IT was a balmy September evening, some weeks after Mr. Brown's return to Ohio, when Karl, or, as he was now generally styled, Dr. Windsor, standing beside his horse, in the quiet Main Street of Greenfield, saw Dr. Gershom riding lazily into town, accompanied by a sturdy, good-looking lad, also on horseback, whom Karl failed to recognize.
"A new student, maybe," thought he, and, taking his foot out of the stirrup, waited to see.
"Hollo, Windsor, hold on a minute!" shouted Dr. Gershom as they approached. "Here's a young gentleman asking for you."
Karl bowed, and began hastily to review his half-forgotten army acquaintances; failing, however, to identify any of them with the young man now bowing to him, and taking a letter from his pocket-book.
"Mr. Brown favored me with this letter of introduction to you, sir," said he, holding it out.
Karl glanced hastily at the few lines, and remembered an allusion the chaplain had made to a particularly promising student of his, whom he thought of sending to travel a little in the West. So he frankly smiled, extended his hand, and said,—
"Ah, yes! I have heard Mr. Brown speak of you, Mr. Ginniss; and I am very happy to welcome you to our prairie life. I am just setting out for home; and, if you please, we will ride along directly."
"Better come in, boys, and have a glass of bitters to keep the night-air off your stomachs. Got some of the real stuff right here in the office," said the old doctor; but, both young men declining the proffered hospitality, he withdrew, grumbling,—
"You never'll make it work, Windsor, I tell you now! Such a dog's life as a country doctor's isn't to be kept up without fuel."
Karl laughed, and, turning to his new acquaintance, said,—
"So they told me in the army; but I got through without. I never tasted spirit but once, and then I didn't like it."
"I never have at all," said Ginniss simply. "I gave my mother a promise, when I was twelve years old, that I never would; and I never have."
Karl nodded.
"That's right," said he; "and all the better for you to have had such a mother."
"You'd say that, Mr. Windsor, if you knew what she'd done for me. There ain't many such mothers in any class," said the young man heartily.
Karl looked at his new acquaintance with increasing favor, and found something very attractive in his open, manly face, and the honest smile with which he met his scrutiny.
"I hope you'll stay with us some time, Mr. Ginniss," said he heartily.
"Thank you; but, I believe, only for one day. The journey was my principal object in coming; and I must be at Antioch College again in a week, or ten days at the outside."
"Tell me about the life there. I was at old Harvard, and never visited any other college," said Karl; and the young men found plenty of conversation, until, in the soft twilight, they came upon the pleasant slope and vine-clad buildings of Outpost.
"Here is our house, or rather my cousin's house," said Karl. "You have heard Mr. Brown speak of Dora?"
"Yes, before he went away," said Ginniss significantly.
"But not since his return?" asked Karl eagerly.
"Very seldom."
"Hem! Seth, will you take our horses round? Jump off, and come in, sir. This is my sister Kitty, Mr. Ginniss. A scholar of Mr. Brown's, Kitty: I dare say you remember his speaking of him."
"Yes, indeed! Very happy to see you, Mr. Ginniss; walk in," said Kitty, who, if she had never heard the line, certainly knew how to apply the idea, of,—"It is not the rose; but it has lived near the rose."
"Where is Dora?" asked Karl, glancing round the room where the pretty tea-table stood spread, and Dora's hat and gloves lay upon a chair; but no other sign of her presence was to be found.
"Why," said Kitty, laughing a little, "Dolly took a fancy for rafting down the river on a log that she somehow managed to push off from the bank. Of course, she slipped off the first thing, and might have been drowned; but Argus got her out somehow, and Seth, hearing the noise, ran down and brought her home. Of course, she was dripping wet; and Dora has put her to bed."
"Is it a sanitary or a disciplinary measure?" asked Karl: "because, if the latter, we shall have Dora out of spirits all the evening. She never punishes Dolce half so much as she does herself."
"Well, I believe it is a little of both this time," replied Kitty. "I think she'll be down to tea. You had better take Mr. Ginniss right into your bedroom, Charlie. Perhaps he'd like to wash his hands before tea."
"Thank you; I should, if you please," said the guest, and left the room with his host.
When they returned, Dora was waiting to receive them, somewhat pale and sad at having felt obliged to refuse Sunshine's entreaties to "get up, and be the 'bedientest little girl that ever was," but courteously attentive to the guest, and ready to be interested and sympathetic in hearing all Karl's little experiences of the day. As for Kitty, her careless inquiry on seating herself at the table, of,—
"How has Mr. Brown been since he got home?" may serve as index to the course of her meditations.
"How in the world came Dolce to undertake the rafting business?" asked Karl, when his sister's inquiries had been amply satisfied.
