 | Some women's hearts |  |
OUT OF NAZARETH.
A QUEER little town, among hills and streams,
where, under the thrifty, painstaking New
England farming, the very rocks had blossomed into
gardens, and every little brook had to turn a big mill-wheel.
A place that might have been poetical, if it
had not been so severely useful; with skies blue as
Italy, and peaks which made you think of Switzerland;
and yet a place where no tourists went, and which nobody
ever thought of talking about.
The site for the little red school-house on the hill-side
had been chosen because the land was rocky and therefore
cheap, as well as because it was near the centre of
the district. By the merest accident it was the most
picturesque nook in the whole town. At its back a
wood crowned the hill, — a pleasant wood, where there
was little underbrush, and the school-boys kept all the
snakes killed, so that timid girls could go there and
gather flowers in spring and summer, and fill their
dinner baskets with chestnuts when the early frosts
opened the burs. The meadow, stretching out green
and level at the eastward, was a capital place for strawberries
steeply from the school-house door, — what royal coasting
there was down it in winter. All the juveniles
appreciated these points of attraction; and Miss Amber,
the teacher, appreciated what the rest forgot, the picturesqueness
of a landscape which would have enchanted
a painter, — if you could fancy a painter ever
going to Nazareth, — and so all were satisfied.
Miss Amber had taught school in Nazareth, summer
and winter, for five years; but then she began when she
was seventeen, — so she was not very old. She was an
orphan; but the townsfolks had loved her father, and
she did not lack for friends. Parson Amber had been
for thirty years their minister, and when he died, and
his fair invalid wife, whom he had married late in life,
laid her head down on his dead heart, and died in time
to be buried in the same grave, every home in the
little country town was open to his only child, and
every heart was ready to give her welcome. But she
chose independence, and asked for the post of teacher
of the district school.
She retained the small but pleasant cottage which
her father owned, and the woman who had been at
once housekeeper and maid of all work for her parents;
and so pleased herself with the semblance of a home
to go to when her day's work was over, though the
cherishing love, which had made those lowly walls so
dear, was gone from the earth.
Miss Amber made a good teacher. I do not mean
by this that she liked it. I do not hold to the creed
One must have ability to impart knowledge, and a respectable
fund of knowledge to impart. Beyond these
it only wants self-control and a conscience, — two
things which Miss Amber had. So she did her duty
in the fear of God, and did it well. It was not in the
nature of things that she should particularly enjoy it.
Her father had been a man of literary tastes and
thorough culture, and after she had mastered the
tedious first rudiments of knowledge he had been
her teacher. To one who had walked among the stars,
dreamed through the classics, was familiar with the
daily lives and ways of the poets as with the faces of
her neighbors, — one whose soul was full of subtile perceptions
of beauty, undeveloped powers of imagination,
longings all the stronger because unspoken after
the glory, and romance, and fervor, of a full life,
there could be little attractive in the task of thumping
A B C's into naughty curly heads, or kindling torches
of illumination to guide benighted intellects through the
Rule of Three. All the more glory to her, I say, therefore,
because she did her work well. All heroes do not
lead regiments. She always passed her “noonings” at
school, and staid at night to mend pens and prepare
copy-books, — so for eight hours of every day she was
not her own. Her moments and her thoughts were
paid for, and she gave them every one faithfully. Then
she went home, put on her home dress and her home
face, and was her own mistress.
Did I say that Miss Amber had many friends in
she had but one. All cared for her. Partly for her
father's sake, and partly for her own, the minister's little
girl was dear to each and all. But if friendship means
something more than liking; if it means companionship
in pursuits, exchange of ideas, community of thoughts,
she had one sole friend, — Adam Russell. And even on
him she secretly looked down a little, though nothing
in her manner ever gave a suggestion of it. She was
exquisitely refined. Her mother had been faultlessly
bred, — her father was a gentleman of the old school.
To a dweller in Nazareth such refinement, inherited
and cultivated, was no blessing. It was hard sometimes
to conceal her annoyance at neighborly familiarities,
awkward country ways. But her kind heart carried
her safely through, and she wounded no mortal's self-love.
Still she wished — she could not help wishing it
every night when he sat by her side — that Adam
Russell were less rugged; less noisy in step and voice;
had more softness, more social adroitness. She liked
him heartily, nevertheless.
He had been her father's pupil. For three years
before Parson Amber died he had taught the two together,
— girl and boy. After his death they had kept
on with their studies. It would have been so solitary
to give up all old habits. After the first wild spasm of
grief was over, and Grace had begun to grow familiar
with her loneliness and sorrow, and recognize it as
something that was not to be confronted or shaken off,
fireside until her own death day, — she began to feel
the need of keeping up old ways. When Adam Russell
came, timidly enough, not dreaming of books or study,
but only to bring her a late flower or two which the
autumn blasts had spared, and show her in his sad eyes
and mutely sympathizing face how sorry he was for her,
she brought out the last book they had been reading,
and asked him quietly if he would stay and study with
her a while. When he went away, she said, struggling
with something that rose up in her throat and seemed
to choke her: —
“Perhaps you had better come every night as you
used, and we will try how we can get on together without
a teacher. I think papa would have wished it.”
Then she shut the door hurriedly, almost in his face;
for she felt a storm of sobs and tears bursting forth
which he must not see. How grief shook her. What
bitter, bitter cries smote the very heavens from those
orphan lips. With what unavailing anguish she called
for voices to answer her, to bless her, which must be
silent evermore, until she, too, should learn the secret
password which opens the portal of eternity. How, at
last, came merciful exhaustion, and then, through the
stillness, a whisper faint and sweet as of a ministering
angel: —
“He is a father of the fatherless, — even God in His
holy habitation.”
Little she knew, little she would ever know, how her
sorrow was shared even then, — how he stood outside,
again, or proffer any comfort, and yet longing,
in a passion of tender grief, and loving pain, to bear
it all for her, — to shield that graceful head from every
storm of life. He did not go away until the moans,
that had penetrated faintly to his ear, were still, and
the glow of a just-lighted lamp shone out softly from
Miss Amber's window.
He was only sixteen then, and she was seventeen.
He did not think about love. No dream of possible
possession, no longing to call her his, blent with the
humble sincerity of his worship. He only felt that to
have died to make her happy would have been easier
than to stand outside and know her shaken with a
sorrow he was powerless to soothe.
Since that night five years had passed. Miss Amber
had taught the village school. Adam Russell had
worked the days through upon his father's farm, serving
with faithful hands, but with heart and mind often
far enough away. Evenings they had met almost daily.
