University of Virginia Library

26. XXVI.
SIMON GOLDTHWAITE SEES THE SUN
RISE.

Once more it was summer. A year had passed since
Dick Hereford led a bride to the altar. Dick's affairs
had prospered, and his wife had just been driven up to
her mother-in-law's door, by her own coachman, in her
own carriage, and taken Mrs. Hereford and Mabel for
an airing, while Emmie was left to keep house.
Simon Goldthwaite ascended the steps somewhat
slowly, and rang the bell, as if his errand was of a less
agreeable nature than usual. It was very singular, but
a quick blush mantled Emmie's cheek when she heard
his shuffling footstep in the hall; and the little fingers
crocheting so busily, dropped a stitch in the pretty
purse. He came in and took a seat near her. “How
do you do, Little Sunbeam,” had been his customary
salutation, but now he simply said “Good afternoon,”
and then remained for a few moments in silence.

After a time he remarked, in a composed voice,
“You remember Stephen Montfort, Emmie?”

She laughed. “What, that nice young gentleman
who used to take so much pains to help me find Dick,
when I first came to the city?”

“The same. He is a noble young man, the very
best clerk we have in the store, and he loves you and
wants to marry you.”

“Me!” She laughed still more merrily. “Why,
I scarcely ever said a half-dozen words to him in my
life.”

“But he says he has loved you from the first; I
don't think it so strange, Emmie. He could see the
pure soul looking out of your face. Ah, you are a
fortunate girl, for he is young, and handsome, and
honorable; well worthy of woman's love. I am sure
will be happy.”

“Have I got to marry him?” She had stopped
laughing now, and she looked up like a frightened
child.

“Got to! Oh no; but you can hardly fail to want
to. It is right to marry; at least people who have
tried it, say it's the happiest way, and you could never
hope to do better. He loves you very truly.”

A queer, quizzical look lurked about the corners
of Emmie's mouth. “Does he? Well, why didn't he
tell me of it himself; what did he send you for?”

There was an accent of wounded feeling in Simon's
tone, as he replied, “I don't wonder you ask. Words
of love do not come very fittingly from my mouth. I

am indeed a strange messenger for such an errand
But he did not like to speak to Dick, and I came here
so often, I knew you so well, I suppose he thought I
would do his bidding faithfully.”

“Well, you can go back and tell him I do not want
him.”

“But surely you do not mean that. I should be
sorry that his having been unfortunate enough to
choose such an awkward ambassador should lose him
the suit on which his whole life's happiness depends.”

“Should you? Then you want me to marry
him?” Emmie's tone was more nearly petulant than
he had ever before heard it. A new, yet faint light
began to break into his mind, like the clouds of gold
which herald the dawning. It was his turn to question.

“Emmie, ought you to refuse this offer? Would
it be right to make him wretched, with no better
reason than a girlish caprice?”

She drooped her lashes over the tears that had
begun to glitter in her eyes. Her voice was very low
and tremulous, as she said—“It is no woman's whim.
I cannot marry him, for I love another.”

“What other? Nay, listen, Emmie, do not turn
away. I must know. Forgive me, I have no right to
say must, but if I have ever been kind to you or
yours, if I have ever deserved your confidence, you
will tell me now.”

He drew her toward him, but he held her very
awkwardly, much as you have seen an old bachelor
take up a three month's baby. “Now Emmie, tell
me,” he whispered, with his lips so near her cheek
that they almost touched the brown braids of her hair.

Her nature was very truthful, and she felt it was
a question which he had a right to ask, and she must
answer even though he should despise her so when he
said again, still more earnestly, “Tell me whom you
love, Emmie,” she whispered, “You.”

It was but a single word, still Simon heard it distinctly.
There was no awkwardness now, the young
loving girl he held was his own. He drew her fervently
to his heart, murmuring—“Say it again, Emmie,
oh say it again. This is such happiness. I have loved
you always. But you don't love me, Emmie,—you
can't love me. You are mocking me. I am old and
ugly; I could not win your love. Look up. Let me
see your eyes.”

