CHAPTER V.

ON THE ROCK.

After supper, Ernest and I went to the rock on the summit of the hill, where we had met the year before. The scene was the same,--the river, the bay, the dark Palisades, and the vast sky illumined by the rising moon,--but somehow we seemed changed. We sat apart from each other on the rock, and sat for a long time in silence. Ernest, with downcast eyes, picked in an absent way at some flowers which grew in the crevices of the rock. And I,--well I believe I tied the strings of my sun-bonnet into all sorts of knots. I felt half disposed to laugh and half disposed to cry.

At last I broke the silence:--

"You have fulfilled your words, Ernest," I said, "You have graduated with all the honors--as last year you said you would,--and now a bright career stretches before you. You will go forth into the great world, you will battle, you will win!"

"Frank," said he, stretching forth his hand,--"Do you see yonder river as it flows broad and rapid, in the light of the rising moon? You speak of a bright career before me--now I almost wish that I was quietly asleep beneath those waves."

The sadness of his tone and look went to my heart.

"You surprise me, Frank. Now,"--and I attempted a laugh--"You have not fallen in love, since last year, have you?"

He looked up and surveyed me from head to foot. I was dressed in white--my hair fell in loose curls to my shoulders. In a year I had passed from the girl into the woman. I was taller, my form more roundly developed. And as he gazed upon me, I was conscious that he was remarking the change which had taken place in my appearance, and that his look was one of ardent admiration.

"Do _you_ think that I have fallen in love _since_ last year?" he said slowly and with a meaning look.

I turned away from his gaze, and exclaimed--

"But you are moody, Ernest. Last year you were so hopeful--now so melancholy. You _can_, you will succeed in life."

"That I can meet with what the world calls success, I do not doubt," he replied: "There is the career of the popular preacher, armed with a white handkerchief and a velvet Gospel,--of the lawyer, growing rich with the rent paid to him by crime, and devoting all the powers of his immortal soul to prove that black is white and white is black--of the merchant, who sees only these words painted upon the face of God's universe, 'Buy cheap and sell dear,'--careers such as these, Frank, are before me, and I am free to choose, and doubt not but that I could succeed in any of them. But to achieve such success I would not spend, I do not say the labor of years--No,--I would not spend the thought of a single hour."

"But the life of a good Minister of the Gospel, Ernest, living in some quiet country town, dividing his time between his parishioners and his books, and dwelling in a home like the cottage yonder--what say you to such a life, Ernest?"

He raised his eyes, and again surveyed me earnestly--"Ambitious as I am, I would sacrifice every thought of ambition for a life such as you picture--but upon one condition,"--he paused--

"And that condition?" I said in a low voice.

"Ask your own heart," was his reply, uttered in a tremulous voice.

I felt my bosom heave,--was agitated, trembling I knew not why,--but I made no answer.

There was a long and painful pause.

"The night is getting chill," I said at length, for want of something better to say: "Father is waiting for us. Let us go home."

I led the way down the path, and he followed moodily, without a word. As he helped me over the stile I saw that his face was pale, his lips tightly compressed. And when we came into the presence of his Father, he replied to the old man's kind questions, in a vacant and abstracted manner. I bade him "good night!" at last; he answered me, but added in a lower tone, inaudible to the old man, "Young and rich and beautiful, you are beyond the reach of--a _country clergyman_."

The next morning while we were at breakfast, a letter came. It was from my mother. To-morrow she would come and take me from the cottage!

The letter dropped from the old man's hand, and Ernest rising abruptly from the table, rushed from the room.

And I was to leave the home of my happiest hours, and go forth into the great world! The thought fell like a thunderbolt upon every heart in the cottage.