"And can it be those heavenly eyes
Blue as the blue of starry skies,
Those eyes so clear, so soft so bright,
Have never seen God's blessed light?"
Helen returned to her father's, to prepare for her departure to the
school, which Mittie was about to leave. Arthur had long resolved to
place Alice in an Institution for the blind, and as there was a
celebrated one in the same city to which Helen was bound, he requested
Mr. Gleason to be her guardian on the journey, and suffer her to be the
companion of Helen. This arrangement filled the two young girls with
rapture, and reconciled them to the prospect of leaving home, and of
being cast among strangers in a strange city.
Ever since Alice was old enough to feel the misfortune that rested so
darkly upon her, and had heard of those glorious institutions, where the
children of night feel the beams of science and benevolence penetrate
the closed bars of vision, and receive their illumination in the inner
temple of the spirit, she had expressed an earnest wish to be sent where
she could enjoy such advantages.
"Oh!" she would repeat a thousand times, unconscious of the pain she
inflicted on her mother; "oh! if I could only go where the blind are
taught every thing, how happy should I be!"
It is seldom that the widow of a country minister is left with more than
the means of subsistence. Mrs. Hazleton was no exception to the general
rule. But Arthur treasured up every word his blind sister uttered, and
resolved to appropriate to this sacred purpose the first fruits of his
profession. It was for this he had anticipated the years of manhood, and
commenced the practice of medicine, under the auspices of his father's
venerable friend, Doctor Sennar, at an age when most young men are
preparing themselves for their public career. Success far transcending
his most sanguine hopes having crowned his youthful exertions, he was
now enabled to purchase the Parsonage, and present it as a filial
offering to his mother, and also to defray the expenses of his sister's
education.
Alice had never before visited the home of Helen, and it was an
interesting sight to see with what watchful care and protecting
tenderness Helen guided and guarded her steps. Louis, who was at home
also passing his summer holidays, beheld for the first time the lovely
blind girl of whom Helen had so often spoken and written.
He was now a man in appearance, of noble stature, and most prepossessing
countenance. Helen was enthusiastically fond of her brother, and had
said to Alice, with unconscious repetition--
"Oh! how I wish you could see Louis. He is so handsome and is so good.
He has such a brave rejoicing look. Somehow or other, I always feel safe
in his presence."
"Is he handsomer than Arthur?" Alice would ask.
"No, not handsomer--but then he's so different, one cannot compare them.
Arthur is so much older, you know."
"Arthur doesn't look old, does he?"
"No, not old--but he has such an air of authority sometimes, which gives
you such an impression of power, that I would fear him, did he not all
at once appear so gentle and so kind. Louis makes you love him all the
time, and you never think of his being displeased."
Still, while Helen dwelt on her brother's praise with fond and fluent
tongue, she felt without being able to describe her feelings, that he
had lost something of his original beauty. The breath of the world had
passed over the mind and dimmed its purity. His was the joyous, reckless
spirit that gave life to the convivial board; and temptations, which a
colder temperament might have resisted, often held him in ignoble
vassalage. Now inhaling the hallowed atmosphere of home, all the pure
influences of his boyhood resumed their empire over his heart--and he
wondered that he could ever have mingled with the grosser elements of
society.
"Blind!" repeated he to himself, while gazing on the calm, angelic
countenance of Alice, so beautiful in its repose. "Is it possible that a
creature so fair and bright, dwells in the darkness of perpetual
midnight? Can no electric ray pierce the cloud that is folded over her
vision? Is there no power in science to remove the dark fillet that
binds those celestial eyes, and pour in upon them the light of a
new-born day?"
While he thus gazed on the unseeing face, so near him that perhaps she
might have had a vague consciousness of the intensity, the warmth of the
gaze, Helen approached, and taking the hand of Alice, passed it softly
over the features of her brother, as well as his profuse and clustering
hair.
"Alice has eyes in her fingers, Louis--I want her to _see_ you and tell
me if I have been a true painter."
Louis felt the blood mounting to his temples, as the soft hand of Alice
analyzed the outline of his face, and lingered in his hair. It seemed to
him a cherub was fluttering its wings against his cheek, diffusing a
peace and balminess that no language could describe.
Alice, who had yielded involuntarily to the movement of Helen, drew her
hand blushingly away.
"I cannot imagine how any one can see without touching," said Alice,
"how they can take in an image into the soul, by looking at it far off.
