From that evening till the day Mrs. Ashleigh and Lilian went on the
dreaded visit, I was always at their house, when my avocations allowed me
to steal to it; and during those few days, the happiest I had ever known,
it seemed to me that years could not have more deepened my intimacy with
Lilian's exquisite nature, made me more reverential of its purity, or more
enamoured of its sweetness. I could detect in her but one fault, and I
rebuked myself for believing that it was a fault. We see many who neglect
the minor duties of life, who lack watchful forethought and considerate
care for others, and we recognize the cause of this failing in levity or
egotism. Certainly, neither of those tendencies of character could be
ascribed to Lilian. Yet still in daily trifles there was something of
that neglect, some lack of that care and forethought. She loved her
mother with fondness and devotion, yet it never occurred to her to aid in
those petty household cares in which her mother centred so much of
habitual interest. She was full of tenderness and pity to all want and
suffering, yet many a young lady on the Hill was more actively
beneficent,--visiting the poor in their sickness, or instructing their
children in the Infant Schools. I was persuaded that her love for me was
deep and truthful; it was clearly void of all ambition; doubtless she
would have borne, unflinching and contented, whatever the world considers
to be a sacrifice and privation,--yet I should never have expected her to
take her share in the troubles of ordinary life. I could never have
applied to her the homely but significant name of helpmate. I reproach
myself while I write for noticing such defect--if defect it were--in what
may be called the practical routine of our positive, trivial, human
existence. No doubt it was this that had caused Mrs. Poyntz's harsh
judgment against the wisdom of my choice. But such chiller shade upon
Lilian's charming nature was reflected from no inert, unamiable self-love.
It was but the consequence of that self-absorption which the habit of
revery had fostered. I cautiously abstained from all allusion to those
visionary deceptions, which she had confided to me as the truthful
impressions of spirit, if not of sense. To me any approach to what I
termed "superstition" was displeasing; any indulgence of fantasies not
within the measured and beaten track of healthful imagination more than
displeased me in her,--it alarmed. I would not by a word encourage her in
persuasions which I felt it would be at present premature to reason
against, and cruel indeed to ridicule. I was convinced that of
themselves these mists round her native intelligence, engendered by a
solitary and musing childhood, would subside in the fuller daylight of
wedded life. She seemed pained when she saw how resolutely I shunned a
subject dear to her thoughts. She made one or two timid attempts to renew
it, but my grave looks sufficed to check her. Once or twice indeed, on
such occasions, she would turn away and leave me, but she soon came back;
that gentle heart could not bear one unkindlier shade between itself and
what it loved. It was agreed that our engagement should be, for the
present, confided only to Mrs. Poyntz. When Mrs. Ashleigh and Lilian
returned, which would be in a few weeks at furthest, it should be
proclaimed; and our marriage could take place in the autumn, when I should
be most free for a brief holiday from professional toils.
So we parted-as lovers part. I felt none of those jealous fears which,
before we were affianced, had made me tremble at the thought of
separation, and had conjured up irresistible rivals. But it was with a
settled, heavy gloom that I saw her depart. From earth was gone a glory;
from life a blessing.