CHAPTER XXXI.

CLARA’S CHAPTER.

The second summer after their return to Boston, Clara went down to spend in Seaton with Hester; and, late in July, the ship _Edith Yorke_, Captain Cary, came sailing up Seaton River. The captain had made a prosperous voyage to India, and, having nothing else to do just now, had come down to Maine for a load of barrel-staves and boxes. To his mind, the fresh pine and ash made a pleasing contrast to his rich Eastern cargo.

Hester and her husband immediately made him at home with them. Their house was not so full but there was room for him, if he could live in the house with six boys.

“You can, perhaps, bear it better, since they are sure to be very fond of you,” Mrs. Hester said. For the boys had clustered about the sailor before he had been ten minutes with them.

Mrs. Cleaveland was wont to say that the masculine element in hers and her mother’s immediate descendants would be rather overpowering were its members not the salt of the earth.

“Poor little mamma was quite alarmed,” she said. “She protested that, if Melicent’s husband or mine called her mother, she would leave the country. So they are careful how they address her. Now, I am made of sterner stuff, and nothing else makes me so proud as to have all these boys call me mother.”

Hester’s boys presented rather an imposing array. There were Major Cleaveland’s eldest, Charles and Henry, college-students of twenty and twenty-two years of age, healthy, honest lads, not very clever, but full of energy and good sense. They were favorites at college, where the renaissance of muscle had destroyed the old empire of hollow chests and pale cheeks, and established as the watchword _mens sana in corpore sano_. Next to these was Eugene, now a slender youth of fifteen, cleverer than his brothers, but somewhat effeminate in character.

Then came Hester’s three boys, Philip, Carl, and Robert. The last, an infant a year old, had been named by Edith for her father, and he was, consequently, her dearest pet.

“And now my troubles begin all over again,” soliloquized Clara, as she prepared to meet the sailor. “Captain Cary’s sudden flight seemed to cut the Gordian knot; but his coming back makes the affair more double-and-twisted than ever.”

She went to meet him, however, with an air of pleasant ease which betrayed no sign of complicated emotions, and asked of his adventures, and told all that had chanced to them during his absence, in the most friendly manner.

Nor was the sailor less dignified, though the blush that overspread his face when she first appeared showed a momentary agitation.

But this highly proper and decorous demeanor did not last long. Before many days, Mrs. Cleaveland perceived that her boys were not the chief attraction which Captain Cary found in her house. It was plain that he was devoted, heart and soul, to Clara; and it was plain, also, that Clara was fully aware of that devotion, and made her sport of it, so Hester thought.

It was true, the young woman did take a very high hand with her colossal admirer. She snubbed him, ordered him about, made him dance attendance, fetch and carry, and, altogether, tyrannized over him outrageously. And he bore it all with the magnanimous patience of a great Newfoundland dog petting and bearing with the freaks of a captious child. But he grew sober and silent, and lost his smiles day by day.

Sometimes Clara’s mood changed, and there would be little flits of sunshine, momentary gleams of kindness and penitence; but her victim learned that he could not depend on the continuance of such friendliness.

One day she had treated him so much worse than usual that, instead of staying to bear her raillery, he left the room, and went out into the garden where the children were playing. Clara seated herself in the window presently, and watched him, saw him set little Bob-o’-Lincoln, as they called the baby, on his shoulder, so that the child could reach the branch of a tree, saw him gently restrain and persuade Philip from throwing stones at the birds, and talk to Carl and Philip, when they came to blows about something, till they kissed each other. And through it all she read in his face the indication of a heart sad and ill at ease.

A yellow-bird flew over the garden, and dropped a pretty feather down. “Oh! that is what Aunt Clara likes,” cried Philip, running to pick it up. “She puts ’em in her books for marks.”

He carried it to the sailor, who fastened it carefully in his button-hole, posy-wise. Even the children had perceived that what Aunt Clara liked was a matter of interest to their new friend.

A servant came out to call the children in to their early supper; and Captain Cary, catching sight of Clara in the window, went to her with the little feather in his hand. “Philip says you make book-marks of these,” he said, and offered it to her.

There was no sign of coldness or resentment, neither was there any of subservience. It was the patience and affection of a tender and generous heart, and the self-respect of one who is not humbled by the pettishness of another.

