University of Virginia Library

26. CHAPTER XXVI.
THE DECLARATION.

The domesticating of Madame de Frontignac
as an inmate of the cottage added a new element
of vivacity to that still and unvaried life. One
of the most beautiful traits of French nature is
that fine gift of appreciation, which seizes at once
the picturesque side of every condition of life, and
finds in its own varied storehouse something to
assort with it. As compared with the Anglo-Saxon,
the French appear to be gifted with a
naïve childhood of nature, and to have the power
that children have of gilding every scene of life
with some of their own poetic fancies.

Madame de Frontignac was in raptures with
the sanded floor of her little room, which commanded,
through the apple-boughs, a little morsel
of a sea view. She could fancy it was a nymph's
cave, she said.

“Yes, ma Marie, I will play Calypso, and you
shall play Telemachus, and Dr. Hopkins shall be
Mentor. Mentor was so very, very good! — only

a bit — dull,” she said, pronouncing the last word
with a wicked accent, and lifting her hands with
a whimsical gesture like a naughty child who expects
a correction.

Mary could not but laugh; and as she laughed,
more color rose in her waxen cheeks than for
many days before.

Madame de Frontignac looked as triumphant
as a child who has made its mother laugh, and
went on laying things out of her trunk into her
drawers with a zeal that was quite amusing to
see.

“You see, ma blanche, I have left all Madame's
clothes at Philadelphia, and brought only those
that belong to Virginie, — no tromperie, no feathers,
no gauzes, no diamonds, — only white dresses,
and my straw hat en bergère. I brought one string
of pearls that was my mother's; but pearls, you
know, belong to the sea-nymphs. I will trim my
hat with seaweed and buttercups together, and we
will go out on the beach to-night and get some
gold and silver shells to dress mon miroir.”

“Oh, I have ever so many now,” said Mary,
running into her room, and coming back with a
little bag.

They both sat on the bed together, and began
pouring them out, — Madame de Frontignac showering
childish exclamations of delight.

Suddenly Mary put her hand to her heart as if

she had been struck with something; and Madame
de Frontignac heard her say, in a low voice
of sudden pain, “Oh, dear!”

“What is it, mimi?” she said, looking up
quickly.

“Nothing,” said Mary, turning her head.

Madame de Frontignac looked down, and saw
among the sea-treasures a necklace of Venetian
shells, that she knew never grew on the shores of
Newport. She held it up.

“Ah, I see,” she said. “He gave you this.
Ah, ma pauvrette,” she said, clasping Mary in her
arms, “thy sorrow meets thee everywhere! May
I be a comfort to thee! — just a little one!”

“Dear, dear friend!” said Mary, weeping. “I
know not how it is. Sometimes I think this sorrow
is all gone; but then, for a moment, it comes
back again. But I am at peace; it is all right,
all right; I would not have it otherwise. But, oh,
if he could have spoken one word to me before!
He gave me this,” she added, “when he came
home from his first voyage to the Mediterranean.
I did not know it was in this bag. I had looked
for it everywhere.”

“Sister Agatha would have told you to make
a rosary of it,” said Madame de Frontignac; “but
you pray without a rosary. It is all one,” she
added; “there will be a prayer for every shell,
though you do not count them. But come, ma

chère, get your bonnet, and let us go out on the
beach.”

That evening, before going to bed, Mrs. Scudder
came into Mary's room. Her manner was
grave and tender; her eyes had tears in them;
and although her usual habits were not caressing,
she came to Mary and put her arms around her
and kissed her. It was an unusual manner, and
Mary's gentle eyes seemed to ask the reason
of it.

“My daughter,” said her mother, “I have just
had a long and very interesting talk with our dear
good friend, the Doctor; ah, Mary, very few people
know how good he is!”

“True, mother,” said Mary, warmly; “he is the
best, the noblest, and yet the humblest man in the
world.”

“You love him very much, do you not?” said
her mother.

“Very dearly,” said Mary.

“Mary, he has asked me, this evening, if you
would be willing to be his wife.”

“His wife, mother?” said Mary, in the tone of
one confused with a new and strange thought.

“Yes, daughter; I have long seen that he was
preparing to make you this proposal.”

“You have, mother?”

“Yes, daughter; have you never thought of
it?”

“Never, mother.”