In the summer they took their books out of doors,
or sat, when it was stormy, in the old window-seat; in
winter at the fireside, with Aunt Prudence Fairly, the
housekeeper, in the other corner nodding over her knitting.
No one ever gossiped about Miss Amber; perhaps
because she was open and frank as daylight in all her
ways. Then, too, she held herself grandly above gossip,
and, doing what she knew was right, would never have
thought or cared what speech it might provoke. Moreover,
there was an atmosphere of womanly dignity
with her name. If any one speculated, country fashion,
that it would be a match some day between her and
young Russell, she never knew it, and the thought of it
had never entered her head.
She was twenty-two now, and he twenty-one in the
summer gone by. She remembered his age as she
sat waiting for him in the early autumn evening, and
thought with a real regret that he would soon be going
away to try his fortune elsewhere, as he had always
said he should after he was of age. The books they
were reading lay beside her in the old-fashioned window-seat;
but she would not open them until he came. She
sat with still face and wide eyes looking out toward the
sunset.
She was beautiful just then. Ordinarily she was only
distinguished-looking. She was tall and well-made.
Her face was pale usually; clear and healthy, but colorless.
There was character enough in her proud features,
and a look of resolution and self-will about the corners
of her mouth and in her dark gray eyes. But there
were moments, as now, when her soul looked out
through those eyes as through open windows, and
they grew luminous with the inner light; when roses
glowed on her cheeks and rivalled the bright bloom of
her lips. These moments of transfiguration were when
she looked at sunsets, or read poetry, or heard music.
I think the sea would have wrought the same miracle;
but her home was inland among the hills, and she had
never seen it.
Adam Russell came in before the spell had ceased to
work, while still the sunset's brightness was reflected in
her changeful face. He had a love for the beautiful as
quick and keen as her own; and, though neither of
them knew it then, he had more power and more
genius. Indeed, of genius, strictly speaking, she had
not a bit. She was intensely appreciative, not creative.
Yet his face told no tales. He was not handsome,
but he looked strong and in earnest: true Saxon,—
large of limb, tough of muscle, with brown hair and
blue, resolute eyes; Roundhead rather than Cavalier.
Miss Amber turned and took up a book as he entered.
“Not to-night, Grace,” he said, putting it away; “at
least not now. Give me a little time to talk.”
His accent touched her; for there was in it a certain
pleading inflection, unconscious and tender.
“I don't know when, after to-night, I shall be here
again,” he went on, half-sadly, half-expectantly, as if he
longed, yet scarcely hoped, to move her regret. “Shall
you miss me at all?”
“I shall miss you more than you can guess. What a
lonely five years these last would have been but for our
evenings together. I am not of a temperament to relish
solitude without some one to whom I can say how
sweet it is. But are you really going? When do you
go, and where?”
“I am really going. I staid here thus long only
because they needed me at home. Father must make
his next year's arrangements without me. You know
thing, — or New England either, for that matter.”
“And yet she is a good mother.”
“Yes;” and the slow blue eyes kindled a little, and
then softened. “I hope you are not thinking I don't
love home. If I were rich, I think I would live and
die here; but I must have room to grow. I must make
money faster; for I want what it will bring. Why
should I weary you with reasons? I think you've
heard them all before. You knew my purpose, and
now the time is come. I shall go to-morrow; where, I
don't know yet, but out toward the sunset. I have
three thousand dollars, which my grandmother gave
me when she died. When I have made them ten
times three, I think I shall be ready to come back.
Simple people could live well enough on thirty thousand,
couldn't they, Grace?”
He asked this question, and then he bit his lip with
vexation. He had meant to ask her for her love, and
here he was talking about money. Still he wanted so
much to know what sum she would think enough for
comfort, — when he might venture to come back. He
had outgrown a little in these five years his boyish
ignorance and simplicity of heart. He was no longer
content to worship without the thought of return. He
loved Grace Amber, and he wanted her, — to be his
own; to meet him, with those proud, sweet eyes of
hers, when he came in; to belong to him, with her
red lips, and her dark shining hair, and her proud,
pure woman's heart. But he had not outgrown his
grace made him awkward. He had longing enough,
but little hope. I am not sure that women do not like
a self-confident wooer better. He started from his
thoughts as if from a trance, when, after a moment's
silence, her sweet voice broke upon his ear: —
“I don't know much about money, but I should
think thirty thousand dollars, two thousand a year,
enough for luxury. We never had more than half that
income in my father's life, and we surely lived in
comfort.”
“And when I have that much may I come back for
you? Oh, Grace, Grace, I don't know how to tell you,
but you must have seen that you are all I care for in
this world. Your sorrow pierces me to the heart.
Your smiles make me glad. I would give every
moment of my life for your happiness. I know I'm
not good enough or polished enough for you. I know
I'm not half what you deserve; but oh, who will ever
love you so well? Who could love you so well as I,
who have loved you all my life? If I grow better,
worthier, will you promise to love me, to keep your
heart for me?”
“Let me think, — wait, — give me time to tell you.”
The silence that fell between them only lasted five
minutes. It seemed to Adam Russell like a cycle of
eternity.
Grace Amber's brain reeled a moment, and then
grew steady. His declaration had been the greatest
surprise of her life. During all the hours they had
her. Could she give him what he asked? She stole
a stealthy look at him as he sat with his eyes turned
away. It was not the face or form of her ideal. She
loved softness, gentleness, poetry of motion, grace of
aspect. She needed most of all something to rely on,
— strength, courage, truth, — but she did not know her
own needs as yet. Her quiet life had developed her so
slowly that she had not learned to understand herself.
What she fancied now, she would not love five years
hence. Still she could only answer from present knowledge.
She cared more for Adam Russell than for any
one else in the world. She would feel the pain she
must give him to her own heart's core, but he did not
satisfy her taste. She could not feel for him one throb
of the soft, sweet tumult of passion which she supposed
love was. She noticed the square, ungraceful shape of
his stalwart figure in his ill-fitting country-made clothes.
She looked at his hard, rough hands, browned with the
summer's work in plow-field and hay-field. She did
not see in him one thing to please her fancy. Plenty
of good sterling qualities to make her honor and trust
in him, — but not the eloquence of dark eyes and
silver tongue, — not the magical charm, the persuasive
witchery which could win her love.
She spoke at length, tenderly, deprecatingly, pitifully,
with tears in her voice and her eyes: —
“I can't, Adam, I can't. I have tried, but it is of no
use. I do love you, I love you dearly; but oh! forgive
me, it is not in that way.”
