Chapter 8

_Sept. 26th_. This little sheet of water in front of the house has the greatest variety of aspects; its face is like a human face, full of varying expressions. A slight haze made it so beautiful just before sunset, I took my chair, and put it out of the window upon the grass, then followed it, and sat with it tipped back against the house, close by the window of one of those mysterious rooms where Miss Etty immures herself. I heard the Canary say in a scolding tone, "I should think you might oblige me; it is such a trifle to do, it is not worth refusing. Why should you care for him!"

No answer, though I confess my ears were erected to the sharpest attitude of listening. I was wholly oblivious of _myself_, or I should have taken myself away, as in honor bound.

"Won't you now, Etty? I'll only ask for one of our old duets, just one."

"No, Flora," said Little Ugly, coldly enough.

"Why not?" No answer.

"To be sure, _he_ might hear. He would find out that you are musical. What of that? Where is the use of being _able_ to sing, to sing only when there's nobody to listen?"

"I sing only to friends. I cannot sing, I have never sung, to persons in whom I have no confidence."

"Afraid! What a little goose!"

"Not afraid, exactly."

"I don't comprehend, I am sure."

"I do not expect you should."

"I never did understand you."

"You never will." Silence again.

Flora tuned up, and, of all tunes, she must needs hum _my_ song. I was on my feet in a moment to depart, when I heard the clear tones of Etty's voice again, and stood still, with one foot advanced.

"Flora, you should sharp that third note in the last line."

Flora murdered it again, with the most atrocious, cold-blooded cruelty. I almost mocked the sound aloud in my passion.

"I do not tell you to vex you, only I saw that Mr. Ratcliffe--"

"You need not trouble yourself about _his_ opinion."

"I knew you would not like it, if I told you of a mistake. But I supposed you would rectify it, and I should have done you a kindness, even against your will."

"And I to hate you for it, eh?"

"If you can."

"Indeed I cannot, Etty, for you are my very best friend. But you are a horrid, truth-telling, formidable body. Why not let me sing on, my own way? I don't thank you a bit. I had rather sing it wrong, than be corrected. It hurts my pride. I think people should take my music as they find it. If it does not please them, they are not obliged to ask me to sing. One note wrong can surely be put up with, if the rest is worth hearing. I shall continue to sing it as I have done, I think."

"No,--please don't!"

"If I will mend it when I think of it, will you sing a duet?"

"Yes, though it will cost me more than you know."

"Poh!" And Flora sang the song, without accompaniment. The desired sharp rung upon my ears, and set my nerves at rest.

"Bravo! Encore!" I cried, beneath the window, and was pelted with peach-stones.

I wonder when this duet is to come off.

_Sept. 27th_. Have not stirred from the house. But I have not heard any voice but Flora's. She has been uncommonly amiable and fascinating, and I--am I not rather bewitched? I cannot keep my resolution of not being flirted with. I cannot be wise, and reserved, and indifferent. Am I trifling? Or am I in earnest? Indeed I don't know. I only know I am constantly at the side of Little Handsome, without knowing how I came there. She makes me sing with her, ride with her, walk with her, at her will, and as if that was not enough for one day, to test her power over me, to-night she made me dance with her. And now I feel like a fool as I think of Etty playing a waltz for us, at Flora's request, and giving me a long, serious look as I approached the piano to compliment her playing. I could not utter a word. I answered her gaze with one as sober, and more sad, and came away to my room, to have some talk with my real self. Now for it.

Says I to Myself, "A truce to your upbraidings, you old scold; tell me at once how you find yourself affected towards this charming little Flora."

Says Myself, "There are no tastes in common between her and me."

Says I, quickly, "Music!" and triumphed a moment or two.

But the snarling old fellow asked whether I liked her singing, or her flattery? For his part, he thought we both liked to hear our own voices, and agreed in nothing else. Taste, indeed! when I would not let her sing a song I cared a fillip for.

