CHAPTER IV.

MAIDENHOOD.

It was June again. One summer evening I took the path which led from the garden to the summit of the hill which rose behind the cottage. As I pursued my way upward the sun was setting, and at every step I obtained a broader glimpse of the river, the dark Palisades, and the bay white with sails. When I reached the summit, the sun was on the verge of the horizon, and the sky in the west all purple and gold. Seating myself on the huge rock, which rose on the summit, surrounded by a circle of grand old trees, I surrendered myself to the quiet and serenity of the evening hour. The view was altogether beautiful. Beneath me sloped the broad hills, clad in wheat which already was changing from emerald to gold. Farther down, my cottage home half hidden among trees. Then beneath the cottage, the homes of the village dotting the hills, among which wound the Neprehaun. The broad river and the wide bay heaving gently in the fading light, and the dark Palisades rising blackly against the gold and purple sky. A lovelier view cannot be imagined. And the air was full of summer--scented with breath of vines and blossoms and new-mown hay. As I surrendered myself to thoughts which arose unbidden, the first star came tremulously into view, and the twilight began to deepen into night. I was thinking of my life--of the past--of the future. A strange vision of the great world, struggled into dim shape before the eye of my mind.

"A year more, and I will enter the great world!" I ejaculated. A hand was laid lightly on my shoulder. I started to my feet with a shriek.

"What, Frank, don't you know me?" said a half laughing voice, and I beheld beside me a youth of some nineteen or twenty years, whose face, shaded by dark hair, was touched by the last flush of the declining day. It was Ernest, the only son of the good clergyman. I had not seen him for three years. In that time, he had grown from boyhood into young manhood. He sat beside me on the rock, and we talked together as freely as when we were but little children. Ernest was full of life and hope; his voice grew deep, his dark eyes large and lustrous, as he spoke of the prospects of his future.

"In one year, Frank, I will graduate and then,--then,--the great world lies before me!" His gaze was turned dreamily to the west, and his fine features drawn in distinct profile against the evening sky.

"And what part, Ernest, will you play in the great world?"

"Father wishes me to enter into the ministry, but,--" and he uttered a joyous, confident laugh,--"whatever part I play, I know that I will win!"

He uttered these words in the tone of youth and hope, that has never been darkened by a shadow, and then turning to me,--

"And you, Frank, what part will you play in the great world?" he said.

"I know not. My career is in the hands of my only parent, who will come next year to take me hence. My childhood has been wrapped in mystery; and my future, O, who can foretell the future?"

He gazed at me, for the first time, with an earnest and searching gaze. His eyes, large and gray, and capable of the most varied expression, became absent and dreamy.

"You are very beautiful!" he said, as though thinking aloud,--"O, very beautiful! You will marry rich,--yes,--wealth and position will be yours at once."

And as the moon, rising over the brow of the hill, poured her light upon his thoughtful face, he took my hand and said:

"Frank, why is it that certain natures live only in the future or the past--never in the present? Look at ourselves, for instance. Yonder among the trees, bathed in the light of the rising moon, lies the cottage home in which we have passed the happiest, holiest hours of life. Of that home we are not thinking now--we are only looking forward to the future--and yet the time will come, when immersed in the conflict of the world, we will look back to that home, with the same yearning that one, stretched upon the couch of hopeless disease, looks forward to his grave!"

His voice was low and solemn--I never forgot his words. We sat for many minutes in silence. At length without a word, he took my hand, and we went down the hill together, by the light of the rising moon. We climbed the stile, passed under the garden boughs, and entered the cottage, and found the good old man seated in his library among his books. He raised his eyes as we came in, hand joined in hand, and a look of undisguised pleasure stole over his face.

"See here, father," said Ernest laughingly, "when I went to college, I left my little sister in your care. I now return, and discover that my little sister has disappeared, and left in her place this wild girl, whom I found wandering to-night among the hills. Don't you think there is something like a witch in her eyes?"

The old man smiled and laid his hand on my dark hair.

"Would to heaven!" he said, "that she might never leave this quiet home." And the prayer came from his heart.

Ernest remained with us until fall. Those were happy days. We read, we talked, we walked, we lived with each other. More like sister and sister than brother and sister, we wandered arm-in-arm to the brow of the hill as the rich summer evening came on,--or crossed the river in early morning, and climbed the winding road that led to the brow of the Palisades,--or sat, at night, under the trees by the river's bank, watching the stars as they looked down into the calm water. Sometimes at night, we sat in the library, and I read while the old man's hand rested gently on my head and Ernest sat by my side. And often upon the porch, as the summer night wore on, Ernest and myself sang together some old familiar hymn, while "Father" listened in quiet delight. Thus three months passed away, and Ernest left for college.

"Next year, Frank, I graduate," he cried, his thoughtful face flushed with hope, and his gray eyes full of joyous light--"and then for the battle with the world!"

He left, and the cottage seemed blank and desolate. The good clergyman felt his absence most keenly.

"Well, well," he would mutter, "a year is soon round and then Ernest will be with us again!"

As for myself, I tried my books, my harp, took long walks alone, busied myself in household cares, but I could not reconcile myself to the absence of Ernest.

Winter came, and one night a letter arrived from Ernest to his father, and in that letter one for--Frank! How eagerly I took it from "father's" hand and hurried to my room,--that room which I remember yet so vividly, with its window opening on the garden, and the picture of the Virgin Mary on the snow-white wall. Unmindful of the cold, I sat down alone and perused the letter, O, how eagerly! It was a letter from a brother to a sister, and yet beneath the calm current of a brother's love, there flowed a deeper and a warmer love. How joyously he spoke of his future, and how strangely he seemed to mingle my name with every image of that future! I read his letter over and over, and slept with it upon my bosom; and I dreamed, O! such air-castle dreams, in which a whole lifetime seemed to pass away, while Ernest and Frank, always young, always happy, went wandering, hand-in-hand, under skies without a cloud. But I awoke in fright and terror. It seemed to me that a cold hand--like the hand of a corpse--was laid upon my bosom, and somehow I thought that my mother was dead and that it was her hand. I started up in fright and tears, and lay shuddering until the rising sun shone gayly through the frosted window-pane.

Another year had nearly passed away.

It was June again, and it was toward evening that I stood upon the cottage porch watching--not the cloudless sky and glorious river bathed in the setting sun--but watching earnestly for the sound of a footstep. Ernest was expected home. He had graduated with all the honors--he was coming home! How I watched and waited for that welcome step! At last the wicket-gate was opened, and Ernest's step resounded on the garden-walk. Concealing myself among the vines which covered one of the pillars of the porch, I watched him as he approached, determining to burst upon him in a glad surprise as soon as he reached the steps. His head was downcast, he walked with slow and thoughtful steps; his long black hair fell wild and tangled on his shoulders. The joyous hue of youth on his cheek had been replaced by the pallor of long and painful thought. The hopeful boy of the last year had been changed into the moody and ambitious man! As he came on, although my heart swelled to bursting at sight of him, I felt awed and troubled, and forgot my original intention of bursting upon him in a merry surprise. He reached the porch--he ascended the step--and I glided silently from behind the pillar and confronted him. O, how his face lighted up as he saw me! His eyes, no longer glassy and abstracted, were radiant with a delight too deep for words!

"Frank!" he said, and silently pressed my hand.

"Ernest," was all I could reply, and we stood in silence--both trembling, agitated--and gazing into each other's eyes.

The good Clergyman was happy that evening, as he sat at the supper table, with Frank on one hand and Ernest on the other. And old Alice peering at us through her spectacles could not help remarking, "Well, well, only yesterday children, and now such a handsome _couple_!"