Part 6

Having by this time attained the sophomoric dignity, I discovered that the end and aim of existence was to be _fast_,--that the divine significance of life consisted in drinking villanous whiskey "on the sly," and proclaiming the fact by eating cardamom seeds; in stealing gates and the clapper of the chapel bell; in devouring half-cooked chickens, purloined from professional coops; in hazing freshmen; in playing euchre for "ten cents a corner;" and in parading the streets at midnight, singing "Landlord, fill the flowing bowl," and vociferously urging some one to "rip and slap and set 'em up ag'in, all on a summer's day." I smoked vile Scarfalatti tobacco in a huge Dutch pipe, wore a blue coat with brass buttons, a shocking hat, and my trousers tucked into my boots,--which after my great disappointment befell me I ceased to black with any degree of regularity,--and regulated my language according to a certain slangy work called "Yale College Scrapes."

I am inclined to look upon these youthful pranks not as unpardonable sins, though I freely admit their utter folly, but as the vagaries of immature _genius_,--if I may say so,--scorning to walk decorously, because other people do, struggling to throw off the fetters of conventionality, burning to distinguish itself in some new and original way, striking out from the beaten paths,--to repent of it afterward. For it does not take many years to teach one that the beaten paths are the safest; and I have often wished that I had had a tithe of the application and assiduity of "Old Sobriety," as we rapid youngsters called the Nestor of the class, who plodded on from morn till dewy eve and far into the night, and quietly carried off the honors from the brilliant geniuses, who wore flash neckties and shone at free-and-easys. But what thoughtless college-boy does not prefer worshipping at the shrine of the fast goddess to treading the straight and safe paths of propriety? It takes time and one or two private interviews with a committee of the Faculty to rid him of his delusion.

I have been making these confessions to show that I, too, as well as the handsome and healthy young lady whose essay furnishes my text, have had some joys that are vanished and some hopes that are buried.

But I do not therefore find that this world is a dark and dreary desert. I do not rail at life as a hollow mockery, nor long to lay my weary head upon the lap of earth. On the contrary, the longer I live in this world, the better I like it. It is a jolly old world, after all; and, though Time is an iconoclast and does smash our idols with a ruthless hand, it is only to purify our vision; and, as the fragments tumble and the dust settles, we see the true, the beautiful, and the joyous in life more clearly. I know that life has its disappointments and crosses; but I think that it is too short for sentimental lamentation over them. In homely phrase, "There is no use in crying over spilt milk." If Dame Fortune frowns, laugh her in the face, and, with a light heart and brave spirit, woo her again, and you will surely win her smile. I am as fully impressed as any one with the fact that this world is not our permanent abiding-place; but that is no reason why we should underrate, abuse, and malign it. There is such a thing as being too other-worldly. The grand truths and beautiful teachings of God's gospel do not conflict with the grandeur, the beauty, and the mystery of God's handiwork, the world; and we can no more afford to despise and dispense with the one than with the other. And it seems to me that we cannot better prepare for enjoying the life hereafter than by a healthy, hearty, rational enjoyment of the one that is here.

Do not, then, O youth, sit down and grow sentimental over your fancied griefs. Do not waste your time in shedding weak tears over the fragments of your broken idols. Kick the rubbish aside, and go on your way, with head erect and heart open to the sweet influences of this bright and beautiful world, and you cannot fail to find it not a "Piljin's Projiss of a Wale," but

"A sunshiny world, full of laughter and leisure."

In worthy action and healthy enjoyment you will find a cure for all your imaginary woes and all your maudlin fine feelings.

In two little lines lies the clue to an honorable and happy life:--

"Thou shalt find, by _hearty striving_ only And _truly loving_, thou canst truly live."

DR. HUGER'S INTENTION.

DR. HUGER'S INTENTION.

