“What a shame, girls!” exclaimed Anna; “Clara Morton's things have been sent for, and she is not coming to school any longer. Her father has failed, and they are to give up house and furniture, horses and carriage, and the girls are going out to earn their own living.”
“Not really?” said Fanny.
“Why, every one knows it.”
“You do not mean to say that Clara Morton is going to earn her own living,” said little Effie. “The last person in the world! Why, I do not believe she ever sewed a stitch in her life. She never even brought her own books to school, but had them carried for her by a boy.”
“But there are other ways of earning a living besides sewing. Clara plays beautifully, and could give music lessons as well as——; well—perhaps not as well as Mr. Cantari.”
“No, indeed! Can you not see one of his queer smiles at the idea of one of us girls giving lessons?”
“I know it. How flat one feels, after playing a piece so splendidly, to turn round and meet, for one's only applause, that incomprehensible smile! Poor Clara! I hope that smile will not meet her, wherever she goes in the world. I am sure it will haunt me, for I can never see it without a dim apprehension of the possible fate that awaits our lessons and accomplishments in that formidable ocean into which our school days are to empty.”
“Your geographical comparison is very natural for you; but as I do not pride myself upon my acquirements in that branch, I confess I do not see what it has to do with Mr. Cantari's smile.”
“You do not take music lessons, I believe, Miss Erudition; and perhaps the forebodings of examination day would be a comparison in which you would be more at home. I only hope poor Clara will not be reminded of it by the world into which she has fallen.”
“Now do tell us, Anna, what you mean by the world.”
“Why, the world is—the people that laugh at every thing we school girls do. Not exactly that, but the people who know how every thing should be done, and give one of Mr. Cantari's smiles at our way of doing it; they do not always know how, either. It is not that—it is—it is—you girls sitting there, calmly watching me extricating myself from my definition. Well now, into this world, whatever it is, Clara has dropped, just as if she had been riding in something, and the bottom had come out, leaving her standing on the actual ground; and the poor child must walk on her feet which any little barefooted beggar girl can do better than she.”
“That reminds me of a funny adventure which happened to me, when I was a little girl, in India,” said Effie.
“In India! O, do tell us about it.”
“You know I was born in India, where the people—that is, the people who are any body—never think of walking, but ride in palanquins carried on men's shoulders. These coolies, as they are called, are just like horses here, and one never thinks of their having any will of their own, or any thought, but of trotting patiently all day under the palanquin. As for me, I hardly knew there was such a thing as the ground, till one day the palanquin bearers, for some reason which I never understood,—a quarrel among themselves I believe,—suddenly set the palanquin down on the ground, and left me all alone in a strange part of the city, crying, and begging the passers by (who did not understand a word I said) to carry me home; but I never should have reached there if I had not been found by some one who knew our family.”
“What a wonderful adventure, to be sure!”
“Well, I thought I had something to tell when I began. I am sure I know now what you mean by Mr. Cantari's smile. But it was not so much my little adventure in itself, though that always seemed something till now; but after that I never could get the palanquin out of my head. It seemed to me that all the people in India lived in palanquins, except the poor people, and that they were nothing but bearers. No one did any work, not even the servants, for every servant seemed to have another under him, though, to be sure, there must have been some at last with their feet on the ground, trudging along to carry on the household. But this was always a puzzle to me, and I used to wonder if some time every thing would come down to the ground, like the palanquin; for the bearers were human beings after all, and I had found, for once, at least, that they had wills of their own. But this was, I suppose, something like the fear of the Indians, which some of you say you always had when little children. I do not think it could have troubled me much, however, for I remember I used to lie all day in a hammock, reading story books, with a half-waking and half-sleeping sense of the poor story writers being palanquin bearers, to carry us about so delightfully, without any thought or trouble on our part. But really, now, was it not natural to be reminded of all this by Clara's situation? Was it not, Miss Revere?”
“Yes, Effie,” answered Miss Revere. “And probably we could each of us remember a similar impression, if we would recall the circumstance in our lives which brought us into closest contact with the reality of life, which Clara is now finding, I fear, so different from her school-girl ideas of it For my own part, you have reminded me of my earliest years, when my palanquin, also, was set down with a shock I have never forgotten.”
“Why, were you ever in India, Miss Revere?” asked Fanny.
“No, dear, but Effie has already hinted that the country of palanquins is not so far from us as that.”
“Do tell us about it, Miss Revere. I have always longed to know your history, for I was sure you had one. You seem to be so apart from us girls, and to do every thing as if you had done it before, and as if you stood so far back, that things which make us happy or unhappy are only things to be looked at by you, just like Leonora, who is always quietly sketching us, when the greatest excitement is going on.”
“I will tell you, if you wish, all that is to be told of a life, which, with one exception, has been without events, that would appear such to any one but myself. It will only, therefore, be the result, and not the history of my life, which I can tell you, and that rather for the pleasure I shall have in exacting the same of you, than for any I shall take in recalling my own. I say there has been but one event in my life; it was that which left me an orphan. O girls, we speak of Clara's coming down to the ground; we speak of seeing our way clear, and treading on solid ground; these are expressions of those whose feet only would walk upon the ground, while their hearts and eyes are on a level with those about them, who have never known how hard to the forehead is the ground, when all we love lie beneath it; how one hides her face in terror from the vacant air, finding her only refuge in the earth, where lies all her grief. But I do not wish to bring my dark robe among your gay dresses.”
“O Miss Revere!”
“Tell me if you think it possible for one who is absolutely alone in the world to be happy, after having once been so with others?”
“I cannot imagine being alone, any more than I can imagine a sound, without being there to hear it,” answered Anna.
“Poor Mr. Polanco, in the Darien expedition! Was not that absolute solitude? After being left to die alone by his companions, who were forced by starvation to desert him, think of his bones being found long after, stretched on the grave of his friend, who had been buried a day's march behind!” said Miss Revere.
“I know. Was it not frightful?” said Anna. “Can you imagine a solitude so appalling, that a dying man would drag himself a whole day's march (poor men! it was but a few miles in their condition) to find in a grave some semblance of human society.”
“As if a drowning sailor, in an Arctic sea, should swim to an island of ice,” said Kate.
“Only think how many have gone down in the sea with nothing in sight but the waves; and people have fallen down precipices, and known they were going, and no one has ever known what they have felt. We only hear about those who are saved. I would give any thing to know the last thoughts of those who have never been heard of.”
“But, Anna, is it not the same to every one at the last moment?”
“Perhaps so; but it seems different.”
“Ah, Anna,” said Miss Revere, “thatseemsis the old story of the palanquin again. Just as weseemedsafer the other night, when we all huddled together in one room, in the thunder storm.”
“What an awful night that was!”
“And yet here we all are, safe. I never could have believed, years ago, when I was lying alone in a heavier night than that, that I should ever be sitting here tranquilly telling of it.”