“Forgive you! Forgive you for not loving me,
Grace! Did you think I could blame you? I hardly
hoped at all. I knew I was not good enough, — I said
so. Forgive me for troubling you. I have pained
you, made you cry. Don't, Grace, you will break my
heart,” for, moved to the depths by his words, she was
sobbing passionately.
“I don't wonder you couldn't love me. I only
wonder I could have been so mad as to think it
possible. God bless you. God make you happy. I
know you are my friend, my true, good friend, and
that is enough. It must be enough. You will be my
friend still when I come back, won't you; wherever
you are, married or single?”
A great gulping sob shook him in spite of himself as
he said that, — he was not strong enough to bear the
thought of finding her married to some one else. She
could not answer him, for her tears were falling fast;
but she put out her hand, and he took it and held it in
a close pressure. After a moment he let it go, and for
her sake forced himself to self-control and calmness.
“I brought you a book,” he said; “one you like, and
I want you should keep it to make you think of me
sometimes when I can read with you no more.”
He laid it in her hand, an edition of Shelley, bound as
Shelley should be, in leather the color of the sea, and
printed on fair, creamy pages, in type it would be a
luxury to read. It was an English edition. He had
been to Boston and back for it the day before. He
said nothing of another gift he had purchased for her
flashing, — he had given up all hope that she would
wear that now.
He received her thanks with a sad smile, and soon
after he went away. He turned back on the threshold
to say, looking at her with tender, sorrowful eyes: —
“If ever you want a friend, Grace, — if ever there is
any thing a brother could do for you, — let me know.
Promise me. My father can always tell you where I
am, so it will be easy to send me word. No matter
how far it is, I will not fail you.”
When he was gone Grace Amber went back into the
room where she had received her first offer. She had
it to herself. Aunt Prudence was doing fortnightly
duty at a sewing-society, and there was no one to
notice her mood. She tried to read a little in her
Shelley. Then she shut it and fell to thinking. She
could not turn her mind all at once from the true,
honest love that had been laid at her feet. She thought
it all over, — what he had said, — how he had looked
at her, — how generous and patient and earnest he was.
If she could have loved him she knew he would never
have failed her. She could have looked forward to a
future fixed and safe and sheltered. But of what avail
all this when she could not give him her heart? — that
wilful, fluttering thing waited for the voice of another
charmer. Some one there must be in the world who
would look at her with the eyes of which she had
dreamed, — whose tones, silver sweet to her ears, would
woo in poet phrases, — a lover after her own heart.
But she pitied Adam Russell, her old playfellow,
her fellow student, her one friend for so many years.
She went to bed, at last, with a heartache for his sake;
and his familiar, kindly face blended strangely in her
dreams with the dark eyes, and smile half-sad, half-tender
of the true Prince who was to come some
day.
That was autumn; and the winter which followed
was insupportably long and tedious. She had never
thought that she could miss her old friend so much.
Her school duties seemed harder and more monotonous,
— the children more hopelessly stupid and the days
longer. Then the evenings, — those still, dreary times,
with no one to read to her, or hear her read, and the
silence broken only by the steady, drowsy click of
Aunt Prudence's knitting-needles. There was no one
to notice the bit of scarlet ribbon with which she
brightened her winter-dress, or the new ways she did
her hair. She was not one whit more in love with
Adam Russell than ever; but his going away and
leaving no one to take his place made a terrible blank
in her life. She grew thin. She looked not only pale,
but listless. She found her solitude and the dull
monotony of her days insupportable. She resolved to
change it. She began searching the papers. In some
of them, she thought, she would be sure to see the
opening she waited for. Her evenings, devoted to
advertising columns, became a little more interesting.
At length she chanced upon an advertisement for a
governess whch seemed to promise something. All the
the applicant. She was not expected to sing like
Patti, play like Gottschalk, and dance like Mademoiselle
Cubas. The accomplishments, so called, were to
be taught by masters engaged for the purpose, — the
governess was expected to train her pupils in the
ordinary branches of an English education, to direct
their reading, and criticise their manners. Miss Amber
had no fear but that she was qualified. The only
trouble was the references required. To whom could
she refer, — whose indorsement, of all she knew, would
establish her credentials?
She was frank by nature, and she solved the question
in the directest way. She wrote a letter to the address
given in the advertisement, in which, with straightforward
simplicity, she set forth the details of her
birth, breeding, and acquirements, — all her past life, in
short. Perhaps nine advertisers for governesses out of
ten would have passed such a letter by unheeded.
Fortunately she had chanced upon the tenth one, who
appreciated it, and understood her at once. She received
in reply a communication nearly as frank as her
own.
Mrs. St. Clair, the lady who desired her services,
was a widow with two daughters to educate, of whom
the younger was ten and the elder twelve. She resided
in New York in the winter, in summer upon the Hudson;
and she wished a governess who would be no less
a companion for herself than an instructress for her
daughters. If Miss Amber chose to accept the engagement
domestic, as one of themselves. She concluded by
naming a salary which sounded munificent to one
accustomed to the wages of a district school-teacher
in the country.
Miss Amber answered the letter by return mail, accepting
the situation, and agreeing, as had been proposed,
to join the family at Riverdale the second week in May.
This done, she dispatched a note to the school-committee
of Nazareth, informing them that she must
resign her post at the end of the winter term.
Her next task was to settle matters with Aunt
Prudence. The little cottage where they lived, with
the books and furniture it contained, was her inheritance
from her father. She could not have borne to
have it pass into other hands, or to see it shut up. She
proposed to her housekeeper to remain there, and keep
a home always open for her return, — promising to
send her from each quarter's salary a remittance sufficient
to keep her in comfort. The proposal was accepted
with thanks, after a few vain remonstrances on
the evils of young girls going to strange places, the
dangers of city life, and sundry kindred topics.
So all was settled, and then Miss Amber had a pleasant
employment for her leisure in making her preparations.
It was marvellous how far her money went,
aided by the contrivances of her deft fingers, for she
was her own dress-maker.
School closed, and she parted from the children, the
last day, with more real regret than she could have imagined
her past life; and the future, now that she was drawing
near it, seemed so dim, so vague, so untried, that she
shrank from it a little, and turned to the past with a
strange tenderness. She shed not a few tears for the
days gone by, as she roamed again over her old haunts,
and went round among all her old, kind friends to bid
them farewell.
Still, when she had fairly left Nazareth behind her,
and started on her way to Riverdale, her spirits rose.
The prospect of change exhilarated her. She seemed
to breathe freer. Her pulses thrilled at the thought of
new scenes and new faces, — perhaps, who knew, the
real story-book lover at last. It was time, she said to
herself, with a smile and a blush, — she was almost
twenty-three, and if he did not make haste, “the invisible,
unknown he,” she would be old and faded before
he came for her.
