Part 7

"Set your light down, daughter, and stay a moment."

With her hand upon his shoulder, she looked down over the page he was reading:

"'Heaven doth with us as we with torches do; Not light them for themselves--'"

she read aloud.

"I made my will to-day," he said quietly; "that is, I changed it. Lewis Gesner and Gus Hammerton, my tried friends, were in the office at the time. If you ever need a friend, daughter, any thing done for you that Gus can not do--I count on him as the friend of my girls for life--go to Lewis Gesner."

"I don't want a friend; I have you."

"If I should tell your mother about the will she would go into hysterics, and Dine would be sure that I am going to die; I have divided my little all equally among my three. That is, all but this house and garden, which I have given to my elder daughter, Theresa Louise. It is to be hers solely, without any gainsaying. Your mother will fume when the fact is made known to her, but I give it to you that my three girls may always have a roof, humble though it be, over their heads. The old man did not know how to make money, but he left them enough to be comfortable all their lives there was never any need that his wife should worry and work, or that his daughter should marry for a home. Very good record for the old man; eh, daughter?"

She laid her cheek against the bald forehead and put both arms around his neck.

"And, Tessa, child, your mother is half right about you; don't have any notions about marriage; promise me that you will marry--for you will, some day--but for the one best reason."

"What is that?" she asked roguishly. "How am I to know?"

"What do you think?"

"Because somebody needs me and I can do him good."

"A Hottentot might urge that; you will find the reason in time. Don't make an idol; that is your temperament."

"I know it."

"And above all things don't sacrifice yourself; few men appreciate being done good to! I know men, they are terribly human. Gus Hammerton is a fine fellow."

"_He_ is terribly human," she answered with a little laugh.

"Am I harsh towards your mother ever, do you think?" he asked in a changed tone.

"Why, _no_," she exclaimed in surprise.

"I used to be. I tried to mould her. Don't _you_ ever try to mould any body; now run away to your work or to your book! Don't sigh over me, I am 'well and hearty.' How short my life seems when I look back. Such dreams as I had. It's all right, though."

She could not run away, for the door-bell, in answer to a most decided pull, detained her; she opened it, expecting to see Mr. Hammerton, but to her surprise, and but slightly to her pleasure, Felix Harrison stood there in broad-shouldered health.

"Good evening," she said with some bewilderment.

"Do I startle you?" he asked in the old gracious, winning manner. "May I come in?"

"I am very glad to see you. Will you walk into my parlor, Mr. Fly?"

The one tall candle in the china candlestick was the only light in the room. She set it upon the table, saying, "Excuse me, and I will bring a light, that we may the better look at each other. The light of other days is hardly sufficient."

"It is enough for me," he said, pushing the ottoman towards one of the low arm-chairs. "Sit down and I will take the ottoman. The parrot recognizes me."

Her hand moved nervously on the arm of her chair; the hand was larger now than when it had spilled ink on his copy-book, larger even than when it had written her first, shy, proud, indignant refusal.

"You are not the tempest you used to be," he said smiling after a survey of her face.

"_Wasn't_ I a tempest? I have outgrown my little breezes. In time I may become as gentle as a zephyr."

"You always were gentle enough."

"Not to you."

"Not to me when I tormented you."

"Probably I should not be gentle if I were tormented now."

She had never decided to which of the five thousand shades of green Felix Harrison's eyes belonged; they were certainly green; one of the English poets had green eyes, she wondered if they were like Felix Harrison's. To-night they glittered as if they were no color at all. This face beside her was a spiritualized face; a strong mouth as sweet as a woman's, a round benevolent chin; a low, square forehead; hair as light as her own; his side face as he turned at least five years younger than the full face; she had often laughed at his queer fashion of growing old and growing young. At times, in the years when they were more together than of late, he had changed so greatly that, after not having seen him for several days she had passed him in the street without recognition; these times had been in those indignant times after she had refused him; that they were more than indignant times to him she was made painfully aware by these changes in his rugged face.

