I.

It was a day of unusual excitement at the Rambo farm-house. On the farm,

it is true, all things were in their accustomed order, and all growths

did their accustomed credit to the season. The fences were in good

repair; the cattle were healthy and gave promise of the normal increase,

and the young corn was neither strangled with weeds nor assassinated

by cut-worms. Old John Rambo was gradually allowing his son, Henry, to

manage in his stead, and the latter shrewdly permitted his father to

believe that he exercised the ancient authority. Leonard Clare, the

strong young fellow who had been taken from that shiftless adventurer,

his father, when a mere child, and brought up almost as one of the

family, and who had worked as a joiner's apprentice during the previous

six months, had come back for the harvest work; so the Rambos were

forehanded, and probably as well satisfied as it is possible for

Pennsylvania farmers to be.

In the house, also, Mrs. Priscilla Rambo was not severely haunted by

the spectre of any neglected duty. The simple regular routine of the

household could not be changed under her charge; each thing had its

appropriate order of performance, must be done, and WAS done. If

the season were backward, at the time appointed for whitewashing or

soap-making, so much the worse for the season; if the unhatched goslings

were slain by thunder, she laid the blame on the thunder. And if--but

no, it is quite impossible to suppose that, outside of those two

inevitable, fearful house-cleaning weeks in each year, there could have

been any disorder in the cold prim, varnish-odored best rooms, sacred to

company.

It was Miss Betty Rambo, whose pulse beat some ten strokes faster than

its wont, as she sat down with the rest to their early country dinner.

Whether her brother Henry's participated in the accelerated movement

could not be guessed from his demeanor. She glanced at him now and then,

with bright eyes and flushed cheeks, eager to speak yet shrinking

from the half magisterial air which was beginning to supplant his old

familiar banter. Henry was changing with his new responsibility, as

she admitted to herself with a sort of dismay; he had the airs of an

independent farmer, and she remained only a farmer's daughter,--without

any acknowledged rights, until she should acquire them all, at a single

blow, by marriage.

Nevertheless, he must have felt what was in her mind; for, as he cut out

the quarter of a dried apple pie, he said carelessly:

“I must go down to the Lion, this afternoon. There's a fresh drove of

Maryland cattle just come.”

“Oh Harry!” cried Betty, in real distress.

“I know,” he answered; “but as Miss Bartram is going to stay two weeks,

she'll keep. She's not like a drove, that's here one day, and away the

next. Besides, it is precious little good I shall have of her society,

until you two have used up all your secrets and small talk. I know how

it is with girls. Leonard will drive over to meet the train.”

“Won't I do on a pinch?” Leonard asked.

“Oh, to be sure,” said Betty, a little embarrassed, “only Alice--Miss

Bartram--might expect Harry, because her brother came for me when I went

up.”

“If that's all, make yourself easy, Bet,” Henry answered, as he rose

from the table. “There's a mighty difference between here and there.

Unless you mean to turn us into a town family while she stays--high

quality, eh?”

“Go along to your cattle! there's not much quality, high or low, where

you are.”

Betty was indignant; but the annoyance exhausted itself healthfully

while she was clearing away the dishes and restoring the room to its

order, so that when Leonard drove up to the gate with the lumbering,

old-fashioned carriage two hours afterwards, she came forth calm,

cheerful, fresh as a pink in her pink muslin, and entirely the good,

sensible country-girl she was.

Two or three years before, she and Miss Alice Bartram, daughter of the

distinguished lawyer in the city, had been room-mates at the Nereid

Seminary for Young Ladies. Each liked the other for the contrast to her

own self; both were honest, good and lovable, but Betty had the stronger

nerves and a practical sense which seemed to be admirable courage in

the eyes of Miss Alice, whose instincts were more delicate, whose tastes

were fine and high, and who could not conceive of life without certain

luxurious accessories. A very cordial friendship sprang up between

them,--not the effusive girl-love, with its iterative kisses, tears, and

flow of loosened hair, but springing from the respect inspired by sound

and positive qualities.

The winter before, Betty had been invited to visit her friend in the

city, and had passed a very excited and delightful week in the stately

Bartram mansion. If she were at first a little fluttered by the manners

of the new world, she was intelligent enough to carry her own nature

frankly through it, instead of endeavoring to assume its character.

Thus her little awkwardnesses became originalities, and she was almost

popular in the lofty circle when she withdrew from it. It was therefore,

perhaps, slightly inconsistent in Betty, that she was not quite sure how

Miss Bartram would accept the reverse side of this social experience.

She imagined it easier to look down and make allowances, as a host, than

as a guest; she could not understand that the charm of the change might

be fully equal.

It was lovely weather, as they drove up the sweet, ever-changing

curves of the Brandywine valley. The woods fairly laughed in the clear

sunlight, and the soft, incessant, shifting breezes. Leonard, in his

best clothes, and with a smoother gloss on his brown hair, sang to

himself as he urged the strong-boned horses into a trot along the

levels; and Betty finally felt so quietly happy that she forgot to be

nervous. When they reached the station they walked up and down the

long platform together, until the train from the city thundered up,

and painfully restrained its speed. Then Betty, catching sight of a

fawn-colored travelling dress issuing from the ladies' car, caught hold

of Leonard's arm, and cried: “There she is!”

