Minnie is in her little bedroom, and she is looking, with a shy surprise
mixed with just a little guilt (which is sometimes so delicious), at her
blushes in the glass. In her hand was a letter. That letter was from
Donald. It had been handed to her at the breakfast table, and she had
hastened to her room to have the luxury of secret perusal. With love
there are only two beings in the entire universe. You say love is
selfish. You are mistaken. Love loves secrecy. A blabbing tongue, the
common look of day, kills love. The monopoly that love claims is the law
of its being. If I transcribed Donald's letter you would say it was a
very commonplace production. But Minnie kissed it twice, and put it
softly in her bosom. The letter announced that he was home again, and
that he would shortly pay her a visit. It just hinted that things were
not going on well at home; but Minnie's sanguine temperament found no
sinister suggestion in the words.
The letter had made her happy. She put on her hat, and, taking the path
at the back of the house that joined that which led to the mountain, she
was soon climbing to the latter's summit.
It was a beautiful spring day. The sunlight seemed new, and young,
and very tender. The green of the trees was of that vivid hue which
expresses hope to the young, and sadness to the aged. To the former it
means a coming depth and maturity of joy; to the latter, the fresh,
eager days of the past--bright, indeed, but mournful in their brevity.
Minnie sat down upon a rustic seat, and gave herself up to one of those
delicious day-dreams which lure the spirit as the mirage lures the
traveller.
She began to sing softly to herself--
"Thou'lt break my heart thou warbling bird,
That wantons through the flowering thorn;
Thou 'minds me o' departed joys,
Departed--never to return."
Why those lines were suggested, and why her voice should falter in
sadness, and why tears should spring to her eyes, she did not know. To
some spirits the calm beauty of nature, and the warm air that breathes
in balm and healing, express the deepest pathos. The contrast between
the passion and suffering of life, and the calm assurance of unruffled
joy which nature suggests, pierces the heart with an exquisite sadness.
Poor Minnie, she sang the lines of "Bonnie, Doon," all unconscious that
they would ever have any relation to her experience.
But Minnie would bear her grief, and say, "God is love."
She had never subscribed to a creed, and although Mill and Huxley were
strangers to her, her whole nature protested against any system of which
violence was one of the factors.
Minnie was simply good. When she encountered suffering, and found that
it was too great for human relief, she would whisper to her heart, "By
and by." What by and by meant explained all to Minnie.
We spend years upon the study of character, and the cardinal features
often escape us. A dog has but to glance once into a human face. He
comprehends goodness in a moment. The ownerless dogs of the village
analyzed Minnie's nature, and found it satisfactory. They beamed upon
her with looks of wistful love. She had them in the spring and summer
for her daily escort to the mountain.
That was a testimonial of fine ethical value.
"Why, what am I dreaming about?" Minnie exclaimed, after she had sat for
about an hour. "Why are my eyes wet? Why do I feel a sadness which I
cannot define? Am I not happy? Isn't Donald coming to see me? Will we
not be together again? Isn't the sun bright and warm, and our little
home cheerful and happy? Fancies, dreams, and forebodings, away with
you. I must run home and help mother to make that salad for dinner."
The world wants not so much learned, as simple, modest, reverent women,
to sweeten and redeem it!