Dr. Huger was thirty years old when he deliberately resolved to be in love,--I cannot say "fall in love" of anything so matter-of-fact and well-considered. He made up his mind that marriage was a good thing,--that he was old enough to marry,--finally, that he _would_ marry. Then he decided, with equal deliberation, on the qualifications necessary in the lady, and began to look about him to find her. She must be a blonde. Above all things else, he must have her gentle and trustful; and he believed that gentleness and trustfulness inhered in the blue-eyed, fair-haired type of womanhood. She must be appreciative, but not strong-minded,--well-bred, with a certain lady-like perfectness, which could not be criticised, and yet which would always save her from being conspicuous. Not for the world would he have any new-fangled woman's-rights notions about her.

You might fancy it would be a somewhat difficult matter for him to find precisely the realization of this ideal; but here fate befriended him,--fate, who seemed to have taken Dr. Huger under her especial charge, and had been very kind to him all his life. He looked out of his window, after he had come to the resolution heretofore recorded, and saw Amy Minturn tripping across the village green.

Amy was eighteen,--blonde, blue-eyed, innocent, well-bred, unpresuming, without ambition, and without originality. She was very lovely in her own quiet, tea-rose style. Her position was satisfactory; for her father, Judge Minturn, was a man of mark in Windham, and one of Dr. Huger's warmest friends. So, having decided that here was an embodiment of all his "must-haves," the doctor went over that evening to call at the Minturn mansion. Not that the call in itself was an unusual occurrence. He went there often; but hitherto his conversation had been principally directed to the judge, and to-night there was a noticeable change.

Amy was looking her loveliest, in her diaphanous muslin robes, with blue ribbons at her throat, and in her soft light hair. Dr. Huger wondered that he had never before noticed the pearly tints of her complexion, the deep lustrous blue of her eyes, the dainty, flower-like grace of her words and ways. He talked to her, and watched the changing color in her cheeks, and her rippling smiles, until he began to think the falling in love, to which he had so deliberately addressed himself, the easiest and pleasantest thing in the world. She had the prettiest little air of propriety,--half prudish, and half coquettish. She received his attentions with a shy grace that was irresistibly tempting.

He went often to Judge Minturn's after that--not _too_ often, for he did not wish to startle his pretty Amy by attentions too sudden or too overpowering; and, indeed, there was nothing in the gentle attraction by which she drew him to hurry him into any insane forgetfulness of his customary moderation. But he liked and approved her more and more. He made up his mind to give her a little longer time in which to become familiar with him, and then to ask her to be his wife.

When he had reached this determination, he was sent for, one August day, to see a new patient,--a certain Miss Colchester. He was thinking about Amy as he went along,--laughing at the foolish old notion concerning the course of true love; for what could run any smoother, he asked himself, than his had? It seemed to him as simple and pretty as an idyl,--the "Miller's Daughter" New Englandized.

"Oh, that I were beside her now! Oh, will she answer if I call? Oh, would she give me vow for vow,-- Sweet Amy,--if I told her all?"

he hummed, half unconsciously, as he walked on.

Soon he came in sight of Bock Cottage, the place to which he was going, and began thereupon to speculate about Miss Colchester. Of course she was one of the summer boarders of whom Rock Cottage was full. He wondered whether she were young or old,--whether he should like her,--whether she would be good pay;--and by this time, he had rung the bell, and was inquiring for her of the tidy girl who answered his summons.

He was shown into a little parlor on the first floor, and, pausing a moment at the door, he looked at his patient. A very beautiful woman, he said to himself, but just such an one as he did not like. She sat in a low chair, her back to the window and her face turned toward him. She wore a simple white-cambric wrapper. Her beauty had no external adornment whatever. It shone upon him startlingly and unexpectedly, as if you should open a closet, where you were prepared to find an old family portrait of some stiff Puritan grandmother, and be confronted, instead, by one of Murillo's Spanish women, passionate and splendid. For Miss Colchester was not unlike those Murillo-painted beauties. She had a clear, dark skin, through which the changeful color glowed as if her cheeks were transparent; dark, heavily-falling hair; low brow; great, passionate, slumbrous eyes; proud, straight features. There was nothing like a New-England woman about her. That was Dr. Huger's first thought; and she read it, either through some subtle clairvoyant power, or, a simpler solution, because she knew that every one, who saw her under these cool skies of the temperate zone, would naturally think that thought first. Her full, ripe lips parted in a singular smile, as she said,--

"You are thinking that I am not of the North. You are right. I was born in New Orleans. I am a Creole of the Creoles. I don't like the people here. I sent for you because you were German, at least by descent."

