Part 20

"This room is full of Philip and Cousin Ralph," Sarepta had said; "his picture is but one of the things in it and in this house to remind me of Cousin Ralph."

"Sarepta breathes Philip," her mother replied.

"We are twin spirits like Blaise and Jacqueline Pascal. Do you know about them, Tessa?"

"I know that he was a monk and she a nun."

"That is like me, and not like Philip," said Miss Sarepta; "he shall not be a monk because I am a nun!"

"His wife will be jealous enough of you, though," said Mrs. Towne; "not a mail comes that he does not send you something. How would she like that?"

"Philip could not love any one that would come between us. Tessa, do you admire my brother as much as I wish you to do?"

"I admire him exceedingly," said Tessa, looking up from her twenty-fifth block of the basket quilt; "he is my ideal. I knew that I had found my ideal as soon as I saw him; I did not wait to hear him speak."

And that he was her ideal she became more and more assured, for in February he spent a week at home and she had opportunity to study him at all hours and in any hour of the day. He had lost his fancied resemblance to Dr. Towne, or _she_ had lost it in thinking of him as only himself. The long talks, during which she sat, at Miss Sarepta's side, on a foot cushion, work in hand, the basket blocks, or some more fanciful work for Miss Sarepta, she remembered afterward as one of the times in her life in which she _grew_. She told Miss Sarepta that she and her brother were like the men and women that St. Paul in his Epistles sent his love to. "He ought to marry a saint like Madame Guyon; I think that it would be easier to revere him as a saint than to marry him. I can't imagine any woman forgiving him, or loving him because he _needs_ her love; he stands so far above me, I could never think of him as at my side and sometimes saying, 'Help me, Tessa,' or, 'What do _you_ think?'"

"Now we know your ideal of marriage," laughed Mrs. Towne. "Philip is a good boy, but he sometimes needs looking after."

"Stockings and shirt buttons!"

"And other things, too. He is forgetful, and he's rather careless. How much he is taken up with that reading class!"

"In a monkish way," smiled Miss Sarepta. "He was full of enthusiasm about Ralph, too, mother."

"How is it, Miss Tessa, do you admire Dr. Towne as much as you do St. Philip?" inquired the old lady with good-humored sarcasm.

"He is not a saint," said Tessa, "he needs looking after in several matters besides stockings and shirt buttons."

"Philip talks about him! What is it that he says he is, Sarepta?"

"In his profession just what he expected that he would be,--quick, quiet, gentle, sympathetic, patient, persevering; he has thrown himself into it heart and soul. Philip used to wonder if he would ever find his vocation; his life always had a promise of good things--"

"But he was slow about it; not quick like Philip; he should have begun practice ten years ago. What has he been doing all this time?"

"We can see the fruit of his doing, mother; it does not much matter as to the doing itself. Don't you know that six years are given to the perfecting even of a beetle?"

"I don't know about beetles and things; I know that I used to think that my boy would outstrip Lydia's boy."

"Mother! mother!" laughed Sarepta, "you mind earthly things. I shall never run a race with anybody. Can't you be a little proud of me?"

Sarepta Towne had her brother's eyes, but her hair was brighter, with not one silver thread among its short curls; her fair, fresh face was certainly ten years younger than his. In summer her wrappers were of white; in winter she kept herself a bird in gay plumage; always the singing-bird, in white or crimson. When Philip Towne said "My sister," his voice and eyes said "My saint."

Once, after a silence, Tessa asked about her "Shut-ins." "How did it come into your heart at first?"

"It is a long story; first tell me what your heart has been about. It has been painting your eyes darker and darker."

"It is a very foolish heart then; it was only repeating something that I learned once and did not then understand. I do not know that I can say it correctly, but it is like this:

"'God's generous in giving, say I, And the thing which he gives, I deny That He ever can take back again. He gives what He gives: be content. He resumes nothing given; be sure. God lend? where the usurers lent In His temple, indignant He went And scourged away all those impure. He lends not, but gives to the end, As He loves to the end. If it seem That He draws back a gift, comprehend 'Tis to add to it rather, amend And finish it up to your dream.'"

