University of Virginia Library

5. CHAPTER V.

The setting sun shone fairly upon the last day of December;
and as his disk sank lower and lower behind the city,
chimneys and dormant windows and now and then a towering
story, glowed in the clear red light with singular brightness.
The sadder for that. So very fair, and yet the
end!—the end of the day, the end of the year. The last
time the sun might shine upon 1812!—Cold and still the
night set in; and the quiet stars in whose watch the new
year should begin its reign, looked down with bright eyes
upon the subsiding city and its kindling lights.

Rosalie stood watching it all,—watching the people as
they hurried home, the parlour windows lit up, the bright
doorways that appeared and vanished, the happy groups
gathering at tea. She could see them across the way,—
those fair shadows, young and old, moving about in the
bright glow. And in the next house—and the next,—up
and down, as far as she could see;—it was one line of telegraphing.
Nor did the few windows where only firelight
shone, flickering like the joy of human life, look less cheerful.
She remembered the long talks, the sweet counsel

given in that dusky light,—the eyes that had looked down
upon her like heaven's own stars; but now the room was
not darker than her heart.

It was not the first time she had stood there watching
for her brother,—she had looked till each frequenter of that
street was perfectly well known. It was not the first time
she had watched in sadness. But she remembered that
there had been a time when she was never suffered to
watch there long — when a gentle hand would be passed
round her waist, and she be drawn away from the window,
with,

`We may not overrule these things, daughter—we must
not be children in whom is no faith. Come and let us talk
of the time when God shall wipe away all tears from our
eyes.'

Pressing her hand upon her heart, Rosalie turned hastily
from the window.

The fire gleamed faintly upon Hulda's little face and
figure, stretched upon the sofa in the perfect rest of childhood;
and above that one bright spot in the room, hung a
picture that gave depth to all the shadows. Rosalie ventured
but one glance at it, and kneeling down at her mother's
chair, she laid her face on the cushion with a bitter
weariness of heart that found poor relief in tears. Yet they
were a relief; and after a while her mind lay quiet upon
those words, “God is our refuge and strength: a very
present help in trouble.”

A soft touch on her neck aroused her, and with an almost
bewildered start Rosalie looked up; but it was `neither
angel nor spirit'—it was only little Hulda.

`Are you sick, Alie?' asked the child.

`No love. Are you awake?'

`O yes,' said Hulda, laughing and wrapping her arms

round Rosalie's neck,—`don't that feel awake? Aren't we
going to have tea, Alie?'

`I shall wait for Thornton, but you shall have yours,
dear;' and getting up with the child in her arms, Rosalie
carried her into the tea-room, and fell back into her own
quiet performance of duties.

Hulda was in quite high spirits for her, and eat her supper
on Rosalie's lap with great relish,—a relish partly derived
from returning health, and partly from this first coming
down-stairs.

`I wonder if Thornton hasn't gone to buy me a present!'
she said. `You know it's Newyear's eve, Rosalie, and you
must hang up my stocking.'

`There is no fear of my forgetting that,' said her sister.

`No, for you never forget anything. But I wonder
what'll be in it! Well, we'll see.'

`Yes, we shall see. So put your arms round my neck,
Hulda, and I will carry you up-stairs. It is pleasanter
there than here to-night.'

But the musing fit was strong upon her; and later in
the evening, when her little charge was asleep, Rosalie's
mind could do nothing but wander in a wilderness of recollections.
Not a wilderness in one sense,—how fresh, how
dear, they were!—and yet too much like a sweet land
breeze from the coast that one has left.

Rosalie took out the stocking as Hulda had desired, and
put together on a chair at the head of the bed all the various
trifles that were to fill it; but when she had placed
herself on a low seat before them, the stocking hung unregarded
from her hand, and her thoughts flew away. There
seemed a long vista opened before her; and furthest of all
its objects—yet clear, distinct, even more so than those
near by—she saw herself as a little child; before her eye

had learned to know the evil that is in the world, or her
heart had grown up to feel it. What a stream of sunshine
lay there!—

And even in later times, where the shadow of life had
begun to fall, the picture seemed hardly less fair. For about
both, the child and the half-grown girl, had been wrapped
the same atmosphere of love and guidance,—through which
sweet medium all the breaths of sorrow and pain came softened.
Even when they came from bitter causes—her
father's death, her brother's gradual estrangement from
home—his voluntary withdrawing from the hand in hand
intercourse in which they had grown up,—even then there
was sunshine at her mother's side—sunshine for her,—she
had never failed to find it. But it reached not to the dark
foreground; where scorched flowers and blackened stumps
showed that Time had claimed the land, and had cleared it.

But little more than one year ago, Rosalie was nerving
herself for the bitter future. It had come, and she had met
it,—had lived through those first few months of grief not to
be told nor thought of. But though her heart was quieter
now, there were times which seemed to surpass all she had
ever known for intensity of sorrow,—when her very life
seemed to die within her, and desire to live and power to
do could not be found,—when her mind dwelt with intense
longing on the words, “I shall go to her, but she shall not
return to me.” Yet even then God had not forgotten his
child, and in the breaking light her mind rested submissively
upon this other text—“All the days of my appointed

time will I wait, till my change come.” And as the last
storm-clouds roll away, and are gilt with the western light,
so upon all her sorrow fell this assurance,—“Blessed are the
dead that die in the Lord—they rest from their labours and
their works do follow them.”

