Then I have a vision of the old North Church, with its chimes playing, and the pews around the broad aisle filled with expectant guests. The wedding had excited a great deal of attention in the upper circles of Boston. Ellery Davenport was widely known, having been a sort of fashionable meteor, appearing at intervals in the select circles of the city, with all the prestige of foreign travel and diplomatic reputation. Then the little romance of the children had got about, and had proved as sweet a morsel under the tongues of good Bostonians as such spices in the dulness of real life usually do. There was talk everywhere of the little story, and, as usual, nothing was lost in the telling; the beauty and cleverness of the children had been reported from mouth to mouth, until everybody was on tiptoe to see them.
The Oldtown people, who were used to rising at daybreak, found no difficulty in getting to Boston in season. Uncle Fliakim’s almost exhausted wagon had been diligently revamped, and his harness assiduously mended, for days beforehand, during which process the good man might have been seen flying like a meteor in an unceasing round, between the store, the blacksmith’s shop, my grandfather’s, and his own dwelling; and in consequence of these arduous labors, not only his wife, but Aunt Keziah and Hepsy Lawson were secured a free passage to the entertainment.
Lady Lothrop considerately offered a seat to my grandmother and Aunt Lois in her coach; but my grandmother declined the honor in favor of my mother.
“It ‘s all very well,” said my grandmother, “and I send my blessing on ’em with all my heart; but my old husband and I are too far along to be rattling our old bones to weddings in Boston. I should n’t know how to behave in their grand Episcopal church.”
Aunt Lois, who, like many other good women, had an innocent love of the pomps and vanities, and my mother, to whom the scene was an unheard-of recreation, were, on the whole, not displeased that her mind had taken this turn. As to Sam Lawson, he arose before Aurora had unbarred the gates of dawn, and strode off vigorously on foot, in his best Sunday clothes, and arrived there in time to welcome Uncle Fliakim’s wagon, and to tell him that “he ‘d ben a lookin’ out for ’em these two hours.”
So then for as much as half an hour before the wedding coaches arrived at the church door there was a goodly assemblage in the church, and, while the chimes were solemnly pealing the tune of old Wells, there were bibbing and bobbing of fashionable bonnets, and fluttering of fans, and rustling of silks, and subdued creakings of whalebone stays, and a gentle undertone of gossiping conversation in the expectant audience. Sam Lawson had mounted the organ loft, directly opposite the altar, which commanded a most distinct view of every possible transaction below, and also gave a prominent image of himself, with his lanky jaws, protruding eyes, and shackling figure, posed over all as the inspecting genius of the scene. And every once in a while he conveyed to Jake Marshall pieces of intelligence with regard to the amount of property or private history – the horses, carriages, servants, and most secret internal belongings – of the innocent Bostonians, who were disporting themselves below, in utter ignorance of how much was known about them. But when a man gives himself seriously, for years, to the task of collecting information, thinking nothing of long tramps of twenty miles in the acquisition, never hesitating to put a question and never forgetting an answer, it is astonishing what an amount of information he may pick up. In Sam, a valuable reporter of the press has been lost forever. He was born a generation too soon, and the civilization of his time had not yet made a place for him. But not the less did he at this moment feel in himself all the responsibilities of a special reporter for Oldtown.
“Lordy massy,” he said to Jake, when the chimes began to play, “how solemn that ‘ere does sound!
‘ Life is the time to sarve the Lord,
The time to insure the gret reward.’
I ben up in the belfry askin’ the ringer what Mr. Devenport ‘s goin’ to give him for ringin’ them ‘ere chimes; and how much de ye think ‘t was? Wal, ‘t was just fifty dollars, for jest this ‘ere one time! an’ the weddin’ fee ‘s a goin’ t’ be a hunderd guineas in a gold puss. I tell yer, Colonel Devenport ‘s a man as chops his mince putty fine. There ‘s Parson Lothrop down there; he ‘s got a spick span new coat an’ a new wig! That ‘s Mis’ Lothrop’s scarlet Injy shawl; that ‘ere cost a hunderd guineas in Injy, – her first husband gin ‘er that. Lordy massy, ain’t it a providence that Parson Lothrop ‘s married her? ’cause sence the war that ‘ere s’ciety fur sendin’ the Gospil to furrin parts don’t send nothin’ to ’em, an’ the Oldtown people they don’t pay nothin’. All they can raise they gin to Mr. Mordecai Rossiter, ’cause they say ef they hev to s’port a colleague it ‘s all they can do, ‘specially sence he ‘s married. Yeh see, Mordecai, he wanted to git Tiny, but he could n’t come it, and so he ‘s tuk up with Delily Barker. The folks, some on ’em, kind o’ hinted to old Parson Lothrop thet his sermons was n’t so interestin ‘s they might be, ‘n’ the parson, ses he, ‘Wal, I b’lieve the sermons ‘s about ‘s good ‘s the pay; ain’t they?’ He hed ’em there. I like Parson Lothrop, – he ‘s a fine old figger-head, and keeps up stiff for th’ honor o’ the ministry. Why, folks ‘s gittin’ so nowadays thet ministers won’t be no more ‘n common folks, ‘n’ everybody ‘ll hev their say to ’em jest ‘s they do to anybody else. Lordy massy, there ‘s the orgin, – goin’ to hev all the glories, orgins ‘n’ bells ‘n’ everythin’; guess the procession must ha’ started. Mr. Devenport’s got another spick an’ span new landau, ‘t he ordered over from England, special, for this ‘casion, an’ two prancin’ white hosses! Yeh see I got inter Bostin ’bout daybreak, an’ I ‘s around ter his stables a lookin’ at ’em a polishin’ up their huffs a little, ‘n’ givin’ on ’em a wipe down, ‘n’ I asked Jenkins what he thought he gin for ’em, an’ he sed he reely should n’t durst to tell me. I tell ye, he ‘s like Solomon, – he ‘s a goin’ to make gold as the stones o’ the street.”
