"The boon for which we gasp in vain,If hardly won at length, too late made ours,When the soul's wing is broken, comes like rain."
"The boon for which we gasp in vain,If hardly won at length, too late made ours,When the soul's wing is broken, comes like rain."
—Hemans.
"Fare thee well! Yet think awhileOn one whose bosom bleeds to doubt thee;Who now would rather trust than smile,And die with thee than live without thee."
"Fare thee well! Yet think awhileOn one whose bosom bleeds to doubt thee;Who now would rather trust than smile,And die with thee than live without thee."
—Moore.
Sitting at her window watching the radiant day hiding its blushes on the breast of night, Lulu Clendenon's heart was full of a strange, aching pain. She had, as Captain Fontenay had told Winans, removed to the hotel where Mrs. Conway had taken rooms, to remain until Mrs. Winans recovered from her attack of impending brain fever.
As yet she had not seen Mrs. Winans, no one being permitted to enter the sick-room excepting those who were in close attendance on the patient; and, truth to tell, Lulu was lonely. She missed Bruce Conway. For many weeks now the twilight hour had been the pleasantest of the day to her, for it had been passed in his company. Now as she sat at the window, cuddled up in a great easy-chair, her cheek pressed down in the hollow of her little white hand, her wistful brown eyes watching the fairy hues of sunset, Lulu was waking to a realization of her own heart.
The little sister that Captain Clendenon had wanted to keep a child forever was a child no longer. Love—the old, old story, old as the world, and yet new and sweet as the blushingflowers of to-day's blossoming—had opened for her the portals of a broader existence, and Lulu was learning the strength and depth of her woman's heart first by its intense aching.
According to the verdict of the world, it is a woman's shame to love unsought; and yet I think that that is scarcely love which waits to be given leave to love. Flowers blossom of their own sweet will, and often as not their sweetest perfume rises under the heedless feet that trample them down. It is much so with the human heart. It gives love, not where it is asked always, but often where it is uncared for and unknown; and the cold steel of disappointment is but to such love as the knife that digs round the roots of our flowers—it makes the fibers strike deeper in the soil of the heart.
"Successful love may sate itself away,The wretched are the faithful."
"Successful love may sate itself away,The wretched are the faithful."
Lulu wished idly that she were floating in ether on the top of that gold-tinged cloud that rose in the far west, wave on wave, over masses of violet, rose, and crimson; or that she might have laid her hot cheek against that white drift that looked like a chilly bank of snow, and cooled the fever that sent its warm flushes over her face.
The pretty lip trembled a little, and Lulu felt as if she wanted to go home, like a tired and weary child, to her mother.
Mrs. Conway's light footsteps, as she entered softly, startled her from her painful reverie. She roused up into a more dignified posture, and inquired touching the state of the young patient.
"She has been delirious to-day, but is now for the time being quite rational, though still and silent. I want to take you to see her, my dear. You will have to help nurse her (we cannot leave her solely to the care of that nurse and the doctor—it would be cruel), and it is better to have her get acquainted with you now, and accustomed to seeing you about her room. You can come now, if you please, dear. I have spoken to her of you, and she will be prepared to see you."
Lulu rose from her easy-chair, shook out her tumbled skirts, trying to shake off a portion of her heart's heaviness at the sametime, and smoothing her dark braids a little, followed her friend.
But her heart rose to her throat as they crossed the threshold of the sick-room, and stood in the presence of a woman who had always been such an object of interest to her.
The fading winter sunshine glimmered into the apartment and shone on Norah, where she sat, grave and anxious-looking, at the side of the low French bed, whose sweeping canopy of lace thrown back over the top revealed the form of Grace Winans lying under the silken coverlet, like some rare picture, her cheeks flushed scarlet with fever, the white lids drooping over her brilliant eyes, her arms thrown back over her head, her small hands twisted in the bright drift of golden hair that swept back over the embroidered pillow.
"Dear Grace," Mrs. Conway said, softly, "this is my young friend, Lulu, Mrs. Winans, Miss Clendenon."
Slowly the sweeping lashes lifted, and the melancholy gaze dwelt on Lulu's face, but the lips that opened to speak only trembled and shut again in that set, firm line with which proud women keep back a sob. One little hand came down from over her head, and was softly laid in Lulu's own. As it lay there, warm, feverish, fluttering like a wounded bird, the young girl's heart swelled with a throb of passionate sympathy.
She bent impulsively and pressed her cool, dewy lips on the fevered brow of the other, while she registered a vow in her unselfish soul, that she would stand between Grace Winans and every sorrow that effort or sacrifice of hers could avert.
