Chapter XVII.

In Exitu Israel.

Some one tells of a wind so strong that he could turn and lean his back against it, as against a post. Mr. Southard found some such effect as this in the excitement caused by his change of religion. For there are times when a strong opposition is wonderfully sustaining. It fans the flame, and keeps the soul in a lively glow, without any expenditure of our own breath.

Being thus saved the pains of maintaining his fervor, the new convert took up tranquilly his religious studies, viewing from the inside that church which heretofore he had seen only from the outside. The study was an ever fresh delight; and as, one after another, new beauties were revealed, and new harmonies unfolded themselves, the miracle seemed to be, not that he should see now, but that he should have been blind so long.

No one knows, save those who have been born away from this home of the soul, the full delight of that succession of surprises and discoveries in the search made by him who comes late to his father's house. The first dawn or flash of faith, come as faith may, shows only the door, and a dim and long-stretching perspective. But once inside, with what wonder, what curiosity, what incredulity, even, we wander about examining the treasures of this new-found inheritance of ours. {732} Surely, we say, here we shall be disappointed. Here there will be a shade on the picture. But, looking closely, we find instead a still more eminent beauty. Nor are these varied discoveries exhausted in a few months, nor in a few years, nor in many years. Even when the noon of life has been spent in the quest, and twilight comes, still there are

"such suites to explore, Such closets to search, such alcoves to importune."

But the most spiritual of us are not all spirit; and when, after a few weeks, the storm of denunciation against him subsided a little, weary of its own violence, Mr. Southard began to feel the vacuum left by his loss of occupation, and to depend more on the home life.

Here the prospect was not without shadows. Mr. and Mrs. Lewis had behaved nobly, and, after the first shock, had stood by him through every trial. "Not that I am so fond of Catholicism," Mr. Lewis said. "But I like to see a man who has a mind of his own, and isn't afraid to speak it."

The shadow in this case was Mr. Lewis's niece, who showed an unconquerable coldness toward her former minister. This was not to him a matter of vital consequence, certainly, though it troubled him more than he would have expected. She had always looked up to him with undoubting faith as her religious guide. Now he perceived with pain and mortification that he had not only destroyed her respect for his own authority, but had made her distrustful of all authority.

He attempted to justify himself to her; but she stopped him.

"I do not occupy myself in criticising your conduct and opinions, Mr. Southard," she said; "and I would rather say nothing about it."

For the first time, it struck him that Miss Lewis had a very stately manner.

Neither was Miss Hamilton just what Mr. Southard wished his promised wife to be to him, though he could scarcely have told in what she was lacking. Her evident desire that for the present the engagement should be unsuspected, even by their own family, he did not find fault with, though it prevented all confidential intercourse between them; but he would have preferred that she had not been quite so positively friendly, and no more. It seemed a little odd, too, that he should never, even by accident, find her alone, though they had frequently met so in the old times.

Weary, at length, of waiting on chance, he requested an interview, and stated his wishes. He would like to go to Europe as soon as possible, and stay there a year. He could not feel himself settled in the church, till he had been in Rome a Catholic, having once been there an unbeliever. Of course he would expect to take his wife with him. Why should they delay. Why not be married at Christmas, and start so as to reach Rome before Easter?

Margaret grew pale. "It is so soon," she said in a frightened way. "And you know I cannot leave Dora. You might go without me." Then, as his countenance fell, she added, trying to smile, "I love my freedom, and want to keep it as long as I can. But when I do take bonds on myself, I shall be very dutiful."

"I do not think that you will lose any freedom which you need greatly desire to keep," he said gently, but with a shade of disapproval. "And as to Dora, Mrs. Lewis would take good care of her."

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"Dora is a sacred charge to me, Mr. Southard," Margaret said hastily; "not only her person, but her faith. I cannot intrust her to any one else. Besides, she would break her heart if parted from me. No one else can comfort her when--when she needs comfort."

Mr. Southard considered awhile.

"I approve of your being careful to do your duty by the child," he said presently. "But, you know, some priest could have her religious education under his supervision while we are gone. I would not, on any account, urge you to violate a scruple of conscience. Possibly, however, if you should consult your confessor, he might decide that your duty to the child should bend to your duty to me."

Margaret's face blushed up crimson, and her eyes emitted a spark. "The confessor whom I shall consult when I name my wedding-day, will be my own heart," she said, in anything but a humble tone of voice.

Mr. Southard looked at her searchingly. "Can it be," he asked, "that a lack of affection on your part is the cause of this reluctance?"

"I esteem you highly, Mr. Southard," she replied faintly, shrinking a little. "But I am not very reasonable, and you must have patience with me. Please don't say any more now. This is very sudden. I will think of it."

"Very well," he replied. "Perhaps when you have thought, you may accede to my first proposal. It is not worth while to delay, you know, when one's mind is made up."

"I must go now with Dora to make her first confession," Margaret said, anxious to change the subject. "Will you excuse me? I am afraid the storm may grow worse. The rain is falling gently now; but you know the old proverb:

'When the wind comes before the rain, You may hoist your topsails up again; But when the rain comes before the winds. You may reef when it begins.'"

"And a true proverb it is in more ways than one," Mr. Lewis said, appearing at that moment. "When my wife begins by flying at me and tearing my hair out, and then goes to crying afterward, I hope for fair weather soon. But when she starts with a gentle drip of tears, I always look out for squalls before it is over. Remember that for your future guidance, Mr. Southard."

Margaret escaped from the room, and in a few minutes was on her way to the church, with Dora half hidden under her cloak, and nestled close to her side. As she rode along, feeling, some way, as if they were flying from pursuit or from a prison, she experienced one of those tender touches of recollection with which the Spirit, ever following us, seeks to recall our wayward hearts. "What should I do if I had no church to go to?" was the thought that came; and as it came, the altar toward which she was approaching, glowed through the chill November rain like the fire in happy homes.