He lifted her head from his shoulder, and looked
earnestly in her face. There was no mistaking the
clear, innocent, brown eyes that so fearlessly met his
own. Looking into their depths, he knew that of a
very truth he was beloved; that the young heart
throbbing against his side would beat for him only,
for ever. The sunny face he had loved to gaze on,
would brighten his own fireside, and as all that wealth
of love and light flooded his soul, he saw the sun of

his life arise, a sun which could only set above her
grave or his, and clasping her still more tenderly he
murmured, “Mine, mine at last; Little Sunbeam
mine!”

It was strange, so the world would have said, that
that graceful girl, so young, so fair, should have turned
from the fashionable-looking young wooer who sought
her love, to lay her hand in that great, awkward
palm which was so tenderly smoothing her tresses.
But it seemed not strange to Emmie. To her, the
lineaments of Simon Goldthwaite's face wore a glorious
beauty, for she looked through them to the hero-soul
within. Very deeply she reverenced him, and her only
wonder was that her simple, devoted affection should
have power so to move one so noble as she deemed him.
They were so fully satisfied with, so suited to each
other, that their tenderness was beautiful to see.

“Now you can go,” whispered Emmie, playfully,
raising her head from the broad breast where it was
lying, “you can go and tell Mr. Montfort that I will
marry him, because you don't think I can do any better.”

“No I won't, Sunbeam. I'll go and ask him to go
to church next week and see us married.”

“Next week?”

“Yes, why not? There is plenty of time. You
will like it best to have no parade, so shall I. Pomp
and show would hardly suit the husband you have

chosen, and I want my little girl made all my own as
soon as possible. I am a great many years older than
you, darling, and mine has been a lonely, sorrowful life.
Since my mother died and left me a friendless little
thing not much beyond babyhood, no one ever loved
me until I knew Dick; and now, now that the love for
which I never dared to hope has come,—for I feel it in
my soul that you do love me, Emmie,—now that I am
your life as fully as you have long been mine, I will
not have you separated from me a day longer than is
necessary. Oh, I need you. Do you remember your
oak tree and ivy vine at Mohawk Village? Well, you
are my ivy, and you must twine around me in your
youth and innocence until you hide my deformity with
your tenderness and your beauty.”

The gentle kiss she dropped upon his brow, the
proud look in her earnest eyes, told that, to her at
least, there was no deformity to conceal. Reading her
face, he said, “You are silent, Emmie. You do not fear
to become mine, to trust your future in my keeping?”

“Fear! It is not that. How could I fear when
I love you so? But I was thinking of Mabel and my
mother. Is it right to leave them?”

“You do not think I would ask it, Emmie?
There is room enough here for us all, and a quiet home
is all we care for, my darling. I know your tastes so
well. If you wanted splendor, you should have it, for
I am rich enough to give it to you, but I think I know

what will please you better. I like this home. Then
there is that house lot on the south side, standing
empty. It is so pleasant to see the green grass growing
there. Warren, you know, takes his seat in Congress
next December, and there will be no one to see
to things while he is in Washington. I tell you what,
Emmie, he has a three years' lease of this house. He
shall give it up to me, and then I'll buy the house, and
we'll all live here together. I never could like any
other home half so well, because it was here I saw you
first. Do you like my plan, little darling?”

Her eyes answered him, with their look of blessed
content, even better than the sweet voice which fairly
trembled with delight. Then she laughed gayly. “I
was thinking,” she said, “about that first evening you
ever came here, and how funny you looked when you
sat down on your hat. Do you remember it?”

“Yes, and how I loved you from that first blessed
moment, though you seemed so far apart from me in
your youth and beauty, and I never dared hope to call
you wife. Oh, Emmie!”

Time passed unheeded by those two so deeply
blest, and it was nearly sunset when Emmie sprang
from the arms which so tenderly enfolded her.
“Look,” she exclaimed, “there is the carriage at the
door. Mamma and Mabel are on the steps, and see,
there is Kate laughing her good-by. The sun is
setting.”

