"I am truly thankful that you have returned! I am quite worn out trying
to humor Felix's whims, and take your place. He has actually lost ten
pounds; and if you had staid away a month longer I think it would have
finished my poor boy, who has set you up as an idol in his heart. He
almost had a spasm last week, when his father told him he had better
reconcile himself to your absence, as he believed that you would never
come back to the drudgery of the schoolroom. I am very anxious about
him; his health is more feeble than it has been since he was five years
old. My dear, you have no idea how you have been missed! Your admirers
call by scores to ascertain when you may be expected home; and I do not
exaggerate in the least when I say that there is a champagne basketful
of periodicals and letters upstairs, that have arrived recently. You
will find them piled on the table and desk in your room."
"Where are the children?" asked Edna, glancing around the sitting-room
into which Mrs. Andrews had drawn her.
"Hattie is spending the day with Lila Manning, who is just recovering
from a severe attack of scarlet fever, and Felix is in the library
trying to sleep. He has one of his nervous headaches to-day. Poor
fellow! he tries so hard to overcome his irritable temper and to grow
patient, that I am growing fonder of him every day. How travel-spent
and ghastly you are! Sit down, and I will order some refreshments. Take
this wine, my dear, and presently you shall have a cup of chocolate."
"Thank you, not any wine. I only want to see Felix."
She went to the library, cautiously opened the door, and crept softly
across the floor to the end of the sofa.
The boy lay looking through the window, and up beyond the walls and
chimneys, at the sapphire pavement, where rolled the sun. Casual
observers thought the cripple's face ugly and disagreeable; but the
tender, loving smile that lighted the countenance of the governess as
she leaned forward, told that some charm lingered in the sharpened
features overcast with sickly sallowness. In his large, deep-set eyes,
over which the heavy brows arched like a roof, she saw now a strange
expression that frightened her. Was it the awful shadow of the Three
Singing Spinners, whom Catullus painted at the wedding of Peleus? As
the child looked into the blue sky, did he catch a glimpse of their
trailing white robes, purple-edged--of their floating rose-colored
veils? Above all, did he hear the unearthly chorus which they chanted
as they spun?
"Currite ducentes, subteinina currite fusi!"
The governess was seized by a vague apprehension as she watched her
pupil, and bending down, she said, fondly:
"Felix, my darling, I have come back! Never again while I live will I
leave you."
The almost bewildering joy that flashed into his countenance mutely but
eloquently welcomed her, as kneeling beside the sofa she wound her arms
around him, and drew his head to her shoulder.
"Edna, is Mr. Hammond dead?"
"No, he is almost well again, and needs me no more."
"I need you more than anybody else ever did. Oh, Edna! I thought
sometimes you would stay at the South that you love so well, and I
should see you no more; and then all the light seemed to die out of the
world, and the flowers were not sweet, and the stars were not bright,
and oh! I was glad I had not long to live."
"Hush! you must not talk so. How do you know that you may not live as
long as Ahasuerus, the 'Everlasting Jew'? My dear little boy, in all
this wide earth, you are the only one whom I have to love and cling to,
and we will be happy together. Darling, your head aches to-day?"
She pressed her lips twice to his hot forehead.
"Yes; but the heartache was much the hardest to bear until you came.
Mamma has been very good and kind, and staid at home and read to me;
but I wanted you, Edna. I do not believe I have been wicked since you
left; for I prayed all the while that God would bring you back to me. I
have tried hard to be patient."
With her cheek nestled against his, Edna told him many things that had
occurred during their separation, and noticed that his eyes brightened
suddenly and strangely.
"Edna, I have a secret to tell you; something that even mamma is not to
know just now. You must not laugh at me. While you were gone I wrote a
little MS., and it is dedicated to you! and some day I hope it will be
printed. Are you glad, Edna? My beautiful, pale Edna!"
"Felix, I am very glad you love me sufficiently to dedicate your little
MS. to me; but, my dear boy, I must see it before I can say I am glad
you wrote it."
"If you had been here, it would not have been written, because then I
should merely have talked out all the ideas to you; but you were far
away, and so I talked to my paper. After all, it was only a dream. One
night I was feverish, and mamma read aloud those passages that you
marked in that great book, Maury's Physical Geography of the Sea, that
you admire and quote so often; and of which I remember you said once,
in talking to Mr. Manning, that 'it rolled its warm, beautiful,
sparkling waves of thought across the cold, gray sea of science, just
like the Gulf Stream it treated of.' Two of the descriptions which
mamma read were so splendid that they rang in my ears like the music of
the Swiss Bell-Ringers. One was the account of the atmosphere, by Dr.