And while Sam’s monologue was going on, in came the bridal procession, – first, Harry, with his golden head and blue eyes, and, leaning on his arm, a cloud of ethereal gauzes and laces, out of which looked a face, pale now as a lily, with wandering curls of golden hair like little gleams of sunlight on white clouds; then the tall, splendid figure of Ellery Davenport, his haughty blue eyes glancing all around with a triumphant assurance. Miss Mehitable hung upon his arm, pale with excitement and emotion. Then came Esther and I. As we passed up the aisle, I heard a confused murmur of whisperings and a subdued drawing in of breath, and the rest all seemed to me to be done in a dream. I heard the words, “Who giveth this woman to be married to this man?” and saw Harry step forth, bold, and bright, and handsome, amid the whisperings that pointed him out as the hero of a little romance. And he gave her away forever, – our darling, our heart of hearts. And then those holy, tender words, those vows so awful, those supporting prayers, all mingled as in a dream, until it was all over, and ladies, laughing and crying, were crowding around Tina, and there were kissing and congratulating and shaking of hands, and then we swept out of the church, and into the carriages, and were whirled back to the Kittery mansion, which was thrown wide open, from garret to cellar, in the very profuseness of old English hospitality.
There was a splendid lunch laid out in the parlor, with all the old silver in muster, and with all the delicacies that Boston confectioners and caterers could furnish.
Ellery Davenport had indeed tendered the services of his French cook, but Miss Debby had respectfully declined the offer.
“He may be a very good cook, Ellery; I say nothing against him. I am extremely obliged to you for your polite offer, but good English cooking is good enough for me, and I trust that whatever guests I invite will always think it good enough for them.”
On that day, Aunt Lois and Aunt Keziah and my mother and Uncle Fliakim sat down in proximity to some of the very selectest families of Boston, comporting themselves, like good republican Yankees, as if they had been accustomed to that sort of thing all their lives, though secretly embarrassed by many little points of etiquette.
Tina and Ellery sat at the head of the table, and dispensed hospitalities around them with a gay and gracious freedom; and Harry, in whom the bridal dress of Esther had evidently excited distracting visions of future probabilities, was making his seat by her at dinner an opportunity, in the general clatter of conversation, to enjoy a nice little tête-à-tête.
Besides the brilliant company in the parlor, a long table was laid out upon the greensward at the back of the house, in the garden, where beer and ale flowed freely, and ham and bread and cheese and cake and eatables of a solid and sustaining description were dispensed to whomsoever would. The humble friends of lower degree – the particular friends of the servants, and all the numerous tribe of dependants and hangers-on, who wished to have some small share in the prosperity of the prosperous – here found ample entertainment. Here Sam Lawson might be seen, seated beside Hepsy, on a garden-seat near the festive board, gallantly pressing upon her the good things of the hour.
“Eat all ye want ter, Hepsy, – it comes free ‘s water; ye can hev ‘wine an’ milk without money ‘n’ without price,’ as ‘t were Lordy massy, ‘s jest what I wanted. I hed sech a stram this mornin’, ‘n’ hain’t hed nothin’ but a two-cent roll, ‘t I bought ‘t the baker’s. Thought I should ha’ caved in ‘fore they got through with the weddin’. These ‘ere ‘Piscopal weddin’s is putty long. What d’ ye think on ’em, Polly?”
“I think I like our own way the best,” said Polly, stanchly, “none o’ your folderol, ‘n’ kneelin’, ‘n’ puttin’ on o’ rings.”
“Well,” said Hepsy, with the spice of a pepper-box in her eyes, “I liked the part that said, ‘With all my worldly goods, I thee endow.'”
“Thet ‘s putty well, when a man hes any worldly goods,” said Sam; “but how about when he hes n’t?”
“Then he ‘s no business to git married!” said Hepsy, definitely.
“So I think” said Polly; “but, for my part, I don’t want no man’s worldly goods, ef I ‘ve got to take him with ’em. I ‘d rather work hard as I have done, and hev ’em all to myself, to do just what I please with.”
“Wal, Polly,” said Sam, “I dare say the men ‘s jest o’ your mind, – none on ’em won’t try very hard to git ye’ out on ‘t.”
“There ‘s bin those thet hes, though!” said Polly; “but ‘t ain’t wuth talkin’ about, any way.”
And so conversation below stairs and above proceeded gayly and briskly, until at last the parting hour came.
“Now jest all on ye step round ter the front door, an’ see ’em go off in their glory. Them two white hosses is imported fresh from England, ‘n’ they could n’t ha’ cost less ‘n’ a thousan’ dollars apiece, ef they cost a cent.”
“A thousand!” said Jenkins, the groom, who stood in his best clothes amid the festive throng. “Who told you that?”
“Wal!” said Sam, “I thought I ‘d put the figger low enough, sence ye would n’t tell me perticklers. I like to be accurate ’bout these ‘ere things. There they be! they ‘re comin’ out the door now. She ‘s tuk off her white dress now, an’ got on her travellin’ dress, don’t ye see? Lordy massy, what a kissin’ an’ a cryin’! How women allers does go on ’bout these ‘ere things. There, he ‘s got ‘er at last. See ’em goin’ down the steps! ain’t they a han’some couple! There, he ‘s handin on ‘er in. The kerrige’s lined with blue satin, ‘n’ never was sot in afore this mornin’. Good luck go with ’em! There they go.”
And we all of us stood on the steps of the Kittery mansion, kissing hands and waving handkerchiefs, until the beloved one, the darling of our hearts, was out of sight.
CHAPTER XLVI.
WEDDING AFTER-TALKS AT OLDTOWN.
WEDDING joys are commonly supposed to pertain especially to the two principal personages, and to be of a kind with which the world doth not intermeddle; but a wedding in such a quiet and monotonous state of existence as that of Oldtown is like a glorious sunset, which leaves a long after-glow, in which trees and rocks, farm-houses, and all the dull, commonplace landscape of real life have, for a while, a roseate hue of brightness. And then the long after-talks, the deliberate turnings and revampings, and the re-enjoying, bit by bit, of every incident!
Sam Lawson was a man who knew how to make the most of this, and for a week or two he reigned triumphant in Oldtown on the strength of it. Others could relate the bare, simple facts, but Sam Lawson could give the wedding, with variations, with marginal references, and explanatory notes, and enlightening comments, that ran deep into the history of everybody present. So that even those who had been at the wedding did not know half what they had seen until Sam told them.
It was now the second evening after that auspicious event. Aunt Lois and my mother had been pressed to prolong their stay over one night after the wedding, to share the hospitalities of the Kittery mansion, and had been taken around in the Kittery carriage to see the wonders of Boston town. But prompt, on their return, Sam came in to assist them in dishing up information by the evening fireside.