“O, yes, do tell us the rest.”
“If I should tell you all, it would only be answering my own question, 'whether one could be happy after being left alone in the world by all whom she loved.' Little thing as I was then, I learned that there is no comfort from others, no diversion from a great calamity. Every thing that one clings to for help is only the sailor's block of ice, which is itself water. May you never know how utterly alone one is in a great sorrow; but if you ever should, may you find yourselves, as I did at last, taking root in the very ground on which you fall, and drawing a new life from the reality of your desolation. Thus I had to earn my own living; and you can judge if Clara's lot can seem a hard one to me, who have known so well what poverty is.”
“Why, Miss Revere, how can you speak of poverty? I thought you had every thing you wished,” exclaimed Effie.
“Dear child, I believe it is only those who have been unhappy, or in some way thrown out of their natural life, who can understand comparisons. We must all earn our own living in some way, and always in the way in which our life is different from all others.”
“I wish, Anna, you had not told about the sailor swimming to that awful ice. I do not see the use of thinking of such things before they happen. I am sure I shall never dare to go to sea,” said Kate.
“How did you feel, Fanny, when you were out in the boat, in the middle of the ocean?” asked Linda.
“Why, was she ever at sea?”
“And in a real shipwreck, my dear.”
“What, Fanny here? Do, pray, tell us all about it.”
“I thought every one knew about it. And yet I remember when we landed,—for we were picked up by another ship,—and I thought every one in the city would be thinking of nothing else, how strange it seemed that no one thought much about it. We went up to a hotel, and every one was seeing to his own baggage, and every thing going on just as if nothing had happened. I suppose this is why I have never talked more about it.”
“But tell us; you know we shall be interested in it. I have always wanted to hear about a shipwreck from some one who had actually been in it.”
“And then it was not so much the actual wreck. I think I rather enjoyed it,—what I remember of it,—and I suppose I was too ill most of the time to take much notice. But the voyage I remember distinctly, or rather after a certain time, for I was so young that my first recollections were about that ship, so that it seems to me as if I had been born upon the ocean. I remember playing dolls in the cabin just as if I had been in a house; and although it rocked about terribly, the vessel was so large, with all kinds of other cabins and forecastles, and holds, which I heard them speak of, but had never seen, that I never thought of it as actually floating on a deep sea, and separate from every thing else; for we were really, you know, thousands of miles out on this immense ocean. But I always thought of it as something like the floating bridge at the salt water bath, fastened in some way, at one end, to the place we had left,—of which, however, I had no recollection,—and at the other end to the place to which we were going, about which I had almost as little idea.
“I must have been kept in the cabin, I think, by my nurse, for I remember so distinctly the first time I climbed up the steep stairs, and found myself alone by the side of the ship. Now I think of it, I must have been on deck before, for I have a confused sense of the glittering of the sun on the waves, which seemed very near, and the spray, and the wind in the ropes, and altogether like a city or a band of music; perhaps there was music on board, though I don't remember hearing it again. But now it was after sunset, and there were no little sparkling waves, but great, solemn swells rolling, as if their loneliness, out there in the middle of the ocean, was too awful to think of, out to the gray edge of the sky, so far and vast all around, with nothing to hold on to, and then swelling up so deep against the side of the ship, and lifting it up,—that great, heavy vessel,—as they passed under; and then I felt for the first time the motion of the whole ship, and the depth of the sea beneath it, and understood what some one meant who had said one day at table, that there 'was but a plank between us and eternity.' I had some sense of what he meant when he said it; but there were so many planks in the ship, so many decks, one below the other, that I never thought till now, that, last of all, there must be one plank along which the deep water was always washing, and if this should give way, we should go down 'with every soul on board!' These words I had heard said by a very solemn man, a passenger, who was also, I think, the one who spoke of the plank and eternity. After this they were always sounding in my ears, and at night, after lying awake, trying not to listen to the wash of the water against the side of the ship, and not to feel it heaving up on a great wave and then sinking down—down—till I felt certain something would give way, and we never should come up, I would fall asleep, and dream the ship had sunk, and 'every soul on board' was tossing alone on the waves, with 'only a plank between him and eternity.'
“I forgot to say that we had a captain whom I loved very much; he was so kind and polite to us all, and at the table particularly, was so attentive to me, that I thought the ship would be safe so long as he was in it. He was very young and handsome, and I thought he sat at the head of the dinner table like a real nobleman. And so I believe he was, as I heard one of the sailors say one day,—a gruff old fellow he was,—that nobody but a lord's son would ever have given such an order as that, whatever it was. I heard him say, too, one day, to a passenger who looked as if he had something to do with vessels, that if the captain had earned his own living, as he had, at the ropes, he would have known something or other from a marline-spike. He said, too, that ships never would be safe so long as captains who had never 'served up' were appointed over the heads of old salts, like himself.
“I felt dreadfully troubled to learn that the ship was not considered safe by an old sailor; but I could not make out what he meant by saying the captain had not 'served up,' the only use of those words which I had ever known being in reference to the dinner, about which the captain was always very particular with the steward. I at last asked one of the sailors, who laughed, and said it meant that the captain had not come up from the forecastle, but had come in at the cabin windows. After this I gave up asking questions of the crew, and puzzled myself alone over their queer sea terms; but I took all the more notice of their ways towards the captain, and soon found that he was not so great a man with them as with the passengers. What knowing looks they would give each other, when obeying his orders! There!—I knew when you were speaking of Mr. Cantari's smile, it reminded me of something like it that had happened years ago; it was that look, of those sun-browned, good-natured sailors. I seem to see the captain now, standing so handsome and gentlemanly on the deck, the color mounting into his face as he gave some order about taking in sails, or tightening ropes, or such things, and the crew going about this way and that, and looking sidewise at each other, with that good-natured, wicked smile; I do believe the captain was more afraid of that than he would have been of a pirate ship. There was one old man, in particular, who was more grave than any of them, and never moved his face, but had an odd way of smiling with his eyes at the men, and putting out his cheek with his tongue; and the captain's voice always seemed to be a little tremulous when he was giving an order while this man was standing by. I was very fond of him still; but it was a great shock to me to find the crew thought so little of one in whom I had placed such unbounded confidence. What was to become of us now in case of danger?—though of that I thought less than of that awful sea which lay day and night beneath us; and now, more than ever, there seemed to be but 'a plank' between me and it, now that the captain was no longer between the plank and me.