You tell me the eyes feel no pleasure when gazing at any thing--that it
is the mind only which perceives. But my fingers thrill with delight
when I touch any thing that pleases, long afterwards."
Louis longed to ask her if she felt the vibration then, but he dared not
do it. He, in general so reckless in words, experienced a restraining
influence he had never felt before. She seemed so set apart, so holy, it
would be sacrilegious to address her with levity. He felt a sudden
desire to be an oculist, that he might devote himself to the task of
restoring to her the blessing of sight. Then he thought how delightful
it would be to lead such a sweet creature through the world, to be eyes
to her darkness, strength to her helplessness--the sun of her clouded
universe. Louis had a natural chivalry about him that invested weakness,
not only with a peculiar charm, but with a sacred right to his
protection. With the quick, bounding impulses of eighteen, his spirit
sprang forward to meet every new attraction. Here was one so novel, so
pure, that his soul seemed purified from the soil of temptation, while
he involuntarily surrendered himself to it, as Miss Thusa's thread grew
white under the bleaching rays of a vernal sun.
Miss Thusa! yes, Miss Thusa came to welcome home her young protege,
unchanged even in dress. It is probable she had had several new garments
since she related to Helen the history of the worm-eaten traveler, but
they were all of the same gray color, relieved by the black silk
neckerchief and white tamboured muslin cap--and under the cap there was
the same opaque fold of white paper, carefully placed on the top of the
head.
Alice had a great curiosity to _see_ Miss Thusa, as she expressed it,
and hear some of her wild legends. When she traced the lineaments, of
her majestic profile, and her finger suddenly rose on the lofty beak of
her nose, she laughed outright. Alice did not often laugh aloud, but
when she did, her laugh was the most joyous, ringing, childish burst of
silvery music that ever gushed from the fountain of youth. It was
impossible not to echo it. Helen feared that Miss Thusa would be
offended, especially as Louis joined merrily in the chorus--and she
looked at Alice as if her glance had power to check her. But she did not
know all the windings of Miss Thusa's heart. Any one like Alice, marked
by the Almighty, by some peculiar misfortune, was an object not only of
tenderness, but of reverence in her eyes. The blasted tree, the blighted
flower, the smitten lamb--all touched by the finger of God, were sacred
things--and so were blindness and deafness--and any personal calamity.
It was strange, but it was only in the shadows of existence she felt the
presence of the Deity.
"Never mind her laughing," said she, in answer to the apprehensive
glance of Helen, "it don't hurt me. It does me good to hear her. It
sounds like a singing bird in a cage; and, poor thing, she's shut in a
dark cage for life."
"No, not for life, Miss Thusa," exclaimed Louis; "I intend to study
optics till I have mastered the whole length and breadth of the science,
on purpose to unseal those eyes of blue."
Alice turned round so suddenly, and following the sound of his voice,
fixed upon him so eagerly those blue eyes, the effect was startling.
"Will you do so?" she cried, "can you do so? oh! do not say it, unless
you mean it. But I know it is impossible," she added in a subdued tone,
"for I was _born blind_. God made me so, and He has made me very happy
too. I sometimes think it would be beautiful to see, but it is beautiful
to feel. As brother says, there is an inner-light which keeps us from
being _all_ dark."
Louis regretted the impulse which urged him to utter his secret wishes.
He resolved to be more guarded in future, but he was already in
imagination a student in Germany, under some celebrated optician, making
discoveries so amazing that he would undoubtedly give a new name to the
age in which he lived.
When night came on they gathered round Miss Thusa, entreating her for a
farewell legend, not a gloomy one, not one which would give Alice a sad,
dark impression, but something that would come to her memory like a ray
of light.
"You must let me have my own way," said she, putting her spectacles on
the top of her head, and looking around her with remarkable benignity.
"If the spirit moves me one way, I cannot go another. But I will try my
best, for may-be it's the last time some of you will ever listen to old
Thusa's tales. She's never felt just right since they tangled up her
heart-strings with that whitened thread. Oh! that was a vile, mean
trick!"
"Forget and forgive, Miss Thusa," cried Louis; "I dare say Mittie has
repented of it in dust and ashes."
"I have forgiven, long ago," resumed Miss Thusa, "but as for
_forgetting_, that is out of the question. Ever since then, when the
bleaching time comes, it keeps me perfectly miserable till it is over.
I've never had any thread equal to it, for I'm afraid to let it stay
long enough to be as powerful white as it used to be. Well, well, let it
rest. You want me to tell you a story, do you?"