"I have been thinking over those foolish times," she said, breaking the silence. "I am glad that you came in to-night; I am in a mood for confessing my wrong-doings; I have said many quick words; you know you always had the talent for irritating me."

"Yes, I always worried you."

"You did not intend to," she said hastily, watching the movement of his lips; "we did not understand, that is all. It takes longer than a summer and a winter for heart to answer to heart."

"We have known each other many summers and many winters."

"And now we are old, sensible, hard-working people; having given up all nonsense we are discovering the sense there is in sense."

He turned his face with a listening look in his eyes.

"Did not some one come in? Shall we be disturbed?"

"Not unless we wish to be. It is only Mr. Hammerton, he is a great friend of father's. He renews his youth in him."

"Is he not _your_ friend?"

How well she remembered his suspicious, exacting questions!

"He is my best friend," she said proudly.

"I wish I was in heaven," he said, his voice grown weak. "Every thing goes wrong with me; every thing has gone wrong all my life. Father is in a rage because I will not stay home; he offered me to-day the deed for two hundred acres as a bribe. I should be stronger to-day but that he worked my life out when I was a growing boy."

"A country life is best for you. Your old homestead is the loveliest place around, with its deep eaves and dormer-windows and vines. That wide hall is one of my pleasant recollections, and the porch that looks into the garden, the blue hills away off, and the cool woods, the thrushes and the robins and the whip-poor-will at twilight; that solitary note sets me to crying, or it used to when I dreamed dreams and told them to Laura! I hope that Laura will love the place too well to leave it; it is my ideal of a home; much more than splendid Old Place is."

"I will stay if you will come and live in it with me," he said quietly.

"I like my own home better," she answered as quietly. "Are you stronger than you were?"

"Much stronger. I have not had one of those attacks since March. Lake warns me; but I am twice the man that he is! How he coughed last winter! I haven't any thing to live for, anyway."

"It is very weak for you to say that."

"Whose fault is it that I am so weak? Whose fault is it that my life is spoiled? You have spoiled every thing for me by playing fast and loose with me."

"I never did that," she answered indignantly. "You accuse me wrongfully."

"Every time you speak to me or look at me you give me hope; an hour with you I live on for months. O, Tessa," dropping his head in both hands, "I have loved you all my life."

"I know it," she said solemnly. "Can't you be brave and bear it?"

"I _am_ bearing it. I am bearing it and it is killing me. You never had the water ebb and flow, ebb and flow when you were dying of thirst. Women can not suffer; they are heartless, all their heart is used in causing men to suffer. A touch of your hand, the color in your cheek, a dropping of your eyes, talks to me and tells me a lie; and then you go up-stairs and kneel down to Him, who is the truth-maker! You are a covenant-breaker. You have looked at me scores of times as if you loved me; you have told me that you like to be with me; and when I come to you and ask you like a man to become my wife, you blush and falter, and answer like a woman--_no_. I beg your pardon--"

The tears stood in her eyes but would not fall.

"I did not come here to upbraid you. I did not start from home with the intention of coming; but I saw you through the window with your arms around your father's neck and I thought, 'Her heart is soft to-night; she will listen to me.' I was drawn in, as you always draw me, against my better judgment. I shall not trouble you again; I am going away. Tessa," suddenly snatching both hands, "if you are so sorry for me, why can't you love me?"

"I don't know," not withdrawing her hands, "something hinders. I honor you. I admire you. Your love for me is a great rest to me; I want to wrap myself up in it and go to sleep; I do not want to give it up--no one else loves me, and I _do_ want somebody to love me."

"I will love you; only let me. Marry me and I will stay at home; I will do for you all that a human heart and two human hands can do; I will _be_ to you all that you will help me to be."

"But I do not want to marry you," she said perplexed. "I should have to give up too much. I love my home and the people in it better than I love you."

"I will not take you away; you shall have them all; you shall come to them and they shall come to you; remember that I have never loved any one but you--" the great tears were rolling down his cheeks. "I am not worth it; I am not worthy to speak to you, or even to hold your hands like this." He broke down utterly, sobbing wearily and excitedly.