Clara dropped her eyes as she took the little offering. “Yes,” she said gently; “and see the passage I am going to mark with it.”

The book she held was Landor’s _Imaginary Conversations_, open at the dialogue between Æschines and Phocion.

The sailor bent his head and read: “Your generosity is more pathetic than pity or than pain;” and, looking up quickly into her face, to see what she meant, saw her eyes humid.

His face brightened a little, but he said nothing. He was like a traveller among the Alps, who knows that a breath may bring the avalanche upon him.

After a few weeks of this hide-and-seek, Hester was moved to expostulate with her sister, whose conduct had astonished her. For, however gay and reckless Clara might be in talk, exaggerating on one side when she saw people lean too much to the other, and often saying what she did not mean, taking for granted that she was too well known to have her jests taken for earnest--in spite of this liveliness and effervescence of spirits, she had never been guilty of the slightest frivolity in her intercourse with gentlemen. Mrs. Yorke had taught her daughters, or had cherished in them the pure feminine instinct, to treat with careful reserve any man who should show a marked preference for them, unless that preference was fully reciprocated. Hester, therefore, felt herself called on to admonish.

“I must say, Clara, I think you do wrong,” she said. “Any one can see that the captain sets his life by you, and you treat him cruelly.”

“Do you wish me to marry him?” Clara asked in a cold voice.

“Why, no!” exclaimed her sister. “You two are not at all suited to each other. But I would have you treat him kindly.”

“If I treat him kindly, he will think I like him,” Clara said quickly.

“Oh! I don’t mean very kindly, but with calm friendliness,” answered her preceptress.

“Calm friendliness!” repeated the culprit with emphasis. “Oh! the airs that these little married kittens put on! Hester, seat yourself there, and look me in the face, while I lecture you. Fold your hands, and attend to me. Now, allow me to remind you of two or three little facts. Firstly, I am two years older than you. Secondly, I am not a staid married woman with six boys, and I won’t try to act as if I were. Thirdly, you don’t know as much about this business as you think you do. Fourthly, women who have a great facility for being shocked on all occasions are, according to my observation, very likely to be shocking women. Fifthly, if you wish well to Captain Cary, you should wish to have him cease to care about me; and the surest way to attain that end is to treat him just as I am treating him. No man can long desire a vixen for a wife. Sixthly”--and sixthly, Clara began to cry.

Hester, who never could bear to be blamed, had been herself on the point of crying, but, seeing her sister’s tears, concluded not to.

“Why, what is the matter, Clara?” she asked in distress.

“The matter is that I am tired of being criticised,” answered her sister, wiping her eyes. “I am tired of having people tell me what I mean, instead of asking what I mean. I am tired of having people whom I know to be not so good as I am, set themselves up to be better.”

“I never meant to set myself up to be better than you, Clara,” Hester began pitifully. “I--”

“Bless me! Are you here still?” exclaimed Miss Yorke, with a laugh “I’d forgotten you. I was not talking to you at all, you little goose! The truth is, Hester, I am getting as nervous as a witch. You mustn’t bother me.”

Clara did seem to be nervous, and unlike herself.

Having failed in her attempt to admonish her sister, Mrs. Cleaveland took occasion soon after to comfort the sailor.

“You must not mind if Clara seems a little hard sometimes,” she said with gentle kindness. “She does not mean to hurt your feelings. It is only her way. I know she thinks very highly of you.”

“Oh! I understand her pretty well,” he replied gravely. “Clara has a good heart, and she never gives me a blow but she is sorry for it afterward. I don’t blame her. I suppose she sees that I rather took a liking to her”--he blushed up--“and that’s the way she makes me keep my distance. I understand Clara. She suits me.”

He said this with a certain stateliness. Not even Clara’s sister might blame her to him.

“Rather took a liking,” was Captain Cary’s way of expressing the fact that he had surrendered the whole of his honest, generous heart.

