"Thus with the year
Seasons return, but not to me returns
Day, or the sweet approach of even or morn,
Or signs of vernal bloom, or summer's rose,
Or flocks, or herds, or human face divine.
But clouds instead, and ever-during dark
Surround me."
_Milton._
"Thou, to whom the world unknown,
With all its shadowy shapes is shown,
Who see'st appalled, th' unreal scene,
While Fancy lifts the veil between,
Ah, Fear! ah, frantic Fear!
I see, I see thee near!"
_Collins._
Six years gliding away, have converted the boy of twelve into the
collegian of eighteen years, the girl of nine into the boarding-school
Miss of fifteen, and the child of seven into the little maiden of
thirteen.
Let us give a hasty glance at the most prominent events of these six
gliding years, and then let the development of character that has gone
on during the period, be shown by the events which follow.
The young doctor did not forget to speak to his mother of the
interesting child, whom destiny seemed to have made a protege of his
own. In consequence, a pressing invitation was sent by Mrs. Hazleton,
the widowed mother of Arthur, to the young Helen, who, from that time
became an annual guest at the Parsonage--such was the name of the home
of the young doctor. It was about a day's ride from Mr. Gleason's, and
situated in one of the loveliest portions of the lovely valley of the
Connecticut. Helen soon ceased to consider herself a visitor, and to
look upon the Parsonage as another and dearer home; for though she
dearly loved her father and brother, she found a far lovelier and more
lovable sister in the sweet, blind Alice, than the heart-repelling
Mittie.
Miss Thusa, whose feelings towards Mittie had been in a kind of volcanic
state, since the destruction of her thread, always on the verge of an
eruption, determined, during the first absence of her favorite Helen to
resume her itinerant mode of existence; so, sending her wheel in
advance, the herald cry of "Miss Thusa's coming," once more resounded
through the neighborhood.
Louis entered college at a very early age, leaving a dreary blank in the
household, which his joyous spirit had filled with sunshine.
It is not strange that under such circumstances the lonely widower
should think of a successor to his lost wife, for Mittie needed a
mother's restraining influence and guardian care. Nor is it strange,
with her indomitable self-will, she should resist the authority of a
stranger. When her father announced his intention of bringing home a
lady to preside over his establishment, claiming for her all filial
respect and obedience, she flew into a violent passion, and declared she
would never own her as a mother, never address her as such--that she
would leave home and never return, before she would submit to the
government of a stranger. Unwilling to expose the woman who had
consented to be his wife to scenes of strife and unhappiness, Mr.
Gleason, as the only alternative, resolved to send his daughter to a
boarding-school, before his mansion received its new mistress. Mittie
exulted in this arrangement, for a boarding-school was the Ultima Thule
of her ambition, and she boasted to her classmates that her father was
afraid of her, and that he dared not marry while she was at home.
Amiable boast of a child!--especially a daughter.
Mr. Gleason was anxious to recall Helen, and place her at once under her
new mother's guardianship, but Mrs. Hazleton pleaded, and the blind
Alice pleaded with the mute eloquence of her sightless eyes, and the
young doctor pleaded; and Helen, after being summoned to welcome her new
parent, and share in the wedding festivities, was permitted to return to
her beloved Parsonage.
It was a beautiful spot--so rural, so retired, so far from the public
road, so removed from noise and dust. It had such a serene, religious
aspect, the traveler looking up the long avenue of trees, with a
gradually ascending glance, to the unambitious, gray-walled mansion,
situated at its termination, thought it must be one of the sweetest
havens of rest that God ever provided for life's weary pilgrim.
And so it was--and so Helen thought, when wandering with the blind Alice
through the sequestered fields and wild groves surrounding the dwelling,
or seated within the low, neat, white-washed walls, and listening to the
mild, maternal accents of Arthur Hazleton's mother.
It was a mild summer evening. The windows were all open, and the smell
of the roses that peeped in through the casements, made sweeter as well
as brighter by the dews of night, perfumed the whole apartment.
Sometimes the rising breeze would scatter a shower of rose-leaves on the
carpet, casting many a one on the heads of the young girls seated at a
table, on either side of Mrs. Hazleton. Helen heeded not the petals that
nestled in the hazel waves of her short, brown hair, but Alice, whose
touch and hearing were made marvelously acute by her blindness, could
have counted every rose-leaf that covered her fair, blonde ringlets.