"Don't, oh, don't," she cried hurriedly. "I may grow to love you if you want me to so much, and you are good and true, I can believe every word you say--not soon--in two or three years perhaps."

His tears were on her hands, and he had loved her all her life; no one else loved her, no one else ever would love her like this; he was good and true, and she wanted some one to love her; she wanted to be sure of love somewhere and then to go to sleep. Her father should see her married before he died; her mother would never--

"You have promised," he cried, in a thick voice. "You have promised and you never break your word."

"I have promised and I never break my word; but you must not speak of it to any one, not even to Laura, and I will not tell father, or Gus, or Miss Jewett, or Dine; no one must guess it for one year--it is so sudden and strange! I couldn't bear to hear it spoken of; and if you are very gentle and do not _try_ to make me love you--you must not kiss me, or put your arms around me, you know I never did like that, and perhaps that is one reason why I never liked you before--you must let me alone, let love come of itself and grow of itself."

"I will," he uttered brokenly, and rose up trembling from head to foot. "May God bless you!--bless you!--bless you!"

It was better for him to leave her; the strain had been too great for both.

"I must be alone; I must go out under the stars and thank God."

She lifted her face to his and kissed him. How unutterably glad and thankful she was in all her life afterward that she gave that kiss unasked.

"God bless you, my darling," he said tenderly, "and He _will_ bless you for this."

Bewildered, not altogether unhappy, she sat alone while he went out under the stars.

Was this the end of all her girlhood's dreams?

Only Felix Harrison! Must she pass all her life with him? Must her father and mother and Gus and Dine be not so much to her because Felix Harrison had become more--had become most? And Ralph Towne? Ought she to love Felix as she had loved him?

The hurried questions were answerless. She did not belong to herself; not any more to her father as she had belonged to him half an hour since with both her arms around his neck. Love constituted ownership, and she belonged to Felix through this mighty right of love; did he belong to her through the same divine right?

He was thanking God and so must she thank Him.

"Tessa," called her father, "come here, daughter!"

With the candle in her hand, she stood in the door-way of the sitting-room. "Well," she said.

"With whom were you closeted?" asked Mr. Hammerton, looking up from the chess-board.

The effort to speak in her usual tone lent to her voice a sharpness that startled herself.

"Felix Harrison."

"Your old tormentor!" suggested Mr. Hammerton.

"Who ever called him that?" She came to the table, set the candlestick down and looked over the chess-board.

"She has refused him again," mentally decided Mr. Hammerton, carefully moving his queen.

"I called you, daughter, because Gus withstood me out and out about 'Heaven doth with us as we with torches do.' Find it and let his obstinate eyes behold!"

She opened the volume, turning the leaves with fingers that trembled. "Truly enough," she was thinking, "a year from to-day will find a difference."

"Now I am going over for Dine," she said, after Mr. Hammerton had acknowledged himself in the wrong.

"Permit me to accompany you," he said. Even with Tessa Wadsworth, Gus Hammerton was often formal. They found Dinah bidding Norah good-by at Mr. Bird's gate; they were laughing at nothing, as usual.

"Let us walk to the end of the planks," suggested Mr. Hammerton. "On a night like this I could tramp till sunrise." He drew Tessa's arm through his, saying, "Now, Dine, take the other fin."

The end of the planks touched a piece of woods; at the entrance of the wood stood an old building, windowless, doorless, chimneyless; the school children knew that it was haunted.

"We're afraid," laughed Dine; "the old hut looks ghostly."

"It _is_ ghostly, I will relate its history. Once upon a time, upon a dark night, so dark that I could not see the white horse upon which I rode--"

"Oh, that's splendid," cried Dinah, hanging contentedly upon his arm. "Listen, Tessa."

But Tessa could not listen. She was feeling the peace that rested over the woods, the fields; that was enwrapping Old Place, and further down the dim road the low-eaved homestead that must thenceforth be home to her. There could be no more air-castles; her future was decided. She had turned the leaf and discovered a name that hitherto had meant so little: Felix Harrison. Not Ralph Towne; a year ago to-night it was English violets and Ralph Towne. The peace that brooded over all might be hers, if only she would be content.