“Then I thought how safe and careless of danger the sailors seemed to be, and that it must be because they knew the ship so well, knew every timber in it, and where it was, and how strong it was; and I determined I would learn too, and asked the captain to tell me all about it; but I found his knowledge of it did not reach much below the cabin floor, and the passengers could tell me little. Then I said to myself, I will go to the forecastle and 'serve up,' for I had found out by this time what that meant; and this, Miss Revere, was really what you would call 'earning my living.' I learned from the crew, and particularly from the same old man who troubled the captain so much with his silent smile, and who would cut little ships, and parts of ships, and put them together for me, so much, that at last I could stand upon the upper deck and know every deck below, and the principal timbers of the frame down to the very keel. I suppose I could not have known all this very well, such a child as I was; but I had learned enough to feel safer and to feel the motion of the waves through the whole ship, up to the planks on which I stood; so that I felt no longer like a loose piece of ballast, rolling helpless about, but as if the ship were a great living thing, and I was its spirit and life. About that time I used to go to the bow of the ship, when great waves were buoying it up, and repeat, with my hair streaming behind my head,—
'And the waves bound beneath me, as a steedThat knows his rider!'—
some lines that I had heard from a passenger; till one day I turned round, and there was the old sailor putting out his cheek, and winking to one of the men; and I ran off as if I had seen a shark, and I believe I never went forward of the cabin after that.”
“But, Fanny, how could you remember so well what happened when you were such a mere child as you must have been then? What you say does not sound like a very little child,” said Effie.
“I dare say many of the things I am telling were at the time very indistinct and confused; but if I should tell them in the same way, they would not have form enough for you to see them. Then I cannot remember the voyage in course,—day after day,—but particular times I remember just as distinctly as if they had happened yesterday. If I should confuse a little what I felt then with what I have felt since, it would be perfectly natural; for I do feel sometimes as if I had never left that ship. I wonder if we never have but one thought all our lives? That ship was then the whole world to me, and now the whole world seems the ship. And that carries me back to one splendid night,—the only perfectly beautiful night in the voyage,—in fact it is the only night I remember; I suppose the nurse usually kept me below for fear of the night air. That night there was a great deal of noise and talking in the cabin, and I stole away to the deck. All was stillness and starlight, with a gentle sound in the sails like the cooing of a dove, and every thing as if it had been going on so for hours. A few long swells reached to the horizon, and I could see their waving lines against the sky, and the light came up from beyond them, so that the whole world seemed to be ocean, and the ship the only living thing, swaying on its bosom as lightly as Anna's cross, (what a beauty it is, Anna!) and the top of the masts sweeping over whole tracts of stars, and the stars blinking as if keeping time with the dipping of the vessel, till it all seemed a dance, ship and stars together, the stars seeming ships in an ocean of space, and the ship to hang in a liquid sky, and I,—there I was alone on the deck, my world under my feet; and who knew but that in each of the stars was a being whose steed bounded beneath him as intelligently as mine? Would not these sometimes speak each other, as the passing ships? Perhaps they do now, I thought, in a way as much finer as the ocean on which they all sail is larger than ours; and by listening attentively perhaps my ear will become fine enough to hear them. Now, what are you laughing at Kate?”
“Only to think how Humboldt would look, to hear you describing the world which you had conquered so scientifically.”
“Just as if I felt so now, and did not know that only a little child as I then was would ever have such magnificent ideas of itself. I don't believe even then I looked any wiser than you, when you came to school with your new Geology, walking as grand as if you were treading on the old red sandstone.”
“Now don't, Fanny! We all feel proud enough of our new studies; it seems like having attained the greater part of a science to have bought the books; but we feel humble enough to make up for it on examination day.”
“But all the time you have not said a word about the shipwreck,” suggested Effie.
“O, yes, the shipwreck!” exclaimed the girls.
“I know that is all you want to hear; but you have put me out, so that I shall make but a short story of it. Besides, as I said before, that was the least part of it.”
“Not long after that splendid night, I was called up on deck by the cry of a sail in sight, which, you know, is the great event at sea. It passed at some distance, though near enough for us to see it distinctly; but it was a clouded sky, and the waves, dark and foreboding, left such a dreary space of water between it and us, and the poor ship looked so forlorn and helpless, tumbling about on the great loose waves, that all my old fear came back. I thought perhaps there were those on board that dismal little bark who thought, as I had, that they were carrying the centre of the world along with them; and perhaps there were hundreds of other such, scattered all over the sea in their poor little cockleshells, and our great ship would seem as little and helpless to them as theirs to us. After the ship was out of sight, and I was looking off indifferently in that direction, all at once the back of an immense fish arose out of the sea and disappeared. Perhaps it was the coming up of a storm which spread a gloom over the sea, and made that huge black thing so awfully distinct and lonely; but it was the most fearful sight I had ever seen. There was that creature, out there in the middle of the ocean, in a security frightful to think of, and we in an artificial fabric, which, at best, was only the 'single plank.' To feel as safe as the fish, was now my only desire, and I tried to give up all thought of the ship, and commit myself boldly to the waves,—as I had heard Arion did, who was saved by the dolphin,—not really, you know, but I could not even imagine it; when it came to the last point, I could not even think of plunging into the deep sea, and I went to bed dreadfully depressed, partly owing, I dare say, to the mournful sound of the rising storm in the rigging. All I remember afterwards was dreaming the fish had changed into a mermaid, and was holding out her arms to me, and waiting for me to make up my mind, and I was thinking that if I leaped into them, the sea would have no power over me, and then plunging down and finding not her arms, but the cold sea, then waking up and actually feeling the cold water dashing over me, and a moment after, some one seizing me, and hurrying me on deck amid shrieks and screams,—and then finding myself in a little boat, crowded with wet people, and tossing about in the dark, not knowing which was sea, which was sky. Only one thing I remember after this, and that is—after the storm had gone down, and the boat was rising and falling on the great swells, the sailors resting on their oars, and a clergyman in the boat offering up a prayer, and then reading from a little wet Bible about Jesus walking on the water and holding out his hand to Peter, telling him if he had faith he could walk on the sea, as he did. I thought this was better than Arion and the dolphin, and I could really understand how it could be, though it is all gone now. I can only remember lying, crying, in the bottom of the boat. I was so happy and weak,—for I think we had nothing to eat after we left the ship,—and I would keep falling asleep and seeing some one stretching out his hand to me, and saying 'It is I; be not afraid;' then half waking up, and hearing some one say, in a solemn tone, 'But a plank between us and eternity,' and if it had not been for something, 'every soul on board'—and that is the last recollection I have of any thing, until we were coming into port in another ship; and every thing, as I said, was just as if nothing had happened, only I was very weak, for I had been quite ill; and the captain, when he saw me coming on deck, caught me in his arms and kissed me, which he had never done before, and the grave old sailor with the queer smile gave mesucha hug. The smile was all gone now, and when we left the ship I saw him shaking hands with the captain, with the most serious face I ever saw. I had overheard the old man telling some one the captain had shown he had the real grit in him, and if he had not had the misfortune to be born a gentleman he would have been as good a sailor as ever did something or other, I forget what; as if he had said he would have been as good a sailor as he had shown himself a brave man.”
“Is that all?” said Effie. “I thought when you came to the shipwreck it would be something grand and dangerous.”
