They have met, they have met—with a warm embrace,Those panting hearts beat free again;And joy beams out in each glowing face,—Together, they fear not grief or pain!
A week elapsed, and Mary Fuller had heard nothing of her little friend, nor ventured to hint at the keen desire to see her, which grew stronger every day.
One night, when this wish was becoming almost irresistible, and the child sat silent and drooping by the kitchen window, she heard a sweeping sound among the cabbage-heads, and, peering keenly out, saw a shadow moving through them.
Mary's heart began to leap, and as the shadow disappeared round a corner of the house, her eyes, bright with expectation, were turned towards the back door. A footstep sounded from the porch, followed by a light tread that seemed but the faintest echo of the first.
Slowly, step by step, and holding her breath, Mary crept forward. Aunt Hannah, who was making a cotton garment, which from its dimensions could only have belonged to uncle Nathan, looked at her through her steel spectacles, while the needle glittered sharply between her fingers, as she held it motionless.
Mary stopped short in the middle of the floor. A pointed bayonet could not have transfixed her more completely. There was a slight noise outside, as of some one feeling for a latch, but uncle Nathan, who was just lifting his head from a doze, took it for a knock, and called out with sleepy good nature.
"Come in—come in."
"Gracious me, ain't I trying to come in?" called a voice from the porch. "Why on airth didn't you keep to the old string-latch? One could always see light enough through the hole to find that by, but this iron consarn is just about the most tanterlizing thing that I ever did undertake to handle."
As this speech was uttered, the door swung open, and Salina strode into the kitchen, leading Isabel Chester by the hand.
"There, now, just have a kissing frolic, you two young 'uns, and be over with it, while I shake hands with aunt Hannah and uncle Nat," exclaimed Salina, pushing Isabel into Mary's outstretched arms. "There, now, no sobbing, nothing of that sort. Human critters weren't sent on earth to spend their time in crying. If you're glad to see each other, say so, take a hug, and a kiss, and then go off up stairs or into the porch, while I have a chat with uncle Nat and aunt Hannah, if she's got anything to say for herself."
The children obeyed her. One shy embrace, a timid kiss, and they crept away to the porch, delighted to be alone.
"Now," said Salina, drawing a splint-bottomed chair close up to uncle Nathan. "You hain't no idea, uncle Nat, what a time I've had a-getting here with that little critter. She cried and pined, and sort a-worried me till I brought her off right in the teeth and eyes of madam. Won't there be a time when she misses us?"
"Why wouldn't she let the little gal come to see her playmate?" asked uncle Nathan.
"Playmate—well now, I'd like to hear Madam Farnham hear you call her that; she'd just tear your eyes out. But Lord-a-mercy, she hain't got animation enough for anything of the sort; if she had, a rattlesnake wouldn't be more cantankerous to my thinking. She's got all the pison in her, but only hisses it out like a cat; in my hull life I never did see such a cruel, mean varment."
"Then Mrs. Farnham don't want her girl to come here, is that it?" inquired aunt Hannah, setting the gathers in a neck-gusset with the point of her needle, which she dashed in and out as if it had been a poniard, and that cotton cloth her enemy's heart.
"You always hit the nail right on the head when you do strike, aunt Hannah. She don't want her gal to come here, nor your gal to come there; that's the long and short on it."
"What for?" inquired uncle Nathan, moving uneasily in his great wooden chair. "Isn't our little gal good enough?"
"Good enough, gracious me, I wonder if she thinks anybody in these parts good enough for her to wipe her silk slippers on? Why, she speaks of Judge Sharp as if he was nobody, and of the country here as if God hadn't made it."
"But what has she against that poor child?" inquired aunt Hannah, sternly.
"She ain't handsome, and she came from the Poor-House; isn't that enough?" answered Salina, stretching forth her hand, and counting each word down with a finger into the palm of her hand as if it had been a coin. "She's homely, she came from the poor-house, and more than all, she lives here."
"So she remembers us, then?" said aunt Hannah, resting the point of her needle in a gather while she steadied her hand.
"Yes, you are the only people she has asked about, and her way of doing it was snappish enough, I can tell you."
"I have not seen this woman in sixteen years," said aunt Hannah, thoughtfully, "we change a good deal in that time."
"She hasn't changed much, though; fallen away a little; her red cheeks have turned to a kind of papery white; her mouth has grown thin andmeachen; there's something kind o' lathy and unsartin about her; as for temper that's just the same, only a little more so, sharp as a muskeeters bill, tanterlizing as a green nettle. The rattlesnake is a king to her; there's something worth while about his bite, it's strong and in arnest, it kills a feller right off; but she keeps a nettling and harrering one about all the time, without making an end on't, I wish you could see her with that poor little gal, dressing her up as if she was a rag-baby, scolding her one minute, kissing her the next, calling her here, sending her there, I declare to man, it's enough to put one out of conceit with all womankind."
"Where is Mrs. Farnham's son now?" inquired uncle Nathan, to whose genial heart the sharp opinions of his visitor came unpleasantly; "he ought to be a smart young fellow by this time."
"I don't know who he'd take after then," observed the housekeeper, drily.
"His father was an enterprising man, understood business, knew how to take care of what he made," said uncle Nathan. "We never had many smarter men than Farnham here in the mountains."
"Farnham was a villain!" exclaimed aunt Hannah, whose face to the very lips had been growing white as she listened.
Uncle Nathan started as if a shot had passed through his easy-chair.
"Hannah!"
The old woman did not seem to hear him, but lowering her face over her work sewed on rapidly, but the whiteness of her face still continued, and you could see by the unequal motion of the cotton kerchief folded over her bosom, that she was suppressing some powerful emotion.
Uncle Nathan was not a man to press any unpleasant subject upon another; but he seemed a good deal hurt by his sister's strange manner; and sat nervously grasping and ungrasping the arm of his chair, looking alternately at her and Salina, while the silence continued.
"Well," said Salina, who had no delicate scruples of this kind to struggle with, "you do beat all, aunt Hannah; I hadn't the least idea that there was so much vinegar in you. Now Mr. Farnham was a kind of father to me, and I'm bound to keep any body from raking up his ashes in the grave."
"Let them rest there—let them rest there!" exclaimed aunt Hannah, slowly folding up her work. "I did not mean to speak his name, but it is said, and I will not take anything back."
"Well, nobody wants you to, that I know of; it's a kind of duty to defend one's friends, especially when they can't do it for themselves; but after all Mr. Farnham up and married that critter, I don't know as it's any business of mine, what you call him."
"I remember his mother," said uncle Nathan, striving to shake off the heavy feeling that his sister had created.