“I do set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be for a
token of the covenant between me and the earth!”

Rosalie had dwelt long upon the words, till all thought
for herself was lost in joy for her mother's safety and assured
blessedness, far from the weariness that pressed upon her
own heart; and though the remembrance brought back one
or two tears, they were quickly wiped away, and her whole
soul was poured out in the prayer that she might one day
`go to her,'—and not only she, but the two dear ones yet
left to her on earth. The desire could not be spoken—it
was the very uplifting of the heart,—for them, for herself:
and that she might faithfully perform the work that was put
into her hands.

With a look where sorrow and submission and earnest
purpose and endeavour, were like the pencilling upon a flower
of most delicate growth and substance, Rosalie raised her
head, and saw Thornton before her: leaning against the
bedpost with his arms folded, and eyeing her gravely and
considerately.

`What are you thinking of me for, Rosalie?' he said.
`Cannot you do enough of that work in the daytime, that
you must spend half the night upon it?'

`Are you sure that I have?'

`If I had not been sure of it I should have claimed your
attention when I first came in.'

`And it would have been gladly given.'

`Yes, I dare say,' said Thornton, `but one may as well
take the benefit of all that good angels are amind to do for

one. I am almost sorry I did not, though. What have you
got there? stockings to darn?'

`Only Hulda's stocking to fill with presents—you know
it is New-year's eve.'

`Give me credit for remembering something once in the
course of my life. I did recollect that there was a stocking
to fill, and have brought home my quota.'

`I am so very glad!' said his sister with a look of great
pleasure. `Hulda would have been disappointed if you
had forgotten her.'

`She don't owe me many thanks,' said Thornton, as he
watched the fingers that were busy disposing of the presents
and the face that bent over them. `I believe she might
have escaped my memory if her sweet guardian could have
gone with her. But Hulda's presents were to pass through
your hands—No—don't kiss me,—I tell you I don't deserve
it. When you looked up a little while ago, I felt as if you
were up in the sky, and I—I don't quite know where,—so
I'll wait till we both get back to terra-firma again.'

`Do you call me her guardian?' said Rosalie with one
look at him.

`Yes, and mine too. Why didn't you have tea to-night?
Well—you look,—Want to know how I found it out?—
because the table was untouched. Why didn't you?'

`O—I thought I would wait for you,' said she brightly.

`But why did you, after all? Don't you know I'm not
worth the trouble?'

`O Thornton!' she said.

`What?'

`I was not going to say anything.'

`Your saying nothing usually tells all one wants to know,
and a little more. Come, finish your work,—I shall play
guardian to-night, and make you go down and eat as many

oysters as an angel can reasonably be supposed to want. So
make haste, for it is time such particular little bodies as you
were in bed.'

He had named her right—she was indeed his guardian
angel.

In the midst of all his reckless absence and waste of
time, in the gayest hours of pleasure among his so-called
best friends, there was still in his inmost heart the pure
image of one Christian, whose profession he knew was not a
name,—whose walk he knew was consistent; whose life
he knew was gladly submitted to a higher will than her own.
And often did that image come up before him, rebuking the
light irreverent talk of his companions, making false their
assertions, and reproving him for even listening and looking
on. His mother had indeed won his respect no less; but
she was older—it seemed more natural, to his notion, that
Christianity and years should come together. But his sister
—young like himself—younger than he,—beautiful, admired,
complimented; and yet maintaining that pure elevation of
heart and mind—that uncorrupted, untainted simplicity of
aim, which not all his most unbelieving desires could find in
those who are living without God in the world:—it vexed
him sometimes, and sometimes it roused his pride and sometimes
his discontent,—yet on the whole it pleased him.
There was a strange kind of fascination in seeing one who
ought naturally to look up to him for counsel and strength,
assume, almost unconsciously, so high a stand above him;
and array herself not more gently than firmly against so
much that he liked and followed. And though he often
laughed at her, sometimes stopped her mouth with a kiss,
and sometimes got excessively provoked,—if he could have
thought her one whit more tolerant of the things which
he tolerated, one jot more indulgent towards the company

and the pursuits in which he wasted his life—Thornton
would have felt that the best thing he had in the world was
gone from him. He watched her—she little thought with
what jealous eyes; and at every instance of her unwavering
truth—not only in word, but in that uprightness of heart
which pierces through error and fallacy like a sunbeam—he
smiled to himself; or rather to the best part of his nature
against the worst. And yet upon those very points he
would argue and dispute with her till he was tired. But
this consciousness of her secret influence made him the more
shy of submitting to it openly. He was content to go on
after the old fashion; thinking Rosalie a piece of perfection,
and not much concerning himself whether she were a happy
piece of perfection or no.