Betweenthree and four the next morning, the robin in the nest above Mary’s room stretched out his left wing, opened one eye, and gave a short and rather drowsy chirp, which broke up his night’s rest and restored him to the full consciousness that he was a bird with wings and feathers—a large apple-tree to live in, and all heaven for an estate—and so, on these fortunate premises, he broke into a gush of singing, clear and loud, which Mary without waking heard in her slumbers.
Scarcely conscious, she lay in that dim clairvoyant state, when the half-sleep of the outward senses permits a delicious dewy clearness of the soul; that perfect ethereal rest and freshness of faculties, comparable only to what we imagine of the spiritual state. Season of celestial enchantment, in which the heavy weight ‘of all this unintelligible world’ drops off, and the soul, divinely charmed, nestles like a wind-tossed bird in the protecting bosom of the One all Perfect, all Beautiful. What visions then come to the inner eye have often no words corresponding in mortal vocabularies. The poet, the artist, and the prophet in such hours become possessed of divinecertainties, which all their lives they struggle, with pencil or song, or burning words, to make evident to their fellows. The world around wonders, buttheyare unsatisfied, because they haveseen the gloryand know how inadequate the copy. But not merely to selectest spirits come these hours, but to those (humble poets) ungifted with utterance, who are among men as fountains sealed; whose song can be wrought out only by the harmonyof deeds; the patient, pathetic melodies of tender endurance, or the heroic chant of undiscouraged labour. The poor slave woman last night parted from her only boy, and weary with the cotton-picking; the captive pining in his cell; the patient wife of the drunkard, saddened by a consciousness of the growing vileness of one once so dear; the delicate spirit doomed to harsh and uncongenial surroundings;—all in such hours feel the soothings of a celestial harmony, the tenderness of more than a mother’s love. It is by such hours as these often, more than by reasonings or disputings, that doubts are resolved in the region of religious faith. The All-Father treats us as the mother does her ‘infant crying in the dark;’ He does not reason with our fears, or demonstrate their fallacy, but draws us silently to His bosom, and we are at peace. Nay, there have been those undoubtedly who have known God falsely with the intellect, yet felt Him truly with the heart; and there may be many, principally among the unlettered little ones of Christ’s flock, who positivelyknowthat much that is dogmatically propounded to them of their Redeemer is cold, barren, unsatisfying, and even utterly false, who yet can give no account of their certainties better than that of the inspired fisherman, ‘We know Him, and have seen Him.’
It was in such hours as these that Mary’s deadly fears for the soul of her beloved had passed away, passed out of her, as if some warm healing nature of tenderest vitality had drawn out of her heart all pain and coldness, and warmed it with the breath of an eternal summer. So, while the purple shadows spread their gauzy veils inwove with fire along the sky, and the gloom of the sea broke out here and there into lines of light, and thousands of birds were answering to each other from apple-tree, and meadow-grass, and top of jagged rock, or trooping in bands hither and thither like angels on loving messages, Mary lay there with the flickering light through the leaves fluttering over her face, and the glow of dawn warming the snow-white draperies of the bed, and giving a tender rose hue to the calm cheek. She lay half conscious,smiling the while, as one who sleeps while the heart waketh, and who hears in dreams the voice of the One Eternally Beautiful and Beloved.
Mrs. Scudder entered her room, and thinking that she still slept, stood and looked down upon her. She felt as one does who has parted with some precious possession, a sudden sense of its value coming over her; and she queried in herself whether any living mortal were worthy of so perfect a gift; and nothing but a remembrance of the Doctor’s prostrate humility at all reconciled her to the sacrifice she was making.
‘Mary, dear,’ she said, bending over her with an unusual infusion of emotion in her voice; ‘darling child.’
The arms moved instinctively, even before the eyes unclosed, and drew her mother down to her with a warm clinging embrace.
Love in Puritan families was often like latent caloric,—an all-pervading force that affected no visible thermometer, shown chiefly by a noble, silent confidence, a ready helpfulness, but seldom out-breathed in caresses,—yet natures like Mary’s always craved these outward demonstrations, and sprang towards them as a trailing vine sways to the nearest support. It was delightful for once fully tofeelhow much her mother loved her, as well as toknowit.
‘Dear, precious mother, do you love me so very much?’
‘I live and breathe in you, Mary,’ said Mrs. Scudder, giving vent to herself in one of those trenchant short-hand expressions, wherein positive natures incline to résuméallwhen they must speak at all.
Mary held her mother silently to her breast, her heart shining through her face with a quiet radiance of love.
‘Do you feel happy this morning?’ said Mrs. Scudder.
‘Very, very,veryhappy, mother.’
‘I am so glad to hear you say so,’ said Mrs. Scudder, who, to say the truth, had entertained many doubts at her pillow the night before.
Mary began dressing herself in a state of calm exaltation. Every trembling leaf on the tree, every sunbeam was like a loving smile of God, every fluttering breeze like His voice, full of encouragement and hope.
‘Mother, did you tell the Doctor what I said last night?’
‘I did, my darling.’
‘Then, mother, I would like to see him a few moments alone.’
‘Well, Mary, he is in his study at his morning devotions.’
‘That is just the time. I will go to him.’
The Doctor was sitting by the window, and the honest-hearted motherly lilacs, a-bloom for the third time since our story began, were filling the air with their sweetness. Suddenly the door opened, and Mary entered in her simple white short-gown and skirt, her eyes calmly radiant, and her whole manner having something serious and celestial. She came directly towards him, and put out both her little hands with a smile half child-like, half angelic, and the Doctor bowed his head, and covered his face with his hands.
‘Dear friend,’ said Mary, kneeling, and taking his hands, ‘if you want me, I am come. Life is but a moment. There is an eternal blessedness just beyond us, and for the little time between, I will be all I can to you if you will only show me how.’
And the Doctor—— No, young man, the study door closed just then, and no one heard those words from a quaint old oriental book which told that all the poetry of that grand old soul had burst into flower, as the aloe blossoms once in a hundred years. The ripples of that great heart might have fallen unconsciously into phrases from that one love poem of the Bible which these men read so purely and devoutly, and which warmed the icy clearness of their intellects with the myrrh and spices of ardent lands, where earthly and heavenly love meet and blend in one indistinguishable horizon line, like sea and sky.
‘Who is she that looketh forth as the morning, fair as the moon? clear as the sun? My dove, my undefiled, is but one.She is the only one of her mother—thou art all fair, my beloved, there is no spot in thee.’
