University of Virginia Library

26. CHAPTER XXVI.
DESCRIBING AN EVENT OF THE GREATEST INTEREST TO ARTHUR
BLAGUE, FANNY GILBERT, AND THE READER.

Arthur thought he was ready to go; but he was
not. Both his circumstances and his feelings held him
back. When he thought of dislocating himself from all
the associations of his life—of selling off the old house,
in which his whole life had been passed, of taking his
mother to a new home, of leaving his early friends, and,
particularly, of parting with one toward whom he felt
himself attracted with constantly increasing power—his
heart sank within him. Besides, the shock he had received
staggered him more than he was aware. Under
the strength of his first rebound from the blow that had
laid him low, he thought he was ready for his work;
but there came upon him a reaction from the other direction.
His life had flowed in one channel too long to
be suddenly diverted. He found that there was a certain
preparation to be effected. He must get accustomed
to his new outlook upon life. Before he could
work with what strength there was in him, his powers

and sympathies must be harmonized by a process which
time could only complete.

It has been more than hinted that the first interview
that Arthur enjoyed with Miss Gilbert, after her return
from New York, made a profound impression upon
him. For a long time, he feared to have that impression
renewed. Years previously he had determined, in
his own mind, that the brilliant woman would not be a
suitable wife for a minister—nor for him. Her aims
were not his; her motives were not his. But he had
caught a view of the better side of her character, and it
had charmed him. Afterwards, he had been a quiet,
deeply interested observer of her life, and the strong
masculine traits that she often betrayed offended him,
and produced a reaction in his feelings. Her fearlessness,
her self-confidence, her love of masculine, out-of-door
life, her daring drives, and the genuine, business
spirit with which she came into contact with men in the
management of her father's affairs, gave him pain. It
seemed as if she were one woman to him, and another
to everybody else.

Yet the events of the study, and her ready service
during his absence, had changed his mind; as she
changed, his feelings changed; and he had begun to
feel that there was something in her and in her society
which he needed. He dwelt upon all her acts of kindness
to little Jamie and his mother—upon the delicate
sympathy she had extended to him—upon the faculty
she had to stimulate and fructify his thoughts—and he
felt his admiration of her merging into a sentiment that
was deeper and more tender.

He had already apprised his New York friends of

the death of his brother, and informed them that the
event would probably defer somewhat a definite reply
to their invitation. So, as he had pushed this decision
further from his thought, and as the changes through
which he had passed had, in a degree, unfitted him for
study, he found himself, as the weeks passed on, irresistibly
led into Fanny Gilbert's society. He studied her
instead of his books—studied her, too, with entire absence
of weariness; for he found in process of development
within her a new style of life. She had become
his pupil. She sat before him like a child, asked him
questions, led him by her strange tact out into the field
where he had his best life, explored his motives and his
sources of strength, searched him through and through
for that which would give her food and guidance. Many
precious hours did Arthur pass with her in these conversations;
and, as he was not unfrequently invited by
Mr. Wilton to preach, many were the sermons which
he preached to her.

The winter had broken up, and still Arthur lingered
in Crampton, unable to speak the word that should cut
him off from his old home, and transfer him to his new
sphere of labor. Fanny, meantime, had conceived such
a reverence for her friend, and had become so profoundly
impressed with his superiority and her own unfitness to
be his companion, that she fought against every suggestion
that she could ever become his wife. She was his
disciple. She was learning of him how to live worthily.
She could not but think, at times, how sweet it would
be to be the acknowledged mistress of such a heart as
his, and to repose in the shadow of such a nature and
such a character; but, the more she thought of this the

more unworthy she seemed to herself of occupying so
precious a place.

Again came the still, bright days when nature, like
an infant just awakened from a long, oblivious sleep,
lay with open eyes, looking silently upward, and waiting
the breezy footsteps and the sweet kisses of the
motherly spring. Again Fanny Gilbert sat at her window,
as on that spring day many years before, when
“Tristram Trevanion” was in manuscript, and Mary
Hammett was teaching the little children in the school-house
across the common. She thought of the changes
that had passed over her since then—not only over her,
but over all who were dear to her. She recalled the
feelings she had indulged in with relation to Arthur—
feelings which she used to express to Mary. She had
once, in her girlish pride and ignorance, despised the boy
who could so easily subject himself to the lives of others.
She had thought him girlish; but now she comprehended
the fact that it had been through womanly offices
that he had won the grandest characteristics of his manhood;
while she, having run through her life of ambition,
achieved her aims, and had her career, had come
back to learn of Arthur Blague how to be a woman, and
how to be happy.