In short, my self-communion ended in some very sage resolutions. I feared the beautiful head with the shining curls was somewhat vacant. And the heart,--was that empty likewise? Or was that hidden cell the home of all the loveliest affections, the firmest and purest faith and motive, every thing that should be there to rule the life--and--my picture on the wall? A question this.--Does she love me? "O yes!" answered vanity. "O no!" said good sense, "not at all. If your picture is in her heart, it is one of a whole gallery. Don't be a fop. It is not your character. Don't let Flora make a fool of you."

And I resolved--

_Sept. 27th_. A very dull day. "You are as sober as a judge," said Flora at breakfast. I caught Etty's eye,--but it said nothing. Aunt Tabitha, who yesterday evidently thought me in desperate case, and once inquired about my income very significantly, now suspected a quarrel between Flora and me. I was embarrassed, and overturned the cream. "No great loss," said Etty, seeing that I was chagrined. "As easy made up as a lovers' quarrel," said Aunt Tabitha. Silly old woman! No, silly young fellow! Flora has revenged herself on me as she meant to do, for defying her power. She has turned my head; made me act like a simpleton. But "Richard's himself again," and wiser than he was.

_P.M_. I endeavored to talk more with Miss Etty, that the change in my manner might be less observed. It was all natural that I should be as grave as a judge when I addressed myself to so quiet a member of society. She seemed to divine my object, and sustained the dialogue; I never knew her to do it before. It is not diffidence, it seems, that has been the cause of this reserve; I was the more diffident of the two, failing to express my thoughts well, from a hurry and uncertainty of mind which I am not often troubled withal. It was partly astonishment, in truth, that confused me. Little Ugly and I actually exchanging ideas! I shall call her Little Ugly still, however, for I could not make her look at me as she spoke, nor answer my wit by a change of countenance.

_Sept. 28th_. Little Handsome cannot be convinced that the flirtation is over,--absolutely at an end. She alternately rails at my capricious solemnity, and pretends to be grieved at it. I can see that nothing but my avoidance of a _tete-a-tete_ is my safety. Should the sentimental tone prevail, and tears come into those beautiful eyes, I am a gone man. At my earnest request, (I have grown humble or _bold_ enough to ask a favor,) Miss Etty has brought, or rather dragged, her work-basket into the parlor. A great basket it is, so great, that I imagine in her own apartment she gets into the middle of it bodily. I sat down to watch the motions of her adroit little digits in darning stockings, and mending homely garments. I imagined, rather than saw, a humorous gleam in her eye, as I did so, and there was certainly a slight contraction of her mouth in length, as if to counteract an inclination of the muscles to move in the opposite direction.

Flora fluttered about the room like a bright-hued butterfly, pausing a moment at a window or a bookcase, or resting awhile to play a few capricious notes on the piano, and sometimes coming to view Miss Etty's employment, as if it were a branch of industry she was unacquainted with, and curious about.

The maples are turning red already. The setting sun threw a glorious light through their tinted foliage, and the still bosom of the lake reflected it in a softened, changeable hue of mingled crimson and silver. Flora was standing at the door. I somehow found myself there also; but I talked over my shoulder to Aunt Tabitha about potatoes.

"I have a fancy for a walk round the pond," said Flora. After a pause, she looked at me, as much as to say, "Don't you see, you monster, it is too late for me to go alone?"

"Miss Flora, I will second your wish, if you can drum up a third party," said I, point-blank.

Flora blushed, and pouted for a moment, then beckoned to Little Ugly, who disobligingly suggested that the grass would be wet. It so happened there was no dew, and Flora convinced her of the fact by running in the grass, and then presenting the sole of her shoe for her inspection. Miss Etty, her ill-chosen objection being vanquished, went for her bonnet, and we set forth, Miss Flora's arm in mine as a matter of course, and Miss Etty's in hers, save where the exigencies of the woodland path gave her an excuse to drop behind. A little boat tied to a stump, suggested to Flora a new whim. Instead of going round the pond, which I now began to like doing, I must weary myself with rowing her across. I was ready enough to do it, however, had not Miss Etty quietly observed that the pond was muddy, and the boat unseaworthy. Flora would not have yielded to twenty feet of water,--but mud! She sighed, and resumed my arm. I, offering the other to Miss Etty in so determined a way, that she could not waive accepting it, marched forward with spirits rising into high glee and loquacity. Presently, feeling a sudden irritation at the feather-like lightness with which Little Ugly's fingers just touched my elbow, as if she disdained any support from me, I caught her hand and drew it through my arm, and when I relinquished it, pressed her arm to my side with mine, thinking she would snatch it away, and walk alone in offended dignity. Whether she was too really dignified for that, or took my rebuke as it was intended, I know not, but she leaned on my arm with somewhat greater confidence during the remainder of our walk, and now and then even volunteered a remark. Before we finished the circumambulation of the pond, she had quite forgotten her sulky reserve, and talked with much earnestness and animation, Flora subsiding into a listener, with a willing interest which raised her in my estimation considerably.

