 | Some women's hearts |  |
A LETTER, AND WHAT CAME OF IT.
WE were two girls together, Margaret and I.
Our mother was dead, and now that we were
through school, we kept house for our father, and were
under very little restraint of any kind. Margaret,
our friends said, was her mother's child, I my father's.
I had, in fact, inherited all that I was from him.
Strong, muscular organization; black eyes and straight
black hair; olive skin; firm, yet pleasure-loving lips;
haughty forehead; fiery, yet easily soothed temper;
warm affections, — these were his, and he had given
them all to me, his oldest daughter.
Neither of us could remember our mother, but a portrait
of her, taken just before her marriage, would have
answered equally well for Margaret. She died at the
birth of this her youngest child, passing from earth
gently and sweetly, like a flower which exhales its soul
in perfume. I have been told that my father's agony
was terrible. Grief with him was as the storms in tropic
climates; it swept every thing before it with a resistless
flood, to which neither reason nor religion could
for the time oppose any barrier. For weeks he could
not bear to look at the infant thus left him. When at
heard, in the quiet, the still, small voice from heaven,
he learned resignation, and turned for comfort to the
ties which yet bound him to life. The little, white
thing, lying upon pillows in the nursery or nestling
to a stranger's bosom, looked up to him with the eyes
of his early love. He named her Margaret then, because
it means pearl, and no other name seemed so
fitting for the frail, fair babe. Besides, he had given
for her all he had, and to him, therefore, she was indeed
a pearl of great price.
My sister was fair. She looked like the women
whom the early painters chose for models when they
painted angels. She had hair of tawny gold, — you
saw such if ever you paid your respects to Page's
Venus. Her eyes were, in color, like the sky where its
blue is deep and cloudless, and a light shone in their
depths tender and tranquil as a star. Moreover, she
had small and delicate features, a mouth to which
smiles came not too often, but like returning children
to their home, — you have seen faces where the smiles
were aliens, and you felt as if they required a safe-conduct,
— a skin transparent and faultlessly smooth;
a shape tall, slender, and graceful, and you have Margaret,
as charming a blonde as the most ardent admirer
of that type of beauty could desire. She was firm,
too; those fair women always are. Her character had
plenty of tone and fibre. It is we brunettes who are
easily moved and governed, after all. I could outstorm
twenty like Margaret. While she sat calm and quiet
put the whole house in commotion. But I always
ended by doing precisely as she wished. We passionate
souls always yield, if only we find people firm
enough to remain unmoved by us, quietly persistent
in their own will.
I think it was because Margaret and I were so different
that we were friends in the true sense of the word.
I suppose sisters always love each other. There is
duty, natural affection, and all that; you know what, if
you've read Mrs. Ellis. But they are not usually
friends. Ripening on the same vine, they are as like
as two peas. There is no charm of novelty. Their
society cloys each other like sweet wine. In our case
the wine was spicy and pungent. We could never
thoroughly analyze its taste, and returned each time to
the draught with new zest and new curiosity.
You know something about us now, and I will proceed
to tell you what we did.
It was early in the month of June, and a leap-year.
We were living very quietly out of town. Every
afternoon at five o'clock papa drove out, his business
being over at that hour, and often brought with him
some mercantile friend to dine and go back in the evening,
or, if he were not a family man, to occupy a spare
chamber and drive into town with him in the morning.
Margaret and I never saw much of these visitors beyond
making ourselves agreeable to them at dinner.
We voted them old fogies, and never imagined any
possibilities of entertainment from their society. We
sources of amusement at home and in each other that
we did not trouble ourselves about beaux and parties,
and were enjoying a pleasant season as grown-up
daughters at home, which is very rare, now that girls
are permitted to step from the school-room to the ballroom,
to waste their first bloom in the dissipations of
fashionable life.
We loved fun dearly, both of us, and that June we
determined to seek it in a new and not exactly legitimate
channel. The most frequent of papa's guests was
a Mr. Thorndike, — Ignatius Thorndike. He was a
man some years younger than our father, but we
thought he could not be much less than forty. We
were respectively seventeen and nineteen at that time,
and forty seems fearfully old to girls in their teens.
We had never thought much about Mr. Thorndike, —
he was the gravest of all those grave merchants, —
but we knew that he was unmarried. We had heard
that he was too poor to marry when he was young,
and, now that he had been successful in business, even
beyond his hopes, he did not dare to seek a wife,
because he had lost all faith in his own ability to
please, and feared lest he should be accepted for the
luxuries it was in his power to bestow.