"I remember her well, for she took me for sort of company," said Salina. "I was a little gal then; Farnham hadn't made all his money, and he was glad enough for me to settle down and do his work. But it was awful lonesome, I can tell you, after she was gone; and I used to go down into the grave-yard and set down by her head-stone for company, day after day. But it was afore this then your sister came to help spin up the wool—wasn't she a harnsome critter?—your sister Anne."
Aunt Hannah seemed turning into marble, her face and hands grew so deathly white; but she neither moved nor spoke.
Uncle Nathan did not speak either, but he pressed both hands down on the arms of his chair, and half rose; but he fell back as if the effort were too much, and with one faint struggle sat still, with the tears of a long-buried grief stealing down his cheeks.
"Well, what have I done wrong now?" asked Salina, looking from the old man to the pallid sister, and shaking her head till the horn comb rose like a crest among her fiery tresses.
"We haven't mentioned Anne's name between us in more than fifteen years; and it comes hard to hear it now," answered uncle Nathan, drawing first one plump hand and then another across his eyes.
"I didn't mean any harm by it," answered the housekeeper, penitently, "she was a sweet, purty crittur as ever lived; and no one felt worse than I did when she died in that strange way."
"Hush!" said aunt Hannah, standing up, pale even to ghastliness. "It is you that rake up the ashes of the dead—ashes—ashes"—
The words died on her pale lips; she reached out her hands as if to lay hold of something, and fell senseless to the floor.
Salina seized a pitcher that stood on the table, rushed out to the water trough and back again, so like a spirit that the two little girls in the porch broke from each other's arms and shrieked aloud. But they recognized her when she came back and stood trembling by the door, while she dashed the contents of her pitcher both over the fainting woman and the kind old man that knelt by her.
It had no effect. Aunt Hannah opened her eyes but once during the next hour. Neither the chilly water nor the old brother's terror had power to reach the numbed pulses of her life.
The children gazed with a grateful thrill,'Twas a glorious sight I know—Those cornfields sweeping o'er the hill—Those meadow-slopes below!—Tall mountain ridges rich with light,Broke up the crimson skies,Their refted blossoms burning bright,With autumn's fervid dies.
It was fortunate for Isabel that Mrs. Farnham was unstable even in her petty oppressions. While the country was a novelty she would not allow the child out of her sight. But after a little her agent sent her up from the city a dashing carriage and a superb pair of grey horses, which she gloried in supposing excelled even the noble animals with which Judge Sharp had brought her over the mountains.
These new objects soon drove Isabel from her position as chief favorite, and she was allowed to run at large without much constraint. This threw her a good deal with Salina Bowles, in whom she found a rough but true-hearted friend. What was far better than this, it left her free to visit Mary Fuller, and it was not long before the child was almost as much at home with dear old uncle Nat, as Mary herself.
It was pleasant to watch the two girls meet in the garden when Mary returned from school, and go about the household work together so cheerfully. That working-time was the sunny hour of Isabel's day, she did so love the order and quiet of the old homestead.
But the autumn drew on, and Mrs. Farnham began to talk of returning to the city. It was time, she said, that Isabel should be placed at boarding-school, where all her old vulgar associations might be polished away, and that she might be taught the dignity of her present position.
These threats, for they appeared to poor Isabel in this light, only made her cling more tenaciously to her friend, and every moment she could steal from the exactions of her benefactress was spent at the Old Homestead or among the hills where Mary wandered with a deeper and deeper interest as the autumn wore on.
One night, while the foliage was green and thrifty on the mountain ridges, there came a sharp frost, and in the morning all the hill-sides were in a blaze of gorgeous tints.
Never in their whole lives had the children seen anything like this. It seemed to them as if the trees had laced themselves with rainbows that must melt away when a cloud came over the sun.
It was Saturday. There was no school, and Uncle Nat insisted on doing all the "chores" himself, that the little girls might have a play-spell in the woods—but for this, I greatly fear the wild creatures would have run off without leave, they were so crazy to see what those gorgeous trees were like, close to.
Below Judge Sharp's house, and near the bold sweep of the highway that led into the village, there was an abrupt hill, crested with a ledge of rocks, which formed a platform high above the road—and back of that the forest crowded up like an army in rich uniform—checked in battle array upon the eminence.
A footpath wound up the face of this hill, and under a shelf of the rocks that crowned it, gushed a spring of pure bright water, that lost itself in diamond drops among the grass and ferns that hung over it.
To this spot, which commanded a fine expanse of the valley, Mary andIsabel went for the first time, that Saturday afternoon.
They were tired with mounting the hill and sat down by the spring to rest.
Mary caught a great yellow maple leaf as it floated by, and twisting it over her hand, formed a fairy pitcher that looked like mottled gold, out of which they both drank; laughing gleefully when the brim bent and let the water dash over their dresses.
"Now," said Mary, flinging away her golden cup, which had transformed itself into a leaf again, "let us take a good rest and look about before we go into the woods. Look how grand and large Judge Sharp's house is, down below us; and away off there, don't you see, Isabel—is the old homestead? Stand up and you can see almost all of the orchard, and a corner of the roof."
Isabel stood up, shading her eyes with one hand. The river was sweeping its bright waves at her feet, enfolding the opposite mountain at the base as with a belt of condensed sunshine. The village hidden amid its trees, lay dreamily in the curve of the valley, and beyond the river rose a line of broken hills, clothed to the top of their lofty peaks with the glory of a first autumn frost.
"I am so happy, I can hardly breathe," said Mary Fuller, clasping her hands. "It seems as if one could bathe in all that sea of colors! the mist as it floats up seems to make them eddy in waves like the river, Isabel. I am feeling strangely glad, everything is so bright, so soft—oh! Isabel, Isabel, what a great, good God it was who made all this!"
Isabel saw all the marvellous beauty that surrounded her, but she could not feel it as Mary did—few on earth ever do so look upon nature. To Isabel the scene was a pleasure, to Mary a thrilling delight; she dwelt upon it with the eye of an artist and the spirit of a Christian.
"Oh!" she said, in that sweet overflow of feelings, "I want to hide my face and cry!"
She sat down upon a rock covered with scarlet woodbine, and allowed the tears that were swelling up from her heart to flow softly as the dew is shaken from a flower. It was pleasant to see deep feelings melt away in tears, to that gentle and sweet serenity which soon fell upon the child.
Isabel could not entirely comprehend this almost divine feeling, but she respected it and sat down in silence, with an arm around her friend, sorry that she had no power to share all her joy in its fullness.
Thus, for a long time, they sat together in dreamy silence, with the spring murmuring behind them, and a carpet of brake leaves, touched with white by the frost, scattering its new-born perfume around their feet.
It was a touching picture, those two girls so loving and yet so unlike, the one so wonderfully beautiful, the other awaking a deeper interest with her soul beauty alone.