That night she received a call which surprised and
puzzled her. Mr. Thomas Lampson, the conductor,
was announced, with a request that he might see Miss
Gilbert alone. He seemed to be a good deal embarrassed,
and found himself obliged, as last, to draw forth
from his pocket a package of railroad checks, and to reassure
himself by rasping the end of it with his thumb-nail.

“The fact is, Miss Gilbert,” said he, desperately,
“that I have been feeling mighty mean over a little
something I said to you once. I feel meaner and meaner
the more I hear about you, and I've come here to-night
to have it squared off. I can't go on so any longer. I
got myself so worked up about it, that I lay awake half
of last night thinking it over; and I told my wife if I
lived to make another trip, I'd have the thing settled, if
it killed me.”

“Why! what can you mean?” said Fanny, with a
smile of wonder.

“Haven't you got any thing laid up against me?”
inquired the conductor.

“Nothing.”

“Don't you remember the little chat we had when
you came back from New York?”

“Very well; but there was nothing unpleasant in
it to me.”

“Well, there was to me,” said Tom Lampson, “and
I'm going to get rid of the whole of it. I told you there
wasn't a woman in the world good enough for Arthur
Blague, and you took it up. Well, I didn't mean to do
any thing wrong, but when you turned on me, and I
tried to paddle off, I meant you—inside you know—I
saw you read me like a book.”

“Oh! I never laid that up against you,” said Miss
Gilbert, good-naturedly. “Besides, what you said was
true, as I have learned since.”

“Well, I want to take the whole thing back. I've
heard all about what you did for Widow Blague's little
cripple when Arthur was gone—how you stuck to him,
and tended him, and how kind you was to the old

woman, and I felt meaner than beans about it. I spoke
to Arthur about you the other day, and the tears came
into his eyes as quick as wink. So says I to myself, If
Fanny Gilbert has got hold of him, she's right. You
know I swear by him straight through; and I came here
to-night for nothing under heavens but to tell you that
I think there is one woman in the world good enough
for him. Haven't you—ah—sort o' altered? Don't
you think it's kind o' done you good to—O Lord!
here I am, getting into hot water again!”

Fanny could not help laughing and shedding tears
at the same time. “I hope I am altered somewhat,” said
she—“altered for the better—and I am not at all offended
by your allusion to the fact.”

“Well, people talk about it, you know,” said Tom
Lampson; “and I got it out before I thought what was
coming. Don't you s'pose Arthur will go to New
York?”

“I think he intends to go, though he has never told
me so definitely.”

“What is he waiting for?”

“I'm sure I cannot tell. He has business to close,
I suppose, and you know he has been a good deal depressed
by the death of the little boy.”

Mr. Lampson sat half a minute rasping his checks.
Then, looking Fanny innocently in the eyes, he said: “I
think he means to get married before he goes. It's the
general talk about town, I find. People have got the
notion somehow. Do you know any thing about it?”

“Nothing. How should I? Whom do people imagine
he is going to marry?”

The conductor regarded her with a very shrewd,

arch look, which was intended to bring a blush to her
face, but which did not move her at all. “Well,” said
he, rising suddenly to his feet, “you are too much for
me, Miss Gilbert; I can't hoe my row at all with you.
All I've got to say is, that I want to be all right with
both sides of the family. Whatever happens, I don't
want to have any hard feelings toward Tom Lampson.”

“You talk in enigmas.”

“I presume I do. I'm always saying something out
of the way, and it is time I was getting along.”

Tom Lampson backed out of the room, bade Miss
Gilbert good-night, then came back and shook hands
with her, then expressed his regret for having given her
so much trouble, and finally departed.

