THE HOSE REVEALS ITS HEART
Webb returned to a region that was haunted. Wherever he went, a presence
was there before him. In every room, on the lawn, in the garden, in lanes
no longer shaded, but carpeted with brown, rustling leaves, on mountain
roads, he saw Amy with almost the vividness of actual vision, as he had
seen her in these places from the time of her first coming. At church he
created her form in her accustomed seat, and his worship was a little
confused. She had asked him to write, and he made home life and the
varying aspects of nature real to her. His letters, however, were so
impersonal that she could read the greater part of them to Gertrude, who
had resolved to be pleased out of good-will to Webb, and with the
intention of aiding his cause. But she soon found herself expressing
genuine wonder and delight at their simple, vigorous diction, their
subtile humor, and the fine poetic images they often suggested. "Oh,
Amy," she said, "I couldn't have believed it. I don't think he himself is
aware of his power of expression."
"He has read and observed so much," Amy replied, "that he has much to
express."
"It's more than that," said Gertrude; "there are touches here and there
which mere knowledge can't account for. They have a delicacy and beauty
which seem the result of woman's influence, and I believe it is yours. I
should think you would be proud of him."
"I am," she answered, with exultation and heightened color, "but it seems
absurd to suppose that such a little ignoramus as I am can help him
much."
Meanwhile, to all appearance, Webb maintained the even tenor of his way.
He had been so long schooled in patience that he waited and hoped on in
silence as before, and busied himself incessantly. The last of the corn
was husked, and the golden treasure stored. The stalks were stacked near
the barn for winter use, and all the labors of the year were rounded out
and completed. Twice he went to the city to see Amy, and on one of these
occasions he was a guest at a large party given in her honor. During much
of the evening he was dazzled by her beauty, and dazed by her
surroundings. Her father had had her instructed carefully in dancing, and
she and Burt had often waltzed together, but he could scarcely believe
his eyes as she appeared on the floor unsurpassed in beauty and grace,
her favor sought by all. Was that the simple girl who on the shaggy sides
of Storm King had leaned against his shoulder?
Miss Hargrove gave him little time for such musings. She, as hostess,
often took his arm and made him useful. The ladies found him reserved
rather than shy, but he was not long among the more mature and thoughtful
men present before a knot gathered around him, and some of Mr. Hargrove's
more intimate friends ventured to say, "There seems to be plenty of
brains in the family into which your daughter is to enter."
After an hour or two had passed, and Amy had not had a chance to speak to
him, he began to look so disconsolate that she came and whispered,
"What's the matter, old fellow?"
"Oh, Amy," he replied, discontentedly, "I wish we were back on Storm
King. I'm out of place here."
"So do I," she said, "and so we will be many a time again. But you are
not out of place here. I heard one lady remarking how 'reserved and
_distingue_ you were, and another," she added, with a flash of her
ever-ready mirthfulness, "said you were 'deliciously homely.' I was just
delighted with that compliment," and she flitted away to join her partner
in the dance. Webb brightened up amazingly after this, and before he
departed in the "wee sma' hours," when the rooms were empty, Gertrude
gave him a chance for a brief, quiet talk, which proved that Amy's heart
was still in the Highlands, even if he did not yet possess it.
Burt would not return till late in December; but Amy came home about the
middle of the month, and received an ovation that was enough "to turn any
one's head," she declared. Their old quiet life was resumed, and Webb
watched keenly for any discontent with it. Her tranquil satisfaction was
undoubted. "I've had my little fling," she said, "and I suppose it was
time I saw more of the world and society, but oh, what a refuge and haven
of rest the old place is! Gertrude is lovely, her father very gallant and
polite, but Mrs. Hargrove's stateliness oppresses me, and in society I
felt that I had to take a grain of salt with everything said to me.
Gertrude showed her sense in preferring a home. I was in some superb
houses in the city that did not seem like homes."
Webb, in his solicitude that the country-house should not appear dull,
found time to go out with her on pleasant days, and to interest her
deeply in a course of reading. It was a season of leisure; but his mother
began to smile to herself as she saw how absorbed he was in his pupil.
The nights grew colder, the stars gained a frosty glitter, the ground was
rock-like, and the ponds were covered with a glare of black ice. Amy was
eager to learn to skate, and Webb found his duty of instructor
delightful. Little danger of her falling, although, with a beginner's
awkwardness, she essayed to do so often; strong arms were ever near and
ready, and any one would have been glad to catch Amy in such peril.
