.”

Edith drew back, and stood up, turning to Carl.

“There! she is angry the first thing,” the old lady cried. “No danger of anybody’s thinking her _sans épines_. Take her down to get some breakfast, Carl.”

“Dick Rowan is here,” Edith said, as the two went down-stairs; “and he is a Catholic; and he has a new ship which he has named for me.”

There was no reply. They were going through the shady entry, and, if the young man frowned at the news, the frown was not seen.

“Aunt Amy has gone to Hester’s,” Edith went on. “She got over the journey nicely, and wants to see you very soon. She will send Hester up to see me presently. I am too tired to go out to-day, would you believe it? You see, travel was so new to me that I could not sleep. I stayed on deck as long as I could, then I listened all night. It seemed so strange to be on the water, out of sight of land.”

Later, while the young traveller was resting in the chamber assigned her, a visitor entered gently, unannounced. “I thought I might come, dear,” Miss Mills said.

Edith raised herself, and eagerly held out her arms. The lady embraced her tenderly, then dropped, rather than sat down, in a chair by the bed. She looked with a strange mingling of feelings on this child of her lost lover. When she recognized the tint of his hair and eyes in Edith’s, she bent toward her with yearning love; but then appeared some trait of the mother--a turn of the head, a smile unconsciously proud, an exquisitely fine outline of feature; and, at sight of it, that wounded heart shrank back as from a deadly enemy. The interview was friendly, and even tender, and engagements were made for future meetings; but the lady was glad to get away. The sight of Robert Yorke’s child had wakened all the sleeping past, and for a time the years that had intervened since her parting with him faded like a mist. Since that day, more than one power, at first pride, later religion, had strengthened her, had raised up new hopes and new joys; but they were not the sweet human hopes and joys that every man and woman looks naturally for; they were those born of struggle and self-denial. She had lived truly and nobly, but she was human; and to-day her humanity rose, and swept over her like a flood.

Miss Mills locked herself into her room, and for once gave herself up 22 to regret. It was no ordinary affection which she mourned. It had entered her heart silently, and been welcomed like an angel visitant; it had been held sacred. She had watched it with awe and delight as it grew, that strange, beautiful, terrible power! How complex it had become, entering into every feeling, every interest! How it had changed and given a new meaning to life, and a new idea and comprehension of herself!

Then, when it had got to seem that she alone was not a complete being, but only about to become perfect--then destruction came.

“Jove strikes the Titans down,
Not when they set about their mountain-piling,
But when another rock would crown their work.”

If the foundation merely of an edifice be overthrown, there is hope that it may be rebuilt; but destruction overtaking when the topmost height is almost attained is destruction indeed.

In the evening a knock was heard at the chamber door, which she had all day refused to open, a note was pushed under the door, and a servant waited outside for her to read it. She rose wearily, lighted the gas, and glanced over the lines. “I am sorry you have headache, sorry for you and for me. Edith is talking with Mr. Rowan, and I am, consequently, _de trop_. There is no one I care to see to-night but you. Send me word if you are better.”

“Tell him to wait,” she ordered, and, hastily dressing for a walk, went down. The front parlor was not lighted, but she saw him sitting by a window there. “Come out!” she said. “I wanted to go to the chapel, and you are just in time.”

Scarcely a word was spoken as they went through the streets together. They entered the chapel, and turned aside into a shady corner. Carl sat, and his companion, too exhausted to kneel, sat beside him. In a room near by, a choir was singing that most beautiful of hymns--

“Jesus, lover of my soul.”

“Alice,” Carl whispered, “that is enough to break one’s heart!”

Her tears broke forth afresh. “No, Carl, it is enough to heal a heart already broken.” She listened, and looking toward the altar, repeated over and over,

“Other refuge have I none.”

The solitude and quiet were soothing to both--the sense of a divine presence more than soothing to her who had faith in it.

They had not been there long when a gentleman came up the aisle with a firm, but light step, passed by without noticing them, and knelt down just before them. Carl sat and gazed at him in astonishment. That Dick Rowan should outwardly and publicly conform to the church, for Edith’s sake, was not surprising, but that he should come privately to the chapel to pray was inexplicable. Could it be that a brave, manly fellow like this could sincerely believe?

Utterly unconscious of observation, the sailor knelt there motionless, with his face hidden in his hands, and when Carl’s companion whispered to him, and they both went out, that figure had not stirred.