The Doctor might have said all this, we will not say he did, nor will we say he did not; all we know is, that when the breakfast-table was ready they came out cheerfully together. Madame de Frontignac stood in a fresh white wrapper, with a few buttercups in her hair, waiting for the breakfast. She was startled to see the Doctor entering all radiant, leading in Mary by the hand, and looking as if he thought she were some dream-miracle which might dissolve under his eyes unless he kept fast hold of her. The keen eyes shot their arrowy glance, which went at once to the heart of the matter. Madame de Frontignac knew they were engaged, and regarded Mary with attention.
The calm, sweet, elevated expression of her face struck her; it struck her also thatthatwas not the light of any earthly love, that it had no thrill, no blush, no tremor, but only the calmness of a soul that knows itself no more, and she sighed involuntarily.
She looked at the Doctor, and seemed to study attentively a face which happiness had made this morning as genial and attractive as it was generally strong and fine.
There was little said at the breakfast-table this morning; and yet the loud singing of the birds, the brightness of the sunshine, the life and vigour of all things, seemed to make up for the silence of those who were too well pleased to speak.
‘Eh bien, ma chère,’ said Madame, after breakfast, drawing Mary into her little room. ‘C’est fini?’
‘Yes,’ said Mary, cheerfully.
‘Thou art content,’ said Madame, passing her arm around her; ‘well then, I should be: but, Mary, it is like a marriage with the altar, like taking the veil, is it not?’
‘No,’ said Mary, ‘it is not taking the veil, it is beginning a cheerful, reasonable life with a kind, noble friend who will always love me truly, and whom I hope to make as happy as he deserves.’
‘I think well of him, my little cat,’ said Madame, reflectively;‘but—,’ she stopped something she was going to say, and kissed Mary’s forehead; after a moment’s pause, she added,
‘One must have love or refuge, Mary; this is thy refuge, child; thou wilt have peace in it;’ she sighed again.
‘Enfin,’ she said, resuming her gay tone, ‘what shall bela toilette de noce?Thou shalt have Verginie’s pearls, my fair one, and look like a sea-born Venus;tiens!let me try them in thy hair.’
And in a few moments she had Mary’s long hair down, and was chattering like a blackbird, wreathing the pearls in and out, and saying a thousand pretty nothings, weaving grace and poetry into the strait thread of Puritan life.
Theannouncement of the definite engagement of two such bright particular stars in the hemisphere of the Doctor’s small parish excited the interest that such events usually create among the faithful of the flock.
There was a general rustle and flutter, as when a covey of wild pigeons has been started, and all the little elves who rejoice in the name of ‘says he,’ and ‘says I,’ and ‘do tell,’ and ‘have you heard,’ were speedily flying through the consecrated air of the parish.
The fact was discussed by matrons and maidens at the spinning-wheel and in the green clothes-yard, or at the foaming wash-tub, out of which arose a new birth of weekly freshness and beauty. Many a rustic Venus of the foam, as she splashed her dimpled elbows in the rainbow-tinted froth, talked what should be done for the forthcoming solemnities, and wondered what Mary would have on when she was married, and whether she (the Venus) should get an invitation to the wedding, and whether ‘Ethan’ would go—not that she cared in the least whether he did or not.
Grave elderly matrons talked about the ‘prosperity of Zion,’ which they imagined intimately connected with the event of their minister’s marriage; and descending from ‘Zion,’ speculated on bed-quilts and table-cloths, and rummaged their own clean, sweet-smelling stores, fragrant with balm and rose-leaves, to lay out a bureau cover, or a pair of sheets, or a dozen napkins for the wedding outfit.
The solemnest of solemn quiltings was resolved upon.
Miss Prissy declared that she fairly couldn’t sleep nights withthe responsibility of the wedding-dresses in her mind; but yet she ‘must give one day to getting on that quilt.’ Thegrande mondealso was in motion. Mrs. General Wilcox called in her own particular carriage, bearing the present of a cashmere shawl for the bride, with the General’s best compliments, and also an oak-leaf pattern for quilting, which had been sent her from England, and which was authentically established to be that used on a petticoat belonging to the Princess Royal; and Mrs. Major Seaforth came also, bearing a scarf of worked Indian muslin; and Mrs. Vernon sent a splendid Indian china punch-bowl. Indeed, to say the truth, the notables high and mighty of Newport, whom the Doctor had so unceremoniously accused of building their houses with blood, and establishing their city with iniquity, considering that nobody seemed to take his words to heart, and that they were making money as fast as old Tyre, rather assumed the magnanimous, and patted themselves on the shoulder for this opportunity to show the Doctor that, after all, they were good fellows, and bore him no malice, though they did make money at the expense of thirty per cent. human life.
Simeon Brown was the only exception: he stood aloof, grim and sarcastic, and informed some good, middle-aged ladies who came to see if he would, as they phrased it, ‘esteem it a privilege’ to add his mite to the Doctor’s outfit, that he would give him a likely negro boy if he wanted, and if he was too conscientious to keep him, he might sell him at a fair profit; a happy stroke of humour, which he was fond of relating many years after.
The quilting was in these days considered as the most solemn and important recognition of a betrothal; and for the benefit of those not to the manner born, a little preliminary instruction may be necessary.
The good wives of New England, impressed with that thrifty orthodoxy of economy which forbids to waste the merest trifle, had a habit of saving every scrap and fragment clipped out in the fashioning of household garments; and these they cut into fanciful patterns, and constructed of them rainbow shapes and quaint traceries, the arrangement ofwhich became one of their few fine arts. Many a maiden, as she sorted and arranged fluttering bits of green, yellow, red, and blue, felt rising in her breast a passion for somewhat vague and unknown, which came out at length in a new pattern of patchwork; and collections of these tiny fragments were always ready to fill an hour when there was nothing else to do; and as the maiden chatted with her beaux, her busy, flying needle stitched together the pretty morsels, which, little in themselves, were destined by gradual unions and accretions to bring about at last substantial beauty, warmth, and comfort; emblems thus of that household life which is to be brought to stability and beauty by reverent economy in husbanding, and tact in arranging the little, useful, and agreeable morsels of daily existence.
When a wedding was forthcoming, then there was a solemn review of the stores of beauty and utility thus provided, and the patchwork-spread best worthy of such distinction was chosen for the quilting.