How potent is the spell of sympathy! The light pressure of those soft lips touched a chord in Grace's tortured heart that never in after years ceased to vibrate. Her husband had spoken truly in saying that she had no intimate woman-friend, but it was scarcely her fault. Her nature was a singularly pure and elevated one; the majority of the women she knew had few feelings in common with her, and she was too much superior to them not to be an object of envy rather than a congenial friend to most. She had found a kindred spirit at last in the sister of Willard Clendenon; and if the shifting current of fate had ordered her life otherwise than what it was—had she marriedWillard Clendenon, maimed, comparatively poor, unskilled in the current coin of worldly compliment though he was, she would have found her soul-mate. But these strange mistakes lie scattered all along the path of life, and it is true that matches, if made in heaven, sometimes get woefully mismatched coming down.
"Her fever is getting higher," Mrs. Conway said, as she anxiously fingered the blue-veined wrist.
It rose higher and higher; delirium set in, and in restless visions the young mother babbled of her lost child; she was seeking him—seeking him everywhere, through the wide, thronged avenues of Washington, the long corridors of the capitol, the dull, narrow streets of Norfolk, by the moonlit shores of Ocean View; and the red light of a meteor in the sky was blinding her so that she could not see; and when it faded she was in darkness—and now burning reproaches scorched the sweet lips with their fiery breath, and Paul Winans' name was whispered, but with inexpressible bitterness. The impression on her mind, strengthened by his words at their last interview, was that he had intentionally secreted her baby to punish her in some sort for what seemed to him faults in her. He had struck a blow at her heart where it was most vulnerable; she had told him it would be her death, and he had wanted her to die; and this dismal refrain haunted her fevered slumbers through long hours. In vain Norah cooled the burning head with linen strips, holding masses of powdered ice; the white arms tossed restlessly, the lips still babbled incoherent grief and anger; the physician came, watched her for an hour, went through the formula of prescribing, and shaking his head and promising to see her in the morning, went his way; and the hours went on—it was ten o'clock, and quieter slumbers seemed to fall upon the worn-out patient; she talked less incoherently, tossed and moaned less often.
"A gentleman to see Mrs. Conway," was announced by the subdued voice of a servant at the door.
Supposing that it was her nephew, she glided softly out, returning in ten minutes, to find Grace feebly tossing again and staring with wide-open eyes at every object in the dimly lightedroom. She bent over her and tried to fix her wavering attention.
"My dear, will you see your husband? Senator Winans desires an interview with you."
Something in the name seemed to fix and hold her wandering thoughts. She half-lifted herself, resting on her elbow and sweeping her hand across her brow.
"My husband—did you say that?"
"Yes; listen, dear. He has come to see you, and is waiting in the parlor. May I bring him in? Will you see him?"
A flash of hope in the fever-bright violet eyes, a hopeful ring in the trembling voice:
"The baby—he has brought the baby?"
"No, not yet; he hopes to soon," taking the small hands and softly caressing them with hers, "indeed, you are mistaken, Gracie, in thinking, dear child, that he is deceiving you in this matter. He is in great distress, longs to tell you so, and to try to comfort you; say that you will see him."
"No, not I; you do not know him—he is so cruel. Oh, my poor heart!" clasping her hands across her heaving breast, "He has come to triumph in my anguish, to laugh at the wreck he has made of my life."
"Not so, Gracie, dear little one, he has come to sympathize with you—won't you let him come?"
"No, no, never!" rising straight up and shaking herself free of Mrs. Conway's detaining hand, the delirium clouding her brain again. "Oh, never till he comes to me with our baby in his arms will I look upon his face again. Tell him this, and say that if he entered that door I would most surely spring from that window rather than look on his face with its smile of triumph at my suffering."
She fell back, exhausted and quite delirious now, and Mrs. Conway turned with a heavy heart to carry the ill tidings to the man who waited in the next room. She was spared that pain. The clear, bell-like voice, sharpened by anger and scorn that was strange to that gentle spirit, had penetrated the next room, and he knew his doom and felt it to be just, as he stood in the middle of the floor, his hands clasped behind him, his head bowed on his breast, a perfect picture of humiliation and despair.
"I have heard," he said, with a ghastly smile, as her fingers touched his arm.
"My poor boy!" she said.
"It is just," he said, in a whisper of intense pain. "God knows I merit worse at her hands, but, all the same, it goes hard with me—the worse because, as I told you just now, I leave for Europe to-morrow in quest of our child. Oh! Mrs. Conway, take care of her while I am gone. Don't—don't let her die!"
"She shall not die," said Lulu's soft, low tones, as she glided into the room and up to his side. "I will—we all will—do everything to keep her for you until you come back to make her happiness your chief care in life hereafter. She must not, will not, die!"
He looked up, caught her hand, and touched it gratefully to his lips.
"God bless you for those words, Miss Clendenon! You always come with renewed life and promises of hope. Oh! watch over her well, I entreat you; and, oh! teach her, if you can, to think less harshly of me. May God forgive me for my folly and wickedness to her, and give me a chance to retrieve the past by the future."