"Why, poor little thing!" said Dora, laughing a little, "she thought she had found the way to heaven. She noticed from the window how very blue the river was, and, as she says, 'goldy all over in spots:' so she slipped out, and ran down there, forgetting for once that she is forbidden to do so. Standing on the brink, she saw the reflection of the little white clouds floating overhead, and was suddenly possessed with an idea that this was heaven, or the entrance to it. So, as she told me, she thought she would float out on the log till she got to the middle, and then 'slip off, and fall right into heaven.'"
"How absurd!" said Kitty, laughing.
"Not at all. She would certainly have reached heaven if she had carried out the plan," said Karl.
"Don't, please," murmured Dora, with a little shiver. "Don't talk of it."
"That is like a little sister of mine; a little adopted sister, at least. She was always talking of going to heaven, and planning to get there," said the guest.
Dora looked at him with pity in her honest eyes, and hastened to prevent Kitty's evident intention of questioning him further with regard to this "little sister."
"It seems to be a natural instinct with children," said she "to long for heaven. Perhaps that is the reason they bring so much of heaven to earth."
"I'm afraid mothers of large and troublesome families would say that earth would be better with less of heaven," suggested Karl slyly; and the conversation suddenly veered to other topics. But all through the evening, and even after he had gone to rest, the mind of Teddy Ginniss was haunted by the memory of the pretty child, so loved and mourned, and of whom this anecdote of the little heaven-seeker so forcibly reminded him.
"Whose child is this, I wonder?" thought he a dozen times: but, in the hints he had solicited from Mr. Brown upon manners, none had been more urgent than that forbidding inquisition into other people's affairs; and indeed Teddy's natural tact and refinement would have prevented his erring in this respect. So now he held his peace, and slept unsatisfied.
This may have been the reason of his rising unusually early,—in fact, while the rosy clouds of dawn were yet in the sky,—and quietly leaving the house with the purpose of a river-bath. Strolling some distance down the bank, until the intervening trees shut off the house, he plunged in, and found himself much refreshed by a swim of ten minutes through waters gorgeous with the colors of the sunrise-sky; and, as he paused to notice them, Teddy muttered,—
"The poor little sister! She'd have done just the same if she'd been here."
It was hardly time to return to the house when the young man stood again upon the bank; and he strolled on through the wood, at this point touching upon the river so closely, that a broken reflection of the green foliage curved and shimmered along the fast-flowing waves.
Teddy looked at the water; he looked at the trees; he looked long and eagerly across the wide prairie that far westward imperceptibly melted its dim green into the faint blue of the horizon, leaving between the two a belt of tender color, nameless, but inexpressibly tempting and suggestive to the eye. All this the lad saw, and, raising his face skyward, drew in a long draught of such air as never reaches beyond the prairies.
"Oh, but it's good!" exclaimed he, with more meaning to the simple phrase than many a man has put to an oration. And then he muttered, as he walked on,—
"If it wasn't for the thought that's always lying like a stone at the bottom of my heart, there'd not be a happier fellow alive to-day than I. Oh the little sister!-the little sister that I never shall forget, nor forgive myself for the loss of!"
And, from the cottonwood above his head, a mocking-bird, who had perhaps caught the trick of grief from some neighbor whippoorwill, poured suddenly a flood of plaintive melody, that to the boy's warm Irish fancy seemed a lament over the loved and lost.
He took off his hat, and looked up into the tree.
"Heaven's blessings on you, birdy!" said he. "It's the very way I'd have said it myself; but I didn't know how."
The mocking-bird flew on; and Teddy followed, hoping for a repetition of the strain: but the capricious little songster only twittered promises of a coming happiness greater than any pleasure his best efforts could afford, and darted away to the recesses of the forest, where was in progress an Art-Union matine of such music as all the wealth of all our cities cannot buy for us.
Teddy followed for a while; and then, fearing that he should be lost in the trackless wood, turned his back upon the rising sun, and walked, as be supposed, in the direction of the house, his eyes upon the ground, his mind strangely busy with thoughts and memories of the life he had left so far behind, that, in the press and hurry of his present career, it sometimes seemed hardly to belong to him.
"God and my lady have been very good to me," thought the boy; "but I never'll be as happy again as when the little sister put her arms about my neck, and called me her dear Teddy, and kissed me with her own sweet mouth that maybe is dust and ashes now. No: I never'll be happy that way again."
He raised his eyes as he spoke, and started back, pale and trembling, fain to lean against the nearest tree for support under the great shock.