“I suppose you would like to hear that the ship was struck by lightning, and went down in the middle of the ocean, with every soul on board but me, and that I drifted for days on a single oar, and at last came to a savage coast with a horde of wild Arabs ready to pounce upon me the moment I should be dashed upon the beach.”
“That would be nice.”
“Or to have had me swallowed by a shark, thousands of miles out of sight of land, and then you might have told the story for yourself.”
“O, I did not mean to complain of your story; and I dare say if it had happened to one of us, it would have been the greatest event in our lives.”
“Just like my night in the woods which Fanny's starlight night reminded me of. I have been thinking of it ever since she came to that part.”
“There, Linda! I knew you were thinking of something else than my story, and I believe that is the reason it began to sound so flat towards the end.”
“But I should not have thought of it, if it had not been for what you were telling; so that it shows I really was interested, as you would believe, if you knew how much it was like that night of my own.”
“Do tell us about it, Linda; were you out all night alone?”
“The whole night long. But I begin to think it was not so much of an event after-all; you girls are so critical. It seems to me sometimes we are like those stones which are full of caves, and grottoes of crystal inside, to ourselves, while to others we are only common paving stones.”
“But you must remember it is just so with all, and not contrast the inside of your paving stone with the outside of others',” said Anna.
“I was thinking whether there was outside enough to my little adventure to make it worth telling. But if it is thinner than that of the rest, it will be easier to break open.”
“There, Linda, you have let that stone roll long enough; now let it rest with me and gather moss.”
“I understand you, Ella. You are off now on one of your fairy stories, and I shall have one listener the less. Well, I am glad of it, for I shall not have you looking at me in your calm way all the time, and thinking how much better you could tell the story.”
“O Ella, let us have the fairy story, and call it the paving stone if you please. Never mind if it is not clear to you yet, but think as you go along,” said Fanny.
“No; leave me alone. Perhaps it is nothing, and I know too well that no story is good for any thing, unless one knows what it is going to be before one begins.”
“I hate stories with morals; they are just like going in the cars, where all you think of is the end of your journey,” said Kate.
“But unless you know where you are going, you would never go at all.”
“But it is so pleasant to go off for a day's walk without knowing where you are going, and with nothing to do but to enjoy what you see.”
“Exactly as I thought when I set out on the adventure which led to that eventful night. But you were about to say something, Ella.”
“I was only going to say that things never look so well to me as when I have some place to go to, and see them on the way. But the adventure.”
“O, I set out without knowing whither I was going, though I found something so like a moral before I was through with it, that my story would be nothing without it.”
“That may be, but you will not tell it in the same way.”
“No, for I know well enough where it leads to, and my only fear now is, that incidents on the way will not seem interesting enough to make it worth the telling.”
“Leave that to us, Linda; and now for the adventure.”
“You remember what a time I had with Madam Irving, three or four years ago; you were here, Fanny, and you, Miss Revere—you remember, of course.”
“When you ran away from school and frightened Madam Irving almost to death, and were so glad to get back again?” said Fanny.
“Well, I will not dispute you.”
“But do not look so resigned about it. If you could only have seen the contrast between yourself leaving the school room with the air of Queen Catharine leaving the court, and your first appearance on the morning after your return!”
“I suppose I did look rather cowed; but if you had gone through what I did! It was all very well the first night, though I slept on the floor of a miserable little hut,—well, I may as well compress it, for I see you know something about it,—in the bed, then, of that little ragged berry girl who lives up on the mountain. I slept on the floor at first, but it was so cold that I had to give in.”
“You might have foreseen, then, how long you would hold out with Madam Irving.”
“Now, Fanny, you know I have always said—but it's no use. Well, girls, I lay awake most all that night arranging my plans for the next day. When I left the school, I had some vague idea of going home on foot,—three hundred miles, you know,—with nothing but that little bundle, (how long it took me to make up that bundle! I thought I never should get off;) but then I feared I should be sent back, and the idea of facing Madam Irving after taking leave of her as I had done—”
“Yes, it did come hard; I really pitied you.”
“Fanny, you are too bad. Well, my mind was made up that night, and every thing was clear before me for the next day's campaign. It seems that word made a great impression on that little, impertinent Jenny. She was here the other day at the door with her berry basket; and when she saw me, do you think, she looked up sidewise, with the smile those girls have, and said, in a subdued way, 'Campaign.' I wished she were in Guinea. To think of the solemn way in which I had talked to that girl about the importance of the step I was to take, and confided to her all the reasons for my leaving a society with which I could not agree, and giving up all the associations in which I had been born, and which were at variance with my views of life, and living henceforth dependent upon no one but myself; for I was really quite eloquent, I assure you, and inspired her with such enthusiasm that she readily agreed to follow me, and share, as my servant, the fortunes of the new life which opened before me. Poor thing! She had nothing to lose, and every thing was gain to her. She had nothing to come down to, either; for with her bare feet she was as near the ground as she could be, and I had still a pair of shoes between me and the rough fields over which we rambled all that day, though I did think of taking them off at first, as I did not wish to have any advantage over her. I found, however, before night, the advantage was altogether on her side, for she made nothing of stones, and brambles, and bushes, that put me out of breath, and tore me all to pieces. What a sight I was that evening as we came to an overhanging rock on the mountain side, and chose it as our camp for the night. The sun was just setting over an immense tract of country, entirely new to me; and I might have been on the Cordilleras for any thing that I recognized in that scene. It occurred to me, that, although, when out on a ride or a walk before, I always took notice of every thing, here I had been a whole day, and had actually never thought of looking up from the ground. And even now, with all that splendid view and sunset before me, and the feeling of being fairly embarked on a new life, where school and civilization were already so distant that they were not to be thought of, yet I am ashamed to say, the great subject that occupied my thoughts was our supper. We had provided against that event, which we had looked forward to half the afternoon—a great store of blackberries, which I had conscientiously refrained from touching, though I was as hungry as a bear.”
“What an expression for a young lady!” said Kate.
“I really believe we all should be bears if we lived out doors, as I did, for any length of time. Besides, any one who has seen you look at the baskets when we have a picnic!”
“Ah, yes! On the mountain when I'm tired of gazing at a great, vague view.”
“You know I think as little of such things as any one when we are at home; but when we are out for the day, I declare a biscuit on a rock looks more picturesque than any thing in the landscape,” said Kate.
“That's a confession!”
“I believe you would all say the same, if you would acknowledge the truth, except Leonora; and I suppose a tree or a rock looks just the same to her as a luncheon basket would to us.”
“You are always talking about the picturesque, Kate, like every one else except Leonora. Now, once for all, what do you mean by it?” asked Anna.
“Leonora, you must answer for me, for I am sure you ought to know, if any one.”
