University of Virginia Library

1. I.

IT was a day of unusual excitement at the
Rambo farm-house. On the farm, it is
true, all things were in their accustomed
order, and all growths did their accustomed
credit to the season. The fences were in
good repair; the cattle were healthy and
gave promise of the normal increase, and the young corn
was neither strangled with weeds nor assassinated by
cut-worms. Old John Rambo was gradually allowing
his son, Henry, to manage in his stead, and the latter
shrewdly permitted his father to believe that he exercised
the ancient authority. Leonard Clare, the strong young fellow
who had been taken from that shiftless adventurer, his
father, when a mere child, and brought up almost as one
of the family, and who had worked as a joiner's apprentice
during the previous six months, had come back for the
harvest work; so the Rambos were forehanded, and
probably as well satisfied as it is possible for Pennsylvania
farmers to be.

In the house, also, Mrs. Priscilla Rambo was not severely
haunted by the spectre of any neglected duty. The

simple regular routine of the household could not be
changed under her charge; each thing had its appropriate
order of performance, must be done, and was done. If
the season were backward, at the time appointed for white-washing
or soap-making, so much the worse for the season;
if the unhatched goslings were slain by thunder,
she laid the blame on the thunder. And if—but no, it is
quite impossible to suppose that, outside of those two
inevitable, fearful house-cleaning weeks in each year, there
could have been any disorder in the cold prim, varnish-odored
best rooms, sacred to company.

It was Miss Betty Rambo, whose pulse beat some ten
strokes faster than its wont, as she sat down with the rest
to their early country dinner. Whether her brother Henry's
participated in the accelerated movement could not
be guessed from his demeanor. She glanced at him now
and then, with bright eyes and flushed cheeks, eager to
speak yet shrinking from the half magisterial air which was
beginning to supplant his old familiar banter. Henry was
changing with his new responsibility, as she admitted to
herself with a sort of dismay; he had the airs of an independent
farmer, and she remained only a farmer's daughter,
—without any acknowledged rights, until she should
acquire them all, at a single blow, by marriage.

Nevertheless, he must have felt what was in her mind;
for, as he cut out the quarter of a dried apple pie, he said
carelessly:

“I must go down to the Lion, this afternoon. There's
a fresh drove of Maryland cattle just come.”

“Oh Harry!” cried Betty, in real distress.

“I know,” he answered; “but as Miss Bartram is going
to stay two weeks, she'll keep. She's not like a drove,
that's here one day, and away the next. Besides, it is
precious little good I shall have of her society, until you
two have used up all your secrets and small talk. I know
how it is with girls. Leonard will drive over to meet the
train.”

“Won't I do on a pinch?” Leonard asked.

“Oh, to be sure,” said Betty, a little embarrassed,
“only Alice—Miss Bartram—might expect Harry, because
her brother came for me when I went up.”

“If that's all, make yourself easy, Bet,” Henry answered,
as he rose from the table. “There's a mighty difference
between here and there. Unless you mean to
turn us into a town family while she stays—high quality,
eh?”

“Go along to your cattle! there's not much quality,
high or low, where you are.”

Betty was indignant; but the annoyance exhausted itself
healthfully while she was clearing away the dishes and
restoring the room to its order, so that when Leonard
drove up to the gate with the lumbering, old-fashioned
carriage two hours afterwards, she came forth calm, cheerful,
fresh as a pink in her pink muslin, and entirely the
good, sensible country-girl she was.

Two or three years before, she and Miss Alice Bartram,
daughter of the distinguished lawyer in the city, had been
room-mates at the Nereid Seminary for Young Ladies.

Each liked the other for the contrast to her own self;
both were honest, good and lovable, but Betty had the
stronger nerves and a practical sense which seemed to be
admirable courage in the eyes of Miss Alice, whose instincts
were more delicate, whose tastes were fine and
high, and who could not conceive of life without certain
luxurious accessories. A very cordial friendship sprang up
between them,—not the effusive girl-love, with its iterative
kisses, tears, and flow of loosened hair, but springing
from the respect inspired by sound and positive qualities.

The winter before, Betty had been invited to visit her
friend in the city, and had passed a very excited and delightful
week in the stately Bartram mansion. If she
were at first a little fluttered by the manners of the new
world, she was intelligent enough to carry her own nature
frankly through it, instead of endeavoring to assume
its character. Thus her little awkwardnesses became
originalities, and she was almost popular in the lofty circle
when she withdrew from it. It was therefore, perhaps,
slightly inconsistent in Betty, that she was not quite
sure how Miss Bartram would accept the reverse side of
this social experience. She imagined it easier to look
down and make allowances, as a host, than as a guest;
she could not understand that the charm of the change
might be fully equal.

It was lovely weather, as they drove up the sweet,
ever-changing curves of the Brandywine valley. The
woods fairly laughed in the clear sunlight, and the soft,
incessant, shifting breezes. Leonard, in his best clothes,

and with a smoother gloss on his brown hair, sang to
himself as he urged the strong-boned horses into a trot
along the levels; and Betty finally felt so quietly happy
that she forgot to be nervous. When they reached the
station they walked up and down the long platform together,
until the train from the city thundered up, and
painfully restrained its speed. Then Betty, catching
sight of a fawn-colored travelling dress issuing from the
ladies' car, caught hold of Leonard's arm, and cried:
“There she is!”