There were fires in the woods about Seaton that summer, and, August being very dry, they increased so as to be troublesome. From Major Cleaveland’s house, which stood on the hill-top west of the village, they could see smoke encircling nearly all the horizon by day; and by night flames were visible in every direction but the south, where the sea lay. The air was rank with smoke, cinders came on the wind when it rose, and vegetation turned sooty. Crops were spoiling, farm-houses were threatened, and large quantities of lumber were burned. People looked every day more anxiously for rain, prayers were offered in the churches for it, and still it did not come. The blue of the sky changed to brazen, the silver and gold of moonlight and sunlight became lurid, the springs began to dry up. Sometimes the day would darken with clouds, and they looked up hopefully, and watched to see the saving drops descend. But week followed week, and the refreshing messengers passed by on the other side. More than once, when the sun was in the west, it showed them through that canopy of smoke the dense black peaks and rolling volumes of the thunder-cloud, and at night they could see the beautiful lightning crinkling round the horizon, and hear the music of far-away thunder that came down with pelting rain on distant hills; but still their land was dry, their throats and eyes inflamed, and the fires crept nearer.

Major Cleaveland came home to tea one night with an anxious face. “They are afraid the fire will reach Arnold’s woods to-night,” he said; “and, if it does, Marvin’s house must go, and there is danger that some part of the town may burn. The wind is very high from the northwest.”

Mr. Marvin, Mrs. Yorke’s tenant, had purchased her house and land, and lived there, but the woods still bore their old name of Arnold’s woods.

Later in the evening, while they sat looking out at the baleful glow that grew every moment brighter in the northwest, Charles and Henry Cleaveland came up from the village with later news. Half the men in the town, they said, had gone out beyond Grandfather Yorke’s place to fight fire. The firemen were all there, and Mr. Marvin had his furniture packed ready to send away from the house at a moment’s warning.

“And those poor Pattens!” Clara asked anxiously. “Have they wit enough to save themselves? Has any one thought of them?”

The boys had heard no mention made of the Pattens. They supposed that, if the family had common sense, they had left their house by this time, for every one said that, unless there should be a shower with that wind, the fire was not two hours distant.

Captain Cary leaned from the window, and looked overhead. The only sign of sky was a cluster of stars in the zenith. All else was smoke. “This wind will bring a shower pretty near, at least, before the night is over,” he said. “It isn’t a wind out of a clear sky.”

“I must know about those poor creatures!” Clara exclaimed. “They are so shut in that they would not be able to see which way to go, if the fire should come upon them; and I am afraid no one will think of them. Charley, if you will have the buggy out, I will drive over to Mr. Marvin’s.”

“All right!” says Charley promptly.

Captain Cary had already risen. “I’ve been thinking that I’d go over and help the men a little,” he remarked, with a moderate air, as if he had been in the habit of fighting fire every day of his life for recreation.

“But you will have to change your clothes,” Clara said. “That linen will never do. Now, see which will be dressed first. I must take off this organdie, of course. Hester, take out your watch and count the minutes.”

She flew off merrily, her rose-colored cloud of skirts filling the doorway as she went through, and Captain Cary walked quietly after, one of his strides equal to three of her small steps. In ten minutes they were heard again, opening the doors of their rooms at the same moment, and Clara appeared in a plaided waterproof suit, and a sailor hat set jauntily over the rich black coils of her hair, and laughingly claimed the victory. “We opened our doors at the same instant,” she said; “but I stopped to button my gloves, and he has no gloves on. Never say again that a lady cannot dress as quickly as a gentleman.”

Captain Cary displayed a pair of thick boots, for which he had exchanged his summer shoes. “May I be allowed to see what you have on your feet?” he asked.

She put out a foot clad in the thinnest stocking, and a low kid slipper.

“I appeal!” said the sailor.

“And I give up!” she answered. “Now let me see if you are prepared to go into Gehenna. Are those clothes all wool?”

She made him turn round, tried with her own fingers the texture of his sleeve, ordered him to button his coat tightly at neck and wrists, so that no sparks could get in, and gave him a woollen scarf, which she commanded him to tie about his face at the proper time. Then they went out together, dropping their laughter at the door. For the wind blew in their faces a hard gale, and over the northwestern horizon glowed an angry aurora, and in the zenith still hung that cluster of stars.

They drove over to Mr. Marvin’s almost in silence. Carts partly filled with furniture stood at the avenue-gate, and trunks and packages had been set out on the steps, ready to be taken away. Two little children stood in the door, crying with fear, while a servant tried vainly to pacify them.