“Wal, Mis’ Badger,” said he, “‘t was gin’ally agreed, on all hands, there had n’t ben no weddin’ like it seen in Boston sence the time them court folks and nobility used to be there. Old Luke there, that rings the chimes, he told me he hed n’t seen no sech couple go up the broad aisle o’ that church. Luke, says he to me, ‘I tell yew, the grander o’ Boston is here to-day,’ and ye ‘d better b’lieve every one on ’em had on their Sunday best. There was the Boylstons, an’ the Bowdoins, an’ the Brattles, an’ the Winthrops, an’ the Bradfords, an’ the Penhallows up from Portsmouth, an’ the Quinceys, an’ the Sewells. Wal, I tell yer, there was real grit there! – folks that come in their grand kerridges I tell you! – there was such a pawin’ and a stampin’ o’ horses and kerridges round the church as if all the army of the Assyrians was there!”
“Well, now, I ‘m glad I did n’t go,” said my grandmother. “I ‘m too old to go into any such grandeur.”
“Wal, I don’t see why folks hes so much ‘bjections to these here ‘Piscopal weddin’s, neither,” said Sam. “I tell yer, it ‘s a kind o’ putty sight now; ye see I was up in the organ loft, where I could look down on the heads of all the people. Massy to us! the bunnets, an’ the feathers, an’ the Injy shawls, an’ the purple an’ fine linen, was all out on the ‘casion. An’ when our Harry come in with Tiny on his arm, tha’ was a gineral kind o’ buzz, an’ folks a risin’ up all over the house to look at ’em. Her dress was yer real Injy satin, thick an’ yaller, kind o’ like cream. An’ she had on the Pierpont pearls an’ diamonds –”
“How did you know what she had on?” said Aunt Lois.
“O, I hes ways o’ findin’ out!” said Sam. “Yeh know old Gineral Pierpont, his gret-gret-grandfather, was a gineral in the British army in Injy, an’ he racketed round ‘mong them nabobs out there, an’ got no end o’ gold an’ precious stones, an’ these ‘ere pearls an’ diamonds that she wore on her neck and in her ears hes come down in the Devenport family. Mis’ Delily, Miss Deborah Kittery’s maid, she told me all the partic’lars ’bout it, an’ she ses there ain’t no family so rich in silver and jewels, and sich, as Ellery Devenport’s is, an’ hes ben for generations back. His house is jest chock-full of all sorts o’ graven images and queer things from Chiny an’ Japan, ’cause, ye see, his ancestors they traded to Injy, an’ they seem to hev got the abundance o’ the Gentiles flowin’ to ’em.”
“I noticed those pearls on her neck,” said Aunt Lois; “I never saw such pearls.”
“Wal,” said Sam, “Mis’ Delily, she ses she ‘s tried ’em ‘long side of a good-sized pea, an’ they ‘re full as big. An’ the earrings ‘s them pear-shaped pearls, ye know, with diamond nubs atop on ’em. Then there was a great pearl cross, an’ the biggest kind of a diamond right in the middle on ‘t. Wal, Mis’ Delily she told me a story ’bout them ‘ere pearls,” said Sam. “For my part, ef it hed ben a daughter o’ mine, I ‘d ruther she ‘d ‘a’ worn suthin on her neck that was spic an’ span new. I tell yew, these ‘ere old family jewels, I think sometimes they gits kind o’ struck through an’ through with moth an’ rust, so to speak.”
“I ‘m sure I don’t know what you mean, Sam,” said Aunt Lois, literally, “since we know gold can’t rust, and pearls and diamonds don’t hurt with any amount of keeping.”
“Wal, ye see, they do say that ‘ere old Gineral Pierpont was a putty hard customer; he got them ‘ere pearls an’ diamonds away from an Injun princess; I s’pose she thought she ‘d as much right to ’em ‘s he hed; an’ they say ‘t was about all she hed was her jewels, an’ so nat’rally enough she cussed him for taking on ’em. Wal, dunno ‘s the Lord minds the cusses o’ these poor old heathen critturs; but ‘s ben a fact, Mis’ Delily says, thet them jewels hain’t never brought good luck. Gineral Pierpont, he gin ’em to his fust wife, an’ she did n’t live but two months arter she was married. He gin ’em to his second wife, ‘n’ she tuck to drink and le ‘d him sech a life ‘t he would n’t ha’ cared ef she had died too; ‘n’ then they come down to Ellery Davenport’s first wife, ‘n’ she went ravin’ crazy the fust year arter she was married. Now all that ‘ere does look a little like a cuss; don’t it?”
“O nonsense, Sam!” said Aunt Lois, “I don’t believe there ‘s a word of truth in any of it! You can hatch more stories in one day than a hen can eggs in a month.”
“Wal, any way,” said Sam, “I like the ‘Piscopal sarvice, all ceppin’ the minister ‘s wearin’ his shirt outside; that I don’t like.”
“‘T is n’t a shirt!” said Aunt Lois, indignantly.
“O, lordy massy!” said Sam, “I know what they calls it. I know it ‘s a surplice, but it looks for all the world like a man in his shirt-sleeves; but the words is real solemn. I wondered when he asked ’em all whether they hed any objections to ‘t, an’ told ’em to speak up ef they hed, what would happen ef anybody should speak up jest there.”
“Why, of course ‘t would stop the wedding,” said Aunt Lois, “until the thing was inquired into.”
“Wal, Jake Marshall, he said thet he ‘d heerd a story when he was a boy, about a weddin’ in a church at Portsmouth, that was stopped jest there, ’cause, ye see, the man he hed another wife livin. He said ‘t was old Colonel Penhallow. ‘mazin’ rich the old Colonel was, and these ‘ere rich old cocks sometimes does seem to strut round and cut up pretty much as if they hed n’t heard o’ no God in their parts. The Colonel he got his wife shet up in a lunatic asylum, an’ then spread the word that she was dead, an’ courted a gal, and come jest as near as that to marryin’ of her.”
“As near as what?” said Aunt Lois.
“Why, when they got to that ‘ere part of the service, there was his wife, good as new. She ‘d got out o’ the ‘sylum, and stood up there ‘fore ’em all. So you see that ‘ere does some good.”
“I ‘d rather stay in an asylum all my life than go back to that man,” said Aunt Lois.
“Wal, you see she did n’t,” said Sam; “her friends they made him make a settlement on her, poor woman, and he cleared out t’ England.”
“Good riddance to bad rubbish,” said my grandmother.
“Wal, how handsome that ‘ere gal is that Harry ‘s going to marry!” continued Sam. “She did n’t have on nothin’ but white muslin’, an’ not a snip of a jewel; but she looked like a queen. Ses I to Jake, ses I, there goes the woman ‘t ‘ll be Lady Percival one o’ these days, over in England, an’ I bet ye, he ‘ll find lots o’ family jewels for her, over there. Mis’ Delily she said she did n’t doubt there would be.”
