 | Cousin Maude ; and, Rosamond |  |
MAGGIE LEE.
The usually quiet little village of Ellerton was, one
June morning, thrown into a state of great excitement
by the news that the large stone building on the hill,
which, for several years had been shut up, was at last to
have an occupant, and that said occupant was no less a
personage than its owner, Graham Thornton, who, at the
early age of twenty-eight, had been chosen to fill the responsible
office of judge of the county. Weary of city
life, and knowing that a home in the country would not
materially interfere with the discharge of his new duties,
particularly as Ellerton was within half an hour's ride of
the city, young Thornton had conceived the idea of fitting
up the old stone house, bequeathed to him by his grandfather,
in a style suited to his abundant means and luxurious
taste. Accordingly, for several weeks, the people
of Ellerton were kept in a constant state of anxiety,
watching, wondering and guessing, especially Miss Olivia
Macey, who kept a small store in the outskirts of the village,
and whose fertile imagination supplied whatever her
neighbors lacked in actual knowledge of the proceedings
at “Greystone Hall,” as Judge Thornton called his place
of residence.
At last, every thing was completed, and the day appointed
for the arrival of the Judge, who, disliking confusion,
few general directions, had left the entire arrangement of
the building and grounds to the management of one whom
he knew to be a connoisseur in such matters. As was
very natural, a great deal of curiosity was felt concerning
the arrival of the distinguished stranger, and as his mother,
a proud, stately woman, was to accompany him, Miss
Olivia Macey, who boasted of having once been a school-mate
of the haughty lady, resolved upon meeting them at
the depot, thinking she should thereby show them proper
respect.
“So Maggie,” said she to her niece, a dark-haired,
white-browed girl of fifteen, who, at noon, came bounding
in from school, “so Maggie, you must watch the store,
for there's no knowing how long I shall be gone. Miss
Thornton may ask me home with her, and it would not be
polite to refuse.”
For an instant Maggie's dark brown eyes danced with
mischief as she thought how improbable it was that the
lofty Mrs. Thornton would seek to renew her acquaintance
with one in Miss Macey's humble position, but the next
moment they filled with tears, and she said, “Oh, aunt,
must I stay from school again? It is the third time within
a week. I never shall know anything!”
“Never mind, Mag,” shouted little Ben, tossing his
cap across the room and helping himself to the largest
piece of pie upon the dinner-table. “Never mind. I'll
stay with you, for I don't like to go to school any way.
And we'll get our lessons at home.”
Maggie knew how useless it would be to argue the
point, so with a dejected air she seated herself at the open
window and silently watched her aunt until she disappeared
to study, but could not, for the heavy pain at her heart
which kept whispering of injustice done to her, unconsciously,
perhaps, by the only mother she had ever known.
Very dear to Miss Macey were the orphan children of her
only sister, and faithfully did she strive to fulfill her trust,
but she could not conceal her partiality for fun-loving,
curly-haired Ben, nor the fact that the sensitive and ambitious
Maggie, who thirsted for knowledge, was wholly
unappreciated and misunderstood. Learning—learning
was what Maggie craved, and she sat there alone that
bright June afternoon, holding upon her lap the head of
her sleeping brother, and watching the summer shadows
as they chased each other over the velvety grass in the
meadow beyond, she wondered if it would ever be thus
with her—would there never come a time when she
could pursue her studies undisturbed, and then, as the
thought that this day made her fifteen years of age, her
mind went forward to the future, and she said aloud—
“Yes—three years from to-day and I shall be free—free
as the air I breathe!”
But why that start, sweet Maggie Lee? Why that
involuntary shudder as you think of the long three years
from now? She cannot tell, but the shadows deepen
on her fair, girlish face, and leaning her brow upon her
hand, she thinks long and earnestly of what the three
years may bring. A footstep on the floor — the first
which has fallen there that afternoon—and Maggie looks
up to see before her a tall, fine-looking man, who, the moment
his eye fell upon her, checked the whistle, intended
for his dog, which was trembling on his lip, and lifting
Macey's store?”
“Yes, sir,” answered Maggie, and laying Bennie gently
down, she went round behind the counter, while the young
man, gazing curiously at her, continued, “You surely are
not Miss Macey?”
There was a most comical expression in the brown eyes
which met the black ones of the stranger, as Maggie answered,
“No sir, I am nobody but Maggie Lee.”
There must have been something attractive either in
the name or the little maiden who bore it, for long after
the gentleman had received the articles for which he
came, he lingered, asking the young girl numberless questions
and playing with little Ben, who, now wide awake,
met his advances more than half way, and was on perfectly
familiar terms both with the stranger and the dog
Ponto, who had stretched his shaggy length before the
door.
