University of Virginia Library

58. LVIII.

A LETTER from Reuben indeed has come; but
not for Miss Adèle. The Doctor is glad of the
relief its perusal will give him. Meantime Miss Eliza,
in her stately, patronizing manner, and with a coolness
that was worse than a sneer, says, “I hope you have
pleasant news from your various friends abroad, Miss
Maverick?”

Adèle lifted her eyes with a glitter in them that for
a moment was almost serpent-like; then, as if regretting
her show of vexation, and with an evasive reply,
bowed her head again to brood over the strange suspicions
that haunted her. Miss Johns, totally unmoved,
— thinking all the grief but a righteous dispensation
for the sin in which the poor child had been born, —
next addressed the Doctor, who had run his eye with
extraordinary eagerness through the letter of his son.

“What does Reuben say, Benjamin?”

“His `idols,' again, Eliza; 't is always the `flesh-pots
of Egypt.'”

And the Doctor reads: “There is just now rare
promise of a good venture in our trade at one of the

ports of Sicily, and we have freighted two ships for immediate
dispatch. At the last moment our supercargo
has failed us, and Brindlock has suggested that I go
myself; it is short notice, as the ship is in the stream,
and may sail to-morrow, but I rather fancy the idea,
and have determined to go. I hope you will approve.
Of course, I shall have no time to run up to Ashfield
to say good-by. I shall try for a freight back from Naples,
otherwise shall make some excuse to run across
the Straits for a look at Vesuvius and the matters
thereabout. St. Paul, you know, voyaged in those seas,
which will interest you in my trip. I dare say I shall
find where he landed: it 's not far from Naples, Mrs.
Brindlock tells me. Give love to the people who ever
ask about me in Ashfield. I enclose a check of five
hundred dollars for parish contingencies till I come
back; hoping to find you clean out of harness by that
time.” (The Doctor cannot for his life repress a little
smile here.) “Tell Adèle I shall see her blue Mediterranean
at last, and will bring her back an olive-leaf,
if I find any growing within reach. Tell Phil I love
him, and that he deserves all the good he will surely
get in this world, or in any other. Ditto for Rose.
Ditto for good old Mrs. Elderkin, whom I could almost
kiss for the love she 's shown me. What high old
romps have n't we had in her garden! Eh, Adèle? (I
suppose you 'll show her this letter, father.)

“Good-by, again.

“N. B. We hope to make a cool thirty thousand
out of this venture!”

Adèle had half roused herself at the hearing of her
name, but the careless, jocular mention of it, (so it
seemed at least,) in contrast with the warmer leave-taking
of other friends, added a new pang to her distress.
She wished, for a moment, that she had never
written her letter of thanks. What if she wished —
in that hour of terrible suspicion and of vain search
after any object upon which her future happiness might
rest — that she had never been born? Many a one
has given hearty utterance to that wish with less cause.
Many a one of those just tottering into childhood will
live to give utterance to the same. But the great
wheel of fate turns ever relentlessly on. It drags us up
from the nether mysterious depths; we sport and struggle
and writhe and rejoice, as it bears us into the flashing
blaze of life's meridian; then, with awful surety, it
hurries us down, drags us under, once more into the
abysses of silence and of mystery. Happy he who
reads such promise as he passes in the lights fixed forever
on the infinite depths above, that the silence and
the mystery shall be as welcome as sleep to the tired
worker!

“It will be of service to Reuben, I think, Benjamin,”
said Aunt Eliza; “I quite approve,” — and slipped
away noiselessly.

The Doctor was still musing, — the letter in his
hand, — when Adèle rose, and, approaching him, said
in her gentlest way, “It 's a great grief to you, New
Papa, I know it is, but `God orders all things well,'
— except for me.”

“Adaly! my child, I am shocked!”

She had roused the preacher in him unwittingly.

“I can't listen now,” said she, impatiently; “and tell
me, — you must, — did papa give you the name of
this — new person he is to marry?”

“Yes, Adaly, yes,” but he has forgotten it; and,
searching for the previous letter, he presently finds it,
and sets it before her, — “Mademoiselle Chalet.”

“Chalet!” screams she. “There is some horrible
mistake, New Papa. More than ever I am in the dark,
— in the dark!” And with a hasty adieu she rushed
away, taking her course straight for the house of that
outlawed woman, with whom now, more than ever, she
must have so many sympathies in common. Her present
object, however, was to learn if any more definite
evidence could be found that the deceased lady —
mother still, in her thought — bore the name of Chalet.
She found the evidence. One or two little books
(devotional books they prove to be), which the mistress
of the house had thrown by as valueless, were brought
out, upon the fly-leaves of which the keen eyes of
Adèle detected the name, — crossed and recrossed indeed,

as if the poor woman would have destroyed all
traces of her identity, — but still showing when held to
the light a portion of the name she so cherished in her
heart, — Chalet.

Adèle was more than ever incensed at thought of the
delusion or the deception of her father. But, by degrees,
her indignation yielded to her affection. He was
himself to come, he would make it clear; this new
mother — whom she was sure she should not love — was
to remain; the Doctor had told her this much. She
was glad of it. Yet she found in that fact a new proof
that this person could not be her true mother. She
would have rushed to her arms; no fear of idle tongues
could have kept her back. And though she yearned
for the time when she should be clasped once more in
her father's arms, she dreaded the thought of crossing
the seas with him upon such empty pilgrimage. She
half wished for some excuse to detain her here, — some
fast anchor by which her love might cling, within reach
of that grave where her holier affections had centered.

This wish was confirmed by the more cordial manner
in which she was received by the Elderkins, and, indeed,
by the whole village, so soon as the Doctor had
made known the fact — as he did upon the earliest occasion
— that Mr. Maverick was speedily to come for
Adèle, and to restore her to the embraces of a mother
whom she had not seen for years.

Even the spinster, at the parsonage, was disposed to
credit something to the rigid legal aspects which the
affair was taking, and to find in them a shelter for her
wounded dignities. Nor did she share the inquietude
of the Doctor at thought of the new and terrible religious
influences to which Adèle must presently be exposed;
under her rigid regard, this environment of
the poor victim with all the subtlest influences of the
Babylonish Church was but a proper and orderly retribution
under Providence for family sins and the old
spurning of the law. 'T was right, in her exalted view,
that she should struggle and agonize and wrestle with
Satan for much time to come, before she should fully
cleanse her bedraggled skirts of all taint of heathenism,
and stand upon the high plane with herself, among
the elect.

“It is satisfactory to reflect, Benjamin,” said she,
“that during her residence with us the poor girl has
been imbued with right principles; at least I trust so.”

And as she spoke, the exemplary old lady plucked a
little waif of down from her bombazine dress, and
snapped it away jauntily upon the air, — even as
throughout her life, she had snapped from her the
temptations of the world. And when, in his Scripture
reading that very night, the Doctor came upon the passage,
“Woe unto you, Pharisees!” the mind of the spinster
was cheerfully intent upon the wretched sinners of
Judea.