Thereto, duly summoned, trooped all intimate female friends of the bride, and the quilt being spread on a frame, and wadded with cotton, each vied with the other in the delicacy of the quilting they could put upon it; for quilting also was a fine art, and had its delicacies and nice points, concerning which, grave, elderly matrons discussed with judicious care. The quilting generally began at an early hour in the afternoon, and ended at dusk with a great supper and general jubilee, in which that ignorant and incapable sex who could not quilt were allowed to appear, and put in claims for consideration of another nature. It may perhaps be surmised that this expected reinforcement was often alluded to by the younger maidens, whose wickedly coquettish toilettes exhibited suspicious marks of that willingness to get a chance to say ‘No,’ which has been slanderously attributed to mischievous maidens.
In consequence of the tremendous responsibilities involved in this quilting, the reader will not be surprised to learn that the evening before Miss Prissy made her appearance at the brown cottage, armed with thimble, scissors, and pincushion, in order to relieve her mind by a little preliminary confabulation.
‘You see me, Miss Scudder, run almost to death,’ she said; ‘but I thought I would just run up to Mrs. Major Seaforth’s and see her best bedroom quilt, ’cause I wanted to have all the ideas we possibly could before I decided on the pattern. Hers is in shells—just common shells; nothing to be compared with Miss Wilcox’s oak-leaves; and I suppose there isn’t the least doubt that Miss Wilcox’s sister in London did get that from a lady who had a cousin who was governess in the royal family, and I just quilted a little bit to-day on an old piece of silk, and it comes out beautiful, and so I thought I would just come and ask you if you did not think it was best for us to have the oak-leaves.’
‘Well, certainly, Miss Prissy, if you think so,’ said Mrs. Scudder, who was as pliant to the opinions of this wise woman of the parish as New England matrons generally are to a reigning dressmaker and factotum.
Miss Prissy had the happy consciousness always that her early advent under any roof was considered a matter of special grace, and therefore it was with rather a patronizing tone that she announced that she would stay and spend the night with them.
‘I knew,’ she added, ‘that your spare chamber was full with that Madame de What-you-call-her (if I was to die I could not remember the woman’s name). Well, I thought I could just crawl in with you, Mary, most anywhere.’
‘That’s right, Miss Prissy,’ said Mary, ‘you shall be welcome to half my bed any time.’
‘Well, I knew you would say so, Mary; I never saw the thing you would not give away half of since you was that high,’ said Miss Prissy, illustrating her words by placing her hand about two feet from the floor.
Just at this moment Madame de Frontignac entered and asked Mary to come into her room, and give her advice as to a piece of embroidery. When she was gone out, Miss Prissy looked after her, and sank her voice once more to the confidential whisper which we before described.
‘I have heard strange stories about that French woman,’ she said; ‘but as she was here with you and Mary, I supposethere cannot be any truth in them. Dear me! the world is so censorious about women! But then, you know, we don’t expect much from French women. I suppose she is a Roman Catholic, and worships pictures and stone images; but then, after all, she has got an immortal soul, and I can’t help hoping Mary’s influence may be blest to her. They say when she speaks French she swears every few minutes; but if that is the way she was brought up, maybe she isn’t accountable. I think we can’t be too charitable for people that a’n’t privileged as we are. Miss Vernon’s Polly told me she has seen her sew Sabbath day. She came into her room of a sudden, and she was working on her embroidery there, and she never winked, nor blushed, nor offered to put it away, but sat there just as easy! Polly said she never was so beat in all her life; she felt kind o’ scared every time she thought of it. But now she has come here, who knows but she may be converted?’
‘Mary has not said much about her state of mind,’ said Mrs. Scudder; ‘but something of deep interest has passed between them. Mary is such an uncommon child that I trust everything to her.’
We will not dwell further on the particulars of this evening, nor describe how Madame de Frontignac reconnoitred Miss Prissy with keen, amused eyes; nor how Miss Prissy apprised Mary, in the confidential solitude of her chamber, that her fingers just itched to get hold of that trimming on that Madame de Frogsneck’s dress, because she was pretty nigh sure she could make some just like it; for she never saw any trimming she could not make.
The robin that lived in the apple-tree was fairly out-generalled the next morning, for Miss Prissy was up before him, tripping about the chamber on the points of her toes, and knocking down all the moveable things in the room in her efforts to be still, so as not to waken Mary; and it was not until she had finally upset the stand by the bed, with the candlestick, snuffers, and Bible on it, that Mary opened her eyes.
‘Miss Prissy! dear me! What is it you are doing?’
‘Why I am trying to be still, Mary, so as not to wake you up, and it seems to me as if everything was possessed to tumbledown so. But it is only half-past three, so you turn over and go to sleep.’
‘But, Miss Prissy,’ said Mary, sitting up in bed, ‘you are all dressed; where are you going?’
‘Well, to tell the truth, Mary, I am just one of those people that can’t sleep when they have got responsibility on their minds; and I’ve been lying awake more than an hour here, thinking about that quilt. There is a new way of getting it on to the frame that I want to try, ’cause you know when we quilted Cerinthy Stebbins’ it would trouble us in the rolling; and I have got a new way that I want to try, and I mean just to get it into the frame before breakfast. I was in hopes I should get out without waking any of you; and now I don’t know as I shall get by your mother’s door without waking her (’cause I know she works hard, and needs her rest); but that bedroom door squawks like a cat—enough to raise the dead!
‘Mary,’ she added, with sudden energy, ‘if I had the least drop of oil in a teacup, and a bit of quill, I’d stop that door making such a noise.’ And Miss Prissy’s eyes glowed with resolution.
‘I don’t know where you could find any at this time,’ said Mary.
‘Well, never mind, I’ll just go and open the door as slow and careful as I can,’ said Miss Prissy, as she trotted out of the apartment.
The result of her carefulness was very soon announced to Mary by a protracted sound resembling the mewing of a hoarse cat, accompanied with sundry audible grunts from Miss Prissy, terminating in a grand finale of clatter, occasioned by her knocking down all the pieces of the quilt-frame that stood in a corner of the room, with a concussion that roused everybody in the house.
‘What is that?’ called out Mrs. Scudder from her bedroom.
She was answered by two streams of laughter; one from Mary, sitting up in bed, and the other from Miss Prissy, holding her sides, as she sat dissolved in merriment on the sanded floor.
Bysix o’clock in the morning, Miss Prissy came out of the best room to the breakfast-table, with the air of a general who has arranged a campaign, her face glowing with satisfaction. All sat down together to their morning meal. The outside door was open into the green, turfy yard, and the apple-tree, now nursing stores of fine yellow jennetings, looked in at the window. Every once in a while, as a breeze shook the leaves, a fully ripe apple might be heard falling to the ground, at which Miss Prissy would bustle up from the table and rush to secure the treasure.
