University of Virginia Library

39. CHAPTER XXXIX.
THE ICE BROKEN.

Our fathers believed in special answers to prayer.
They were not stumbled by the objection about the
inflexibility of the laws of Nature; because they
had the idea, that, when the Creator of the world
promised to answer human prayers, He probably
understood the laws of Nature as well as they
did. At any rate, the laws of Nature were His
affair, and not theirs. They were men, very apt,
as the Duke of Wellington said, to “look to their
marching-orders,” — which, being found to read,
“Be careful for nothing, but in everything by
prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your
requests be made known unto God,” they did
it. “They looked unto Him and were lightened,
and their faces were not ashamed.” One reads,
in the Memoirs of Dr. Hopkins, of Newport Gardner,
one of his African catechumens, a negro of
singular genius and ability, who, being desirous
of his freedom, that he might be a missionary to
Africa, and having long worked without being
able to raise the amount required, was counselled

by Dr. Hopkins that it might be a shorter way to
seek his freedom from the Lord, by a day of
solemn fasting and prayer. The historical fact is,
that, on the evening of a day so consecrated, his
master returned from church, called Newport to
him, and presented him with his freedom. Is it
not possible that He who made the world may
have established laws for prayer as invariable as
those for the sowing of seed and raising of grain?
Is it not as legitimate a subject of inquiry, when
petitions are not answered, which of these laws
has been neglected?

But be that as it may, certain it is, that Candace,
who on this morning in church sat where
she could see Mary and James in the singers' seat,
had certain thoughts planted in her mind which
bore fruit afterwards in a solemn and select consultation
held with Miss Prissy at the end of the
horse-shed by the meeting-house, during the intermission
between the morning and afternoon services.

Candace sat on a fragment of granite boulder
which lay there, her black face relieved against a
clump of yellow mulleins, then in majestic altitude.
On her lap was spread a checked pocket-handkerchief,
containing rich slices of cheese, and
a store of her favorite brown doughnuts.

“Now, Miss Prissy,” she said, “dar's reason in
all tings, an' a good deal more in some tings dan

dar is in oders. Dar's a good deal more reason
in two young, handsome folks comin' togeder dan
dar is in” —

Candace finished the sentence by an emphatic
flourish of her doughnut.

“Now, as long as eberybody thought Jim Marvyn
was dead, dar wa'n't nothin' else in de world
to be done but marry de Doctor. But, good lan!
I hearn him a-talkin' to Miss Marvyn las' night;
it kinder 'mos' broke my heart. Why, dem two
poor creeturs, dey's jest as onhappy's dey can be!
An' she's got too much feelin' for de Doctor to
say a word; an' I say he oughter be told on't!
dat's what I say,” said Candace, giving a decisive
bite to her doughnut.

“I say so, too,” said Miss Prissy. “Why, I
never had such bad feelings in my life as I did
yesterday, when that young man came down to
our house. He was just as pale as a cloth. I
tried to say a word to Miss Scudder, but she
snapped me up so! She's an awful decided woman
when her mind's made up. I was telling
Cerinthy Ann Twitchel, — she came round me this
noon, — that it didn't exactly seem to me right
that things should go on as they are going. And
says I, `Cerinthy Ann, I don't know anything
what to do.' And says she, `If I was you, I
know what I'd do, — I'd tell the Doctor,' says she.
`Nobody ever takes offence at anything you do,

Miss Prissy.' To be sure,” added Miss Prissy, “I
have talked to people about a good many things
that it's rather strange I should; 'cause I a'n't
one, somehow, that can let things go that seem
to want doing. I always told folks that I should
spoil a novel before it got half-way through the
first volume, by blurting out some of those things
that they let go trailing on so, till everybody gets
so mixed up they don't know what they're doing.”

“Well, now, honey,” said Candace, authoritatively,
“ef you's got any notions o' dat kind, I
tink it mus' come from de good Lord, an' I 'dvise
you to be 'tendin' to't, right away. You jes' go
'long an' tell de Doctor yourself all you know, an'
den le's see what'll come on't. I tell you, I b'liebe
it'll be one o' de bes' day's works you eber did in
your life!”

“Well,” said Miss Prissy, “I guess to-night, before
I go to bed, I'll make a dive at him. When
a thing's once out, it's out, and can't be got in
again, even if people don't like it; and that's a
mercy, anyhow. It really makes me feel 'most
wicked to think of it, for he is the most blessedest
man!”

“Dat's what he is,” said Candace. “But de
blessedest man in de world oughter know de truth;
dat's what I tink!”

“Yes, — true enough!” said Miss Prissy. “I'll
tell him, anyway.”

Miss Prissy was as good as her word; for that
evening, when the Doctor had retired to his study,
she took her life in her hand, and, walking swiftly
as a cat, tapped rather timidly at the study-door,
which the Doctor opening said, benignantly, —

“Ah, Miss Prissy!”