Buist of Bombay, and the other was the description of the Indian Ocean,
which was quoted from Schleiden's Lecture. My fever was high, and when
at last I went to sleep, I had a queer dream about madrepores and
medusae, and I wrote it down as well as I could, and called it 'Algae
Adventures, in a Voyage Round the World.' Edna, I have stolen something
from you, and as you will be sure to find it out when you read my
little story, where there is a long, hard word missing in the MS., I
will tell you about it now. Do you recollect talking to me one evening,
when we were walking on the beach at The Willows, about some shell-clad
animalcula, which you said were so very small that Professor Schultze,
of Bonn, found no less than a million and a half of their minute shells
in an ounce of pulverized quartz, from the shore of Mo la di Gaeta?
Well, I put all you told me in my little MS.; but, for my life, I could
not think of the name of the class to which they belong. Do you
recollect it?"
"Let me think a moment. Was it not Foraminifera?"
"That's the identical word--'Foraminifera!' No wonder I could not think
of it! Six syllables tied up in a scientific knot. Phew! it makes my
head ache worse to try to recollect it. How stoop-shouldered your
memory must be from carrying such heavy loads! It is a regular camel."
"Yes; it is a meek, faithful beast of burden, and will very willingly
bear the weight of that scientific name until you want to use it; so do
not tax your mind now. You said you stole it from me, but my dear,
ambitious authorling, my little round-jacket scribbler, I wish you to
understand distinctly that I do not consider that I have been robbed.
The fact was discovered by Professor Schultze, and bequeathed by him to
the world. From that instant it became universal, common property,
which any man, woman, or child may use at pleasure, provided a tribute
of gratitude is paid to the donor. Every individual is in some sort an
intellectual bank, issuing bills of ideas (very often specious, but not
always convertible into gold or silver); and now, my precious little
boy, recollect that just as long as I have any capital left, you can
borrow; and some day I will turn Shylock, and make you pay me with
usury."
"Edna, I should like above all things to write a book of stories for
poor, sick children; little tales that would make them forget their
suffering and deformity. If I could even reconcile one lame boy to
being shut up indoors, while others are shouting and skating in the
sunshine, I should not feel as if I were so altogether useless in the
world. Edna, do you think that I shall ever be able to do so?"
"Perhaps so, dear Felix; certainly, if God wills it. When you are
stronger we will study and write together, but to-day you must compose
yourself and be silent. Your fever is rising."
"The doctor left some medicine yonder in that goblet, but mamma has
forgotten to give it to me. I will take a spoonful now, if you please."
His face was much flushed; and as she kissed him and turned away, he
exclaimed:
"Oh! where are you going?"
"To my room, to take off my hat."
"Do not be gone long. I am so happy now that you are here again. But I
don't want you to get out of my sight. Come back soon, and bathe my
head."
On the following day, when Mr. Manning called to welcome her home, he
displayed an earnestness and depth of feeling which surprised the
governess. Putting his hand on her arm, he said in a tone that had lost
its metallic ring:
"How fearfully changed since I saw you last! I knew you were not strong
enough to endure the trial; and if I had had a right to interfere, you
should never have gone."
"Mr. Manning, I do not quite understand your meaning."
"Edna, to see you dying by inches is bitter indeed! I believed that you
would marry Murray--at least I knew any other woman would--and I felt
that to refuse his affection would be a terrible trial, through which
you could not pass with impunity. Why you rejected him I have no right
to inquire, but I have a right to ask you to let me save your life. I
am well aware that you do not love me, but at least you can esteem and
entirely trust me; and once more I hold out my hand to you and say,
give me the wreck of your life! oh! give me the ruins of your heart! I
will guard you tenderly; we will go to Europe--to the East; and rest of
mind, and easy travelling, and change of scene will restore you. I
never realized, never dreamed how much my happiness depended upon you,
until you left the city. I have always relied so entirely upon myself,
feeling the need of no other human being; but now, separated from you I
am restless, am conscious of a vague discontent. If you spend the next
year as you have spent the last, you will not survive it. I have
conferred with your physician. He reluctantly told me your alarming
condition, and I have come to plead with you for the last time not to
continue your suicidal course, not to destroy the life which, if
worthless to you, is inexpressibly precious to a man who prays to be
allowed to take care of it. A man who realizes that it is necessary to
the usefulness and peace of his own lonely life; who wishes no other
reward on earth but the privilege of looking into your approving eyes,
when his daily work is ended, and he sits down at his fireside. Edna! I
do not ask for your love, but I beg for your hand, your confidence,
your society--for the right to save you from toil. Will you go to the
Old World with me?"