Miss Bartram heard the words, and looked down
with a bright, glad expression on her face. It was not her
beauty that made Leonard's heart suddenly stop beating;
for she was not considered a beauty, in society. It was
something rarer than perfect beauty, yet even more difficult
to describe,—a serene, unconscious grace, a pure,
lofty maturity of womanhood, such as our souls bow down
to in the Santa Barbara of Palma Vecchio. Her features
were not “faultlessly regular,” but they were informed
with the finer harmonies of her character. She was a
woman, at whose feet a noble man might kneel, lay his
forehead on her knee, confess his sins, and be pardoned.

She stepped down to the platform, and Betty's arms
were about her. After a double embrace she gently disengaged
herself, turned to Leonard, gave him her hand,
and said, with a smile which was delightfully frank and
cordial: “I will not wait for Betty's introduction, Mr.
Rambo. She has talked to me so much of her brother
Harry, that I quite know you already.”

Leonard could neither withdraw his eyes nor his hand.
It was like a double burst of warmth and sunshine, in
which his breast seemed to expand, his stature to grow,
and his whole nature to throb with some new and wonderful
force. A faint color came into Miss Bartram's
cheeks, as they stood thus, for a moment, face to face.
She seemed to be waiting for him to speak, but of this he
never thought; had any words come to his mind, his
tongue could not have uttered them.

“It is not Harry,” Betty explained, striving to hide
her embarrassment. “This is Leonard Clare, who lives
with us.”

“Then I do not know you so well as I thought,” Miss
Bartram said to him; “it is the beginning of a new acquaintance,
after all.”

“There isn't no harm done,” Leonard answered, and
instantly feeling the awkwardness of the words, blushed
so painfully that Miss Bartram felt the inadequacy of her
social tact to relieve so manifest a case of distress. But
she did, instinctively, what was really best: she gave
Leonard the check for her trunk, divided her satchels
with Betty, and walked to the carriage.

He did not sing, as he drove homewards down the
valley. Seated on the trunk, in front, he quietly governed
the horses, while the two girls, on the seat behind him,
talked constantly and gaily. Only the rich, steady tones
of Miss Bartram's voice would make their way into his ears,
and every light, careless sentence printed itself upon his
memory. They came to him as if from some inaccessible

planet. Poor fellow! he was not the first to feel “the desire
of the moth for the star.”

When they reached the Rambo farm-house, it was necessary
that he should give his hand to help her down from
the clumsy carriage. He held it but a moment; yet in
that moment a gentle pulse throbbed upon his hard palm,
and he mechanically set his teeth, to keep down the impulse
which made him wild to hold it there forever.
“Thank you, Mr. Clare!” said Miss Bartram, and passed
into the house. When he followed presently, shouldering
her trunk into the upper best-room, and kneeling upon
the floor to unbuckle the straps, she found herself wondering:
“Is this a knightly service, or the menial duty of a
porter? Can a man be both sensitive and ignorant, chivalrous
and vulgar?”

The question was not so easily decided, though no one
guessed how much Miss Bartram pondered it, during the
succeeding days. She insisted, from the first, that her
coming should make no change in the habits of the household;
she rose in the cool, dewy summer dawns, dined at
noon in the old brown room beside the kitchen, and only
differed from the Rambos in sitting at her moonlit window,
and breathing the subtle odors of a myriad leaves,
long after Betty was sleeping the sleep of health.

It was strange how frequently the strong, not very
graceful figure of Leonard Clare marched through these
reveries. She occasionally spoke to him at the common
table, or as she passed the borders of the hay-field, where
he and Henry were at work: but his words to her were

always few and constrained. What was there in his eyes
that haunted her? Not merely a most reverent admiration
of her pure womanly refinement, although she read that
also; not a fear of disparagement, such as his awkward
speech implied, but something which seemed to seek
agonizingly for another language than that of the lips,—
something which appealed to her from equal ground,
and asked for an answer.

One evening she met him in the lane, as she returned
from the meadow. She carried a bunch of flowers, with
delicate blue and lilac bells, and asked him the name.

“Them's Brandywine cowslips,” he answered; “I
never heard no other name.”

“May I correct you?” she said, gently, and with a
smile which she meant to be playful. “I suppose the
main thing is to speak one's thought, but there are neat
and orderly ways, and there are careless ways.” Thereupon
she pointed out the inaccuracies of his answer, he
standing beside her, silent and attentive. When she
ceased, he did not immediately reply.

“You will take it in good part, will you not?” she
continued. “I hope I have not offended you.”

“No!” he exclaimed, firmly, lifting his head, and
looking at her. The inscrutable expression in his dark
gray eyes was stronger than before, and all his features
were more clearly drawn. He reminded her of a picture
of Adam which she had once seen: there was the same
rather low forehead, straight, even brows, full yet strong
mouth, and that broader form of chin which repeats and

balances the character of the forehead. He was not positively
handsome, but from head to foot he expressed a
fresh, sound quality of manhood.