Not fifty feet from him, and bathed in the early sunlight that came sifting through the trees to greet her, stood a child, dressed in a white robe, her sunny hair crowned with flowers, her little hand holding sceptre-wise a long stalk with snow-white bells drooping from its under edge. Her arms were bare to the shoulder, and her slender feet gleamed white from the bed of moss that almost buried them. Still as a little statue, or a celestial vision printing itself in one never-to-be-forgotten moment upon the heart of the beholder, she stood looking at him; and Teddy dropped upon his knees, gasping,—
"It's out of glory you've come to comfort me, darling! and God ever bless you for the same!"
The child looked at him with her starry eyes, and slowly smiled.
"I knew you sometime," said she. "Was it in heaven ?"
"No: it's better than ever I'll be, you know, in heaven, little sister. Are you happy there, mavourneen?" asked Teddy timidly.
"Oh! I haven't gone to heaven yet. I never could find the way," said the child, with a troubled expression suddenly clouding her sweet face; and then she added musingly,—
"I thought I'd get there through the river last night; but I tumbled off the log, and only got wet: and Dora said I was naughty; and so I had to go to bed, and not have some supper, only"—
"What's that, then!" shouted Teddy, springing to his feet, and holding out his hands toward her, though not yet daring to approach. " It's not the spirit of the little sister you are, but a live child?"
"Yes, I'm alive; though, if I'd staid into the river, I wouldn't have been, Dora says," replied Sunshine quietly.
"Oh! but the Lord in heaven look down on us this day, and keep me from going downright mad with the joy that's breaking my heart! Is it yourself it is, O little sister! is it yourself that's in it, and I alive to see it?"
He was at her feet now, his white face all bathed with tears, his trembling fingers timidly clasping her robe, his eyes raised imploringly to those serenely bent upon him.
"I knew you once and you was good to me," said the child musingly; "but I got tired when I danced so much in the street. I don't ever dance now, only with Argus."
"But, little sister, are you just sure, it's yourself alive? And don't you mind I was Teddy, and we used to go walking in the Gardens and on the Commons; and there was the good mammy at home that used to rock you on her lap, and warm the pretty little feet in her hands, and sing to you till you dropped asleep? Don't you mind them things, Cherry darling?"
The child looked attentively in his face while he thus spoke, and at the end nodded several times; while a light, like that of earliest dawn, began to glimmer in her eyes.
"Tell me some more," said she briefly.
"And do you mind the picture-books I used to bring you home, and the story of the Cock Robin you used to like so well to hear, and the skip-jack you played with, and the big doll that mammy made for you, and you called it Susan?"—
"O—h! Susan!" cried the child suddenly, and then stood all pale and trembling, while her earnest eyes seemed searching in the past for some dimly-remembered secret, which to lose was agony, to recall impossible.
"Susan!" said she softly again. "Yes, there was Susan, somewhere, and—Oh! tell me the rest, tell me who it was that loved me so!"
"Sure, it was Teddy loved you best of all," said the boy longingly: for, though her eager eyes dwelt upon his face, it was not for him or his that the depths of her heart were stirring; and, with the old thrill of jealous pain, he felt it so.
But then from the remorse and bitterness of the fault he had never ceased to mourn rose a nobler purpose, a higher love. He took the child in his arms, and kissed her tenderly, then released her, saying,—
"Good-by, little sister; for I never will call you so again, and you never more will call me brother. It's your own lady-mother, darling, that you're missing and mourning,—the own beautiful mother that lost you two years ago, and has gone to heaven's gates looking for you, and never would have come back if you had not been found. It's your own home, darling, that you have remembered for heaven; and it's waiting for you, with father and mother, and joy and plenty, all ready to receive you the minute you can get there."
But it was too much for the fine organization and sensitive temperament; and, as Teddy's words reached her heart in their full meaning, the child, with a long sobbing cry, fell forward into his arms, utterly insensible.
Teddy, not too much terrified for he had seen her thus before, raised the slender little figure in his arms, and carried it swiftly toward the house, now just visible through a vista of the wood, but, before he reached it, met Dora coming to look for her little charge.
"Good-morning, Mr. Ginniss. So you have caught my naughty runaway," cried she gayly; but coming near enough to notice Sunshine's drooping figure, and Teddy's agitated face, she sprang forward, asking,—
"Is any thing the matter with her? Where did you find her, Mr.Ginniss?"
"She's fainted, ma'am; but it's with joy, and will never hurt her. It's you and I that will be the sufferers, I'm afraid," said Teddy, with a sudden pang at his heart of love not yet cleansed of selfish jealousy.
"Bring her to the house, please, as quickly as you can. Poor little darling, she is so delicate!" said Dora, not yet caring to ask this strange news, but walking close beside Teddy, her hand clasping that cold little one which swung nervelessly over his shoulder, her eyes anxiously watching the beautiful pale face, half hidden in the showering curls.
To Mr. Burroughs, smoking his cigar upon the piazza of the NeffHouse, came a white-jacketed waiter with a card.