Edith Yorke’s friend began at once to show her what was notable in the city; but, as often happens, what they considered worth seeing disappointed the neophyte, and what they passed without notice she would fain have paused to look at. Inexperienced persons who have read much usually overestimate the magnitude of the wonders they have not seen. What young traveller, entering for the first time a city, ever found its houses as palatial, its streets as superb, its monuments as 23 grand, as fancy had pictured them?

“Everything looks so much smaller and more shabby,” Edith confessed privately to Dick Rowan. “Trees and waters are finer than any pictures of them that I have seen, and faces that speak and smile are more beautiful than any painted ones. Only some pictures of Italian scenes delight me. Now, Dick, please do not be shocked when I tell you that I quite long to stop and look at the organ-grinders and their monkeys, and to gaze in at the shop windows. But I can’t, you know, for that would make Carl and Hester and Miss Mills ashamed of me.”

The result of this confidence was that, dressed to attract as little attention as possible, these two friends set the others aside, and went on long tramps together. They paid not much attention to the finer sights, but dived into all sorts of byways. They looked in at shop windows, at birds and shells and jewels, and more than one shopkeeper was smilingly pleased to display his best wares at the young lady’s shy request, though informed beforehand that she did not mean to buy. They watched the organ-grinders and their monkeys to their hearts’ content; they amused themselves with the _gamins_, and held various conversations with them; they were bountiful to street-beggars. Ragged urchins were astonished by showers of candy that seemed to descend from heaven on their heads, poor little weeping outcasts were asked to tell their griefs, and listened to with tender sympathy, tears perhaps rising into one pair of eyes that looked at them. Sometimes a wretched pauper, walking with downcast face through the street, felt something touch his hand and leave a bit of money there, and looked up to see a lady and gentleman just passing, and one sweet face glance momentarily back with a smile at once arch and pitying. “Shall I ruin you, Dick?” Edith asks gleefully. “I have ruined myself; but that didn’t take long. My poor little money is all gone. Are you very rich?”

“Oh! immensely!” Dick replies. “I have chests of gold. Give away as much as you wish to.”

One blind man gone astray long remembered how a soft hand took one of his, and a firm hand the other, and his two guides led him home, inquiring into his misfortune by the way, and commiserating him more tenderly than brother or sister ever had.

“It is so sad to have all the beautiful world shut out,” said the sweet voice out of the dark. “But one might, I think, see heavenly things the more plainly.”

The poor man never lost himself afterward, but he looked blindly, and listened to hear once more those two voices, and to feel the clasp of those two hands, one soft as charity, the other strong as faith. And since they never came to him again, to his imprisoned soul it seemed as though heavenly visitants had led him, and spoken sacred words for him to remember. These two young creatures, out of the happy world of the rich and prosperous, were not afraid of soiling their hands or their clothes, and did not look on the poor as they did on the paving-stones.

“O Dick!” Edith said in one of those walks, “I do not wonder that the Lord could not stay in heaven when he saw the misery of earth, and knew that there was no comfort even in another world for it. What a trial it must have been for him to sit above there, and hear all the cries of pain that went up, and see all the weeping faces that were raised. Why, Dick, it seems to me that if I could see and know at 24 once all the suffering there is to-day in this one city, it would kill me. I wish we could do something besides play, as we do. Perhaps we ought to work all our lives for the wretched, you and I; who can tell?”

“Yes!” the young man replied slowly, and was silent a moment, thinking. “That idea comes into my mind sometimes,” he added. “I always fancy that the poor and the wicked look at me in an asking way, differently from what they do to others, as if they expected me to do something for them. It may be only because they see how I look at them. I never see one but I think, How should I feel if that were my father or my mother? But I don’t know what great work I could do. My life seems mapped out.”

Sometimes their expeditions were merrier. They went to the Back Bay lands, then not filled in, and stood so close to the railroad tracks that the passing trains blew in their faces. “I like strength and force,” Edith said; “and I like the wind in my face. It would be pleasant to ride in a car with an open front, and the engine on behind. Does it not seem like that in a ship at sea, Dick?”

“Better than that,” he answered, his eyes brightening. “For at sea you have a clear track, and can fly on without stopping or turning out for anything.”

“Now, let’s go and see that large building,” the girl said. “Isn’t it fine to go about in this way? You are Haroun-al-Raschid, and I am anybody, and we are exploring our capital. We are, perhaps, invisible. Stop a minute. There are fishes in this ditch. I am going to catch one with a crooked pin.”