That night she passed on the Sound. The next forenoon
she reached Riverdale station. The other passengers
who got out there marched away, as if each
one knew where he was going. She was left nearly
alone, when a respectable-looking coachman asked if it
was Miss Amber, and conducted her to a carriage where
a middle-aged lady and two little girls sat waiting. It
was kind of them, she thought, to meet her. She went
forward with a pleased smile on her face that made her
lovely. Mrs. St. Clair looked at her critically. She
liked the graceful figure in quiet, lady-like travelling
garb; the pale, high-bred face; the simple yet elegant
ill in trusting to her intuitions. She welcomed her
governess cordially, and introduced Helen and May,
her daughters.
In the mean time Miss Amber's cool eyes had taken
her measure also. They saw in her a shrewd, reasonable,
kindly woman, — no enthusiast, yet not without impulse,
— a true lady, — a mother who would be judicious
and faithful, but one whose affection would never be
idolatrous or unreasonable, — a person whose whole
character was well-regulated and consistent; whom she
should like sincerely, and get on with serenely, but
about whom she could never be enthusiastic.
They were satisfied mutually.
That was a pleasant summer. Mrs. St. Clair had
notions of her own about governesses, and recognized
a lady when she saw one. Miss Amber fell into the
ways of the household without difficulty. She had
quite as much time to herself as was good for her.
She found Mrs. St. Clair a pleasant friend; and the
children, if no better than other children, were no
worse, and had been trained to be obedient and not
exacting.
Gradually she became familiar with the family history.
Mrs. St. Clair, not more than thirty-five now,
had been her husband's second wife. Besides her own
two little girls there was a son of the first Mrs. St.
Clair; a young gentleman of twenty-five, who had been
living for several years in Italy, and was expected home
by and by. About this absentee, “brother Paul,” as
was so handsome, so generous, — above all, he painted
so beautifully. He must paint Miss Amber's portrait
when he came home.
Mrs. St. Clair spoke of him with a certain kind of
affection. That he was her husband's son was a claim
on her regard which she would never have thought of
ignoring. Still there was no difficulty in perceiving
that he was not to her taste. A very real woman, she
had not much sympathy with the ideal. She was just
the kind of person to look coldly on artists, and distrust
poets. So her curt and slightly sarcastic comments
on the children's rhapsodies only amused their
governess.
Unconsciously to herself Miss Amber was beginning
to make a hero of this unknown “brother Paul.” It
would have shocked her if she had realized how much
she thought about him, — how much reference she had
in her choice of books and studies to the probability of
their future meeting, and the subjects she should want
to discuss with him. She would have laughed at the
idea of the rich Mr. St. Clair falling in love with his
sisters' governess; and yet, underneath her acknowledgments
that such dreams would be impossible of fulfillment,
and absurd of conception, I am not sure that
there did not lurk a hidden something, not vivid enough
to be called a hope, less tangible than a fancy, which
pointed to him as the true Prince.
After a quiet, pleasant summer the family went back
to New York. Miss Amber was more than ever
Mrs. St. Clair had taken a hearty and honest liking to
her, and meant to afford her every enjoyment and advantage
in her power. If she had been a daughter of
the house her position could hardly have been more
agreeable or independent. She had, to be sure, her
hours for lessons, when she taught with zeal and thoroughness,
— but she might have done as much had
May and Helen been her own young sisters. Outside
these hours they were quite as much in their mother's
charge as in hers. She enjoyed this luxurious life. She
delighted in the ease and elegance of her surroundings,
— handsome furniture, spacious rooms, attentive servants.
When she thought of Nazareth, in those days,
it was almost with a shiver of self-pity. How had she
lived so long with such commonplace associations?
What would tempt her ever to go back to that rugged
life, so bare of all luxury and grace?
In New York Mrs. St. Clair introduced her in society
as her friend. Probably few guessed at her position;
or, if they did, they politely ignored it, perceiving
that they were expected to receive her on the footing
of one of the family. At first she remonstrated against
giving up so much time to society; but when she saw
it was really Mrs. St. Clair's wish, she yielded to the
natural, girlish enjoyment it gave her, only taking most
conscientious care that her pupils should never be neglected,
or their hours for study set aside.
She met with admiration enough to have turned some
heads. Not that she was called a beauty. The women,
girl;” but the men seemed to find something. Perhaps
it was partly the oddity of a woman who did not
sing or play or dance, in a circle where every one else
at least attempted these accomplishments. Then her
style was so peculiar. She dressed so simply, yet with
a taste so faultless. Her conversation was so piquant, so
fresh; her moods so independent; her bearing so quietly
regal. It was the difference between a nature pure,
inexperienced, unhackneyed, and one which an artificial
life had warped out of all originality; cramped remorselessly
down to conventional standards. Mrs. St.
Clair smiled to herself now and then to see how her
protégée was becoming the fashion.
Her smiles changed to half-vexed astonishment when
two offers of marriage came from two of the best
matches in the city, and were successively rejected.
“I do not think you know your own mind, or have
any true idea of your own requirements,” she said in a
provoked tone, on the second of these occasions.
“Why? Because I do not love Mr. Desmond or Mr.
Vanderpool? I know no harm of them; but I cannot
help it if they do not touch my heart. It bores me and
tires me out to talk with either of them an hour at a
time: what would it be to see their faces opposite me
for ever? Are you in haste to look out for a new governess?”
“I should be sorry to part with you, — I need not
tell you that, — but I am not selfish enough to wish
you to forget your own interests, and lose your chances
you must gang your ain gait.”
“Waiting for Paul, I know it!” Mrs. St. Clair soliloquized
in an annoyed tone, as the door closed upon Miss
Amber. “She is romantic, and those children have
made him out such a wonder. A selfish, luxurious
dreamer; he isn't half good enough for her.”
It was just about that time that one of Aunt Prudence's
occasional letters came, with an item of Nazareth
news in it of more than usual interest. Adam
Russell's mother had died suddenly. He had been
sent for, but only arrived in time to stand over her
grave. He had seemed very much overcome, but had
only staid in Nazareth a few days. The night before he
went away he had called at the old parsonage. It must
have been to ask after Grace, for he had not talked of
any thing else, and spoke little even of her. He took
down some of the books, and went and sat in the old
window-seat, and turned them over; and after he had
sat there a while he got up and went away.
This letter touched Miss Amber's heart strangely.