Another question flashed across Miss Bartram's mind:
Is life long enough to transform this clay into marble?
Here is a man in form, and with all the dignity of the perfect
masculine nature: shall the broad, free intelligence,
the grace and sweetness, the taste and refinement, which
the best culture gives, never be his also? If not, woman
must be content with faulty representations of her ideal.

So musing, she walked on to the farm-house. Leonard
had picked up one of the blossoms she had let fall,
and appeared to be curiously examining it. If he had
apologized for his want of grammar, or promised to reform
it, her interest in him might have diminished; but his
silence, his simple, natural obedience to some powerful
inner force, whatever it was, helped to strengthen that
phantom of him in her mind, which was now beginning to
be a serious trouble.

Once again, the day before she left the Rambo farm-house
to return to the city, she came upon him, alone.
She had wandered off to the Brandywine, to gather ferns
at a rocky point where some choice varieties were to be
found. There were a few charming clumps, half-way up
a slaty cliff, which it did not seem possible to scale, and
she was standing at the base, looking up in vain longing,
when a voice, almost at her ear, said:

“Which ones do you want?”

Afterwards, she wondered that she did not start at

the voice. Leonard had come up the road from one of
the lower fields: he wore neither coat nor waistcoat, and
his shirt, open at the throat, showed the firm, beautiful
white of the flesh below the strong tan of his neck. Miss
Bartram noticed the sinewy strength and elasticity of his
form, yet when she looked again at the ferns, she
shook her head, and answered:

“None, since I cannot have them.”

Without saying a word, he took off his shoes, and commenced
climbing the nearly perpendicular face of the
cliff. He had done it before, many a time; but Miss
Bartram, although she was familiar with such exploits
from the pages of many novels, had never seen the reality,
and it quite took away her breath.

When he descended with the ferns in his hand, she
said: “It was a great risk; I wish I had not wanted
them.”

“It was no risk for me,” he answered.

“What can I send you in return?” she asked, as
they walked forwards. “I am going home to-morrow.”

“Betty told me,” Leonard said; “please, wait one
minute.”

He stepped down to the bank of the stream, washed
his hands carefully in the clear water, and came back to
her, holding them, dripping, at his sides.

“I am very ignorant,” he then continued,—“ignorant
and rough. You are good, to want to send me something,
but I want nothing. Miss Bartram, you are very good.”

He paused; but with all her tact and social experience,
she did not know what to say.

“Would you do one little thing for me—not for the
ferns, that was nothing—no more than you do, without
thinking, for all your friends?”

“Oh, surely!” she said.

“Might I—might I—now,—there'll be no chance to-morrow,—shake
hands with you?”

The words seemed to be forced from him by the
strength of a fierce will. Both stopped, involuntarily.

“It's quite dry, you see,” said he, offering his hand.
Her own sank upon it, palm to palm, and the fingers
softly closed over each, as if with the passion and sweetness
of a kiss. Miss Bartram's heart came to her eyes,
and read, at last, the question in Leonard's. It was: “I
as man, and you, as woman, are equals; will you give me
time to reach you?” What her eyes replied she knew not.
A mighty influence drew her on, and a mighty doubt and
dread restrained her. One said: “Here is your lover,
your husband, your cherished partner, left by fate below
your station, yet whom you may lift to your side! Shall
man, alone, crown the humble maiden,—stoop to love,
and, loving, ennoble? Be you the queen, and love him
by the royal right of womanhood!” But the other sternly
whispered: “How shall your fine and delicate fibres
be knit into this coarse texture? Ignorance, which years
cannot wash away,—low instincts, what do you know?—
all the servile side of life, which is turned from you,—
what madness to choose this, because some current of
earthly magnetism sets along your nerves? He loves
you: what of that? You are a higher being to him, and

he stupidly adores you. Think,—yes, dare to think of all
the prosaic realities of life, shared with him!”

Miss Bartram felt herself growing dizzy. Behind the
impulse which bade her cast herself upon his breast
swept such a hot wave of shame and pain that her face
burned, and she dropped her eyelids to shut out the sight
of his face. But, for one endless second, the sweeter
voice spoke through their clasped hands. Perhaps he
kissed hers; she did not know; she only heard herself
murmur:

“Good-bye! Pray go on; I will rest here.”

She sat down upon a bank by the roadside, turned
away her head, and closed her eyes. It was long before
the tumult in her nature subsided. If she reflected, with
a sense of relief, “nothing was said,” the thought immediately
followed, “but all is known.” It was impossible,
—yes, clearly impossible; and then came such a wild
longing, such an assertion of the right and truth and justice
of love, as made her seem a miserable coward, the
veriest slave of conventionalities.

Out of this struggle dawned self-knowledge, and the
strength which is born of it. When she returned to the
house, she was pale and weary, but capable of responding
to Betty Rambo's constant cheerfulness. The next
day she left for the city, without having seen Leonard
Clare again.