Fanny did not know what to make of all this, though
it appeared that the people were talking about a match
between her and Arthur, and that Tom Lampson, a devoted
friend and admirer of Arthur, wished to intimate
to her that he had no objection to it. While she was
thinking of this, the door-bell rang, and immediately
Arthur Blague was shown into the parlor. Fanny
blushed crimson the moment she looked into his face,
as if she supposed he could read her thoughts, and as if
those thoughts were guilty. For several weeks she had
felt self-distrustful in his presence, and now she was
quite embarrassed. She could not talk, but listened to
him as if she were a child, of whom no demonstration
was expected.

Though oppressed by a degree of timidity, and suffering
from that sense of insignificance very common
among genuine lovers, Arthur could not but read her
heart. He saw that a few weeks had wrought a great

change in her, and he would have been very stupid had
he failed to interpret it aright. As he looked upon her
in her altered mood and bearing, he felt his own strong
nature, so long held in check, going out to her with a
fresh and hearty tenderness.

Fanny found her tongue at last. Taking up the subject
suggested by Tom Lampson's visit, she inquired of
Arthur when it was his intention to go to New York.

“I have not told you I should go at all,” replied
Arthur.

“I know—but you will go.”

“I suppose I shall, but it is harder than I ever
dreamed it would be, to leave Crampton.”

“I hope you will go; I think you ought to go.
They want you so very much,” said Miss Gilbert, in
explanation of her decided opinion upon the subject.
“Mary Sargent,” she continued, “has written to me an
account of all your successes there, and the strong desire
of the church for your return.”

“They are easily pleased,” said Arthur vacantly.

“Then I am sure you ought to be.”

“Since my friends here are so willing to have me
leave them,” said Arthur.

Miss Gilbert blushed, bit her lip, and dropped her
eyes before the questioning gaze that Arthur gave them.
“Your friends here,” said she, “desire to see you in the
place where you belong, engaged in doing the work
which you are so well calculated and prepared to perform.”

“Then you really wish to have me leave Crampton?”

“Mr. Blague,” said Fanny earnestly, “you cannot
misunderstand me, when I tell you most sincerely that

I do. Your work is not here; and though you will
take from my life that which I can poorly afford to
spare, you will deprive thousands, by remaining, of that
which will be of inestimable value to them.”

Arthur's eyes grew luminous. “It is hard,” said
he, “to cut loose forever from this old retreat, and cast
my life among strangers.”

“They will soon cease to be strangers, and laboring
for them, you will quickly learn to love them. Then
think what a life lies before you!—great, it seems to
me—great beyond comparison. Think of twenty-five
years of labor in such a city as New York. Think of
bringing your mind into contact with a hundred thousand
minds in those twenty-five years, with the privilege
of urging upon them the motives of your own life—of
inculcating purity, and truth, and goodness—of pronouncing
the name of God over the brows of multitudes
of little children—of joining a whole generation of young
men and women in marriage—of ministering consolation
to the dying—of speaking words of comfort to a
world of mourners—of quickening the intellects of
masses of men—of emptying your own life, to the last
drop, into the life of the world, flavoring your age and
race, and enriching the blood of immortality itself.
Think how, day after day, men in doubt and darkness,
and women in fear, will come to you for guidance and
for strength—how, Sabbath after Sabbath, they will
throng to hear your voice, and go away the better for
hearing it—how thousands of hearts will cling to yours
by a myriad twining sympathies, rejoicing in your presence,
and aching in your absence, and praying for you
always.”

Arthur's lip quivered, and he could hardly control
his emotions as the eloquent woman unveiled her estimate
of his office and its privileges. He knew that she
did not see the other side of the picture, yet he knew
that she saw one side of it correctly. But it was the
revelation of her heart and mind which interested him
the most deeply, for all that she had said had passed
through his thoughts before. He had come to the conclusion
that, personally, she was not altogether indifferent
to him; and when, in fervent and well-chosen words,
she magnified his office, and betrayed her sympathy
with the great aims of his life, he was thrilled with a
new joy.

“Since you think this life so great and so desirable,”
said he, drawing his chair nearer to her, “how would
you like to share it?”

“What, sir?” Miss Gilbert trembled and grew
pale.

“How would you like to share it?”

Fanny could not, or would not understand, but sat
in dumb wonder, looking into the earnest face before
her. Her eloquence was all gone; her lips were sealed.