“I hope,” said my grandmother, “that she will have more enduring riches than that; it ‘s a small matter about earthly jewels.”
“Lordy massy, yes, Mis’ Badger,” said Sam, “jes’ so, jes’ so; now that ‘ere was bein’ impressed on my mind all the time. Folks oughtenter lay up their treasures on airth; I could n’t help thinkin’ on ‘t, when I see Tiny a wearin’ them jewels, jest how vain an’ transitory everythin’ is, an’ how the women ‘t has worn ’em afore is all turned to dust, an’ lyin’ in their graves. Lordy massy, these ‘ere things make us realize what a transitory world we ‘s a livin’ in. I was tellin’ Hepsy ’bout it, – she ‘s so kind o’ worldly, Hepsy is, – seemed to make her feel so kind o’ gritty to see so much wealth ‘n’ splendor, when we hed n’t none. Ses I, ‘Hepsy, there ain’t no use o’ wantin’ worldly riches, ’cause our lives all passes away like a dream, an’ a hundred years hence ‘t won’t make no sort o’ diffurnce what we ‘ve hed, an’ what we heve n’t hed.’ But wal, Miss Lois, did ye see the kerridge?” said Sam, returning to temporal things with renewed animation.
“I just got a glimpse of it,” said Aunt Lois, “as it drove to the door.”
“Lordy massy,” said Sam, “I was all over that ‘ere kerridge that mornin’ by daylight. “T ain’t the one he had up here, – that was jest common doin’s, – this ‘ere is imported spic an’ span new from England for the ‘casion, an’ all made jest ‘s they make ’em for the nobility. Why, ‘t was all quilted an’ lined with blue satin, ever so grand, an’ Turkey carpet under their feet, an’ the springs was easy ‘s a rockin’-chair. That ‘s what they ‘ve gone off in. Wal, lordy massy! I don’t grudge Tina nothin’! She ‘s the chipperest, light-heartedest, darlin’est little creetur that ever did live, an’ I hope she ‘ll hev good luck in all things.”
A rap was heard at the kitchen door, and Polly entered. It was evident from her appearance that she was in a state of considerable agitation. She looked pale and excited, and her hands shook.
“Mis’ Badger,” she said to my grandmother, “Miss Rossiter wants to know ‘f you won’t come an’ set up with her to-night.”
“Why, is she sick?” said grandmother. “What ‘s the matter with her?”
“She ain’t very well,” said Polly, evasively; “she wanted Mis’ Badger to spend the night with her.”
“Perhaps, mother, I ‘d better go over,” said Aunt Lois.
“No, Miss Lois,” said Polly, eagerly, “Miss Rossiter don’ wanter see anybody but yer mother.”
“Wal, now I wanter know!” said Sam Lawson.
“Well, you can’t know everything,” said Aunt Lois, “so you may want!”
“Tell Miss Rossiter, ef I can do anythin’ for ‘er, I hope she ‘ll call on me,” said Sam.
My grandmother and Polly went out together. Aunt Lois bustled about the hearth, swept it up, and then looked out into the darkness after them. What could it be?
The old clock ticked drowsily in the kitchen corner, and her knitting-needles rattled.
“What do you think it is?” said my mother, timidly, to Aunt Lois.
“How should I know?” said Aunt Lois, sharply.
In a few moments Polly returned again.
“Miss Mehitable says she would like to see Sam Lawson.”
“O, wal, wal, would she? Wal, I ‘ll come!” said Sam, rising with joyful alertness. “I ‘m allers ready at a minute’s warnin’!”
Any they went out into the darkness together.
CHAPTER XLVII.
BEHIND THE CURTAIN.
IN the creed of most story-tellers marriage is equal to translation. The mortal pair whose fortunes are traced to the foot of the altar forthwith ascend, and a cloud receives them out of our sight as the curtain falls. Faith supposes them rapt away to some unseen paradise, and every-day toil girds up its loins and with a sigh prepares to return to its delving and grubbing.
But our story must follow the fortunes of our heroine beyond the prescribed limits.
It had been arranged that the wedding pair, after a sunny afternoon’s drive through some of the most picturesque scenery in the neighborhood of Boston, should return at eventide to their country home, where they were to spend a short time preparatory to sailing for Europe. Even in those early days the rocky glories of Nahant and its dashing waves were known and resorted to by Bostonians, and the first part of the drive was thitherward, and Tina climbed round among the rocks, exulting like a sea-bird with Ellery Davenport ever at her side, laughing, admiring, but holding back her bold, excited footsteps, lest she should plunge over by some unguarded movement, and become a vanished dream.
So near lies the ever possible tragedy at the hour of our greatest exultation; it is but a false step, an inadvertent movement, and all that was joy can become a cruel mockery! We all know this to be so. We sometimes start and shriek when we see it to be so in the case of others, but who is the less triumphant in his hour of possession for this gloomy shadow of possibility that forever dogs his steps?
Ellery Davenport was now in the high tide of victory. The pursuit of the hour was a success; he had captured the butterfly. In his eagerness he had trodden down and disregarded many teachings and impulses of his better nature that should have made him hesitate; but now he felt that he had her; she was his, – his alone and forever.
But already dark thoughts from the past were beginning to flutter out like ill-omened bats, and dip down on gloomy wing between him and the innocent, bright, confiding face. Tina he could see had idealized him entirely. She had invested him with all her conceptions of knighthood, honor, purity, religion, and made a creation of her own of him; and sometimes he smiled to himself, half amused and half annoyed at the very young and innocent simplicity of the matter. Nobody knew better than himself that what she dreamed he was he neither was nor meant to be, – that in fact there could not be a bitterer satire on his real self than her conceptions; but just now, with her brilliant beauty, her piquant earnestness, her perfect freshness, there was an indescribable charm about her that bewitched him.
Would it all pass away and get down to the jog-trot dustiness of ordinary married life, he wondered, and then, ought he not to have been a little more fair with her in exchange for the perfect transparence with which she threw open the whole of her past life to him? Had he not played with her as some villain might with a little child, and got away a priceless diamond for a bit of painted glass? He did not allow himself to think in that direction.
“Come, my little sea-gull,” he said to her, after they had wandered and rambled over the rocks for a while, “you must come down from that perch, and we must drive on, if we mean to be at home before midnight.”
“O Ellery, how glorious it is!”
“Yes, but we cannot build here three tabernacles, and so we must say, Au revoir. I will bring you here again “; – and Ellery half led, half carried her in his arms back to the carriage.