They looked at the large building, Chickering’s piano-forte factory, and Dick described foreign buildings to his companion, and described so vividly and so simply that the structures seemed to rise before her. He was remarkably gifted in this respect. His clear eyes took in the general effect, and caught here and there a salient point to give it character and sharpness, and his descriptions were never blurred by superfluous words, or by imagination, which often destroys the outlines of tangible things by its perceptions of their intangible meaning.

One morning they went to Mass to receive communion together. The morning was lovely, the spring green all freshness, the birds singing, the sun stealing goldenly through a faint mist. Edith rose happy, and everything added to her happiness. It was delightful to have some one to go to Mass with. It only now occurred to her that she had been lonely in her religion.

“I hope that I shall make a good communion,” she said to herself, as she began to dress. “What should I do? Let me think! If I had a house of my own, rather a poor little place, and some one I loved and honored were coming to visit me, I should first make my house clean. Then I should adorn it all I could, and prepare a little feast. I have no servant, I will say, and must do everything myself. I am rather glad of that, for I can show my good-will so. I will not mind getting on my knees to scrub out the darkest corners. But I must let in light to see where to cleanse. Come, Holy Spirit! enlighten my soul, and let no darkness remain where a sin can hide itself. Then comes my confession; but what poor things confessions are! I wish I could say, I accuse myself of having broken all the ten commandments of God, and the six commandments of the church, and of having committed the seven deadly sins, and every sin that could be committed, and each a 25 thousand times over. Then I should be sure to get them all in. But Father Rasle says that, if our dispositions are good, the sins we forget, or do not understand, are included and forgiven with those we confess. As when a woman sweeps her room, she sweeps out, perhaps, some things she does not see. Well, say that my house is clean, what have I to adorn it with?” She paused with the brush half-drawn through her hair, and the first sunbeams, shining in her face, shone on gathering tears. She recollected herself, and went on with her dressing. “Such a bare reception! Nothing to offer! How about faith, hope, and charity? I believe everything, I could believe a thousand times more; but even the devils believe, Father Rasle says. I don’t know whether I hope in the right way. Hope is a hard virtue to manage. Do I love him? Yes! Even though I do wrong, still I love him. It is no sign that you do not love a person, even if you do things to vex him. What good work can I do to-day? I will read Miss Clinton to sleep, and let Bird go out. That will be something, because I would rather go out myself. And I will ask Miss Clinton if I may read a paper to her. That will be awfully hard, for she will stare at me, and then laugh in that way that makes me want to run out of the room. And I will--yes--no--will I? Yes, I will try to kiss her, if I possibly can. She would be pleased; but I shouldn’t be. Those will be like little daisies at the doorstep when he comes in. But my house is bare yet. If only I had some pain to offer!”

Her eyes chanced to fall on a coil of picture-cord, and the sight of it gave her a new and startling thought. She paused a moment, then, rising, pulled her curtains close, opened the door to assure herself that there was no one in the corridor outside, then shut the door and locked it. This done, she looped and knotted the cord into a discipline--ah! not in vain had she once asked Father Rasle what that was. Her hands trembled with eagerness while she fastened the five lashes together. Then, with one glowing upward glance, she knelt, and brought the discipline, with the full force of her arm, round across her shoulders. A faint cry followed the first blow, and the blood rushed crimson over her face and neck. “O Lord! I did not mean to cry out!” she whispered, and listened, and struck again, and yet again. “One for each of the five wounds, one for each of the times he prayed in the garden.” She paused, and dropped forward with her face on the floor, writhing in silent pain. “Now, one for each station of the way of the cross.” Tears ran down her cheeks, but her strong young arm and heart did not falter. “Now, a decade of the rosary.”

Sobbing, half-fainting, she rose after a while, and hid the precious pencil, with which she had painted a picture for the wall of her little reception-room.

“I must put on something extra, so that the blood shall not show through my dress,” she said; but, looking to wipe away the blood, behold! not a drop was there, but only long welts of red and white crossing her fair shoulders.

Edith hid her face, with a _feeling_ of utter humiliation and grief. She had been agonizing under the blows which had produced only a few marks, and yet fancying that she imitated him whose flesh had been torn by the lash, and whose blood had flowed in streams. “I can do nothing, nothing! I am silly and presumptuous,” were the thoughts with which she finished her preparation to go out. 26

But, trivial as her penance had been, it brought humility, and a deeper sense of the sufferings of our Lord.