"How did you know it?"

It was an abrupt question for a man of the doctor's habitual grave courtesy; but she seemed to him unique, and it was impossible to maintain his old equipoise in her presence. She had read his thought like a witch. Was there something uncanny about her?

"How did I know you were German?" She smiled. "Because your name suggested the idea, and then I saw you in the street, and your features indorsed the hint your name had given me."

"I am glad that anything should have made you think of me."

It was one of the conventional platitudes, of which self-complacent men, like Dr. Huger, keep a stock on hand for their lady friends. Miss Colchester saw its poverty, and smiled at it, as she answered him,--

"I think of every one with whom I come in contact; and I thought of you, especially, because I intended from the first, if there were a good physician here, to consult him."

The doctor looked into her radiant face.

"Is it possible that you are ill?"

He had sat down beside her by this time, and taken her hand. It gave him a curious sensation as it lay quietly in his. He felt as if there were more life, more magnetism, in it than in any hand he had ever touched.

"That _you_ must tell me," she said, quietly. "My heart feels strangely, sometimes; it beats too rapidly, I think, and sometimes very irregularly. I have lived too fast,--suffered and enjoyed too keenly. The poor machine is worn out, perhaps. I look to you to inform me whether I am in danger."

"I must have my stethoscope. I will go for it. Are you sure you can bear the truth?"

She smiled,--a cool smile touched with scorn.

"I have not found life so sweet," she said, "that its loss will trouble me. I only want to know how long I am likely to have in which to do certain things. If you can tell me, I shall be satisfied."

As Dr. Huger went home, he met Amy. Something in the sight of her fresh, blonde beauty, with its fulness of life and health, jarred on his mood. He bowed to her with a preoccupied air, and hurried on. When he went back to Rock Cottage, Miss Colchester was sitting just as he had left her. To sit long at a time in one motionless attitude was a peculiarity of hers. Her manner had always a singular composure, though her nature was impetuous.

He placed over her heart the instrument he had brought, then listened a long time to its beating. He dreaded to tell her the story it revealed to him, and at last made up his mind to evade the responsibility. When he had come to this conclusion, he raised his head.

"I do not feel willing," he said, "to pronounce an opinion. Let me send for a medical man who is older, who has had more experience."

She raised her dark eyes, and looked full in his face.

"You are afraid to tell me, after all I said? Will you not believe that I do not care to live? I shall send for no other physician. I look for the truth from your lips. You find my heart greatly enlarged?"

"I told you I did not like to trust my own judgment; but that _is_ my opinion."

"And if you are right I shall be likely to live--how long?"

"Possibly for years. Probably for a few months. There is no help,--I mean, no cure. If you suffer much pain, that can be eased, perhaps."

Miss Colchester was silent a few moments. Dr. Huger could see no change in her face, though he watched her closely. The color neither left her cheeks or deepened in them. He did not see so much as an eyelash quiver. At last she spoke,--

"You have been truly kind, and I thank you. I believe I am glad of your tidings. I think I shall stay here in Windham till the last. I would like one autumn among these grand old woods and hills. I have nothing to call me away. I can do all which I have to do by letter, and my most faithful friend on earth is my quadroon maid who is here with me. She will be my nurse, if I need nursing. And you will be my physician,--will you not?"

"I will when I can help you. At other times, may I not be your friend, and as such come to see you as often as I can?"

"Just as often,--the oftener the better," she answered, with that smile which thrilled him so strangely every time he met it. "I shall always be glad to see you. Your visits will be a real charity; for, except Lisette, I am quite solitary."