She had been Adam Russell's true friend too many
years not to feel his sorrow. She knew by her own
memories of anguish what it must be to him to lose his
mother. It would seem to sever his connection with
Nazareth; for between him and his father — a stern,
rigid man — there was no great attachment. Perhaps
she should never see him again. How strange it would
be, after all those years of friendship. How good he
had been to her; how much he had loved her. She
she thought she would if she had known where he was.
But she did not know. There was no way but to send
the letter to his father for him; and then it would be
speculated about, and grow old and cold before it
reached him. So she gave it up. Perhaps something
whispered that since she could not give him what he
had asked her for, any thing else which she could give
him would be worth little. The thought of his lonely
heart, his unshared sorrow, haunted and saddened her
for days, — until, in fact, it was banished by a new and
most potent excitement.
“Brother Paul” was coming. He had started in the
“Arago.” She was nearly due. He might be there any
day. May and Helen were wild with the eager excitement
of children. Miss Amber's expectation was
quieter, but not less intense. The daily lessons were
hard work for both teacher and pupils.
At last, one day, in the very midst of study hours,
there was the bustle of an arrival in the hall. The
girls sprang up and tossed their books to the ceiling.
The governess attempted no restraint. She, too, would
have liked to join the wild rush down the stairs. She
retreated, instead, to her own room, and, like a sensible
young woman, improved the time to make her toilet.
It cost her more study than all the parties at which she
had assisted that winter. She did not acknowledge to
herself the half of her real interest. She wanted to have
him for a friend, she thought, — to hear him talk about
Italy; she must not shock his fastidious taste by her
ended with a plain but rich black silk, which fitted her
figure exquisitely, finished with soft laces at wrists and
throat. Black became her. It seemed a sort of continuation,
in effect, of her soft, dark hair. It made her
pale face look clear. Still, when all was done she was
not satisfied. She did not like the slight, pale girl she
saw in the mirror. Something seemed wanting of grace
and sparkle, — some charm she lacked in her own eyes
that she knew not where to borrow. I do not know
but she would have dressed over again if Helen, at the
door, had not saved her the trouble.
“Mamma wants you to come down. Paul has been
asking for you. He laughed at May and me for writing
so much about you, and he says he wants to see the
paragon.”
Indiscreet tongue of childhood! Miss Amber's cheeks
blazed, — her eyes glittered. They had been making
her ridiculous. Well, she would be indifferent enough.
Her excitement supplied the lacking charm. If she had
looked in the glass now she would have seen no want
of life and sparkle.
She went into the drawing-room haughtily. Haughtily
she received Mr. St. Clair's salutations. Silently and
coolly she took her place at the window. He was enchanted.
Surely the half had not been told him. None
of them had written of her as handsome. What else
did they call this radiant creature, with the wide, luminous
eyes, the dusky, soft-falling hair, the pale brow, and
the rose tint on cheek and lip?
You perceive there was a certain exaggerative romance
in his manner of thinking. He was both poet
and painter, — not great in either art, but with enough
of an artist's soul to color his conceptions.
Miss Amber, on her part, despite her vexation and her
cool ways, lost not an inflection of his voice, not a shade
of his expression. It thrilled her with a new emotion
when he looked at her or spoke to her. Here were the
dark, eloquent eyes of which she had dreamed, — here
the silver tongue, the high-bred, faultlessly elegant
manner. Of course he was nothing to her; but with
such a man in the world for a standard of comparison,
what chance was there for the Desmonds and Vanderpools
of society? She was cool and self-possessed as a
veteran, however. No one could have guessed from
her manner the new, overpowering fascination which
swayed her heart. Even Mrs. St. Clair gloried in her
quiet dignity, and began to hope that she was not going
to be foolish enough, after all, to fall in love with Paul.
Is there any need to tell how the days and weeks of
their acquaintance went on? how the spell of those unaccustomed
charms stole over Miss Amber's dreaming
heart, innocent, childlike, and almost as susceptible at
twenty-three as in early girlhood? She lost her power
to criticise, and believed in Paul St. Clair's genius as he
believed in it himself. She listened to him with pulses
that kept time to the melody of his voice as he lay on
an ottoman at her feet, and said his own rhymes to
her, looking up now and then into her face with the
dangerous sweetness of his dark eyes. She grew to
in his presence. And yet she kept up to herself the
pretty fiction that he did not, and never would, love
her, that it was only his genius which charmed her; and
so she blinded her eyes as to whither she was drifting.
As for him, he had had fancies many, and loves
many; but he felt in her presence that he had never
loved before. I know not how real his passion was.
His own faith in it was profound.
Mrs. St. Clair looked on with a certain degree of such
patience as one has with the vagaries and petulance of
a sick child. She thought that the flame would consume
all its oil and go out after a while, at least in Miss
Amber's heart. For her step-son she was not much
concerned; she believed thoroughly in his power of
recuperation.
Before they left town in the spring she found, to her
dismay, that affairs were assuming a more serious character
than she had anticipated.
Miss Amber waited on her one morning with a cool
announcement of her wish to resign her situation. A
question or two elicited the cause. Mr. St. Clair had
proposed to her, and she had promised to be his wife.
Of course she could not with propriety continue to
teach there; and probably Mrs. St. Clair would not
wish it, — this speech, with a curious look and an air at
once deprecating and defiant.
Mrs. St. Clair considered a moment. Matters had
certainly gone farther and faster than she expected.
She had judged Paul by his past flames, and so failed
much direct resolution and energy. Her chief concern
was for Miss Amber, for whom she entertained a true,
practical, common-sense, yet most earnest friendship,
more real and tangible, as well as more judicious, than
one woman in ten is capable of feeling for another. She
appreciated the girl's intense, affluent nature; she
thought it too rich a freight to be wrecked on the
lee-shore of an unhappy marriage. Still, if it were
possible that the marriage would not be unhappy; if
she herself had not done Paul justice; if they indeed
belonged together; then, in Heaven's name, let them
marry. It would be giving her a daughter-in-law after
her own heart. But, at any rate, they should have time
to know whether they really and thoroughly suited
each other. She spoke, after her silent consideration,
deliberately: —
“I am not willing to release you. I want you should
stay with me through the summer, as much for your
own sake as for mine. Do not suspect me of being
opposed to this marriage. If you could be happy in it,
it would give me undisguised satisfaction. Paul has no
occasion to marry for money; it needs only that his wife
should be a gentlewoman. All my concern is that you
should not make a mistake. A man can bear an unhappy
or an unsatisfying marriage without ruin — the world
offers him so many resources. To a woman, such a
woman as you, it would be fatal. Stay here, therefore.
Learn to know him well; and when you are satisfied
by a fair trial that he fulfils all the demands of your
should hardly feel for you more anxiously, and I could
not counsel you differently than I do now.”