“Mag cries, she does, when Aunt Livy makes her stay
home from school,” said Ben, at last, beginning to feel
neglected and wishing to attract attention.
Showing his white, handsome teeth, the gentleman
playfully smoothed the silken curls of little Ben, and
turning to the blushing Maggie, asked “if she were fond
of books?”
“Oh, I love them so much,” was the frank, impulsive
answer, and ere ten minutes had passed away, Judge
Thornton, for he it was, understood Maggie's character as
well as if he had known her a lifetime.
Books, poetry, music, paintings, flowers, she worshiped
them all, and without the slightest means either of gratifying
her taste.
“I have in my library many choice books, to which
you are welcome at any time when you will call at Greystone
Hall,” the stranger said at last.
“Greystone Hall!” gasped Maggie, the little red spots
coming out all over her neck and face—“Greystone Hall!
—then you must be—”
“Judge Thornton, and your friend hereafter,” answered
the gentleman, offering his hand and bidding her good-by.
There are moments which leave their impress upon
one's lifetime, changing instantaneously, as it were, our
thoughts and feelings, and such an one had come to Maggie
Lee, who was roused from a deep reverie by the
shrill voice of her aunt, exclaiming, “Well, I've been on
a Tom-fool's errand once in my life. Here I've waited
in that hot depot over two trains, and heard at the last
minute that Mrs. Thornton and her son came up last
night, and I hain't seen them after all. It's too bad.'
Very quietly Maggie told of the judge's call, repeating
all the particulars of the interview; then stealing away
to her chamber, she thought again, wondering where and
what she would be three years from that day.
A year has passed away, and Graham Thornton, grown
weary of his duties, has resigned the office of judge, and
turned school-teacher, so the gossipping villagers say, and
with some degree of truth, for regularly each day Maggie
Lee and Ben go up to Greystone Hall, where they recite
their lessons to its owner, though always in the presence
of its lady mistress, who has taken a strange fancy to
Maggie Lee, and whose white hand has more than once
rested caressingly on the dark, glossy hair of the young
changed from the Maggie of fifteen years; but to him,
her teacher, she is not the same, for while in some respects
she is more a woman and less a child, in every thing pertaining
to himself she is far more a child than when first
he met her one short year ago. Then there was about
her a certain self-reliance, which is now all gone, and he
who has looked so often into the thoughts and feelings of
that childish heart knows he can sway her at his will.
“But 'tis only a girlish friendship she feels for him,”
he says; “only a brotherly interest he entertains for her;”
and so day after day she comes to his library, and on a
low stool, her accustomed seat at his side, she drinks in
new inspirations with which to feed that girlish friendship,
while he, gazing down into her soft, brown, dreamy eyes,
feels more and more how necessary to his happiness is her
daily presence there. And if sometimes the man of the
world asks himself “where all this will end?” his conscience
is quieted by the answer that Maggie Lee merely
feels toward him as she would toward any person who
had done her a like favor. So all through the bright
summer days and through the hazy autumn time, Maggie
dreams on, perfectly happy, though she knows not why,
for never yet has a thought of love for him entered her
soul. She only knows that he to her is the dearest, best
of friends, and Greystone Hall the loveliest spot on earth,
but the wish that she might ever be its mistress has never
been conceived.
With the coming of the holidays the lessons were suspended
for a time, for there was to be company at the
hall, and its master would need all his leisure.
“I shall miss you so much,” he said to Maggie, as he
home. “I shall miss you, but the claims of society must
be met, and these ladies have long talked of visiting us.”
“Are they young and handsome?” Maggie asked involuntarily.
“Only one—Miss Helen Deane is accounted a beauty.
She is an heiress, too, and the best match in all the
city of L—,” answered Mr. Thornton, more to himself
than Maggie, who at the mention of Helen Deane
felt a cold shadow folding itself around her heart.
Alas, poor Maggie Lee. The world has long since selected
the proud Helen as the future bride of Graham
Thornton, who, as he walks slowly back across the snow-clad
field, tramples upon the delicate footprints you have
made, and wishes it were thus easy to blot out from his
heart all memory of you! Poor, poor Maggie Lee, Helen
Deane is beautiful, far more beautiful than you, and when
in her robes of purple velvet, with her locks of golden
hair shading her soft eyes of blue, she flits like a sunbeam
through the spacious rooms of Greystone Hall, waking
their echoes with her voice of richest melody, what marvel
if Graham Thornton does pay her homage, and reserves
all thoughts of you for the midnight hour, when
the hall is still and Helen's voice no longer heard? He is
but a man—a man, too, of the world, and so, though you,
Maggie Lee, are very dear to him, he does not think it
possible that he can raise you to his rank—make you the
honored mistress of his home, and still lower himself not
one iota from the station he has ever filled. And though
his mother loves you, too, 'tis not with a mother's love,
and should children ever climb her knee calling her son
their sire, she would deem you a governess befitting
not know, and when the visiting is over and Helen Deane
is gone, she goes back to her old place and sits again at
the feet of Graham Thornton, never wondering why he
seems so often lost in thought, or why he looks so oft into
her eyes of brown, trying to read there that he has not
wronged her.