They were both engaged in the same occupation--knitting purses--and no
one could have told by the quick, graceful motions of the fingers of
Alice, that they moved without one guiding ray from those beautiful blue
eyes, that seemed to follow all their intricacies. Neither could any one
have known, by gazing on those beautiful eyes, that the _soul_ did not
look forth from their azure depths. There was a soft dreaminess floating
over the opaque orbs, like the dissolving mist of a summer's morning,
that appeared but the cloudiness of thought. Alice was uncommonly
lovely. Her complexion had a kind of rosy fairness, indicative of the
pure under-current which, on every sudden emotion, flowed in bright
waves to her cheeks. This was a family peculiarity, and one which Helen
remarked in the young doctor the first time she beheld him. Her profuse
flaxen hair fell shadingly over her brow, and an acute observer might
have detected her blindness by her suffering the fair locks to remain
till a breeze swept them aside. They did not _veil her vision_. Mrs.
Hazleton, with pardonable maternal vanity, loved to dress her beautiful
blind child in a manner decorating to her loveliness. A simple white
frock in summer, ornamented with a plain blue ribbon, constituted her
usual holiday attire. She could select herself the color she best liked,
by passing her hand over the ribbon, and though her garments and Helen's
were of the same size, she could tell them apart, from the slightest
touch.
Helen was less exquisitely fair, less beautiful than Alice, but hers was
an eye of sunbeams and shadows, that gave wonderful expression to her
whole face. Some one has observed that "every face is either a history
or a prophecy." Child as Helen was, hers was _both_. You could read in
those large, pensive, hazel eyes, a history of past sufferings and
trials. You could read, too, in their deep, appealing, loving
expression, a prophecy of all a woman's heart is capable of feeling or
enduring.
"I never saw such eyes in the head of a child," was a common remark upon
Helen. "There is something wildly, hauntingly interesting in them; one
loves and pities her at the first glance."
Helen was too pale and thin to be a beautiful child, but with such a
pair of haunting eyes, soft, silky hair of the same hazel hue, hanging
in short curls just below her ears, and a mouth of rare and winning
sweetness, she was sure to be remembered when no longer present. She
looked several years older than Alice, though of the same age, for the
calm features of the blind child had never known the agitations of
terror or the vague apprehensions of unknown evil. Every one said "Helen
would be pretty," and felt that she was interesting.
Now, while knitting her purse, and sliding the silver beads along the
blue silken thread, she would look up with an eager, listening
countenance, as if her thoughts were gone forth to meet some one, who
delayed their coming.
Alice, too, was listening with an expecting, waiting heart--one could
tell it by the fluttering of the blue ribbon that encircled her neck.
"He will not come to-night, mother," said she, with a sigh. "It is never
so late as this, when he rides in through the gate."
"I fear some accident has happened," cried Helen, "he has a very bad
bridge to cross, and the stream is deep below."
"How much that sounds like Helen," exclaimed Mrs Hazleton, "so fearful
and full of misgivings! I shall not give him up before ten o'clock. If
you like, you can both sit up and bear me company--if not, you may leave
me to watch alone."
They both eagerly exclaimed that they would far rather sit up with her,
and then they were sure they could finish their purses, and have them
ready as gifts for the brother and friend so anxiously looked for.
Though the distance that separated them from him was short, and his
visits frequent, they were ever counted as holidays of the heart, as
eras from which all past events were dated--and on which all future ones
were dependent.
"When Arthur was here, we did so and so." "When Arthur comes, we will do
this and that." A stranger would have thought Arthur the angel of the
Parsonage, and that his coming was the advent of peace, and joy, and
love. It was ever thus that listening ears and longing eyes and waiting
hearts watched his approach. He was an only son and brother, and seldom
indeed is it that Heaven vouchsafes such a blessing to a household, as a
son and brother like Arthur Hazleton.
"He's coming," cried Alice, jumping up and clapping her hands, "I hear
his horse galloping towards the gate. I know the sound of its hoofs from
all others."
This was true. The unerring ear of the blind girl never deceived her.