To this grave merchant we resolved to send a letter,
making the freedom of leap-year our excuse, and so
wording it that it might prove the commencement of a
correspondence which we thought would be vastly
entertaining. I hardly know which of us first suggested
The composition of this precious document was our
joint work. I have retained a copy of it, which I have
by me to-day. It reads thus: —
“Mr. Thorndike, — I have hesitated long before
writing you this note. I should not venture to do so
now were it not that I am emboldened by the license
accorded to leap-year. To a different man I would not
write it for worlds, but I am sure your character is of
too high a tone for you to pursue a correspondence
merely for amusement or adventure. If you think I
am indelicate in addressing you at all, — if you do not
desire my friendship, you will let the matter drop here,
— you will never reply to me, or bestow a second
thought on one who will, in that case, strive to think
no more of you. But should you really value the
regard of a girl who is fearless enough thus to disobey
the recognized laws of society; honest enough to show
you her heart as it is; good enough, at least, to feel
your goodness in her inmost soul, — then you will
write. Then, perhaps, we shall know each other better,
and the friendship thus unconventionally begun may
brighten both our lives. Remember I trust to your
honor not to answer this letter if you disapprove of my
course in sending it, — if by so doing I have forfeited
your respect. Should you reply, let it be within three
days, and address,
It fell to Margaret's lot to copy the epistle, as she
wrote far more neatly than I. In fact, she was my
superior in every thing requiring patience or grace.
We sent the missive, and, for three successive days
after its probable reception, we despatched a messenger
into town to inquire for letters for Miss Livermore.
None came, however, and we at length concluded that
our attempt at fun had proved an ignominious failure.
All that delicate flattery had been wasted. Most
likely Mr. Thorndike despised his unknown correspondent
too thoroughly even to be amused by her.
We were vexed, both of us. We called him a fussy,
cross-grained old bachelor, and said, even to each other,
that we didn't care; but we did care, we were mortified
and disappointed. That afternoon, when papa came
out to dinner, we noticed as he drove up the avenue
that he was not alone. We were both of us watching
from our window, but Margaret was the first to recognize
the visitor.
“That odious Mr. Thorndike!” she cried. “Well,
thank fortune, Laura, he never would think of suspecting
either of us. Scorn to reply to that letter
though he may, I'll wager he'd give at least one bright
eagle to know who wrote it.”
We both of us dressed ourselves as tastefully as
we could. Mr. Thorndike's well-known avoidance of
women made us resolve that he should at least think
his friend's daughters not ill-looking.
Margaret's dress was a pale rose-color, just the shade
of the spring peach blossoms. It lent its own soft
golden braids, and her arms, with the hair bracelets on
them, shone fair through her thin sleeves.
I was in white. It toned me down better than any
thing else. In fact, I looked well in it. I twisted a few
roses in my hair, and put a bunch of them at my waist.
Great hoops of barbaric gold were in my ears, and
bracelets of the same were upon my arms. I liked
Margaret's looks, and she liked mine. We were too
dissimilar to have any petty jealousies.
When we went into the drawing-room Mr. Thorndike
rose.
“Good afternoon, Miss Otis; good afternoon, Miss
Margaret,” he said, as he placed chairs for us. He
added a pleasant remark about being so frequent a
guest, and then returned, apparently quite forgetful of
us, to his conversation with papa.
We left them at the dinner-table at the earliest possible
moment, and went out of doors. The grounds
around our mansion were well kept and spacious. Papa
liked breathing room, and did not choose to be overlooked
by his neighbors.
We sought a nook which we both loved, where a
dusky clump of pines crowned a hill. In the centre
was a rustic seat, resting on which we could look out
between the tree-boles toward the west. The air was
full of the rich, balsamic odor of the pines. Under our
feet the fallen leaves were piled so soft and thick
you could not hear a footstep. The winds among the
boughs talked together all day overhead, and our
other hills, we saw the crimson glory of the sunset. We
both, for different reasons, liked to watch it. I, because
it seemed to belong to me. I could fancy myself in
harmony with those gorgeous colorings, those fantastic
clouds. The phantom shapes hurried on without rest
were like my thoughts; changeful as my moods; wayward
as my life. Margaret liked them by the law of
contrast. She was self-centred and all rest, — a still
noon, or a midnight lit by a full moon. She enjoyed
vivid colors, hurrying storms, sudden changes, — they
deepened the sense of her own calm. Silent, with the
dreamy speculativeness of untried girls, our hearts were
questioning the future which seemed hiding itself behind
the clouds and the sunset.
“I think it is a ship. Do you see the spars and the
trim masts?”
We both looked up, and there beside us stood Mr.
Thorndike. We had not heard his step on the soft
pine leaves. He stood there, looking, as he always
looked, calm and grave and strong, — much such a
nature as Margaret's, only deepened by masculine elements.
There was enthusiasm in his eyes, softened by
half-poetic melancholy. They were fixed, not on us,
but steadily on the sunset. Perhaps the light in them
was a reflection from that crimson distance. He went
on speaking, as much to himself, apparently, as to us.