He understood by her manner that it was time to go, and took his leave.

That night he walked over to Judge Minturn's. Amy was just as pretty as ever,--just as graceful and gentle and faultless in dress and manner. Why was it that he could not interest himself in her as heretofore? Had the salt lost its savor? His judgment endorsed her as it always had. She was precisely the kind of woman to make a man happy. That pure blonde beauty, with its tints of pearl and pink, was just what he wanted, always had wanted. Why was it that he was haunted all the time by eyes so different from those calm blue orbs of Amy's? He thought it was because his new patient's case had interested him so much in a medical point of view. He was tired, and he made it an excuse for shortening his call.

He went home to sit and smoke and speculate again about Miss Colchester. He seemed to see her wonderful exotic face through the blue smoke-wreaths. Her words and ways came back to him. He had discovered so soon that _she_ was no gentle, yielding creature. She had power enough to make her conspicuous anywhere--piquant moods and manners of her own, which a man could find it hard to tame. He was glad,--or thought he was,--that such office had not fallen to his share,--that the woman he had resolved to marry was so unlike her; yet he could not banish the imperious face which haunted his fancy.

The next day found him again at Rock Cottage; but he waited until afternoon, when all his other visits had been made. It was a warm day; and Miss Colchester was again in white, but in full fleecy robes, whose effect was very different from the simple cambric wrapper she had worn the day before. Ornaments of barbaric gold were in her ears, at her throat, and manacled her wrists. A single scarlet lily drooped low in her hair. She looked full of life,--strong, passionate, magnetic life. Was it possible that he had judged her case aright? Could death come to spoil this wonderful beauty in its prime?

Their talk was not like that of physician and patient. It touched on many themes, and she illuminated each one with the quick brilliancy of her thought. He grew acquainted with her mind in the two hours he spent with her; but her history,--who she was,--whence she came,--why she was at Windham,--remained as mysterious as before. Her maid came in once or twice, and called her "Miss Pauline," and this one item of her first name was all that he knew about her more than he had discovered yesterday. He saw her,--a woman utterly different from the gentle, communicative, impressible, blue-eyed ideal he had always cherished,--a woman with whom, had she been in her full health, his reason would have pronounced it madness to fall in love. How much more would it be madness now, when he knew that she was going straight to her doom,--that when the summer came again, it would shine upon her grave! And yet it seemed as if the very hopelessness of any passion for her made her power over him more fatal.

He went to see her day after day. He did not consciously neglect Amy Minturn, because he did not think about her at all. She was no more to him in those days than last year's roses, which had smelled so sweet to him in their prime. He was absorbed in Pauline Colchester--lived in her life. She accepted his devotion, simply because she did not understand it. If she had been in health, she would have known that this man loved her; but the knowledge of her coming fate must make all that impossible, she thought. So she accepted his friendship with a feeling of entire security; and, though she revealed to him no facts of her material life, admitted him to such close intimacy with her heart and soul as, under other circumstances, he might never have reached in a lifetime of acquaintance.

And the nearer he drew to her the more insanely he loved her,--loved her, though he knew the fate which waited for her, the heart-break he was preparing for himself.

At last he told her. He had meant to keep his secret until she died, but in spite of himself it came to his lips.

In September it was,--one of those glorious autumn days when the year seems at flood-tide, full of a ripe glory, which thrills an imaginative temperament as does no tender verdure of spring, no bravery of summer. Pauline Colchester, sensitive to all such influences as few are, was electrified by it. Dr. Huger had never seen her so radiant, so full of vitality. It seemed to him impossible that she should die. If he had her for his own,--if he could make her happy,--could he not guard her from every shock or excitement, and keep her in such a charmed atmosphere of peace that the worn-out heart might last for many a year?

It was the idlest of lover's dreams, the emptiest and most baseless of hopes, which he would have called any other man insane for cherishing. But he grasped at it eagerly, and, before he knew what he was doing, he had breathed out his longing at the feet of Miss Colchester.