“How beautiful it is!” said Tina, as they were glancing along a turfy road through the woods. The white pines were just putting out their long fingers, the new leaves of the silvery birches were twinkling in the light, the road was fringed on both sides with great patches of the blue violet, and sweet-fern, and bayberry and growing green tips of young spruce and fir were exhaling a spicy perfume. “It seems as if we two alone were flying through fairy-land.” His arm was around her, tightening its clasp of possession as he looked down on her.
“Yes,” he said, “we two are alone in our world now; none can enter it; none can see into it; none can come between us.”
Suddenly the words recalled to Tina her bad dream of the night before. She was on the point of speaking of it, but hesitated to introduce it; she felt a strange shyness in mentioning that subject.
Ellery Davenport turned the conversation upon things in foreign lands, which he would soon show her. He pictured to her the bay of Naples, the rocks of Sorrento, where the blue Mediterranean is overhung with groves of oranges, where they should have a villa some day, and live in a dream of beauty. All things fair and bright and beautiful in foreign lands were evoked, and made to come as a sort of airy pageant around them while they wound through the still, spicy pine-woods.
It was past sunset, and the moon was looking white and sober through the flush of the evening sky, when they entered the grounds of their own future home.
“How different everything looks here from what it did when I was here years ago!” said Tina, – “the paths are all cleared, and then it was one wild, dripping tangle. I remember how long we knocked at the door, and could n’t make any one hear, and the old black knocker frightened me, – it was a black serpent with his tail in his mouth. I wonder if it is there yet.”
“O, to be sure it is,” said Ellery; “that is quite a fine bit of old bronze, after something in Herculaneum, I think; you know serpents were quite in vogue among the ancients.”
“I should think that symbol meant eternal evil,” said Tina, – “a circle is eternity, and a serpent is evil.”
“You are evidently prejudiced against serpents, my love,” said Ellery. “The ancients thought better of them; they were emblems of wisdom, and the ladies very appropriately wore them for bracelets and necklaces.”
“I would n’t have one for the world,” said Tina. “I always hated them, they are so bright, and still, and sly.”
“Mere prejudice,” said Ellery, laughing. “I must cure it by giving you, one of these days, an emerald-green serpent for a bracelet, with ruby crest and diamond eyes; you ‘ve no idea what pretty fellows they are. But here, you see, we are coming to the house; you can smell the roses.”
“How lovely and how changed!” said Tina. “O, what a world of white roses over that portico, – roses everywhere, and white lilacs. It is a perfect paradise!”
“May you find it so, my little Eve,” said Ellery Davenport, as the carriage stopped at the door. Ellery sprang out lightly, and, turning, took Tina in his arms and set her down in the porch.
They stood there a moment in the moonlight, and listened to the fainter patter of the horses’ feet as they went down the drive.
“Come in, my little wife,” said Ellery, opening the door; “and may the black serpent bring you good luck.”
The house was brilliantly lighted by wax candles in massive silver candlesticks.
“O, how strangely altered!” said Tina, running about, and looking into the rooms with the delight of a child. “How beautiful everything is!”
The housekeeper, a respectable female, now appeared and offered her services to conduct her young mistress to her rooms. Ellery went with her, almost carrying her up the staircase on his arm. Above, as below, all was light and bright. “This room is ours,” said Ellery, drawing her into that chamber which Tina remembered years before as so weirdly desolate. Now it was all radiant with hangings and furniture of blue and silver; the open windows let in branches of climbing white roses, the vases were full of lilies. The housekeeper paused a moment at the door.
“There is a lady in the little parlor below that has been waiting more than an hour to see you and madam,” she said.
“A lady!” said both Tina and Ellery, in tones of surprise. “Did she give her name?” said Ellery.
“She gave no name; but she said that you, sir, would know her.”
“I can’t imagine who it should be,” said Ellery. “Perhaps, Tina, I had better go down and see while you are dressing,” said Ellery.
“Indeed, that would be a pretty way to do! No, sir, I allow no private interviews,” said Tina, with authority, – “no, I am all ready and quite dressed enough to go down.
“Well, then, little positive,” said Ellery, “be it as you will; let ‘s go together.”
“Well, I must confess,” said Tina, “I did n’t look for wedding callers out here to-night; but never mind, it ‘s a nice little mystery to see what she wants.”
They went down the staircase together, passed across the hall, and entered the little boudoir, where Tina and Harry had spent their first night together. The door of the writing cabinet stood open, and a lady all in black, in a bonnet and cloak, stood in the doorway.
As she came forward, Tina exclaimed, “O Ellery, it is she, – the lady in the closet!” and sank down pale and half fainting.
Ellery Davenport turned pale too; his cheeks, his very lips were blanched like marble; he looked utterly thunderstruck and appalled.
“Emily!” he said. “Great God!”
“Yes, Emily!” she said, coming forward slowly and with dignity. “You did not expect to meet ME here and now, Ellery Davenport!”
There was for a moment a silence that was perfectly awful. Tina looked on without power to speak, as in a dreadful dream. The ticking of the little French mantel clock seemed like a voice of doom to her.
The lady walked close up to Ellery Davenport, drew forth a letter, and spoke in that fearfully calm way that comes from the very white-heat of passion.
“Ellery,” she said, “here is your letter. You did not know me – you could not know me – if you thought, after that letter, I would accept anything from you! I live on your bounty! I would sooner work as a servant!”
“Ellery, Ellery!” said Tina, springing up and clasping his arm, “O, tell me who she is! What is she to you? Is she – is she – “
“Be quiet, my poor child,” said the woman, turning to her with an air of authority. “I have no claims; I come to make none. Such as this man is, he is your husband, not mine. You believe in him; so did I, – love him; so did I. I gave up all for him, – country, home, friends, name, reputation, – for I thought him such a man that a woman might well sacrifice her whole life to him! He is the father of my child! But fear not. The world, of course, will approve him and condemn me. They will say he did well to give up his mistress and take a wife; it ‘s the world’s morality. What woman will think the less of him, or smile the less on him, when she hears it? What woman will not feel herself too good even to touch my hand?”
“Emily,” said Ellery Davenport, bitterly, “if you thought I deserved this, you might, at least, have spared this poor child.”
“The truth is the best foundation in married life, Ellery,” she said, “and the truth you have small faculty for speaking. I do her a favor in telling it. Let her start fair from the commencement, and then there will be no more to be told. Besides,” she added, “I shall not trouble you long. There,” she said, putting down a jewel-case, – ” there are your gifts to me, – there are your letters.” Then she threw on the table a miniature set in diamonds, “There is your picture. And now God help me! Farewell.”