A servant who was washing the steps as Edith went out, smiled gratefully to the pleasant greeting of the young lady, and looked after her as she went down the street. The servants, all Catholics, were very proud and fond of this young Catholic in their Protestant household.

“Since I cannot do anything,” Edith pursued, as she walked on toward the church, “I will ask the Blessed Virgin and St. Joseph to come first, and be in my house when the Lord shall enter. He will be pleased to find them there. Then, when the time comes, I will go and meet him at the door; but how dreadfully ashamed I shall be! I shall not dare to look up, but I shall say, ‘Welcome, Lord!’ and kneel down, and kiss his feet. Then, if there is anything more to be done, he will do it, for I can do nothing. How odd it is that I should feel so ashamed at having him come to me, and yet should want him to come! I wouldn’t put it off for anything.”

Dick was waiting inside the chapel-door for her. He pointed her to a confessional, then took his place near the altar. When it came time for communion, they knelt side by side, but retired again to different seats.

How long Edith knelt there she did not know. She had covered her face with her hands, shutting out the sight of all about her, and her soul had entered a new scene. There was a simple, small room, bare save for two vague, luminous presences, one at either side, lighting the place. There was an open door, with vines swinging about it, and a half-seen picture of verdure, and deep blue heavens outside. Up through that pure, intense color stretched two lines of motionless winged forms, as if they bowed at either side of a path down which one had come. Within the door, under the vines, stood the Lord, and she was prostrate on the floor, with her arms clasped around, and her lips pressed to, his feet. She did not look up, and he did not speak nor stir, but his smile shone down through all her being. Let it last so for ever!

The tinkling of a bell awoke her as from a sound sleep--a flicker, as of flames in the wind, moved those heavenly lines of receding faces, and Edith lifted her head, and recollected where she was, seeming to be suddenly transported back there from a distance. The priest was carrying the host away from the altar of the chapel up to the church. He held the sacred burden clasped closely to his breast, and bent his head slightly toward it. He looked at it as he walked, yet chose his steps with care. He wrapped around it the golden veil, of which the fringe glistened like fire as he moved. No mother could carry a sleeping infant more tenderly.

Edith stretched out her hands, with a momentary feeling of bereavement, for the Lord was going away. “Oh! take my heart with thee!” she prayed.

The lights disappeared, the sound of the bell grew fainter up the stairs, and ceased. She sighed, then smiled again, and became aware of Dick sitting at the furthest end of the bench, and waiting for her. They went out by separate aisles, and met at the door.

“I would like to have followed up into the church, and waited till he was at rest again, and seen where they lay him,” Edith said after a 27 while.

Dick smiled quietly, and said nothing. He was looking quite pale, but bright. She made no comment on his looks, thinking that the communion was the cause of his emotion.

They went to the public gardens before going home. It was very lovely there. The mists of the morning had slowly gathered themselves into detached clouds, and they scarcely moved, the air was so still. The trees and the many pink flowers about glistened with dew.

Edith began to love her quietude, and grow merry, but with an angelic merriment. “Do you think that the Lord came down to the garden only at evening?” she asked. “I think he came at early morning, unless he stayed all night--morning is so beautiful! How alive everything is! You can almost see eyes in the flowers. See the swans on the water. They float like clouds in the sky. Fancy a pink swan in a large blue lake, throwing up sprays as white as snow over his bosom! Do you think that the earth was any more beautiful when it was first made? Is it not lovely now?”

There was no answer in words, but the young man’s eyes, glancing about, were eloquent, and his smile was one of peaceful delight.

“Come,” the girl said, “let’s play that this is really the Garden of Eden, and that you and I are just taking our first walk in it, wondering over everything. Let us look at ourselves in the water, and see if we are as beautiful as all the rest.”

He smiled at the childish fancy, took the hand she offered him, and went with her over the water. The swans passed by, and sent ripples over their mirror, but it was clear enough to give back the image of a sweet oval face with bright eyes and lips, and of another face more richly tinted, peach-colored with sun and wind, with eyes that sparkled, and white teeth that laughed through a chestnut beard.

“Adam,” said the woman, “thou art more stately than the palm, and thine eyes have beams like the sun. Let us praise the Creator who hath formed thee in his own image!”

Dick’s hand and voice trembled, his face grew red in the water, then grew pale. “Eve,” he said, “thou art whiter and more graceful than the swan, and, while thou art speaking, the birds listen. I praise him who has given thee to me to be mine alone and for ever--my mate in this world and in the next.”