They arose together and walked quietly to the woods. Once within its gorgeous shades, all their cheerfulness came back, and the squirrels that peeped at them through the branches, and rattled nuts over their heads from the yawning chestnut buds, were not more full of simple enjoyment than they were.
A light wind had followed the frost, and all the mossy turf was carpeted with leaves crimson, green, russet and gold. Sometimes a commingling of all these colors might be found on one leaf; sometimes, as they looked upward, the great branches of an oak stooped over their heads, heavy with leaves of the deepest green, fringed and matted with blood-red, as if the great heart of the tree were broken and bleeding to death, through all the veins of its foliage.
Again the maple trees shook their golden boughs above them, as if they had been hoarding up sunshine for months, and poured it in one rich deluge over their billowy and restless leaves.
They wandered on, picking up leaves with far more interest than they had ever felt in searching for wild flowers. It was wonderful, the infinite variety that they found. Now, Isabel would hold up a crimson leaf, clouded with pink and veined with a brown so deep that it looked almost black; again, she would hoard up a windfall from the gum tree, shaped like a slender arrow-head, and with its glossy crimson so thickly covered with tiny dark spots, that it seemed mottled with gems; again, it would be an ash leaf, long, slender and of a pale straw color, or a tuft of wood-moss, that contrasted its delicate green with all this gorgeousness so strongly, that they could not help but gather it.
Thus, filled with admiration of each leaf as it presented itself, they wandered on overclouded with the same foliage in gorgeous masses. The sunbeams came shining through it in a rich haze, as if the branches were only throwing off their natural light, and the very wind as it stirred the woods seemed sluggish with healthy scents flung off by the dying undergrowth.
But even delight brings its own weariness, and at last the two girls sat down upon a hemlock log, completely covered with moss, that lay like a great round cushion among the ferns, and dropped into conversation as they sorted over the treasure of leaves that each had gathered in her apron.
"I suppose," said Isabel, "this will be almost our last day together for a long, long time."
Isabel spoke rather sadly, for she was becoming thoughtful.
"I suppose so," answered Mary, dropping the leaf whose purplish brown she had been admiring; "but," after a moment's thoughtfulness, she added, quite cheerfully, "but, why should we fret about that; we can practice hard and write to each other every week; I dare say, just now, we might read each other's writing; it seems to me as if I would make out some meaning even in a straight mark if you wrote it, Isabel!"
"Yes," said Isabel, still sadly, "that is something; but if I could only have stayed here, and gone to school with you, we should not have to think about writing."
"But it'll be very nice to write letters," answered Mary; "you don't know how proud I shall be with a whole letter all to myself; won't it be pleasant to ask for it at the post office!"
"But, Mary," persisted Isabel, "do you know they mean to send me to a great, grand school, where I'm to learn music and French, and everything, and be with nothing but proud, stuck-up rich men's daughters, that'll try to make me just as hateful as they are?"
"But, all rich men's daughters are not hateful, I dare say. RememberFrederick, he was a rich man's son, and yet, he's almost as good asJoseph!"
"No, I won't stand that, no one ever was so good as Joseph," persistedIsabel; "besides, Fred is a Farnham, he's got his father's name, andhis father's blood too; I don't see how you can speak of Fred andJoseph in the same day."
"At any rate," answered Mary, "we ought to be very grateful to young Mr. Farnham, for he was good to us; only think how kind he was to bring Joseph over to see us so often, after we came from the hospital, and all without giving Mrs. Farnham a chance to scold!"
"Scold!" said Isabel, "I sometimes thought she liked Joseph better than her own son—she always was glad to see him."
"That was because Frederick persuaded her."
"I don't believe that; she was always so hateful to Fred it was not to please him that she took to Joseph, I am sure."
"Well, at any rate, she was very good to let him visit us so often."
"I don't know," said Isabel, determined not to give any credit to Mrs.Farnham; "at any rate I don't like her and I won't try."
"This is wrong, Isabel—at first I thought I never could like aunt Hannah she was so queer, but now I love her dearly, almost as well as uncle Nathan, for all her hard way of speaking, she's as kind as kind can be."
"Oh, aunt Hannah, I like her myself, anybody couldn't help liking her, and there's Salina Bowles, she's just the best creature you ever knew, both of 'em have got feelings, but I don't believe Mrs. Farnham has got one bit."
"Don't let us talk of her faults," said Mary.
"Well, don't scold, I won't say a word against her, but there is one thing, Mary, that I must speak about, for it poisons all the rest. I cannot be content with Mrs. Farnham till that is settled. Mary, I am sure Mr. Farnham killed my father—hush, hush, I know how it was. He did not strike him dead, but it was his cruelty in driving him from the police that did it in the end."
"Yes," said Mary, with quiet sadness, "I think it was Mr. Farnham that did it."
"Is it right then, tell me, Mary, isn't it mean and cruel for me, his own little girl, to live with these people and let them support me—the father's murderers, as one might say supporting his child?"
Mary remained silent some time, not that this idea had never struck her before, but the flood of remembrance it brought back affected her painfully.
"I have thought of that a great many times, Isabel," she said, "for I felt a good deal as you do at first, but it isn't a right feeling, and so I did the best I could to conquer it without saying a word."
"Why is it a wrong feeling?" said Isabel quickly, "wouldn't it seem horrid to any one? Every mouthful I eat belongs to the people who murdered my own father."
"But Mr. Farnham was the only one to blame, and he was very, very sorry before he died."
"How do you know that?"
A faint color came into Mary's face as she answered,
"Joseph Esmond told me, Mr. Farnham came to his father's only three nights before he died, and he told Joseph with his own lips that he did not mean to kill your father, and Joseph said he looked more sorrowful than his words. It was the last time they ever saw each other. Poor Joseph cried when he told me about it."
"Then Joseph believes he really was sorry," said Isabel, softening.
"Yes, and that he didn't mean to do it; but even if he did, and was really sorry, we have nothing to do but forgive him, just as your father would have done."
"Yes, forgive him, but not eat his bread."
Again Mary was thoughtful, she was pondering over the question in her mind.
"I think," she said at last, "to take kindnesses willingly from those that are sorry for a wrong is the best sort of forgiveness; God forgives in that way when he lets us serve him, and strive by good acts to make up for the evil thing we have done. I think you need only remember that, when you wish to know the right."
"I did not think of it in that way," said Isabel.
"Then, there is Frederick," continued Mary, "who loved his father so much, and who is so full of kindness to us both—he wishes to make up for the wrong his father did."
"He has been kind to you, not to me; you are his pet, I am Mrs. Farnham's," said Isabel, a little petulantly. "I shouldn't so much mind if I were in your place, but from her"—
"He has been very kind to you, Isabel; was it nothing to buy all the pretty things you have told me of in your chamber, out of his own pocket-money too?"