As the meal waxed to its close, the rattling of wheels was heard at the gate, and Candace was discerned, seated aloft in the one-horse waggon, with her usual complements of baskets and bags.
‘Well, now, dear me! if there is not Candace,’ said Miss Prissy; ‘I do believe Mrs. Marvyn has sent her with something for the quilting;’ and out she flew as nimble as a humming-bird, while those in the house heard various exclamations of admiration, as Candace, with stately dignity, disinterred from the waggon one basket after another, and exhibited to Miss Prissy’s enraptured eyes sly peeps under the white napkins by which they were covered. And then, lodging a large basket on either arm, she rolled majestically towards the house, like a heavy-laden Indiaman coming in after a fat voyage.
‘Good morning, Mrs. Scudder. Good morning, Doctor,’ she said, dropping her curtsy on the door-step; ‘good morning, Miss Mary. You see our folks were stirring pretty early this morning, and Mrs. Marvyn sent me down withtwo or three little things.’ Setting down her baskets on the floor, and seating herself between them, she proceeded to develop their contents with ill-concealed triumph. One basket was devoted to cakes of every species, from the great Mont Blanc loaf-cake, with its snowy glaciers of frosting, to the twisted cruller and puffy dough-nut. In the other basket lay pots of golden butter curiously stamped, reposing on a bed of fresh green leaves, while currants, red and white, and delicious cherries and raspberries, gave a final finish to the picture. From a basket which Miss Prissy brought in from the rear, appeared cold fowl and tongue, delicately prepared, and shaded with feathers of parsley. Candace, whose rollicking delight in the good things of this life was conspicuous in every emotion, might have famished to a painter, as she sat in a brilliant turban, an idea for an African genius of plenty.
‘Why, really, Candace,’ said Mrs. Scudder, ‘you are overwhelming us!’
‘Ho! ho! ho!’ said Candace, ‘I’se tellin’ Miss Marvyn folks don’t get married but once in their lives (gen’rally speaking, that is), and then they ought to have plenty to do it with.’
‘Well, I must say,’ said Miss Prissy, taking out the loaf-cake with busy assiduity, ‘I must say, Candace, this does beat all!’
‘I should rather think it ought,’ said Candace, bridling herself with proud consciousness; ‘if it don’t it a’n’t ’cause old Candace ha’n’t put enough into it. I tell ye, I didn’t do nothing all day yesterday but just make dat ar cake. Cato, when he got up, he begun to talk something about his shirt buttons, and I just shet him right up. Says I, “Cato, when I’se really got cake to make for a great ’casion, I want my mindjustas quiet andjustas serene as if I was agoin’ to the meetin’. I don’t want no earthly cares on it. Now,” says I, “Cato, the old Doctor is going to be married, and dis yer is his quiltin’ cake, and Miss Mary, she’s going to be married, and dis yer isherquiltin’ cake. And dare’ll be everybody to dat ar quiltin’, and if de cake a’n’t right, why, ’twould be puttin’ acandle under a bushel. And so, says I, Cato, your buttons must wait.” And Cato, he sees the ’priety of it, ’cause though he can’t make cake like me, he’s a mazin’ good judge of it, and is dre’ful tickled when I slip out a little loaf for his supper.’
‘How is Mrs. Marvyn?’ said Mrs. Scudder.
‘Kinder thin and shimmery, but she is about, havin’ her eyes everywhere and looking into everything. She just touches things with the tips of her fingers and they seem to go like. She’ll be down to the quiltin’ this afternoon. But she told me to take the things and come down and spend the day here; for Mrs. Marvyn and I both knows how many steps must be taken such times, and we agreed you ought to favour yourselves all you could.’
‘Well, now,’ said Miss Prissy, lifting up her hands, ‘if that a’n’t what ’tis to have friends! Why, that was one of the things I was thinking of as I lay awake last night: because you know at times like these people run their feet off before the time begins, and then they are all limpsey and lop-sided when the time comes. Now, I say, Candace, all Mrs. Scudder and Mary have to do is to give everything up to us, and we’ll put it through straight.’
‘That’s what we will,’ said Candace. ‘Just show me what’s to be done, and I’ll do it.’
Candace and Miss Prissy soon disappeared together into the pantry with the baskets, whose contents they began busily to arrange. Candace shut the door that no sound might escape, and began a confidential outpouring to Miss Prissy.
‘You see,’ she said, ‘I hasfeelin’sall the while for Miss Marvyn; ’cause, yer see, she was expectin’, if ever Mary was married—well—that it would be to somebody else, you know.’
Miss Prissy responded with a sympathetic groan.
‘Well,’ said Candace, ‘if it had been anybody but the Doctor,Iwould not have been resigned. But after all he has done for my colour, there a’n’t nothing I could find it in my heart to grudge him. But then I was tellin’ Cato the other day, says I, “Cato, I don’t know about the rest of theworld, but I ha’n’t never felt it in my bones that Master James is really dead, for sartin. Now I feels thingsgen’rally, butsomethings I feelsin my bones, and them always comes true. And that ar is a feelin’ I ha’n’t had about Master Jim yet, and that ar is what I’m waitin’ for ’fore I clear make up my mind. Tho’ I know, ’cordin’ to all white folks’ way o’ thinkin’, there a’n’t no hope, ’cause ’Squire Marvyn he had that Jeduth Pettibone up to his house, a questioning on him off and on, nigh about three hours. And reely I didn’t see no hope no way, except just this, as I was tellin’ Cato,I can’t feel it in my bones.”‘
Candace was not versed enough in the wisdom of the world to know that she belonged to a large and respectable school of philosophers in this particular mode of testing evidence, which, after all, the reader will perceive has its conveniences.
‘Another thing,’ said Candace, ‘as much as a dozen times, dis yer last year, when I have been a-scourin’ knives, a fork has fell and stuck straight up in the floor: and the last time I pinted it out to Miss Marvyn, and she only just said, “Why, what of that, Candace?”’
‘Well,’ said Miss Prissy, ‘I don’t believe insigns, but then strange things do happen. Now about dogs howling under windows; why, I don’t believe in it a bit, but I never knew it fail that there was a death in the house after.’
‘Ah, I tell ye what,’ said Candace, looking mysterious, ‘dogs knows a heap more than they likes to tell!’