"Well?" said Miss Sarepta.

"Once,--a long time ago, it seems now,--He gave me something; it was love for somebody; and then He took it--or I let it go, because it was too much trouble to keep it; I did not like His gift, it hurt too much; I was glad to let it go, and yet I missed it so; I was not worthy such a perfect gift as a love that could be hurt in loving; I could love as I loved all beauty and goodness and truth, but when I found that love must hold on and endure, must hope and believe, must suffer shame and loss, I gave it up. God was generous in giving; He gave me all I could receive, and when He would have given me more, I shrank away from His giving and said, 'It hurts too much. I am too proud to take love or give love if I must be made humble first. I wanted to give like a queen, not stooping from my full height, and I wanted to give to a king: instead, I was asked to give--just like any common mortal to another common mortal, and that after we had misinterpreted and misunderstood each other, and I had written hard things of him all over my heart, and what he had thought me, nobody knows but himself! And now I think, if I will, that I may have the love again finished up to my dream; finished above any thing that I knew how to ask or think, and it is altogether too good and perfect a gift for me; so good that I can not keep it, I must needs give it away."

Tessa had told her story with quickened breath, not once lifting the eyes that were growing darker and darker.

Miss Sarepta's "thank you" held all the appreciation that Tessa wished.

"And now," after another silence, for these two loved silences together, "you want to know about my dear Shut-ins. Philip named them from the words, 'And the Lord shut him in.' It began one day when I was sitting alone thinking! I am often sitting alone thinking; but this day I was thinking sad thoughts about my useless, idle life, and I had planned my life to be such a busy life. There was nothing that I could do to help along; I had to sit still and be helped; and I shouldn't wonder if I cried a little. That was five years ago, we were living in the city then; in the middle of my bemoanings and my tears, I spied the postman crossing the street. How Philip laughed when I told him that I loved that postman better than any man in all the world! That day he brought me several lovely things: one of them a book from Cousin Ralph, and a letter from Aunt Lydia; that letter is the beginning of my story. She told me about a little invalid that she had found and suggested that I should write one of my charming letters to her. Of course you know that I write charming letters! So I wiped away my naughty tears and wrote the charming letter! In a few days, my hero, the postman, brought the reply. That was my first Shut-in letter. Bring me the album, I will show you Susie."

Tessa brought it and Miss Sarepta opened it on her lap to an intelligent, serious, sweet face.

"She has not taken a step for many years; she is among the youngest of many children; her great love is love for children, she teaches daily thirteen little ones. The one thing in her life that strikes me is her _faithfulness_. There is nothing too little for her to be faithful in. One of her great longings used to be for letters; oh, if the postman would only bring her a letter! For a year or two I wrote every week, the longest, brightest, most every-day letters I could think of. And one day it came to me that if _we_ had such a good time together, why should we not find some other to whom a letter or a book would be as a breath of fresh air. I pondered the matter for a month or two, but I couldn't advertise for an invalid, and none of my friends knew of any. One morning I glanced through a religious paper, and tossed it aside, then something moved me to pick it up again, and there she was! The one I sought! That was Elsie. Look at her pale, patient face. For fourteen years she has lived in one room. And hasn't she the brightest, most grateful, happiest heart that ever beat in a frail body or a strong one? Her poems are graceful little things; I will show you some of them. She had been praying six months for a helpful friend, when she received my first letter. Her letters are gems. You shall read a pile of them. And she had a Shut-in friend, to whom I must write, of course. She is Mabel. I have no picture of her. When she was well, they called her the laughing girl; she has lain eleven years in bed!"

"Oh, dear me!" sighed Tessa.

"Don't sigh, child. She writes in pencil as she can not lift her head. I call her my sunbeam. She often dates her letters 'In my Corner.' So another year went on with my three Shut-ins. I forgot to cry about my folded hands and useless life. One day it came into my mind to write a sketch and call it, 'Our Shut-in Society'; to write all about Mabel and Elsie and Sue, and send it to the paper in which I had found Elsie's first article.