Arthur was indeed coming. The gate opened. His rapid footstep was heard
passing through the avenue, bounding up the steps, and there they were
arrested by the welcoming trio, all ready to greet him. It was a happy
moment for Arthur when wrapped in that triune embrace, for Helen, timid
as she was, had learned to look upon him as a dear, elder brother, whose
cares and affection were divided between her and the sightless Alice;
and for whom she felt a love equal to that which she cherished for
Louis, mingled with a reverence and admiration that bordered upon
worship.
"My dear mother," said he, when they had escorted him into the
sitting-room, and in spite of his resistance made him take the best and
pleasantest seat in the room, "my dear mother, I hope I have not kept
you up too late; I would have been here sooner, but you know I am a
servant of the public, and my time is not my own."
"Oh! brother, I am so glad to see you!" cried Alice, pressing her
glowing cheek against his hand. It was thus she always said; and she did
see him with her spirit's eyes, beautiful as a son of the morning, and
radiant as the god of day. She passed her hands softly over his dark,
brown locks, over the contour of his cheeks and chin with a kind of
lingering, mesmerizing touch, which seemed to delight in tracing the
lineaments of symmetry and grace.
"Brother," she said, "your cheeks are reddening--I know it by their
warmth. What makes the blood come up to the cheeks when the heart is
glad? Helen's are red, too, for I know it by the throbbings of her
heart."
"Helen has one pale cheek and one red one," answered Arthur, passing his
arm around her and drawing her towards him. "If she were a little
older," added he, bending down and kissing the pale cheek, "we might
bring a rose to this, and then they would be blooming twins."
The rose did bloom most beautifully at his touch, and a smile of
affectionate delight gilded the child's pensive lips.
"Alice, my dear, what have you and Helen been doing since I was here?
You are always planning something to surprise me--something to make me
glad and grateful."
"We have been knitting a purse for you, brother, each of us; and mother
had just finished sewing on the tassel when you came. Tell me which is
mine, and which is Helen's," cried she, taking them both from the table
and mingling the hues of cerulean and emerald, the glitter of the golden
globules which ornamented the one, and the silver beads which starred
the other, in her hand.
"The green and gold must be Helen's--the silver and blue yours, Alice.
Am I right?"
"No. But will you care if it is exactly the reverse. Helen chose the
blue because it was my favorite color, and she thought you would prize
it most. Green was left for me, and then, you know, I was obliged to mix
it with gold."
"But why was green left for you? and why were you _obliged_ to mix it
with gold, instead of silver?" asked he, interested in tracing the
origin of her associations.
"I like but two colors," she replied, thoughtfully; "blue and green, the
blue of the heavens, the green of the earth. It seems that gold is like
sunshine, and the golden beads must resemble sunbeams on the green
grass. Silver is like moonlight, and Helen's purse must make you think
of moonbeams, shining from the bright blue sky."
"Why, my sweet Alice, where did the poetry of your thoughts come from? I
know not how such charming associations are born, unless of sight. Oh!
there must be an inner light, purer and clearer than outward vision
knows, in which the great source of light bathes the spirit of the
blind."
He paused a moment, with his eyes intently fixed on the soft, hazy orbs,
which gave back no answering rays--then added, in a gayer tone--
"And so I am the owner of these beautiful purses. How proud and happy I
ought to be! It will be long, I fear, before I shall fill them with
gold--and even if I could, it would be a shame to soil them with the
yellow dust of temptation. I will cherish them both. Yours, Alice, will
always remind me of all that is beautiful on earth, woven of this
brilliant green and gold. And yours, Helen, blue as the sky, of all that
is holy in Heaven.
"But while I am thus receiving precious gifts," he added, "I must not
forget that I am the bearer of some also. My saddle-bags are not
entirely filled with vials and pills. Here, mother, is a bunch of
thread, sent by Miss Thusa, white as the fleece of the unshorn lamb. She
says she spun it expressly for you, because of your kindness to Helen."
"I know by experience the beauty and value of Miss Thusa's thread," said
Mrs Hazleton, admiring the beautiful white hanks, which her son
unrolled; "ever since I knew Helen I have had a yearly supply, such as
no other spinster ever made. How shall I make an adequate return?"
"There is a nicely bound book in our library, mother, which would please
her beyond expression--a history of all the celebrated murders in the
country, within the last ten years. Here, Helen, are some keepsakes for
you and Alice, from your mother."