"The gentleman is waiting in the reception-room, sir," said he.
Mr. Burroughs paused to watch an unusually perfect ring of smoke lazily floating above his head; then took the card, and read in pencil,—
"Theodore Ginniss would be glad to see Mr. Burroughs a moment on important business."
"Indeed! Well, it is a republic, and this is the West; but only Jack's bean-stalk parallels such a growth." So said, in his own heart, Teddy Ginniss's former master, as he drew two or three rapid whiffs from the stump of his cigar, and then, throwing it into the grass, strolled leisurely into the reception-room.
"Ah, Ginniss! how are you?" inquired he of the pale and nervous young man, who stood up to receive him, half extending his hand, but dropping it quickly upon perceiving those of Burroughs immovable.
"I am well, sir, thank you."
"Want to see me on business, do you say?" continued the lawyer coolly.
"Yes, sir." And, as his true purpose and position came back to him, Teddy suddenly straightened himself, and grew as cool as the stately gentleman waiting with patient courtesy for his errand.
"I thought, sir, I'd come to you first, as it was to you I first had occasion to speak of my fault in hiding her. 'Toinette is found, sir!"
"What! 'Toinette Legrange found! Teddy, your hand, my boy! Found by you?"
"Yes, sir," said Teddy, suffering his hand to be shaken.
"But what I wanted most was to ask if you think it safe to tell Mrs.Legrange."
"Oh! I'll see to that. Of course, it must be done very delicately.But where is the child now? and when did you find her?"
"If you please, Mr. Burroughs, I should like to tell the story first to Mrs. Legrange, and I should like to tell her all myself. It was I that hurt her, or helped to hurt her; and I'd like to be the one to give her the great joy that's waiting for her. Besides, sir," and Teddy's face grew white again, "though I did what was wrong enough, I never deny, I have suffered for it more, maybe, than you can think of; and this is all the amends I could ever want. Mrs. Legrange has been very good to me, sir, and never blamed me, or spoke an unkind word, even at the first."
"And I spoke a good many, you're thinking," said Mr. Burroughs keenly. "Well, Teddy, I am a man, and Mrs. Legrange is a woman; and women look at matters more leniently and less exactly than we do. But you must not be satisfied with pity instead of justice; for that will be to encourage your self-esteem at the expense of your manhood. I do not deny that I never have recovered from my surprise at finding you had so long deceived me; but the news you bring to— day makes amends for much: and, after I have heard the particulars, I may yet be able to forget the past, and feel to you as I used."
But Teddy's bow, though respectful, was not humble; and he only asked in reply,—
"Where shall I find Mrs. Legrange, sir?"
"She walked down to the glen about half an hour ago. You may follow her there, if you please; and, since you insist upon it as a right, I will leave you to break the news to her alone. But you will remember, I hope, that she is very delicate,—very easily startled. You will have to be exceedingly cautious."
"Yes, sir;" and with a ceremonious bow the young man left the room, and the next minute was seen darting along the path to the glen.
Mr. Burroughs looked after him appreciatively, and muttered,—
"A nice-looking fellow, and not without self-respect. I see no reason why, in half a dozen years, he should not enter his name at the Suffolk bar itself, and stand as well as any man on the roll. But my little Sunshine! Confound the boy! why couldn't he have told me where to find her?"
So Mr. Burroughs went back to the piazza, and tried to quiet himself with another cigar, but was too nervous to make any more rings; while Teddy sped away to the glen, and presently found himself in a cool and cavernous retreat, which the sunlight only penetrated by dancing down with the waters that slid laughingly over a rock ledge above, and shook themselves into spray before they reached the pool below, then, after dimpling and sporting there for a moment, danced merrily away. At either hand, high walls of rock, half hid in trailing vines and clinging herbage, shut out the heat of day; and, through a thousand ever-changing peepholes among the swaying foliage, the blue sky looked gayly down, and challenged those who hid in the glen to come forth, and dare the fervor of the mid-day sun.
Under a tree near the foot of the fall sat Mrs. Legrange, her head leaning upon her hand, her book idle upon her lap, watching dreamily the waters that swayed and ebbed, and paused and coquetted with every flower or leaf that bent toward them; and yet in the end went on, always on, as the idlest of us go, until through the merry brook, the heedless fall, the sparkling stream, and stately river, we reach at last the ocean, calm, changeless, and eternal in its unmoved depths.
The lady looked up with a little start as she heard the approaching footsteps, and then rose with extended hand,—
"Theodore!" said she kindly. "I am very glad to see you; and so grown! You are much taller than in the spring."
"Yes, ma'am: I believe so. I don't think I shall grow much more," said Teddy, swallowing a great bunch in his throat that almost suffocated him.