Looking suddenly up at him, she was astonished to find tears in his
searching and usually cold eyes.
Scandinavian tradition reports that seven parishes were once
overwhelmed, and still lie buried under snow and ice, and yet
occasionally those church-bells are heard ringing clearly under the
glaciers of the Folge Fond.
So, in the frozen, crystal depths of this man's nature, his long
silent, smothered affections began to chime.
A proud smile trembled over Edna's face, as she saw how entirely she
possessed the heart of one, whom above all other men she most admired.
"Mr. Manning, the assertion that you regard your life as imperfect,
incomplete, without the feeble complement of mine--that you find your
greatest happiness in my society, is the most flattering, the most
gratifying tribute which ever has been, or ever can be paid to my
intellect. It is a triumph indeed; and, because unsought, surely it is
a pardonable pride that makes my heart throb. This assurance of your
high regard is the brightest earthly crown I shall ever wear. But, sir,
you err egregiously in supposing that you would be happy wedded to a
woman who did not love you. You think now that if we were only married,
my constant presence in your home, my implicit confidence in your
character, would fully content you; but here you fail to understand
your own heart, and I know that the consciousness that my affection was
not yours would make you wretched. No, no! my dear, noble friend! God
never intended us for each other. I can not go to the Old World with
you. I know how peculiarly precarious is my tenure of life, and how
apparently limited is my time for work in this world, but I am content.
I try to labor faithfully, listening for the summons of Him who notices
even the death of sparrows. God will not call me hence, so long as He
has any work for me to do on earth; and when I become useless, and can
no longer serve Him here, I do not wish to live. Through Christ I am
told, 'Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.' Mr.
Manning, I am not ignorant of, nor indifferent to, my physical
condition; but, thank God! I can say truly, I am not troubled, neither
am I afraid, and my faith is--
'All as God wills, who wisely heeds,
To give or to withhold,
And knoweth more of all my needs
Than all my prayers have told.'"
The editor took off his glasses and wiped them, but the dimness was in
his eyes; and after a minute, during which he recovered his old
calmness, and hushed the holy chime, muffling the Folge Fond Bells, he
said gayly and quietly:
"Edna, one favor, at least, you will grant me. The death of a relative
in Louisiana has placed me in possession of an ample fortune, and I
wish you to take my little Lila and travel for several years. You are
the only woman I ever knew to whom I would entrust her and her
education, and it would gratify me beyond expression to feel that I had
afforded you the pleasure which can not fail to result from such a
tour. Do not be too proud to accept a little happiness from my hands."
"Thank you, my generous, noble friend! I gratefully accept a great deal
of happiness at this instant, but your kind offer I must decline. I can
not leave Felix."
He sighed, took his hat, and his eyes ran over the face and figure of
the governess.
"Edna Earl, your stubborn will makes you nearly akin to those gigantic
fuci which are said to grow and flourish as submarine forests in the
stormy channel of Terra del Fuego, where they shake their heads
defiantly, always trembling, always triumphing, in the fierce lashing
of waves that wear away rocks. You belong to a very rare order of human
algae, rocked and reared in the midst of tempests that would either bow
down, or snap asunder, or beat out most natures. As you will not grant
my petition, try to forget it; we will bury the subject. Good-bye! I
shall call to-morrow afternoon to take you to drive."
With renewed zest Edna devoted every moment stolen from Felix, to the
completion of her new book. Her first had been a "bounteous
promise"--at least so said criticdom--and she felt that the second
would determine her literary position, would either place her
reputation as an author beyond all cavil, or utterly crush her ambition.