"How kind, how good," exclaimed Helen, "and how beautiful! A work-box
for me, and a toilet-case for Alice. How nice--and convenient. Surely
we ought to love her. Mittie cannot help loving her when she comes. I'm
sure she cannot."
"Your father is going for Mittie soon," said Arthur. "He bids me tell
you that you must be ready to accompany him, and remain in her stead for
at least three years."
A cloud obscured the sunshine of Helen's countenance. The prospect which
Mittie had hailed with exultation, Helen looked forward to with dismay.
To be sent to a distant school, among a community of strangers, was to
her timid, shrinking spirit, an ordeal of fire. To be separated from
Alice, Arthur, and Mrs. Hazleton, seemed like the sentence of death to
her loving, clinging heart.
"We must all learn self-reliance, Helen," said Arthur, "we must all pass
through the discipline of life. The time will soon come when you will
assume woman's duties, and it is well that you go forth awhile to gather
strength and wisdom, to meet and fulfil them. You need something more
bracing and invigorating than the atmosphere of love that surrounds you
here."
Helen always trembled when Arthur looked very grave from the fear that
he was displeased with her. When speaking earnestly, he had a remarkable
seriousness of expression, implying that he meant all that he uttered.
When Arthur Hazleton was first introduced to the reader, he was only
eighteen; and consequently was now about twenty-four years of age. There
was a blending of firmness and gentleness, of serene gravity and beaming
cheerfulness in his character and countenance, which even in early
boyhood had given him an ascendency over his young companions. There was
a searching power in the glance of his grave, dark eye, from which one
might shrink, were it not often softened by an expression of even
womanly sweetness harmonizing with the gentle smile of his lips. He very
seldom spoke of his feelings, but the rich, mantling color that ever and
anon came glowingly to his cheek, indicated a depth of sensibility he
was unwilling words should reveal. Left his own master at a very early
age, his _will_ had become strong and invincible. As he almost always
willed what was right, his mother seldom sought to bend it, and she was
the only being in the world whose authority he acknowledged, and to
whom he was willing to sacrifice his pride by submission.
An incident which occurred the evening after his arrival, may illustrate
his firmness and his power.
It was a lovely summer afternoon, and Arthur rambled with Helen and
Alice amid the charming groves and wild glens of his native place. His
local attachments were exceedingly strong, for they were cherished by
dear and sacred associations. There was a history attached to every rock
and tree and waterfall, making it more beautiful and interesting than
all others.
"Here, Alice," he would say, "look at this magnificent tree. Our father
used to sit under its shade and sketch the outline of his sermons. Here,
in God's own temple, he worshiped, and his pure thoughts mingled with
the incense that arose from the bosom of nature."
Then Alice would clasp her fair arms round the tree, and laying her soft
check against the rough bark, consecrate it to the memory of the father,
who had died ere she beheld the light. Alas! she never had beheld it;
but ere the light had beamed on the sightless azure of her eyes.
"Helen, do you see that beetling rock, half covered with lichens and
moss, hanging over the brawling stream? It was there I used to recline,
when a little boy, shaded by that gnarled and fantastic looking tree,
with book in hand, but studying most of all from the great book of
nature. Oh! I love that spot. If I ever live to be an old man, though I
may have wandered to the wide world's end, I want to come back and throw
myself once more on the shelving rock where I made my boyhood's bed."
While he was speaking, he led Alice and Helen on to the very verge of
the rock, and looked down on the waterfall, tumbling below. Alice stood
calm and still, holding, with perfect confidence, her brother's hand,
but Helen recoiled and shuddered, and her cheek turned visibly paler.
"We are close to the edge, brother--I know it by the sound of your
voice," said Alice. "It seems to sink down and mingle with the roar of
the water-fall."
"Do you not fear, Alice?" asked her brother, drawing her still a little
nearer.
"Oh, no," she answered, with a radiant smile. "How can I fear, when I
feel your hand sustaining me? I know, you would not lead me into danger.
You would never let me fall."
"Do you hear her?" asked he, looking reproachfully at Helen. "Oh, thou
of little faith. When will you learn to confide, with the undoubting
trust of this helpless blind girl? Do you believe that _I_ would
willingly expose you to danger or suffering?"