"Is it possible," she said, after a silent space, "that you could have loved me so well? That you would have absorbed into your own the poor remnant of my life, and cherished it to the end? I ought to be sorry for your sake; but how can I, when just such a love is what I have starved for all my life? I have no right to it now. I am Mrs., not Miss, Colchester. I was Pauline Angereau before Ralph Colchester found me and married me. I had money and, I suppose, beauty; perhaps he coveted them both. He made me believe that he loved me with all his heart; and then, when I was once his wife, he began torturing me to death with his neglect and his cruelty. He was a bad man; and I don't believe there is a woman on earth strong enough to have saved him from himself. I bore everything, for two years, in silence. Then I found that it was killing me, and, in one of his frequent absences, I came away to die in peace. When it is all over, Lisette will write to him. He will have the fortune he longed for, without the encumbrance of which he tired so soon. You must not see me any more. Bound as I am, feeling what you feel, there would be sin in our meeting. And yet I shall die easier for knowing that, once in my life, I have been loved for myself alone."

Then Dr. Huger rose to go. To-morrow, perhaps he could combat those scruples of hers; but to-day, there was no more to be said to this woman whom another man owned. To-morrow, he could tell better how nearly he could return to the quiet ways of friendship,--whether it would be possible for him to tend her, brother-like, to the last, as he had meant to do before he loved her. He took her hand a moment, and said, in a tone which he tried so hard to make quiet that it almost sounded cold,--

"I must go now. I dare not stay and talk to you. I will come again to-morrow."

"Yes, to-morrow."

Her face kindled, as she spoke, with a strange light as of prophecy. What "to-morrow" meant to her he did not know. He turned away suddenly, for his heart was sore; and, as he went, he heard her say, speaking very low and tenderly,--

"God bless you, Francis Huger."

The next day he went again to Rock Cottage. He had fought his battle and conquered. He thought now that he could stay by her to the end, and speak no word, look no look, which should wrong her honor or his own. He asked for her at the door as usual; and they told him she had paid her bill that morning, and left. She had come, they said, no one knew from whence; and no one knew where she had gone. She had left no messages and given no address.

Dr. Huger understood that this was something she had meant to keep secret from him of all others. Was he never to see her again? When she had said, "Yes, to-morrow," could she have meant the long to-morrow, when the night of death should be over? He turned away, making no sign of disappointment,--his sorrow dumb in his heart; and, as he went, her voice seemed again to follow him,--

"God bless you, Francis Huger."

For two months afterward, he went the round of his daily duties in a strange, absent, divided fashion. He neither forgot nor omitted anything; yet he saw as one who saw not, and heard with a hearing which conveyed to his inward sense no impression. _She_ was with him everywhere. All the time, he was living over the brief four weeks of their acquaintance, in which, it seemed to him, he had suffered and enjoyed more than in all the rest of his lifetime. Every day, every hour, he expected some message from her. He felt a sort of conviction that she would not die until he had seen her again. He thought, at last, that his summons to her side had come. He opened, one day, a letter directed in a hand with which he was not familiar. He read in it, with hurrying pulses, only these words:--

"Madame Pauline Angereau Colchester is dead. I obey her wish in sending you these tidings."

"LISETTE."

From the letter had dropped, as he unfolded it, a long silky tress of dark hair. He picked it up, and it seemed to cling caressingly to his fingers. It was all he could ever have in this world of Pauline Colchester. Her "to-morrow" had come. His would come, too, by-and-by. What then? God alone knew whether his soul would ever find hers, when both should be immortal.

Will he go back again some day to Amy Minturn? Who can tell? Men have done such things. It will depend on how weary the solitary way shall seem,--how much he may long for his own fireside. At any rate, he will never tell her the story of Pauline.

THE MAN WHOSE LIFE WAS SAVED.

THE MAN WHOSE LIFE WAS SAVED.

I.