The two ladies looked at each other, deeply moved.
"I am coming back at the very earliest possible day after I recover my child," he went on; "but never till then. I have heard my doom from her own lips." Then he stopped, too deeply pained for words, and with only a heart-wrung "good-by," was gone.
"The next timeyou will seek me," she had said, at their last fatal interview.
There are many thoughtless words spoken that afterward seem like prophecies.
Mrs. Conway and Lulu went back to the room where they were doomed to watch for many long weeks yet to come over the sick-bed where life and death were waging fierce warfare over a life-weary, reckless victim. But the "balance so fearfully and darkly hung" that a touch may turn the scale toward "that bourne whence no traveler returns," wavered, and dropped its pale burden back into the arms of those who loved her; and, shadowy, wasted, and hopeless, Grace Winans took up the crossof her life again, with all the sunshine gone out of it, the only comfort left to her bruised heart that "comfort scorned of devils"—that comfort that is "sorrow's crown"—"remembering happier things."
"HOPE SPRINGS ETERNAL IN THE HUMAN BREAST."
"Ah! one rose,One rose, but one by those fair fingers culled,Were worth a hundred kisses, pressed on lipsLess exquisite than thine."
"Ah! one rose,One rose, but one by those fair fingers culled,Were worth a hundred kisses, pressed on lipsLess exquisite than thine."
—Tennyson's "Gardener's Daughter."
It is the latter part of the month of February, and Norfolk is waking up from its winter torpor. Our friends who wintered in Washington are all at home again. Mrs. Conway and her well-beloved nephew are located once more at Ocean View. Mrs. Winans, only just recovered from her severe and lengthy illness, is once more established in her handsome residence in Cumberland street, and has prevailed on Miss Clendenon to spend the first few weeks after their return with her—Mrs. Clendenon, though lonely without her, willingly giving up those weeks of her daughter's treasured society to the fair woman of whom both son and daughter speak in terms of such unqualified praise.
They are very fond of each other—Grace and Lulu—and, indeed, the fair mistress of that grand home feels as if life will be a blank indeed when Lulu, too, leaves her, for her pleasant company helps to dispel the aching sense of waiting and suspense that broods drearily over her own heart.
Senator Winans has not returned to the United States—indeed, seems in no haste to return—for he has resigned his seat in Congress, and writes that he will never return until accompanied by the child so strangely lost.
At present the fate of that little child is wrapped in impenetrable mystery. The detectives in Liverpool who were watching for the arrival of the steamer there, were eluded by the cunning of his poor, half-insane abductor, and not a trace of herafterward could be found, though the story was widely circulated in the prominent papers, munificent rewards offered for his restoration to his father, and the best detectives employed to hunt the woman down. In vain.
Whether the little Paul yet lived was a matter of doubt to many who considered the subject carefully, and remembered how irresponsible, how poorly fitted to take care of the tenderly nurtured babe, was the poor, grief-stricken, demented creature. But Winans remained abroad, resolved that he would never give up the search nor return home until success crowned his efforts. And with him, to make a resolve was generally to keep it.
As for Grace, the first sharp agony of her grief being past, a sort of apathy settled upon her, a quietude that appeared to infold her so closely it seemed as if joy or pain could never touch her more. Very still and quiet, though sweet, and gently observant of the cares of others, she glided through the elegant rooms of her strangely quiet and solitary home, and books and music, and long, lonely drives, shared only by Lulu, formed the only objects of her daily occupation. Health returned to her so slowly that life seemed slipping from her grasp by gradual declining, and the fair cheek, never very rosy, wore the settled shadow of an inward strife, the girlish lip a quiet resolution that moved the gazer to wonder.
And for Lulu, also, a slight paleness has usurped the place of the brilliant roses she carried to Washington. The starry brown eyes hold a grave thoughtfulness new to their soft depths, and sometimes, when suddenly spoken to, the girl starts, as if her thoughts had strayed hundreds of miles away, though the truth of the matter is they never strayed further than Ocean View, where the handsome object of their thoughts dawdled life away, "killing time" and thought as best he might, and seldom coming into Norfolk—"recruiting after a fatiguing season," he was wont to say, when rallied on the subject by his numerous friends in the city, and had Lulu been at her mother's, he would very possibly have called occasionally to see her, but while she staid with Grace she was debarred the pleasure of seeing him, for Bruce never expected to cross the threshold of the house that called Mrs. Winans its mistress, andwhere Lulu sat one bright, sunny morning, toward the last of the month of February. As is often the case, February had borrowed a windy day from March, and the "homeless winds" shrieked around the corners, and moaned dismally in the trees that were just putting out the safest and greenest of velvet buds, and Lulu, sitting alone in the cozy morning parlor, idly turning the pages of a new volume, started up in surprise and pleasure as a servant ushered "dear brother Willie" quite unexpectedly into the room.