"What, my pretty bed, and the lace curtains, and that carpet, did he buy them?" exclaimed Isabel, eagerly.
"Yes, they were his choice, and for you."
"Who told you this, Mary? I—I'm so surprised—so glad. Who told you about it, dear Mary?"
"Joseph Esmond. Fred made a confidant of him, and they went together to look at the things."
"And that's what makes my room different from his mother's. Oh, Mary, I wish you could see it—so white, so fresh and breezy, and hers so hot looking and smothered up with silk. How I shall love that dear room after this."
After a moment Isabel's face lost its sparkling expression. She was accusing herself of selfishness.
"But why did he get nothing of the kind for you, Mary!" she said very seriously.
"Oh, I'm to be brought up so differently, such things would look queer enough at the Old Homestead, you know," answered Mary, laughing.
Isabel shook her head, but there was light in her eyes, and a rich color in her cheeks. She no longer felt it wicked to receive kindness from the Farnhams, and her little heart beat with gratitude to them, the first she had ever felt, for the pretty things with which she was surrounded.
"Come," she said cheerfully, gathering up her apron with its treasure of leaves. "How long we have been sitting here. It is almost sun-down."
Mary started up. True enough, the woods were flooded with a dusky purple, and the sunset was shooting its golden arrows everywhere among the trees around them.
It seemed as if some of the maple boughs had taken fire, they kindled up so like living flame. The fruit of a frost-grape vine that had clambered up one of the slender elms overhead, took a richness from the atmosphere and hung amid the leaves like clustering amethysts growing dusky in the shadow, and when they left it the hemlock log which they had occupied was flecked with gleams of light, that lay among its soft green like a delicate embroidery of gold.
"It is so very beautiful," said Mary, looking around, "I hate to go yet."
"But it will be dark and the hill is steep," persisted Isabel, less enthralled by the scene. "Do hurry, the sun is sinking fast—we will come every day next week, just as soon as school is out."
Mary drew a deep breath and followed. Isabel led the way out of the woods.
The next time Mary went there it was alone, for in the morning Mrs. Farnham left for the city, with scarcely an hour's notice—and a week from that time Isabel Chester was entered as a scholar in one of the most fashionable boarding-schools in New York.
Mary Fuller continued in her school, pursuing a strangely desultory course of studies, but improving greatly both in intellect and health. Where her heart urged the effort, her progress was wonderful, and it was not three months before the most neatly written letters that went out from the village post-office, were known to be in Mary Fuller's handwriting.
Joseph Esmond and Isabel Chester, these were her only correspondents, and she was indeed a proud girl when the answers came directed entirely to herself. That day was an epoch in Mary's life.
Sometimes Mary broke over the rules of the school by drawing profiles and rude landscapes in her copy-book and on the slate, till the teacher, detecting her one day, examined the productions with a smile, and gave her a few rudimental lessons in drawing. These rough efforts of her pencil happened to come under Judge Sharp's observation, and he who never forgot the smallest thing that could make others happy, brought her some brushes and a box of water-colors from the city.
True genius requires but little encouragement, and most frequently develops itself against opposition. This little box of paints and pencils was enough to bring forth a latent talent, and the enthusiasm that had exhausted itself in tears of delight on the hill-side, grew into a power of creation. This beautiful development became a strong bond of sympathy between her and the boy-artist, Joseph Esmond. In truth, Mary was drawing many sources of happiness around her, as the good can never fail of doing.
But we cannot follow this strange child through her school life, so monotonous, and yet full of incident, or what seemed such to her inexperience. All studies that she undertook were singularly broken up and independent. Indeed, I much doubt if regular methodical teaching can ever be applied to a nature like hers. Such organisms generally study through the taste and heart.
Certain it is, Mary Fuller, whom no one understood, except, it may be, Enoch Sharp, through his acute observation, and uncle Nathan through his great warm heart, had pretty much her own way, and oftener studied poems and histories from Judge Sharp's library, than anything else even in the schoolroom. Thus her mind grew and thrived in its own rich fancies; and in the wholesome atmosphere of the old homestead her heart expanded and lost nothing of its native goodness. It is wonderful how soon the scholars forgot to think her plain, if anything is wonderful which genius and goodness has the power to accomplish.
Thus three years wore on, and each day was one of progression to that young mind.
Besides this, Mary began to grow; the invigorating air of the mountains, wholesome food, and active habits, had overcome the deficiencies of her former life, and though still slight and unusually small, she ceased to look like a mere child.
I dare not say that Mary was beautiful, or even handsome, for she was still a plain little creature, and persons who could not understand her might cavil at the assertion; yet, to aunt Hannah and uncle Nat—yes, and to the Judge also—one might venture to say that Mary was a very interesting girl, and, at times really pretty; but, then, these persons loved her very dearly, and affection is, proverbially, a great beautifier of the face. Yes, on the day she received her letters, almost any one would have thought the young girl pretty, but, then, it was not her features that looked lovely, but the deep, bright joy that broke over them.
A dim, religious light came softly stealingAlong the solemn stillness of those aisles—The sculptured arch and groined roof revealing—As the bright present on tradition smiles.
But Isabel Chester. I wish you could have seen her as she stood upon the deck of the Atlantic steamer, which was to convey the Farnhams to Europe! Those large almond-shaped eyes, velvety and soft, yet capable of intense brilliancy—that raven hair, so glossy and with a purple glow in it, and those oval cheeks, with their peachy richness of bloom. Indeed, Isabel was very beautiful. No wonder she was embarrassed, with all that quantity of bouquets, and seemed a little annoyed by their profusion; for young Farnham was looking on, and he did not appear particularly well pleased.
Isabel was not the least of a flirt, but she really could not prevent all this crowd of persons coming down to see her off, with lavish flowers and more lavish compliments; besides, what right had Fred to be angry? he was not even a brother!
Mrs. Farnham was delighted with this display of her protege's popularity. It seemed to cast a reflected glory on herself, and she began to calculate, very seriously, on marrying so much beauty to a Prince of the blood, at least, of whose palace she was herself to dispense the honors. But Frederick Farnham had little time to devote even to the jealousy this crowd of admirers was calculated to excite, if, in reality, he cared for the matter at all. He was looking eagerly over the side of the steamer, as if in expectation of some one who had not arrived.
At last his eyes brightened, and he threw out his handkerchief as a signal.
A young man who stood near the gangway answered this recognition with a wave of the hand; a moment after he was on the deck, and Isabel came gladly forward.
"Dear Joseph! this is so kind of you; we heard that your father was worse, and hardly expected you," she said.