‘Just so,’ said Miss Prissy; ‘now I remember one night, when I was watching with Miss Colonel Andrews, after Martha Ann was born, that we heard themournfullesthowling that ever you did hear. It seemed to come from right under the front stoop; and Miss Andrews, she just dropped the spoon in her gruel, and says she, “Miss Prissy, do for pity’s sake just go down and see what that noise is.” And I went down, and lifted up one of the loose boards of the stoop, and what should I see there but their Newfoundland pup; there that creature had dug a grave, and was a-sitting by it crying.’
Candace drew near to Miss Prissy, dark with expressive interest, as her voice, in this awful narration, sank to a whisper.
‘Well,’ said Candace, after Miss Prissy had made something of a pause.
‘Well, I told Miss Andrews I didn’t think there was anything in it,’ said Miss Prissy; ‘but,’ she added, impressively, ‘she lost a very dear brother six months after, and I laid him out with my own hands—yes, laid him out in white flannel.’
‘Some folks say,’ said Candace, ‘that dreaming about white horses is a certain sign. Jinny Styles is very strong about that. Now she came down one morning crying, ’cause she had been dreaming about white horses, and she was sure she should hear some friend was dead. And sure enough, a man came in that day and told her that her son was drown’d out in the harbour. And Jinny said, “There, she was sure that sign never would fail.” But then, ye see, that night he came home. Jinny wan’t reely disappointed, but she always insisted he wasas good as drowned, any way, “’cause he sank three times.”’
‘Well, I tell you,’ said Miss Prissy, ‘there are a great many more things in this world than folks know about.’
‘So they are,’ said Candace. ‘Now, I ha’n’t never opened my mind to nobody; but there’s a dream I’ve had, three mornings running, lately. I dreamed I see Jim Marvyn a-sinking in the water, and stretching up his hands. And then I dreamed that I see the Lord Jesus come a-walking on the water, and take hold of his hand, and says He, “O thou of little faith, wherefore didst thou doubt?” And then He lifted him right out. And I ha’n’t said nothing to nobody, ’cause you know the Doctor,—he says people must not mind nothing about their dreams, ’cause dreams belong to the old ’spensation.’
‘Well! well! well!’ said Miss Prissy, ‘I am sure I don’t know what to think. What time in the morning was it that you dreamed it?’
‘Why,’ said Candace, ‘it was just after bird-peep. I kinder always wakes myself then, and turns over, and what comes after that is apt to run clear.’
‘Well! well! well!’ said Miss Prissy, ‘I don’t know what to think. You see, it may have reference to the state of his soul.’
‘I know that,’ said Candace; ‘but as nigh as I could judge in my dream,’ she added, sinking her voice and looking mysterious, ‘as nigh as I can judge,that boy’s soul was in his body!’
‘Why, how do you know?’ said Miss Prissy, looking astonished at the confidence with which Candace expressed her opinion.
‘Well, ye see,’ said Candace, rather mysteriously, ‘the Doctor he don’t like to have us talk much about these things, ’cause he thinks it’s kind o’ heathenish. But then, folks as is used to seein’ such things, knows the look of a speritoutof the body, from the look of a sperit in the body, just as easy as you can tell Mary from the Doctor.’
At this moment Mrs. Scudder opened the pantry-door and put an end to this mysterious conversation, which had already so affected Miss Prissy that, in the eagerness of her interest, she had rubbed up her cap border and ribbon into rather an elfin and goblin style, as if they had been ruffled up by a breeze from the land of spirits; and she flew around for a few moments in a state of great nervous agitation, upsetting dishes, knocking down plates, and huddling up contrary suggestions as to what ought to be done first, in such impossible relations, that Mrs. Katy Scudder stood in dignified surprise at this strange freak of conduct in the wise woman of the parish.
A dim consciousness of something not quite canny in herself appeared to strike her, for she made a vigorous effort to appear composed; and facing Mrs. Scudder, with an air of dignified suavity, inquired if it would not be best to put Jim Marvyn in the oven now, while Candace was getting the pies ready, meaning of course a large turkey which was to be the first in an indefinite series to be baked that morning; and discovering, by Mrs. Scudder’s dazed expression and a vigorous pinch from Candace, that somehow she had not improved matters, she rubbed her spectacles in a diagonal manner across her eyes and stood glaring through them, with a helpless expression, which in a less judicious person might have suggested the idea of a state of slight intoxication.
But the exigencies of an immediate temporal dispensation put an end to Miss Prissy’s unwonted vagaries, and she was soon to be seen flying round like a meteor, dusting, shaking curtains, counting napkins, wiping and sorting china, all with such rapidity as to give rise to the idea that she actually existed in forty places at once.
Candace, whom the limits of her corporeal frame restricted to an altogether different style of locomotion, often rolled the whites of her eyes after her, and gave vent to her views of her proceedings in sententious expressions.
‘Do you know whydat arnever was married?’ she said to Mary, as she stood looking after her. Miss Prissy had made one of those rapid transits through the apartment.
‘No,’ answered Mary, innocently; ‘why was not she?’
‘Because never was a man could run fast enough to catch her,’ said Candace; and then her portly person shook with the impulse of her own wit.
By two o’clock a goodly company began to assemble. Mrs. Deacon Twitchel arrived, soft, pillowy, and plaintive as ever, accompanied by Cerinthy Ann, a comely damsel, tall and trim, with a bright black eye and a most vigorous and determined style of movement.
Good Mrs. Jones, broad, expansive, and solid, having vegetated tranquilly on in the cabbage garden of the virtues since three years ago when she graced our tea-party, was now as well preserved as ever, and brought some fresh butter, a tin pail of cream, and a loaf of cake made on a new Philadelphia receipt. The tall, spare, angular figure of Mrs. Simeon Brown only was wanting; but she patronized Mrs. Scudder no more, and tossed her head with a becoming pride when her name was mentioned.
The quilt-pattern was gloriously drawn in oak-leaves, done in indigo; and soon all the company, young and old, were passing busy fingers over it; and conversation went on briskly.
Madame de Frontignac, we must not forget to say, had entered with heartyabandoninto the spirit of the day. She had dressed the tall china vases on the mantelpieces; and,departing from the usual rule of an equal mixture of roses and asparagus bushes, had constructed two quaint and graceful bouquets, where garden flowers were mingled with drooping grasses and trailing wild vines, forming a graceful combination, which excited the surprise of all who saw it.