"And that sketch! How it was read! I received letters from north, south, east, and west concerning it. Was there really such a society, and were there such happy people as Mabel, Elsie, and Susie? One who had not spoken aloud for fourteen years would love to write to them; another who had locked her school-room door one summer day, and come home to rest, had been forced to rest through eight long years, and was so lonely, with her sisters married and away; another, quite an old man, who had lain for six years in the loft of an old log-cabin, was eager for a word or a paper. How his letter touched us all! 'The others have letters, but when the mail comes naught comes to me,' he wrote. But you will be tired of hearing my long story; you shall see their letters; you must see Delle's letters; she sits all day in a wheelchair, and has no hope of ever taking a step; she has a mother and a little boy; the brightest little boy! Her poems have appeared in some of our best periodicals; we are something beside a band of sufferers, Miss Tessa; some of us are literary! My most precious letters are from Elizabeth; her fiftieth birthday came not long since; for ten years her home has been in one room; she has written a book that the Shut-ins cry over.

"And oh, we have a prisoner! A Shut-in shut up in state's prison. A young man with an innocent, boyish face; he ran away from home when he was a child and ran into state's prison because no one cared what became of him. His letters are unaffected and grateful; he does want to be a good boy! Thirty-six are on my list now; I would find more if I had strength to write more; some of them have more and some less than I; many of them have Shut-ins that I know nothing about. We remember each other on holidays and birthdays! The things that postmen and country mail-carriers have in their mail-bags are funny to see: flower seeds, bits of fancy work, photographs, pictures, any thing and every thing!

"They all look forward to mail-time through the night and through the day.

"And, speaking humanly, my share in it, all I receive and the little I give, came out of my self-bemoanings and tears; my longing to be a helper in some small way!

"Now if you want to help me, you may cut some blocks of patch-work for me. One of the Shut-ins is making a quilt to leave as a memorial to her daughter, and I want to send my contribution to the mail to-night; and you may direct several papers for me, and cover that book, 'Thoughts for Weary Hours.' I press you into my service, you see."

"Miss Sarepta, I am ashamed."

"Shame is an evidence of something; go on."

"I am ashamed that I am such a dreamer."

"Philip says that you are a dreamer."

"I care for my writing."

"Mowers work while they whet their scythes," quoted Miss Sarepta.

XXV.--BLUE MYRTLE.

In March, Tessa found myrtle in bloom, and took a handful of the blue blossoms mingled with sprays of the green leaves to Miss Sarepta.

"Spring has come," she said dropping them on the open book in Miss Sarepta's lap.

"If spring has come, then I must lose you."

"Every hand that I know in Dunellen is beckoning me homewards; my winter's work is done."

That evening--it was the sixth of March, that date ever afterward was associated with blue myrtle and Nan Gerard--she was sitting at the table writing letters; in the same chair and at the same place at the table where Dinah had written her letter about Gus and her wonderful John; Aunt Theresa was knitting this evening also, and Uncle Knox was asleep in a chintz-covered wooden rocker with the big cat asleep on his knees.

She had written a letter to Mabel and one to Elsie, lively descriptive letters, making a picture of Miss Sarepta's book-lined, picture-decorated, flower-scented room and a picture of Miss Sarepta, also touching lightly upon her own breezy out-of-door life with its hard work and its beautiful hopes. The third letter was a sheet to Mrs. Towne; the sentence in ending was one that Mrs. Towne had been eagerly and anxiously expecting all through the winter: "My ring reminds me of my promise; a promise that I shall keep some day, perhaps."

"Tessa, are you unhappy, child?" asked Aunt Theresa with a knitting needle between her lips.

"Unhappy! Why, auntie, what am I doing?"

The tall lamp with its white china shade stood between them. Aunt Theresa took the knitting needle from its place of safety and counted fourteen stitches before she replied.

"Sighing! When young people sigh, something must ail them. What do _you_ have to be miserable about?"

