One morning, when she went to recite, she did not find Mr. Clerron in
the library, where he usually awaited her. After spending a few moments
in looking over her lessons, she rose and was about to pass to the door
to ring, when Mrs. Simm looked in, and, seeing Ivy, informed her
that Mr. Clerron was in the garden, and desired her to come out. Ivy
immediately followed Mrs. Simm into the garden. On the south side of the
house was a piazza two stories high. Along the pillars which supported
it a trellis-work had been constructed, reaching several feet above the
roof of the piazza. About this climbed a vigorous grape-vine, which not
only completely screened nearly the whole front of the piazza, but,
reaching the top of the trellis, shot across, by the aid of a few pieces
of fine wire, and overran a part of the roof of the house. Thus the roof
of the piazza was the floor of a beautiful apartment, whose walls and
ceiling were broad, rustling, green leaves, among which drooped now
innumerable heavy clusters of rich purple grapes.
From behind this leafy wall a well-known voice cried, "Hail to thee, my
twining vine!" Ivy turned and looked up, with the uncertain, inquiring
smile we often wear when conscious that, though unseeing, we are not
unseen; and presently two hands parted the leaves far enough for a very
sunshiny smile to gleam down on the upturned face.
"Oh, I wish I could come up there!" cried Ivy, clasping her hands with
childish eagerness.
"The wish is father to the deed."
"May I?"
"Be sure you may."
"But how shall I get in?"
"Are you afraid to come up the ladder?"
"No, I don't mean that; but how shall I get in where you are, after I am
up?"
"Oh, never fear! I'll draw you in safely enough."
"Lorful heart! Miss Ivy, what are you going to do?" cried Mrs. Simm, in
terror.
Ivy was already on the third round of the ladder, but she stopped and
answered, hesitatingly,--"He said I might."
"He said you might, yes," continued Mrs. Simm,--talking _to_ Ivy, but
_at_ Mr. Clerron, with whom she hardly dared to remonstrate in a more
direct way. "And if he said you might throw yourself down Vineyard
Cliff, it don't follow that you are bound to do it. He goes into all
sorts of hap-hazard scrapes himself, but you can't follow him."
"But it looks so nice up there," pleaded Ivy, "and I have been twice as
high at home. I don't mind it at all."
"If your father chooses to let you run the risk of your life, it's none
of my look-out, but I a'n't going to have you breaking your neck right
under my nose. If you want to get up there, I'll show you the way in the
house, and you can step right out of the window. Just wait till I've
told Ellen about the dinner."
As Mrs. Simm disappeared, Mr. Clerron said softly to Ivy, "Come!"--and
in a moment Ivy bounded up the ladder and through an opening in the
vine, and stood by his side.
"I'm ready now, Miss Ivy," said Mrs. Simm, reappearing. "Miss Ivy! Where
is the child?"
A merry laugh greeted her.
"Oh, you good-for-nothing!" cried the good-natured old housekeeper,
"you'll never die in your bed."
"Not for a good while, I hope," answered Mr. Clerron.
Then he made Ivy sit down by him, and took from the great basket the
finest cluster of grapes.
"Is that reward enough for coming?"
"Coming into so beautiful a place as this is like what you read
yesterday about poetry to Coleridge, 'its own exceeding great reward.'"
"And you don't want the grapes?"
"I don't know that I have any intrinsic objection to them as a free
gift. It was only the principle that I opposed."
"Very well, we will go shares, then. You may have half for the free
gift, and I will have half for the principle. Little tendril, you look
as fresh as the morning."
"Don't I always?"
"I should say there was a _little_ more dew than usual. Stand up and let
me survey you, if perchance I may discover the cause."
Ivy rose, made a profound curtsy, and then turned slowly around, after
the manner of the revolving fashion-figures in a milliner's window.
"I don't know," continued Mr. Clerron, when Ivy, after a couple of
revolutions, resumed her seat. "You seem to be the same. I think it must
be the frock."
"I don't wear a frock. I don't think it would improve my style of
beauty, if I did. Papa wears one sometimes."