He folded his arm around her waist, and whispered,
“I have seen the sun rise for the first time, this
afternoon, my darling,—the sun of hope, and truth,
and love, which never dawned for me before. It will
bless all my future.”

He stood there beside her, with his arm around
her, when Mrs. Hereford opened the door. With a
simple dignity, he clasped her hand in his, and went to
meet her mother. “She loves me,” he said, earnestly;
“she has promised to be my wife. Will you give us
your blessing?”

Mrs. Hereford read the Amen to his prayer in
Emmie's pleading eyes, and thankfully she gave the
consent for which they both hoped. That night the
wedding day was fixed. “I must write to Percy,”
said Warren, with Mabel's head lying in its usual
resting-place upon his breast, and none but he noted
the sudden flushing of the pale cheek, or the quick
drooping of the golden lashes over the sightless eyes.
When he saw these tokens of the emotion which that
name awakened, it gave him a sudden thrill of terror.
Percy had been a frequent visitor during the past year.
Could it be he had come too often for his blind sister's
peace; she who must love, if at all, so hopelessly?

The day before the wedding Simon Goldthwaite
threw two folded papers into Emmie's lap. “It is
my bridal present, darling,” he said, as she opened
them. One was the deed of the pleasant house which

had so long been her home; the other, of the empty
house-lot on the south.

For a moment her heart was too full to speak, then
she said, smiling through her tears and holding up
the paper she had last unfolded, “But what in the
world am I to do with this; you don't expect me to
turn land speculator?” “No, but right here, among
the city's din, I wanted to make a little country for
you. I remembered how you used to enjoy your flowers
and your chickens, and so we will have a high wall
put round this spot, with grape-vines and ivy-vines
twining over it, and you shall have plenty of posies,
and a little summer-house in the centre, and a place
for your poultry yard.” He paused, for she was sobbing
in his arms. “What now, Emmie, dearest, have
I vexed you?”

“Vexed me! Oh, my best one, you will kill me with
such kindness. I am so intensely happy, it makes
the tears come. You don't leave me any thing to wish
for. Can it last?”

“Please God, it shall last through your life and
mine, my blessed one.”

The bridal was very quiet. They were married
in church. Emmie looked so neat, and trim, and wife-like,
in the little white chip travelling hat, and the
fawn-colored travelling dress. And once more Percy

Douglass led Mabel to the altar, and she stood there
as bridesmaid, who might never hope to stand there
as bride; once more kneeling before the altar, the sunshine
came through the stained-glass windows, making
the shadow of a cross on that young, bowed head.

It was wonderful to see what an effect love and
happiness had produced on Simon. His very figure
seemed to have changed. His hair was still in the
nominative case independent, and his features were as
irregular as the architecture of a modern building, but
there was scarcely a trace of the awkward and angular
Simon in that manly form, bending so protectingly
over the young girl at his side.

They rode away alone together, the newly married
pair. They were to travel for a while, and so commence
building up that peaceful world of their own
into which no third person could ever come. Emmie
longed to ride upon the broad lakes of the West, to
listen to the eternal anthem of Niagara, to look upon
the great calm face of the “Old man of the mountains,”
and for this once, all Emmie's simple wishes
were to meet their fulfilment.

That night Mabel was alone. She had taken Emmie's
old seat by the window, and she sat there thinking
sorrowfully of the sister who was in some degree
lost to her, since she could never again be so exclusively
her own. The door opened gently, a step she
knew too well, if one could judge by the quick suffusion

of her delicate face, stole quietly across the carpet.
She could not see him, and yet she knew that
Percy Douglass was kneeling by her side, even before
his arm had stolen about her waist.

“Nay, turn not away, my sweet Mabel,” said his
pleading voice. “I have come to tell you that without
your love life has henceforth for me no joy and
no hope. Oh, Mabel, I have longed to say this for
many months, but I have not dared. You have seemed
so pure, so saint-like, as if thought or touch of earthly
passion must not come nigh you. But the words must
be spoken. I love you, Mabel; I would die for you,
Mabel; but this is weak. I cannot make you understand
my soul with empty words. Oh, let me live for
you,—let me prove my love in every act of my life.
Oh Mabel, love me. Can I not win you by years of
waiting? I will be so good, so pure, if you will give
me ever so little hope.”

