University of Virginia Library

45. XLV.

WE left Miss Eliza Johns in her chamber, swaying
back and forth in her rocking-chair, and resolutely
confronting the dire news which the Doctor
had communicated. What was to be done? Never
had so serious a problem been presented to her for
solution. There were both worldly and religious motives,
as the spinster reckoned them, for plucking out
of her heart all the growing tenderness which she
had begun to feel toward Adèle; and the sudden discomfiture
of that engaging, ambitious scheme which
she had fondled so long prompted a feeling of resentment
which was even worse than worldly.

How would you have treated the matter, Madam?
Would your Christian charities have shrunk from the
ordeal? But whatever might have been the other
sins of the spinster, there was in her no disposition
to shrink from the conclusions to which her logic of
propriety and respectability might lead. Adèle was
to be discarded, but not suddenly. All her art must
be employed to disabuse Reuben of any lingering
tenderness. The Doctor's old prejudice against French

blood must be worked to its utmost. But there must
be no violent clamor, — above all, no disclosure of the
humiliating truth. Maverick (the false man!) must
be instructed that it would be agreeable to the Johns
family — nay, that their sense of dignity demanded —
that he should reclaim his child at an early day. On
this last score, it might be necessary, indeed, to practice
very adroit management with the Doctor; but
for the rest, she had the amplest confidence in her
own activity and discretion.

She was not the woman to sleep upon her plans,
when once they were decided on; and she had no
sooner forecast her programme than she took advantage
of the lingering twilight to arrange her toilet
for a call upon the Elderkins. Of course she led off
the Doctor in her trail. The spinster's “marching
orders,” as he jocularly termed them, the good man
was as incapable of resisting as if he had been twenty
years a husband.

In a few swift words she unfolded her design.

“And now, Benjamin, don't, pray, let your sentiment
get the better of you, in regard to this French girl.
Think of the proprieties in the case, Benjamin, — the
proprieties,” — which she enforced by a little shake of
her forefinger.

Whenever it came to a question of the “proprieties,”
the Doctor was conscious of his weakness. What, indeed,

could the poor man know about the proprieties,
as set forth by Miss Johns, that he should presume to
argue against them? What, indeed, can any man do,
when a woman bases herself on the “proprieties”?

It was summer weather, and the windows of the
hospitable Elderkin mansion were wide open. As the
Doctor and spinster drew near, little gusts of cheery
music came out to greet their ears. For, at this time,
Miss Almira had her rival pianos about the village;
and the pretty Rose had been taught a deft way of
touching the “first-class” instrument, which the kind-hearted
Squire had bestowed upon her. And, if it
must be told, little sparkling waltzes had from time to
time waked the parlor solitude, and the kind Mistress
Elderkin had winked at little furtive parlor-dances on
the part of Rose and Adèle, — they had so charmed
the old Squire, and set all his blood (as he said, with a
gallant kiss upon the brow of Mrs. Elderkin) flowing
in the old school-boy currents. Now it happened upon
this very evening, that the Squire, though past seventy
now, was in the humor to see a good old-fashioned
frolic, and, Rose rattling off some crazy waltz, Phil, at a
hint from the old gentleman, had taken possession of
Adèle, and was showing off with a good deal of grace,
and more spirit, the dancing-steps of which he had had
experience with the Spanish señoritas.

Dame Tourtelot, who chanced to be present, wore a

long face, which (it is conceivable) the hearty old
Squire enjoyed as much as the dancing. But Mrs.
Elderkin must have looked with a warm maternal pride
upon the fine athletic figure of her boy, as he went
twirling down the floor, with that graceful figure of
Adèle.

Upon the very midst of it, however, the Doctor and
Miss Johns came like a cloud. The fingers of Rose
rested idly on the keys. Adèle, who was gay beyond
her wont, alone of all the company could not give over
her light-heartedness on the instant: so she makes
away to greet the Doctor, — Miss Johns standing horrified.

“New Papa, you have surprised us. Phil was showing
me some new steps. Do you think it very, very
wrong?”

“Adaly! Adaly!”

“Ah, you dear old man, it is n't wrong; — say it
is n't wrong.”

By this time the Squire has come forward.