‘It’s the very first time in my life that I ever saw grass put into a flower-pot,’ said Miss Prissy; ‘but I must say it looks as handsome as a pictur’. Mary, I must say,’ she added in an aside, ‘I think that Madame de Frongenac is the sweetest dressing and appearing creature I ever saw: she don’t dress up nor put on airs, but she seems to see in a minute how things ought to go; and if it’s only a bit of grass, or leaf, or wild vine, that she puts in her hair, why it seems to come just right. I should like to make her a dress, for I know she would understand my fit; do speak to her, Mary, in case she should want a dress fitted here, to let me try it.’
At the quilting, Madame de Frontignac would have her seat, and soon won the respect of the party by the dexterity with which she used her needle; though, when it was whispered that she learned to quilt among the nuns, some of the elderly ladies exhibited a slight uneasiness, as being rather doubtful whether they might not be encouraging papistical opinions by allowing her an equal share in the work of getting up their minister’s bed-quilt; but the younger part of the company were quite captivated by her foreign air, and the pretty manner in which she lisped her English; and Cerinthy Ann even went so far as to horrify her mother, by saying that she wished she’d been educated in a convent herself,—a declaration which arose less from native depravity, than from a certain vigorous disposition, which often shows itself in young people, to shock the current opinions of their elders and betters. Of course the conversation took a general turn, somewhat in unison with the spirit of the occasion; and whenever it flagged, some allusion to a forthcoming wedding, or some sly hint to the future young Madam of the parish, was sufficient to awake the dormant animation of the company.
Cerinthy Ann contrived to produce an agreeable electric shock, by declaring that for her part she never could see intoit, how any girl could marry a minister—that she should as soon think of setting up housekeeping in a meeting-house.
‘O, Cerinthy Ann!’ exclaimed her mother, ‘how can you go on so?’
‘It’s a fact,’ said the adventurous damsel; ‘now other men let you have some peace, but a minister’s always round under your feet.’
‘So you think the less you see of a husband the better?’ said one of the ladies.
‘Just my views,’ said Cerinthy, giving a decided snip to her thread with her scissors; ‘I like the Nantucketers that go off on four years’ voyages, and leave their wives a clear field. If ever I get married I’m going up to have one of those fellows.’
It is to be remarked, in passing, that Miss Cerinthy Ann was at this very time receiving surreptitious visits from a consumptive-looking, conscientious, young theological candidate who came occasionally to preach in the vicinity, and put up at the house of the Deacon, her father. This good young man, being violently attacked on the doctrine of election by Miss Cerinthy, had been drawn on to illustrate it in a most practical manner, to her comprehension; and it was the consciousness of the weak and tottering state of the internal garrison, that added vigour to the young lady’s tones. As Mary had been the chosen confidant of the progress of this affair, she was quietly amused at the demonstration.
‘You’d better take care, Cerinthy Ann,’ said her mother; ‘they say that “those who sing before breakfast, will cry before night.” Girls talk about getting married,’ she said, relapsing into a gentle didactic melancholy, ‘without realizing its awful responsibilities.’
‘Oh! as to that,’ said Cerinthy, ‘I’ve been practising on my pudding now these six years, and I shouldn’t be afraid to throw one up chimney with any girl.’ This speech was founded on a tradition, current in those times, ‘that no young lady was fit to be married till she could construct a boiled Indian-pudding, of such durability, that it could be thrown up chimney and come down on the ground, outside, without breaking;’ and the consequence of Cerinthy Ann’s sally was a general laugh.
‘Girls a’n’t what they used to be in my day,’ sententiously remarked an elderly lady. ‘I remember my mother told me when she was thirteen she could knit a long cotton stocking in a day.’
‘I haven’t much faith in these stories of old times; have you, girls?’ said Cerinthy, appealing to the younger members at the frame.
‘At any rate,’ said Mrs. Twitchel, ‘our minister’s wife will be a pattern; I don’t know anybody as goes beyond her either in spinning or fine stitching.’
Mary sat as placid and disengaged as the new moon, and listened to the chatter of old and young, with the easy quietness of a young heart that has early outlived life, and looks on everything in the world from some gentle, restful eminence far on towards a better home. She smiled at everybody’s word, had a quick eye for everybody’s wants, and was ready with thimble, scissors, or thread, whenever any one needed them; but once when there was a pause in the conversation, she and Mrs. Marvyn were both discovered to be stolen away. They were seated on the bed in Mary’s little room, with their arms around each other, communing in low and gentle tones. ‘Mary, my dear child,’ said her friend, ‘this event is very pleasant to me, because it places you permanently near me. I did not know but eventually this sweet face might lead to my losing you, who are in some respects the dearest friend I have.’
‘You might be sure,’ said Mary, ‘I never would have married, except that my mother’s happiness and the happiness of so good a friend seem to depend on it. When we renounce self in anything, we have reason to hope God’s blessing; and so I feel assured of a peaceful life in the course I have taken. You will always be as a mother to me,’ she added, laying her head on her friend’s shoulder.
‘Yes,’ said Mrs. Marvyn; ‘and I must not let myself think a moment how dear it might have been to have youmoremy own. If you feel really, truly happy, if you can enter on this life without any misgivings—’
‘I can,’ said Mary, firmly.
At this instant, very strangely, the string which confined a wreath of sea-shells around her glass, having been long undermined by moths, suddenly broke and fell down, scattering the shells upon the floor.
Both women started, for the string of shells had been placed there by James; and though neither were superstitious, this was one of those odd coincidences that make hearts throb.
‘Dear boy,’ said Mary, gathering the shells up tenderly; ‘wherever he is, I shall never cease to love him; it makes me feel sad to see this come down; but it is only an accident; nothing of him will ever fail out of my heart.’
Mrs. Marvyn clasped Mary closer to her, with tears in her eyes.
‘I’ll tell you what, Mary; it must have been the moths did that,’ said Miss Prissy, who had been standing, unobserved, at the door for a moment back; ‘moths will eat away strings just so. Last week Mrs. Vernon’s great family picture fell down because the moths eat through the cord; people ought to use twine or cotton string always. But I came to tell you that the supper is all set, and the Doctor out of his study, and all the people are wondering where you are.’
Mary and Mrs. Marvyn gave a hasty glance at themselves in the glass, to be assured of their good keeping, and went into the great kitchen, where a long table stood exhibiting all that plenitude of provision which the immortal description of Washington Irving has saved us the trouble of representing in detail.
The husbands, brothers, and lovers had come in, and the scene was redolent of gaiety. When Mary made her appearance, there was a moment’s pause, till she was conducted to the side of the Doctor; when, raising his hand, he invoked a grace upon the loaded board.
