Part 11

“Well, that’s not old, of course, but still—What I can’t make out, sister, is why she should be afflicted in this way. Mrs. Harper had known her, like you, ever since she was a little girl, and she has had so many troubles; all her people died soon after she was married, and her husband was not—nice, and he lost all her money before he died, and she has always been so good and lovely and patient and uncomplaining, so earnestly striving to do right, so that Mrs. Harper says she has been an example to everyone. Why should _she_ have this terrible, terrible blow fall upon her? Why should her sweet, darling little child be taken away? What has she _done_ that she should be punished so? It seems wrong—wrong! I don’t understand it.”

“I’m afraid I don’t, either,” said Helen very low. She put her hand on her heart for a minute and looked up, smiling a little wistfully. Her own trouble was so old that people had forgotten it.

“We nearly got crying,” pursued Kathleen, “all the girls, I mean. Harvey Spencer tried to make us laugh; he told jokes—horrid ones. Oh, how silly he was! I hate society men. But it seemed as if we couldn’t get off the subject; first one thing brought it up, and then another. Everybody wants to do something for Mrs. Rhodes. What I was going to tell you was that Mary Barbour said she believed that sweet little Silvy was taken because his mother made an idol of him; that you shouldn’t love anybody so much—that it was wrong. I don’t believe it, sister! I don’t _believe_ it; you can’t love anyone too much! People forget what love means, and it seems unnatural to them when we love as much as we can. Oh, you may look at me! I think of a great, great many things I never tell. You and my brother Orrin, who have done everything and had everything, you think me silly and romantic, but I am wiser than you. It’s because you’ve forgotten. Why, there’s nothing but love that makes life worth living!” said young Kathleen, her voice thrilling through the room. “I shall never try to love only a little, no matter what happens, but as much, as much, _as much_, always, as God will let me, if I die for it myself!”

She went over to Helen and flung herself down on the floor beside her, and laid her head in Helen’s lap.

“He will let you,” said Helen with an unsteady voice. Something in her tone made the girl raise her head suddenly—their eyes met in a long look, and a deep rose overspread Kathleen’s face before she hid it again. To the elder woman had come quite unbidden a picture of a man carrying tenderly in his strong arms the white, still body of a little dead child. She would like to have told Kathleen if shyness had not held her tongue. After all, he did not seem quite unworthy. If Orrin thought—

He made a grimace when she told him in the brief half hour they had together before she left the house.

“It is only the conclusion I had been coming to,” he said. “There is nothing personally against the man; I almost wish there were. I knew Kathleen would be too much for us—Kathleen and love. But how she can want him, I cannot see.”

“Ah, but, Orrin, _we_ don’t either of us have to marry him,” said his wife. “I have just found out that it’s Kathleen’s happiness, not ours, that is at stake. What are you looking at?”

He had walked over to her dressing table, where there stood the faded photograph of a little child, with a vase of flowers near it. He gazed steadily at it without speaking.

“I always thought this better than the large portrait,” he said at last huskily. “You have not had it out in some time.”

“No,” she replied, “the frame wanted repairing, and the picture had grown so dim I—I couldn’t bear to see it, someway. But to-day—oh, Orrin, I have been so longing to have someone remember—”

“I have never forgotten,” he said; “did you think that? It is only that I am so busy, there are so many things that crowd upon me that I don’t get a chance to tell you. I gave a thousand dollars to the Children’s Hospital to-day for little Silvy’s sake—and our child’s. Why, Helen, Helen, _Helen_! Poor girl, poor girl, I’ll have to look after you more, I shall not allow you to go again to-night.”

“But it has done me more good than anything else in this world,” said his wife. “I’ve been one of the dead souls in prison. It’s not for sorrow that I’m crying, Orrin, not for sorrow alone—oh, for so much else, dear! And now I must go, and I think my man is downstairs for some work from you, and I’ll say good-by until to-morrow.”

