University of Virginia Library

33. CHAPTER XXXIII.
A GLEAM OF DAWN.

Once more a summer sunset at the old farm-house
among the Berkshire Hills, where, for a hundred years,
successive generations of Windsors had been born and
bred; once more we see the level rays glance from the
diamond-paned, dairy casement, left ajar to admit the fresh
evening air; once more the airy banners of eglantine and
maiden's-bower float against the clear blue sky; once more
we tread in fancy the green velvet of the turf, creeping over
the very edge of the irregular door-stone, worn smooth by
feet that long since have travelled beyond earthly limits,
and now tread celestial fields and sunny slopes of Paradise.
Far across the meadow lies the shadow of the old house, —
a strange, fantastic suggestion of a dwelling, vague and
enticing as the gray turrets of the Castle of St. John, which,
as the legend says, are to be shaped at twilight from the
crags and ravines of the lonely mountains, but vanish in
the daylight. And beside it, not vague, but clear and

sharp, lay the shadow of the old well-sweep, like a giant
finger, pointing, always pointing, now to the east, whence
cometh light and hope, and the promise of another day;
and anon due west, as showing to the sad eyes that watched
it the road to joy and comfort.

Within the house, much was changed. The floors
were covered with matting, the walls with delicate paper-hangings;
the old furniture replaced with Indian couches
and arm-chairs, whose shape and material suggested luxurious
ease and coolness. In the chamber that had been
Dora's, was wrought, perhaps, the greatest change of all;
for to the rugged simplicity, and, so to speak, severity, of
the young girl's surroundings, had succeeded the luxury,
the exquisite refinement, essential to the comfort of a woman
born and bred in the innermost sanctuary of modern civilization.
The martial relics of Dora's camp-life had disappeared
from the walls, no longer simply whitewashed, but
covered with a pearl-gray paper, over which trailed in
graceful curves a mimic ivy-vine, colored like nature.
Upon this hung a few choice pictures, — proof-engravings of
Correggio's Cherubs; a Christ blessing Little Children; a
Madonna, with sad, soft eyes resting upon the Holy Child,
whose fixed gaze seemed to read his own sublime destiny;
and a Babes in the Wood.

Over the fireplace, the rude sketch of the deformed negro
was replaced by an exquisite painting, representing a little
girl, — her sweet face framed in a shower of golden ringlets,
her blue eyes fixed with a sort of wistful tenderness upon
the beholder; this expression repeating itself in the lines
of the curving mouth. The dress was carefully copied from
that worn by 'Toinette Legrange upon the day she was lost;
and the picture had been painted, soon after her disappearance,
by an artist friend of the family, who had so often admired
the beautiful child, that he found it easy to reproduce
her face upon canvas; although his own knowledge of the circumstances,
and perhaps the haunting presence of the sad
eyes of the mother, as she asked, “Oh! can you give me
even a picture of her?” had tinged the whole composition
with a pathos not intended by the artist, but indescribably
touching to the spectator.

Between the windows, in place of Dora's simple pine
table, with its white drapery, its few plain books, and little
work-box, stood a toilet-table, covered with the luxurious
necessities of an elegant woman's wardrobe. The dressing-case,
the jewel-box, the perfume-bottles; the velvet-lined and
delicately-scented mouchoir and glove boxes; the varied trifles,
so idle in detail, so essential to the whole, — all were
there, and all evidently in constant use.

Nor let us too harshly judge the mode of life, differ though
it may from our own, which regards these superfluities as
essential, and can hardly less dispense with them than with
its daily bread. The violet, the anemone, the May-flower,
a hundred sweet and hardy blossoms, thrive amid the chills
and storms of early spring in the most exposed situations.
But are not the exquisite tea-rose, the fragile garden-lily, or
the cereus, that dies after one sweet night of perfumed
beauty, as true to their nature and to God's law? Did not
the same hand form the sparrow, who scatters the late snow
from his wings, and gayly pecks the crumbs from our doorstep,
and the humming-bird, who waits for gorgeous summer
noons to come and sip the honey from our jessamine?

So let us, if we will, love Dora in the Spartan simplicity
of her soldierly adornments, and none the less love and cherish
the woman who now lies upon the very spot, where, but a
year ago, lay little Sunshine, wavering between this life and
a better. For some reason unknown to herself, Mrs. Legrange
had, from the first, felt a strong affection for this
chamber, haunted, though she knew it not, by the presence
of the beloved child; and she had taken much pleasure in
its adornment; though, now that all was done, she rarely
noticed the beautiful articles collected about her, liking best

of all to lie in dreamy revery, recalling, day after day, with
the minute fondness of a woman's memory, the looks, the
gestures, the careless words, the pretty, graceful ways, the
artless fascinations, of her whom now she rarely named, —
holding her memory as something too sacred for common
speech, too far withdrawn into her own heart to be lightly
brought to the surface.

Thus lying in the twilight of this evening, dreamily watching
the long white curtains as they filled with the night-air
and floated out into the room like the shadowy sails of a
bark anchored in some Dreamland bay, and never guessing
whose eyes had watched their waving but one short year before,
when 'Toinette was first laid in Dora's little bed, Mrs.
Legrange heard her husband coming up the stairs, and rose
to receive him, with a strange fluttering at her heart, — a
sort of nervous hope and terror all in one, as if she had
known him the bearer of great news, but could not yet determine
its tenor.