Miss Amber's eyes overflowed. For the first time she
took Mrs. St. Clair's hand, and pressed her lips upon it
with heart-felt tenderness. Then she lifted her face
with a smile and a blush.
“What will he think? I told him I must positively
leave, — that it would not be right for me to stay.”
“I will settle it with him. You shall not be compromised;
and I assure you he will be only too glad.”
In her secret heart Miss Amber was glad also. She
had dreaded to go back to Nazareth, even for a time, —
to her dull, ungenial life there; the rude ways, the
work-a-day habits. She had dreaded yet more to leave
Paul St. Clair. In that stage of her love-malady his
presence was the one charm of the universe. Take that
away, and sun, moon, and stars would refuse to give
their light.
So they all went up to Riverdale, and she basked in
that marvellous brightness, morning, noon, and night.
He had the freedom of the schoolroom now, and he
haunted it incessantly during lesson hours. Indeed,
when the warm weather came he persuaded his mother
that both his sisters and their teacher were in need of
a vacation; and for the months of July and August
lessons were interdicted altogether.
Then, of course, he must paint her portrait, — the
natural pastime of an artist in love. There were long
sittings, in which he painted little and made love much.
never able to decide in which she was most charming.
At last she grew tired. She thought it was the warm
weather, or the long, fruitless sittings. Mrs. St. Clair
smiled shrewdly, and said something to herself about a
surfeit of sweetmeats. If Paul would but have let her
have her own way his power over her would have
lasted longer. She longed to go off by herself and rest;
to think her own thoughts, and have a few free breaths
out of his atmosphere. But he could not understand it.
He drew strength and refreshment and constant pleasure
from her larger, deeper, stronger nature. How was
he to know that this, and not the weather, was exhausting
her, wearing her out?
She bore it as long as she could. The very effort to
keep up the spell weakened it. Trying to delude herself
into thinking that she was as happy as ever, as
much entranced in his presence, only made her real
discontent and weariness more tangible. Then, too, her
nature was, as I have said, singularly honest, — honest
to herself as well as to others. She had never been
accustomed to self-deception, or to tampering with the
truth. When she found that she was tired of Paul, of
his dark eyes and soft tones, his poetry, his painting, his
Italy, she was too truthful to wear a mask. She wondered
at herself. He was certainly her ideal. She
ought to have been satisfied for ever in his presence,
only — she wasn't. She had taken more real comfort
with Adam Russell in the old window-seat at Nazareth,
fagging at Virgil and Cicero, than she seemed ever likely
studio, and listening to his honeyed words and soft
rhymes. The wine had been too sweet. Was she to
blame because it palled on her taste?
Still she did blame herself intensely. It well-nigh
broke her heart. She almost resolved to bear on in
silence, for ever. How could she tell him when he loved
her so; when he had said so often it would be death to
part with her? Perhaps she would even have gone to
such length of self-martyrdom as to smother for his
sake the remonstrance of her own soul, and go on with
the fiction of love when the reality was dead, if it had
not been for Mrs. St. Clair.
That lady found her crying one morning, and made
use of the opportunity to wrench the truth from her.
Indeed, after the first pang which it gave her pride to
confess that she had been mistaken, it came easily
enough. It was such a relief to tell the whole truth;
to lean a little on the strength and judgment of another.
When she had said all that was in her heart she
smiled with a little touch of self-scorn.
“How weak you will think me, — how weak I am!
I don't know that I understand myself. Perhaps I love
Paul as much as ever. Perhaps it is only this oppressive
weather that makes me feel tired of every thing,
and when a cool, fresh day comes I shall be myself
again.”
Mrs. St. Clair looked at her kindly, but with a shrewd
comprehension, as she answered her: —
“I think you do love Paul just as much as ever, because
him. You had an ideal, and you thought he fulfilled it.
His dark eyes and soft words, his poetry and painting
and dreaming, bewitched you, — but the back-bone of
love was not there. It was impossible that it should be,
for you were the stronger spirit of the two; and I think
no real woman loves where she cannot lean. With you
he would have become like a parasite. He would have
drawn all the life out of you. You talked of how tired
you would be of Desmond and of Vanderpool. I tell you
either of them would be rest itself compared with Paul.
The mind cannot dwell for ever in an artificial atmosphere.
One must touch bottom sometimes. I am only
thankful that you have found out the truth in season.”
“But I cannot break my word. I know Paul loves
me. I am not bad enough to requite love with cruel
wrong.”
“Humph! To my thinking the cruel wrong would be
in marrying him when you don't want him. He would
find out soon enough how you felt. The very selfishness
of his nature would make him keenly sensitive to
any coldness; and you know you are no hypocrite.
Trust me, even if you loved him, he would be better
off without you. He would lean on you till the little
strength nature gave him would have died of inaction.
He will be twice the man married to a woman weaker
than himself, — one who looks up to him, — whom he
must sustain. If you dread telling him, let me.”
“No; if it is right to tell him I must do it. I will
not delegate my duties. I will go now; but I seem to
have received his love, four months ago, with joy and
pride beyond words, and now to scorn it and reject it!
Let me go this instant, or I shall never have enough
courage.”
How she got through the interview she never knew.
When she went into his studio he was retouching the
outlines of her portrait, looking at it with lingering,
loving eyes. He sprang, when he heard her step, to
meet her, radiant with welcome. She almost thought
again that she loved him, as she met the ardent gaze
of the dark eyes, and listened to the familiar music
of his voice. She felt guilty and hopeless, as the
strong Roman when he met the glazing reproachful
eye of the master he had murdered. But she plunged
desperately on, and told him the truth.
His burst of passionate grief, his upbraiding, his
despair, pierced her heart. She sat very still; but she
grew terribly pale, and her breath seemed to forsake
her. When he paused she said, — it was all she could
do to speak, and her tones were so low he thought them
icy cold, —
“If you wish it, if you say so, I will marry you; but
I do not love you in that way at all.”
“You are mad, Grace, my darling, — my darling,
You could not so have deceived yourself and me.
You have told me you loved me so often.”
Low and clear fell the slow, controlled tones: —
“I am not mad. I know my own heart now. I
know it was not love. I am not deceived, though I was
then.”
He thought her pitiless, her tones fell so evenly, her
eyes were so cold and dry. He little knew how near
her heart seemed to breaking. It roused his anger.
He asked, bitterly, —
“What is my crime? What have I done?”
“Nothing; only I have found out that I do not love
you.”
If she had felt less she would have shown more
emotion, been more tender; but she could not trust
her voice for an unnecessary word. At her icy stillness
his passion burst all bounds. He forgot himself, and
overwhelmed her with reproaches; pierced her with
arrows of scorn that quivered in her very heart. She
rose at last, and looked at him with sad, imploring
eyes.