"He is worse, but I could not let you and Farnham go away for so long without a parting word," answered the youth, reaching his hand to Frederick, who held it affectionately in his.
"Don't say anything sorrowful now, or you will set me off into another crying fit," said Isabel, striving to laugh back the tears that came into her eyes, as she turned away, burying her face in the flowers with which she was still encumbered.
"Come this way one moment, Edward, I want to speak with you," said young Farnham, drawing the young artist aside. "I want you to paint me a picture, old fellow, anything you please!"
"Shall I paint Isabel from memory?" said the young man, with a quiet smile, glancing at the young girl.
Farnham blushed.
"You can't do it, Joseph; no pencil on earth can paint her! but—but if you are not joking, I should like it of all things."
"I can make the effort," was the good-natured reply.
"And will?"
"And will!"
"Thank you, Esmond, you are a capital fellow, now let me—let me. It isn't half what a picture of her would be worth."
Here Frederick thrust a bank-note into his friend's hand, blushing like a girl.
"Thank you," said Esmond, gently, "my father is so ill, for his sake—the picture shall be my first work."
Isabel forgot her other admirers in looking at the two young men, as they stood together contrasted, and yet in many things so much alike; both were tall, and an air of singular refinement distinguished them above all others.
In different styles they were remarkably fine-looking young men. The golden hair of the artist had taken a chestnut tinge, but still it was bright with sunny waves, and his eyes had lost nothing of the heavenly expression. His manner too was calm and thoughtful. The sickly boy had become an intelligent man.
In everything Fred was a contrast to his friend; passionate and impetuous even in his most noble acts, he carried the fire of an ardent nature in his looks and his manner. His dark eyes were bright with animation, and even Isabel's tresses of purplish black were not more glossy, than the short curling locks that shaded his manly forehead. In everything the young men were contrasts, and yet they loved each other like brothers.
"And now, good-bye," said Joseph, with a slight tremor in his voice, but struggling manfully for firmness.
Isabel gave him her hand, while she drew down her veil, that he might not see how moist her eyes were becoming.
Fred wrung his hand.
The bell rang, and many a warm heart leaped painfully to the farewell summons. There arose starting tears, sobs, and the warm clasp of hands, that might never meet again. Then there was a rush to the gangway, a moment's pause and the steamer swung out from its berth, and swept proudly into the river.
Isabel stood upon the stern, languidly waving her embroidered handkerchief to a group of admirers gathered on the wharf.
You would have thought a flock of doves had taken flight by the cloud of scented cambric that answered her farewell signal. But there was one form standing out alone, which she and Frederick watched to the last, and even Mrs. Farnham looked earnestly in that direction through her eye-glass, so long as Joseph Esmond was visible.
But the steamer made rapid progress. In a few minutes the passengers upon her deck lost sight of the crowded wharf, and became themselves invisible, wrapped in a cloud of haze, from all the eyes that followed them. During the voyage young Farnham and Isabel were thrown constantly together for the first time. He was fresh from college, and the young girl had only been two months from school.
They travelled through England and France, stopping a month or two in Paris. The winter found them in Italy, and here the reader has one more glance at Isabel.
She has changed somewhat, and there is a look of restlessness about her. The color comes and goes on her cheek in crimson waves, when any one addresses her suddenly, as if some sweet hidden thought had been disturbed, and, like a shaken rose, sent its perfume to her face. She has grown a little thinner too, and the dreamy contentment of her eyes is utterly broken up; there is unrest and anxiety in the bright flashes that come like sudden gleams of starlight through those inky lashes.
There need be no lengthened explanation of the causes which led to these indications of an aroused heart. Indeed, we scarcely know when or where Frederick Farnham first told Isabel of the love, which had become a portion of his being; for their whole lives were so intermingled, every opening thought was so promptly shared between them, that affection required no words, till it had become the essence of their souls. It was a happy season for them while this love remained impassive, as perfume sleeps in the heart of the Lotus bud, swayed softly by the waters and breathing out its sweet life imperceptibly, till some sudden gust of wind or outburst of sunshine, scatters the secret perfume from its heart, which can never close again.
Through all her years of adoption, Isabel had been haunted by a sense of wrong, in receiving kindness from the mother and son of Farnham. Her education and course of reading had tended to increase this prejudice; and she learned to look upon herself, like Hamlet, as in some way destined to avenge her father's death. She had no idea how this was to be accomplished, but certain it is she never received an obligation from Mrs. Farnham, or a kindness from her son, but it was with a rebellious swelling of the heart, as if she were inflicting a fresh wrong on the memory of her father.
But Frederick Farnham shared in none of these feelings, nor even suspected their existence. When he became aware of the depth of his own passion for the lovely orphan, he spoke it frankly, and with all the earnestness of a true-hearted man. Love makes the proudest heart distrustful, and even Isabel's pride was satisfied with the humility of his pleading. Now came her punishment. In every throb of her heart and nerve of her body, Isabel felt a response to the generous love offered to her. But her will rose proudly against him, and against herself. Love for Farnham's son, was in her estimation a fearful wrong to the memory of her parents.
"I will never marry the son of my father's destroyer," she said, "it would be sacrilege!"
Frederick could not believe her in earnest—she, so playful, so loving in all her bright ways; surely, these bitter feelings could not have lived all these years in her heart! He would wait—he would give her time for reflection; his father's sin could not be so cruelly brought up from the past, to poison his own young life; he would not believe it!
But Isabel was firm; the very love that thrilled her with every sound of his footstep or tone of his voice, brought with it bitter self-upbraiding. She looked on the purest and holiest sensations her soul could ever know, as a sin against the dead.
This was the condition of things when they reached Arezzo, an Etruscan city, in the mountainous portions of Italy. They were to remain in this place overnight, on their way from Rome to Florence.
Arezzo is a picturesque old town, rich with historical and religious associations, and as the birth-place of Petrarch, possessed a singular interest in the eyes of Isabel; for, just then, she was keenly alive to all that was sad in the life and love of the Italian poet.
It was with all the romance of her nature aroused, that she came in sight of this ancient place. It seemed to her, as she saw its spires rising from the hill-side upon which they stood, surrounded by the luxurious beauty of an Italian winter, that, in some way, the town was connected with her destiny, that she would neither be so strong nor so free when that was left behind.
It was an unhealthy state of mind, but Isabel had become passionate, romantic and headstrong, in the process of her fashionable education. True these faults were on the surface, and had not yet reached her inner soul, but they were grave defects in a beautiful nature.
All day their route had been among the hills, along roads hedged in with laurestines, covered with sunny blossoms and myrtle thickets always in rich leafiness. The atmosphere was bland as spring-time, and though the sun was going down when they drove up to the hotel at Arezzo, Isabel entered it reluctantly, the twilight was so beautiful.