When Helen reached her friend’s house she found the clergyman just descending the steps. It was beginning to snow again in the dusk, and he buttoned his overcoat tightly around his spare figure as he came forward to assist her from the sleigh.

“Mrs. Rhodes told me that she was expecting you,” he said.

“Then have you seen her?”

“Yes, for a few minutes.” He sighed and stood meditatively looking up the street. “Judge Shillaber has just been here. I was surprised to see him, he so seldom goes out, and never seemed to take any interest in his neighbors. But perhaps I should not say that,” he added hastily. “Everyone must feel the blow that has fallen here; the circumstances are so peculiarly sad. The ways of the Lord are very mysterious.” As he spoke he raised his face, which was thin and careworn because the sorrows of his people weighed very heavily upon him. “The ways of the Lord are very mysterious. We must have faith, Mrs. Armstrong, more faith.”

“Yes, indeed,” cried Helen, “I feel that.”

“I would like to speak to you about—But I must not keep you out here. There is Mrs. Rawls. Another time!” He hurried off down the street, while Helen found herself drawn inside the door by Mrs. Rawls and into the little dining-room, where the blinds were open somewhat, now that the evening dusk had settled down. The room was warm and quiet, with a heavy perfume of flowers loading the air.

“Such a time as we’ve had!” said Mrs. Rawls in a loud whisper. “Me and Mis’ Loomis and Ellen Grant has just had our hands full seein’ people. Ellen’s as deaf as a post, but she _would_ stay, and she set by the winder and let us know when she seen anyone comin’ up the steps. Mis’ Dunham, she spelled us for a while. You never see anything like it in all your born days, Mis’ Armstrong! The hull town’s been here, and carriages driving up, folks some of ’em Mis’ Rhodes didn’t even know, comin’ to inquire or leave cards. There’s been port wine sent for her, and Tokay, and chicken broth, and jellies—I thought there’d been enough sent last week for _him_, but they’re comin’ yet. What to do with ’em I don’t know, for she won’t touch nothin’. And there’s flowers, flowers, flowers!—from them great white lilies from Colonel Penn’s greenhouse to a little wilty sprig o’ pink geranium that one of them colored children at the corner brought tied with a white ribbon, for ‘little Marse Silvy’; the child was cryin’ when she came. I filled her full of broth and jelly before she went home. Some of the things has on ’em ‘For Silvy’s mother’—that pleases her best of all. And the dear child lies there so peaceful and sweet—She put the geranium by him herself. But she’s waitin’ in there to see you, I know.”

Such a slender, drooping figure in its black garments that came to meet Helen! Such patience, such gentleness in the pale face! The tears rose once more to Helen’s eyes as she put her protecting arms around her friend and held her close in a long embrace.

“I’m glad you’ve come,” said Anne Rhodes at last. “I want you to sit here by me, we shall be alone for a little while. There is something I want to say—while I can.” Her voice was very sweet and low, and her tearless eyes were luminous. “Let me take your hand—this one; it held my darling’s hand when he was dying. _I_ knew! Dear hand, _dear_ hand!” She held it close to her cheek. After a moment she went on. “Such love, such goodness! I never dreamed of anything like it, that people should be so good. I want you to tell everyone—all who have done the least thing for my little child’s sake, yes, or who have wanted to do anything, that never while my life lasts—I hope it won’t be long—but never while it lasts will I forget them, never will I cease to ask God to bless them, ‘to reward them sevenfold into their bosom.’ I have been praying to-day, when I _could_ pray, that He would teach me how to help others, that the world might be better because my little child had lived in it, and I had had such joy. Helen, you will not forget?”

“No,” said Helen. She drew her friend’s head to her shoulder, and they spoke no more. It grew darker and darker in the room where they sat, but in the next chamber the moonlight poured through an opening in the curtains and shone upon the lovely face of the child whose life had been a delight, whose memory was a blessing, whose death touched the spring of love in every heart, and, for one little heavenly space, made men know that they were brothers.