"No? Why, you are not so very old, are you?" asked Mrs. Legrange, smiling a little.
"Nearly eighteen, ma'am."
"Oh, well! time enough for a good deal of growth, bodily and mental, yet. So you have been at the West?"
"Yes, ma'am, and have heard some curious things there,—some things that I think will interest you. Have you ever thought of adopting a little girl, ma'am?"
Mrs. Legrange sadly shook her head.
"No, Theodore: I never wished to do that. She never could be any thing like her to me, and it would seem like giving away her place. I had rather wait."
"I am sorry, ma'am; for I saw a little girl, where I have been, thatI was going to speak of."
"Was she a pretty child?"
"Very pretty, and looked like"—
"Theodore, don't say that, because I shall think either you have forgotten or never learned her face. No child ever looked like her," said the mother positively.
"This little girl was very pretty though," persisted Teddy.
"How did she look?"
"She had great blue eyes (if you'll excuse, me, ma'am), just like yours, with long brown eyelashes, and a great deal of bright hair, not just brown, nor yet just golden, but between the two; and a little mouth very much curved; and pretty teeth; and a delicate color; and little hands with pretty finger-nails."
"Theodore!"
Teddy, for the first time in his description, dared to raise his eyes, but dropped them again. He could not meet the anguish in those other eyes so earnestly fixed upon him.
"She was the adopted child of the people I visited in Iowa," faltered he.
"Theodore!" said Mrs. Legrange again; and then, in a breathless fluttering voice,—
"Do not trifle with me; do not try to prepare my mind; and, oh! For God's sake, if it is a false hope, say so this instant! Is she found?"
"I think it may be so, dear Mrs. Legrange!"
"No, but it is so! you know it! I see it in your eyes, I hear it in your voice! You cannot hide it, you cannot deceive me! O my God! my God!-to thee the first praise, the first thanks!"
She fell upon her knees, her face upraised to heaven; and never mortal artist drew such a picture of ecstatic praise. And though in after-years Theodore Ginniss wandered through the galleries where the world conserves her rarest gems of art, never did he find Madonna or Magdalen or saint to compare with the one picture his memory treasured as the perfection of earthly loveliness, made radiant with the purest heavenly bliss.
"Now come!" exclaimed the mother, springing to her feet, and rapidly leading the way along the narrow path. "You shall tell me all as we go."
And the young man found it hard work to keep pace with the delicate woman, as she flew rather than walked towards her child.
"If you will wait here in your own room, I will bring her to you," said Teddy, as he and Mrs. Legrange approached the hotel again.
"Bring her! Where is she now? asked the mother, looking at him in dismay.
"I left them at the other hotel, thinking, if I brought her directly here, we might meet you before you were told," explained Teddy.
"Who is with her?"
"Dora Darling, the young lady who adopted her,—the one I told you of as living in Iowa."
"Yes, yes; and she has come all the way to bring my child to me! No,I cannot wait: I will come with you."
So Mr. Burroughs, still sitting upon the piazza, saw his cousin hastening by, and came to join her.
"Yes, come, Tom! come to-oh, to see Sunshine again!" and Mrs. Legrange turned her flushed face away, to hide the hysterical agitation she could not quite suppress.
"Take my arm, Fanny; and do not walk so fast. You will hurt yourself," said Mr. Burroughs kindly.
"No, no: nothing can hurt me now. I must go fast: if I had wings, I should fly!"
"Here is the house. Will you wait in the parlor till I bring her down?" asked Teddy, leading the way up the steps of the principal hotel at Yellow Springs.
"No: take me to the room where they are waiting. I want to see her without preparation," said Mrs. Legrange.
So the whole party followed Teddy up the stairs to a door, where he paused and knocked. A low voice said,—
"Come in!" and the opening door showed Dora seated upon a low chair, with Sunshine clasped in her arms, and fast asleep. She made a motion to rise upon seeing the visitors; but Mrs. Legrange, lifting her finger as imploring silence softly advanced, and bent with clasped hands and eager eyes over the sleeping child. Then, with the graceful instinct of a woman who knows and pities the wound in the heart of her less fortunate rival, she put her arms about Dora and the child, embracing both, and pressed her lips lightly upon Dora's cheek, devouringly upon Sunshine's lips.
Dora started as if she had been stung, and a sudden tremor crossed the rigid calm of her demeanor. She had schooled herself to indifference, to neglect or to civil thanks worse than either: but this unexpected tenderness, this sisterly recognition, went straight through all its defences to her quivering heart; and she looked up piteously into the lovely face bent over her, whispering,—
"I am so glad you have found her! but I have nothing left half so dear."