“Yes, it is a ship, surely. See, it is sailing on a
flame-colored river, and the port whither it tends no
man knoweth. Life is like it.
Rest with the life-sender.'
pictures in the sunset, as in the embers. The cloud-pictures
are best though, for they are on a grander
scale. There is more room for fancy to fill up.”
I stole a glance at Margaret. His discourse, so unpractical,
so far removed from business, was as much a
surprise to her as to me. But it was in harmony with
her thoughts; while at first I did not like it, because it
seemed incongruous with the man.
“I never heard that castles in Spain were merchantable
property,” I said, with perhaps a latent irony in my
tones. Mr. Thorndike looked at me, and the poetic
enthusiasm in his gray eyes was replaced by the
shrewd analytic expression which betokened the keen
man of business.
“Very true, Miss Otis. You think, and justly, that
castle-building is a curious pastime for one who has
been the architect of any thing so rugged and real as
his own fortune. You are right. It was certainly
quite a different subject upon which I designed to
speak to you. In advance, I must implore you both
to forgive my plainness of speech. I am a business
man, little used to ladies' society, and accustomed to
say my say in the fewest and most simple words. I
received a letter three days ago signed `Gratia Livermore.'”
Margaret was pale, with a look like marble in her
face. I felt my own cheeks turn crimson. Angry
beat the ground nervously with my foot. It is a trick
I have, when I need great self-control and yet my
impatience must find some outlet. “Well?” I said,
inquiringly.
“Well,” he calmly proceeded, “I knew the handwriting.
I have often seen Miss Margaret's delicate
chirography in her father's possession. I recognized
it, and I recognized you in the composition, Miss
Otis.”
“And so you despise us, and have come to tell us
so?” I spoke defiantly, and looked into his face with
eyes which strove to scorn his displeasure.
“No, Miss Otis; a moment's consideration would
convince you that if I despised you I should surely not
have taken the trouble to speak to you about this matter.
I believe I am just, — just and honest; but I do
not pretend to be a man of disinterested benevolence.
Your father is my best friend, and among my few
female acquaintances none stand so high as his daughters
in my regard. I was therefore the more pained
that you should have written this letter. I was not
influenced by personal feeling. I quite passed over the
light esteem in which you must have held me to think
my vanity so susceptible, so easily touched. I thought
only of yourselves. Had you had a mother this
would never have happened; or, if it had, I should
have found it hard to forgive you. But I always held
that the best man in the world is not fit to have the
sole charge of daughters. He is away from them too
temperaments. When I read that letter how I pitied
you, because you had been left motherless. Perhaps I
should have taken no notice of it, had I not thought
my friendship for your father imposed upon me a duty
toward his daughters. It was but a girlish freak, and
its repetition was scarcely to be assumed as a probability.
Still I wanted to say to you that no young
girl can be too careful how she trusts her handwriting
in the keeping of any man. In good society an anonymous
letter is considered almost a crime; and as to
letters under a lady's own name, perhaps I am conservative,
but it is my opinion that, except upon business
matters, they should never be written to any gentleman
save a near relative or a betrothed husband. I have
no right to say all this, but I have spoken as a
brother would, to you who have no brother. Am I
forgiven?”
Margaret went up to him and offered him her hand.
Her aspect was pale still, but no longer like marble in
its repose. Her lips quivered. Her soul shone transfiguringly
through her face, and kindled her eyes into
tenderness, which her rising tears served to heighten.
Her voice was full of feeling.
“Not forgiven, sir, there is no need of that; but you
have shown yourself our true friend, and we thank
you, — I and my sister. Do not fear that we shall
fail to profit by your kindness.”
He held her hand a moment, then he placed in it
our silly letter and turned away.
I caught the sheet from her, tore it into fragments,
and scattered them to the winds.
“What would I give,” I cried, “that we had never
written it. To have disgraced ourselves so in Mr.
Thorndike's estimation, — it is too bad. I shall never
bear to see him again; shall you, Margaret?”
“Certainly: I shall see him with far more pleasure
than before; for I know now what a true man he is.
I did not think one met such out of books. I can
almost forgive myself for having written the letter,
because it has shown me such a noble page of human
nature.”
That evening, despite our mortification, was a very
pleasant one. Mr. Thorndike had never before taken
such pains to make himself agreeable. We found
hitherto unsuspected delight in his conversation. He
had thought much and read to good purpose. He had
lived his forty years with open and observing eyes.
Music was proposed after a while. I “performed”
well, — so said my teachers and the few critics who had
heard me. I played difficult music; grand, stately
symphonies from Mozart and Beethoven; and Mr.
Thorndike listened — he could not have deceived me
— with the soul of a genuine music-lover. Margaret
succeeded me, and she sang a few ballads, — simple
Scottish lays, solemn and tender with love and death,
— accompanying herself with low, sweet chords, which
one might imagine the wordless melody of an accordant
spirit.