She turned and glided swiftly from the room.
* * * *
Readers who remember the former part of this narrative will see at once that it was, after all, Ellery Davenport with whom, years before, Emily Rossiter had fled to France. They had resided there, and subsequently in Switzerland, and she had devoted herself to him, and to his interests, with all the single-hearted fervor of a true wife.
On her part, there was a full and conscientious belief that the choice of the individuals alone constituted a true marriage, and that the laws of human society upon this subject were an oppression which needed to be protested against.
On his part, however, the affair was a simple gratification of passion, and the principles, such as they were, were used by him as he used all principles, – simply as convenient machinery for carrying out his own purposes. Ellery Davenport spoke his own convictions when he said that there was no subject which had not its right and its wrong side, each of them capable of being unanswerably sustained. He had played with his own mind in this manner until he had entirely obliterated conscience. He could at any time dazzle and confound his own moral sense with his own reasonings; and it was sometimes amusing, but, in the long run, tedious and vexatious to him, to find that what he maintained merely for convenience and for theory should be regarded by Emily so seriously, and with such an earnest eye to logical consequences. In short, the two came, in the course of their intimacy, precisely to the spot to which many people come who are united by an indissoluble legal tie. Slowly, and through an experience of many incidents, they had come to perceive an entire and irrepressible conflict of natures between them.
Notwithstanding that Emily had taken a course diametrically opposed to the principles of her country and her fathers, she retained largely the Puritan nature. Instances have often been seen in New England of men and women who had renounced every particle of the Puritan theology, and yet retained in their fibre and composition all the moral traits of the Puritans – their uncompromising conscientiousness, their inflexible truthfulness, and their severe logic in following the convictions of their understandings. And the fact was, that while Emily had sacrificed for Ellery Davenport her position in society, – while she had exposed herself to the very coarsest misconstructions of the commonest minds, and made herself liable to be ranked by her friends in New England among abandoned outcasts, – she was really a woman standing on too high a moral plane for Ellery Davenport to consort with her in comfort. He was ambitious, intriguing, unscrupulous, and it was an annoyance to him to be obliged to give an account of himself to her. He was tired of playing the moral hero, the part that he assumed and acted with great success during the time of their early attachment. It annoyed him to be held to any consistency in principles. The very devotion to him which she felt, regarding him, as she always did, in his higher and nobler nature, vexed and annoyed him.
Of late years he had taken long vacations from her society, in excursions to England and America. When the prospect of being ambassador to England dawned upon him, he began seriously to consider the inconvenience of being connected with a woman unpresentable in society. He dared not risk introducing her into those high circles as his wife. Moreover, he knew that it was a falsehood to which he never should gain her consent; and running along in the line of his thoughts came his recollections of Tina. When he returned to America, with the fact in his mind that she would be the acknowledged daughter of a respectable old English family, all her charms and fascinations had a double power over him. He delivered himself up to them without scruple.
He wrote immediately to a confidential friend in Switzerland, enclosing money, with authority to settle upon Emily a villa near Geneva, and a suitable income. He trusted to her pride for the rest.
Never had the thought come into his head that she would return to her native country, and brave all the reproach and humiliation of such a step, rather than accept this settlement at his hands.
CHAPTER XLVIII.
TINA’S SOLUTION.
HARRY and I had gone back to our college room after the wedding. There we received an earnest letter from Miss Mehitable, begging us to come to her at once. It was brought by Sam Lawson, who told us that he had got up at three o’clock in the morning to start away with it.
“There ‘s trouble of some sort or other in that ‘ere house,” said Sam. “Last night I was in ter the Deacon’s, and we was a talkin’ over the weddin’, when Polly came in all sort o’ flustered, and said Miss Rossiter wanted to see Mis’ Badger; and your granny she went over, and did n’t come home all night. She sot up with somebody, and I ‘m certain ‘t wa’ n’t Miss Rossiter, ’cause I see her up tol’able spry in the mornin’; but, lordy massy, somethin’ or other’s ben a usin’ on her up, for she was all wore out, and looked sort o’ limpsy, as if there wa’ n’t no starch left in her. She sent for me last night. ‘Sam,’ says she, ‘I want to send a note to the boys just as quick as I can, and I don’t want to wait for the mail; can’t you carry it? ‘ ‘Lordy massy, yes,’ says I. ‘I hope there ain’t nothin’ happened,’ says I; and ye see she did n’t answer me; and puttin’ that with Mis’ Badger’s settin’ there all night, it ‘peared to me there was suthin’, I can ‘t make out quite what.”
Harry and I lost no time in going to the stage-house, and found ourselves by noon at Miss Mehitable’s door.
When we went in, we found Miss Mehitable seated in close counsel with Mr. Jonathan Rossiter. His face looked sharp, and grave, and hard; his large gray eyes had in them a fiery, excited gleam. Spread out on the table before them were files of letters, in the handwriting of which I had before had a glimpse. The brother and sister had evidently been engaged in reading them, as some of them lay open under their hands.
When we came into the room, both looked up. Miss Mehitable rose, and offered her hands to us in an eager, excited way, as if she were asking something of us. The color flashed into Mr. Rossiter’s cheeks, and he suddenly leaned forward over the papers and covered his face with his hands. It was a gesture of shame and humiliation infinitely touching to me.
“Horace,” said Miss Mehitable, “the thing we feared has come upon us. O Horace, Horace! why could we not have known it in time?”
I divined at once. My memory, like an electric chain, flashed back over sayings and incidents of years.
“The villain!” I said.
Mr. Rossiter ground his foot on the floor with a hard, impatient movement, as if he were crushing some poisonous reptile.
“It ‘s well for him that I ‘m not God,” he said through his closed teeth.
Harry looked from one to the other of us in dazed and inquiring surprise. He had known in a vague way of Emily’s disappearance, and of Miss Mehitable’s anxieties, but it never had occurred to his mind to connect the two. In fact, our whole education had been in such a wholesome and innocent state of society, that neither of us had the foundation, in our experience or habits of thought, for the conception of anything like villany. We were far enough from any comprehension of the melodramatic possibilities suggested in our days by that heaving and tumbling modern literature, whose waters cast up mire and dirt.
Never shall I forget the shocked, incredulous expression on Harry’s face as he listened to my explanations, nor the indignation to which it gave place.
“I would sooner have seen Tina in her grave than married to such a man,” he said huskily.
“O Harry!” said Miss Mehitable.