They were now looking forward to Burt's return and the holiday season,
which Gertrude would spend with them. Mystery lurked behind every door.
Not merely the shops, but busy and stealthy fingers, would furnish the
gifts. Webb had bought his present for Amy, but had also burned the
midnight oil in the preparation of another--a paper for a magazine, and
it had been accepted. He had planned and composed it while at work
stripping the husks from the yellow corn, superintending the wood teams
and the choppers in the mountain, and aiding in cutting from an adjacent
pond the crystal blocks of ice--the stored coolness for the coming
summer. Then while others thought him sleeping he wrote and rewrote the
thoughts he had harvested during the day.
One of his most delightful tasks, however, was in aiding Amy to embower
the old house in wreaths and festoons of evergreens. The rooms grew into
aromatic bowers. Autumn leaves and ferns gave to the heavier decorations
a light, airy beauty which he had never seen before. Grace itself Amy
appeared as she mounted the step-ladder and reached here and there,
twining and coaxing everything into harmony.
What was the effect of all this companionship on her mind? She least of
all could have answered: she did not analyze. Each day was full and
joyous. She was being carried forward on a shining tide of happiness, and
yet its motion was so even, quiet, and strong that there was nothing to
disturb her maidenly serenity. If Webb had been any one but Webb, and if
she had been in the habit of regarding all men as possible admirers, she
would have understood herself long before this. If she had been brought
up with brothers in her own home she would have known that she welcomed
this quiet brother with a gladness that had a deeper root than sisterly
affection. But the fact that he was Webb, the quiet, self-controlled man
who had called her sister Amy for a year, made his presence, his deep
sympathy with her and for her, seem natural. His approaches had been so
gradual that he was stealing into her heart as spring enters a flower.
You can never name the first hour of its presence; you take no note of
the imperceptible yet steady development. The process is quiet, yet vital
and sure, and at last there comes an hour when the bud is ready to open.
That time was near, and Webb hoped that it was. His tones were now and
then so tender and gentle that she looked at him a little wonderingly,
but his manner was quiet and far removed from that of the impetuous Burt.
There was a warmth in it, however, like the increasing power of the sun,
and in human hearts bleak December can be the spring-time as truly as
May.
It was the twenty-third--one of the stormiest days of a stormy month. The
snowflakes were whirling without, and making many a circle in the gale
before joining their innumerable comrades that whitened the ground. The
wind sighed and soughed about the old house as it had done a year before,
but Webb and Amy were armed against its mournfulness. They were in the
parlor, on whose wide hearth glowed an ample fire. Burt and Gertrude were
expected on the evening train.
"Gertie is coming home through the snow just as I did," said Amy,
fastening a spray of mistletoe that a friend had sent her from England to
the chandelier; "and the same old warm welcome awaits her."
"What a marvellous year it has been!" Webb remarked.
"It has, indeed. Just think of it! Burt is engaged to one of whose
existence he did not know a year ago. He has been out West, and found
that you have land that will make you all rich."
"Are these the greatest marvels of the year, Amy?"
"No, there is a greater one. I didn't know you a year ago to-day, and now
I seem to have known you always, you great patient, homely old
fellow--'deliciously homely.' I shall never get over that."
"The eyes of scores of young fellows looked at you that evening as if you
were deliciously handsome."
"And you looked at me one time as if you hadn't a friend in the world,
and you wanted to be back in your native wilds."
"Not without you, Amy; and you said you wished you were looking at the
rainbow shield with me again."
"Oh, I didn't say all that; and then I saw you needed heartening up a
little."
"I did indeed. You were dancing with a terrible swell, worth, it was
said, half a million, who was devouring you with his eyes."
"I'm all here, thank you, and you look as if you were doing some
devouring yourself. What makes you look at me so? Is there anything on my
face?"
"Yes, some color, but it's just as Nature arranged it, and you know
Nature's best work always fascinates me."
"What a gallant you are becoming! There, don't you think that is arranged
well?" and she stood beneath the mistletoe looking up critically at it.
"Let me see if it is," and he advanced to her side. "This is the only
test," he said, and quick as a flash he encircled her with his arm and
pressed a kiss upon her lips.