"So glad to see you," she said, brightly, putting both hands in his one, and rising on tiptoe for a kiss.
He stooped and gave her a dozen before he accepted the chair she placed for him beside her own.
"Mother is well? I haven't seen her these two days," she queries, anxiously.
"Mother is well—yes, and sent her love."
"Now," she chattered, laying aside her book, and concentrating all her attention on him, "give me all the news."
"Well, Lulu, all the news I have is soon told. I am come to bid you good-by. Winans has been urging me so earnestly in his letters to join him abroad in his search for the little Paul, that I have not the heart to refuse, if I wished, which I do not, and I start to-night. There is no use putting it off, and I do not need to. The only thing I regret is that this will curtail your stay with Mrs. Winans, as mother cannot spare us both at once, and will want to have you with her to console her anxieties while 'with a smile at her doleful face, her Willie's on the dark blue sea.' Still, dear little sister, you can spend much of your time with Mrs. Winans, which I hope you will do."
"I certainly will do so," she gravely promises.
"It is solely for her sake that I go," he concluded. "Otherwise I do not care for the trip, and it rather encroaches on my business at this time. But if I can help lift the cloud from her life, no effort of mine shall be wanting.Noblesse oblige, you know, little sister."
She glanced up into the soft, serious, gray eyes, that met her gaze so kindly with a smothered sigh.
"How noble and calm was that forehead,'Neath its tresses of dark curling hair;The sadness of thought slept upon it,And a look that a seraph might wear."
"How noble and calm was that forehead,'Neath its tresses of dark curling hair;The sadness of thought slept upon it,And a look that a seraph might wear."
"My darling," he bent and looked into the face that lay against his shoulder, "you are not well—you do not look like my bright, happy bird. What is it—what has troubled you?"
"Nothing; indeed it is nothing. I have the least bit of a headache, but it is wearing off in the joy of seeing you," she answered, smiling a little, and then, woman-like, touched by a sympathizing word, breaking into tears and sobbing against his shoulder.
He put his arm around her, inexpressibly shocked and pained.
"Somethinghastroubled you, and I know it. Tell me, Lulu, or I cannot be content to cross the ocean leaving you with some untold grief in your happy young heart. Come, you do not have any secrets from brother Willie."
"No, no, it is nothing, dear brother, but I am so nervous of late—have learned to be a fashionable lady, you know," smiling faintly to allay his anxiety, "and I am so shocked to think you are going away—so far, and sosoon—how long do you mean to stay?"
"I cannot tell. I shall write to you often, anyhow, so that you and mother shall not miss me so much. I shall throw all my powers into this undertaking. And, Lulu, I think—that is—I should like to seeherand say good-by—if you think she would see any one?"
"She would see you, certainly; she is very fond of you; talks often of you. You can go down into the conservatory; she was there a little while since. I know she is there still. After you tell her good-by, you will come back to me—will you?"
"Yes, dear," he answered, as he rose and left her, passing on through the continuation of the elegant suite of rooms leading out to the door of the conservatory and glancing in for her he sought.
She was there. He caught his breath with a pang as he saw the slender figure standing under a slim young palm tree, looking like a sculptured image of thought with her downcasteyes and gravely quiet lips. A furred, white morning robe of fine French merino, girded at the waist by silken white cords and tassels, fell softly about her form and trailed its sweeping length on the marble floor. There were faint blue shadows around the glorious eyes, though they may have been but the shadow of the sweeping black lashes—there was a glow but no color on the pure, fragile cheek, and a dumb suggestion of quiet martyrdom in the droop of the hands that loosely clasped each other, as
"Stiller than chiseled marble standing there,A daughter of the gods, divinely tall,And most divinely fair,"
"Stiller than chiseled marble standing there,A daughter of the gods, divinely tall,And most divinely fair,"
the eyes of Captain Clendenon dwell on her for a moment with a mist before their sight, and then—but then she lifted the sweeping lids of those rare pansy-vailed eyes, and looked up at him.
The ghost of a smile touched her lips as she gave him her hand.
"It seems a long time since I saw you," she said, "though it really is not two months."
"Sometimes," he answered, gravely, "so much suffering can be crowded into two months that it may well seem two centuries."
"Ah! yes." She set her lips suddenly in the straight line with which she was wont to keep back a sob. After a moment, "Have you seen Lulu?"
"Yes, I have seen her," going over patiently, and at more length, the information he had just given his sister, talking this time brightly and cheerfully. "I feel almost assured he will be found; he must be—'there is no such word as fail,' you know, in the 'lexicon of youth,'—and I think you are giving up too easily. You will undermine your health already weakened by your severe illness. Why, you have the appearance of one who has given up all hope."