There was a long pause, — Mary standing, just
as she had been interrupted, in her night toilette,
with her long, light hair streaming down over her
white dress, and the comb held mechanically in
her hand. She sat down after a moment, and,
clasping her hands over her knees, fixed her eyes
intently on the floor; and there fell between the
two a silence so profound, that the tickings of
the clock in the next room seemed to knock upon
the door. Mrs. Scudder sat with anxious eyes
watching that silent face, pale as sculptured marble.

“Well, Mary,” she said at last.

A deep sigh was the only answer. The violent
throbbings of her heart could be seen undulating
the long hair as the moaning sea tosses the rockweed.

“My daughter,” again said Mrs. Scudder.

Mary gave a great sigh, like that of a sleeper
awakening from a dream, and, looking at her
mother, said, — “Do you suppose he really loves
me, mother?”

“Indeed he does, Mary, as much as man ever
loved woman!”

“Does he indeed?” said Mary, relapsing into
thoughtfulness.

“And you love him, do you not?” said her
mother.

“Oh, yes, I love him.”

“You love him better than any man in the
world, don't you?”

“Oh, mother, mother! yes!” said Mary, throwing
herself passionately forward, and bursting into
sobs; “yes, there is no one else now that I love
better, — no one! — no one!”

“My darling! my daughter!” said Mrs. Scudder,
coming and taking her in her arms.

“Oh, mother, mother!” she said, sobbing distressfully,
“let me cry, just for a little, — oh, mother,
mother, mother!”

What was there hidden under that despairing
wail? — It was the parting of the last strand of
the cord of youthful hope.

Mrs. Scudder soothed and caressed her daughter,
but maintained still in her breast a tender pertinacity
of purpose, such as mothers will, who think
they are conducting a child through some natural
sorrow into a happier state.

Mary was not one, either, to yield long to emotion
of any kind. Her rigid education had taught
her to look upon all such outbursts as a species
of weakness, and she struggled for composure, and
soon seemed entirely calm.

“If he really loves me, mother, it would give
him great pain if I refused,” said Mary thoughtfully.

“Certainly it would; and, Mary, you have allowed

him to act as a very near friend for a long
time; and it is quite natural that he should have
hopes that you loved him.”

“I do love him, mother, — better than anybody
in the world except you. Do you think that will
do?”

“Will do?” said her mother; “I don't understand
you.”

“Why, is that loving enough to marry? I shall
love him more, perhaps, after, — shall I, mother?”

“Certainly you will; every one does.”

“I wish he did not want to marry me, mother,”
said Mary, after a pause. “I liked it a great deal
better as we were before.”

“All girls feel so, Mary, at first; it is very
natural.”

“Is that the way you felt about father, mother?”

Mrs. Scudder's heart smote her when she thought
of her own early love, — that great love that asked
no questions, — that had no doubts, no fears, no
hesitations, — nothing but one great, outsweeping
impulse, which swallowed her life in that of another.
She was silent; and after a moment, she
said, —

“I was of a different disposition from you, Mary.
I was of a strong, wilful, positive nature. I either
liked or disliked with all my might. And besides,
Mary, there never was a man like your
father.”

The matron uttered this first article in the great
confession of woman's faith with the most unconscious
simplicity.

“Well, mother, I will do whatever is my duty.
I want to be guided. If I can make that good
man happy, and help him to do some good in the
world — After all, life is short, and the great
thing is to do for others.”

“I am sure, Mary, if you could have heard how
he spoke, you would be sure you could make him
happy. He had not spoken before, because he felt
so unworthy of such a blessing; he said I was to
tell you that he should love and honor you all
the same, whether you could be his wife or not, —
but that nothing this side of heaven would be so
blessed a gift, — that it would make up for every
trial that could possibly come upon him. And
you know, Mary, he has a great many discouragements
and trials; — people don't appreciate him;
his efforts to do good are misunderstood and misconstrued;
they look down on him, and despise
him, and tell all sorts of evil things about him;
and sometimes he gets quite discouraged.”

“Yes, mother, I will marry him,” said Mary; —
“yes, I will.”

“My darling daughter!” said Mrs. Scudder, —
“this has been the hope of my life!”

“Has it, mother?” said Mary, with a faint
smile; “I shall make you happier then?”

“Yes, dear, you will. And think what a prospect
of usefulness opens before you! You can
take a position, as his wife, which will enable you
to do even more good than you do now; and you
will have the happiness of seeing, every day, how
much you comfort the hearts and encourage the
hands of God's dear people.”

“Mother, I ought to be very glad I can do it,”
said Mary; “and I trust I am. God orders all
things for the best.”

“Well, my child, sleep to-night, and to-morrow
we will talk more about it.”