Wings

Wings

_A Study_

I

IT was a lovely morning in the early summer that Milly Clark’s lover brought her the engagement ring with which she was also to be wedded some sweet day. It was a plain hoop of gold, with the word Mizpah graven upon its inner side, not because there was any thought of parting between them then, but simply in accordance with a somewhat sentimental fashion of the day. Milly had been given her choice between the ring and a little padlocked bracelet of which Norton was to keep the key, after it had been safely fastened on her white wrist, and this, indeed, appealed to all the instincts of barbaric womanhood, in its suggestion of a lover’s mastery; but the ring was the holier symbol, and the pledge of love eternal.

The bees were buzzing around the syringa bushes in the corner of the old-fashioned garden, where the lovers stood looking out upon the road through the white fence which was built upon a stone wall, and covered with climbing roses. The road, shining in the sunlight, sloped down to a bridge half hidden by chestnut trees, and beyond was a glimpse of hills against the blue sky of June. The air, the countryside, the hum of unseen insects, contained that suggestion of joy unspeakable that comes only at this heavenly time of the year, but there were only the two by the garden wall to feel it in its perfection this morning. As far as the eye could see there was no other human being anywhere. At eleven o’clock in a New England village, after the marketing is seen to and mail time over, all self-respecting persons are at home behind the bowed green blinds of the white houses by the roadside, or at work farther off in the fields. For Milly and Norton to be out in the garden now was to be quite alone, and when he put his arm around her and drew her down beside him on the stone wall among the roses, she only smiled confidingly up into his face, and flushed sweetly as he kissed her.

“I can’t seem to get used to it,” she said.

“Get used to what, dear?”

“Your—loving me.”

“I don’t want you to get used to it!” he cried fervently. “I’m sure I never shall. Why, when we’re quite old people it will be just the same as it is now. Love can never grow old—not ours, anyway. Can it, Milly!”

She gave him a smile for answer and he gazed down at her admiringly, taking note anew of the deep blue of her eyes, the little veins on her forehead, where the soft brown hair was drawn smoothly back from it, and the pure curve of her throat and chin—a face of the highest New England type, fine and beautiful. He himself was the product of a different civilization, and cast in a rougher mold. It was the very difference that had drawn them close together, his rude strength giving sweetest promise of protection to her delicate fineness. She sat silently looking at him, her soul steeped in a delicious dream.

“Yes, we will be like this always,” she said at last with almost religious solemnity.

“Always,” he assented.

“Only growing better and better all the time, Norton. I feel as if I could never be good enough to show how thankful I am that you love me. Do you think I ever can?”

“Hush,” he said, frowning. “You must not talk in that way. I’m only a stupid, commonplace fellow at best, not half good enough for _you_. You’ll have to make _me_ better.”

“Oh, Norton!” she protested.

“Ah, never mind now, dear! You haven’t put on my ring yet, Milly—remember it is not to come off until I have to put it on the next time—do you know when that will be? When we are married, when you are mine, really and forever. May that day soon come! Give me your hand now, dear, and let me ‘ring your finger with the round hoop of gold,’ as you were reading to me last night.”

“There is someone coming,” said Milly nervously. She stood up as the shadow of a parasol touched the roses, and met the gaze of the Episcopal clergyman’s wife, as she stopped to rest, panting a little, by the garden wall. She was a thin woman in a black and white print gown, and with a black lace bonnet trimmed with bunches of artificial violets surmounting her sallow face.

“Oh, it’s you, is it, Milly?” she asked with a kindly inflection of her rather sharp voice. “And Mr. Edwards, too, of course. Well, good morning to you both. Isn’t it a perfect day! A little hot in the sun though. It always tires me to walk up this hill; I have to stop a moment here to get my breath. I suppose you’re not going to the funeral, either of you? No, it’s not a bit necessary, but I fancied you might like to see the service performed as it should be for once.”