“I was thinking that you had already defined it as well, perhaps, as it could be. But if I should tell you all you have reminded me of by your comparison, we should never hear the end of Linda's story, in which I was becoming quite interested. I was thinking what a good sketch she would have made, sitting a little way down that mountain side with the ragged berry girl, and that great sunset before them. So you must let me go on quietly with my drawing, and while Linda is finishing her adventure, I will be finding a point of view for my thoughts, which are just now rather indefinite. If I knew precisely what the picturesque is, perhaps I should not be sketching it; but if you must have a definition, perhaps this will do for the present—to say it is the look of home which things have in a strange place; and perhaps, to a party of hungry girls, a prettily-arranged lunch on a rock, in the shade of a beech tree, with the light glancing up under it from a bend of brook below, would be as near an approach to that look as the circumstances would permit.”
“I wish you had been with me, Leonora, instead of that little imp of a berry girl. It was just that sense of not being at home that made that mountain life, at last, so unbearable to me. Yet home without that seemed so flat and lifeless, down on a dead level, with not a street or garden but could be counted and measured. I thought if I could only have a hut on the mountain side, with a goat or a dog, or something to give life to it.”
“With a little girl or an old woman to do the work,” said Effie.
“And some of us to come and take tea with you every other afternoon,” said Kate, “out in front of the house, with that great view before us. Would it not be charming?”
“Would you believe it! I talked with that child as if she had been my dearest friend, and I should be afraid to tell you how near I crept to her side that night, as we slept under the shelf of rock. What I should have done without her I do not know. I knew the next night, as you shall hear; for, do you believe, that creature, after all I had done for her—”
“What had you done for her?” asked Kate.
“Why, I had—well, I had treated her like a friend, besides giving her fourpence for carrying my bundle, and another for her share of the blackberries, though I never thought of it till this moment, I believe she had picked them all. In the morning, after waking rather cold and with a feeling as if I had been jolted all night on a rough road, though nothing could be more different from travelling than that still rock,—how still it was, and every thing else too in that early dawn, every thing gray and unsocial!—I tried to call out to break the silence; but the sound of my voice frightened me. Just then the sun began to stream over the tops of the trees, and a blue-jay pierced the air with a scream, as if from the heart of the wilderness, and yet as if he had a right there which I had not—as if he was at home while I was only thinking of it. There was a harsh warmth in that single note, as if the sunlight was to him what a good fire would have been to me, which I believe I needed sadly, for it was at that time in the autumn, when the nights are cold, though the days are so warm. I said that the sense of not being at home was at last unbearable; I had not come to that point yet, and I resolved, come what might, that I would stay on the mountain till I should feel as much at home as the blue-jay, for I felt how really splendid such a life was, even though I had had no breakfast; for I forgot to say that, seeing a house at a distance, down the mountain, and having a little money left, after what I had given the day before to that ungrateful girl, I gave it all to her, to go down and buy something for us to eat. Just this once, I thought, and then we will live like the birds and the squirrels. Yes, said I to the distant house, as if it were the civilized world, I have now parted with the last link that binds me to thee, and repeated aloud, in the excitement of the moment, 'I have burned the ships behind me! I have cast the die, and passed the Rubicon!' I must tell you that after I had given utterance to these words, I turned round involuntarily to see if there were not half a dozen of you girls behind me; and nothing can give a better idea of the solitude of the place than that you were not. My only auditor was a little striped squirrel, who disappeared with a chit, leaving an acorn with the marks of his teeth upon it, which I picked up, wondering if I could not also live upon acorns. I bit it, and found it could be eaten in case of necessity. Now, I thought, I can be entirely independent of all the unnecessary comforts of civilized life. Wherever I may be, I can earn my own living by adapting myself to the place, and assimilating to myself the fruit of every situation.”
“The what?” said Effie.
“Well, I cannot remember exactly what I was philosophizing about. The other day I found in one of my old dresses that very acorn with the marks of my teeth and those of the squirrel upon it; I tried to bite it again, but it was so hard that I could make no impression upon it. Then it brought all that day's questioning back to me, and I thought if I had only finished and settled it then, while it was new and soft, I could have made it clear for my whole life perhaps, instead of letting it go as I did, till it is so hard now that I must leave it where it is, and go back to that girl, for whom I waited and waited until I was almost famished. Then I looked around, and there were the rocks all waiting so silently, and looking as if they had been waiting for ages, and could wait ages longer; and there was I, like that single blade of grass growing in the crevice of one of them, with only a summer to see and know them all. I could bear it no longer, and rushed wildly down the mountain in hopes to meet the girl; for any human face, even hers, would be better than that eternal silence. The motion restored my courage, and before I had gone far I felt ashamed of what seemed a retreat. I wonder if any of you ever feel so about any thing that you particularly dread, that if you do not meet it then and overcome it, it will come up again and again all your life, each time more fearful than before, and harder to conquer. I felt so then, and determined I would not give way; so I turned to retrace my steps; but I had rushed down at such a rate, that I could not remember the way, and taking, as I thought, the general direction, I went up and up, till I lost myself in a labyrinth of rocks, that grew higher and higher, and I saw that I had taken entirely the wrong way. But I was too tired to go farther, and finding some bushes covered with blackberries, which I suppose no one but myself had ever seen, I began to pick them for my late breakfast. When I had picked enough,—and if you ever want to know how good blackberries are, you must pick them, as I did, when there is nothing else to be had,—thinking I had time enough before me to find my way out, I sat down in the shade of a rock, and gradually lost myself in that great dream of a day. What a day it was! I wondered if they were always such on the mountains; it seemed to have an existence of its own, and I could understand how a day can be as a thousand years. The insects murmured, and buzzed, and chirped about me, as if they had such a sense of it, and were concentrating all life into their little existence, perhaps as long to them as my life to me, which I am sure would not be long enough to remember and tell all that I thought of in that day.