At this moment,--while she was trying to be content, trying to believe that she could interpret the peace of the shining stars, and while she was hearing the sound of her companion's words, a solemn, even tone that rolled on in unison with her thoughts,--two people far away were thinking of her; thinking of her, but not wishing and not daring to speak her name.

"I can not understand, Ralph. I was sure that we would bring Naughty Nan away with us."

"Truly, mother, I would have pleased you, if I could."

"You are too serious for her; with all her mischievous advances,--like a white kitten provokingly putting out its paw,--she was more than half afraid of you."

"It does not hurt her to be afraid."

"She is most bewitching."

"Now, mother! But it is too late; she will understand by my parting words that I do not expect to see her soon again. In my mind is a memory that has kept me from loving that delicious Naughty Nan."

"Is the memory a fancy?"

"No; it is too real for my ease of mind. If I were a poet, which I am not, I should think that her spirit haunted me."

"Can you tell me no more of her? That daughter that I might have had!"

"I do not understand her: she is beyond me, she baffles me."

"I read of a man once who loved a woman too well to marry any one else, and yet he did not love her well enough to marry her."

"Was he a fool?"

"Answer the question for yourself. Are _you_ a fool?"

"Yes, I am. I do not know my own mind. I should call another man a fool."

"It may not be too late," she gently urged.

"Too late for what?" he asked irritably.

"To be wise."

In a few moments he spoke in an abrupt, changed tone--

"Mother! I have decided at last. I shall hang out my shingle in Dunellen. It is a picturesque little city, and the climate is as good for you as the south of France."

"I am very glad," she answered cordially. "You are a born physician, you are cool, you are quick, you are gentle; you can keep your feelings under perfect control. You are not quite a Stoic, but you will do very well for one."

"But you will not be happy at Old Place without me."

"Why should I be without you?"

"You have noticed that large, wide brick house on the opposite side of the Park from Miss Jewett's? It has a garden and stable; it is just the house for us; you may have two rooms thrown into one for your sitting-room and any other changes that you please."

"I remember it, I like the situation; there are English sparrows in the trees."

"We will take that for the present. John Gesner owns it; he will make his own price if he sees that I want it, I suppose. I _do_ want it. There are not many things that I desire more. You and I will have a green old age at Old Place."

"You forget that I am thirty years older than you, my son."

By accident, one day, Mrs. Towne had come across, in one of the drawers of her son's writing-table, a large photograph of Tessa Wadsworth, a vignette, and she had gazed long upon her; the face was not beautiful, one would not even think of it as pretty, but it was fine, intellectual, sensitive, and sweet. In searching for an old letter not long before leaving home, she had discovered this picture, defaced and torn into several pieces.

"Ralph, you will not be angry with your white-headed old mother, but were you ever refused?"

"No," he said, laughing. "A dozen women may have been ready to refuse me, but not one ever did."

"Nor accepted you, either," she continued, shrewdly.

He arose and began to pace the floor; after some turns of excited movement, he came to her and stood behind her chair. "I know that I have been accepted; I know that I asked when I did not intend to ask--that is--I was carried beyond myself; I asked when I did not know that I was asking."

"What shall you do now?"

"I shall ask in reality; I shall confess myself in the wrong."

"And she?"

"And she? She has the tenderest heart in the world. She has forgiven me long ago."

"Do not trust her eyes and forget her lips," warned his mother. "Love is slain sometimes."

He resumed his walk with a less confident air. He _had_ forgotten her lips.

Would Tessa have cared to hear this? Would she have forgotten Felix, his blessing and the quiet of the holy stars?

"Oh," cried Dinah, with her little shout (she would not have been Dinah without that little shout), "Oh, Tessa, did you hear?"

"She is star-gazing," said Mr. Hammerton.

"It isn't a true story," pleaded Dinah. "You didn't really see him hanging by the rope and the woman looking on."

"My young friend, it is an allegory; that is what you will drive some man to some day."

"You know I won't. What is the name of that bright star?"

"It isn't a star, it's a planet."

"How do I know the difference?"