“Their mother told me to take them out to the village, to the Seaton House,” she said to Clara. “And they don’t want to go.”

Mrs. Marvin was up in the cupola, watching the progress of the fire.

Clara reassured the little ones, put them and the girl into the buggy with Charles Cleaveland, and sent them back home with him.

“But how are you to get back, Aunt Clara?” he asked.

“Oh! in the same way the people out here do,” she answered. “I shall not be alone. Drive along, Charley. The horse won’t bear this smoke much longer. He begins to dance now.”

As soon as they had gone, she started off through the woods. Captain Cary had already preceded her, thinking that she meant to await him at the house.

Down in the wood-path all was darkness, only a faint reflected light showing where the path lay; but the tree-tops shone as if with sunset, and the sky hung close, in a deep-red canopy. Now and then the light steps of some wild creature, driven from its forest home, flitted by, and its fleet shape was dimly seen for an instant. The voices of men were heard, and the sound of axes, not far away.

When she reached the opening where the Pattens’ house was built, the whole scene burst upon her sight. The open square of ten acres was as light as an illuminated drawing-room. Volumes of red smoke poured over it, dropping cinders, which men and boys ran about trampling out as soon as they fell. Some men were at work digging a trench along the furthest side of the opening, others felled trees, others dragged them away, and others sought for water, and threw it about the barrier they were making. They worked like tigers, for, scarcely two miles distant, the fire was leaping toward them like a courser, or like that flying flame that brought the news from Ilium to Mount Ida.

Clara’s eyes searched the space. “Do you know where the Pattens are?” she asked of some one who stood near, but without looking to see who it was.

“Here we be!” said a piteous voice in reply.

She turned her glance at that, and beheld Joe, with his children clustered about him, standing beside the path. A large bundle lay on the ground by them, containing their valuables, probably, and they were all looking back, with the light in their faces.

She asked him where his wife was.

“She’s there fighting fire among the men,” answered Joe, with an accusing gesture toward the workers. “I told her that it was my place to be there, but she sent me off. She thinks now that I and the children are down at the village; but I am going to stay to protect my wife. It shall never be said that I deserted her in the hour of danger.”

“Have you seen Captain Cary?” was the next question.

“That ’ere big sailor? Lor, yes! He’s been working like ten men. There he is, chopping down a tree.”

Miss Yorke drew her mantle over her head, as a protection against the cinders, and walked forward. The sky in front of her was like the mouth of a furnace from which a fiery blast is rushing, and the tree-trunks in the forest opposite showed a faint glimmer of light beyond them. Some of the workers were retreating at that last sign. The wind caught a burning branch, and bore it almost to her feet. The men stopped to trample it out, then ran. Not more than half their number remained.

“Good heavens!” she cried excitedly, “will he never start?”

As she spoke, a drop of water fell on her face. She looked up, and another and another fell.

On the very frontier of the battleground, midway between the woods that were on fire and those they tried to save, stood a tall maple, its arms outstretched, as if inviting the enemy. Captain Cary was cutting that tree down, swinging the axe rapidly in resounding strokes. A few courageous men still lingered near, working with renewed hope as they felt the scattering drops, and perceived that the wind began to lull. But they gave a cry of alarm, and fled also; for a fiery crest was suddenly lifted above the forest, and the enemy was upon them. No one was left but Captain Cary, and his work was not done. If there was a chance of checking the fire, it was in having that tree down.

It bent slightly under the heavy strokes that smote it, and, as it bent, a long, flickering tongue of flame shot across the space, and curled around its topmost tuft of foliage, and devoured it in a twinkling. Twigs, boughs, branches, all as dry as tinder, kindled instantly, and the whole tree, wrapped in flame, toppled over, and fell.

With a cry of terror, Clara Yorke lifted her face, that she might not see that man perish; and, looking upward, saw the redness vividly threaded with a blinding white light. Then there were a rattle and a rumble, and the rain came down in torrents.

“God be thanked!” said a deep voice near by.

There stood Captain Cary, panting, blackened, scorched, torn, wiping his face on his sleeve, and looking to see how much more effectually fire could be fought by the powers of heaven than by the powers of earth. The flames cowered down from the tree-tops under that tumultuous descent, the brands and cinders died out, hissing, and streams of water pursued the fire that fled along the ground.