Mr. Legrange entered, holding a letter in his hand, and
glanced tenderly, but with some surprise, at his wife, who
stood with one hand pressing the white folds of her muslin
wrapper convulsively to her bosom, the other outstretched
toward him, a sudden hectic burning in her cheeks, and her
eyes bright with feverish light.

“Fanny! what is it?” exclaimed the husband, pausing
upon the threshold.

“That letter — you have some news! O Paul, you have
news of” —

Her voice died in a breathless flutter; and Mr. Legrange,
coming hastily to her side, drew her to a seat, saying tenderly,
—

“No, darling, no news of her, — not yet, at least. What
made you fancy it? This is only a letter from your protégé
at Antioch College: at least, I suppose so from the postmark.
Do you care to read it now?”

Mrs. Legrange hid her face upon her husband's breast,
trembling nervously.

“O Paul! when I heard you coming up the stairs, such
a feeling came over me! I seemed to feel some great revelation
approaching. I was sure it was news of her. Paul,
Paul, I cannot bear it; I cannot live! My heart is broken;
but it will not die, and let me rest. O my God! how
long?”

“Hush, dearest, hush! Your wild words are to me
worse than the grief we both suffer so keenly. But, my
wife, have we not each other? and would you kill me by
your own despair? Will God be pleased, that, because he

has taken away our Sunshine, we refuse all other blessings,
and disdain all other ties and obligations? Fanny, dearest,
is it not an earnest duty with you to strive for strength?”

But the mother only moaned impatiently, —

“O Paul! do not try, do not talk: it is useless. When
you let fall that crystal vinaigrette this morning, did you
tell it that its duty was to be whole, and filled with perfume
again? Do you tell those flowers that it is their duty to be
fresh and sweet as they were yesterday? or, if you did,
would they heed you?”

“No, darling; for they have neither mind nor soul,”
suggested the husband significantly.

“And mine are swallowed up in the sorrow that has
swallowed all else. O Paul! forgive me, and ask God to
forgive me; but I cannot, I never can, become resigned. I
cannot live; I cannot wish or try to live. A little while,
and I shall see her.”

She spoke the last words softly, as to her own heart; and
over her face passed such a look of solemn joy, such yearning
tenderness, mingled with an infinite pathos, that the
stronger and less sensitive male organization stood awed
and subdued before it.

“Her love and grief are deeper than any words of mine

car reach,” thought the husband, and, so, tenderly soothed
her head upon his breast, and said no more for several
minutes, until, to his surprise, it was lifted, and the pale
face looked into his with the pensive calmness under which
it habitually hid its more intimate expressions.

“From whom did you say the letter came, Paul?” asked
Mrs. Legrange.

“From Theodore Ginniss, I believe. Will you read it
now?” asked her husband, in some surprise at the sudden
transition: for no man ever thoroughly comprehends a
woman, no woman a man; and so is the distinctive temperament
of the sexes preserved.

“Yes: I told him to write to me once in every month,
and he is very punctual.”

She opened the letter, and read aloud: —

Mrs. Legrange slowly folded the letter, and looked at her
husband, saying dreamily, —

“I should like to see this Mr. Brown. Perhaps he has
some comfort for me; and that was what I felt approaching
in that letter.”

Mr. Legrange smiled a little compassionately, and more
than a little tenderly.

“I am afraid, love, you would be disappointed. A man
might seem a marvel of eloquence and wisdom to poor

Theodore, while you would find him a very commonplace, perhaps
obtrusive individual.”

Mrs. Legrange slowly shook her head.

“I feel just as if that man could give me comfort. I
must see him.”

“Very well, dear: if it will give you the slightest pleasure,
you shall certainly do so. Shall I send and invite him here?
or do you think the journey to Ohio would be a pleasant variety
for you? Perhaps it might; and Teddy's elaborately
artless recommendation of the Neff House and the iron-springs
is worthy of some attention.”

“Yes: I will go there. I think I should like the journey,
and I don't object to trying the springs; and I should like to
see Theodore, and hear him talk about — her. And I am
sure I shall not find Mr. Brown commonplace or obtrusive.”

“Verywell, dear: it shall be as you say. When shall we
go? It will be very hot travelling now, I am afraid.”

“Oh, no! I don't mind. But I don't want to interfere
with the Western excursion Theodore so modestly suggests;
nor do I wish to go while he is away. We will go in the middle
of September, I think.”

“Yes, that will do, and will give you something to be
thinking of meantime,” said Mr. Legrange, looking with

satisfaction at the healthy animation of his wife's face, as
she re-read the portion of Teddy's letter relating to Yellow
Springs and the Neff House.

“And now,” said she, “go and send Mrs. Ginniss up to
me to hear her letter too, — that is, if you please; for, you
humor me so much, I know I am growing tyrannical in speech
as well as in act.

Mr. Legrange stooped to kiss his wife's cheek; and, to his
eyes, the faint smile with which she repaid the caress was
the fair dawn of a brighter day.