He withdrew his hand as he spoke, and Helen believing him seriously
displeased, turned away to hide the tears that swelled into her eyes. In
the meantime, Arthur led Alice along the edge of the rock to a little,
natural bower beyond, which Alice called her bower, and where she and
Helen had made a bed of moss, and adorned it with shells. Helen stood a
moment alone on the rock, feeling as desolate as if she were the
inhabitant of a desert island. She thought Arthur unkind, and the
beautiful, embowering trees, gurgling waters, and sweet, singing birds,
lost their charms to her. Slowly turning her steps homeward, yet not
willing to enter the presence of Mrs. Hazleton without her companions,
she lingered in the garden, making a bouquet, which she intended to give
as a peace-offering to Arthur, when he returned. She did not enter the
house till nearly dark, when she was surprised by seeing Arthur alone.
"Where is Alice?" said he.
"Alice!" repeated she, "I left her in the woods with you."
"Yes! but I left her there also, in the arbor of moss, supposing you
would soon return to her."
"Left her alone!" cried Helen, wondering why Arthur, who seemed to
idolize his lovely, blind sister, could have been so careless of her
safety.
"Alice is not afraid to be alone, Helen, she knows that God is with her.
But it will soon be night, and she must not remain in the dark, damp
woods much longer. You will go back and accompany her home, Helen,
before the night-dew falls?"
Helen's heart died within her at the mere thought of threading alone a
path so densely shaded, and of passing over that beetling rock, beneath
the gnarled, fantastic looking tree. It would be so dark before she
returned! She went to the window, and looked out, then turned towards
him with such a timid, wistful look, it was astonishing how he could
have resisted the mute appeal.
"Make haste, Helen," said he, gently, "it will be dark if you do not."
"Will you not go with me?" she at length summoned boldness to ask.
"Are you afraid to go, Helen?"
She felt the dark power of his eye to her inmost soul. Death itself
seemed preferable to his displeasure.
"I _am_ afraid," she answered, "but I will go since you _will_ it."
"I do wish it," he replied, "but I leave it to your own will to
accomplish it."
Helen could not believe that he really intended she should go alone,
when _he_ had left his sister behind. She was sure he would follow and
overtake her before she reached the narrow path she so much dreaded to
traverse. She went on very rapidly, looking back to see if he were not
behind, listening to hear if her name were not called by his well-known
voice. But she heard not his footsteps, nor the sound of his voice. She
heard nothing but the wind sighing through the trees, or the notes of
some solitary bird, seeking its nest among the branches.
"Arthur is not kind, to-day," thought she. "I wonder what has changed
him so. It was not my place to go after Alice, when he left her himself
in the woods. What right has he to command me so? And how foolish I am
to obey him, as if he were my master and lord!"
She was at first very angry with Arthur, and anger always gives one
strength and power. Any excited passion does. She ran on, almost
forgetting her fears, and the shadows lightened up as she met them face
to face. Then she thought of Alice alone in the woods--so blind and
helpless. Perhaps she would be frightened at the darkening solitude, and
try to find her path homeward, on the edge of that slippery, beetling
rock. With no hand to sustain, no eye to guide, how could she help
falling into the watery chasm below? In her fears for Alice, she forgot
her own imaginary danger, and flew on, sending her voice before her,
bearing on its trembling tones the sweet name of Alice.
She reached the rock, and paused under the tree that hung so darkly over
it. The waterfall sounded so much louder than when she stood there last,
she was sure the waters had accumulated, and were threatening to dash
themselves above. They had an angry, turbulent roar, and keeping close
in a line with the tree, she hurried on to the silver bower Alice so
much loved, and which she had seen her enter, clinging to the hand of
Arthur. Helen, had to lift up the hanging boughs and sweeping vines at
the entrance of the arbor, and cold shivers of terror ran through her
frame, for no voice responded to hers, though she had made the silence
all the way vocal with the name of Alice.
"If she is not here, she is dead," she cried, "and I will lie down and
die, too; for I cannot return without her."