And now that I am alone in my room, and journalizing, it behooves me to gather up and record some of those words, precious from their rarity. Flora and I, in our merry nonsense, had a mock dispute, and referred the matter to Miss Etty for arbitration.

"Etty, mind you side with me," said Flora.

"Be an impartial umpire, Miss Etty," said I, "and you will be on my side."

Little Ugly was obliged to confess that she had not heard a word of the matter, her thoughts being elsewhere, intently engaged.

"I must request you to excuse my inattention," she said, "and to repeat what you were saying."

"The latter request I scorn to grant," said I, "and the former we will consider about when we have heard what thoughts have been preferred to our most edifying conversation."

"You shall tell us," said Flora. "Yes, or we till go off and leave you to your meditations, here in the dark woods, with the owls and the tree-toads, whom you probably prefer for company."

Miss Etty condescended to confess she should be frightened without my manful protection.--Quite a triumph!

"I must thank you," she said, "for the novelty of an evening walk in the woods. I enjoy it, I confess, very highly. Look at those dark, mysterious vistas, and those deepening shadows blending the bank with its mirror; how different from the trite daylight truth! It took strong hold of my imagination."

"Go on. And so you were thinking--"

"I was hardly doing so much as thinking. I was seeing it to remember."

"Etty draws like an artist," said Flora, in a whisper.

"I was taking a mental daguerreotype of my companions, by twilight, and of all the scene round, too, in the same grey tint, just to look at some ten or fifteen years hence, when--"

"Let us all three agree," said I, "on the 28th of September, 18--, to remember this evening. I am certain _I_ shall look back to it with pleasure."

"O horrid!" shrieked Flora; "how can you talk so! By that time you will be a shocking, middle-aged sort of person! I always wonder how people can be resigned to live, when they have lost youth, and with it all that makes life bearable! Fifteen years! Dismal thought! I shall have outlived every thing I care about in life!" So moaned Little Handsome.

"But you may have found new sources of interest," suggested I, perhaps a little too tenderly, for I had some sympathy with her dread of that particular phase of existence, middle-agedness. "Perhaps as the mistress of a household--"

"Worse and worse!" screamed Flora. "A miserable comforter you are! As if it were not enough merely to grow old, but one must be a slave and a martyr, never doing any thing one would prefer to do, nor going anywhere that one wants to go,--bound for ever to one spot, and one perpetual companion--"

"Planning dinners every day for cooks hardly less ignorant than yourself," added I, laughing at her selfish horror of matronly bondage, yet provoked at it. "Miss Etty, would _you_, if you could, stand still instead of going forward?"

"My happiness is altogether different from Flora's," she replied, "though we were brought up side by side. What has taught me to be independent of the world and its notice was my being continually compared with her, and assured, with compassionate regret, that I had none of those qualifications which could give me success in general society."

"Which was a libel--" I began.

"Without the last syllable," said Flora, catching up the word.

"At any rate, I knew I was plain and shy, and made friends slowly. So I chose such pleasures as should be under my own control, and could never fail me. They make my life so much happier and more precious than it was ten years ago, that I feel certain I shall have a wider and fuller enjoyment of the same ten years hence."