“Margaret's music is best,” said papa, wiping the
she had been singing some of our mother's old-fashioned
songs, calling back the romance and melody
of his youth. Mr. Thorndike said nothing, but I
thought I discerned a treacherous mistiness in his eyes;
and when she was through he closed the piano, as if,
having heard those ballads, he wished to hear nothing
more. Presently he retired.
During that summer we learned to know our new
friend well, and we both liked him. We had respect
for his opinions, and even for his prejudices. We
revered the unswerving integrity of his life, and we
found more pleasure in his society than we had ever
found in any man's before. True, we did not know
many with whom to compare him. We were not yet
“out,” and young men were seldom among papa's
visitors. Perhaps it was well for us, before we went
into general society, to become so well acquainted with
a strong, true man like Ignatius Thorndike. After
that it would be hard to impose upon us counterfeit
coin in lieu of sterling gold.
I think he took all the more pleasure in our acquaintance
because his life had heretofore been too
much occupied with business for him to cultivate friendships
among women. He was certainly very attentive
to us. After dinner we used to leave papa to his nap
and the evening papers, and wander off, we three, into
the woods and dells which lay not far from our home.
None of us knew enough of artificial enjoyments to spoil
our zest for the simple pleasures of our quiet life. We
leaf, or a pretty stone. We talked about every thing, —
politics, religion, poetry, fashion, business, and finally we
got one day to talking of love. Mr. Thorndike had no
patience with flirtations. He spoke of them in terms
of unmeasured severity. He also inveighed bitterly
against the selfishness of many marriages. He could
not understand, he said, how a man could ever venture
to ask a woman not half so old as himself to marry
him. Only the strongest love, he held, could make
marriage safe or happy, and certainly strong love on
the wife's side, where there was such disparity of
age, was too rare to be reckoned among the probabilities.
“And you think it is wrong to marry without a love
as romantic as the love of novels?” asked Margaret.
“I think, Miss Margaret, that Hawthorne has written
a great many strong and true words, but nothing truer
then when he said, `Let men tremble to win the hand
of woman, unless they win along with it the utmost
passion of her heart; else it may be their miserable
fortune, when some mightier touch than their own may
have awakened all her sensibilities, to be reproached
even for the calm content, the marble image of happiness,
which they will have imposed upon her as the warm
reality.' There are women whom we know instinctively
to be above all mercenary motives in marriage; but
perhaps such, from their very tenderness and purity,
would be the most easily persuaded to believe that to
be love which was only its cold counterfeit. And when
of all that might have been and was not, I should pity
her husband, if a true man, even more than herself;
inasmuch as I believe it would be easier to bear through
life the burden of an unsatisfied hope than for a generous
husband to feel that he had snatched the possibility
of happiness from the woman of his choice, — that he
had condemned the best part of her nature to perpetual
solitude. I allude now to cases where a man's only
fault is want of consideration, selfish haste, neglecting
to make himself certain of his absolute empire over the
heart before he accepts the hand. Those other cases,
where the sacrifice of a heart for wealth and a name is
deliberately made and accepted, are beneath even the
discussion of high-minded men and women.”
Margaret had listened silently while he had spoken;
now she drew her shawl around her and shivered.
“It is chilly,” she said. “I feel the damp. Let us
go in.”
At the time this struck me as singular, for Margaret
was rarely cold. I used often to envy her insensibility
to the cold of winter or heat of summer; her temperament
so calm, or so perfectly balanced, that the weather
had no hold on her. For myself, I liked nothing but
sunshine. Few days were too warm for me; but I
suffered from cold like an East Indian, — grew aguish
in the slightest draught, and believed devoutly in furnaces
and hot air. But I was not even chilly, now.
However, we obeyed Margaret's motion, and the subject
of love and marriage was not afterward renewed between
Thorndike had said, that he would never seek to marry
a young girl; and even had we been, which we were
not, match-seeking young ladies, it was warning enough
to us to think of him only as the friend he had proved
himself.
His attentions during that pleasant summer were
pretty equally divided between us; if any thing, the
larger proportion fell to my share. We did not go into
town very early that year. We could not bear to
return to brick walls and paved streets while Nature
was holding her high festival of harvest time. Oh,
those glorious October days! Grain waving on the
hill-tops; grapes purpling on the vines; fruit blushing
on the boughs; fire-tinted leaves rustling slowly downward;
prismatic haze floating over all. If you never
were in the country in October, you have missed something
you can hardly afford to forego.
It was November before we were settled in our house
in town, — a pleasant house, large and commodious,
looking upon the Common, where the waving of the
tree-boughs, and the Frog Pond, with its blue water
and fleets of juvenile ships, do their pleasant best toward
a little fiction of country life, — a sort of vignette.