"And I have," she calmly made answer.
"That is simply suicidal," he said, trying to rouse her into hope with all the strength of his strong, true nature.
"You are so kind, Captain Clendenon," she flashed a blindingray of gratitude from her dusk eyes upon him, "so kind to go and look for him—my baby—believe me, I never, never can forget it, though I feel that all search will be in vain—still, still, it is so kind, so noble in you to do all this, and I know you are doing it for me," laying her small hand mechanically on his coat-sleeve in a childish fashion she had, and keeping the grateful eyes still on his face.
"Mrs. Winans," he answered, quite gravely, "I would go to the ends of the earth to serve you—any man who knows your unmerited sufferings, and appreciates you as well as I do, could not do less, I think."
"Thank you," she murmured, with the faintest quiver in the music of her voice.
"And now," he spoke less gravely, and more brightly, "I think I must be saying good-by. Is there anything I can do for you on the other side of the Atlantic—any commission for Parisian finery—any message for your husband?"
"Nothing—thanks," she answered, decisively.
He sighed, but did not urge the matter.
"You are not going to send me to Europe without one flower, and so rich in floral blessings?" his glance roving over the booming wilderness of beauty and fragrance all around her.
"No, indeed, but you are not going yet. You will certainly stay to luncheon, will you not?"
"I cannot—thanks!"
"You shall have all the flowers you want. What are your favorites? Pray help yourself to all you fancy, and welcome," she urged, earnestly.
He glanced around. Everything rare, and sweet, and bright he could think of, glowed lavishly around him, but the only white rose that had blown that day she had quite mechanically broken and placed on her breast.
"I only want one flower. I like white roses best," he answers.
She turned her head, bending forward to see if any were there, and one of her long, fair curls swept across and tangled itself in a thorny bush beside her. She caught it impatiently away, leaving a tangle of broken gold strands on the thornystem. Before she turned back to him he had broken off the spray and hid it in his breast.
"There is not a rose," lifting regretful eyes to his face, "excepting this one I wear. I carelessly broke it, but it is still fresh. You are welcome to that, if you will have it," she said, sweetly.
"If you please."
She disengaged it, and put it in his hand. He retained hers a moment.
"Thanks, and—good-by."
"Good-by," her voice said, regretfully, then added: "Oh! Captain Clendenon, find him for me, if you can! Oh, try your best!"
"I pledge you my word I will," he answered, "but promise me that you will have faith in my endeavor; that you will live in hope."
"Oh! I cannot, I cannot! I feel that I can never hope again!" she cried, but with a brightening glance.
"But you will," he answered, cheerily. "Health, and hope, and love will all come back to you in time. 'Hope springs eternal in the human breast.' God bless you, and good-by."
Their hands met a moment in a strong, friendly clasp; her violet orbs dusk and dewy with feeling; her voice scarce audible as it quivered:
"Good-by!"
"SMILING AT GRIEF."
"Come, rouse thee, dearest; 'tis not wellTo let the spirit broodThus darkly o'er the cares that swellLife's current to a flood."
"Come, rouse thee, dearest; 'tis not wellTo let the spirit broodThus darkly o'er the cares that swellLife's current to a flood."
—Mrs. Dinnies.
"And if I laugh at any mortal thing,'Tis that I may not weep; and if I weep,'Tis that our nature cannot always bringItself to apathy, which we must steepFirst in the icy depths of Lethe's springEre what we least wish to behold will sleep."
"And if I laugh at any mortal thing,'Tis that I may not weep; and if I weep,'Tis that our nature cannot always bringItself to apathy, which we must steepFirst in the icy depths of Lethe's springEre what we least wish to behold will sleep."
—Byron.
"Lulu, I have come to take you for a drive," said Grace Winans, as she glided lightly into Miss Clendenon's sanctum, looking fair and fresh, and smiling, in faultless summer costume of frilled and fluted white muslin, and the daintiest of gray kid driving-gloves, for it is six months since Captain Clendenon went to Europe, and the last days of August are raining their burning sunshine on the sea-girt city of Norfolk.
But Lulu's room, cool, fresh, inviting, a very bower of innocent maidenhood—offers an exquisite relief from the burning heat and general parched look of the world outside. A cool, white India matting covers the floor; the chairs are light graceful affairs of willow-work; the windows are shaded with curtains of pale green silk and lace, swaying softly in the faint breeze that stirs the trees outside. A few rare paintings adorn the creamy-hued walls—pictures of cool woodland dells and streams, with meek-eyed cows standing knee-deep in meadow grass; a charmingly romantic sketch of the Chesapeake Bay, and over the white, dainty-covered lounge, where Lulu is reclining at ease, a picture of a cross, to which a slender form, with a vail of sweeping hair, clings with dark, uplifted eyes that breathe the spirit of the inscription beneath: "Helplessto thy cross I cling." A vase of fragrant and beautifully arranged flowers adorns the marble center-table where the poems of Tennyson, Hemans, Owen Meredith, and all the authors, peculiarly the favorites of young ladies, are ranged in bindings of green and gold. Lulu, herself, lying idly with white arms clasped over her head, her face like a rose, her dainty white morning-dress loosely flowing, "a single stream of all her soft brown hair poured on one side," looked as if Rose, the "Gardener's Daughter" had stepped down out of Tennyson and laid herself down to rest.
