V.

Year after year passed by, but not without bringing change to the

Mitchenor family. Moses had moved to Chester County soon after his

marriage, and had a good farm of his own. At the end of ten years

Abigail died; and the old man, who had not only lost his savings by

an unlucky investment, but was obliged to mortgage his farm, finally

determined to sell it and join his son. He was getting too old to manage

it properly, impatient under the unaccustomed pressure of debt, and

depressed by the loss of the wife to whom, without any outward show

of tenderness, he was, in truth, tenderly attached. He missed her

more keenly in the places where she had lived and moved than in a

neighborhood without the memory of her presence. The pang with which he

parted from his home was weakened by the greater pang which had preceded

it.

It was a harder trial to Asenath. She shrank from the encounter with new

faces, and the necessity of creating new associations. There was a quiet

satisfaction in the ordered, monotonous round of her life, which might

be the same elsewhere, but here alone was the nook which held all the

morning sunshine she had ever known. Here still lingered the halo of the

sweet departed summer,--here still grew the familiar wild-flowers which

THE FIRST Richard Hilton had gathered. This was the Paradise in which

the Adam of her heart had dwelt, before his fall. Her resignation and

submission entitled her to keep those pure and perfect memories, though

she was scarcely conscious of their true charm. She did not dare to

express to herself, in words, that one everlasting joy of woman's heart,

through all trials and sorrows--“I have loved, I have been beloved.”

On the last “First-day” before their departure, she walked down the

meadows to the lonely brake between the hills. It was the early spring,

and the black buds of the ash had just begun to swell. The maples were

dusted with crimson bloom, and the downy catkins of the swamp-willow

dropped upon the stream and floated past her, as once the autumn leaves.

In the edges of the thickets peeped forth the blue, scentless violet,

the fairy cups of the anemone, and the pink-veined bells of the

miskodeed. The tall blooms through which the lovers walked still slept

in the chilly earth; but the sky above her was mild and blue, and

the remembrance of the day came back to her with a delicate, pungent

sweetness, like the perfume of the trailing arbutus in the air around

her. In a sheltered, sunny nook, she found a single erythronium, lured

forth in advance of its proper season, and gathered it as a relic of the

spot, which she might keep without blame. As she stooped to pluck it,

her own face looked up at her out of a little pool filled by the spring

rains. Seen against the reflected sky, it shone with a soft radiance,

and the earnest eyes met hers, as if it were her young self, evoked from

the past, to bid her farewell. “Farewell!” she whispered, taking leave

at once, as she believed, of youth and the memory of love.

During those years she had more than once been sought in marriage, but

had steadily, though kindly, refused. Once, when the suitor was a

man whose character and position made the union very desirable in Eli

Mitchenor's eyes, he ventured to use his paternal influence. Asenath's

gentle resistance was overborne by his arbitrary force of will, and her

protestations were of no avail.

“Father,” she finally said, in the tone which he had once heard and

still remembered, “thee can take away, but thee cannot give.”

He never mentioned the subject again.

Richard Hilton passed out of her knowledge shortly after her meeting

with him in Philadelphia. She heard, indeed, that his headlong career

of dissipation was not arrested,--that his friends had given him up as

hopelessly ruined,--and, finally, that he had left the city. After

that, all reports ceased. He was either dead, or reclaimed and leading

a better life, somewhere far away. Dead, she believed--almost hoped; for

in that case might he not now be enjoying the ineffable rest and peace

which she trusted might be her portion? It was better to think of him

as a purified spirit, waiting to meet her in a holier communion, than to

know that he was still bearing the burden of a soiled and blighted

life. In any case, her own future was plain and clear. It was simply a

prolongation of the present--an alternation of seed-time and harvest,

filled with humble duties and cares, until the Master should bid her lay

down her load and follow Him.

Friend Mitchenor bought a small cottage adjacent to his son's farm, in a

community which consisted mostly of Friends, and not far from the large

old meeting-house in which the Quarterly Meetings were held. He at once

took his place on the upper seat, among the elders, most of whom he knew

already, from having met them, year after year, in Philadelphia. The

charge of a few acres of ground gave him sufficient occupation; the

money left to him after the sale of his farm was enough to support him

comfortably; and a late Indian summer of contentment seemed now to have

come to the old man. He was done with the earnest business of life.