“If you please, Sir,” said Miss Prissy, “I'd
like a little conversation.”

The Doctor was well enough used to such requests
from the female members of his church,
which, generally, were the prelude to some disclosures
of internal difficulties or spiritual experiences.
He therefore graciously motioned her to a
chair.

“I thought I must come in,” she began, busily
twirling a bit of her Sunday gown. “I thought
— that is — I felt it my duty — I thought — perhaps
— I ought to tell you — that perhaps you
ought to know.”

The Doctor looked civilly concerned. He did
not know but Miss Prissy's wits were taking leave
of her. He replied, however, with his usual honest
stateliness, —

“I trust, dear Madam, that you will feel at perfect
freedom to open to me any exercises of mind
that you may have.”

“It isn't about myself,” said Miss Prissy. “If
you please, it's about you and Mary!”

The Doctor now looked awake in right earnest,

and very much astonished besides; and he looked
eagerly at Miss Prissy, to have her go on.

“I don't know how you would view such a
matter,” said Miss Prissy; “but the fact is, that
James Marvyn and Mary always did love each
other, ever since they were children.”

Still the Doctor was unawakened to the real
meaning of the words, and he answered, simply,
—

“I should be far from wishing to interfere with
so very natural and universal a sentiment, which,
I make no doubt, is all quite as it should be.”

“No, — but,” said Miss Prissy, “you don't understand
what I mean. I mean that James Marvyn
wanted to marry Mary, and that she was —
well — she wasn't engaged to him, but” —

“Madam!” said the Doctor, in a voice that
frightened Miss Prissy out of her chair, while a
blaze like sheet-lightning shot from his eyes, and
his face flushed crimson.

“Mercy on us! Doctor, I hope you'll excuse
me; but there the fact is, — I've said it out, —
the fact is, they wa'n't engaged; but that Mary
loved him ever since he was a boy, as she never
will and never can love any man again in this
world, is what I am just as sure of as that I'm
standing here; and I've felt you ought to know
it; 'cause I'm quite sure, that, if he'd been alive,
she'd never given the promise she has, — the promise

that she means to keep, if her heart breaks,
and his too. They wouldn't anybody tell you,
and I thought I must tell you; 'cause I thought
you'd know what was right to do about it.”

During all this latter speech the Doctor was
standing with his back to Miss Prissy, and his
face to the window, just as he did some time
before, when Mrs. Scudder came to tell him of
Mary's consent. He made a gesture backward,
without speaking, that she should leave the apartment;
and Miss Prissy left, with a guilty kind of
feeling, as if she had been striking a knife into
her pastor, and, rushing distractedly across the
entry into Mary's little bedroom, she bolted the
door, threw herself on the bed, and began to
cry.

“Well, I've done it!” she said to herself.
“He's a very strong, hearty man,” she soliloquized,
“so I hope it won't put him in a consumption; —
men do go into a consumption about such things
sometimes. I remember Abner Seaforth did; but
then he was always narrow-chested, and had the
liver-complaint, or something. I don't know what
Miss Scudder will say; — but I've done it. Poor
man! such a good man, too! I declare, I feel
just like Herod taking off John the Baptist's head
Well, well! it's done, and can't be helped.”

Just at this moment Miss Prissy heard a gentle
tap at the door, and started, as if it had been a

ghost, — not being able to rid herself of the impression,
that, somehow, she had committed a great
crime, for which retribution was knocking at the
door.

It was Mary, who said, in her sweetest and
most natural tones, “Miss Prissy, the Doctor would
like to see you.”

Mary was much astonished at the frightened,
discomposed manner with which Miss Prissy received
this announcement, and said, —

“I'm afraid I've waked you up out of sleep.
I don't think there's the least hurry.”

Miss Prissy didn't, either; but she reflected afterwards
that she might as well get through with
it at once; and therefore, smoothing her tumbled
cap-border, she went to the Doctor's study. This
time he was quite composed, and received her
with a mournful gravity, and requested her to be
seated.

“I beg, Madam,” he said, “you will excuse the
abruptness of my manner in our late interview.
I was so little prepared for the communication
you had to make, that I was, perhaps, unsuitably
discomposed. Will you allow me to ask whether
you were requested by any of the parties to communicate
to me what you did?”

“No, Sir,” said Miss Prissy.

“Have any of the parties ever communicated
with you on the subject at all?” said the Doctor

“No, Sir,” said Miss Prissy.

“That is all,” said the Doctor. “I will not
detain you. I am very much obliged to you,
Madam.”

He rose, and opened the door for her to pass
out, — and Miss Prissy, overawed by the stately
gravity of his manner, went out in silence.