Another year has passed, and with the light of the full
moon shining down upon him, Graham Thornton walks
again with Maggie Lee across the fields where now the
summer grass is growing. The foot-prints in last winter's
snow have passed away just as the light will go out from
Maggie's heart when Graham Thornton shall have told
the tale he has come with her to tell. With quivering
lips and bloodless cheek she listened while he told her indifferently,
as if it were a piece of news she had probably
heard before, that when the next full moon should shine
on Greystone Hall, Helen Deane would be there—his
bride!
“This, of course, will effectually break up our pleasant
meetings,” he continued, looking everywhere save in Maggie's
face. “And this I regret—but my books are still
at your disposal. You will like Helen, I think, and will
call on her of course.”
They had reached the little gate, and, taking Maggie's
hand, he would have detained her for a few more parting
words, but she broke away, and in reply to his last question,
hurriedly answered, “Yes, yes.”
The next moment he was alone—alone in the bright
moonlight. The door was shut. There was a barrier between
himself and Maggie Lee, a barrier his own hands had
Thornton's conscience be at rest. Amid all the pomp of
his bridal day—at the hour when, resplendent with beauty,
Helen stood by his side at the holy altar, and breathed
the vows which made her his forever—amid the gay festivities
which followed, and the noisy mirth which for
days pervaded his home, there was ever a still, small voice
which whispered to him of the great wrong he had done
to Maggie Lee, who never again was seen at Greystone
Hall.
Much the elder Mrs. Thornton marveled at her absence,
and once when her carriage was rolling past the door of
the little store, she bade her coachman stop, while she
herself went in to ask if her favorite were ill. Miss
Olivia's early call at Greystone Hall had never been returned,
and now she bowed coldly and treated her visitor
with marked reserve, until she learned why she had come;
then, indeed, her manner changed, but she could not tell
her how, on the night when Graham Thornton had cruelly
torn the veil from Maggie's heart, leaving it crushed and
broken, she had found her long after midnight out in the
tall, damp grass, where, in the wild abandonment of grief
she had thrown herself; nor how, in a calmer moment she
had told her sad story, exonerating him from wrong, and
blaming only herself for not having learned sooner how
much she loved one so far above her, so she simply answered,
“Yes, she took a violent cold and has been sick
for weeks. Her mother died of consumption; I'm afraid
Maggie will follow.”
“Poor girl, to die so young,” sighed Mrs. Thornton,
as she returned to her carriage and was driven back to
Greystone Hall, where, in a recess of the window Graham
the curls of her golden hair.
But the hand dropped nervously at his side when his
mother startled him with the news that “Maggie Lee
was dying.” Very wonderingly the large blue eyes of
Helen followed him, as, feigning sudden faintness, he fled
out into the open air, which, laden though it was with
the perfume of the summer flowers, had yet no power to
quiet the voice within which told him that if Maggie
died, he alone was guilty of her death. “But whatever
I can do to atone for my error shall be done,” he thought
at last, and until the chill November wind had blasted
the last bud, the choicest fruit and flowers which grew at
Greystone Hall daily found entrance to the chamber of
the sick girl, who would sometimes push them away, as
if there still lingered among them the atmosphere they
had breathed.
“They remind me so much of the the past that I can
not endure them in my presence,” she said one day when
her aunt brought her a beautiful bouquet, composed of her
favorite flowers, and the hot tears rained over the white,
wasted face, as she ordered them from the room.
Much she questioned both her aunt and Bennie of her
rival, whose beauty was the theme of the whole village,
and once, when told that she was passing, she hastened
to the window, but her cheek grew whiter still, and her
hands clasped each other involuntarily as she saw by the
side of the fair Helen the form of Graham Thornton.
They both were looking toward her window, and as Helen
met the burning gaze, she exclaimed, “Oh, Graham, it is
terrible. It makes me faint,” and shudderingly she drew
nearer to her husband, who, to his dying hour, never forgot
upon him that memorable wintry day.
Three years have passed away since the time when
first we met with Maggie Lee—three years which seemed
so long to her then, and which have brought her so much
pain. She has watched the snow and ice as they melted
from off the hill-side. She has seen the grass spring up
by the open door—has heard the robin singing in the old
oak tree—has felt the summer air upon her cheek. She has
reached her eighteenth birthday, and ere another sun shall
rise will indeed be free.
