Pure thoughts are angel visitants! be such
The frequent inmates of thy guileless breast;
They hallow all things by their sacred touch,
And ope the portals of the land of rest.
At eight o'clock precisely, Wilkins stepped down from his desk, gave
orders to have the store closed, and told Guly he would be ready in one
moment. The clerks, most of them, dropped the curtain of linen over the
goods, and went out, not sleeping in the store and having no pass key.
While Jeff was putting up the shutters, Guly went to Arthur and told him
he was going out to see one of Wilkins' friends a little while, but
would be back soon, and begged him to go to bed and try to sleep that
haggard look from his face.
"Yes," Arthur said, he had no doubt but he needed rest and would try to
gain it; and shaking hands they parted. Wilkins seemed waiting for the
two or three clerks who yet remained, to go away before he left, but as
he stood drawing on his gloves, Quirk came up and whispered something in
his ear which Guly did not hear, but to which Wilkins answered aloud,
saying: "I can't leave the key with you, but I'll lock you in."
"And how long will you be gone?"
"Only an hour or two."
"All right, then."
Wilkins and Guly went out and locked the door, leaving the young men in
there. They walked on, through the busy streets thronged with pleasure
seekers, some on foot, some riding, all gaily dressed and full
apparently of bright anticipations and buoyant life. Sometimes a lamp
gleam would fall through the plate-glass windows of some princely
structure, where light forms of beauty, attired in fashion's garb, were
flitting through the mazy dance or listening to music's enrapturing
strain. As Guly walked on, noting the panorama of life which passed by
him, he fell into a fit of musing from which he was unable to rouse
himself, until they turned into another street, and Wilkins remarked
quietly that it was the one in which Blanche lived. Then his whole
attention was awakened, and there was no more musing, no more lack of
conversation till they paused to rap at the door of the little house
where Blanche lived. She opened it herself, and held out a hand to each
of the new comers.
"I am so happy to see you," said she earnestly, as she permitted them to
enter. "Guly, this is grandpapa, you will soon be acquainted with him,
for we have been talking about you all day, and I have been describing
you to him, so that he might know how you looked, and could know just
how you would always act when I was giving you my work for sale, and all
that."
The old gentleman was very venerable in appearance, and sat in a large
stuffed chair with his grey locks floating over his shoulders, and his
hands clasped upon a staff he held before him. His sightless orbs were
turned in the direction whence came his good child's voice, and when she
mentioned Guly's name he held out one trembling hand, and expressed, in
a feeble, faltering tone, his pleasure at "seeing" them.
Guly took the extended hand, shook it cordially, and sat down near the
old gentleman and entered into a brisk conversation with him, leaving
Blanche to be entertained by, and to entertain, Wilkins.
"She called you Guly, this child of mine," said the old man, suddenly
breaking a slight pause which had occured in the conversation. "Blanche,
my love, when will you ever learn to be polite?"
"Dear grandpapa," returned Blanche, approaching him and stroking down
his snow-white locks with her soft hand, "don't call me impolite, only a
little too thoughtless and informal, grandpapa."
"Thoughtless and informal then, my dear; but I could wish you not to
address young gentlemen by their given names."
"Well, grandpapa, I always say 'Mr.' to Monsieur Wilkins, because he is
twice as tall as I, and looks always as if he expected to be mistered;
but, grandpapa, just feel of Guly--he is nothing but a boy, only a
little taller and a little older than I. Do let us be Blanche and Guly
to each other."
There was no withstanding the simple and artless manner with which these
words were spoken, and Blanche hung fondly over her grandfather's chair.
The old man smiled as he listened to her, and, turning to the side where
Guly sat, he said, in an apologetic manner:
"Blanche's reasoning springs from her heart; she studies no etiquette
save that which nature teaches."
"Which will carry such a spirit as hers through the world more safely
than any other," said Wilkins, drawing his chair also to the side of his
blind friend.
"Still," said Guly, blushing as he spoke, "it may make her heart so rare
a gem that too many will covet it."
A shade of anxiety crossed the blind man's features as he heard the
words, and he turned his dim eyes toward Guly as if he would give worlds
to read the expression of face with which the sentence had been spoken.
"Lately," said he, leaning forward more heavily on his staff, "I have
such thoughts myself. I am a weak, powerless old man, already bending
over the grave into which I must so soon drop. When I think of this
poor, dear child, left unprotected and alone in this great city, I am
very unhappy, very miserable."
Guly saw a tear sparkle, and trickle down through the wrinkles of that
aged face, and his own heart yearned sorrowfully.
"Blanche will never be without friends," said Wilkins, encouragingly.
"At least she will never lack for one while I live."
"Or I," exclaimed Guly, earnestly.