There was no reply; for Sunshine, without sound or movement, suddenly opened her eyes, and fixed them upon her mother's face, while deep in their blue depths grew a glad smile, breaking at last, like a veritable sungleam, all over her face, as, holding out her arms, she eagerly said,—
"I've come to heaven while I was asleep; and you're the angel that loves me so dearly well. I know you by your eyes."
"The mother clasped her own,—as who shall blame her?-and Dora's arms and Dora's heart were empty, robbed of the nestling they had cherished,—empty, as she said to herself, turning from the sight of that maternal bliss, of the best love she had ever known, or could ever hope."
Mr. Burroughs, who liked character-reading, watched her narrowly; and when, presently, the whole party returned to Mrs. Legrange's hotel, he quietly walked beside Dora, lingering a little, and detaining her out of hearing of Mrs. Legrange and Teddy, who walked on with Sunshine between them.
"Is virtue its own reward, Miss Dora?" asked he abruptly, when almost half the distance between the two hotels was passed.
Dora looked at him a little puzzled; and then, as she read the half-sympathizing, half-mocking expression of his face, answered,—
"You mean I am not happy in bringing Sunshine back to her mother; don't you?"
"Exactly; and you told me once that no one ought to be rewarded for doing what is right, because it is reward enough to know that we are doing right."
"And so it is. I don't want any reward," said Dora rather hastily.
"No: but, if young Ginniss had not discovered the identity of the child, my cousin would not have been unhappier than she has been for two years; and you-would you not be at this moment better content with life?"
Dora's clear eyes looked straight into his as she wonderingly asked,—
"Do you want me to say I am sorry Mrs. Legrange has found her child?"
"If it is true, yes; and I know you will," replied Mr. Burroughs quietly.
"And so I would," said Dora, in the same tone; "but it is not true. I am glad, not happy, but very glad, that Sunshine has come to her mother at last,—her heaven, as she calls it. I do not deny that my own heart is very sore, and that I cannot yet think of her not being my child any more, without"—
She turned away her head, and Mr. Burroughs looked at her yet more attentively than he had been looking.
"But, if you could, you would not go back, and arrange it that Teddy should not come to your house? Word and honor now, Dora."
"Word and honor, Mr. Burroughs, I surely would not. Can you doubt me?"
"No, Dora, I do not; but, in your place, I should doubt myself."
Dora looked at him with a frank smile.
"I would trust you in this place, or any other," said she simply.
"Would you, would you really, Dora?" asked Tom Burroughs eagerly, while a slight color flashed into his handsome face. "Why would you?"
"Because I feel sure you could never do any thing mean or ungenerous, or feel any way but nobly"—
She paused suddenly, and a tide of crimson suffused her face and neck. Mr. Burroughs, with the heroism of perfect breeding, turned away his eyes, and suppressed the enthusiastic answer that had risen to his lips. He would not add to her confusion by accepting as extraordinary the impulsive expression of her feelings. So he simply said, after a moment of silence,—
"Thank you, Dora. I hope you may never have occasion to regret your noble confidence."
Dora did not answer, but hastened her steps, until she walked close behind Mrs. Legrange; nor did her companion speak again, although, could Dora have read his thoughts, she might have found in them matter of more interest than any words he had ever spoken to her.
IT had been Dora's intention to return to Iowa immediately after leaving Sunshine in charge of her own friends; but Mrs. Legrange insisted so urgently upon her remaining with them for some weeks at least, and the parting with the dear child she had so loved and cherished seemed so cruel as it drew nearer and nearer, that she finally consented to remain for a short time, and removed to the Neff House, where Mrs. Legrange had engaged rooms until the first of October.
To other natures than those called to encounter it, the relation between these three might, for a time at least, have been painful and perplexing; but Mrs. Legrange was possessed of such exquisite tact, Sunshine of such abounding and at the same time delicate affections, and Dora of such a noble and generous temper, that they could not but harmonize: and while 'Toinette bloomed, flower-like, into new and wonderful beauty bathed in the sunlight of a double love, Mrs. Legrange never forgot to associate Dora with herself as its source. And Dora joyed in her darling's joy; and, if her heart ached at thought of the coming loneliness, the pain expressed itself no otherwise than in an added tenderness.
"That is a noble girl, Fanny," said Mr. Burroughs one day. "How different from our dear five hundred friends at home! Put Mary Elmsly, or Lizzy Patterson, or Miss Bloomsleigh, or Marion Lee, in her place, and how would they fill it?"
"She is, indeed, a noble girl," replied his cousin warmly. "I never shall forget the tender and wise care she has taken of Sunshine in this last year. She has strengthened heart and principle as I am afraid I could never have done."
"Paul is coming out for you, isn't he?" pursued Mr. Burroughs after a pause.
"Yes: he will be here by the 20th. Why did you ask?"