What they are, I partly guess, and partly drew from her, in her uncommonly frank mood. I begin to perceive that I, as well as Flora, have been cherishing most mistaken and unsatisfactory aims. My surly old inner self has often hinted as much, but I would not hear him. Etty may have _her_ mistaken views too, but she has set me thinking.

Well, you crusty old curmudgeon, what has been my course since the awe of the schoolmaster ceased to be a sort of external conscience?

"You told me study was none of my business," says Conscience, "and a pretty piece of work you have made of it without me. Idle in college, and, when you began to perceive the connection between study and what people call success in life, overworking yourself, here you are, and just beginning to bethink yourself that I might have furnished just the right degree of stimulus, if you had but allowed it."--

Hark! hark! It is the duet! That silvery second is Etty's. I will steal down stairs, and when they have ended, pop in, and it shall go hard but I will have another song.

Parlor dark and empty. I fancied I heard Flora giggling somewhere, but I might be mistaken. Yet the voices sounded as if they came from that quarter--and--and I am sure I heard one note on the piano to give the pitch. Hark! I hear the parlor door softly shut, and now the stairs creak, and betray them stealing up, as they probably betrayed me stealing down. They only blew out the lights and kept perfectly still.--Witches!--Donkey!

Etty, your voice is still with me, clear, sweet, and penetrating, as it was when you talked so eloquently to-night, in our dreamy ramble.-- What if I had early adopted her idea, that with every conscious power is bound up both the duty and the pleasure of developing it? Might I not now have reached higher ground, with health of body and mind? Ambition is an unhealthy stimulus. A wretchedly uneasy guest too, in the breast of an invalid. I would fain have a purer motive, which shall dismiss or control it.

Etty,--what are the uses to be made of _her_ talents, while she lives thus withdrawn into a world of her own? Certainly, she is wrong; I shall convince her of it, when our friendship, now fairly planted, I trust, shall have taken root. Now we shall be the best friends in the world, and I will confide to her my--my--O, I am nodding over my paper, and that click says the old clock at the stair-head is making ready to announce midnight.

_Sept. 29th_. Capricious are the ways of womankind! Little Ugly is more thoroughly self-occupied and undemonstrative than ever. I am chagrined,--I think I am an ill-used man. I am downright angry and have half a mind to flirt with Little Handsome, out of spite. Only Miss Etty is too indifferent to care. I did but leave my old aunt to Flora, and step back to remark that it was a pleasant Sunday, that the sermon was homely and dull, and that the singing was discordant. Miss Etty assented, but very coldly, and presently she bolted into an old red house, and left me to go home by myself. When we started for church again, she was among the missing, and we found her in the pew, on our arrival. Thus pointedly to avoid me!--It might be accident, however, for she did not refuse to sing from the same hymn-book with me, and pointed to a verse on the other page, quaint, but excellent. After all, old Watts has written the best hymns in the language.

_Evening_. Without choice, I found myself walking round the pond again. It was as smooth as glass, and the leaves scarcely trembled on the trees and bushes round it. And in my heart reigned a similar calm. A strange quiet has fallen on my usually restless and anxious mind. I thought that in future I could be content not to look beyond the present duty, and, having done my best in all circumstances, that I could leave the results to follow as God wills. At that moment I could sincerely say, "Let him set me high or low, wherever he has work for me to perform." If I can remain thus quiet in mind, my health will soon return, I feel assured.

"_If!_" A well-founded distrust, I fear. This peace must be only a mood, to pass away when my natural spirits return. The fever of covetousness, of rivalry, of envy, and ambitious earthly aspirations, will come back. Like waves upon the lake, these uneasy feelings will chase each other over my soul. I picked up a little linen wristband at this moment, which I recognized. "She does not deserve to have it again, sulky Little Ugly!" said I. "I will put it in my pocket-book, and keep it as a remembrancer, for--I am glad to perceive--this is the very spot where we stood when we agreed to remember it and each other fifteen years hence. We will see what I shall be then, and I shall have some aid from this funny little talisman; it will speak to me quite as intelligibly and distinctly as its owner in a _silent_ mood, at any rate."--

Heigh-ho! How lonely I feel to-night! Every human soul is--must be--a hermit, yet there might be something nearer companionship than I have found for mine as yet. No one knows me. My real self--Ha! old fellow, I like you better than I did; let us be good friends.