"And what kind of a frock, pray, does 'papa' wear?"
"Oh, a horrid blue thing. Comes about down to his knees. Made of some
kind of woollen stuff. Horrid!"
"And what name do you give to that white thing with blue sprigs in it?"
"This?"
"Yes."
"This is a dress."
"No. This, and your collar, and hat, and shoes, and sash are your dress.
This is a frock."
Ivy shook her head doubtfully.
"You know a great deal, I know."
"So you informed me once before."
"Oh, don't mention that!" said Ivy, blushing, and quickly added, "Do you
know I have discovered the reason why you like me this morning?"
"And every morning."
"Sir?"
"Go on. What is the reason?"
"It is because I clear-starched and ironed it myself with my owny-dony
hands; and that, you know, is the reason it looks nicer than usual."
"Ah, me! I wish I wore dresses."
"You can, if you choose, I suppose. There is no one to hinder you."
"Simpleton! that is not what you were intended to say. You should have
asked the cause of so singular a wish, and then I had a pretty little
speech all ready for you,--a veritable compliment"
"It is well I did not ask, then. Mamma does not approve of compliments,
and perhaps it would have made me vain."
"Incorrigible! Why did you not ask me what the speech was, and thus give
me an opportunity to relieve myself. Why, a body might die of a plethora
of flattery, if he had nobody but you to discharge it against."
"He must take care, then, that the supply does not exceed the demand."
"Political economy, upon my word! What shall we have next?"
"Domestic, I suppose you would like. Men generally, indeed, prefer it to
the other, I am told."
"Ah, Ivy, Ivy! little you know about men, my child!"
He leaned back in his seat and was silent for some minutes. Ivy did not
care to interrupt his thinking. Presently he said,--
"Ivy, how old are you?"
"I shall be seventeen the last day of this month."
A short pause.
"And then eighteen."
"And then nineteen."
"And then twenty. In three years you will be twenty."
"Horrid old, isn't it?"
He turned his head, and looked down upon her with what Ivy thought a
curious kind of smile, but only said,--
"You must not say 'horrid' so much."
By-and-by Ivy grew rather tired of sitting silent and watching the
rustle of the leaves, which hid every other prospect; she turned her
face a little so that she could look at him. He sat with folded arms,
looking straight ahead; and she thought his face wore a troubled
expression. She felt as if she would like very much to smooth out the
wrinkles in his forehead and run her fingers through his hair, as she
sometimes did for her father. She had a great mind to ask him if she
should; then she reflected that it might make him nervous. Then she
wondered if he had forgotten her lessons, and how long they were to sit
there. Determined, at length, to have a change of some kind, she said,
softly,--
"Mr. Clerron!"
He roused himself suddenly, and stood up.
"I thought, perhaps, you had a headache."
"No, Ivy. But this is not climbing the hill of science, is it?"
"Not so much as it is climbing the piazza."
"Suppose we take a vacation to-day, and investigate the state of the
atmosphere?"
"Yes, Sir, I am ready."
Ivy did not fully understand the nature of his proposition; but if he
had proposed to "put a girdle round the earth in forty minutes," she
would have said and acted, "Yes, Sir, I am ready," just the same.
He took up the basket of grapes which he had gathered, and led the way
through the window, down-stairs. Ivy waited for him at the hall-door,
while he carried the grapes to Mrs. Simm; then he joined her again and
proposed to walk through the woods a little while, before Ivy went home.
"You must know, my docile pupil, that I am going to the city to-morrow,
on business, to be gone a week or two. So, as you must perforce take a
vacation then, why, we may as well begin to vacate today, and enjoy it."
"I am sorry you are going away."
"You are? That is almost enough to pay me for going. Why are you sorry?"
"Because I shall not see you for a week; and I have become so used to
you, that somehow I don't seem to know what to do with a day without
you; and then the cars may run off the track and kill you or hurt you,
or you may get the smallpox, or a great many things may happen."
"And suppose some of these terrible things should happen,--the last, for
instance,--what would you do?"