A maiden sister of my father was sent for, and promoted
over our heads to the post of housekeeper. This
was in deference to the proprieties, for we were to receive
company this winter, and go into society, and
needed a chaperon.
At first Mr. Thorndike came to see us frequently;
acquaintances he began quietly to withdraw himself
from our intimacy. Out of town, where there had been
no fear of his attentions interfering with any one else,
he had given us most of his leisure; but now he evidently
thought the young men who surrounded us must
needs be more agreeable. That this was not the case I
could have answered, — for myself, at least. I missed
him sadly. Compared with him, the young men of our
circle — youths well-born and well-bred, who had never
known the slightest necessity for exertion — seemed
sadly vapid and uninteresting. I began to suspect
myself of quite as much regard for him as any prudent
damsel would care to bestow on one who, by his own
showing, was not a marrying man.
If Margaret missed our old friend as much as I did
she made no sign. Reserved, self-contained, and cold
as she really was, to all but the few, she was so sweet,
and gentle, and courteous in society that she was very
popular, — far more so than I, who carried my heart
upon my sleeve. It was not long before the attentions
of one, at least, of her admirers began to seem serious
to me, an interested looker-on.
He was a young divine, of the poetico-romantic
school, who was just then making quite a sensation.
He was handsome; graceful in manners as in person;
with one of those eclectic natures of which saith the
proverb, “All's fish that comes to that net.” Milton,
Shakspeare, godly George Herbert, gentle Elia, Festus
Bailey, Carlyle, Dickens, — who was there, ancient or
not contributed to enrich his sermons?
“Words, dears,” said papa, when we had coaxed him
to go and hear Mr. Staunton; “a great many very fine
words; but where is the soul? I'm too old-fashioned
to judge, perhaps, but I confess I like the old grey-beards
who were young when I was; who learned their
theology from the Bible; and who utter their own
thoughts in their own simple phrase, a great deal
better.”
Upon this Margaret defended the young minister
warmly, and when I said to her, after we were alone,
that I had no idea she was so much interested in Mr.
Staunton, she colored, and, with more of temper than I
had almost ever seen in her, answered that I had no
right to infer any special interest on her part, but she
did like to see every one dealt with fairly.
At all events, there was presently no doubt of Mr.
Staunton's estimation of her. He showed it by many
unequivocal demonstrations, and yet not in any way
which made it possible for Margaret to repulse him, or
obliged her, on the other hand, to encourage him. His
attentions were such as friend might show to friend,
but accompanied by looks and tones which evidently
pointed home their moral. I do not know whether
all this was noticed by outside observers; I thought
not. It surprised me a little when, one evening, Mr.
Thorndike spoke to me upon the subject.
He happened to call when Mr. Staunton was there.
Margaret was singing in the music room, which opened
over her, and for a few moments Mr. Thorndike was
alone with me.
A little while we both listened to Margaret's voice,
which floated out to us clear and sweet. My companion
had been leaning his head on his hand, thus concealing
his face; but when he looked up I saw an unfamiliar
trouble in his deep eyes. He spoke hoarsely: —
“Is she, is Margaret going to marry Mr. Staunton,
Laura? Perhaps I have no right to ask, but you know
you have treated me almost like a brother.”
“I have no idea,” I answered, honestly. “You have
seen as much, I imagine, as I have. He is very attentive,
but she is reserved, even to me. I have no means
of guessing her intentions.”
He tried to smile, but it was a ghastly failure.
“Well,” he said, “God bless her, whomever she marries,
wherever her lot is cast. She will decide wisely.
It is absurd for me to question it. Her own pure instincts
will not mislead her; but Mr. Staunton, — Laura,
I can never think he is good enough for her. Take my
word for it, there is poverty of heart and soul beneath
that fine exterior. The soil is too poor for wholesome
grain where all that exotic luxuriance of transplanted
flowers springs up.”
In a few moments more he left. When I urged him
to stay and see my sister, he answered in a voice I
should scarcely have known, it was so constrained and
unnatural: —
“Not to-night. To-night, at least, you must excuse
me.”
I needed no more words to tell me that he loved
Margaret with a love as pure and as strong as his
manly heart. Had he so loved me, I was conscious
that I should have returned it. I esteemed him as I
esteemed no other man. Perhaps I had unwittingly
striven to please him; but it was here, as in all else, I
who had failed, and Margaret, my calm, pale, firm
sister, who had won what she seemed not to value
after all. Well, thank Heaven and the common sense
I inherited from my father, I should not die for love. I
had no story-book sentimentality about it. If a good
man, like Ignatius Thorndike, had truly loved me, and
Heaven had separated us, I cannot answer for my fortitude;
but, while I recognized the possible hold he
might have had on my heart, my affections not having
been sought, were still in my own keeping, and I was
quite capable of being a true sister to him, and entering
with unselfish warmth into his love for Margaret and
all its accompanying hopes and fears.