_Sept. 30th_. A golden sunrise. How much one loses under a false idea of its being a luxury to sleep in the morning! Reclining under Farmer Puddingstone's elm, and looking upon the glassy pond, in which the glowing sky mirrored itself, my soul was fired with poetic inspiration. On the blank page of a letter, I wrote:

"How holy the calm, in the stillness of morn,"--

and threw down my paper, being suddenly quenched by self-ridicule, as I was debating whether to write "To Ethelind" over the top. Returning that way after my ramble, I found the following conclusion pinned to the tree by a jackknife:--

"How holy the calm, in the stillness of morn,-- When to call 'em to breakfast Josh toots on the horn, The ducks gives a quack, and the caow gives a moo, And the childen chimes in with their plaintive boo-hoo.

"How holy the calm, in the stillness of neune, When the pot is a singin its silvery teune,-- Its soft, woolly teune, jest like Aribi's Darter, While the tea-kettle plays up the simperny arter.

"How holy the calm, in the stillness of night, When the moon, like a punkin, looks yaller and bright; While the aowls an' the katydids, screeching like time, Jest brings me up close to the eend o' my rhyme."

And underneath was added, as if in scorn of my fruitless endeavor:--

"I wrote that are right off, as fast as you could shell corn. S.P."

I suppose it is by way of thanks for my having driven the pigs from the garden, that I find a great bunch of dahlias adorning my mantelpiece. A brown earthen pitcher! And in the middle of the dahlias, a magnificent sunflower! It must be my aunt's doing, and its very homeliness pleases me, just as I love her homely sincerity of affection. Who arranges the glasses in the parlor? Etty, I would not fear to affirm, from the asters and golden-rod, cheek by jole with petunias and carnations. I wonder if she would not like some of the clematis I saw twining about a dead tree by the pond. It is more beautiful in its present state than when it was in flower. Etty loves wild flowers because she is one herself, and loves to hide here in her native nook, where no eye (I might except my own) gives her more than a casual glance.--

_Noon_. "I shall think it quite uncivil of Little Ugly if she does not volunteer to arrange my share of the booty I am bringing, now that I have almost broken my neck, and quite my cane, to obtain it." This I said to myself, as I came into the house by the kitchen entrance, and proceeded to deposit my trailing treasures on Norah's table, by the side of a yellow squash.

"Do go with me to Captain Black's," said Etty's voice at the side door. "The old folks have not seen you since your return."

"I can't!" said Flora with a drawl.

"Yes, do! Be coaxable, for once!"

"It only makes me obstinate to coax. Why not go without me, I beg?"

"I am no novelty. I was in twice only yesterday. Old people like attention from such as you, because--"

"Because it is unreasonable to expect it."

"The old man is failing."

"I can't do him any good. It is dusty, and my gown is long."

"It would please him to see you. I went to sit with him yesterday, but Timothy Digfort came in, with the same intent. So I went to church, having walked in the graveyard till the bell rang."

"Owl that you are! I don't envy you the lively meditations you must have had. Why don't you go? It's of no use waiting for me."

"What! Will you let me carry both these baskets?"

"There, put the little one on the top of the other. I don't think three or four peaches and a few flowers can add much to the weight. It is tiresome enough to do what I don't want to do, when it is really necessary."

And Little Handsome danced into the parlor, without perceiving me. I laid a detaining hand on Etty's basket as she put herself in motion, on which she turned round with a look of unfeigned astonishment.

"May I not be a substitute for Flora?" I inquired.

"I do not require any aid," said Miss Etty shyly. "It is not on that account I was urging Flora. Please to let me have the basket.--Indeed, it is quite unnecessary you should trouble yourself," she insisted, as I persevered in carrying off my load.

"It is the old red house, is it not?" said I, "with the roof sloping almost to the ground. And shall I say that _you_ sent this? A view of my strange phiz will not refresh the old people like the sight of Flora's fresh young face, but I shall go in, and make the agreeable as well as I can."