“Providence arrived just in time,” observed one of the men who had gathered about him.

The sailor looked at him with a reproving glance. “Providence always does arrive in time,” he said reverently.

Here Mrs. Patten, looking like one of those witches we see in the play of Macbeth, not even lacking the long pole, made her appearance about as mysteriously as those witches do.

“Gentlemen,” she said, “since the hour of peril has gone past, and you must be fatigued by your exertions, I hope that you will take shelter from the rain in my poor mansion. You shall be welcome to such humble hospitality as I can offer you.”

They were nearly in darkness now, having only such light as came from the frequent flashes overhead.

The sailor thanked her politely. “I shall be glad if you can lend me a lantern,” he said; “for I want to get through to Mr. Marvin’s as soon as I can. Somebody is there waiting for me.”

Mrs. Patten led the way, and the others followed. In the semi-darkness, a smaller figure, which Captain Cary had not noticed before, came close to his side, and slipped a hand in his arm; and the “somebody” who should have been waiting for him at Mr. Marvin’s said quietly, “You see, I cannot walk very well without help, for I have lost one of my slippers.”

The sailor’s heart had not given such a jump when the burning tree fell and just missed him, as it gave at the sound of that voice.

“You here!” he exclaimed. “What did you come for?”

“To see the fire,” replied Miss Yorke.

“And you are barefoot?”

“Oh! no,” she said cheerfully. “I have a Lisle-thread stocking, what there is left of it, between my right foot and the sticks, and stones, and briers, and thistles, and--so forth.”

He groaned out, “Oh! you poor little dear!” and seemed on the point of saying something he was afraid to say, hesitated, almost stopped, then stammered, “I suppose it would be impudent to offer to carry you as far as the house, but I hate to have you walk that way.”

“Oh! thank you!” answered Miss Clara. “I could not think, though, of receiving so much assistance from any one but my husband, or the one who is to be my husband.”

The sailor swallowed a great sigh, and they walked on, Clara hobbling fearfully.

“I wish that he were here now, whoever he may be,” she said in a plaintive voice, after a minute. “For, really--”

Her escort said not a word.

In a few minutes they reached the log-house, where Joe and the children had already arrived; and, waiting only for the men to wash the soot from their faces and hands, and to find a shoe which Miss Yorke could keep on her foot, they set out again, with a lantern.

At Mr. Marvin’s they found Major Cleaveland’s carriage awaiting them, and in twenty minutes they were at home, without having spoken a word on the way.

But when they reached there, Clara looked anxiously at her companion. “Can’t I do anything for you?” she asked.

He thanked her gravely. No, he needed nothing. She had better see to herself.

She made a movement to leave the room, and did not go. She lingered, looking to see what was the matter with him. He was in a deplorable condition as to his clothing, his hair was singed, his hands and face blistering in places; but that did not seem to be the trouble. Neither was he angry. The deep thoughtfulness of his expression forbade that supposition.

She chose to say, though, “I hope you are not offended about anything.”

He seemed surprised, and recollected himself. “Why, no!” he answered. “Have I been cross? Excuse me! I was thinking of something.” He looked at her earnestly. “There is something I would like to know--not because I am curious, or want to interfere in any person’s private affairs, but because I think it might settle my mind to know. I’ll tell you what it is, and I hope you’ll believe that I don’t mean any offence, though it may sound impudent. You must know, Miss Clara”--his eyes dropped humbly--“that I took a liking to you at first. Of course I wasn’t such a fool as to expect anything from you; but what you said back there in the woods to-night showed me that I am a greater fool than I thought I could be. Do you want me to stop now?”

“No,” Clara answered gently. “I would like to hear what you have been thinking of, and to say anything I can to quiet your mind.”

“Well,” he went on, “I should feel better to know if you have any man in your eye that you like. It’s none of my business,” he added hastily, “but it might do me good to know the truth.”

Clara blushed to the forehead, but her laughing glance was raised to his face.

“Yes, Captain Cary,” she said, “I have a man in both my eyes whom I like and esteem.”

He was silent a moment. Perhaps his sunburnt face grew a shade paler.

“That’s all I want to know,” he said then. “I thank you for telling me; and I wish you every happiness that earth and heaven can give.”