"Because Dora cannot travel home alone, and I think of accompanying her. I may stay a while, and study prairie life."
Mrs. Legrange looked at him in surprise a moment; and then a merry smile broke over her face, for such a smile was possible now to her.
"Capital!" exclaimed she. "I never thought of it. But why not?"
"Why not spend a few weeks in Iowa? Well, of course, why not?" askedMr. Burroughs a little grimly, and presently added,—
"That is a pernicious custom of yours Fanny,—that rushing at conclusions."
"Men never rush at conclusions, do they?"
"No: of course not."
"Very well, then: arrive at your conclusion as leisurely as you like. It is none the less certain."
"Pshaw!" remarked Mr. Burroughs; and as his cousin laughingly turned to bend over Sunshine, and help her read her story-book, he took his hat and went out, turning his steps toward the glen.
Not till he reached its deepest recesses, however, did he find Dora; and then he stood still to look at her, himself unseen. But what a white, dumb look of anguish upon the sweet face! what clouds, heavy with coming showers, upon the brow! what rainy lights in the upturned eyes! what a resistless sorrow in the downward curve of the lips, ordinarily so firm and cheerful! Even the shapely hands, tightly folded, and firmly set upon the knee, told their story,—even the rigid lines and constrained attitude of the figure. Mr. Burroughs's first impulse was artistic; and he longed to be a sculptor, that he might model an immortal statue of Silent Grief. The second was human; and he longed to comfort a sorrow at whose cause he already guessed, and yet guessed but half. The third was less creditable, but perhaps as probable, in a man of Mr. Burroughs's temperament and education; for it was to study and dissect this new phase of the young girl's character. He quietly approached, and seated himself beside her with a commonplace remark,—
"A very pretty bit of scenery, Dora."
"Yes," replied she, struggling to resume her usual demeanor.
"I am afraid, however, it does not satisfy your eye, accustomed to the breadth of prairie views. Confess that you are a little weary of it and us, and longing for home."
"I shall probably set out for home to-morrow," said Dora, turning away her head, and playing idly with the grass beside her.
"I thought you were homesick. I am sorry we have so ill succeeded in contenting you."
"Oh, don't think that! I have been so happy here these two weeks!That is the very reason I ought to go."
"How is that? I don't see the argument."
"Because this is not my home, or the way I am to live, or these the people I am to live with; and the sooner I am away, the better."
She did not see all the meaning of her words, poor child! but her companion did, and smiled merrily to himself as he said,—
"You mean, we do not come up to your standard, and you cannot waste more time upon us; don't you?"
Dora turned and looked at him, her suspicions roused by a mocking ring beneath the affected humility of his tone; and, looking, she caught the covert smile not yet faded from his eyes.
"It is not kind, Mr. Burroughs, to laugh at me, or to try to confuse me in this way," said she steadily. "No doubt, you know what I mean; and why do you wish to force me into saying, that the more I see of the life and thoughts and manners of such people as Mrs. Legrange and you, and even my own little Sunshine, now so far away from me, the less fit I feel to associate with them? And, just because it is so pleasant to me, I feel that I ought to go back at once to the home and the duties and the people where I belong. I am but a poor country-girl, sir, hardly taught in any thing except the love of God, and the wish to do something before I die to make my fellow-creatures a little happier or more comfortable than I find them. Let me go to my work, and out of it I will make my life."
Perhaps never had the self-contained heart of the young girl so framed itself in words; certainly never had Mr. Burroughs so fully read it: and when she finished, and, neither turning from him nor toward him, steadfastly set her eyes forward, as one who sees mapped out before him the path he is to tread through all the coming years, he took her hand in his with a sudden impulse of tenderness,—
"Dora, you will love some one yet; and love will make you happy."
"I have loved two people, and lost them both. I do not mean to love any one else," said Dora, quietly withdrawing her hand.
Mr. Burroughs stared at her in astonishment; and, with a directness more natural than conventional, exclaimed,—
"You have loved twice already!"
"Yes. Three times, indeed. I loved my mother and Picter, and they are both dead. I loved Sunshine and she is lost to me. O my little Sunshine! who was all to me, and who, I thought"—
And then-oh rare result of all these days of suffering, and hidden bitterness, and a lingering relinquishment of the sweet and tender hope of her future life!-Dora gave way all at once, and, covering her face with her hands, burst into a passion of tears; such tears as women seldom weep; such tears as Dora herself had shed but two or three times in her short life.
Mr. Burroughs sat for a moment, looking at her with a yearning tenderness in his eyes, and then folded her suddenly in his arms, whispering,—
"Dora, Dora Darling! I love you, and I will be to you more than all these; and no time nor chance shall rob you of my love, if only you will give me yours instead."