That evening when I was alone with my sister, I told
her all that had passed. I did not omit to describe the
expressions which had swept over Mr. Thorndike's face
or the inflections of his voice. She listened silently.
Her back was toward me as she stood letting down her
hair before the mirror. I thought her fingers trembled
a little, but I could not be sure. When I had concluded
she turned round for a moment. I could not
read her face distinctly, it was shrouded so by the
golden hair sweeping round it; but I could see that
her eyes glittered, whether with tears or pride, and
and unmoved as usual.
“Thank you, Laura,” she said, quietly. “It is unnecessary
to speak to Mr. Thorndike again upon the
subject, but should any one ask you hereafter whether
I am going to marry Mr. Staunton you can say no;
as I shall certainly tell the gentleman himself if he
ever gives me an opportunity.”
She said no more. I longed to sound her as to
her sentiments toward Mr. Thorndike, but I could
think of no way. Open as a child in all her acts, Margaret
was reserved about her feelings; and this reserve
had even grown upon her of late. She went on undressing
as tranquilly as if I had not told her that
Mr. Thorndike loved her, and then knelt down, with
her childlike instinct of reverence, to say her prayers,
for neither great grief nor overwhelming joy had as
yet taught her how to pray.
We went out of town early in the spring, as we had
come in late; but before we went Mr. Staunton's visits
had nearly ceased. I conjectured, though Margaret did
not tell me, that he had offered her his hand and been
rejected. His sermons about this time took a melancholy
tone. He dwelt much on the fact that we are
pilgrims and strangers, and have no continuing city
here; he bewailed the vanity of life and the unstable
nature of earthly hopes and dreams. He quoted largely
from that school of bards whose constant longing
seems to be to have the grass green and the snow
white above their graves; the storms whistling and the
of emotional development he was more popular than
ever, especially with the young ladies of his flock.
The dear creatures seemed to have an affinity for tears,
and take naturally to lamentations; and as not a few
were rich and some handsome, he was in a fair way to
console himself in time.
When we were settled in our suburban home we
missed Mr. Thorndike's frequent visits still more than
in the city. There was a different reason now for his
not coming to us. It was the spring of 1858. The
commercial earthquake which had commenced in the
fall had been rumbling all winter, and bursting out
now and then to overwhelm its victims with a financial
ruin sudden and terrible. Toward spring the failures
grew perhaps less frequent but more severe; for firms
which had struggled so long, if they went down at
last, wrought a devastation as fearful as when Samson,
blind and old and persecuted long, pulled down upon
himself the temple of Dagon. Few merchants had
time for much social civility. It was all they could do
to fight their way in the hand-to-hand conflict going on
around them. Papa said Mr. Thorndike was struggling
with the rest, — that he had a great many bad debts,
and it was doubtful how long he would be able to meet
his engagements.
“Couldn't you help him?” I asked, when he told us
this.
Papa shook his head.
“I offered to, but he obstinately refused to involve
he said, `than look out for himself. You have children,
and I have none. You are an older man than I, and
not used as I am to struggling and privation. I shall
remember all my life this friendship, when so few
would dare to be friendly; but I must stand or fall
alone, — I don't know which it will be.' He is a noble
fellow, girls; not many like him in these days, when
people hold honor and faith and friendship as mere
fictions.”
I turned to look at Margaret. I wanted to see how
she was affected by this praise, but she had gone out of
the room.
That day papa, not feeling very well, did not go to
town. After dinner we were all together in the dining-room.
Papa was at the window, where the sunset
brightened his silver hair. Margaret was half-sitting,
half-lying on a lounge in the back part of the room,
and I was on a stool beside her. I think we were all
partly asleep, papa smoking and watching the blue
rings float up and away, and we girls dreaming each
her own dreams. The sound of a horse galloping up
the avenue aroused us. We heard the rider dismount
and speak to Patrick, who was at work on a flower-bed
not far from the house. Then, the doors being open, he
came without ringing into the hall, and along to the
dining-room. It was Mr. Thorndike. He evidently
saw no one but my father, and neither Margaret nor
I made any movement. He went straight up to papa
and stood before him. His face was very white, but
sadness in it deeper than tears.
“Mr. Otis,” he said, “my struggle is over. My
paper was protested to-day. These last failures have
been too much for me. I have done my best, but the
fruit of my life's toil is gone. I shall give up every
cent, and no man can lose much by me; but I must
begin again at the foot of the ladder, I who am no
longer young. But, thank Heaven, I have no one
dearer than myself to suffer through my misfortune.
I have repined at my loneliness sometimes, but it comforts
me now.”
Papa was betrayed by his sympathy into suggesting
a thought to his friend which he would never have
accepted for himself.
“But can't you save enough to go into business
again? It is custom; every one does it nowadays.
No one gives up every thing.”