Moses was gradually taking his place, as father and Friend; and Asenath

would be reasonably provided for at his death. As his bodily energies

decayed, his imperious temper softened, his mind became more accessible

to liberal influences, and he even cultivated a cordial friendship

with a neighboring farmer who was one of “the world's people.” Thus, at

seventy-five he was really younger, because tenderer of heart and more

considerate, than he had been at sixty.

Asenath was now a woman of thirty-five, and suitors had ceased to

approach her. Much of her beauty still remained, but her face had become

thin and wasted, and the inevitable lines were beginning to form around

her eyes. Her dress was plainer than ever, and she wore the scoop-bonnet

of drab silk, in which no woman can seem beautiful, unless she be very

old. She was calm and grave in her demeanor, save that her perfect

goodness and benevolence shone through and warmed her presence; but,

when earnestly interested, she had been known to speak her mind so

clearly and forcibly that it was generally surmised among the Friends

that she possessed “a gift,” which might, in time, raise her to honor

among them. To the children of Moses she was a good genius, and a word

from “Aunt 'Senath” oftentimes prevailed when the authority of the

parents was disregarded. In them she found a new source of happiness;

and when her old home on the Neshaminy had been removed a little farther

into the past, so that she no longer looked, with every morning's sun,

for some familiar feature of its scenery, her submission brightened into

a cheerful content with life.

It was summer, and Quarterly-Meeting Day had arrived. There had been

rumors of the expected presence of “Friends from a distance,” and not

only those of the district, but most of the neighbors who were not

connected with the sect, attended. By the by-road, through the woods,

it was not more than half a mile from Friend Mitchenor's cottage to the

meeting-house, and Asenath, leaving her father to be taken by Moses in

his carriage, set out on foot. It was a sparkling, breezy day, and the

forest was full of life. Squirrels chased each other along the

branches of the oaks, and the air was filled with fragrant odors of

hickory-leaves, sweet fern, and spice-wood. Picking up a flower here

and there, Asenath walked onward, rejoicing alike in shade and sunshine,

grateful for all the consoling beauty which the earth offers to a lonely

heart. That serene content which she had learned to call happiness had

filled her being until the dark canopy was lifted and the waters took

back their transparency under a cloudless sky.

Passing around to the “women's side” of the meeting-house, she mingled

with her friends, who were exchanging information concerning the

expected visitors. Micajah Morrill had not arrived, they said, but Ruth

Baxter had spent the last night at Friend Way's, and would certainly

be there. Besides, there were Friend Chandler, from Nine Partners, and

Friend Carter, from Maryland: they had been seen on the ground. Friend

Carter was said to have a wonderful gift,--Mercy Jackson had heard him

once, in Baltimore. The Friends there had been a little exercised about

him, because they thought he was too much inclined to “the newness,”

but it was known that the Spirit had often manifestly led him. Friend

Chandler had visited Yearly Meeting once, they believed. He was an old

man, and had been a personal friend of Elias Hicks.

At the appointed hour they entered the house. After the subdued rustling

which ensued upon taking their seats, there was an interval of silence,

shorter than usual, because it was evident that many persons would

feel the promptings of the Spirit. Friend Chandler spoke first, and was

followed by Ruth Baxter, a frail little woman, with a voice of exceeding

power. The not unmelodious chant in which she delivered her admonitions

rang out, at times, like the peal of a trumpet. Fixing her eyes on

vacancy, with her hands on the wooden rail before her, and her

body slightly swaying to and fro, her voice soared far aloft at the

commencement of every sentence, gradually dropping, through a melodious

scale of tone, to the close. She resembled an inspired prophetess, an

aged Deborah, crying aloud in the valleys of Israel.

The last speaker was Friend Carter, a small man, not more than forty

years of age. His face was thin and intense in its expression, his hair

gray at the temples, and his dark eye almost too restless for a child of

“the stillness and the quietness.” His voice, though not loud, was clear

and penetrating, with an earnest, sympathetic quality, which arrested,

not the ear alone, but the serious attention of the auditor. His

delivery was but slightly marked by the peculiar rhythm of the Quaker

preachers; and this fact, perhaps, increased the effect of his words,

through the contrast with those who preceded him.

His discourse was an eloquent vindication of the law of kindness, as the

highest and purest manifestation of true Christian doctrine.