"I am not miserable."

"Tell me, what are you miserable about?"

"Sometimes--I am not satisfied--that is all."

"I should think that that was enough. What are you dissatisfied about? Haven't you enough to eat and to drink and clothes enough to wear? Haven't you a good father and mother who wouldn't see you want for any thing? What is it that you haven't enough of, pray?"

"I do not know that I am wishing for any thing--to night. I am learning to wait."

"Yes, you are! You are wishing for something that isn't in this world, I know."

"Then I'll find it in heaven."

"People don't sigh after heaven as a usual thing. You read too many books, that's what's the matter with you. Reading too many books affects different people in different ways; I've seen a good deal of girls' reading."

Tessa's pen was scribbling initials on a half sheet of paper.

"I know the symptoms. Some girls when they read love-stories become dissatisfied with their looks; they look into the glass and worry over their freckles or their dark skins, or their big mouths or turn-up noses; they fuss over their waists and try to squeeze them slim and slender, and they cripple themselves squeezing their number four feet into number two shoes. But you are not that kind. And some girls despise their fathers and mothers because they can't speak grammar and pronounce long words, and because they say 'care' for carry and 'empt' for empty! And they despise their homes and their plain, substantial furniture. But you are not that kind either. Your face is well enough, and your father and mother are well enough, and your home is well enough."

Tessa was scribbling Dunellen, then she wrote R. T. and Nan Gerard.

"And you are not sighing for a lordly lover," continued Aunt Theresa, with increasing energy "You don't want him to wear a cloak or carry a sword. Your trouble is different! You read a higher grade of love-stories, about men that are honorable and true, who would die before they would tell a lie or say any thing that isn't so. They are as gentle as zephyrs; they would walk over eggs and not crack them; they are always thinking of something new and startling and deep that it can't enter a woman's mind to conceive, and their faces have different expressions enough in one minute to wear one ordinary set of muscles out; and they never think of themselves, they would burn up and not know it, because they were keeping a fly off of somebody else; they are so high and mighty and simple and noble that an angel might take pattern by them. And that is what troubles you. You read about such fine fellows and shut the book and step out into life and break your heart because the real, mannish man, who is usually as good as human nature and all the grace he has got will help him be, isn't so perfect and noble as this perfect man that somebody has made out of his head. You can't be satisfied with a real human man who thinks about himself and does wrong when it is too hard to do right, even if he comes on his bended knees and says he's sorry and that he'll never do such a thing again. You want to love somebody that you are proud of; you are too proud to love somebody that is as weak as you are. And so you can't be satisfied at all! Why _must_ you be satisfied?"

"Why should I not be?"

"For the best reason in the world; to be satisfied in any man, in his love for you and in your love for him, would be--do you know what it would be? It would be idolatry."

Aunt Theresa's attention was given to her knitting; she did not see the shining of Tessa's eyes.

"Be satisfied with God, child, and take all the happiness you can get."

Tessa's pen was making tremulous capitals.

"Be satisfied _with_, if you can, but not _in_, some good man who stumbles to-day and stands straight to-morrow; I fought it out on that line once, and so I know all about it."

This then was the experience that Dr. Towne had said that she must ask for; had he guessed that it would be altogether on his side?

This was it, and this was all. Uncle Knox's old eyes had a look for his old wife that they never held for any other living thing, and as for Aunt Theresa, how often had Tessa thought, "I want to grow old and love somebody the way you do."

_Might_ she be satisfied with God and love Ralph Towne all she wanted to?

"Why, Theresa," exclaimed Uncle Knox, opening his eyes and staring at his wife, "I haven't heard you talk so much sentiment for thirty years."

"And you will not in another thirty years. But Tessa was in a tangle--I know eggs when I see the shells--and I had to help her out."