“Then at last I began to come back to my former life, which seemed already so far back, and to think of a little, common school day, and what you were all doing. They have had the forenoon recitations, I thought; they have had dinner, and now,—where can that girl be? I exclaimed, as I looked up and saw that the sun had left one side of the ravine in the shade, and that I must hasten to find my way out. But the farther I went, the more I became involved, and at last I became aware, all at once, that I was lost. It was as if some one had made the announcement to me, and I received it at first with calmness, or as if it was felt suddenly by something within me, and had not yet come to my understanding; but I knew it was coming, and though I was perfectly calm, a great deal more so than I am now in telling it, I walked quickly to a place where I could sit down, and when I reached it, trembled so that I had to lean against a rock for support. I did not then comprehend my situation, or hardly think of it. I only felt frightened about myself, and thought if I could only get my breath, or if my heart would beat, or stop beating, whichever it was, and the tremor would pass off, I could look the danger calmly in the face. At last I recovered so far as to feel all that had burst upon me at once come back, step by step, till the truth of my situation stood before me, solid and bare as those cruel rocks. It was late in the afternoon when you could see, in the sunbeams over the shaded ravine, every insect; not a breath of air stirring the leaves, and the great cliffs overhanging, as if just ready to fall. The silence was stifling, and I tried to scream; but the sound of my voice was so faint and childish, among those great rocks, that I threw myself on the ground in an agony of terror, and if I had ever wished for a good cry, I had it then. If it had been on the open mountain side, or any where else but shut in there among those rocks!—but I really felt they were closing in upon me, and would crush me. I cried till I was too weak for fear, and then I found myself thinking of the blade of grass in the crevice of the rock, and I seemed to be that grass blade, and lifting at one end that whole weight of rock, never to get out of the place till I succeeded; and then I thought of the tender flower stem, which I had read of, lifting the heavy clod, and I tried to be quiet, (if I struggled or moved I knew I should be crushed,) and to pervade that whole mass with the gentle pressure, till I could lift it from off me. This sense seemed a new breath of air in my lungs, to keep the mountain from pressing me flat beneath it; and now I seemed to myself breathing my own life into the inert mass, till imperceptibly it became lighter and lighter, and at last I was free.
“When I waked up the stars were shining over me, and I seemed to be set into the dewy ground, I had lain there so long. I positively thought for a moment I had been actually crushed, instead of only dreaming it, and that my body lay dead beneath me; for I could neither stir hand nor foot, and every thing seemed so cold and distinct about me. I saw a moment after that this was because I was chilled through by the night air and dew; but the sensation was so pleasant—to feel free like a spirit—that I remained just as I waked. How I did think of every thing that night! There I was, lost; but I had lost all fear of that, so long as I was sure of being there myself. This seemed a new starting-point, which it was strange I had never thought of. Suppose I should be where I had been in the morning; I should know almost as little where I was as now; for without that girl's help I could never find my way back to the school; and if I were there I should still be lost, unless I knew my position in respect to every part of the world; and if I knew all that, still the earth would be a ship without a compass, unless I knew its place in reference to all the stars. The only place that I felt certain about, after all, was where I was, for I kept coming back to that; and then it seemed to me I was a ball of yarn, that had unrolled as it went, and now all I had to do was to wind it up to where it started from. Would not this lead, I thought, at last to the point from which all things have their place? Then I remembered the long, sharp teeth of that little squirrel, and how every animal has an organ which enables him to earn his own living in his own way, and it seemed unreasonable to think that man had not one to enable him to follow that clew. I had thought, at one time, of praying for a direct interposition of Providence, which I had heard was the shortest way of leading one out of trouble, for it seemed so much more direct, the clear space above, with nothing between me and the stars, than to be losing myself farther and farther among those black woods and rocks. But then, I thought, what is prayer but feeling our way along that thread? and is not mysenseof this the faculty by which I may follow it up? That thought was like a new sense of touch, and I felt the thread within my hand, and was certain that every thing has within itself the way out.
“While these thoughts were passing through my mind, they seemed gradually to become audible, and when they passed away, the same tone went on; and as I listened, I could hear, in the stillness of the night, the dripping and flowing of some little stream, far back in the mountain. As soon as it was light, I followed the sound, and then the brook, till it led me down the mountain to the open fields; and where do you think, girls, I came out? Why, up there on the cleared part of the mountain, directly in front of the school house.”
“I saw you when you came in at the gate,” exclaimed Fanny; “and what a sight you were! But that is always the way; we always come back to where we began. It is the reason, I believe, why we never have better stories nowadays.”
“You must allow there is some difference between coming back to the beginning, and merely being there because we have never been away. As for the story, I told you at the outset that you had nothing to expect. But come, Leonora; I have given you time for your point of view, as you call it; or perhaps, as I have come to a full stop, I can furnish you with one.”
“You could not give me a better, for I have been thinking all along that your story would almost do for mine.”
“Do look, girls, at what Nora has been drawing,” exclaimed Kate. “Here we all are just like life, only so much better. How charming it is, when we are all going on so, without thinking of any thing but what we are doing, to find we have been making a scene for some one else! It is just like sitting talking in a boat, and looking up suddenly, and finding ourselves afloat on the lake.”
“And you know I always enjoy more sitting on the shore, and seeing you, than being in the boat myself,” said Leonora. “It seems odd, perhaps, that such a scene of life as that is should remind me of Linda when she waked up and thought she was lying dead beside herself. But did you ever, Linda, feel more alive than at that moment?”
“I believe I had never thought of myself at all before. You know I said that all the time I was so troubled because I did not know where I was, I never once thought of being any where.”
“That, to be sure, is the most important, for it would be hardly worth while to go round the world to find where our house was situated, and to come back and find it occupied by some one else. That is often the case with those who travel from home, and I believe we must come back every night to be sure of not losing it.”
“How every thing brings in every thing else!” said Kate. “I believe you will never begin.”
“I soon learned that,” answered Leonora, “and that brings me to the beginning of my story, if you will have it that I am to tell one, though I would rather tell it in my own way, by drawing the illustrations to Linda's, which, as I said, would almost answer for mine; but why should it not, as we were each to tell something in our experience resembling Clara's?”
“Poor Clara! I had almost forgotten her,” said Fanny.
“None are poor but those who think themselves rich. How proud I felt of my first poor little drawings! How well I remember them! The house, and the fence before it, and the lattice in the garret window, and then the great elm and the brook, and by degrees the distant hill behind, for I kept adding to my pictures as I advanced, having to go back farther and farther for a point of view, till at last the hill on the outskirts of the village, overlooking the whole, was my favorite spot for sketching, if I may dignify my stiff little achievements by such a term. Still it was the house that was the centre of the picture; but, as Kate says, one thing leads to every thing, and I found there was no end to the things I must introduce; and yet they did not seem to belong to the house, but to be fastened to it in some way. I could not get them off, and remember, when some one was saying that a painter of his acquaintance could not get his pictures off his hands, feeling a certain pride in knowing that I was contending with one of the regular difficulties of the art. But at last I succeeded, in some degree, in getting my picture right, and did not altogether disbelieve what every one said at home, that it was beautiful. As I was led, however, farther and farther back, by the necessity for a wider view, the house began to have rather a subordinate look; but still it was my home, and nothing seemed a picture without it. As yet I had had no instruction, as you would easily believe if you should see my productions of that period, until one day, as I was bending over my drawing board, (I was very particular about my drawing paper then, and always had the best,) and had just got in the house, a shade fell across my picture, and looking up, I saw a young man with camp stool and portfolio slung across his shoulder, looking down at my work. I drew a little back, that he might see it better, rather pleased that he should see that I also was in that line. He glanced at the landscape, then looked again at my sketch with a smile. He had not said a word, and yet the opinion of all my family, aunts, cousins, and all, admiring my picture on a thanksgiving day after dinner, would not have weighed a straw with me against that smile. Yet he asked me to go on with it, which I did lest he should go away, looking up now and then, and seeing him regarding my work with the half-curious interest with which one would watch an ant-hill, till at last I threw down my pencil, and asked him if he would not oblige me with a sketch of his own.