Frederick remembered that it was the hour for vespers, and gently touched Isabel's arm as she was following Mrs. Farnham into the hotel.
"There is light enough yet, let us go to the cathedral," he said, in the low serious voice with which he always addressed her now.
She started, with a thrill of pleasure, and took his arm.
The cathedral at Arezzo stands in the most elevated portion of the town.
Isabel was almost breathless with the rapidity of their walk, as they mounted the ascent, for Frederick hurried on in silence, urged forward, as it seemed, by the force of buried thoughts that had kept him silent all day.
The cathedral was seen just touched with the coming twilight when they entered it. A calm stillness hung around it, a stillness that seemed independent of the strain of music that swelled, rich with sacred sweetness, from one of the chapels.
They moved forward through the solemn twilight of the interior. The atmosphere without had been singularly transparent, but now many stained windows tinted it with gorgeous mistiness, and the shadows, as they gathered around the sculpture and ancient paintings, were broken with a soft purplish haze that was lifted in waves and eddies by the slow swell of the music.
The chapel from which these vesper hymns were stealing, was lighted up, and the tapers gleamed like flashes of starlight across that end of the edifice, rendering the gorgeous gloom in which they stood more palpable by contrast.
It was by this beautiful twilight alone that they approached the grand altar, and saw the carved foliage that lay upon it like incrustations of frozen music, left there more than five hundred years ago, when Geovanni Pisano gave his genius to religion.
Those young hearts had been swelling with poetic thoughts all the day, and now, surrounded by everything that could thrill the soul and delight the imagination, they stood hand in hand listening to the distant music.
Their fingers were woven together, and trembled with the electric shock of two souls thrilled with a worship of the beautiful, and the solemn poetry of the past.
Frederick felt Isabel's hand tremble in his; he bent down his head, clasping that little hand more tightly.
"Isabel, my beautiful—speak to me!"
"Hush!" said Isabel, trembling, "I beseech you do not speak now."
"Why not, Isabel! There can be no place so holy that a love like mine may not be pleaded there. It is the religion of my soul!"
"I cannot—oh, I cannot listen to this," murmured the young girl, striving feebly to extricate her hand from his clasp; "do not, I entreat you, do not speak to me in this way again!"
Her voice faltered, and she leaned against the altar for support, but he would not be repulsed. He felt that her resolution was giving way—that the love of her young heart was growing powerful in his behalf, and drawing her from the altar supported her with his arm.
"Isabel, be true to yourself, be just to me! Why shrink from a happiness so great? Speak to me, beloved—speak to me!"
Isabel felt her resolution wavering; her strength gave way, she yielded to the pressure of his arm, and for one moment was drawn to his heart.
Down in the distant chapel the music still swelled, and with it came the voices of the choir, "Father, oh, our Father!"
The solemn Latin in which those words were uttered fell upon her like winged arrows; she started forward and stood for an instant immovable, horrified by the tenderness to which she had yielded.
"Oh, my father, my father, forgive me!" she exclaimed, passionately.
"Isabel, Isabel, what is this?" pleaded the young man, astonished at the abrupt change.
"Stop!" she said, waving him back. "Tempt me no more, I cannot bear it!"
Still he pressed toward her, grieved and anxious. He had not observed the words of the music, and her change of manner was inexplicable.
"Listen to me, Isabel!"
She waved him back, and walking toward the high altar fell upon her knees before it, and there, touching the sculptured leaves that had occupied a human life five hundred years before, she uttered a solemn vow. The words fell in whispers from her white lips, her forehead was one moment uplifted to heaven. She arose and stood before her lover, cold and pale as the marble she had touched.
Then the music swelled out again in a slow, plaintive strain, as if it were moaning over the burial of a dead hope. Those who had gathered for worship in the chapel, glided away; the tapers were extinguished, and through the gathering darkness Frederick Farnham and Isabel Chester walked forth into the world again.
Isabel had made a vow never to marry the son of her father's murderer. It was a rash act, for even then she had not the courage to tell Frederick of the oath she had taken. Oh, Isabel! that vow may prove like that of Jepthah yet—only it is your own hand that gives, and your own heart that receives the blow.
Ah, we never could resist her,Since the day that she was born;For we loved that winsome sisterAs we loved the opening morn.
Four years!—yes, I think it was a little over four years, after the scene in our last chapter, when we bring our readers to the Old Homestead again.
It was the evening of a disagreeable, chilly day. Everything was gloomy inside and out. Salina had come up from the Farnham's deserted mansion to spend the evening with aunt Hannah, and arrange the preliminaries for a "husking frolic," which was to take place on the morrow in uncle Nathan's barn. But she found the good lady so taciturn and gloomy, that even her active spirit was awed into stillness. So the two women remained almost in silence, knitting steadily, with a round candle-stand between them.
Uncle Nathan, notwithstanding the cold and the storm, occupied his great chair in the porch. I think the old man must have grown a trifle stouter since the reader saw him, and his face had a still more benevolent look; something of serene goodness, mellowing in the sunshine of his genial nature, was perceptible there, as the tints of a golden pippin, ripened in the autumn sun.
But you could see nothing of this, as the old man sat in his easy-chair that night. Everything was dark around him. Black clouds hung overhead, broken now and then with gleams of pale blue lightning. Once or twice these flashes were bright enough to reveal his features, which were strangely troubled and thoughtful. Since nightfall, he had been sitting there almost in silence, watching the storm gather overhead, and the black shadows as they crowded down from the hills and choked up the garden. He listened to the wind as it rose and swelled down the valley, rushing through the orchard boughs, and tossing them up and down in the darkness. The old man was not reposing; thoughtful and aroused he took a clear retrospection of those phases of life that had left scars even on his placid heart.
A shadow, for it seemed nothing more, lingered by his side.
It moved now and then, and amid the hushes of the wind you might have known that two persons breathed close together in the old porch.
At length what seemed the shadow spoke.
"Shall we go in, uncle Nathan? The wind is getting high, here. How the rain beats on the porch—you will catch cold."
"No, I'd rather sit out here yet awhile. But go in yourself, Mary; it is getting rather chilly for you."
"No," answered Mary, in her old gentle way, "I'd rather sit with you, uncle Nat."
"I'm bad company," said the old man, "somehow I can't feel like talking to-night."
"Nor I," said Mary Fuller, leaning her cheek against the arm-chair, "something is the matter with us both. I wonder what it is!"
"My heart is full," said uncle Nathan, mournfully.
Mary crept close to him.
"Tell me, uncle Nat, is it about Mr. Ritner's note that you feel so bad?"
"That may have set me to thinking of—of other things. I seem to remember everything that ever happened to-night, I never saw clouds exactly like them before, or heard the wind howl so, but once."