But Dora repulsed him vehemently, sobbing, "No, no, no! you shall not say it! I will not hear it!"
"Not say it? Why not? It is God's truth; and you must have known it before to-day."
"No: it is only pity, because you think I want to stay, and because—No, I will not have it! I will not hear it! You are quite wrong, Mr.Burroughs: you do not know"—
She stopped in confusion. She had done sobbing now; but she did not uncover her face, or look up. Mr. Burroughs regarded her with a strange expression, and then, taking her hand, said softly,—
"Dora, I have not dared, as you fear that I have, to fancy that you cared for me. A moment ago, I should not have dared to ask you as I now do; and remember, Dora, that I ask for the solemn truth,—do you love me?"
Dora tore away her hand indignantly, and attempted to rise. She had not spoken, or looked at him. Over the pale face of the lover shot a gleam of triumph. But he only said,—
"Dora, it will not be like you to leave me in this way. It is unjust and untrue."
"It is you who are unkind and ungenerous," said the girl passionately.
"Why, Dora? Why is it ungenerous to ask for a confession of your love, when I have already told you that all my heart is in your hands?"
"You fancied that I-that I-liked you; and you knew I did not want to go home, and you pitied me: and I won't have it, sir. I do not need pity, and I do not"—
Her voice died away, killed by the falsehood she could not speak. Mr. Burroughs no longer pressed for an answer to the question he had asked, but grasped at a new argument.
"Pity and kindness!" sadly repeated he. "Dora, if you only knew how much more I stand in need of your pity than you of mine, if you only knew what kindness your life has already done mine, you would not treat me in this manner."
"You need my pity!" exclaimed Dora, forgetting herself, and turning to look at him in nave astonishment; "and for what?"
"For a purposeless and weary life; for an empty heart and a corroded faith," said her lover bitterly; "for an indifference to men, amounting almost to aversion; for a trifling estimate of women, amounting almost to contempt; for wasted abilities and neglected opportunities,—for all these, Dora, I need your pity, and have a right to claim it: for it is only since I loved you that I have recognized my own great needs and deficiencies. Complete the work you have unconsciously begun, dearest. Reverse the fairy fable, and let the beautiful princess come to waken with her kiss the slothful prince, who else might sleep forever."
"How can you know so soon that I am the princess?" asked Dora shyly.
"So soon! I felt the truth stirring blindly in my heart that first night, now a year ago, when I saw you in the old home, and read your candid eyes, and heard your clear voice, and marked your steady and serene influence upon all about you. I hardly knew it then; but, when I was away from you, I was myself surprised to find how vivid your impression upon my mind remained. When my cousin asked me to accompany her here, I silently resolved, that, before I returned home, I would see you again; would study as deeply as I might the character I already guessed. Then, Dora, when I saw you, as I have seen you in these last weeks, struggling so nobly to render complete the sacrifice you came hither to make; when I saw the sweetness, the power, the loftiness, and the divine truth, of your nature, shining more clearly day by day, and yourself the only one unconscious of the priceless value of such a nature,—then, Dora, I came to know for truth what I tell you now, God hearing me, that you are the woman of all the world whom I love, honor, and undeservingly long to make my own. Once more, Dora,—and you cannot now refuse to answer me at least,—once more I ask, do you or can you love me?"
He grasped her hands in both his own, and his keen eyes read her very soul. She raised hers as steadily to meet them; and, though the hot blush seemed to scorch her very brow, she answered,—
"I did not know it, quite, until to-day; but I believe-I think-I have cared about you ever since a year ago. That is, not love; but every one else seemed less than they had been: and since I knew you here, and since I thought I must go home, and never see you any more, it was"—
She faltered and stopped, drooping her head before the tender triumph of his glance. Truth had asserted herself, as with Dora she must have done in any stress, but now of a sudden found herself silenced by a timidity as charming as it was new in the strong and well poised temperament of the girl who, a moment before so brave, now stood trembling and blushing beneath her lover's gaze.
He drew her to his breast, and pressed his lips to hers.
"Dora, my own wife!" whispered he. "God so deal with me here and hereafter as I with you, the best gift in his mighty hand!"
And Dora, hiding her face upon his breast, whispered again,—
"I was so unhappy an hour ago! and now, as Sunshine, says, I have come to heaven all at once!"
Her lover answered by a mute caress; for there are moments when words are all too weak for speech. And so he only clasped her closer in his arms, and bent his head upon her own; while all about them the hundred voices of the summer noon whispered benediction on their joy; the eddying stream paused in its whirl to dimple into laughter at their feet; the sunlight, broken and flecked by the waving branches, fell in a shifting golden shower upon their heads; and Nature, the great mother, through her myriad eyes and tongues, blessed the betrothal of her dearest child.