“He gave one look at the landscape. What a look!—it was a new revelation to me in art,—like an eagle taking in the whole view at one sweep. He seemed to hold every hill and valley fixed with his eye as in a vice, and to weigh the place and proportion of every thing as in a balance, on the firm line of his mouth. All at one glance too; for, without unstrapping his camp stool, he placed his portfolio on his knee, kneeling on the other, and hardly looking up twice, handed me in a few minutes a complete sketch. I say a complete sketch, for I had not known till then that a sketch may be as complete as a finished picture. But I forget that my story also must be a sketch, and I will not spoil it by details which cannot be interesting to you.
“As soon as I saw his sketch, I found, to my astonishment, that he had left out the house altogether; and even the village he had put away at one side as of no importance. On mentioning the oversight, he took out his eye-glass and looked at the house, asking me what particular importance I attached to it. I timidly replied that I lived there.
“'Ah,' he exclaimed, and apologized for his omission, saying he would not forget so important a feature in the landscape. 'Come' said he, 'you shall be my guide over these hills, to which I am a stranger. Let us forget the house for a while, and look up a new view of the village, which does not come in very well here.' How strange it seemed to me that he should speak of the village where I had been born, as a thing to be introduced here or there at his convenience. Already his words seemed to set it afloat; but when, after a long detour, leaving it quite out of sight, we came suddenly upon the edge of the mountain, where the whole valley lay like a toy village almost directly under our feet, it was like a fairy enchantment. There was the actual village, every house and garden in its place, so near that it could be seen distinctly, and yet so far down that it had a foreign look. Then he took out a spy-glass, and adjusting it, handed it to me. 'Now for the house,' said he; and after carrying the tube over half the village, I exclaimed for joy. There I was directly at the gate; it was at the back of the house, and the forenoon work was going on as usual. My father was standing at the door giving some silent direction to the man, who seemed to answer him without saying a word, and Jane was going about like a historical personage, hanging out clothes.
“It was exactly as if I had been looking at a place I had been reading about in some old book; and yet the persons were so familiar to me, more so than ever. I handed the spy-glass to the stranger that he might share my delight, but he did not care to look. 'That is the way,' said he, 'all places look to me. To the artist the familiar is strange, and the strange familiar.'
“I only thought the remark was strange, and wondered if it would ever be familiar to me.
“Then he went on to describe the village as if he were looking at it, with me, through the glass. 'Do you see the old woman at the window, looking down the street? And the man asleep on the church steps? And the single figure crossing the green?' Just as if they were all regular figures in a picture, and not people who happened to be there at that moment, as they really were.
“'Now for something new!' he said, putting the glass in his pocket and leading me over the mountain. But nothing seemed new to him. He appeared to look at every view we came to as if he saw it for the first time after a long absence, and remembered every tree and stone in it. When I told him so, he sat down, and opening his portfolio in a place unlike any I had ever seen before, and not, I thought, particularly interesting, he began to sketch, and to tell me at the same time, so that I should not be tired, the old story which we have all read, (the first, I believe, we ever read,) but which I let him tell, it was so new as he told it, about the little child that was carried away by the gypsies, and years after, when they came back to his native country, strolled off till he came to the house where he was born; and the sense by degrees came over him that he had been there before, and it all became clearer and clearer, until at last the gate and the doorstep were no dream; and as he went over the whole story, he would give a touch here and a touch there, that seemed to waken a recollection in me, as if I were the little child he was telling about, coming nearer and nearer, till, with a few strokes, he finished the picture; and there, to be sure, was our very house, and Iwasthe little child he had been telling about. It was all perfectly clear to me, though it is a mystery even now how he could have made it so. When I looked again, I saw it was not exactly our house; and yet it looked even more like it than if it had been, and there was nothing in it that I could have altered without spoiling the picture.
“Then he would walk on, and sit down again and take another view with a different house, but with the same home-like look, and yet exactly suiting the landscape. And at last he would draw places without any houses at all, and yet as if a human being was looking at them, to whom they were in some way a home, just as he drew my bonnet and portfolio on the edge of a hill, so that any one would have known I was somewhere about.
“As we went back, at the close of the day, every object he pointed out seemed to light up with a life of its own, and every step we took was like finding a bird's nest in the grass. He parted with me in the road, saying that he had left his horse somewhere on the hill where he had found me in the morning, and that he should remember the day with pleasure.
“As for me, I thought, as I walked slowly homeward towards the fading sunset, that I never should remember any thing else. When I have read since of the great days of Creation, which are believed to have been years of our time, I have thought of that day, and it has not seemed necessary that the old time should have been different from ours. It seemed an age since I had left the village in the morning, and every thing looked as it does when we go home at the end of term.”
“We seem so much older, too, then,” said Fanny, “and as if we had seen so much, and should meet ourselves at the gate, little things as we were when we left.”
“I thought of myself, and my little sketches of the morning, as if I had been a tame pigeon pecking about before the door, with its little, short feet; and now I had seen the eagle which I had heard of, and his great wings had opened for me all the wide space behind the rim of the hills which enclosed the village. And yet it looked all the more like home for being encompassed with that great region. Every thing looked so old, with a new meaning, and as I approached the house, it looked as it had when I saw it through the spy-glass, and the gate, as I opened it in the stillness of the twilight, seemed to say, with its creak, 'The familiar made strange;' for these words were to me like a sentence in old German text in an English book.
“As I was dressing for tea, I heard the sound of a horse's hoofs, and a moment after a knock at the door. Could I ever know the meaning of those other words of his, 'The strange made familiar,' as I did when I heard it in the sound of the stranger's voice?
“He had called with my portfolio, which he had carried for me, and I had forgotten to take from him. I heard my father inviting him in, and when I went down, there was my eagle sitting at the tea table, bending forward, courteously, to take a cup from my sister, like any other visitor.
“'You see I am keeping my promise,' he said, 'not to forget the house which I treated with such neglect in the morning.'
“I was too bewildered with the joy of my surprise to make any reply; and taking my seat, which happened to be next his, I could only sit in silence, and try to comprehend my happiness. It was as if I understood perfectly the answer to some riddle, without knowing what the riddle was. The china on the table, and the people, had always given me the feeling of being fixed to it, like a doll's tea set, where the table and dishes are all in one piece; and it made no difference how learned or profound my father's visitors might be; when they spoke it gave me the unpleasant sensation of taking up your cup and having the saucer come with it.
“Then, too, we were all so near at home, that we never gave each other room; and if we did, it was by going away entirely.