Creeping slowly in, with suppressed breath and trembling limbs, she
discovered something white lying on the bed of moss, so still and white,
that it might have been mistaken in the dimness for a snow-drift, were
it not a midsummer eve. All the old superstitions implanted in her
infant mind by Miss Thusa's terrific legends, seized upon her
imagination. Any thing white and still, reminded her of the
never-to-be-forgotten moment when she gazed upon her dead mother, and
sunk overpowered by the terror and majesty of death. If it was Alice
lying there, she must be dead, and how could she approach nearer and
encounter that _cold presence_ which had once communicated a death-chill
to her young life? Then the thought of Alice's death was fraught with
such anguish, it carried her out of herself. The grief of Arthur, the
agony of his mother; it was too terrible to think of. Springing into the
arbor, she ran up to the white object, and kneeling down, beheld the
fair, clustering ringlets and rosy cheek of Alice dimly defined through
the growing shadows. She inhaled her warm breath as she stooped over
her, and knew it was sleep, not death, that bound her to the spot. As
she came in contact with life, warm, breathing vitality, an
instantaneous conviction of the folly, the preposterousness of her own
fears, came over her. Alice calmly and quietly had fallen asleep as
night came on, not knowing it by its darkness, but its stillness. Helen
felt the presence of invisible angels round the slumbering Alice, and
her fears melted away. Putting her arms softly round her, and laying
her cheek to hers, she called upon her to wake and return, for the
woods were getting dark with night.
"Oh! how I love to sleep on this soft, mossy bed," cried Alice, sitting
up and passing her fingers over her eyes. "I fell asleep on brother's
arm, with the waterfall singing in my ears. Where is he, Helen? I do not
hear his voice."
"He is at home, and sent me after you, Alice," replied Helen. "How could
he leave you alone?" she could not help adding.
"I am never afraid to be left alone," said Alice, "and he knows it. But
I am not alone. I hear some one breathing in the grotto besides you,
Helen. I heard it when I first waked."
Helen started and grasped the hand of Alice closer and closer in her
own. Looking wildly round the grotto, she beheld a dark figure crouching
in the corner, half-hidden by the shrubbery, and uttering a low scream,
was about to fly, when a hoarse laugh arrested her.
"It's only me," cried a rough, good-natured voice. "It's nobody but old
Becky. Young master told me to stay and watch Miss Alice, while she
slept, till somebody came after her. He knew old Becky wouldn't let
anybody harm the child--not she."
Old Becky, as she called herself, was a poor, harmless, half-witted
woman, who roamed about the neighborhood, subsisting on charity, whom
everybody knew and cared for. She was remarkably fond of children, and
had always shown great attachment for the blind girl. She had the
fidelity and sagacity of a dog, and would never leave any thing confided
to her care. She would do any thing in the world for young Master Arthur
as she styled him, or Mrs. Hazleton, for at the Parsonage she always
found a welcome, and it seemed to her the gate of Heaven. During the
life of Mr. Hazleton, she invariably attended public worship, and
listened to his sermons with the most reverential attention, though she
understood but a small portion of them--and when he died, her chief
lamentation was that he could not preach at her funeral. If young master
were a minister, that would be next best, but as he was only a doctor,
she consoled herself by asking him for medicine whenever he visited
home, whether she needed it or not, and Arthur never failed to make up
a quantity of bread pills and starch powders to gratify poor, harmless
Becky.
"Walk before us, please, Becky," cried Helen with a lightened heart, and
Becky marched on, proud to be of service, looking back every moment to
see if they were safe.
When they reached home, the candles were burning brightly in the
sitting-room, and the rose trees at the windows shone with a kind of
golden lustre in their beams. Helen suffered Becky to accompany Alice
into the house, knowing it would be to her a source of pride and
pleasure, and seating herself on the steps, tried to school herself so
as to appear with composure, and not allow Arthur to perceive how deeply
his apparent unkindness had wounded her feelings. While she thus sat,
breathing on the palm of her hand, and pressing it against her moist
eyelids to absorb the welling tears, Arthur himself crossed the yard and
came rapidly up the steps.
"What are you doing here, my sister?" said he, sitting down by her and
drawing away the hand from her showery eyes. Never had he spoken so
gently, so kindly. Helen could not answer. She only bowed her head upon
her lap.