Miss Thusa had an auditory assembled round her that might have animated
a spirit less open to inspiration than hers. There was Mr. and Mrs.
Gleason, the latter a fine, dignified-looking lady, and the young
doctor, with his countenance of grave sweetness, and Louis, with an
expression of resolute credulity, and Helen and Alice, with their arms
interlaced, and the locks of their hair mingling like the tendrils of
two forest vines. And what perhaps gave a glow to her spirit, deeper
than the presence of all these, Mittie, her arch enemy, was _not there_,
to mock her with her deriding black eyes.
"You've talked to me so much about not telling you any terrible things,"
said she, with a troubled look, "that you've made me like a candle under
a bushel, instead of a light upon a hill-top. I've never told such
stories since, as I used to tell when the first Mrs. Gleason was alive,
and I spun in the nursery all the evening, and little Helen was the only
one to listen to what I had to say. There was something in the child's
eyes that kept me going, for they grew brighter and larger every word I
said."
Helen looked up, and met the glance of the young doctor, riveted upon
her with so much pity and earnestness, she looked down again with a
blending of gratitude and shame. She well knew that, notwithstanding her
reason now taught her the folly and madness of her superstitious
terrors, the impressions of her early childhood were burnt into her
memory and never could be entirely obliterated.
"I remember a story about a blind child, which I heard myself, when a
little girl," said Miss Thusa, "and if I should live to the age of
Methuselah, I never should forget it. I don't know why it stayed with me
so long, for it has nothing terrific in it, but it comes to me many a
time when I'm not thinking of it, like an old tune, heard long, long
ago.
"Once there was a woman who had an only child, a daughter, whose name
was Lily. The woman prayed at the birth of the child that it might be
the most beautiful creature that ever the sun shone upon, and she
prayed, too, that it might be good, but because she prayed for beauty
before goodness, it was accounted to her as a sin. The child grew, and
as long as it was a babe in the arms, they never knew that the eyes,
which gave so much light to others, took none back again. The mother
prayed again, that her child might see, no matter how ugly she might
become, no matter how dull and dim her eyes, let them but have the gift
of sight. But Lily walked in a cloud, from the cradle to the time when
the love-locks began to curl round her forehead, and her cheeks would
flush up when the young men told her she was beautiful. When it was
sunlight, her mother watched her every step she took, for fear she would
get into danger, but she never thought of watching her by night, for
she said the _angels took care of her then_. Lily had a little bed of
her own, right by the window, for she told her mother she loved to feel
the moon shining on her eye-lids, making a sort of faintish glimmer, as
it were.
"One night she lay down in the moonshine, and fell asleep, and her
mother looked upon her for a long time, thinking how beautiful she was,
and what a pity the young men could not take her to be a wife, she had
such a loving heart, and seemed made so much for love. At last she fell
asleep herself, dreaming of Lily, and did not wake till past midnight.
Her first thought was of Lily, and she leaned on her elbow, and looked
at the little bed, with its white counterpane, that glittered like snow
in the moonshine. But Lily was not there, and the window was wide open.
The woman jumped up in fright, and ran to the window and looked out, but
she could see nothing but the trees and the woods. I wouldn't have been
in her place for the gold of Solomon, for she was all alone, and there
was no one living within a mile of her house. It was a wild, lonesome
place, on a hill-side, and you could hear the roaring of water, all down
at the bottom of the hill. Even in the day-time it was mighty dangerous
walking among the torrents, let alone the night.
"Well, the woman lifted up her voice, and wept for her blind child, but
there was none but God to hear--and she went out into the night, calling
after Lily every step she took, but her own voice came back to her, not
Lily's. She went on and on, and when she got to a narrow path, leading
along to a great waterfall, she stopped to lay her hand on her heart, to
keep it from jumping out of her body. There was a tall, blasted pine,
that had fallen over that waterfall, making a sort of slippery bridge to
pass over. What should she see, right in the middle of the blasted pine
tree, as it lay over the roaring stream, but Lily, all in white, walking
as if she had a thousand pair of eyes, instead of none, or at least none
that did her any good. The mother dared not say a word, any more than if
she were dumb, so she stood like a dead woman, that is, as still,
looking at her blind daughter, fluttering like a bird with white wings
over the black abyss.
"But what was her astonishment to behold a figure approaching Lily,
from the opposite side of the stream, all clothed in white, too, with
long, fair hair, parted from its brow, and large shining wings on its
shoulders. The face was that of a beautiful youth, and he had eyes as
soft and glorious as the moon itself, though they looked dark for all
that.