“But here was a person who set every one off at a respectful distance, himself among the rest, and yet preserved their relation to himself and each other by encouraging their peculiarities, outside of that limit, and set us all agoing by placing us at the right point of view, with, in some mysterious way, the common sense of the whole party as spectator; so that we were like figures in a landscape, which, while we were looking at them, I knew, without knowing why, to be ourselves.
“Even grandmother, who always comes dead upon a stranger, and there is no shaking her off, could not get within the charmed circle, but had to keep in her orbit; and really she appeared like quite an entertaining old lady, and all the more so for her peculiar style of conversation, which is apt to be the family consternation at table. Our little group that evening reminded me of a system of stars revolving around each other, with a general motion of the whole in reference to some point without, which I had a sense of, though I did not understand it; but I felt sure that our stranger did; and this, I think, was what attracted me towards him, for I felt the need of something out of the sphere of everlasting praises for wretched little drawings, which I knew were only good so far as their defects showed there was something better. Now, he stood on the outside of all the things that he drew, and I knew he could see them as they were.”
“I am sure I am on the outside of all you are saying,” interrupted Kate. “Which of us was it who hoped to get rid of moralizing by calling upon Nora for a story?”
“Pictures themselves, as Anna said, may perhaps have no moral; at least, they are not so prosy in telling it as I am; but those who have no moral, no idea, are not usually the persons who paint them. But I see I have been going out of my province; for a picture, whatever else it may be, should be intelligible, and the painter's account of himself ought to be no less so. So I will not tell you how I learned from one person, who had a place to stand upon, how nothing can be seen as it is by one who has none. I have at least learned to prefer standing on my feet to having even so excellent a teacher as Mr. Moran for palanquin bearer.”
“No doubt he would be glad if we all would relieve him, in the same way, of a burden which he carries with such resignation,” said Anna. “But he certainly will be much indebted to you for the valuable information you can give him in regard to your fixed point, although I believe the only point he thinks of when here, is that on the clock, which marks the end of his hour.”
“I am not so presumptuous as to think a school girl's ideas could be of any value to an artist like him, though, if we may believe men, they all draw from us their best inspirations. Perhaps, after all, it is the destiny of us girls, in some unconscious way, with the finer instinct which men attribute to us, to spend our lives in winding up Linda's ball of yarn for them to throw out again.”
“Thank Heaven the ball is wound up so far!” said Kate. “Now, Ella, do break off the thread, and give it to the fairies to play with.”
“O, yes, Ella, do! After all this scraping and tuning, let us have the dance at last,” said Effie.
“Positively I have not a word of it ready,” answered Ella. “I thought of something when I spoke, but it was like turning a kaleidoscope; with every turn it became something else. And then I began to listen to Linda, and to Leonora, and my story became so confused with theirs, that you would not know it for a fairy story, if I should tell it to you; but if you will let me off until I disentangle it, Anna, I know, will take my place, for she never wants a moment's notice. If you should wake her up in the middle of the night, and ask her for a story, she would immediately begin with 'Once upon a time,' and go on telling it after we were all asleep. Come, Anna, take the kaleidoscope, and I will give you the princess, the castle, the grim father, and the disappointed suitors for beads to put in it. So give it a turn, and let us see what it will be.”
“There was once a princess, who was the most beautiful who had ever been seen—”
“O, of course!” interrupted Kate. “Who ever heard of a princess, in a story, who was not?”
“Did you ever hear, my dear, of one who was so beautiful that of all her maids of honor (each of whom was so beautiful herself, that a whole village would go crazy about her if she but drove through it) not one, however they might dispute for the preference among themselves, ever thought of raising the least pretension to beauty in her presence? There never was but one such, and that was my princess.
“Although her father, who was the wealthiest and haughtiest prince of all that region, lived in a castle so grand and stately, and although in sight of the highway, separated from it by grounds so severely elegant and august, that except for the beautiful princess no one would have ventured to approach it, yet it was open to all, and many a bold youth, who had heard of her fame, preserved his courage all along the avenue, until he reached the stately front door, nor remembered, until it was opened by the awful footman, that he did not know whom to ask for.
“For it seems the people, through the influence, probably, of the maids of honor, had begun to copy the manners of the court, and every pretty girl in the country had begun to fancy herself a princess; and one day when her father was walking through the town, he was so annoyed at hearing every third child called by his daughter's name, that he went home, and shut her up in the castle, and declared she should never again be called by any name, until some one should come who would give her his own. You may be sure there were not wanting youths who would have been happy to present her with such a gift; and it was not long before she numbered among her suitors the princes of all the provinces in the kingdom, each of whom had appeared at the castle gate with full assurance that his name would be one which the princess would be only too happy to accept. But their names were not so powerful at court as at home. The maids of honor, each of whom was a princess in her own country, did not fail, like mischievous things as they were, to take advantage of the confusion arising from there being no name for the princess, to go down when any one was announced, in one of her dresses,—of which you may imagine the number when I tell you she never wore the same twice,—and impose herself on the unsuspecting visitor, as the princess whom he wished to see. What fun, to be sure, all the rest must have had, listening at the half-open door of the next room, to hear the protestations, one after another, of these poor, deluded lovers, each to a different lady! They did not once think what troubles might arise among so many suitors, each of whom considered himself as the chosen one, if they should happen to meet where the princess was the subject of conversation. However, this very circumstance, which occurred, turned out for the benefit of the princess, if not of the suitors; for a young nobleman in their company, hearing them disagree so widely in their descriptions of her beauty, very naturally concluded that each had seen a different one, and that neither, perhaps, had seen the princess herself. So he called the next day to see for himself, and soon found, charming as the young lady was who came down to see him, that she was assuming the air of a higher personage than herself; for one who knows what he seeks is not so easily put off by appearances. So he took leave, and coming next day in disguise, beheld another lady; and so every day, until he had seen them all, and satisfied himself that he had not seen their mistress. With all their grace and beauty there was an air about them as of reflected light, and he fancied he detected now and then a listening kind of look, as if the main life of the house was going on somewhere else. Yet he did not wonder at the passion of the suitors, for each of these maids of honor was so lovely, that the lifetime of almost any man would not have been too much to devote to her. But he looked at them as one looks at the moon when waiting for the daybreak, and was not long in sending a message by the footman, that brought down the princess herself, who entered the room in all her loveliness, leaning upon the arm of her father. A single glance sufficed to tell the youth that she was indeed the princess that his heart had foretold, but also that he never could win her without the consent of the stern old monarch upon whom she leaned. Nor did he feel dismayed, for he also valued that ancestral pride, nor without reason; for in the veins of the poor young nobleman also ran the blood of a royal line, although the sword that hung at his side was all that was left him of its former glory; and the old king might have seen it flashing in his eye with a trace of the old splendor, as he boldly asked the hand of his daughter. But though the father frowned, the daughter smiled, for the glance of the youth had sparkled in her heart, as if it were already the marriage ring upon her finger.