Arthur pitied her confusion, and reproached himself
for his awkwardness and his stupid abruptness. He
drew his chair still nearer to her, and took her unresisting
hand. “Miss Gilbert,” said he, “there is but one
tie that binds me to this place. As you say, my life
and my work are not here. I believe this, yet my heart
is here. It has been here—been bound here—more
than I was aware—more than I was willing to acknowledge
to myself—since I first met you on your return
home. This confession must be made, and it may as

well be made now as ever, if you will hear it. I offer
you not only a share in the work of my life, which you
estimate so highly, but I offer you my heart and my
hand. Will you take me? Will you become my
companion? Will you walk this golden road with me?
Will you be my wife, and go with me whither God
leads me?”

Arthur said this strongly and impetuously, pressing
her hand with unconscious ardor, and looking in her
face as if he would read every thought and emotion
that struggled upward for expression. The strong
woman was weak. The blue eyes were suffused. She
bowed before the will that looked through the eyes of
the young minister, and the strength of the passion that
breathed in his voice. There was a long minute of
silence, in which they could hear the beat, and feel the
jar, of one another's hearts. At last, she looked up
tremblingly, with an expression of undissembled pain,
and, saying, “I am so unworthy—so unworthy,” burst
into tears.

“So am I.”

Both rose by a common impulse to their feet.
There was no secret beyond. They were lovers.
Fanny Gilbert, the ambitious Fanny Gilbert, the brilliant
authoress, the courted and admired woman, now
gentle, yielding, humble, grateful, and glad, was pressed
to the strong man's heart. In that precious embrace,
thrilled with satisfaction through all her gentler nature,
she found herself at home. Henceforth there was nothing
in fame for her. The little world around her,
thronged with its pigmy millions, could not charm her
out from that great world of the affections into which

she had entered, and in which she reigned alone. A
great man wholly hers! What had the world for her
more than this? What had the world for any woman
more than this? Like a ship long tossing on the
ocean, driven hither and thither by fitful winds, now
creeping among sunken rocks, and now careering
proudly over the obedient waves, yet always restless,
she furled her life's broad sails in this still haven,
dropped anchor, and was at rest.

In the brief hour that followed this denouement, these
richly-endowed natures and accordant hearts, that had
been tending toward each other through such dissimilar
and widely separated paths for many years, became
one—one in affection, sympathy, purpose, and destiny.
Arm in arm they stood, wrapped in present joy, and
calmly fronting the life of labor and self-denial that lay
before them. Each, self-relinquished to the other, and
both to heaven, they received and appropriated heaven
and each other in return, so that with the new influx of
life, and love, and happiness, they felt ready for any
work to which duty might call them. Into that sanctuary
of love, and into that hour of love's first bliss,
came no echo of the world's discordant voices. A noble
man and a noble woman had received the choicest treasure
the earth had for them. In the first consciousness
of sudden wealth—in the first experience of possession—
it seemed as if their joy and peace filled the earth—as
if the great world of life into which they had entered
had blotted out the world around them—or rather, as
if they stood upon the pinnacle of life, and all beneath
was commonplace and poor.

At length, by some accident that not unfrequently

occurs in interviews of this character, Miss Gilbert's
head leaned against the young minister's breast. It was
a very pretty sight indeed, particularly if the observer
definitely understood the relations of the parties. Aunt
Catharine did not; and when, without being aware of
Arthur's presence in the house, she came silently down
stairs, and suddenly into the room, her eyes took in this
very remarkable and unusual vision, she stood the impersonation
of bewildered wonder.

“What—under—the—sun—moon—and—stars!”
exclaimed Aunt Catharine, at length.

The lovers were both embarrassed, but Arthur first
achieved self-control. Fanny blushed to the tips of her
ears, while Arthur took her hand, and led her directly
before the astonished intruder. Looking Aunt Catharine
pleasantly in the face, he said: “Have you any
objection?”

“Now you don't mean—”

“I do.”

“That you have been—”

“Yes.”

“And gone—”

“Certainly.”

“And done that?”

“Just as true as you live.”

Aunt Catharine threw herself into a rocking-chair,
and rocked herself, and cried like a child. The lovers
were somewhat puzzled by this demonstration, but they
sat down near her, and the good old spinster soon found
her tongue, and explained herself.

“I didn't believe—I never believed—that those
prayers of your mother, Fanny, would be forgotten.