“I did not know anyone had died,” said Milly.

“My dear, it’s only a little boy from the poorhouse. His relatives—such as he had—are not able to bury him, and Mr. Preston did want to show the parish what a properly conducted funeral was like. You know what a frightfully bigoted place this is! We had to give up candles altogether, Mr. Edwards. It fairly makes me shiver at times—the ignorance! I wonder—I _do_ wonder, they don’t knock the cross off the spire some day, because it’s a symbol. I wonder they even have a church, instead of a circus tent!”

“Oh, Mrs. _Preston_!” remonstrated Milly. She glanced sideways nervously at Norton, who was picking a rose to pieces with an imperturbable expression.

“You will hear the choir boys at any rate as they march in procession around the grave,” pursued Mrs. Preston, raising her parasol again. “I don’t suppose there will be a soul there but ourselves. Well, I put on my best bonnet, anyway, out of respect—I know you will both be glad when I’m gone, although you’re too polite to say so.”

She relaxed into a quizzical smile as she regarded them. “Well, good-by.”

“Thank Heaven! she’s gone at last,” said Norton with boyish petulance, as they watched her disappear behind the evergreens that bordered the churchyard. “What possessed her to give us so much of her society just now—the very wrong moment, wasn’t it, dear? She has left me only a quarter of an hour before the noon train to town, and I’ll not be back until Monday, you know, this time. To think that I shall be working for you now, Milly—for a sweet girl in a blue dress, with a dimple in one cheek and long brown lashes that droop lower and lower as I—oh, you darling!” They both laughed in joyously blissful content.

“Shall I put the ring on now?” he asked after a few moments. “Stand up beside me, then. There, that is right. This is our betrothal, Milly. Say the words, dear, since you would have them, while I slip on the ring.”

“Let us say them together. Oh, Norton, it is to be forever!”

“Forever. Give me your dear hand. Now with me. ‘The Lord’—‘The Lord,’”—her clear voice mingled with his deep one. “The Lord watch—between thee—and me—when we are parted—(but we never shall be!) when we are parted—the one from the other.” The ring shone on her finger, their lips met in a long kiss. He caught her to him and laid her head upon his breast and her arms around his neck, and they stood thus, silently, while the seconds passed. What power was in those words of might to bring a sudden hush upon both hearts, and to change the sunshine into the awesome, beautiful light of another world? Something deeper, nobler, purer than they stirred those two souls, and made them sacredly, divinely one. Each felt intensely what neither could have expressed. Never, while life lasted, could the witness of that moment be forgotten.

Long after her lover had left her Milly sat in the garden, her face half hidden in the roses, with the bees still booming around the syringas, and the sky growing bluer and bluer in the heat of noon. She heard the choir boys singing now in the little churchyard near by as they marched around the open grave,

“_Brief life is here our portion, Brief sorrow, shortlived care, The life that knows no ending, The tearless life, is there. Oh happy retribution, Short toil, eternal rest! For mortals and for sinners, A mansion with the blest._”

The words brought her no realization of the shortness of human life, of inevitable sorrow, of impending care, and no remembrance of the dead pauper child, or of the open grave—they only served to add to the fullness of her bliss the thought that after all this measureless happiness of earth, there was still the joy of heaven beyond.

II

IT was only a few weeks after their betrothal that Norton sailed for Australia on that long journey from which he did not return for three years. The trip was to make his fortune, and fortune meant a home and Milly for his own; so neither rebelled, and, indeed, it was only intended at first that he should stay away a year. In the first ardor of romance parting seemed but a little thing—two hearts like theirs could beat as one with a continent between them. And love shows sweetly in different lights; the purple shadows of impending separation gave it a deeper, richer glow.