“After so many happy hours, I hoped we could have
parted friends.”
“A man forgives his murderer sometimes,” he sneered,
“who shoots him in fair duel. I never heard of one
who shook hands, at parting, with a masked assassin.”
With these words for the end of so much loving she
went out of the room. She went upstairs, still firmly
and tearlessly, and packed her trunks. She could not
trust herself to rest or pause. When she had arranged
all her possessions, and dressed herself for a journey,
she went to Mrs. St. Clair.
“The next train leaves in half an hour. My trunks
are all ready. Can I be sent to the station?”
Mrs. St. Clair saw a resolution in her face which it
would be useless to oppose. Indeed she did not wish
her need of change and solitude. She only asked,
after she had ordered the carriage, —
“Will you come back to me when we go to town
again in the fall?”
A shudder shook Miss Amber's frame; she answered,
with almost a groan, —
“No, Mrs. St. Clair, never. I love you, and I love
the children; but I am done with governessing for
life. I am going home. If there is less to interest
there, less to please, God knows how much less pain
there is. Mere safety is something.”
“I understand your feeling so, now. If you ever
change your mind your place here will never be so
filled that it will not be open to you to return.”
When the cars whirled Miss Amber away she gave
no look backward. She had but one longing, — to get
home. She had been out into the world, and gathered
herself apples of Sodom. The fair hues which looked
so bright in the distance had all faded. In the
pleasure-gardens stones had goaded, thorns had pricked
her. She asked now only rest. Nazareth was rough,
and rugged, and commonplace as ever, doubtless; but
no paradise of promised delights could have seduced
her from it. During all the journey she allowed herself
no backward thoughts. She would suffer her self-control
to run no risks till she should be beyond the
reach of curious eyes, within the chamber where she
had dreamed all her childish dreams, before her world's
work and world's trouble came.
The next day she reached Nazareth. Drawing her
thick veil down to escape notice, she walked home
across the fields, leaving her trunks to be sent for.
Just past her twenty-fourth birthday, and done with
life, — so she thought.
Aunt Prudence Fairly was a kindly soul, and, thanks
to the silent influence of her residence in Parson
Amber's family, not curious. She welcomed Grace
with genuine delight, and in the next breath told her
how pale she looked, — “dead beat out.”
“I know it. I am sick.”
“Well, you just go to bed, and I'll make you a nice
bowl of penny-r'yal, and put some draughts to your
feet, and have you round as chipper as can be in a
couple of days.”
Miss Amber smiled faintly at the thought of such
medicine for her pain. But she felt too desolate not
to value the kindness of the intention. She laid her
fingers on Aunt Prudence's withered hand with a
gentle touch.
“That would not help me,” she said, kindly. “I am
not ill of any thing but weariness. If you will let me
go to my room and not come out of it for the next
three days I shall be all right. I want a thorough rest
before I can bear to see or speak to any one, even you.”
The good old soul had the grace to submit, though it
was about the hardest task Miss Amber could have
imposed. She longed to ask and answer questions, —
at least to look at the returned wanderer, and tend her,
— but she took her disappointment patiently.
For three days Miss Amber staid quite alone, only taking
in periodical cups of tea, and slices of toast, which
she ate and drank mechanically, because they were
brought, but which did her much good nevertheless.
In those three days she grew better acquainted with
her own heart. She thought a great deal about Paul
St. Clair; and she began to understand how imaginary
had been her love for him, even while it was most
entrancing, — how little it would have been capable of
withstanding the rude buffetings of actual life in this
most real world. She pitied him with all the compassion
of her heart in his present pain; but she had faith, after
all, that it would be a wholesome tonic, — that the bitter
draught would give him strength. Involuntarily she
recalled the past of two years ago, and contrasted it
with the present. How boyish, undisciplined, unworthy,
seemed Paul's anger, his rage at the truth, his refusal
to part friends, when compared with Adam Russell's
unselfish patience. She could not help seeing where
was the finer fibre of manhood.
She thought of the hard, rough hands, and ungraceful
air which had seemed so intolerable to her then.
Of how much less moment they seemed now. She
was learning to look beyond externals, to that which
can alone endure the heat of the furnace. She began
to see Adam Russell as he was, — strong and faithful
and self-denying, — the true gentleman. She half
wondered that, in those old days, she had not loved
him, for the very thought of him now was like the fresh
cool wind blowing over the hills.
She looked out of the window at the rugged, beautiful
landscape. She longed to climb the steep paths; to
feel the free, life-giving air. She felt as if she had
been surfeited with flowers and sweetness and luxury.
She liked better this simple life, which lay before her
now, in the town where her father and mother had
died. She thought of the past with no regret, save for
the pain she had given Paul. Her own share of suffering
did not pay too dearly for the knowledge she had
won. She dressed herself carefully, — it was the evening
of the third day, — and went downstairs.
“I am well, now,” she said, with a smile which made
Aunt Prudence think of sunshine after a long storm.
“You won't go back for a week or two, I reckon?”
asked the old lady, looking at her with fond eyes.
“No, I'm not going back. When the school is vacant
again I shall take it.”
“Will you be contented?” — with a shrewd, questioning
glance.
“Yes, never fear. There will be no relapse into that
restless mood which drove me away. I have seen the
world, and it is no better than Nazareth.”
“Well, then, I guess you can have the school by
asking for it. Sally Perkins has been teaching, and
she's goin' to be married this fall. School was out the
day you came home.”
Miss Amber had sat down in the window-seat, and
was looking at the sunset fires burning beyond the
hills. She wanted to inquire for the old friend who
used to sit there with her, and she felt a singular
she spoke.
“This window-seat makes me think of Adam. It
seems a long time since we used to study here together.
Do you know where he is now?”
“Not rightly. Somewhere out West. He hasn't
been home since his mother died, but they say he's
making a power of money. He has something to do
with railroads, and he's a great politician. He sent
home some of his speeches, and I got 'em to read after
they'd done with 'em over to his father's. I don't
believe but what they're here now.”
She bustled round to find them, and Miss Amber
went on with her own thoughts. She did not read the
speeches till the next morning, when Aunt Prudence
was busy, and she could have them all to herself.
She did not care much for politics; but if their subject
had been the Government of Timbuctoo they would
have interested her, for they made her better acquainted
with her old friend. She felt, as she read, that she was
in presence of an intellect more subtile and clear and
powerful than her own. She recognized now and then
touches of genius; and she saw how a fancy was held
in leash by the subject, that might be full of exquisite
grace. She began to wonder how he could ever have
loved her; and to think it was because in those old
days he had not learned to appreciate himself. I think
she was not far from being in love with him, only she
was judicious enough not to see it, and only to think
of him as her best friend. Her past experience was
her security against being morbid or sentimental.