"When was that, uncle Nathan?" inquired his companion, in a whisper.
"The night our sister Anna died," answered the old man in the same hushed tone.
"Uncle Nathan, do tell me about her, I want to hear it so much, it seems as if I must ask you now, though I never dared before."
Uncle Nathan remained silent a minute or two, then turning in his chair, he said, in a low, husky voice,
"See what they are doing in there. Hannah must not hear what we are talking about."
Mary opened the kitchen-door and looked through.
"They are sitting by the fire, both of them. Salina is talking. Aunt Hannah knitting hard, with her eyes on the fire, as if she didn't hear." And reseating herself she continued; "now tell me abouther—she was very handsome, wasn't she?"
"She was like a picture, Mary. You think Isabel Chester handsome, but she don't more than compare with our Anna. She had the softest and most beautiful brown eyes you ever saw, bright as a star and soft as a rabbit's—and such hair, it was all in crinkles and waves, breaking out into curls let her braid and twist it as she would—brown when she sat by me at her sewing-work in the morning, and shining out like gold when the sun lay in the porch. I wish you could a-seen her as she was drawing out her thread of woolen yarn, and running it up on the spindle as bright and spry as a bird."
"I wasn't so old nor so heavy," continued uncle Nathan, with a sigh, "as I am now-a-days, but she always loved to wait on me just as you do; and when I came into the stoop, hot days in summer, tired with mowing or planting, away she would run after a pitcher of cool drink, holding it between her two little hands, and laughing till the dimples swarmed about her mouth like lady-bugs around a rose. I do really think, Mary Fuller, that our sister Anna was the handsomest gal I ever set eyes on, and so sweet tempered: you put me in mind of her every day, Mary."
Mary Fuller did not answer, she was afraid that uncle Nathan might detect the tears that swelled at her heart in her voice.
"I didn't like to part with Anna, she was so young, and both sister and I had promised our parents to take their place with her. We two were the children of their youth, but she was a sort of ewe lamb in the house, the child of their old age, and when they died we looked upon her as our own.
"We both gave up all ideas of marrying for her sake; that wasn't much for me you may think, but it was a good deal for Hannah; she was a tall, good-looking woman then, and might have done well in the world; she did give up a match that I knew her heart was set on. As for me—but no matter about that—I wasn't likely to make a promise to my own parents on their death-beds and only half keep it, by marrying and putting a sort of step-mother over Anna—no, Hannah and I just put away all thoughts of settling for life, except with one another, and gave ourselves up to little Anna, heart and soul."
The old man paused awhile, and bent his head as if overpowered by the fierce storm that raged around the house. The porch was sheltered, and though the rain rushed over its low eaves in sheets, nothing but the dampness reached the great easy-chair upon which uncle Nathan sat. Still Mary felt three or four heavy drops fall upon her hand, too warm for rain and too sacred for comment.
"I couldn't help it," resumed uncle Nathan, in a broken voice. "From the first I was agin Anna's going out to work but she wanted a new silk dress, and we, in our old-fashioned ideas, objected to it—so in her pretty, willful fashion she determined to earn it for herself.
"I always thought Hannah had a hankering after the dress, too, for she never thought anything too good for the gal, but there was a good many debts left on the old place, and she knew well enough that we couldn't afford to indulge the child that way; but she sided with Anna agin me, and so the poor child went up to Farnham's to spin his wool. Old Mrs. Farnham kept house for her son, and no one thought harm of it. I shall never forget how bright and pretty she looked that morning, in her pink calico dress and that little straw cottage. Her cheeks were rosy as the dress, and her eyes shone like diamonds, when she came out here to shake hands with me.
"I felt hurt, and couldn't help looking so. She saw how I took it, and tried to laugh in her old cheerful way, but it was of no use; the sound died on her open lips, and her eyes filled with tears.
"'Nathan, Nathan,' she said, 'I will give up the dress if you feel so about it,' and she began to untie her bonnet; 'I never had a silk dress in my life, but—but'—-
"She sat down on a stool and fairly burst into sobs.
"'Anna,' says I, 'couldn't we make it out, and you stay at home, think? There is Hannah's orange silk gown, that mother gave her years ago, wouldn't that make over for you nicely now?'
"Anna threw herself back on the stool and laughed like a bird, while the tears sparkled in her eyes.
"'Oh, Nathan don't speak of it, I've tried it on a dozen times, and thought and thought how to make it do, but the waist is under my arms, the skirt gored like an umbrella cover, and so scant, why I couldn't get over a fence or jump a brook in it to save my life.'
"I answered, 'But you look so nice and pretty in that pink calico, Anna, I wish a silk dress had never come into your head. I'm afraid it'll be the ruin of you.'
"'My pink calico!' said the naughty child, lifting up a fold between her thumb and finger, and eyeing me sideways, like a pet bird as she was; 'don't you think, brother Nat, that I was born for something better than pink calico?'
"I couldn't keep from laughing, and at that she threw her arms round my neck, and thanked me for letting her go.
"Mary Fuller, my heart sunk like lead as the door closed after her.But what could I do? she would have her own way. She had it, MaryFuller, the gal had her way!"
Once more the old man paused, while drops fell thick and heavy on MaryFuller's hand.
"Anna staid three months at old Mrs. Farnham's, but she came home atlast with her silk dress, happy as a lark, and handsomer than ever.The dress was heavy white silk. Mr. Farnham had bought it for her inYork.
"'But what did you get white for, Anna?' says I, as she unfolded the silk, smiling and looking with her bright eager eyes in my face, 'It isn't a color for use—this comes of trusting young girls to choose things for themselves.'
"'I didn't choose it—it was Mr. Farnham,' says she, blushing up to her temples, and trying to laugh.
"'Well, what did he get this useless color for?' says Hannah, holding up the silk with one of her stern looks, that I could see made poor Anna tremble from head to foot. 'It will be spoiled the first time of wearing! fit for nothing on earth but the wedding-dress of some great lady.'
"'It is a wedding-dress—that's what Mr. Farnham bought it for,' says Anna, bursting out a crying, while her face was as red as the wild rose.
"Hannah dropped the silk as if it had been a firebrand, and her face turned white as a curd. She looked at me, and I at her, then we both looked at Anna. Poor girl! how frightened she was! First she turned to sister; but Hannah was taken by surprise and didn't know how to act—then she crept towards me with a sort of smile on her mouth and her eyes pleading for her, as I've seen a rabbit when taken from a trap—I just reached out my arms without knowing it, and drew her close to my bosom.
"She flung her arms around my neck and then we both burst out a crying, while Hannah sat down in a chair with her hands folded hard in her lap, and looked on growing whiter and whiter every minute.