The old man shook his head, and smiled sadly.
"Two young men, however worthy and noble they may be, are not exactly
the ones to offer their protection to an orphaned and beautiful girl.
Such things I don't doubt may be done uprightly and honestly; but the
world, the suspicious world, is ever ready to cast the blight of shame
and slander on such things."
Blanche suddenly left her grandfather's chair and hurried away to a
distant corner of the room, from whence she brought a little stand
containing a work-basket and the lamp. She placed it just in front of
her grandpapa's chair, and between Guly and Wilkins. With a smile she
seated herself at it, and began to embroider a strip of insertion;
nimbly plying her needle among the slender vines and tendrils she was
working.
"Are you there, darling?" said the old man, stretching out his unsteady
hand and laying it on her head.
"Yes, grandpapa, right here in my old place."
He withdrew his hand with an air of pleased satisfaction, and resumed
the subject he had just dropped.
"Blanche needs a mother--some female friend to guard and protect her,
when--when her old grandfather shall be gone. I am afraid I shall drop
off suddenly one of these days; I have sudden turns of illness which are
very severe. I was quite sick last night--ah, she told me of your
kindness to her, Mr. Wilkins; God be praised--and I could not help
feeling then that my thoughts turned more upon my poor desolate child
here, than on that other world to which I might be hastening."
Blanche dropped her head lower and lower over her work, till her short
glossy ringlets shaded her soft brown eyes.
"This world," continued he, with that love of pursuing the prominent
subject of thought so common with aged persons, "has, of course, lost
its fascination for me. I am blind, and very old; and am swiftly
descending from the summit of life's mount, and must soon drop from its
base into that vast eternity of which we know so little. Poor Blanche! I
am of course a trouble, so helpless and blind, but she will miss me when
she's left alone. Poor child, poor child!"
Blanche lifted up her head quickly, and showed her cheeks wet with
streaming tears. She rose from her seat, took the staff from the old
man's hands, and threw herself sobbing aloud upon his bosom.
He folded his aged arms around her and drew her to his heart, while he
bent his head, and his white hair, so silvery, floated forward and
mingled with the raven blackness of hers. Thus they sat, a touching
picture of youth and hoary age, of life's spring-time and the calm
tranquillity of its withered autumn.
"Oh, grandpapa!" exclaimed Blanche at last, lifting up her face and
looking tearfully into those dim eyes as though they could see all that
she wished them. "Never, never talk any more about dying and leaving me
here alone, unless you wish to break poor Blanche's heart. You are all
that God has left me on this earth to love, and if He takes you, I want
to go too. And you said you were a trouble! Don't ever, ever say that
again, dear grandfather, if you love me dearly, as I know you do."
"But I wish to prepare you, darling, for the change that must surely
come."
"Don't say so. You never could prepare me for such a dreadful thing, and
please don't try to."
The old man drew a long shivering sigh, and leaned back in his chair.
Blanche sat up, smoothed his thin locks, kissed his brow, and soothed
him once more into a placid calm. She slid from his arms, then placed
the staff in his hands, and he bent forward on it as if already
forgetful of the scene just passed.
Guly and Wilkins were deeply impressed by this simple occurrence, and
the former had looked on, with difficulty keeping the answering drops
from his large blue eyes. There had been something so natural in it all,
yet so affecting and heart-touching. There had been no attempt to check
the heart's first impulse, no struggle of affected prudery, but the free
gushing forth of her warm affection, forgetful of everything save the
strong love for her blind grandfather.
"Now, Guly," said Blanche, playfully, breaking the sad pause which had
followed the recent excitement, "I am anxious to finish this piece of
work this evening, and you must thread my needle for me. That will help
me."
Guly expressed his willingness to obey, and drew his chair closer to the
little table for the purpose, as he said, of receiving instructions.
Blanche gave them, and he sat watching her taper fingers, and waiting
impatiently to see the thread used up that he might proffer another.
The old man talked pleasantly, Guly loved to hear him talk; Wilkins
conversed with them all in a general maner, yet watched, with a pleased
expression of countenance, Blanche and Guly as they sat side by side at
the little table, the blue eyes looking into the brown, and the locks of
gold lending a tinge of additional brightness to the curls of jetty
black.
They rose to leave at ten o'clock, and the old man took Guly's hand,
expressing a hope that he would repeat his visit; the boy uttered what
his heart at the moment felt, that it was the pleasantest evening of his
life, and his memory of it would not fail to induce him soon to seek a
like enjoyment.
Guly walked home like one in a dream. A seed had fallen on his heart's
rich soil, to spring up in time into fragrant bloom. In the holiest
niche of his heart a new lamp was lighted, and it burned before the
image of a Virgin!