"I? I should advise you to send for the doctor at once."
Mr. Clerron laughed.
"So you would not come and nurse me, and take care of me, and get me
well again?"
"No, because I should then be in danger of taking it myself and giving
it to papa and mamma; besides, they would not let me, I am quite sure."
"So you love your papa and mamma better than"----
He stopped abruptly. Ivy finished for him.
"Better than words can tell. Papa particularly. Mamma, somehow, seems
strong of herself, and don't depend upon me; but papa,--oh, you don't
know how he is to me! I think, if I should die, he would die of grief. I
have, I cannot help having, a kind of pity for him, he loves me so."
"Do you always pity people, when they love you very much?"
"Oh, no! of course not. Besides, nobody loves me enough to be pitied,
except papa.--Isn't it pleasant here? How very green it is! It looks
just like summer. Oh, Mr. Clerron, did you see the clouds this morning?"
"There were none when I arose."
"Why, yes, Sir, there was a great heap of them at sunrise."
"I am not prepared to contradict you."
"Perhaps you were not up at sunrise."
"I have an impression to that effect."
He smiled so comically, that Ivy could not help saying, though she was
half afraid he might not be pleased,--
"I wonder whether you are an early riser."
"Yes, my dear, I consider myself tolerably early. I believe I have been
up every morning but one, this week, by nine o'clock."
Ivy was horror-struck. Her country ideas of "early to bed and early to
rise" received a great shock, as her looks plainly showed. He laughed
gayly at her amazed face.
"You don't seem to appreciate me, Miss Geer."
"'Nine o'clock!'" repeated Ivy, slowly,--"'every morning but one!' and
it is Tuesday to-day."
"Yes, but you know yesterday was a dark, cloudy day, and excellent for
sleeping."
"But, Mr. Clerron, then you are not more than fairly up when I come. And
when do you write?"
"Always in the evening."
"But the evenings are so short,--or have been."
"Mine are not particularly so. From six to three is about long enough
for one sitting."
"I should think so. And you must be so tired!"
"Not so tired as you think. You, now, rising at five or six, and running
round all day, become so tired that you have to go to bed by nine;
of course you have no time for reflection and meditation. I, on the
contrary, take life easily,--write in the night, when everything is
still and quiet,--take my sleep when all the noise of the world's
waking-up is going on,--and after creation is fairly settled for the
day, I rise leisurely, breakfast leisurely, take a smoke leisurely, and
leisurely wait the coming of my little pupil."
"Mr. Clerron!"
"Well!"
"May I tell you another thing I don't like in you? a bad habit?"
"As many as you please, provided you won't require me to reform."
"What is the use of telling it, then?"
"But it may be a relief to you. You will have the satisfaction arising
from doing your duty. We shall ventilate our opinions, and perhaps come
to a better understanding. Go on."
"Well, Sir, I wish you did not smoke so much."
"I don't smoke very much, little Ivy."
"I wish you would not at all. Mamma thinks it is very injurious, and
wrong, even. And papa says cigars are bad things."
"Some of them are outrageous. But, my dear, granting your father and
mother and yourself to be right, don't you see I am doing more to
extirpate the evil than you, with all your principle? I exterminate,
destroy, and ruin them at the rate of three a day; while you, I venture
to say, never lifted a finger or lighted a spark against them."
"Now, Sir, that is only a way of slipping round the question. And I
really wish you did not. Before I knew you, I thought it was almost as
bad to smoke as it was to steal. I know, however, now, that it cannot
be; still"--
"Feminine logic."
"I have not studied Logic yet; still, as I was going to say, Sir,
I don't like to think of you as being in a kind of subjection to
anything."
"Ivy, seriously, I am not in subjection to a cigar. I often don't smoke
for months together. To prove it, I promise you I won't smoke for the
next two months."
"Oh, I am so glad! Oh, I am so much obliged to you! And you are not in
the least vexed that I spoke to you about it?"
"Not in the least."