The paternal relation of God to man was the basis of that religion which

appealed directly to the heart: so the fraternity of each man with his

fellow was its practical application. God pardons the repentant sinner:

we can also pardon, where we are offended; we can pity, where we cannot

pardon. Both the good and the bad principles generate their like in

others. Force begets force; anger excites a corresponding anger; but

kindness awakens the slumbering emotions even of an evil heart. Love may

not always be answered by an equal love, but it has never yet created

hatred. The testimony which Friends bear against war, he said, is but a

general assertion, which has no value except in so far as they manifest

the principle of peace in their daily lives--in the exercise of pity, of

charity, of forbearance, and Christian love.

The words of the speaker sank deeply into the hearts of his hearers.

There was an intense hush, as if in truth the Spirit had moved him to

speak, and every sentence was armed with a sacred authority. Asenath

Mitchenor looked at him, over the low partition which divided her and

her sisters from the men's side, absorbed in his rapt earnestness and

truth. She forgot that other hearers were present: he spake to her

alone. A strange spell seemed to seize upon her faculties and chain them

at his feet: had he beckoned to her, she would have arisen and walked to

his side.

Friend Carter warmed and deepened as he went on. “I feel moved to-day,”

he said,--“moved, I know not why, but I hope for some wise purpose,--to

relate to you an instance of Divine and human kindness which has come

directly to my own knowledge. A young man of delicate constitution,

whose lungs were thought to be seriously affected, was sent to the

house of a Friend in the country, in order to try the effect of air and

exercise.”

Asenath almost ceased to breathe, in the intensity with which she gazed

and listened. Clasping her hands tightly in her lap to prevent them from

trembling, and steadying herself against the back of the seat, she

heard the story of her love for Richard Hilton told by the lips of

a stranger!--not merely of his dismissal from the house, but of that

meeting in the street, at which only she and her father were present!

Nay, more, she heard her own words repeated, she heard Richard's

passionate outburst of remorse described in language that brought his

living face before her! She gasped for breath--his face WAS before her!

The features, sharpened by despairing grief, which her memory recalled,

had almost anticipated the harder lines which fifteen years had made,

and which now, with a terrible shock and choking leap of the heart, she

recognized. Her senses faded, and she would have fallen from her

seat but for the support of the partition against which she leaned.

Fortunately, the women near her were too much occupied with the

narrative to notice her condition. Many of them wept silently, with

their handkerchiefs pressed over their mouths.

The first shock of death-like faintness passed away, and she clung to

the speaker's voice, as if its sound alone could give her strength to

sit still and listen further.

“Deserted by his friends, unable to stay his feet on the evil path,” he

continued, “the young man left his home and went to a city in another

State. But here it was easier to find associates in evil than tender

hearts that might help him back to good. He was tired of life, and the

hope of a speedier death hardened him in his courses. But, my friends,

Death never comes to those who wickedly seek him. The Lord withholds

destruction from the hands that are madly outstretched to grasp it, and

forces His pity and forgiveness on the unwilling soul. Finding that it

was the principle of LIFE which grew stronger within him, the young

man at last meditated an awful crime. The thought of self-destruction

haunted him day and night. He lingered around the wharves, gazing into

the deep waters, and was restrained from the deed only by the memory of

the last loving voice he had heard. One gloomy evening, when even this

memory had faded, and he awaited the approaching darkness to make his

design secure, a hand was laid on his arm. A man in the simple garb of

the Friends stood beside him, and a face which reflected the kindness of

the Divine Father looked upon him. 'My child,' said he, 'I am drawn to

thee by the great trouble of thy mind. Shall I tell thee what it is thee

meditates?' The young man shook his head. 'I will be silent, then, but

I will save thee. I know the human heart, and its trials and weaknesses,

and it may be put into my mouth to give thee strength.' He took the

young man's hand, as if he had been a little child, and led him to his

home. He heard the sad story, from beginning to end; and the young man

wept upon his breast, to hear no word of reproach, but only the largest

and tenderest pity bestowed upon him. They knelt down, side by side,

at midnight; and the Friend's right hand was upon his head while they

prayed.

“The young man was rescued from his evil ways, to acknowledge still

further the boundless mercy of Providence. The dissipation wherein he

had recklessly sought death was, for him, a marvellous restoration to

life. His lungs had become sound and free from the tendency to disease.

The measure of his forgiveness was almost more than he could bear.

He bore his cross thenceforward with a joyful resignation, and was

mercifully drawn nearer and nearer to the Truth, until, in the fulness

of his convictions, he entered into the brotherhood of the Friends.