Speaking, his light clasp grew tight on her hand.

The face and throat that had shown swan-white in the water grew rose-red, then disappeared as Edith started back.

“How could I look forward to anything else, Edith?” the young man exclaimed desperately. “I have never dreamed of any other life. I have worked, and studied, and hoped for you. What! will you turn away from me now, for the first time? God have mercy on me!”

She did not utter a word at first. She was too much confounded. It was to her as though the friend she had so long known had been suddenly snatched from her side, and a stranger like, and yet unlike, him put in his place. This man with the pallid face and trembling voice was not Dick Rowan. She wanted to get away from him. But after a step or two she turned back again.

“Who would have thought it?” she said, looking at him anxiously, as though half hoping that the whole was a jest.

“Who would have thought anything else?” he replied, taking courage. 28

She turned away again, but he walked on beside her. It was too late to withdraw. Having spoken, he must say all.

“I think you were the only person who did not see what I lived for,” he said.

“But it is nonsense!” she exclaimed.

“We have always known each other. We are like brother and sister. Is it only strangers who marry?” he asked.

“Marry! Fie! I never thought of such a thing!” she said angrily.

“Won’t you please think of it now, Edith?” he asked, in a voice so gentle and controlled that it recalled her own self-possession. “This has been the great thought of my life. It made me ambitious, for your sake. I am a Catholic, thank God! and a sincere one, but it was love of you that led me to study and think on that subject. When my life hangs in the balance, I am sure you will at least stop to think, dear.”

She looked at him, but he did not return her glance. His eyes were fixed on the ground, and it really seemed as though his life did hang in the balance.

“I’d like to stop and talk about it a little while, Dick,” she said. “Sit here. Now, be reasonable, and I will not be cross again. Forgive me! I was so surprised, you know; for I have been studying all my life, and never thought about this. Now, it seems to me, Dick, that I shall never want to be married to any one whatever. I shall live with Aunt Amy, and, when she is dead, I will go into a convent, or, if I should have money, will do something for the poor, perhaps. If you want to have me with you, some time I can go on a voyage in your ship, and you can always come to see me when you come home. Won’t that do?”

He smiled faintly.

“Oh! thank you!” she said, greatly relieved.

“Has any one else ever spoken to you in this way, Edith?” he asked, looking at her searchingly.

“Oh! no,” she answered with decision. “I am not at all engaged, or anything like it. No one ever cared anything about me. And I hope you are satisfied now, Dick. It is very well for people to marry who are afraid of losing each other; but we can live close by when we grow old, or perhaps in the same house.”

“I have disturbed and troubled you, Edith,” the young man said after awhile, “but I could not help it. There must be a beginning to everything, and I had to make a beginning of this. I don’t expect you to treat it seriously now, but I want you to think of it. It seemed right that I should speak, or some one else might speak while I am gone, and take you away from me.”

“But I should never think of having any one else, if you want me,” she replied with perfect conviction. “I may not ever marry at all, but, if I do, you will have the first chance.”

Dick Rowan’s whole face caught fire. “Why, darling!” he exclaimed joyfully, “do you mean that?”

She was astonished and pleased at the effect of her words, “Truly,” she answered. “You know very little of me if you do not know that I have always considered myself to belong more to you than to any one else.”

They had now reached Miss Clinton’s door, and there they parted without more words.

But Edith’s indecision was of shorter duration than either she or her friend had anticipated. The subject was so foreign to her thoughts 29 that at first she had comprehended nothing, and had received Dick Rowan’s avowal in a most childish manner. But a few hours’ consideration had set the whole in a different light. She went down to Hester’s as soon as dinner was over, and asked for her aunt. Mrs. Yorke was in her own room, writing a letter, and she only glanced up with a smile as her niece entered.

“All well at Miss Clinton’s?” she asked, folding the letter.

“Yes, very well.”

“Anything new?”

“Miss Clinton told me last night that her will is made, leaving everything to Carl, and that, if I marry to suit her, I am to have her jewels, shawls, and laces. I do not want them, though I would rather have fresh new things for myself, if they are not so rich.”

“Whom does she wish you to marry?” Mrs. Yorke asked, directing her letter.

“She did not say,” Edith replied in a constrained voice, looking down.

Mrs. Yorke glanced at her niece, then put her arm out and drew her close. “You have something to tell me, dear,” she said.