He bowed, and took a step toward the door.

“Oh! you great stupid!” she cried out in a voice of ringing impatience, and with a laugh that seemed to be on the verge of crying.

The sailor turned at that, and drew himself up with proud indignation. For the first time his eyes flashed on her, and she saw how lofty he could be in self-assertion.

“Miss Yorke,” he said, “I’m but a rough man, not learned nor polite enough to be the husband of an accomplished lady like you; but I’m an honest man, and I won’t be scorned by any woman. My love may not be fit for your taking, but it’s too good for your mocking. I know what I am worth!”

“You do not!” she exclaimed. “You don’t know anything about it!”

He looked severely down upon her, but said nothing.

“I didn’t mean to mock you, nor treat you with any disrespect,” she said. “You misunderstand me, Captain Cary.”

His face softened. “I suppose I do,” he replied. “You have a laughing way, but I know you don’t mean any harm. Forget my rough talk, and forget all I have said to you to-night.”

He went toward the door again.

“I shall not forget it,” she said. “I shall never forget that one of the best of men liked me, yet was capable of deserting me because I would not offer myself to him.”

He looked round as if he thought she had lost her senses. “Why, Miss Clara, what do you mean?”

She clasped her hands, and raised her eyes to the ceiling. “Did you ever,” she asked, addressing, apparently, a wreath of stucco faces there--“did you ever witness such obtuseness?”

He stared at her a moment, standing; then he sat down, and continued looking at her intently.

“And did you ever witness such inconsistency?” she continued, still to the stucco faces. “He pretends to like me, and in the same breath tells me that he won’t have me--as if I had asked him to!”

“Miss Clara!”

She glanced at him disdainfully, and returned to her communication with the ceiling. “I shall not, however, break my heart for him.”

Over the sailor’s weather-beaten face a soft, uncertain light was stealing, as you may sometimes see the morning light steal over the face of a rugged bluff, covering it with beauty.

“Clara,” he said--she had heard him speak to the little ones in that low voice--“do you mean to say that you will marry me?”

“Captain Cary,” she replied, with an expression of excellent candor and good sense, “how am I to marry a man who won’t ask me?”

Then Captain Cary asked her.

A week after that she was at home with her family; and the first day, after dinner was over, when they sat quietly alone, she told her story to her father and mother.

They could scarcely believe her in earnest, and fifteen minutes were taken up with exclamations and expressions of incredulity. Clara received it all with patience, and, at length, succeeded in convincing her parents that, with their consent, she meant to become Miss Clara Cary, “which will be the first alliteration I ever purposely committed,” she said.

It happens too frequently that persons of an original turn of mind are less understood by their familiar associates, and even by their own families, than by strangers, and that those to whom they naturally look for appreciation give it only when the example is set them from abroad.

With all their affection for her, Clara’s parents often mistook her, because they took for granted that they knew her perfectly, and, therefore, never paused to examine. The consciousness of this involuntary injustice on their part had increased her natural impatience, and made her disinclined to explain herself; and, with a perversity for which, they were half to blame, she sometimes said what they evidently expected her to say, rather than what she meant. It was not surprising, therefore, that the first reasons she gave for her choice were superficial ones.

She liked brave, manly men, she said; and Captain Cary would give her just that life of adventure which she would most delight in. With him, that pretty old myth of women looking to men for protection in danger would be realized.

“Why, papa,” she said, “when I go out with any of the nice young men I know, if a dog barks, or a cow shakes her head at us, my escort is more frightened than I am. I shall call the captain Jason, and myself Medea--with a difference. There will be no Creusa. We will go after the golden fleece, and bring it home to put under little mamma’s feet. We will gather something for you in every sea, and from under every sky,

‘As we sail, as we sail.’”

Mr. and Mrs. Yorke neglected to observe the one significant sentence: “_There will be no Creusa_.” They did not object to the sailor on account of his character or wealth, they said. They did not even object because they would be so much separated from their daughter, though that would be a grief to them; but they thought the two incongruous in tastes and habits, and feared that Clara was mistaking that for a serious and lasting affection which was only a temporary artistic enthusiasm for a _unique_ specimen of mankind.