“I would!” he said, rising excitedly. “There are things that men can do that still leave hope of them; but a thing like this is final, – it is decisive.”
“That is my opinion, Harry,” said Mr. Rossiter. “It is a sin that leaves no place for repentance.”
“We have been reading these letters,” said Miss Mehitable; “they were sent to us by Tina, and they do but confirm what I always said, – that Emily fell by her higher nature. She learned, under Dr. Stern, to think and to reason boldly, even when differing from received opinion; and this hardihood of mind and opinion she soon turned upon the doctrines he taught. Then she abandoned the Bible, and felt herself free to construct her own system of morals. Then came an intimate friendship with a fascinating married man, whose domestic misfortunes made a constant demand on her sympathy; and these charming French friends of hers – who were, as far as I see, disciples of the new style of philosophy, and had come to America to live in a union with each other which was not recognized by the laws of France – all united to make her feel that she was acting heroically and virtuously in sacrificing her whole life to her lover, and disregarding what they called the tyranny of human law. In Emily’s eyes, her connection had all the sacredness of marriage.”
“Yes,” said Mr. Rossiter, “but see now how all these infernal, fine-spun, and high-flown notions, always turn out to the disadvantage of the weaker party! It is man who always takes advantage of woman in relations like these: it is she that gives all, and he that takes all; it is she risks everything, and he risks nothing. Hard as marriage bonds bear in individual cases, it is for woman’s interest that they should be as stringently maintained as the Lord himself has left them. When once they begin to be lessened, it is always the weaker party that goes to the wall!”
“But,” said I, “suppose a case of confirmed and hopeless insanity on either side.”
He made an impatient gesture. “Did you ever think,” he said, “if men had the laws of nature in their hands, what a mess they would make of them? What treatises we should have against the cruelty of fire in always burning, and of water in always drowning! What saints and innocents has the fire tortured, and what just men made perfect has water drowned, making no exceptions! But who doubts that this inflexibility in natural law is, after all, the best thing? The laws of morals are in our hands, and so reversible, and, therefore, we are always clamoring for exceptions. I think they should cut their way like those of nature, inflexibly and eternally! “
Here the sound of wheels startled us. I went to the window, and, looking through the purple spikes of the tall old lilacs, which came up in a bower around the open window, I saw Tina alighting from a carriage.
“O Aunty,” I said involuntarily, “it is she. She is coming, poor child.”
We heard a light fluttering motion and a footfall on the stairs, and the door opened, and in a moment Tina stood among us.
She was very pale, and there was an expression such as I never saw in her face before. There had been a shock which had driven her soul inward, from the earthly upon the spiritual and the immortal. Something deep and pathetic spoke in her eyes, as she looked around on each of us for a moment without speaking. As she met Miss Mehitable’s haggard, careworn face, her lip quivered. She ran to her, threw her arms round her, and hid her face on her shoulder, and sobbed out, “O Aunty, Aunty! I did n’t think I should live to make you this trouble.”
“You, darling!” said Miss Mehitable “It is not you who have made it.”
“I am the cause,” she said. “I know that he has done dreadfully wrong. I cannot defend him, but oh! I love him still. I cannot help loving him; it is my duty to,” she added. “I promised, you know, before God, ‘for better, for worse’; and what I promised I must keep. I am his wife; there is no going back from that.”
“I know it, darling,” said Miss Mehitable, stroking her head. “You are right, and my love for you will never change.”
“I am come,” she said, “to see what can be done.”
“NOTHING can be done!” spoke out the deep voice of Jonathan Rossiter. “She is lost and we disgraced beyond remedy!”
“You must not say that,” Tina said, raising her head, her eyes sparkling through her tears with some of her old vivacity. “Your sister is a noble, injured woman. We must shield her and save her; there is every excuse for her.”
“There is NEVER any excuse for such conduct,” said Mr. Rossiter harshly.
Tina started up in her headlong, energetic fashion. “What right have you to talk so, if you call yourself a Christian?” she said. “Think a minute. WHO was it said, ‘Neither do I condemn thee’? and whom did he say it to? Christ was not afraid or ashamed to say that to a poor friendless woman, though he knew his words would never pass away.”
“God bless you, darling, – God bless you!” said Miss Mehitable, clasping her in her arms.
“I have read those letters,” continued Tina, impetuously. “He did not like me to do it, but I claimed it as my right, and I would do it, and I can see in all a noble woman, gone astray from noble motives. I can see that she was grand and unselfish in her love, that she was perfectly self-sacrificing, and I believe it was because Jesus understood these things in the hearts of women that he uttered those blessed words. The law was against that poor woman, the doctors, the Scribes and Pharisees, all respectable people, were against her, and Christ stepped between all and her; he sent them away abashed and humbled, and spoke those lovely words to her. O, I shall forever adore him for it! He is my Lord and my God!”
There was a pause for a few moments, and then Tina spoke again
“Now, Aunty, hear my plan. You, perhaps, do not believe any good of him, and so I will not try to make you; only I will say that he is anxious to do all he can. He has left everything in my hands. This must go no farther than us few who now know it. Your sister refused the property he tried to settle on her. It was noble to do it. I should have felt just as she did. But, dear Aunty, my fortune I always meant to settle on you, and it will be enough for you both. It will make you easy as to money, and you can live together.”
“Yes, my dear,” said Miss Mehitable; “but how can this be kept secret when there is the child?”
“I have thought of that, Aunty. I will take the poor little one abroad with me, – children always love me. I can make her so happy; and O, it will be such a motive to make amends to her for all this wrong. Let me see your sister, aunty, and tell her about it.”
“Dear child,” said Miss Mehitable, “you can do nothing with her. All last night I thought she was dying. Since then she seems to have recovered her strength; but she neither speaks nor moves. She lies with her eyes open, but notices nothing you say to her.”
“Poor darling!” said Tina. “But, Aunty, let me go to her. I am so sure that God will help me, – that God sends me to her. I must see her!”
Tina’s strong impulses seemed to carry us all with her. Miss Mehitable arose, and, taking her by the hand, opened the door of a chamber on the opposite side of the hall. I looked in, and saw that it was darkened. Tina went boldly in, and closed the door. We all sat silent together. We heard her voice, at times soft and pleading; then it seemed to grow more urgent and impetuous as she spoke continuously and in tones of piercing earnestness.
After a while, there were pauses of silence, and then a voice in reply.
“There,” said Miss Mehitable, “Emily has begun to answer her, thank God! Anything is better than this oppressive silence. It ‘s frightful!”