Miss Bartram heard the words, and looked down with a bright, glad

expression on her face. It was not her beauty that made Leonard's heart

suddenly stop beating; for she was not considered a beauty, in society.

It was something rarer than perfect beauty, yet even more difficult

to describe,--a serene, unconscious grace, a pure, lofty maturity of

womanhood, such as our souls bow down to in the Santa Barbara of Palma

Vecchio. Her features were not “faultlessly regular,” but they were

informed with the finer harmonies of her character. She was a woman,

at whose feet a noble man might kneel, lay his forehead on her knee,

confess his sins, and be pardoned.

She stepped down to the platform, and Betty's arms were about her. After

a double embrace she gently disengaged herself, turned to Leonard, gave

him her hand, and said, with a smile which was delightfully frank and

cordial: “I will not wait for Betty's introduction, Mr. Rambo. She

has talked to me so much of her brother Harry, that I quite know you

already.”

Leonard could neither withdraw his eyes nor his hand. It was like a

double burst of warmth and sunshine, in which his breast seemed to

expand, his stature to grow, and his whole nature to throb with some new

and wonderful force. A faint color came into Miss Bartram's cheeks, as

they stood thus, for a moment, face to face. She seemed to be waiting

for him to speak, but of this he never thought; had any words come to

his mind, his tongue could not have uttered them.

“It is not Harry,” Betty explained, striving to hide her embarrassment.

“This is Leonard Clare, who lives with us.”

“Then I do not know you so well as I thought,” Miss Bartram said to him;

“it is the beginning of a new acquaintance, after all.”

“There isn't no harm done,” Leonard answered, and instantly feeling the

awkwardness of the words, blushed so painfully that Miss Bartram felt

the inadequacy of her social tact to relieve so manifest a case of

distress. But she did, instinctively, what was really best: she gave

Leonard the check for her trunk, divided her satchels with Betty, and

walked to the carriage.

He did not sing, as he drove homewards down the valley. Seated on the

trunk, in front, he quietly governed the horses, while the two girls, on

the seat behind him, talked constantly and gaily. Only the rich, steady

tones of Miss Bartram's voice WOULD make their way into his ears, and

every light, careless sentence printed itself upon his memory. They came

to him as if from some inaccessible planet. Poor fellow! he was not the

first to feel “the desire of the moth for the star.”

When they reached the Rambo farm-house, it was necessary that he should

give his hand to help her down from the clumsy carriage. He held it but

a moment; yet in that moment a gentle pulse throbbed upon his hard palm,

and he mechanically set his teeth, to keep down the impulse which made

him wild to hold it there forever. “Thank you, Mr. Clare!” said

Miss Bartram, and passed into the house. When he followed presently,

shouldering her trunk into the upper best-room, and kneeling upon the

floor to unbuckle the straps, she found herself wondering: “Is this

a knightly service, or the menial duty of a porter? Can a man be both

sensitive and ignorant, chivalrous and vulgar?”

The question was not so easily decided, though no one guessed how much

Miss Bartram pondered it, during the succeeding days. She insisted, from

the first, that her coming should make no change in the habits of the

household; she rose in the cool, dewy summer dawns, dined at noon in the

old brown room beside the kitchen, and only differed from the Rambos

in sitting at her moonlit window, and breathing the subtle odors of a

myriad leaves, long after Betty was sleeping the sleep of health.

It was strange how frequently the strong, not very graceful figure of

Leonard Clare marched through these reveries. She occasionally spoke to

him at the common table, or as she passed the borders of the hay-field,

where he and Henry were at work: but his words to her were always few

and constrained. What was there in his eyes that haunted her? Not merely

a most reverent admiration of her pure womanly refinement, although she

read that also; not a fear of disparagement, such as his awkward speech

implied, but something which seemed to seek agonizingly for another

language than that of the lips,--something which appealed to her from

equal ground, and asked for an answer.

One evening she met him in the lane, as she returned from the meadow.

She carried a bunch of flowers, with delicate blue and lilac bells, and

asked him the name.

“Them's Brandywine cowslips,” he answered; “I never heard no other name.

“May I correct you?” she said, gently, and with a smile which she meant

to be playful. “I suppose the main thing is to speak one's thought, but

there are neat and orderly ways, and there are careless ways.” Thereupon

she pointed out the inaccuracies of his answer, he standing beside her,

silent and attentive. When she ceased, he did not immediately reply.

“You will take it in good part, will you not?” she continued. “I hope I

have not offended you.”

“No!” he exclaimed, firmly, lifting his head, and looking at her. The

inscrutable expression in his dark gray eyes was stronger than before,

and all his features were more clearly drawn. He reminded her of a

picture of Adam which she had once seen: there was the same rather low

forehead, straight, even brows, full yet strong mouth, and that broader

form of chin which repeats and balances the character of the forehead.