“Oh, I cannot see her die,” cried poor little Ben, when
he saw the pallor stealing over her face, and running out
into the yard he threw himself upon the grass, sobbing
bitterly, “My sister, oh, my sister.”
“Is she worse?” said the voice of Graham Thornton.
He was passing in the street and had heard the wailing
cry. Ben knew that in some way Judge Thornton was
connected with his grief, but he answered respectfully,
“She is dying. “Oh, Maggie, Maggie. What shall I
do without her?”
“You shall live with me,” answered Mr. Thornton.
'Twas a sudden impulse, and thinking the assurance
that her brother should be thus provided for would be a
comfort to the dying girl, he glided noiselessly into the
sick room. But she did not know him, and falling on his
knees by her side, he wept like a little child. “She was
sleeping,” they said, at last, and lifting up his head, he
looked upon her as she slept, while a fear, undefined and
terrible, crept over him, she lay so still and motionless.
At length rising to his feet, he bent him down so low
went out from her presence, for he knew that Maggie Lee
was dead!
The next day, at sunset, they buried her in the valley
where the mound could always be seen from the window
of Graham Thornton's room, and, as with folded arms
and aching heart he stood by, while they lowered the
coffin to its resting-place, he felt glad that it was so. “It
will make me a better man,” he thought, “for when evil
passions rise, and I am tempted to do wrong, I have only
to look across the fields toward the little grave which but
for me would not have been made so soon, and I shall be
strengthened to do what is right.”
Slowly and sadly he walked away, going back to his
home, where, in a luxuriously furnished chamber, on a
couch whose silken hangings swept the floor, lay his
wife, and near her his infant daughter, that day four
weeks of age. As yet she had no name, and when the
night had closed upon them, and it was dark within the
room, Graham Thornton drew his chair to the side of his
wife, and in low, subdued tones, told her of the fair
young girl that day buried from his sight. Helen was
his wife, a gentle, faithful wife, and he could not tell her
how much he had loved Maggie Lee, and that but for
his foolish pride she would perhaps at that moment have
been where Helen was, instead of sleeping in her early
grave. No, he could not tell her this, but he told her
Maggie had been very dear to him, and that he feared it
was for the love of him that she had died. “I wronged
her, Nellie, darling,” he said smoothing the golden tresses
which lay upon the pillow. “I broke her heart, and
now that she is gone I would honor her memory by
beautiful name,” he continued, “and you will not refuse
my request.”
There was much of pride in Helen Thornton's nature,
and she did refuse, for days and even weeks; but when
she saw the shadows deepened on the brow of her husband,
who would stand for hours looking out through the
open window toward the valley where slept the village
dead, and when the mother, in pity for her son, joined
also in the request, she yielded; and, as if the sacrifice
were accepted and the atonement good, the first smile
which ever dimpled the infant's cheek, played on its
mouth, as with its large, strange, bright eyes fixed upon
its father's face, it was baptized “Maggie Lee.”
Four years of sunshine and storm have fallen upon Maggie's
grave, where now a costly marble stands, while the
handsome iron fence and the well-kept ground within show
that some hand of love is often busy there. In a distant
city Ben is striving to overcome his old dislike for books,
and seeking to make himself what he knows his sister
would wish him to be. At home, the little store has been
neatly fitted up, and Miss Olivia sits all day long in her
pleasant parlor, feeling sure that the faithful clerk behind
the counter will discharge his duties well. Greystone
Hall is beautiful as ever, with its handsome rooms, its extensive
grounds, its winding walks, its bubbling fountains
and its wealth of flowers, but there is a shadow over all
—a plague-spot which has eaten into the heart of Graham
Thornton, and woven many a thread of silver among his
raven locks. It has bent the stately form of his lady
mother, and his once gay-hearted wife wanders with a
footsteps of their only child, whose large, dark
eyes, so much like those which, four long years ago flashed
down on Helen their scrutinizing gaze, are darkened forever,
for little Maggie Lee is blind!
They are getting somewhat accustomed to it now—accustomed
to calling her their “poor, blind bird,” but the
blow was crushing when first it came, and on the grave
in the valley, Graham Thornton more than once laid his
forehead in the dust, and cried, “My punishment is greater
than I can bear.”
But He “who doeth all things well,” has in a measure
healed the wound, throwing so much of sunshine and of
joy around her, who never saw the glorious light of day,
that with every morning's dawn and every evening's shade,
the fond parents bless their little blind girl, the angel of
their home.
| Cousin Maude ; and, Rosamond | |