“I do not choose Captain Cary because he is rough, as you call it, but in spite of his roughness,” Clara said. “Our tastes are not as dissimilar as you imagine, though. He has great delicacy of feeling and perception, and he is as true a gentleman as I ever knew. I have always looked more to the spirit than the letter, and I can perceive and admire a good mind and heart in spite of some outward defects. I trust and believe in him entirely. If he is not honest, then no one is. He is magnanimous and truthful. I don’t care if he does not know Latin and Greek. One may know too much of them. He pretends to nothing, and he never appears ignorant. I’m not ashamed of him.”

“I did not know you were so much in earnest, Clara,” her father said, looking at her with a smile of approval. “If you are really satisfied with him, I have not a word to say against your marrying him. Only I thought you would prefer a person who was more literary and enthusiastic. Captain Cary is rather taciturn, and very sober.”

“But he can be roused,” Clara replied with animation; “and when he is, it is something lyric. You remember, papa, Villemain’s definition of the true ode, as distinguished from the conventional one: ‘_L’émotion d’une âme ébranlée et frémissante comme les cordes d’une lyre._’ It is no little factious stir at every touch, and snapping at a blow, but ‘smitten and vibrating’ grandly on great occasions.”

Mrs. Yorke gave a little sigh of expiring opposition. “One of my chief objections,” she said, “was that it would look so _bizarre_. If you do not care for that, then it is nothing.”

“Mamma,” Clara replied, “you would be astonished to know how little thought I give to the opinions of the Rose-pinks and Priscillas and pasteboard highnesses.”

And so the matter was tacitly settled.

But later, when Mr. and Mrs. Yorke sat together in the falling twilight, Clara came in softly behind them, pushed a footstool between their chairs, and sat there, holding a hand of each.

“Papa, mamma,” she said, “I want you to be satisfied that I am doing nothing without thought, and that I have chosen wisely. I tell you truly, Captain Cary is the only Protestant gentleman I know whom I can marry, and would not be afraid to marry. Look how the world is going. See what a frightful change has come over Boston since we can remember. Why, I have heard stories of some of our old acquaintances, people whom we thought respectable, which have sickened me. Your other two daughters have married good men, whom they can trust; but they are old-fashioned men, old enough to be their wives’ fathers instead of husbands. But of that class of men from whom you would think I might properly choose, would you dare to have me choose? I would not dare. Marriage has no longer any sacredness, except among Catholics. Other men desert or divorce their wives for nothing, and do the most horrible things. I should think that one-half the Protestant married ladies would look on their husbands with terror and distrust; and I wonder how any girl dares to marry. The weddings I’ve seen lately, instead of seeming happy occasions to me, have seemed most sad and painful. I heard a lady say this summer that in fifty years, or less, there would be no marriage outside the Catholic Church.”

“Charles, it is but too true,” the mother said. “I am terrified when I think of what is so evidently coming. It was the thought of this which reconciled me to Carl’s being a Catholic.”

“I wish we were all Catholics!” Clara exclaimed. “Not that I know or think much of theology; but it is better to believe too much than too little, and they are on the safe side. If we were wrecked, and our ship going to pieces, we would be glad of any vessel to pick us up. We wouldn’t quarrel with the cut of her jib.”

Mr. Yorke smiled. “See how she already draws her illustrations from the sea!” he said, and passed over her wish. “Well, Amy, she has proved herself a sensible girl, has she not? and deserves that we not only consent, but applaud.”

The mother’s answer was a silent embrace.

If the thought of either parent glanced with a momentary longing toward that strong inviolate church, against which the fiercest powers of hell beat in vain, which seems now to loom an ark indeed, while the rising waves of sin are submerging all beside, they said nothing.

Of the shock Melicent felt on learning of this engagement, we do not speak. Edith received the news with delight.

Edith had also other sources of pleasure. She had good news from Seaton. Mass was said there now once a fortnight, without any disturbance; and Mrs. Patten, with all her family, had been baptized. After that fire, which had so nearly swept away their home, and had put their lives in peril, the poor woman hesitated no longer. She had vowed that night, in the midst of her terror, that, if her life was spared, she would ask to be admitted to the church the first time the priest came again; and she kept her vow. Edith carefully read the long letter written to her descriptive of the occasion, and, through all its absurdities, rejoiced to see the spirit of a sincere faith and obedience.