“I have been powerfully moved to tell you this story.” Friend Carter

concluded, “from a feeling that it may be needed, here, at this time, to

influence some heart trembling in the balance. Who is there among you,

my friends, that may not snatch a brand from the burning! Oh, believe

that pity and charity are the most effectual weapons given into the

hands of us imperfect mortals, and leave the awful attribute of wrath in

the hands of the Lord!”

He sat down, and dead silence ensued. Tears of emotion stood in the

eyes of the hearers, men as well as women, and tears of gratitude and

thanksgiving gushed warmly from those of Asenath. An ineffable peace and

joy descended upon her heart.

When the meeting broke up, Friend Mitchenor, who had not recognized

Richard Hilton, but had heard the story with feelings which he

endeavored in vain to control, approached the preacher.

“The Lord spoke to me this day through thy lips,” said he; “will thee

come to one side, and hear me a minute?”

“Eli Mitchenor!” exclaimed Friend Carter; “Eli! I knew not thee was

here! Doesn't thee know me?”

The old man stared in astonishment. “It seems like a face I ought to

know,” he said, “but I can't place thee.” They withdrew to the shade

of one of the poplars. Friend Carter turned again, much moved, and,

grasping the old man's hands in his own, exclaimed--

“Friend Mitchenor, I was called upon to-day to speak of myself. I

am--or, rather, I WAS--the Richard Hilton whom thee knew.”

Friend Mitchenor's face flushed with mingled emotions of shame and joy,

and his grasp on the preacher's hands tightened.

“But thee calls thyself Carter?” he finally said.

“Soon after I was saved,” was the reply, “an aunt on the mother's side

died, and left her property to me, on condition that I should take her

name. I was tired of my own then, and to give it up seemed only like

losing my former self; but I should like to have it back again now.”

“Wonderful are the ways of the Lord, and past finding out!” said the

old man. “Come home with me, Richard,--come for my sake, for there is a

concern on my mind until all is clear between us. Or, stay,--will thee

walk home with Asenath, while I go with Moses?”

“Asenath?”

“Yes. There she goes, through the gate. Thee can easily overtake her. I

'm coming, Moses!”--and he hurried away to his son's carriage, which was

approaching.

Asenath felt that it would be impossible for her to meet Richard Hilton

there. She knew not why his name had been changed; he had not betrayed

his identity with the young man of his story; he evidently did not wish

it to be known, and an unexpected meeting with her might surprise him

into an involuntary revelation of the fact. It was enough for her that a

saviour had arisen, and her lost Adam was redeemed,--that a holier light

than the autumn sun's now rested, and would forever rest, on the one

landscape of her youth. Her eyes shone with the pure brightness of

girlhood, a soft warmth colored her cheek and smoothed away the coming

lines of her brow, and her step was light and elastic as in the old

time.

Eager to escape from the crowd, she crossed the highway, dusty with its

string of returning carriages, and entered the secluded lane. The breeze

had died away, the air was full of insect-sounds, and the warm light

of the sinking sun fell upon the woods and meadows. Nature seemed

penetrated with a sympathy with her own inner peace.

But the crown of the benignant day was yet to come. A quick footstep

followed her, and ere long a voice, near at hand, called her by name.

She stopped, turned, and for a moment they stood silent, face to face.

“I knew thee, Richard!” at last she said, in a trembling voice; “may the

Lord bless thee!”

Tears were in the eyes of both.

“He has blessed me,” Richard answered, in a reverent tone; “and this

is His last and sweetest mercy. Asenath, let me hear that thee forgives

me.”

“I have forgiven thee long ago, Richard--forgiven, but not forgotten.”

The hush of sunset was on the forest, as they walked onward, side by

side, exchanging their mutual histories. Not a leaf stirred in the

crowns of the tall trees, and the dusk, creeping along between their

stems, brought with it a richer woodland odor. Their voices were low

and subdued, as if an angel of God were hovering in the shadows, and

listening, or God Himself looked down upon them from the violet sky.

At last Richard stopped.

“Asenath,” said he, “does thee remember that spot on the banks of the

creek, where the rudbeckias grew?”

“I remember it,” she answered, a girlish blush rising to her face.

“If I were to say to thee now what I said to thee there, what would be

thy answer?”

Her words came brokenly.

“I would say to thee, Richard,--'I can trust thee,--I DO love thee!'”

“Look at me, Asenath.”

Her eyes, beaming with a clearer light than even then when she first

confessed, were lifted to his. She placed her hands gently upon his

shoulders, and bent her head upon his breast. He tenderly lifted it

again, and, for the first time, her virgin lips knew the kiss of man.