Unrestrained gaieties followed. Groups of young men and maidens chatted together, and all the gallantries of the times were enacted. Serious matrons commented on the cake, and told each other high and particular secrets in the culinary art, which they drew from remote family archives. One might have learned in that instructive assembly how best to keepmoths out of blankets, how to make fritters of Indian corn undistinguishable from oysters: how to bring up babies by hand, and how to mend a cracked teapot, and how to take out grease from a brocade, and how to reconcile absolute decrees with free will, and how to make five yards of cloth answer the purpose of six, and how to put down the democratic party. All were busy, earnest, and certain, just as a swarm of men and women, old and young, are in 1859.
Miss Prissy was in her glory; every bow of her best cap was alive with excitement, and she presented to the eyes of astonished Newport gentry an animated receipt-book. Some of the information she communicated, indeed, was so valuable and important, that she could not trust the air with it, but whispered the most important portions in a confidential tone. Among the crowd Cerinthy Ann’s theological admirer was observed in deeply reflective attitude; and that high-spirited young lady added further to his convictions of the total depravity of the species, by vexing and discomposing him in those thousand ways in which a lively, ill-conditioned young woman will put to rout a serious, well-disposed young man, comforting herself with the reflection that by-and-by she would repent of all her sins in a lump together.
Vain, transitory splendours! Even this evening, so glorious, so heart-cheering, so fruitful in instruction and amusement, could not last for ever. Gradually the company broke up; the matrons mounted soberly on horseback behind their spouses; and Cerinthy consoled her clerical friend by giving him an opportunity to read her a lecture on the way home, if he found the courage to do so.
Mr. and Mrs. Marvyn and Candace wound their way soberly homeward; the Doctor returned to his study for nightly devotions; and before long, sleep settled down on the brown cottage.
‘I’ll tell you what, Cato,’ said Candace, before composing herself to sleep, ‘I can’t feel it in my bones dat dis yer wedding is going to come off yet.’
A dayor two after, Madame de Frontignac and Mary went out to gather shells and seaweed on the beach. It was four o’clock; and the afternoon sun was hanging in the sultry sky of July with a hot and vaporous stillness. The whole air was full of blue haze, that softened the outlines of objects without hiding them. The sea lay like so much glass; every ship and boat was double; every line, and rope, and spar had its counterpart; and it seemed hard to say which was the most real, the under or the upper world. Madame de Frontignac and Mary had brought along a little basket, which they were filling with shells and sea-mosses. The former was in high spirits. She ran, and shouted, and exclaimed, and wondered at each new marvel thrown out upon the shore, with theabandonof a little child. Mary could not but wonder whether this indeed were she whose strong words had pierced and wrung her sympathies the other night, and whether a deep life-wound could lie bleeding under those brilliant eyes and that infantine exuberance of gaiety; yet surely all that which seemed so strong, so true, so real, could not be gone so soon,—and it could not be so soon consoled. Mary wondered at her, as the Anglo-Saxon constitution, with its strong, firm intensity, its singleness of nature, wonders at the mobile, many-sided existence of warmer races, whose versatility of emotion on the surface is not incompatible with the most intense sameness lower down.
Mary’s was one of those indulgent and tolerant natures which seem to form the most favourable base for the play of other minds, rather than to be itself salient,—and something about her tender calmness always seemed to provoke thespirit of frolic in her friend. She would laugh at her, kiss her, gambol round her, dress her hair with fantasticcoiffures, and call her all sorts of fanciful and poetic names in French or English, while Mary surveyed her with a pleased and innocent surprise, as a revelation of character altogether new and different from anything to which she had been hitherto accustomed. She was to her a living pantomime, and brought into her unembellished life the charms of opera, and theatre, and romance.
After wearying themselves with their researches, they climbed round a point of rock that stretched some way out into the sea, and attained to a little kind of grotto, where the high cliffs shut out the rays of the sun. They sat down to rest upon the rocks. A fresh breeze of declining day was springing up, and bringing the rising tide landward,—each several line of waves with their white crest coming up and breaking gracefully on the hard, sparkling sand-beach at their feet.
Mary’s eyes fixed themselves, as they were apt to do, in a mournful reverie, on the infinite expanse of waters, which was now broken and chopped into thousand incoming waves by the fresh afternoon breeze. Madame de Frontignac noticed the expression, and began to play with her as if she had been a child. She pulled the comb from her hair, and let down its long silky waves upon her shoulders.
‘Now,’ said she, ‘let us make a Miranda of thee. This is our cave. I will be Prince Ferdinand. Burr told me all about that,—he reads beautifully, and explained it all to me. What a lovely story that is;—you must be so happy who know how to read Shakspeare without learning.Tenez!I will put this shell on your forehead,—it has a hole here, and I will pass this gold chain through—now! What a pity this seaweed will not be pretty out of water; it has no effect; but there is some green that will do,—let me fasten it so. Now, fair Miranda, look at thyself.’
Where is the girl so angelic as not to feel a slight curiosity to know how she shall look in a new and strange costume? Mary bent over the rock where a little pool of water lay in abrown hollow above the fluctuations of the tide, dark and still, like a mirror,—and saw a fair face, with a white shell above the forehead, and drooping wreaths of green seaweed in the silken hair; and a faint blush and smile rose on the cheek, giving the last finish to the picture.
‘How do you find yourself?’ said Madame; ‘confess now that I have a true talent in coiffure. Now I will be Ferdinand.’ She turned quickly, and her eye was caught by something that Mary did not see; she only saw the smile fade suddenly from Madame de Frontignac’s cheek, and her lips grow deadly white, while her heart beat so that Mary could notice its flutterings under her black silk bodice.
‘Will the sea-nymphs punish the rash presumption of a mortal who intrudes?’ said Colonel Burr, stepping before them with a grace as invincible and assured as if he had never had any past history with either.
Mary started with a guilty blush, like a child detected in an unseemly frolic, and put her hand to her head to take off the unwonted adornments.
‘Let me protest, in the name of the graces,’ said Burr, who by that time stood with easy calmness at her side; and as he spoke he stayed her hand with that gentle air of authority which made it the natural impulse of most people to obey him. ‘It would be treason against the picturesque,’ he added, ‘to spoil that toilet so charmingly uniting the wearer to the scene.’
Mary was taken by surprise, and discomposed, as every one is who finds one’s self masquerading in attire foreign to their usual habits and character; and therefore, when she would persist in taking it to pieces, Burr found sufficient to alleviate the embarrassment of Madame de Frontignac’s utter silence in a playful run of protestations and compliments.
‘I think, Mary,’ said Madame de Frontignac, ‘that we had better be returning to the house.’