Mr. Thorndike smiled with an indescribable expression
of patient pride.
“Dear sir, you would be the very last to temporize
with duty yourself. No, I must preserve my honor at
all costs. I shall go into business again, I hope; but it
will be as a poor man, as poor as I was twenty years
ago. You must feel that this is right.”
“It is right.” It was Margaret who spoke. I had
never seen her so stirred from her usual calmness.
She sprang from the sofa and walked to Ignatius
Thorndike's side. “Yes, my friend, you are right;
you could do no other way. There is no absolute ruin
the wreck of honor. Gold is tried and purified by
fire; only the baser metals are destroyed.”
He held her hand, her white, delicate hand, that
did not look as if there were any strength in it to
labor. He glanced at her figure, so slender and
so graceful, arrayed with such costly simplicity, — a
woman whom it seemed no poor man could venture
to win. Then he looked steadfastly in her eyes. What
did he read there? They were luminous, as on that
night when he had given her back our silly leap-year
letter,—when she had first discovered how good he was.
A flush like the dawning was on her cheeks. A noble
pride, kindled rather for him than herself, shone in her
face. She looked fit for a hero's bride. But what read
Ignatius Thorndike in her eyes? He held her hand for
a moment, gazing at her steadily. Then he said, with
less composure than he had shown before, —
“God bless you, Margaret; I cannot even thank
you,” and turned away. As he went out of the door I,
who was nearest to it, heard him murmur, “I could have
borne all but this. This makes the cup too bitter.”
I understood then that Margaret's soul had revealed
itself to him in her look, — that he felt sure of her love.
I know his first, despairing thought was that he could
never marry her; that love had come too late, — come
but to mock him with tantalizing glimpses of what might
have been. I was not troubled, however, for I had
faith in the true hearts of them both. I believe that
when two belong to each other so that apart their being
usurp the throne, — it is seldom possible to separate
them, even in this world. Through pain and weariness
it may be; over paths rough with rocks and thorns, or
lying among shadows; still, were it from far antipodes,
they will draw near to each other. By and by Mr.
Thorndike would come to understand that to deprive
Margaret of himself, of his love, would be to do her a
heavier wrong than to subject her to one meal a day
and an attic. Not, however, that I apprehended any
such romantic catastrophe. The wife of a business
man, who possesses strong health and active energies,
can never know hopeless poverty. Besides, papa was
well enough able to assist them. There would be only
he and I left; he could give my sister her fortune now.
I did not mention any of my speculations to Margaret.
She did not allude to Mr. Thorndike beyond a
simple expression of her sympathy in his misfortunes;
and I respected her reticent delicacy. We did not see
him again for more than a month. From time to time
I inquired of papa concerning his affairs. He had behaved
nobly, — given up every thing, and refused an
offer from papa, and two other of his warm friends, to
lend him a sufficient capital to start again. He had
sturdily adhered to his preference for independence,
and was going to establish himself in a commission
business. I believe I exulted in him — in the integrity
which no temptations could shake, the self-respect which
no misfortunes could lessen — as much as if his love
had been mine.
It was June when he came to us again, — just a
year, as I happened to remember, from the day at which
I dated the real beginning of our friendship. He looked
a little worn by anxiety and labor, but hopeful and resolute
notwithstanding. For the first time he asked
Margaret to walk with him, and omitted me in the invitation.
I saw them, a few moments afterward, from
my window, pacing slowly under the trees, her light
dress gleaming through the summer greenery. They
were gone a long time. When they returned Margaret
came directly upstairs. A tender, womanly light was
in her eyes; an expression of entire happiness upon her
face. She sat down beside me, and laid her head
against my shoulder, with a caressing manner which
was unusual in her; for, though deeply and fervently
affectionate, she was seldom demonstrative.
“I am not half worthy of him, Laura,” she said,
hiding her eyes from me; “not half worthy of being
Ignatius Thorndike's wife; but I have promised to be
so. I don't know what he sees in me, that noble man,
— the best man I ever knew, — strong and true as an
angel.”
I could tell very well what he saw in her, — a bride
whom any man might be proud to win; but those who
love truly are always humble. I did not dispute the
point; I only rallied her a little.
“Do I hear you rightly, Margaret?” I asked, with
apparent incredulity. “Why, don't you remember
all Mr. Thorndike said, last summer, about men who
asked women a great deal younger than themselves to
“That was when they asked hastily; when they
wooed women who were not sure of their own hearts;
when they married without knowing, beyond doubt,
that their wives loved them.”
“And he has no doubt of your love, then?”
“Thank Heaven, none; nor I of his.”