He was not positively handsome, but from head to foot he expressed a

fresh, sound quality of manhood.

Another question flashed across Miss Bartram's mind: Is life long enough

to transform this clay into marble? Here is a man in form, and with

all the dignity of the perfect masculine nature: shall the broad, free

intelligence, the grace and sweetness, the taste and refinement, which

the best culture gives, never be his also? If not, woman must be content

with faulty representations of her ideal.

So musing, she walked on to the farm-house. Leonard had picked up one

of the blossoms she had let fall, and appeared to be curiously examining

it. If he had apologized for his want of grammar, or promised to reform

it, her interest in him might have diminished; but his silence, his

simple, natural obedience to some powerful inner force, whatever it

was, helped to strengthen that phantom of him in her mind, which was now

beginning to be a serious trouble.

Once again, the day before she left the Rambo farmhouse to return to the

city, she came upon him, alone. She had wandered off to the Brandywine,

to gather ferns at a rocky point where some choice varieties were to

be found. There were a few charming clumps, half-way up a slaty cliff,

which it did not seem possible to scale, and she was standing at the

base, looking up in vain longing, when a voice, almost at her ear, said:

“Which ones do you want?”

Afterwards, she wondered that she did not start at the voice. Leonard

had come up the road from one of the lower fields: he wore neither

coat nor waistcoat, and his shirt, open at the throat, showed the firm,

beautiful white of the flesh below the strong tan of his neck. Miss

Bartram noticed the sinewy strength and elasticity of his form, yet when

she looked again at the ferns, she shook her head, and answered:

“None, since I cannot have them.”

Without saying a word, he took off his shoes, and commenced climbing the

nearly perpendicular face of the cliff. He had done it before, many a

time; but Miss Bartram, although she was familiar with such exploits

from the pages of many novels, had never seen the reality, and it quite

took away her breath.

When he descended with the ferns in his hand, she said: “It was a great

risk; I wish I had not wanted them.”

“It was no risk for me,” he answered.

“What can I send you in return?” she asked, as they walked forwards. “I

am going home to-morrow.”

“Betty told me,” Leonard said; “please, wait one minute.”

He stepped down to the bank of the stream, washed his hands carefully

in the clear water, and came back to her, holding them, dripping, at his

sides.

“I am very ignorant,” he then continued,--“ignorant and rough. You are

good, to want to send me something, but I want nothing. Miss Bartram,

you are very good.”

He paused; but with all her tact and social experience, she did not know

what to say.

“Would you do one little thing for me--not for the ferns, that was

nothing--no more than you do, without thinking, for all your friends?”

“Oh, surely!” she said.

“Might I--might I--now,--there'll be no chance tomorrow,--shake hands

with you?”

The words seemed to be forced from him by the strength of a fierce will.

Both stopped, involuntarily.

“It's quite dry, you see,” said he, offering his hand. Her own sank upon

it, palm to palm, and the fingers softly closed over each, as if with

the passion and sweetness of a kiss. Miss Bartram's heart came to her

eyes, and read, at last, the question in Leonard's. It was: “I as man,

and you, as woman, are equals; will you give me time to reach you?” What

her eyes replied she knew not. A mighty influence drew her on, and a

mighty doubt and dread restrained her. One said: “Here is your lover,

your husband, your cherished partner, left by fate below your station,

yet whom you may lift to your side! Shall man, alone, crown the humble

maiden,--stoop to love, and, loving, ennoble? Be you the queen, and love

him by the royal right of womanhood!” But the other sternly whispered:

“How shall your fine and delicate fibres be knit into this coarse

texture? Ignorance, which years cannot wash away,--low instincts,

what do YOU know?--all the servile side of life, which is turned from

you,--what madness to choose this, because some current of earthly

magnetism sets along your nerves? He loves you: what of that? You are

a higher being to him, and he stupidly adores you. Think,--yes, DARE to

think of all the prosaic realities of life, shared with him!”

Miss Bartram felt herself growing dizzy. Behind the impulse which bade

her cast herself upon his breast swept such a hot wave of shame and pain

that her face burned, and she dropped her eyelids to shut out the

sight of his face. But, for one endless second, the sweeter voice spoke

through their clasped hands. Perhaps he kissed hers; she did not know;

she only heard herself murmur:

“Good-bye! Pray go on; I will rest here.”

She sat down upon a bank by the roadside, turned away her head, and

closed her eyes. It was long before the tumult in her nature subsided.

If she reflected, with a sense of relief, “nothing was said,”

the thought immediately followed, “but all is known.” It was

impossible,--yes, clearly impossible; and then came such a wild longing,

such an assertion of the right and truth and justice of love, as made

her seem a miserable coward, the veriest slave of conventionalities.

Out of this struggle dawned self-knowledge, and the strength which is

born of it. When she returned to the house, she was pale and weary, but

capable of responding to Betty Rambo's constant cheerfulness. The next

day she left for the city, without having seen Leonard Clare again.