"Lady Blue knows."

"Do you call her that because her eyes are so blue or because she is a blue-stocking?"

"She is not a blue-stocking; I will not allow it. It is for her eyes."

"Gus," said Dinah, "I can't understand things."

"What things?"

"Tennyson's Dream of Fair Women."

"I shouldn't think you could. I have spent hours on it trying to make it out. You look up Marc Antony and Cleopatra--"

"As if I had to."

"Well, look up the daughter of the warrior Gileadite, and fair Rosamond, and angered Eleanor, and Fulvia, and Joan of Arc."

"And will you read it to us, and talk all about it?" cried Dinah in delight. "I like King Lear when father reads it, but I can't understand Shakespeare; he is all conversations."

Mr. Hammerton laughed, and patted her head. "I will bring you the stories that Charles and Mary Lamb gathered from Shakespeare."

"Shall we turn?" asked Tessa, slipping her hand through his arm; he instantly imprisoned her fingers. Felix would be troubled and angry she knew, even at this clasp of an old friend's hand. Jealousy was his one strong passion; he was jealous of the books she read, of the letters she received, of every word spoken to her that he did not hear; she wondered as her fingers drew themselves free, if he would ever become jealous of her prayers.

She drew a long breath as the weight of her bondage fell heavier and heavier; and then, he was so demonstrative, so lavish of his caresses, and her ideal of a lover was one who held himself aloof, who kept his hands and his lips to himself. She sighed more than once as she kept even pace with the others.

"Has the nightingale made a mistake?" asked Mr. Hammerton, as they were crossing to the gate.

"She only made one mistake. I wonder how many I _can_ make if I do my best to make them."

Dinah opened the gate; her father's light streamed through the windows over the garden, down the path.

"Good night," said Mr. Hammerton. "Oh, I just remember, what shall I do? I asked my cousin Mary to go to a lecture on Burns with me to-night, and I declare! I never thought of it until this minute."

"Mary Sherwood will give it to you," said Dinah. "I wonder what your wife will do with you."

"A wife's first duty is obedience," he answered.

"I'd like to see the man I'd promise to obey," said Dinah, quickly.

"I expect you would," he said gravely.

Dine darted after him to box his ears, words being impotent, and Tessa went into the house. "I think I'll pigeon-hole _this_ day and then go to bed," she said, a merry gleam crossing her eyes; "between my two walks on the planks to-day, I have lived half a lifetime. I hope Dr. Lake is asleep; I will never hurt Felix as he is hurt."

IX.--THE NEW MORNING.

Her eyes were wide open an hour before the dawn; as the faint light streamed through the east and glowed brighter and brighter along the rim of the south that she could see from her position on the pillow, she arose, wrapped a shawl about her, and went to the window to watch the new morning. On the last night of the old year she had watched the sunset standing at her western window, then the light had gone out of her life and all the world was dark; now, in the new year, her private and personal new year, the light was rising, creeping up slowly into the sky, the gold, the faint rose and the bright rose running into each other, softening, blending, glowing deeper and deeper as she watched. This new morning that was an old morning to so many other eyes that were looking out upon it; this new morning that would be again for Dinah, perhaps, and for all the other girls that were growing up into God's kingdom on the earth! The robins in Mr. Bird's apple orchard were awake, too, and chanticleer down the road had proclaimed the opening of another new day with all his lusty might. She wondered, as she listened and looked, if Felix were standing in the light of the morning on the porch, or he might be walking up and down the long garden path. And thanking God? She wished that she were thanking God. She was thanking Him for the light, the colors, the refreshing, misty air, the robins and the white and pink wealth of apple blossoms; but she was not thanking Him because Felix Harrison loved her.

"And that night they caught nothing."

The words repeated themselves with startling clearness. What connection could they possibly have with the sunrise? Oh, now she knew; it was because the fishermen had seen the Lord upon the shore in the morning.

_She_ had caught nothing; all her night of toil had been fruitless; she had striven and hoped and dreamed, oh, how she had dreamed of all that she would do and become! And now she could not be glad of any thing.