"To drive—where?" she asked, as she rose to a sitting posture, and "wound her looser hair in braid."
"To Ocean View, to call on Mrs. Conway. My neglect of her since her great kindness to me in my illness is really unpardonable, so we will drive down this morning, make a long, informal call, stay to luncheon, and drive back in the cool of the afternoon."
"Hum! is not nine miles a long distance to drive this warm day?" asks Lulu, rising and flitting into her dressing-room, the door of which stands open beyond.
"What! Through the cool leafy arches of the woods, with the birds singing, the bees humming, the flowers wasting their perfume for our sole benefit, the spirit of summer abroad in the air—it will be exquisite!" Mrs. Winans answers gayly, as she floats up and down the room, and, pausing before a mirror, settles her broad straw hat a little more jauntily on her waving ringlets.
"Sit down, won't you?" Lulu calls, from the dressing-room, where she is attiring herself in fresh white robes similar to those of Grace.
"I thank you, no," she is answered back. "I am fidgety. I am restless—not in the mood for keeping quiet. I prefer to walk about."
"Ah! Hysterical, I presume—is that it?" questions Lulu's rosy lips at the door, glancing at her with gently solicitous eyes.
"I dare say," not pausing in her restless walk, and Lulu, looking closer under the light mask of gayety, reads with a sigh traces of unrest in the fair, proud face.
It is a peculiarity of Grace's constitution or temperament that she can never keep still under the pressure of excitement or trouble. She is always in a quiver, and even when sitting down she is always rocking or tapping her foot, or perhaps it is only in the convulsive pressure of her pearly teeth on her red lips that she betrays inward unrest. I cannot give any psychological nor physical reason for this. I only know that it is so, and Lulu had found out this characteristic of Grace long ago.
"Darling," she says, coming into the room, swinging her broad straw hat by its blue ribbons. "Darling, what is it that troubles you?—anything new?"
"Anything new?" Mrs. Winans laughs, provokingly. "Lulu, dearest, is there anything new under the sun?"
"I am certain the sun never shone on anything before as rare as yourself," Lulu answers, with winning affection, lifting the small, half-gloved hand to her tender lips.
Mrs. Winans pulls it away, and dashes it across eyes that look suspiciously misty and dark.
"Don't, Lulu, you silly child! You are always making me cry."
"And I wish I could," she answers. "I am tired of this surface gayety, my liege lady. Oh, I am going to talk plainly! You don't mean it—I know how you suffer, Grace, darling, bravely as you repress it, and I know, too, that you would feel better if you let it all blow over in a great passionate storm—rain! But you won't. You have been living the last few months in a whirl of gayety and pretended pleasure, and damming up the fountain of feeling, till now it is breaking over all your frail barriers of pride and scorn, and you will not give it way, and it is bearing you on its current—where, oh! dearest, where?"
"Hush!" came in a stifled moan, from behind the hands that hid the girlish wife's convulsed face. "You shall not talk so—I cannot bear it!"
"But I must, love," and Lulu's arm stole around the convulsed form that still held itself proudly erect, as if disdaining human help and sympathy. "I must, and you will forgive poor Lulu, for it is her duty, and I must be less your devoted friend than I am if I did not speak. Oh, you know you arenot taking the right course to procure oblivion of your sad and grievous troubles! It does not make you happy to whirl through the thoughtless rounds of society amusements and pleasures; it does not make you happy nor contented to dazzle men's eyes and hearts with your inaccessible beauty, when seas are rolling between you and the only man in whose eyes you care to seem fair. Darling, I know when you go back to your silent home your heart sinks heavier by the contrast; I know that when you lay this lovely head upon its pillow you recall, with agony, the time when your baby's cheek was pillowed there against your own——"
"Oh, Heaven!" shuddered the listener, "be silent, Lulu. You will drive me mad. I cannot, cannot bear the least reference to my child! Only just now, as I drove up Main street in my little phaeton, taking a silly sort of triumph to myself at the sensation created by my pretty face and cream-white ponies, I met the funeral of a little child on its way to the cemetery—the casket was covered with lilies and roses—and, oh, Lulu, I thought of my own little one, and its probable fate! and, oh, I wished my heart would break! Why, why does not God let me die!" and, shivering with repressed agony, the young wife suffered Lulu to hold her in her close-clasped arms, while she wept and moaned on her breast.