Outside, in the corridor leading to that familiar chapel of St. Valentine, endeared by so many sacred and tender memories, they paused a moment and recollected themselves.

"My dear little one, Christ Jesus the Lord is in there!"

"Do you truly think that he likes me?" whispered Dora apprehensively, glancing askance at the lambent little flame that burned inside.

"Oh! yes," was the confident answer. "He is very fond of you when you are good."

The sweet face smiled again.

"Then I an't afraid of him, auntie. Come."

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After an act of contrition on her own account, and a prayer for the child, Margaret led Dora to the confessional, placed her on her knees there, and, dropping the curtain behind her, retired to wait at a distance.

Verifying the proverb, it was blowing quite violently when the two started for home again. Margaret went directly up to her chamber, having need to be alone. What was it striving within her, what memory, almost at the surface of her mind, yet unseen, like a flower in spring just ready to burst through the mould that feels but knows it not? On her table was a bunch of English violets that some one had left there for her. At the sight of them, her trouble sharpened to pain that had yet some touch of delight in it. The wind was full of voices, it caught the rain, and lashed the windows, it shook the doors, and called sighingly about the chimneys, and swung the vines against the panes. As she leaned there wondering and troubled, a faint, sweet perfume from the violets stole into her face. It was magical. She sank on her knees and drew the flowers to her bosom.

"O my friend! how could I ever dream of forgetting you?"

How it came back, that rainy day at the seaside, the terror of the tempest, the fire she had kindled, the watch she had kept, the presentiment of sorrow, then the muffled figure coming down the road, the rain, the wind, and his smile, all meeting her at the door, and the perfume of the violets he had brought her!

Who knows not the power that perfumes have over the memory? The influence of sound is evanescent, that which the eyes have seen the imagination changes in time; but a perfume is the most subtile and indestructible of reminders. You have walked in the world's beaten ways many a year, till the country home of your childhood is a picture almost effaced from your mind. Its tones echo no more, its faces are faded, its scenes forgotten.

Some sultry summer day, wandering from the city, but only half weaned from the thoughts of it, your listlessly straying feet crush the warm, wild herbage, and a thick perfume of sweet-fern rises about you. What does it mean? Thrilling to your finger-tips, you bend and inhale that strange yet familiar scent. Its touch is as potent as the touch of the rod of Moses.

"A score of years roll back their tide Of mingled joy and pain; Dry-shod I cross the torrent's bed, And am a child again."

Old scenes come up: gray rocks start out, lichen-jewelled; there are billows of butter-cups, mayweed, and clover, over which your young fancies sailed moth-winged, and brought rich freights from every port; the long lines of pole and stone fences are built up again in a twinkling; the boiling spring leaps bubbling into the heart of the sunshine; in the woods the cold, bright waters run hurrying over the pebbles; there is the homestead, the smoke from the chimney, the open windows, some one standing in the door, some one calling you with a voice as real as your breath; there are faces with eyes that see you, every feature plain, there are hands stretched out.

How it rises and tramples on your present, that past that hides but never dies! How your heart-strings strain with the vain longing to stay for ever in this bright, recovered country, and look no more on the desert and the land of bondage!

"Flow back, O years! into your channel, Flow, and stop the way! Let me forget how vain the fancies Of that childish day."

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If we did not know that every hope and sweetness in the past were but seeds for future blossom and fruit; if we did not know that childhood is but a bee's load of honey, but a babe's sip of milk, to those flowing streams in the promised land; if we did not believe that God's denial is brief, his bounty endless; that surely he sees and marks every pain; and that he holds the fulfilment of our utmost wish just at the verge of our utmost endurance--if we were not sure of this, could human nature bear the cross that sometimes is laid upon it? It could not!

Miss Hamilton did not appear at the dinner-table that day; but in the evening Mr. Southard was summoned to her in the library. She met him with an April face full of a grieved kind of joy, or a joyful grief, crossed the room toward him when he came in, and held out her hands to him.

"Forgive me!" she said hurriedly. "But, Mr. Southard, I cannot marry you. I made a mistake. Don't be angry with me. I cannot help it. And I think, too, that you mistook also."

"I do not understand this," he said, dropping her hand.

"I should never have thought of marrying, if I had not been angry with him," she said. "That was wicked and foolish, and I have got over it now. We are reconciled. I shall never forget him."

"Am I to understand that your remembrance of Mr. Granger is a bar to your union with me?" asked Mr. Southard, regaining his composure.

"An insurmountable bar!"

He bowed gravely. "Then there is no more to be said. I wish you good-evening."

She watched him go; and when the door had closed, broke into a soft laugh. "In exitu Israel;" she said. "I am free!"

The door opened again, and Mr. Lewis came in. "You here?" he said. "I want to get the first volume of--But what's the matter with you? I just met Mr. Southard going into his room. Have you promised to marry him?"

"No, I have promised not to," Margaret said, smiling.

Mr. Lewis looked at her with a softening face, and eyes that grew dim.

"I'm glad of it, Maggie," he said. My wife and Aurelia were sure that you and he would make a match; and I couldn't say anything against it. But I hated the thought of your forgetting _him_."

There was no danger, indeed, of her forgetting him. It was impossible for her. She had not one of those facile hearts that rest here and there, on whatever offers, growing worn and threadbare at last, till there is nothing left to give. Hers was an imperious constancy which, having once chosen, did not know how to change, and perpetually renewed itself, like a fountain, as fresh to-day as it was a century ago. Such affection does not absolutely need the happiness of earth; for its root is in the soul, not in the flesh, and the time of its perfecting is hereafter.