This baptism excited a good deal of comment in Seaton. It was said that Boadicea had taken a stick to her husband to assist his conversion, and that, at the beginning, poor Joe was no more a Catholic than Sganarelle the wood-cutter was a doctor; but, however that may have been, he certainly became afterward a most exemplary Catholic, as far as he went. And it is likely that He who sees through all outward forms, and scorns only the scorner, received these humble penitents with a welcome as fatherly as that accorded to any illustrious convert.

Through Father John, Edith had frequent news of her childhood’s friend, and all she heard was such as to fill her with contentment. He did not wish to hold direct communication with the world, but to pursue his studies with but two thoughts in his mind--a God to serve and adore, and a world full of sinners to save for God’s sake.

Mrs. Rowan-Williams, seeing that her son was not despised and cast down, but rather elevated higher, and being convinced that, in some way she could not comprehend, he was entirely satisfied and happy, took comfort. She could not, however, any longer attend on a church where his belief and profession might at any time be traduced, and gradually, from staying at home on Sundays, began to go to his church, to listen with curiosity, then with interest, then with growing admiration, and, at last, to feel happy and at home there.

And in the spring, Carl was coming home.

“Bind on thy sandals, O thou most fleet! Over the splendor and speed of thy feet.”

But not in idle wishing was the winter passed. There was work, lightened by joyful anticipations, work persevered in in spite of doubts and fears, and work dear and joyful for its own sake. And thus the spring was earned.

The snows melted, the robins returned, tiny green leaves appeared, and there came a day when they sat with their windows open. Every one who passed by looked smiling; no one was sad that day, it seemed, so delightful is the coming of spring. Up-stairs Clara went about from room to room, singing snatches from a hymn to joy. Mrs. Yorke and Edith, sewing and talking in the parlor below, smiled to each other as they heard her.

“Joy, thou spark of heavenly brightness, Daughter from Elysium! Hearts on fire, with steps of lightness, On thy holy ground we come. Thou canst bind all, each to other, Custom sternly rends apart, All mankind are friend and brother, When thy soft wing fans the heart.”

A letter had come from Clara’s Jason that morning. He was at Havana when he wrote, and about sailing for England. In the fall he would return to America, and then he and his lady were to sail in search of the golden fleece.

The aunt and niece spoke softly together of her hopes and their own, of their poor, of their friends, of the robins that twittered just outside the windows, of the rose-vines that were so forward, of the rainbows of crocuses in the yard, of the unexpected help they had received in some benevolent projects of their own.

“People are so much better than one thinks,” Edith said. “It is delightful how much goodness there is, and how kind almost any one will be if approached in the right way. I have great hopes of the world. There’s nothing like trying to be a saint one’s self. If we should all try, there wouldn’t be a sinner on earth. If I should try, perhaps some one else would, and then, may be, some other person would be excited to try, and so it would go on round the world. It seems to me that cheerfulness, and kindness, and a helping hand, and a looking at the bright side, and a determination to find a bright side, and, altogether, a persistent shining, is what is wanted. Light is good, and joy is good, and pain is good only because it may be the birth of delight. Great is gladness, if the Lord is behind it!”

“All mankind are friend and brother, When thy soft wing fans the heart,”

sang Clara, in the room above; then stopped, with a little outcry.

The two below glanced through the window, and saw a gentleman in the street, near their steps. He walked slowly, looking straight on, so that they saw his profile. They dropped their work, and gazed at him steadily. Mrs. Yorke put her hand to her heart, Edith held her breath, and two red, red roses bloomed in her cheeks. Up-stairs, Clara made not a sound.

This gentleman’s step was light and firm, his figure graceful and manly, his face sunburnt, and the bright spring sunshine found golden lights in his hair and long moustache.

At the step he paused, then turned and came up, rapidly now, taking off his hat, and looking eagerly, since he had ventured to look at all.

Clara came flying down the stairs, and reached the parlor-door, with her arms twined around the new-comer, leading him in triumph. Mrs. Yorke, without rising from her chair, stretched her hands out to her son.

“O Lord! let me never forget thee!” sighed Edith, waiting her turn. “Let me never forget thee!”