This was said in the haughtiest and coolest tone imaginable, looking at the place where Burr stood, as if there were nothing there but empty air. Mary rose to go; Madame de Frontignac offered her arm.
‘Permit me to remark, ladies,’ said Burr, with the quiet suavity which never forsook him, ‘that your very agreeable occupations have caused time to pass more rapidly than you are aware. I think you will find that the tide has risen so as to intercept the path by which you came here. You will hardly be able to get around the point of rocks without some assistance.’
Mary looked a few paces ahead, and saw, a little before them, a fresh afternoon breeze driving the rising tide high on to the side of the rocks, at whose foot their course had lain. The nook in which they had been sporting formed a part of a shelving ledge which inclined over their heads, and which it was just barely possible could be climbed by a strong and agile person, but which would be wholly inaccessible to a frail, unaided woman.
‘There is no time to be lost,’ said Burr, coolly, measuring the possibilities with that keen eye that was never discomposed by any exigency. ‘I am at your service, ladies; I can either carry you in my arms around this point, or assist you up these rocks.’ He paused and waited for their answer.
Madame de Frontignac stood pale, cold, and silent, hearing only the wild beating of her heart.
‘I think,’ said Mary, ‘that we should try the rocks.’
‘Very well,’ said Burr; and placing his gloved hand on a fragment of rock, somewhat above their heads, he swung himself on to it with an easy agility; from this he stretched himself down as far as possible towards them, and extending his hand, directed Mary, who stood foremost, to set her foot on a slight projection, and give him both her hands; she did so, and he seemed to draw her up as easily as if she had been a feather. He placed her by him on a shelf of rock, and turned again to Madame de Frontignac: she folded her arms and turned resolutely away towards the sea.
Just at that moment a coming wave broke at her feet.
‘There is no time to be lost,’ said Burr; ‘there’s a tremendous wave coming in, and the next wave may carry you out.’
‘Tant mieux,’ she responded, without turning her head.
‘Oh, Verginie! Verginie!’ exclaimed Mary,—kneeling and stretching her arms over the rock; but another voice called Verginie, in a tone which went to her heart. She turned and saw those dark eyes full of tears.
‘Oh, come,’ he said, with that voice which she could never resist.
She put her cold, trembling hands into his, and he drew her up and placed her safely beside Mary. A few moments of difficult climbing followed, in which his arm was thrown now around one and then around the other, and they felt themselves carried with a force, as if the slight and graceful form were strung with steel.
Placed in safety on the top of the bank, there was a natural gush of grateful feeling towards their deliverer. The severest resentment, the coolest moral disapprobation, are necessarily somewhat softened when the object of them has just laid one under a personal obligation.
Burr did not seem disposed to press his advantage, and treated the incident as the most matter-of-course affair in the world. He offered an arm to each lady, with the air of a well-bred gentleman, who offers a necessary support; and each took it, because neither wished, under the circumstances, to refuse.
He walked along leisurely homeward, talking in that easy, quiet, natural way in which he excelled, addressing no very particular remark to either one, and at the door of the cottage took his leave, saying, as he bowed, that he hoped neither of them would feel any inconvenience from their exertions, and that he should do himself the pleasure to call soon, and inquire after their health.
Madame de Frontignac made no reply; but curtsied with a stately grace, turned and went into her little room, whither Mary, after a few minutes, followed her.
She found her thrown upon the bed, her face buried in the pillow, her breast heaving as if she were sobbing; but when at Mary’s entrance she raised her head, her eyes were bright and dry.
‘It is just as I told you, Mary,—that man holds me. Ilove him yet, in spite of myself. It is in vain to be angry. What is the use of striking your right hand with your left? When weloveone more than ourselves, we only hurt ourselves with our anger.’
‘But,’ said Mary, ‘love is founded on respect and esteem; and when that is gone——’
‘Why, then,’ said Madame, ‘we are very sorry; but we love yet; do we stop loving ourselves when we have lost our own self-respect? No! it is so disagreeable to see, we shut our eyes and ask to have the bandage put on,—you knowthat, poor little heart; you can think how it would have been with you, if you had found that he was not what you thought.’
The word struck home to Mary’s consciousness, but she sat down and took her friend in her arms with an air, self-controlled, serious, rational.
‘I see and feel it all, dear Verginie, but I must stand firm for you. You are in the waves, and I on the shore. If you are so weak at heart, you must not see this man any more.’
‘But he will call.’
‘I will see him for you.’
‘What will you tell him, my heart,—tell him that I am ill, perhaps?’
‘No; I will tell him the truth,—that you do not wish to see him.’
‘That is hard,—he will wonder.’
‘I think not,’ said Mary, resolutely; ‘and furthermore I shall say to him that, while Madame de Frontignac is at the cottage, it will not be agreeable for us to receive calls from him.’
‘Mary,ma chère, you astonish me!’
‘My dear friend,’ said Mary, ‘it is the only way. This man,—this cruel, wicked, deceitful man,—must not be allowed to trifle with you in this way. I will protect you.’ And she rose up with flashing eye and glowing cheek, looking as her father looked when he protested against the slave-trade.
‘Thou art my Saint Catherine,’ said Verginie, rising up, excited by Mary’s enthusiasm, ‘and hast the sword as well as the palm; but, dear saint, don’t think so very, very badly of him,—he has a noble nature; he has the angel in him.’
‘The greater his sin,’ said Mary; ‘he sins against light and love.’
‘But I think his heart is touched,—I think he is sorry. Oh, Mary, if you had only seen how he looked at me, when he put out his hands on the rocks,—there were tears in his eyes.’
‘Well there might be,’ said Mary; ‘I do not think he is quite a fiend; no one could look at those cheeks, dear Verginie, and not feel sad, that saw you a few months ago.’
‘Am I so changed?’ she said, rising and looking at herself in the mirror. ‘Sure enough, my neck used to be quite round,—now you can see those two little bones, like rocks at low tide. Poor Verginie! her summer is gone, and the leaves are falling; poor little cat;’—and Verginie stroked her own chestnut head, as if she had been pitying another, and began humming a little Norman air, with a refrain that sounded like the murmur of a brook over the stones.
The more Mary was touched by these little poetic ways, which ran just on an even line between the gay and the pathetic, the more indignant she grew with the man that had brought all this sorrow. She felt a saintly vindictiveness, and a determination to place herself as an adamantine shield between him and her friend. There is no courage and no anger like that of a gentle woman when once fully roused; if ever you have occasion to meet it, you will certainly remember the hour.