And Lulu, wise in her young experience, let the saving tears flow on, until Mrs. Winans lifted her head and said, mournfully;
"Oh, Lulu, you should not reproach me for trying to fill up in some way the great blank in my life as best I can! I dare not brood alone over my vacant heart and wretched doom, for I should go mad. I must seek diversion, oblivion!—what would you have me do?"
Lulu's brown eyes lifted to the picture that hung over the lounge.
"Gracie," she said impressively, "is there no other way to fill up your vacant heart and life than by utter abandonment to the pleasures of the social world?"
The listener's eyes followed hers.
"'Simply to Thy cross I cling,'" she repeated listlessly.
"If you must have a salve for your wounded heart," Luluwent on, as she toyed with the bright curls that lay against her shoulder still, "there is nothing on earth that so fills up vacant heart and life as the cross of Christ the Crucified; Gracie, do you ever pray?"
"I am too wretched," she answered, hopelessly.
"Too wretched! Oh, Gracie, dear friend, do you forget how in the darkest hours our Lord spent in the Garden of Gethsemane that,being in an agony, He prayed more earnestly? It is in hours of the deepest suffering that we should pray most. When we feel that earth offers no consolation, where can we look but to heaven? And the blessing of Godmustfollow such prayers, since Christ himself has set us the example," continued the young mentor, earnestly.
"No blessings ever follow my prayers," answered the mourner, with her eyes fixed sadly, through a mist of tears, on the figure that clung "helpless" to the cross, "even when I pray, which I do—sometimes."
"You do not pray in the right spirit, then," said her friend, gently but firmly. "You do not expect a blessing to follow your prayers, and we are only healed by faith, not by the simple act of prayer, but by the faith that breathes in it. If you asked a blessing nightly, it would follow prayer, be sure. Remember His promise, 'Ask and it shall be given you, seek and ye shall find.'"
"I know, I know," answered Grace, mournfully; "but heaven and earth alike seem to have no mercy on me. Come, Lulu, my little ponies are impatient waiting so long," and pausing a moment to bathe her tear-stained face in a basin of perfumed water, she floated down the stairs, followed by the sweet little preacher.
"Now, then," with a forced laugh, as they disposed the elegant blue silk carriage-robe over their white dresses to keep out the summer dust, and dashed off in the exquisite little phaeton that was the envy of all Norfolk; "now, then, we are off like the wind for Ocean View."
She was a skillful driver, and the beautiful, spirited little ponies knew no law but her will. They flew like the wind, as she had said; but as they rode on out of the narrow streets of Norfolk, and into the cool, shady forest road, the sunshineglinting down through interstices of the trees, the leafy boughs bending till they swept against the brims of their broad straw hats—in the midst of all her idle and incessant chatter, she heard one low sentence ringing in her ears, and an involuntary prayer was rising in her heart: "Lord, teach me to feel that simply to Thy cross I cling." She had been too proud almost to humble herself even before the throne of God; she had felt that God himself was unjust to her, and willful and wretched, she had gone on her darkened way, asking no pity from God nor man. To-day, the kind words of Lulu had stirred a chord in her thoughtful heart that vibrated painfully as the question forced itself on her mind: "Have I been unjust to and neglectful of my God?" In a mind so pure and clearly balanced as was hers, the seeds of evil could not take very deep root, and the word spoken "in season" by the gentle Lulu was beginning to bear fruit already, though Lulu dreamed not of it, as she kept time with the stream of light and careless words her companion unceasingly kept up.
"Let me drive," she said, at last, noting the unwonted rose-tint that colored the fair cheek, and thinking it was the effect of fatigue; "you have been driving nearly an hour, and it will be another hour before we see Ocean View," and taking the reins with gentle force, drove on; while the other, relieving her fair hands of their damp driving-gloves, folded them across her lap, and laying back her head, gave herself up to mournful retrospection, watching the blue heavens smiling over their heads, the play of the sunshine on the leaves and flowers as they flashed past, and the transient glimpses of the sea now and then glimmering through openings in the woods. Lulu's gaze dwelt pityingly on the fair face that looked so child-like as it lay back against the silken cushioning of the phaeton, the long black lashes shading the flushed cheek, the golden locks, moist with the warmth of the day, clustering in short, spiral rings all about the pearl-fair forehead, whose blue veins were so distinctly outlined that Lulu could see how they throbbed with the intensity of her thoughts. There was so much fire and spirit, combined with sweetness in that face; its exquisite chiseling, its full yet delicate lips, its round, dimpled chin, the small, sensitive nostril, the perfection of dainty coloring and expression, that Lulucould well understand how this beauty, joined to so sweet a soul, could hold men willing captives, and at thought of her brother, Lulu sighed deeply, and to shake off the depression that was creeping over her, she said, gayly:
"A penny for your thoughts, lady fair."