"I was afraid you would be. And one thing more, Sir, I have been afraid
of, the last few days. You know when I first knew you, or before I knew
you, I supposed you did nothing but walk round and enjoy yourself all
day. But now I know you do work very hard; and I have feared that you
could not well spare two hours every day for me,--particularly in the
morning, which are almost always considered the best. But if you like
to write in the evening, you would just as soon I would come in the
morning?"
"Certainly."
"But if two hours are too much, I hope you won't, at any time, hesitate
to tell me. I have no claim on a moment,--only"--
"My dear Ivy Geer, pupil and friend, be so good as to understand,
henceforth, that you cannot possibly come into my house at any time
when you are not wanted; nor stay any longer than I want you; nor say
anything that will not please me;--well, I am not quite sure about
that;--but, at least, remember that I am always glad to see you, and
teach you, and have you with me; and that I can never hope to do you as
much good as you do me every day of your blessed life."
"Oh, Mr. Clerron!" exclaimed Ivy, with a great gush of gratitude and
happiness; "do I, can I, do _you_ any good?"
"You do and can, my tendril! You supply an element that was wanting in
my life. You make every day beautiful to me. The flutter of your robes
among these trees brings sunshine into my heart. Every morning I walk in
my garden as soon as I am, as you say, fairly up, till I see you turn
into the lane; and every day I watch you till you disappear. You are
fresh and truthful and natural, and you give me new life. And now, my
dear little trembling benefactor, because we are nearly through the
woods, I can go no farther with you; and because I am going away
to-morrow, not to see you again for a week, and because I hope you will
be a little lonesome while I am gone, why, I think I must let you--kiss
me!"
Ivy had been looking intently into his face, with an expression, at
first, of the most beaming, tearful delight, then gradually changing
into waiting wonder; but when his sentence finally closed, she stood
still, scarcely able to comprehend. He placed his hands on her temples,
and, smiling involuntarily at her blushes and embarrassment, half in
sport and half in tenderness, bent her head a little back, kissed brow,
cheeks, and lips, whispered softly, "Go now! God bless you for ever and
ever, my darling!" and, turning, walked hastily down the winding path.
As for Ivy, she went home in a dream, blind and stunned with a great
joy.
[To be continued.]
"IMPLORA PACE."
No more Joy-roses! their perfume
To this dull pain brings short surcease:
But tell me, if ye know, where bloom
The golden lily-bells of Peace.
Leap, winnowing all the air of light,
Ye wild wraiths of the waterfall!
But for that fabled fountain's sight,
That giveth sleep, I'd give you all.
Bound, gay barks, o'er the bounding main!
Shake all your white wings to the breeze!
My joy was erst the hurricane,
The plunging of the purple seas;
My hope to find the mystic marge
Of all strange lands, the strange world o'er:
But bear me now to yon still barge,
Calm cradled by a tideless shore!
Wild birds, that cleave the crystal deeps
With May-time matins loud and long,
Oh, not for you my sick heart weeps!
Its pulses time not to your song!
But know ye where she hides her nest,
Beneath what balmy dropping eaves,
The Dove that bears on her white breast
The sacred green of olive-leaves?
Not when the Spring doth rosy rise
From white foam of the Northern snows;
Not when 'neath passion-throbbing skies
The fire-pulsed June in beauty glows:
But when amid the templed hills,
Deep drained from every purple vine,
Soft for her dying lips distils
The Summer's sacramental wine;
While all her woodland priests put on
Their vestures dipped in sacrifice,
And, as 'twere golden bells far swung,
A rhythmic silence holds the skies;
What time the Day-spring softly wells
From Night's dark caverns, till it sets
In long, melodious, tidal swells,
Toward the wide flood-gates of the West;--
Oh, open then my dungeon door!
Let Nature lead me, blind of eyes,
If haply I may _feel_ once more
The pillars of the steadfast skies;
If haply there may fall for me
Some strange assurance in my fears,--
As he who heard on Galilee,
That stormy night in wondrous years,
The "It is I," and o'er the foam
Of what seemed phantom-haunted seas,
Saw glory of the kingdom come,
The footsteps of the Prince of Peace!