And now the sound of an earnest conversation was heard, waxing on both sides more and more ardent and passionate. Tina’s voice sometimes could be distinguished in tones of the most pleading entreaty; sometimes it seemed almost like sobbing. After a while, there came a great silence, broken by now and then an indistinct word; and then Tina came out, softly closing the door. Her cheeks were flushed, her hair partially dishevelled, but she smiled brightly, – one of her old triumphant smiles when she had carried a point.
“I ‘ve conquered at last! I ‘ve won!” she said, almost breathless. “O, I prayed so that I might, and I did. She gives all up to me; she loves me. We love each other dearly. And now I ‘m going to take the little one with me, and by and by I will bring her back to her, and I will make her so happy. You must give me the darling at once, and I will take her away with us; for we are going to sail next week. We sail sooner than I thought,” she said; “but this makes it best to go at once.”
Miss Mehitable rose and went out, but soon reappeared, leading in a lovely little girl with great round, violet blue eyes, and curls of golden hair. The likeness of Ellery Davenport was plainly impressed on her infant features.
Tina ran towards her, and stretched out her arms. “Darling,” she said, “come to me.”
The little one, after a moment’s survey, followed that law of attraction which always drew children to Tina. She came up confidingly, and nestled her head on her shoulder.
Tina gave her her watch to play with, and the child shook it about, well pleased.
“Emily want to go ride?” said Tina, carrying her to the window and showing her the horses.
The child laughed, and stretched out her hand.
“Bring me her things, Aunty,” she said. “Let there not be a moment for change of mind. I take her with me this moment.”
A few moments after, Tina went lightly tripping down the stairs, and Harry and I with her, carrying the child and its little basket of clothing.
“There, put them in,” she said. “And now, boys,” she said, turning and offering both her hands, “good by. I love you both dearly, and always shall.”
She kissed us both, and was gone from our eyes before I awoke from the dream into which she had thrown me.
* * * *
“Well,” said Miss Mehitable, when the sound of wheels died away, “could I have believed that anything could have made my heart so much lighter as this visit?”
“She was inspired,” said Mr. Rossiter.
“Tina’s great characteristic,” said I. “What makes her differ from others is this capacity of inspiration. She seems sometimes to rise, in a moment, to a level above her ordinary self, and to carry all up with her!”
“And to think that such a woman has thrown herself away on such a man!” said Harry.
“I foresee a dangerous future for her,” said Mr. Rossiter “With her brilliancy, her power of attraction, with the temptations of a new and fascinating social life before her; and with only that worthless fellow for a guide, I am afraid she will not continue our Tina.”
“Suppose we trust in Him who has guided her hitherto,” said Harry.
“People usually consider that sort of trust a desperate resort,” said Mr. Rossiter. “‘May the Lord help her,’ means, ‘It ‘s all up with her.'”
“We see,” said I, “that the greatest possible mortification and sorrow that could meet a young wife has only raised her into a higher plane. So let us hope for her future.”
CHAPTER XLIX.
WHAT CAME OF IT.
THE next week Mr. and Mrs. Ellery Davenport sailed for England.
I am warned by the increased quantity of manuscript which lies before me that, if I go on recounting scenes and incidents with equal minuteness, my story will transcend the limits of modern patience. Richardson might be allowed to trail off into seven volumes, and to trace all the histories of all his characters, even unto the third and fourth generations; but Richardson did not live in the days of railroad and steam, and mankind then had more leisure than now.
I am warned, too, that the departure of the principal character from the scene is a signal for general weariness through the audience, – for looking up of gloves, and putting on of shawls, and getting ready to call one’s carriage.
In fact, when Harry and I had been down to see Tina off, and had stood on the shore, watching and waving our handkerchiefs, until the ship became a speck in the blue airy distance, I turned back to the world with very much the feeling that there was nothing left in it. What I had always dreamed of, hoped for, planned for, and made the object of all my endeavors, so far as this world was concerned, was gone, – gone, so far as I could see, hopelessly and irredeemably; and there came over me that utter languor and want of interest in every mortal thing, which is one of the worst diseases of the mind.
But I knew that it would never do to give way to this lethargy. I needed an alterative; and so I set myself, with all my might and soul, to learning a new language. There was an old German emigrant in Cambridge, with whom I became a pupil, and I plunged into German as into a new existence. I recommend everybody who wishes to try the waters of Lethe to study a new language, and learn to think in new forms; it is like going out of one sphere of existence into another.
Some may wonder that I do not recommend devotion for this grand alterative; but it is a fact, that, when one has to combat with the terrible lassitude produced by the sudden withdrawal of an absorbing object of affection, devotional exercises sometimes hinder more than they help. There is much in devotional religion of the same strain of softness and fervor which is akin to earthly attachments, and the one is almost sure to recall the other. What the soul wants is to be distracted for a while, – to be taken out of its old grooves of thought, and run upon entirely new ones. Religion must be sought in these moods, in its active and preceptive form, – what we may call its business character, – rather than in its sentimental and devotional one.
It had been concluded among us all that it would be expedient for Miss Mehitable to remove from Oldtown and take a residence in Boston.
It was desirable, for restoring the health of Emily, that she should have more change and variety, and less minute personal attention fixed upon her, than could be the case in the little village of Oldtown. Harry and I did a great deal of house-hunting for them, and at last succeeded in securing a neat little cottage on an eminence overlooking the harbor in the outskirts of Boston.
Preparing this house for them, and helping to establish them in it, furnished employment for a good many of our leisure hours. In fact, we found that this home so near would be quite an accession to our pleasures. Miss Mehitable had always been one of that most pleasant and desirable kind of acquaintances that a young man can have; to wit, a cultivated, intelligent, literary female friend, competent to advise and guide one in one’s scholarly career. We became greatly interested in the society of her sister. The strength and dignity of character shown by this unfortunate lady in recovering her position commanded our respect. She was never aware, and was never made aware by anything in our manner, that we were acquainted with her past history.
The advice of Tina on this subject had been faithfully followed. No one in our circle, or in Boston, except my grandmother, had any knowledge of how the case really stood. In fact, Miss Mehitable had always said that her sister had gone abroad to study in France, and her reappearance again was only noticed among the few that inquired into it at all, as her return. Harry and I used to study French with her, both on our own account and as a means of giving her some kind of employment. On the whole, the fireside circle at the little cottage became a cheerful and pleasant retreat. Miss Mehitable had gained what she had for years been sighing for, – the opportunity to devote herself wholly to this sister. She was a person with an enthusiastic power of affection, and the friendship that arose between the two was very beautiful.