“Ah, Doctor, young folks will be young folks; but I
think you won't have a quarrel with Mrs. Elderkin yonder.
My dear,” (addressing Mrs. Elderkin,) “you
must set this matter right with the Doctor. We must
keep our young people in his good books.”

“The good books are not kept by me, Squire,” said
the parson.

Reuben, who had been loitering about Rose, and who,
to do him justice, had seen Phil's gallant attention to
Adèle without one spark of jealousy, was specially interested
in this interruption of the festivities. In his
present state of mind, he was most eager to know how
far the evening's hilarity would be imputed as a sin to
the new convert, and how far religious severities (if she
met any) would control the ardor of Adèle. The Doctor's
face softened, even while he talked with the charming
errant, — Reuben observed that; but with Aunt
Eliza the case was different. Never had he seen such
a threatening darkness in her face.

“We have interrupted a ball, I fear,” she said to the
hostess, in a tone which was as virulent as a masculine
oath.

“Oh! no! no!” said Mrs. Elderkin. “Indeed, now,
you must not scold Adèle too much; 't was only a bit
of the Squire's foolery.”

“Oh, certainly not; she is quite her own mistress.
I should be very sorry to consider myself responsible
for all her tastes.”

Reuben, hearing this, felt his heart leap toward
Adèle in a way which the spinster's praises had never
provoked.

Dame Tourtelot here says, in her most aggravating
manner, —

“I think she dances beautiful, Miss Johns. She
dooz yer credit, upon my word she dooz.”

And thereupon there followed a somewhat lively altercation
between those two sedate ladies, — in the
course of which a good deal of stinging mockery was
covered with unctuous compliment. But the spinster
did not lose sight of her chief aim, to wit, the
refusal of all responsibility as attaching to the conduct
of Adèle, and a most decided intimation that
the rumors which associated her name with Reuben
were unfounded, and were likely to prove altogether
false.

This last hint was a revelation to the gossiping
Dame; there had been trouble, then, at the parsonage;
things were clearly not upon their old footing. Was it
Adèle? Was it Reuben? Yet never had either
shown greater cheer than on this very night. But
the Dame none the less eagerly had communicated
her story, before the evening closed, to Mrs. Elderkin,
— who received it doubtingly, — to Rose, who heard it
with wonder and a pretty confusion, — and to the old
Squire, who said only, “Pooh! pooh! it 's a lover's
quarrel; we shall be all straight to-morrow.”

Adèle, by her own choice, was convoyed home, when
the evening was over, by the good Doctor, and had not
only teased him into pardon of her wild mirth, before
they had reached the parsonage-gate, but had kindled
in him a glow of tenderness that made him utterly forgetful
of the terrible news of the day. Reuben and

the spinster, as they followed, talked of Rose; never
had Aunt Eliza spoken so warmly of her charms; but
before him was tripping along, in the moonlight, the
graceful figure of Adèle, clinging to the old gentleman's
arm, and it is doubtful if his eye did not feast
more upon that vision than his ear upon the new
praises of the spinster.

Yet, for all that, Rose was really charming. The
young gentleman, it would seem, hardly knew his own
heart; and he had a wondrous dream that night.
There was a church, (such as he had seen in the city,)
and a delicately gloved hand, which lay nestling in his;
and Mr. Maverick, oddly enough, appeared to give
away a bride, and all waited only for the ceremony,
which the Doctor (with his old white hat and cane)
refused to perform; whereat Phil's voice was heard
bursting out in a great laugh; and the face of Rose,
too, appeared; but it was only as a saint upon a
painted window. And yet the face of the saint upon
the window was more distinct than any thing in his
dream.

The next morning found Miss Eliza harsh and cold.
Even the constrained smile with which she had been
used to qualify her “good-morning” for Adèle was
wanting; and when the family prayers were said, in
which the good Doctor had pleaded, with unction, that
the Christian grace of charity might reign in all hearts,

the poor girl had sidled up to Miss Eliza, and put her
hand in the spinster's, —

“You think our little frolic last night to be very
wrong, I dare say?”

“Oh, no,” said the spinster. “I dare say Mr. Maverick
and your French relatives would approve.”

It was not so much the language as the tone which
smote on poor Adèle, and brought the tears welling
into her eyes.

Reuben, seeing it all, and forgetful of the good parson's
plea, gnawed his lip to keep back certain very
harsh utterances.