A tap at the window brought Tessa to her feet. A neighbor had brought the mail; she took the papers and letters with a most cordial "thank you" and came to the table with both hands full. The papers she opened and glanced through; the letters she took up-stairs to read. The business-looking envelope she opened first; she read it once, twice, then gave an exclamation of delight. Oh, how pleased her father would be! Her manuscript had given such perfect satisfaction that, although written for pictures, the pictures would be discarded and new ones made to illustrate her story. Gus would congratulate her, and Miss Jewett; this appreciation by the publisher was the crown that the winter's work would always wear for her. With a long breath, she sighed, "Oh, what a blessed winter this has been to me!"

The long, white envelope was from Mrs. Towne, the chocolate from Sue, the cream-colored from Dinah, the pale blue from Miss Jewett, the pink from Nan Gerard, and the square white from Laura Harrison. Mr. Hammerton had not once written; a kind message through her father or Dinah was all evidence he had given of remembrance. Mrs. Towne's letter was opened before the others. What would Dine or Miss Jewett or Laura think of this? The faint perfume was the lady herself, so real was her presence that Tessa felt her arms about her as she read.

"Sue does not come to me as often as in the winter," she wrote; "the Gesners, one and all, are proving themselves more alluring. Miss Gesner will be a good friend to her. If you could hear her laugh and talk, you would think of her as Sue Greyson and never as the widowed Mrs. Lake. She is Dr. Lake's widow, certainly she is not his wife. Ralph growls about it in his kind way, but I think that he did not expect any thing deeper from her. Nan Gerard was with me all day yesterday; she was as sweet and shy as a wild flower. Nan's heart is awake. Am I a silly old woman? I dream of you every night. I would be a washer-woman and live in Gesner's Row, if I might have you for my daughter, never to leave me. Now I _am_ a silly old woman and I will go to bed."

The perfumed sheet was passed to the reader's lips before the next envelope was torn open.

Dinah's letter was a sheet of foolscap; it was written as a diary.

The first entry was merely an account of attending a concert with John; the second stated in a few strong words the failure of a bank. Old Mr. Hammerton had lost a large amount of money and had had a stroke of paralysis.

The third contained the history of a call from Sue; how tall and elegant she looked in her rich mourning, and how she had talked about her courtship and marriage all the time.

The fourth day their father had had an attack of pain, but it had not lasted as long as usual.

The last page was filled in Dine's eager, story-telling style:

"Just to think, Tessa, now I know the end of my romance. It was dark last night just before tea, and I went into the front hall for something that I wanted to get out of the hat-stand drawer. The sitting-room door stood slightly ajar; I did not know that Gus was with father until I heard his voice. I did not listen, truly I did not; after I heard the first sentence I didn't dare stir for fear of making my presence known. I moved off as easily and swiftly as I could, but I heard every word as plainly as if I had been in the room. It is queer that I should overhear the beginning and the ending of poor Gus's only romance, isn't it? I heard him say, 'Every thing is changed in my plans; father is left with nothing but his good name, my mother is aged and feeble, my sister is a widow with a child; _her_ money is gone, too. I am the sole support of four people. I could not marry, even if I desired to do so. And since I have definitely learned that she does not think of me, and never has thought of me, and that she thinks of some one else, the bachelor's life will be no great hardship.'

"I had got to the parlor door by that time, so, of course, I never can know father's answer. But isn't it dreadful? I suppose that he is over the disappointment, for his voice sounded as cool as usual; too cold, I thought. I should have liked him better if he had been in a flutter. I shall never tell any body but John. Poor old, wise old, dear old Gus! He will pursue the even tenor of his unmarried way, and no one will ever guess that he has had a romance. Perhaps Felix Harrison has had one, too. Perhaps every body has."

So it _was_ Dinah, after all. And she had fought her long, hard fights all for nothing.

It _was_ Dine, and now her father would understand; he would not think her blind and stupid; he would not be disappointed that she had not chosen his choice!

And that it was herself that Gus Hammerton had loved, the wife of John Woodstock always believed. And that it was herself, Tessa never knew; for not knowing that he had stood at the window that night that Dr. Towne had brought her home, and witnessed their parting at the gate, how could she divine that "definitely learned that she does not think of me," had referred to her?