"'I come, my beloved,' cried Lily, stretching out her arms over the
water. 'I see thee--I know thee. There is no darkness now. Oh, how
beautiful thou art! The beams of thy shining wings touch my eyelids, and
little silver arrows come darting in, on every side. Take me over this
narrow bridge, lest my feet slide, and I fall into the roaring water.'
"'I cannot take thee over the bridge,' replied the youth, 'but when thou
hast crossed it, I will bear thee on my wings to a land where there is
no blindness or darkness, not even a shadow, beautiful as these shadows
are, all round us now. Walk in faith, and look not below. Press on, and
fear no evil.'
"'Oh! come back, my daughter!' shrieked the poor mother, rousing up from
the trance of fear--'come back, my Lily, and leave me not alone. Come
back, my poor blind child.'
"Lily turned back a moment, and looked at her mother, who could see her,
just as plain as day. Such a look! It was just as if a film had fallen
from off her eyes, and a soul had come into them. They were live eyes,
and they had been cold and dead before. They smiled with her smiling
lips. They had never smiled before, and the mother trembled at their
strange intelligence. She dared not call her back any more, but knelt
right down on the ground where she was, and held her breath, as one does
when they think a spirit is passing by.
"'I can't come back, mother,' said Lily, just as she reached the bank,
where the angel was waiting for her, for it was nobody else but an
angel, as one might know by its wings. 'You will come to me by-and-by--I
can see you now, mother. There's no more night for me.'
"Then the angel covered her, as it were, with his wings--or rather, they
seemed to have one pair of wings between them, and they began to rise
above the earth, slow at first, and easy, just as you've seen the clouds
roll up, after a shower. Then they went up faster and higher, till they
didn't look bigger than two stars, shining up overhead.
"The next day a traveler was passing along the banks of the stream,
below the great waterfall, and he found the body of the beautiful blind
girl, lying among the water-lilies there. Her name was Lily, you know.
She looked as white and sweet as they did, and there never was such a
smile seen, as there was upon her pale lips. He took her up, and curried
her to the nearest house, which happened to be her own mother's. Then
the mother knew that Lily had been drowned the night before, and that
she had seen her going up to Heaven, with the twin angel, created for
her and with her, at the beginning of creation. She felt happy, for she
knew Lily was no longer blind."
If we could give an adequate idea of Miss Thusa's manner, so solemn and
impressive, of the tones of her voice, monotonous and slightly nasal,
yet full of intensity, and, above all, of the expression of her
foreboding eye, while in the act of narration, it would be easy to
account for the effect which she produced. Helen and Alice were bathed
in tears before the conclusion, and a deepening seriousness rested on
the countenances of all her auditors.
"You _will_ be sad and gloomy, Miss Thusa," cried Louis; "see what you
have done; you should not have chosen such a subject."
"I don't think it is sad," exclaimed Alice, raising her head and shaking
her ringlets over her eyes to veil her tears. "I did not weep for
sorrow, but it is so touching. Oh! I could envy Lily, when the beautiful
angel came and bore her away on his shining wings."
"I think with Alice," said the young doctor, "that it is far from being
a gloomy tale, and the impression it leaves is salutary. The young girl,
walking by faith, over the narrow bridge that spans the abyss of death,
the waiting angel, and upward flight, are glorious emblems of the
spirit's transit and sublime ascent. We are all blind, and wander in
darkness here, but when we look back, like Lily, on the confines of the
spirit-land, we shall see with an unclouded vision."
Helen turned to him with a smile that was radiant, beaming through her
tears. It seemed to her, at that moment, that all her vague terrors, all
her misgivings for the future, her self-distrust and her disquietude
melted away and vanished into air.
Miss Thusa, pleased with the comment of the young doctor, was trying to
keep down a rising swell of pride, and look easy and unconcerned, when
Louis, taking a newspaper from his pocket, began to unfold it.
"Here is a paper, Miss Thusa," said he, handing it to her as he spoke,
"which I put aside on purpose for you. It contains an account of a
celebrated murder, which occupies several columns. It is enough to make
one's hair stand on end, 'like quills upon the fretted porcupine.' I am
sure it will lift the paper crown from your head."
Miss Thusa took the paper graciously, though she called him a "saucy
boy," and adjusting her spectacles on the lofty bridge of her nose, she
held the paper at an immense distance, and began to read.