“Don't think of it, Ady,” said he, watching his
chance a little later; “the old lady is in one of her
blue moods to-day.”

“Do you think I did wrong, Reuben?” said Adèle,
earnestly.

“I? Wrong, Adèle? Pray, what should I have to
say about the right or wrong? and I think the old
ladies are beginning to think I have no clear idea of
the difference between them.”

“You have, Reuben! you have! And, Reuben,”
(more tenderly,) “I have promised solemnly to live as
you thought a little while ago that you would live.
And if I were to break my promise, Reuben, I know
that you would never renew yours.”

“I believe you are speaking God's truth, Adèle,”
said he.

The summer months passed by, and for Adèle the
little table at the parsonage had become as bleak and
cheerless as the autumn. Miss Johns maintained the
rigid severity of manner, with which she had undertaken
to treat the outcast child, with a constancy that
would have done credit to a worthier intent. Even the
good Doctor was unconsciously oppressed by it, and by
the spinster's insistence upon the due proprieties was
weaned away from his old tenderness of speech; but
every morning and every evening his voice trembled
with emotion as he prayed for God's grace and mercy
to descend upon all sinners and outcasts.

He had written to Maverick, advising him of the
great grief which his confession had caused him, and
imploring him to make what reparation he yet might
do, by uniting in the holy bonds of matrimony with the
erring mother of his child. He had further advised him
that his apprehensions with regard to Reuben were, so
far as was known, groundless. He further wrote, —
“Upon consultation with Miss Johns, who is still at the
head of our little household, I am constrained to ask
that you take as early a time as may be convenient to
relieve her of the further care of your daughter. Age
is beginning to tell somewhat upon my sister; and the
embarrassment of her position with respect to Adèle is
a source, I believe, of great mental distress.”

All which the good Doctor honestly believed, — upon

Miss Eliza's averment, — and in his own honest way he
assured his friend, that, though his sins were as scarlet,
he should still implore Heaven in his favor, and should
part from Adèle — whenever the parting might come
— with real grief, and with an outpouring of his heart.

As for Reuben, a wanton levity had come over him
in those latter days of summer that galled the poor
Doctor to the quick, and that strangely perplexed the
observant spinster. It was not the mischievous spirit
of his boyhood revived again, but a cold, passionless,
determined levity, such as men wear who have secret
griefs to conceal. He talked in a free and easy way
about the Doctor's Sunday discourses, that fairly
shocked the old people of the parish; rumor said that
he had passed some unhallowed jokes with the stolid
Deacon Tourtelot about his official duties; and it was
further reported that he had talked open infidelity with
a young physician who had recently established himself
in Ashfield, and who plumed himself — until his
tardy practice taught him better — upon certain arrogant
physiological notions with regard to death and
disease that were quite unbiblical. Long ago the Doctor
had given over open expostulation; every such talk
seemed to evoke a new and more airy and more adventurous
demon in the backslidden Reuben. The good
man half feared to cast his eye over the books he might
be reading. If it were Voltaire, if it were Hume, he

feared lest his rebuke and anathema should give a
more appetizing zest.

But he prayed — ah, how he prayed! with the dead
Rachel in his thought — as if (and this surely cannot
be Popishly wicked) — as if she, too, in some sphere
far remote, might with angel voice add tender entreaty
to the prayer, whose burden, morning after morning
and night after night, was the name and the hope of
her boy.

And Adèle? Well, Reuben pitied Adèle, — pitied
her subjection to the iron frowns of Miss Eliza; and
almost the only earnest words he spoke in those days
were little quiet words of good cheer for the French
girl. And when Miss Eliza whispered him, as she did,
that the poor child's fortune was gone, and her future
insecure, Reuben, with a brave sort of antagonism,
made his words of cheer and good-feeling even more
frequent than ever. But about his passing and kindly
attentions to Adèle there was that air of gay mockery
which overlaid his whole life, and which neither invited
nor admitted of any profound acknowledgment. His
kindest words — and some of them, so far as mere
language went, were exuberantly tender — were met
always by a half-saddened air of thankfulness and a
little restrained pressure of the hand, as if Adèle had
said, — “Not in earnest yet, Reuben! Earnest in
nothing!”