Her sweetness and frankness had quite overruled my
attempts to tease her, and banished the desire. I caught
her in my arms instead, and wept over her passionately,
— not, Heaven knows, because I was sorry; every thing
had happened as I most wished. I could give up
my beloved sister to her husband without a single apprehension
as to her future. Nevertheless the tears
would come. They are most women's safety-valve, and
answer quite as well for occasions of extreme joy as for
those of sorrow. Mine were contagious, and we had a
good cry together, — we two, who had been the dearest
upon earth to each other almost all the years of our
young lives. I could be dearest to Margaret no longer.
Was there any unworthy jealousy in my tears?
“What will papa say?” I asked, when we had got
quiet again.
“Oh, he is pleased. Ignatius spoke to him first; and
indeed, Laura, what could he have hoped for me half
so good? As he himself said, he can give me to Mr.
Thorndike without a doubt or a fear. I know it was a
long time before Ignatius could make up his mind to
ask my hand, because he is poor now, and he could
finally” —
“But finally he bethought himself to do you better
justice, and not sacrifice your heart and his own to
what is, at worst, but a doubtful fear.”
I went donwnstairs presently to see and congratulate
my brother-in-law elect. Margaret staid behind; she
had need to be alone, she said. I think she prayed
then.
It was not long before Mr. Thorndike left. I was
going with him into the hall, but I saw a rapid figure
flitting down the stairs to join him, and I retreated,
to leave them to exchange together their first lovers'
farewell.
They were to be married in the early fall, before we
went into town, and we commenced the preparations
at once. I wanted to have superintended Margaret's
trousseau, and I thought nothing could be too costly or
too elegant for her. It was a real annoyance when she
quietly refused to have this and that, because it was not
fitting for the wife of a man whose fortune was yet to
make. But she had always had her own way, — she did
so still. Her quiet, persistent mildness was all-powerful.
In respect to style of living and expenses I could see
there would be perfect harmony between her and her
betrothed. Both were independent, and entirely above
vanity. I went into the parlor one day, and found
papa fussing and fretting in a manner quite unusual
for him.
“What is the matter?” I asked, as I went up to
him.
“Matter enough! One likes to see a very young
man Quixotic, and heroic, and all that; but Ignatius
Thorndike is old enough to take a common-sense view
of life. I have been telling him I was going to buy
Margaret a house and furnish it, and transfer some
stock to her name; and instead of thanking me, behold,
he will have Margaret and nothing else. He is not
willing I should do any thing for her. If he were rich,
he says, he should not mind; but, as he is not, he would
prefer beginning his married life as suits his altered fortunes.
It's absurd, — absolutely ridiculous.”
“And what does Margaret say?”
“Oh, agrees with Ignatius, of course. She understands
him so well that I suppose she thinks it would
make him unhappy to owe too much, even to her.”
It was possible, too, I thought, that Margaret preferred
to be dependent on her husband. I had begun to understand
her nature now.
She and Ignatius — the two firm, quiet ones — had
their way. Papa only gave them their furniture, their
silver, and linen. Mr. Thorndike rented a small, pleasant
house in town, and it was all fitted up ready for
them to go into before they were married.
It was the first of October when they went away
from us. They had a very quiet wedding. Margaret
wore white muslin, in lieu of the satin and point lace I
would fain have selected; but with all her simplicity
of attire she could not help looking like a queen.
content and peace in Ignatius Thorndike's face
when he came from church with his wife, — his young,
true, fair wife; and Margaret looked as if the ducal
strawberries would have elevated her less than the unadorned
honor of being Mrs. Thorndike.
They had no bridal tour. It was not only that the
new-made husband had no superfluity of time or means,
— in any circumstances neither of them would have
fancied it. Their happiness was not of a kind to require
change of air and scene. They needed no company besides
each other. We knew this, — papa and I, — and
did not intrude upon them much at first. After a while,
however, we fell into the habit of spending with them
some portion of every day. In fact, we cannot stay
away, it is such a pleasant home to visit. A neat little
house, simple in furniture and adornments, but with a
few sunny pictures, plenty of choice books, and always
fresh flowers in the crystal vase on Margaret's table. I
do not know how the one tidy maid contrives to keep
every thing so neat, and bright, and smiling. I half
suspect Margaret of assisting her; but her hands are
as white and ladylike as ever, her dress as faultlessly
neat and elegant. She never talks about her domestic
affairs. She is content to love us dearly and welcome us
heartily, without presenting constant drafts on our sympathy
in household grievances.
Her husband is all Margaret's husband ought to be,
— loving, proud, honest, and fearless. I think he forgets
that he is just beginning the struggle for fortune
Cheered by her brave, hopeful love, he knows no regrets.
He puts mind and brain into his business during
many hours of each day; but he comes home to
rest and refreshment, and his heart has a sure anchor.
Already he is successful. When patience and industry
join hands with tact and skill the reward is sure. I
should not be surprised if Ignatius Thorndike were one
day to be numbered again among the rich men of Boston.
But can he ever be a richer man than now?
| Some women's hearts | |