At first, they amused themselves observing the excited glance of Miss
Thusa, moving rapidly from left to right, her head following it with a
quick, jerking motion; but as the article was long, they lost sight of
her, in the interest of conversation. All at once, she started up with a
sudden exclamation, that galvanized Helen, and brought Louis to his
feet.
"What does this mean?" she cried, pointing with her finger to a
paragraph in the paper, written in conspicuous characters. "Read it, for
I do believe that my glasses are deceiving me."
Louis read aloud, in a clear, emphatic voice, the following
advertisement:
"If Lemuel Murrey, or his sister Arathusa, are still living, if he, or
in case of his death, she will come immediately to the town of ----, and
call at office No. 24, information will be given of great interest and
importance. Country editors will please insert this paragraph, several
times, and send us their account."
"Why, Miss Thusa," cried Louis, flourishing the paper over his head,
"somebody must have left you a fortune. Only hear--_of great
importance_! Let me be the first to congratulate you," bowing almost to
her feet.
"Nonsense!" exclaimed Miss Thusa, "I have not a relation, that I know
of, this side of the Atlantic, and if I had, they would not be worth a
cent in the world. It must be an imposition," and she looked sharply at
Louis through her lowered glasses.
"Upon my honor, Miss Thusa, I know nothing about it," asserted Louis. "I
never saw it till you pointed it out to me. Whatever it means, it must
be genuine. Do you not think so, father?"
"I see no room to imagine any thing like deception here," said Mr.
Gleason, after examining the paper. "I think you must obey the summons,
Miss Thusa, and ascertain what blessings Providence may have in store
for you."
"Well," said Miss Thusa, with decision, "I will go to-morrow. What time
does the stage start?"
"Soon after sunrise," replied Mr. Gleason. "But you cannot undertake
such a long journey alone. You have no experience in traveling in cars
and steamboats, and, at your age, you will find it very fatiguing. We
can accompany you as far as New York, but there we must part, for I am
compelled to return without any delay. Louis, too, is obliged to resume
his college studies. The young doctor cannot leave his patients. Suppose
you invest some one with legal authority, Miss Thusa, to investigate the
matter?"
"I shall go myself," was the unhesitating answer. "As for going alone, I
would not thank the King of England, if there was one, for his
company--though I am obliged to you for thinking of my comfort. I know
I'm getting old, but I should like to see the man, woman or child in
this town, or any other, that can bear more than I can. I always was
independent, thank the Lord. After living without the help of man this
long, I hope I can get along without it at the eleventh hour. As to its
being a money concern, I don't believe a word of it, and I wouldn't walk
across the room, if it just concerned myself alone; but when I see the
name of my poor, dead brother, I feel a command on me, just as if I saw
it printed on tablets of stone, by the finger of the Lord Himself."
The next morning the travelers were to commence their journey, with the
unexpected addition of Miss Thusa's company part of the way. When her
baggage was brought down, to the consternation of all she had her wheel,
arrayed in a traveling costume of green baize, mounted on the top of
her trunk, and no reasoning or persuasion could induce her to leave it
behind.
"I'm not going to let the Goths and Vandals get possession of it," she
said, "when I'm gone. I've locked it up every night since the ruin of my
thread, and--"
"You can have it locked up while you are absent," interrupted Mrs.
Gleason. "I will promise you that no injury shall happen to it."
"Thank you," said Miss Thusa, nodding her head; "but where I go my wheel
must go, too. What in the world shall I do, when I stop at night,
without it? and in that idle place, the steamboat, I can spin a powerful
quantity while the rest are doing nothing. It is neither big nor heavy,
and it can go on the top of the stage very well, and be in nobody's
way."
"You can sit there, Miss Thusa, and spin, while you are riding," cried
Louis, laughing; "that will have a _powerful_ effect."
Helen and Alice felt very sad in parting from the friend and brother so
much beloved, but they could not help smiling at Louis's suggestion. The
young doctor, glad of an incident which cast a gleam of merriment on
their tears, added another, which obviated every difficulty:
"Only imagine it a new fashioned harp or musical instrument, in its
green cover, and it will give eclat to the whole party. I am sure it is
a harp of industry, on which Miss Thusa has played many a pleasant
tune."
The wheel certainly had a very distinguished appearance on the top of
the stage, exciting universal curiosity and admiration. Children rushed
to the door to look at it, as the wheels went flashing and rolling by,
while older heads were seen gazing from the windows, till the verdant
wonder disappeared from their view.