She sprang aloof and looked at him with dilating eyes. He had often
kissed her before, and she had thought nothing more of it than of a
brother's salute. Was it a subtile, mysterious power in the mistletoe
itself with which it had been endowed by ages of superstition? Was that
kiss like the final ray of the Jane sun that opens the heart of the rose
when at last it is ready to expand? She looked at him wonderingly,
tremblingly, the color of the rose mounting higher and higher, and
deepening as if the blood were coming from the depths of her heart. He
did not speak. In answer to her wondering, questioning look, he only bent
full upon her his dark eyes that had held hers once before in a moment of
terror. She saw his secret in their depths at last, the devotion, the
love, which she herself had unsuspectingly said would "last always." She
took a faltering step toward him, then covered her burning face with her
hands.
"Amy," he said, taking her gently in his arms, "do you understand me now?
Dear, blind little girl, I have been worshipping all these months, and
you have not known it."
"I--I thought you were in love with nature," she whispered.
"So I am, and you are nature in its sweetest and highest embodiment.
Every beautiful thing in nature has long suggested you to me. Amy, I
_can_ wait. You shall have your girlhood. It seems to me now that I
have loved you almost from the first hour I saw you. I have known that I
loved you ever since that June evening when you left me in the rose
garden. Have I not proved that I can be patient and wait?"
She only pressed her burning face closer upon his shoulder. "It's all
growing clear now," she again whispered. "How blind I've been! I thought
you were only my brother."
"I can be 'only your brother,' if you so wish," he said, gravely. "Your
happiness is my first thought."
She looked up at him shyly, tears in her eyes, and a smile hovering about
her tremulous lips. "I don't think I understood myself any better than I
did you. I never had a brother, and--and--I don't believe I loved you
just right for a brother;" and her face was hidden again.
His eyes went up to heaven, as if he meant that his mating should be
recognized there. Then gently stroking her brown hair, he asked, "Then I
shan't have to wait, Amy?"
"Am I keeping you waiting, Webb?" she faltered from her deep seclusion.
"Oh, that blessed mistletoe!" cried Webb, lifting the dewy, flower-like
face and kissing it again and again. "You are my Christmas gift, Amy."
"Oh, I beg your pardon; I didn't know," began Mr. Clifford from the
doorway, and was about to make a hasty and excited retreat.
"Stay, father!" cried Webb. "A year ago you received this dear girl as
your daughter. She has consented to make the tie closer still if
possible."
The old gentleman took Amy in his arms for a moment, and then said, "This
is too good to keep to myself for a moment," and he hastened the
blushing, laughing girl to his wife, and exclaimed, "See what I've
brought you for a Christmas present. See what that sly, silent Webb has
been up to. He has been making love to our Amy right under our noses, and
we didn't know it."
"_You_ didn't know it, father; mother's eyes are not so blind. Amy,
darling, I've been hoping and praying for this. You have made a good
choice, my dear, if it is his mother that says it. Webb will never
change, and he will always be as gentle and good to you as he has been to
me."
"Well, well, well," said Mr. Clifford, "our cup is running over, sure
enough. Maggie, come here," he called, as he heard her step in the hall.
"Here is a new relative. I once felt a little like grumbling because we
hadn't a daughter, and now I have three, and the best and prettiest in
the land. You didn't know what Webb was about."
"Didn't I, Webb--as long ago as last October, too?"
"Oh, Webb, you ought to have told me first," said Amy, reproachfully,
when they were alone.
"I did not tell Maggie; she saw," Webb answered. Then, taking a rosebud
which she had been wearing, he pushed open the petals with his finger,
and asked, "Who told me that 'this is no way for a flower to bloom'? I've
watched and waited till your heart was ready, Amy." And so the time flew
in mutual confidences, and the past grew clear when illumined by love.
"Poor old Webb!" said Amy, with a mingled sigh and laugh. "There you were
growing as gaunt as a scarecrow, and I loving you all the time. What a
little goose I was! If you had looked at Gertrude as Burt did I should
have found myself out long ago. Why hadn't you the sense to employ Burt's
tactics?"
"Because I had resolved that nature should be my sole ally. Was not my
kiss under the mistletoe a better way of awakening my sleeping beauty
than a stab of jealousy?"
"Yes, Webb, dear, patient Webb. The rainbow shield was a true omen, and I
am sheltered indeed."