He paused, and the sweet face was not turned
away. “I have loved you long,” she whispered, and
her hand lay still in his fervent clasp.

“And you will be my wife, my life's angel; you
will, Mabel?”

She shuddered. “Oh, I don't know,” she said, “I
dare not. If I could but see you. You must not
link your bright, sunshiny existence with the night
and darkness of the blind.”

“Oh Mabel, do not torture me! What is all

this when I love you—when I am wild to call you
mine?”

“It is much, dearest, though you may not feel it
now. But I will not say no, I will not answer you.
I will tell you in the morning.”

To all his passionate pleadings she would give but
this one answer—“I will tell you in the morning;”
still, she suffered him to draw her to his heart, to lay
her head on his bosom, and talk to her for one long,
blessed hour, of the beautiful future he would plan for
her; of the long days when he would never weary of
making word-pictures for her sake, about every thing
in art and nature.

Then she crept from his arms, and went up stairs
in the moonlight. After a time her mother came to
the door of her little room, but it was locked, and
the sweet voice within pleaded—“Please let me stay
alone this one night, dear mother,” and so she was left
to herself. For three hours she knelt before her bed,
motionless as a statue, trying to see the right, and
praying God to give her strength. One thought was
ever in her mind—“What if she should marry him,
and by and by he should weary of the blind wife he
had chosen? He would go forth in the world and
meet fair and lovely women, their eloquent glances
would flash sunshine into his soul, and then he might
turn regretfully to the sealed eyes that could only
gaze toward Heaven. Loving him as she did, would

it not be wrong and selfish to subject him to the bare
possibility of such a fate?” When once her heart
and her conscience had answered this question in the
affirmative,—when once she had become convinced that
it would be wrong, her mind was made up. There was
a firmness of principle, a strength of character about
that delicate, young blind girl, that no one would
have suspected, who looked upon her almost ethereal
loveliness.

She arose, and sat down by the window, in the
moonlight. The love which, from her earliest girlhood,
she had learned to look upon as a blessed gift in which
she could have no part nor lot, had come like a stray
bird, praying to nestle in her bosom, and sing songs to
her all her life long. And now she must turn the
glorious wanderer out of doors, out into the midnight,
and perchance into the storm. Oh, if she could but
see! for a moment there was a rebellious thought, a
murmur against Heaven, but she subdued it instantly.
Until the morning she sat there, absorbed in her pictures
of what might have been. There was a strange,
wild happiness in knowing that she was beloved, even
if she must put the sparkling cup untasted from her
lips.

At early dawning she went down stairs. Her
lover met her at the door of the sitting-room. “I
could not sleep,” he said, “and so I am here, waiting
for you.”

She gave him her hand, and suffered him to lead
her to a seat, and encircle her with his arm, but he
almost trembled as he saw the unshed tears glittering
upon her lashes, and the pale face, which the conflict
of one night had made so ghastly. “I cannot, I will
not be your wife,” she said, in passionate, hurried
tones, as if longing to have the scene over.

“Not my wife? Do I hear you? Do I understand
you? Then Heaven pity me. Did you not
say you loved me?”

“I do love you, but I will not marry you. I cannot,
I dare not. Do not plead with me, for I have
decided, and all you can say will only pain me.” He
looked into her face, and saw the fixed, stony wretchedness
on those young, wistful features, and he had no
choice but to believe her. “Is there no hope?” he
murmured, clasping her passionately to his bosom, and
she answered, “There is none!”

“Good-by, my life's star, my Mabel. I must not
stay here, or I shall go mad.” He put her from him,
and walked to the door; but once, twice, thrice he
came back to press a hundred passionate kisses on
that pure, sorrowful face, and then he went out, with
his aching, desolated heart, into the beautiful morning
sunshine; and she sat there where he had left her, not
fainting, but fixed, and motionless, in the profound
stupor of this heavy sorrow.