I've always felt as if the Lord was looking after you,
because I couldn't think he'd forget such a prayer as
your mother offered with her very last breath. I've
been praying for just exactly this thing for six weeks;
but I didn't expect the Lord would answer me—I
didn't;” and then Aunt Catharine buried her face in
her handkerchief, and cried again.

“Then you've no objection?” said Arthur.

“Objection! Goodness! If the Lord hasn't any
objection on your account, I'm sure I haven't any on
Fanny's.”

Then, by a sudden revulsion in her feelings, she began
to laugh half-hysterically, and then they all laughed
together.

“Now,” said Aunt Catharine, “you have got to go
into the office, and see the doctor, and I am going with
you.”

Arthur hesitated and remonstrated. This was no
joke; and it seemed a rude way of approaching so delicate
a subject as asking for the person of a child.

But Aunt Catharine was excited, and could not understand
how a great, joyful fact, such as this was to her,
could call for delicate treatment—in that house, at
least. So she put Fanny's arm in that of Arthur, took
the other herself, and, listening to no remonstrances, led
them into the office and into the presence of Dr. Gilbert.

“Here is a young man,” said Aunt Catharine mercilessly,
“who has been abusing his privileges in this
house, and taking things that don't belong to him.”

The doctor looked up from his newspaper, through
his spectacles, with a questioning gaze, evidently conscious
that something unusual was going on, but entirely

at a loss as to its nature. He rose from his
chair, took Arthur's hand, inquired for his health, and
invited him to be seated. Arthur declined the seat,
held to the doctor's hand, and said:

“I am hardly responsible, Dr. Gilbert, for appearing
here on my present errand, with this apparent levity.”

“Hem!” from Aunt Catharine.

Arthur turned upon his tormentor an appealing
look, but she was laughing behind her hand.

“Oh! never mind her nonsense,” said the doctor;
but what is your errand?”

“Did I ever ask many favors of you, doctor?”

“Never half-enough: glad if I can do any thing for
you. Tell me what it is, and you shall have it, even to
the half of my kingdom.”

“I want just half of your kingdom,” replied Arthur;
and, taking Fanny's hand, he led her forward, and said:
“I want, I need, I love your daughter. Will you give
her to me?”

“What does she say about it? Can't you speak,
girl?”

“I think,” said Arthur, smiling, “that if you have
nothing to say against the transfer, she and I can arrange
the rest.”

The doctor took off his glasses and wiped them, and
looked benignantly upon the pair before him. Then
he turned, and walked away from them, and cleared his
throat, and blew his nose. Then he came back, and his
face became red, and his throat grew worse and worse.
At last, he made an impatient gesture, and blurted out,
“Oh! God bless you! God bless you! Go along;”
and then turned and looked into the fire. Fanny, who

had not uttered a word, went to his side, kissed him,
and the group turned, and left him to master his new
difficulty of the throat as he best might.

The next day the engagement was announced, and
such a lively day of talk Crampton had never enjoyed
before. There were many, of course, to find fault with
the match, but, as the parties most interested were satisfied,
that did not matter. The next day, too, Arthur
wrote a letter to the “Committee of Supply” in New
York, accepting the invitation to the pastorate of the
new church. In a private note to Mr. Frank Sargent,
Arthur informed him of his engagement to Miss Gilbert,
at which there was great joy in the house of the
Sargents, and among a multitude of Fanny's old acquaintances,
who had become aware of the change in her
character and purposes. In fact, the matter got into the
New York papers, which, following the example of the
Athenians, (ancient Athenians,) “spend their time in
nothing else but either to tell or to hear some new
thing.” It was publicly stated that “Rev. Arthur
Blague, a young man of the most promising genius, had
accepted the call of—Church,” and that rumor had
it that he was soon to be united in marriage to no less a
personage than the brilliant writer of “Rhododendron.”

Mr. Thomas Lampson, the popular and gentlemanly
conductor, &c., &c., was probably quite as much delighted
with the arrangement as any of his neighbors;
and, having had a hand (in his opinion) in bringing his
friends together, he next procured a pair of passes to
New York, from the president of the railroad corporation,
and sent them to Arthur, as a slight inducement for
him to reply favorably to his New York call.