She took a little journey in from the country to see him off, and they talked of this beforehand as of something quite festive, although there proved to be a bewildering hurry and bustle about it that mixed everything up in a whirl. Mrs. Preston went with her, and there was a disjointed attempt at conversation on the deck of the steamer with some of Norton’s friends who had also come to see him off, and the examination with them, amid laughter and jokes, of Norton’s tiny stateroom, and the few moments there when, lingering behind, the two kissed each other good-by, and, the veil of pretense ruthlessly torn aside, Milly felt a sudden terrible spasm of heartbreak.

“I cannot let you go—I cannot!” she sobbed, and her lover had to loosen her arms from around his neck and dry her eyes with his handkerchief, whispering soothing words, and then she must be led out into the glaring sunlight and turn her face away from the group of friends, while her hand still lay in Norton’s. And then the bell rang—the signal for parting—and then—do we not know it all? The last look from the pier at the beloved face, and then the slow watching, watching until the vessel is out of sight and the vision is filled with green overlapping waves, and afterwards the walk back again along the wharf, among bales and vans of plunging horses, out into the world of dusty streets and houses, and the midsummer sights and smells, and the busy, empty life that is left.

Milly was grateful to Mrs. Preston for not talking. She blindly let herself be piloted anywhere to find that she was at last ensconced in a hurrying train proceeding homeward through a green landscape, with freshly cooler air blowing in through the open window to soothe her aching head. When they reached the village in the dusk it was Mrs. Preston who walked home with her up the long hill (and, oh, the going home when the one we love most has just left it) and answered all the questions that were showered upon both, and afterward went upstairs to Milly’s room and saw that the girl put on a loose gown to rest in, and made her drink the cup of tea she had brought up. She gave Milly a little kiss, “like a peck,” thought Milly, suddenly alive to the remembrance of those other kisses, and after the elder woman had left, she slipped from the bed where she had even submitted to have her feet covered, and went over to the window and knelt down by it with her head on the sill almost in the branches of the maple tree through which she could see the moon rising in golden quiet. _He_ was looking at the same moon now, and the Lord was watching between them. She pressed the ring to her lips, she pressed it to her bosom—the ring that made her his—joy flooded back upon her with the thought. She had forgotten that she could speak to him still, that she could write.

Oh, quick, quick, lose not a moment; it was treachery to have a thought in her soul and he not know it! Down on her knees in the moonlight she wrote, and wrote, and wrote, all that she never could have said—her very heart.

She woke to joy the next morning, still in this consciousness of new-found power, and with a high ideal of the life before her. She was to grow and grow that she might be worthy of him—that she might help _him_ grow to be worthy of the highest. Every minute of the day she could live for him, just as in every minute of the day he was living for her. She went about her daily tasks with renewed energy, because he was thinking of her while she performed them. Even during little Letty Stevens’s tedious music lesson she smiled, thinking how she would write him that the child’s halting five-finger exercise counted itself out to her in the words, “How I love you, how I love you, how I love you, how I love you, _dear_!”

She had a little note from him by the pilot boat, written a few hours after they had parted; how little it seemed after all she had thought and felt in this twenty-four hours! But it made the color rise in her soft cheeks, and she cried over it and wore it next her bosom by day and laid it under her pillow by night. For many long weeks it was the only message from him that she had to feed on. The mail does not come quickly from Australia. She had sent off pages and pages to him in the two or three months before his first letter came, and it was much longer before she had an answer to hers. How she studied those letters—simple, almost boyish effusions—full of wondering pride in those that she wrote to him.

“Why, you are a real poetess, Milly; I don’t see how you manage to think of such things. I wish I _had_ been thinking of you at the time you speak of, but I’m afraid that must have been when I was staying at Jackson’s, and he and Blessington and I played cards every evening; awfully poor luck I had, too. I suppose I must have been thinking of you, after all, and that’s what made me play so badly, don’t you believe it? No, I don’t do much reading out here; you’ll have to do the reading for both of us, and you can tell it all to me when I get home. _When I get home._ Oh, Milly! I can’t write about it as you do, but I’m working for my sweet, sweet girl with all the strength I’ve got.”