Edith began to tremble. “Yes, Aunt Amy. Dick Rowan has been talking to me this morning, and, if you and Uncle Charles are willing, and if I should ever marry any one, I am going to marry him.”

Mrs. Yorke’s brows contracted slightly, rather with anxiety than displeasure. “Dear child, are you sure of yourself?” she asked. “One may have a very great affection for a person, and not be willing to marry him. Don’t be hasty. Take time to think of it till he shall come back again. If you promise, you may regret it. I must say, dear, I think it selfish of him to speak so when you have seen nothing but birds and books, and do not know your own mind.”

Edith raised her head from her aunt’s shoulder. “Oh! Dick isn’t selfish, and he only asked me to think of it, and to know that he wanted me.”

It was useless to oppose. After a little more talk, Mrs. Yorke promised to consent if both were of the same mind after a year. “And now, Edith, I have concluded to start for home to-morrow, and I want to see Carl right away.”

She did not say that she had only come to this conclusion since Edith had entered her room.

“And I also wish to see Mr. Rowan,” she added. “Did he not mean to consult me?”

“Oh! yes,” Edith said eagerly. “He is coming up this evening; and, Aunt Amy”--very hesitatingly--“don’t let me be married for a great while, till I am twenty-five, at least. Of course,” looking up quickly, as if some doubt had been expressed--“of course, I think the world of him, and don’t wish to marry any one else; but I cannot, _cannot_ hurry.”

Mrs. Yorke had a long conversation with her niece’s lover, that evening, and laid down the law rather severely to him. No one but Edith, herself, and Mr. Yorke were to know of his proposal. “I do not wish her to be talked about, and assigned to any one, when nothing is decided,” she said. “It is for that purpose that I am taking her away so soon, to prevent talk. If, when you come home next year, she wishes it, and nothing has happened to raise any new objection, I shall not oppose you.”

He sat a moment silent. He asked nothing better than he had got; but his proud spirit rebelled at the manner in which the promise was given. He was tolerated because they could not help themselves. 30

“Do you agree to that?” she asked, after waiting a moment.

“Certainly!” he replied. “I forgot to say so, and to thank you, because, excuse me! I was thinking how much poorer an offering is a man’s whole heart and faithful allegiance than a full purse.”

“If you had millions, it would make no difference, Mr. Rowan,” Mrs. Yorke said hastily, her color rising. “If I am not cordial in welcoming you into this relation, my reasons are not mercenary, nor--” her manner softened--“nor because I do not respect and like you.”

She held her hand out to him. He bent gallantly over it, murmured a word of thanks, and took leave without saying any more.

He was willing, almost glad, that Edith should go home. He welcomed any stir and progress in events which would seem to pass the time more quickly along. Let him get over his year of probation, and, during it, be separated from her, if they chose. Her doubt and trouble in their new relations troubled him. When he should come again, all would be settled. He was full of hope and triumph, and far removed from jealousy. She had said that she should not think of marrying any one but him; and what Edith said was as sure as sunrise.

TO BE CONTINUED.

----------

(IN MEMORIAM.)

A CONVERT.

1856.

(These lines express the feelings of one, now at rest, who was loved and honored by all who knew him--including, probably, those who cast him off.)

I.

Ah me! my alienated friends,
Whose friendship, like a branch half-broke,
With all its mildewed blossoms bends,
And piecemeal rots;--how kind the stroke
That bond--your bondage--sent to sever!
Yet, can I wish it? Never, never!

II.

I hear them tread your festal floors:
When now the lights no longer burn,
Alone I haunt your darkened doors:
The guests are gone; yet I return:
In dreamless sleep outstretched you lie:
I dream of all the days gone by.

III. 31

Against myself your part I take:
“I was of those whose spring is fair;
Whom men but love in hope, and wake
To find (youth flown) the worse for wear:
’Gainst the defaulter judgment goes:
I lived on trust, and they foreclose.”

IV.

And many times I say: “They feel
In me the faults they spare to name;
Nor flies unjust the barbèd steel,
Though loosened with a random aim.”
Officious zeal! for them I plead
Who neither seek such aid, nor need.

V.

Give up thy summer wealth at last,
Sad tree; and praise the frost that bares
Thy boughs, ere comes that wintry blast
Which fells the grove that autumn spares.
There where thou lov’st thou liv’st! Bequeath,
Except thy bones, no spoils to death!

VI.