"My dear Helen," said he, in that grave, earnest tone which always had
the effect of command, "raise your head and listen to me. I have wounded
my own feelings that I might give you a needed lesson, and prove to
yourself that you have moral courage sufficient to triumph over physical
and mental weakness. You have thought me cruel. Perhaps I have been
so--but I have given present pain for your future joy and good. I
followed you, though you knew it not, ready to ward off every real
danger from your path. Oh, Helen, I grieve for the sufferings
constitutional sensitiveness and inculcated fear occasion you, but I
rejoice when I see you struggling with yourself, and triumphing through
the strength of an exerted will."
"I deserve no credit for going," sobbed Helen. "I could not help it."
"But no one _forced_ you, Helen."
"When you say I _will_ do any thing, I feel a force acting upon me as
strong as iron."
"It is the force of your own inborn sense of right called into action by
me. You knew it was not right to leave our blind Alice in the dark
woods alone. If I were cruel enough to desert her, and refuse to seek
her, her claim on your kindness and care was not the less commanding.
You could not have laid your head upon your pillow, or commended
yourself to the guardianship of Providence, thinking of Alice in the
lonely woods, damp with the dews of night. Besides, you knew in your
secret heart I could not send you on a dangerous mission. Oh! Helen,
would that I could inspire you, not so much with implicit confidence in
me, as in that Mighty guardian power that is ever around and about you,
from whose presence you cannot flee, and in whose protection you are
forever safe."
"Forgive me," cried Helen, in a subdued, humble tone. "I have done you
great wrong in thinking you cruel. I wonder you have not given me up
long ago, when I am so weak and foolish and distrustful. I thought I was
growing brave and strong--but the very first trial proved that I am
still the same, and so it will ever be. Neither the example of Alice,
nor the counsels of your mother, nor your own efforts, do me any good. I
shall always be unworthy of your cares."
"Nay, Helen, you do yourself great injustice. You have shown a heroism
this very night in which you may glory. Though you have encountered no
real danger, you battled with an imaginary host, which no man could
number, and the victory was as honorable to yourself as any that crowns
the hero's brow with laurels. Mark me, Helen, the time will come when
you will smile at all that now fills you with apprehension, in the
development of your future, nobler self."
Helen looked up and smiled through her tears.
"Oh! if I dared to promise," said she, "I would pledge my word never to
distrust you, never to be so foolish and weak again. But I think, I
believe that I never will."
"Do not promise, my dear Helen, for you know not your own strength. But,
remember, that without _faith_ you will grope in darkness through the
world--faith in your friends--faith in your God--and I will add--faith
in yourself. From the time I first saw you a little, terror-stricken
child, to the present moment, I have sought only your happiness and
good--and yet forgetting all the past, you distrusted my motives even
now, and your heart rose up against me. From the first dawn of your
being to this sweet, star-lighted moment, God has been to you a tender,
watchful parent, tenderer than any earthly parent, kinder than any
earthly friend--and yet you fear to trust yourself to His providence, to
remain with Him who fills immensity with His presence. You have no faith
in yourself, though there is a legion of angels, nestling, with folded
wings in that young heart, ready to fly forth at your bidding, and
fulfil their celestial mission. Come, Helen," added he, rising, and
lifting her at the same time from her lowly seat, "let us go in--but
tell me first that I am forgiven."
"Forgiven!" cried she, fervently. "How can I ever thank you, ever be
sufficiently grateful for your goodness?"
"By treasuring up my words, and remembering them when you are far away.
I have influence over you now, because you are so very young, and know
so little of the world, but a few years hence it will be very different.
You may think of me then as a severe mentor, a cold, unfeeling sage, and
wonder at the gentleness with which you bore my reproofs, and the
docility with which you yielded to my will."
"I shall always think of you as the best and truest friend I ever had in
the world," cried Helen, enthusiastically, as they entered the
sitting-room, where Mrs. Hazleton and Alice awaited them.
"Because he sent you out into the woods alone?" said Mrs. Hazleton,
smiling, "young despot that he is."
"Yes," replied Helen, "for I feel so much better, stronger and happier
for having gone. Then, if possible, I love Alice more than ever."
"How do you account for that, Helen?" asked Arthur.
"I don't know," she answered, "unless it is I went through a trial for
her sake."
"Helen is a metaphysician," said the young doctor. "She could not have
given a better solution."