The first of November she began again her old
work. It tasked her energies. It was a very different
thing from teaching May and Helen, her quick, graceful
pupils. These untrained imps were stolid some of
them, roguish some of them, stupid some of them,
uncultured and undisciplined all. Still she was not
discouraged, and seldom vexed. She seemed to have
acquired some of Adam Russell's patience. She was as
forbearing with error and stupidity as he would have
been; and so, in brief space, she won love, and conquered
all disposition to offend.
Her life went on monotonously enough until the next
summer, when it was varied a little by a visitor. Mrs.
St. Clair came to see her, and staid a week. She
brought her a letter from Paul. Having outlived his
despair, his natural good-nature made him penitent for
having parted with Miss Amber in anger. He wrote to
tell her so. Moreover, he had something else to communicate
which he knew she would be glad to hear.
He was engaged, with every prospect of a happy
future. His betrothed was charming as any of his
dreams, and she loved him without doubt or question.
He believed that they suited each other utterly; and,
dear as Miss Amber had been, sad for him as their parting
had been, he was constrained to confess that she had,
questionless, decided rightly for him as well as for herself.
When she had read it through she raised her eyes to
meet Mrs. St. Clair's smile.
“I told you I had no fears for him. I never thought
you were the one it would be best for him to marry,
make you permanently happy. His Lily is just to his
taste. She will look up to him, and lean on him, and
think him the first of created beings. They will be
married this fall, and then I want you to come back
to me.”
This was the true object of the visit. Probably Mrs.
St. Clair had not a doubt of success. But Miss Amber
was firm. No persuasions moved her. She found herself
best and happiest in Nazareth, and there she would
stay. Her friend left her behind reluctantly, but was
her friend too truly to indulge in any pique.
How little would Grace Amber have believed, two
years before, that she could have refused such an offer
without regret, — chosen Nazareth before the world.
Now it must be some other lure than luxury and ease
and a city life which would wile her from those rugged
hills.
Living there, teaching still, the years went by her and
changed her little. Spring violets bloomed, summer
roses blushed and faded, autumn fruits ripened, and
winter snows whitened the fields, bringing her little
variety. Still she was content. She smiled as she
looked at herself in the mirror on her twenty-ninth
birthday, tying on her bonnet, to think that when the
next year came round they would call her an old maid.
There were no silver threads in her soft dusky hair, for
the years had been kind to her. You would scarcely
have known she was older than at twenty-two, save by
the deeper meaning of her face.
It was Sunday. She had staid at home in the morning
to nurse Aunt Prudence through an unwonted
attack of sick headache; but in the afternoon she went
to church as usual. It was September. The fields were
green still, and the skies bright. But there was the
breath of autumn in the air, and it braced her nerves
and quickened her footsteps. She walked on cheerily,
and there was a bright glow on her cheek as she took
her seat in church. It deepened a little when some unconscious
magnetism drew her eyes to the Russell pew,
and she saw sitting there an old friend.
Time had changed Adam Russell. He looked fully
his years; indeed, at twenty-eight he might well have
been taken for thirty-five. His face was calm and kindly,
but with a look of thought and power, — a masterful
look, as of one who had struggled with the world and
conquered it. He had lost nothing of his old friendly
honesty, but he had gained that indescribable something
which the world recognizes as the distinction of a gentleman.
It was no wonder that Miss Amber heard little of the
sermon. Try as she would, her thoughts proved rebels.
She stole no more glances after the first look; but more
than once she felt that his eyes were on her face. She
hurried out when the service was over, but fast as she
walked it was not long before his free, firm steps overtook
her. There was no awkwardness or embarrassment
in his manner. He took her books from her hand
as quietly as if a week, and not seven years, had lain
between their last meeting and this. He even called
friendship. At first he did most of the talking;
but soon they were chatting together as of old.
When they reached the gate she asked if he could come
in to tea, or would they wait for him at home?
“Come in!” he answered. “Surely I can, if you are
good enough to ask me. The only one who would have
missed me at home is waiting for me in another home,
now.”
Then they talked about his mother, and his sorrow
and her sympathy drew them still more into the old
manner of intimate friendliness.
After tea was over Aunt Prudence, worthy for once;
of her name, found her head getting to be more troublesome,
and judiciously made her exit. So it chanced
that they sat down together at the west window, where
lay the Shelley, in its sea-green covers, just as the sun
was setting.
“It makes the years seem short,” he said, “to sit here
again; and yet they were long enough in passing. But
I did my task. I have brought home the thirty thousand
dollars, Grace. I know I did not suit you then, —
you thought you could not love me. I meant to grow
fitter for you with the years, — more worthy; for I had
always one fixed purpose, — to come home, and, if I
found you free, ask you the question I asked you that
night over again. Would there be any more hope for
me now?”
“It is I who am not good enough for you now,” she
answered, faintly.
Then she told him the story of her year and a half
away from Nazareth, — the story of Paul.
“Did you think that could trouble me?” he asked
when she paused. “If you are left to me, do I care for
the dreams which never proved themselves real? Can
I be too thankful for any thing which taught you self-knowledge?
I have never lost hope, or ceased striving,
that I might grow fit to be your choice at last. See,
this is what I had for you that night; it has never left
me. Will you wear it now?”
He drew the ring from his breast, — its pure pearl
faintly flashing, — and Miss Amber held out her hand.
And so, with the ring upon her finger, and her hand in
his, the twilight found them, and folded its soft shadows
round them like a blessing.
She had won her life's rest at last.
“Do you love Nazareth too well to leave it?”
This question came the next day, when they had
grown familiar with their joy.
“We will live where you choose,” he went on, seeing
that she hesitated in her reply. “It will be no sacrifice
for me to live here, if you like it best. I have left my
work behind me: it is for you to say whether I go back
to it or begin a new life here.”
She thought a little, silently. Nazareth was dear, —
dearer than ever now. All the pure joy of her life had
found her there; but he was dearer, — his interest the
first thought. She would like to see him in his true
sphere; to cheer him on in his work for God and man.
town. He wanted more room, she knew. So she
put her hand in his and answered him, —
“Let us go back to your work. I shall have no regrets.
Where thou goest I will go. Thy people shall
be my people, and thy God my God.”
So, three weeks after, true husband and true wife,
they went hand in hand out of Nazareth.
| Some women's hearts | |