The black lashes fluttered upward, and the pansy eyes met Lulu's own with such impotent anguish in their soft depths that the girl started.
"Darling, what can you possibly be thinking of?"
"Of nothing that need alarm you, my dearest," answered Grace, summoning a smile to her lips as she said, "and here we are at last at Ocean View."
"And there is John to take the horses," jumping lightly out, and shaking her tumbled skirts. "Is Mrs. Conway at home, John?"
"Ya'as'm, ole miss is at home," answered John, with a grin of delight, as the fairy idol of the Conway retainers sprang lightly out, and stood looking listlessly about her, nodding graciously to John as she followed Lulu's example by shaking out her innumerable white frills and embroideries, and leading the way to the house.
"Clar to gracious!" John said, looking open-mouthed after them, "if she don't grow mo' angelical every day of her life! Shouldn't wonder if she took wings any day and flew away to heben. T'other's pretty enough for anything, butshe—oh!she'sa fitter mate for dePresident!"
With which compliment he led away the ponies for food and water.
Mrs. Conway was charmed at the arrival of her two favorites.
"Just thinking of you both," she said, in her graceful way. "Talk of angels and you'll see their wings."
The young ladies pleasantly returned the compliment as they refreshed themselves with the iced wine and sponge cake she had ordered for them immediately after their long and tiresome drive.
"And, indeed, Grace," she said, with some concern, "you do not look as well as you should be doing by this time—really seem harassed and worn. I am afraid you are too gay. I hear so frequently of your appearance in social gatherings and societyin general, that I hope you are not overtaxing your strength."
"I think not," Mrs. Winans answered, with her grave, sweet dignity. "My constitution is superb, you know."
"I should say it was," Mrs. Conway said, "after all it survived in Washington. Still you are not looking over strong now. Your drive in the warm sun has wearied you. Won't you go up to your old room and lie down to rest?"
"No, thank you; I am feeling very well;" and Lulu, seeing the rapid flutter of Grace's fan, knew she was getting excited and nervous, and interposed with some trifling remark that diverted the attention of their amiable hostess, who remembered then to ask when Captain Clendenon had written, and how he was progressing in his mission abroad.
"He writes hopefully," Lulu answered, checking a sigh; "has nothing definite, but still keeps on with the search, which he thinks must at last be crowned with success."
"Let us hope so," Mrs. Conway said, fervently.
Presently our old friend, Bruce, saunters in, handsome, perfumed, elegant as ever. He bows low to Mrs. Winans, offers a light congratulation on her improving health, and shakes hands with Lulu, who is blushing "celestial rosy red," for she has not seen him for a month before, and her fluttering pulses move unsteadily, her whole frame quivers with subdued ecstasy. Oh! love, conquerer of all hearts, whether high or lowly, what a passionate, blissful pain thou art!
"And you had the energy to drive out here this sweltering day?" in subdued surprise he queries.
"Yes, giving Mrs. Winans the credit of planning the trip—her energy is untiring in creating pleasurable surprises for my benefit."
Grace turns aside from her chatter with her hostess to acknowledge the compliment with a passing, fond smile on her favorite.
"If I remember rightly," Mr. Conway bows slightly toward her, "Mrs. Winans has always had a quiet fund of energy in her composition that is a reproach to many who are stronger physically, but, alas! weaker in mental gifts. I am, unfortunately,Miss Lulu, one of those unstable ones who shall not excel in anything."
Mrs. Winans never glances that way. She holds her small head high, her underlying pride never more noticeable than now as she goes on talking with Mrs. Conway, languidly fanning herself the while.
Is memory busy at her heart? We think not, or if it is she would not go back to those happy, idly dreaming hours this spot recalls could they bestow all the happiness they promised then, and denied her. So often in our maturer experience we see the wisdom of God in withholding gifts we craved, whose attainment could but disappoint expectation and anticipation.
Bruce Conway would make Lulu, with her loving capacity of twisting love's garlands over wanting capabilities, a very happy wife—he never could have quite filled up the illimitable depths of Grace's heart, nor crowned her life with the fullness of content.
"Will you go to see our flowers?" he asks, bending to Lulu with one of his rarely sweet smiles. "You favor my aunt so seldom in this way that I must needs do the honors in as great perfection as is possible to me—one never expects any great quota of perfection from my indolence, you know."
She smiles as she dons again the broad straw hat that, by Mrs. Conway's request, she has laid aside, and rises to go.
He rises, too—oh, how peerless in her eyes, in his suit of cool white linen, and his graceful indolence.
"I am going to rifle your flower-garden of its sweets, Mrs. Conway," she says, lightly, as she follows him out on the broad piazza, down the steps, and into that exquisite garden that lay budding and glowing in the burning August sunshine.