"'It's true, brother,' whispered Anna, at last, hiding her face agin mine, 'I'm going to be married—kiss me, please, and just whisper that you like it.'
"I couldn't help kissing her hot cheeks, though every word went to my heart, for I saw well enough how Hannah would take it.
"Anna hung around me till I had kissed her more than once, I'm afraid, then she drew away from my arm like a child that's determined to stand alone, and went up to sister Hannah.
"'Sister, won't you kiss me, as well as Nathan?' says she in her sweet, coaxing way.
"But Hannah sat still, white as ever. She only gave her fingers a closer grip around each other. Anna sunk down to the floor, bending her ankle back and sitting upon the heel of one little foot.
"'Mother Hannah, don't be cross—what harm have I done?' says she, lifting her pretty face, all wet with tears, to meet the hard, set look of our sister. 'Mother Hannah,' says the girl again, drawing her face closer and closer, 'won't you kiss me as Nathan did?'
"Hannah bent her head, and it seemed as if a marble woman had moved.She touched the girl's forehead with her lips, and, says she,
"'God forgive you!'
"I think to this day that sister meant, 'God bless you' and tried to say it, but 'God forgive you' came from her lips in spite of that. This frightened Anna. So with a sort of wild look toward me, the girl got up and went out of the room, crying as if her heart would break. She couldn't understand the thing at all.
"The minute she was gone, Hannah unlocked her hands, that shook like dead leaves in parting from each other, and holding them out toward me, she cried out, 'Nathan, Nathan!' and fell down in a fainting fit, just as she did the other night."
"But why," said Mary Fuller, drawing a deep breath, "why did auntHannah feel so dreadfully, wasn't Mr. Farnham a good man?"
Uncle Nathan bent down his head and whispered the reply.
"I told you, when our last parent died, Hannah gave up all thoughts of marrying. She had thought of it day and night for two years. Mr. Farnham was the man."
"Poor aunt Hannah!" murmured Mary, "it was hard."
"She was up next morning and got breakfast just as usual," said uncle Nathan, "from that day to this she has never spoken of that fainting fit. You see what Hannah is now, she was not so silent or so hard before that day."
"But Anna's wedding was put off," resumed uncle Nathan, after a pause. "Mr. Farnham had gone down to York about some of his affairs, and finally concluded to go into business there. He wrote that it would be some months before he could settle things and come after her. Poor little Anna, how she did practice writing, and how much letter-paper the creature tore up and wasted in answering the long letters that came, at first every week, then every fortnight, and at last irregularly, longer and longer apart. She became uneasy, and I could see that Hannah grew sterner and more set every day.
"The next summer a painter came into these parts for his health and to study the shape of trees and rocks as they really grow. He put up at the tavern in the village and spent his time among the hills, taking pictures of the scenery, as he called them. He took a fancy to the old house here, and I caught him one day sitting across the road on a stool and taking it off on paper. It was about our dinner-time, and so I asked him in to take a bite with us.
"He was a clever, gentlemanly sort of a fellow, not over young, nor much of a dandy, and we all took a sort of liking to him; Hannah, because he'd made a genuine picture of the homestead, and may be I felt that too a little, for we both set everything by the old place. Anna took to him at first; she loved the homestead as well as we did, almost, besides the painter came from York, and she seemed to fancy him for that more than anything else.
"I remember, Anna only got one letter from Mr. Farnham, all summer, and that was the only one she did not, sooner or later, let me read. She lost her spirits, and really grew thin. The artist was a good deal of company for her; she had talent, he said, and a few lessons would learn her to paint pictures almost as well as himself. He was old enough to be the girl's father, and so Hannah and I were glad to have him there to cheer her up.
"All at once she took a dislike to the man, and when he came to the house, she would always find something to busy herself about, up stairs, or in the cheese-room. The painter seemed to feel this, and after awhile it was as much as I could do to get him into the house.
"One day toward fall Salina came up from the square house with a letter that she gave to Anna, who ran up stairs to read it alone.
"Salina was the only person in the village that knew of Anna's engagement to Mr. Farnham. His letters had always come under cover to her, after his mother died, and she loved the girl as if she had been her own sister. Like the rest of us, she had thought it strange, that he did not write as usual, and was as proud as a peacock when this letter came.
"Anna stayed up stairs a long time, reading her letter, while Salina and I talked it over in the porch.
"'I reckon,' says she, 'that we shall have the white dress made up within a week or so. Then, uncle Nat, I'll show you what a genuine house warming is. Just think of little Anna's being the mistress of our house, instead of Hannah!'
"I felt a little anxious somehow, and did not answer at once. She was going to speak again, when we heard the front door shut to, with a sort of groan, as if a pang had passed through it. And so there had, for when we got to the entry and looked out, Anna was a good way from the house, with her bonnet and shawl on, running in a wild hurry down the street.
"'She's gone to see the dressmaker,' says Salina, winking her right eye-lid, and giving me a cunning look from the other eye; 'see the bundle under her arm, didn't I tell you?'
"I wanted to believe her, and we went back to the porch. But there was a strange feeling about me, and I couldn't sit still in the old chair, no more than if it had been made of red-hot iron. As for Hannah"—
The old man paused again, and for some moments the rushing sound of the storm was all that filled the porch. When he spoke, it was with a sort of desperate effort, as if all that was left for him to tell were full of pain.
"Anna did not come back in three days, and then the painter, or artist, as he called himself, came with her. She was his wife."
"His wife!" uttered Mary Fuller; "but the letter from Mr. Farnham!"
"It told her that he was married to a city lady. You have seen her, Mary Fuller; it was the woman who came with you into these parts. But you never saw the poor girl they murdered between them, none of us will ever see little Anna again."
Mary was silent, listening to the old man's sobs, as they mingled with the storm.
"She came back with her husband," uttered the old man, "the whitest and stillest creature you ever saw. Her husband loved her, and she was so gentle and submissive to him. Poor fellow! poor fellow! he deserved something better than the dead ashes that she had to give him.
"Anna's husband was nothing but a common artist, wanting to do something great, but with no power to do it. He could dream of beautiful things, and then pine his soul out, because his hand failed in making them. But he had a true, good heart; that was our only comfort when Anna went away with him to live in the city.
"'Why did you act so wildly, Anna?' says I, as she crept to my chair and laid her head so sorrowfully on my knee the night before they went away; 'we would have worked ourselves to death, poor child, if you had only stayed in the old place—what possessed you that night, Anna?'
"'Hewill never know that I was the forsaken one,' says she, and her cheeks burned with crimson once more. 'I only thought of that at first, but in the pain his letter gave me, I remembered the disappointment I had dealt on a good man who loved me—I was wild, brother Nathan, but not bad. But my husband, I will make him a humble, patient wife, see if I don't.'