Sometimes as she bent over her MS., and paused to reread some passage
just penned, which she had laboriously composed, and thought
particularly good as an illustration of the idea she was striving to
embody perspicuously, a smile would flit across her countenance while
she asked herself:
"Will my readers see it as I see it? Will they thank me for my high
opinion of their culture, in assuming that it will be quite as plain to
them as to me? If there should accidentally be an allusion to classical
or scientific literature, which they do not understand at the first
hasty, careless, novel-reading glance, will they inform themselves, and
then appreciate my reason for employing it, and thank me for the hint;
or will they attempt to ridicule my pedantry? When will they begin to
suspect that what they may imagine sounds 'learned' in my writings,
merely appears so to them because they have not climbed high enough to
see how vast, how infinite is the sphere of human learning? No, no,
dear reader, shivering with learning-phobia, I am not learned. You are
only a little, a very little more ignorant. Doubtless you know many
things which I should be glad to learn; come, let us barter. Let us all
study the life of Giovanni Pico Mirandola, and then we shall begin to
understand the meaning of the word 'learned.'"
Edna unintentionally and continually judged her readers according to
her own standard, and so eager, so unquenchable was her thirst for
knowledge, that she could not understand how the utterance of some new
fact, or the redressing and presentation of some forgotten idea, could
possibly be regarded as an insult by the person thus benefited. Her
first book taught her what was termed her "surplus paraded erudition,"
had wounded the amour propre of the public; but she was conscientiously
experimenting on public taste, and though some of her indolent,
luxurious readers, who wished even their thinking done by proxy,
shuddered at the "spring-water pumped upon their nerves," she
good-naturedly overlooked their grimances and groans, and continued the
hydropathic treatment even in her second book, hoping some good effects
from the shock. Of one intensely gratifying fact she could not fail to
be thoroughly informed, by the avalanche of letters which almost daily
covered her desk; she had at least ensconced herself securely in a
citadel, whence she could smilingly defy all assaults--in the warm
hearts of her noble countrywomen. Safely sheltered in their sincere and
devoted love, she cared little for the shafts that rattled and broke
against the rocky ramparts, and, recoiling, dropped out of sight in the
moat below.
So with many misgivings, and much hope, and great patience, she worked
on assiduously, and early in summer her book was finished and placed in
the publisher's hands.
In the midst of her anxiety concerning its reception, a new and
terrible apprehension took possession of her, for it became painfully
evident that Felix, whose health had never been good, was slowly but
steadily declining.
Mrs. Andrews and Edna took him to Sharon, to Saratoga, and to various
other favorite resorts for invalids, but with no visible results that
were at all encouraging, and at last they came home almost
disheartened. Dr. Howell finally prescribed a sea-voyage, and a sojourn
of some weeks at Eaux Bonne in the Pyrennes, as those waters had
effected some remarkable cures.
As the doctor quitted the parlor, where he held a conference with Mr.
and Mrs. Andrews, the latter turned to her husband, saying:
"It is useless to start anywhere with Felix unless Miss Earl can go
with us; for he would fret himself to death in a week. Really, Louis,
it is astonishing to see how devoted they are to each other. Feeble as
that woman is, she will always sit up whenever there is any medicine to
be given during the night; and while he was ill at Sharon, she did not
close her eyes for a week. I can't help feeling jealous of his
affection for her, and I spoke to her about it. He was asleep at the
time, with his hand grasping one of hers; and when I told her how
trying it was for a mother to see her child's whole heart given to a
stranger, to hear morning, noon, and night, 'Edna,' always 'Edna,'
never once 'mamma,' I wish you could have seen the strange, suffering
expression that came into her pale face. Her lips trembled so that she
could scarcely speak, but she said meekly, 'Oh! forgive me if I have
won your child's heart; but I love him. You have your husband and
daughter, your brother and sister; but I--oh! I have only Felix! I have
nothing else to cling to in all this world!' Then she kissed his poor
little fingers, and wept as if her heart would break, and wrung her
hands, and begged me again and again to forgive her if he loved her
best. She is the strangest woman I ever knew; sometimes, when she is
sitting by me in church, I watch her calm, cold, white face, and she
makes me think of a snow statue; but if Felix says anything to arouse
her feelings and call out her affection, she is a volcano. It is very
rarely that one finds a beautiful woman, distinguished by her genius,
admired and courted by the reading public, devoting herself as she does
to our dear little crippled darling. While I confess I am jealous of
her, her kindness to my child makes me love her more than I can
express. Louis, she must go with us. Poor thing! she seems to be
failing almost as fast as Felix; and I verily believe if he should die,
it would kill her. Did you notice how she paced the floor while the
doctors were consulting in Felix's room? She loves nothing but my
precious lame boy."
"Certainly, Kate, she must go with you. I quite agree with you, my
dear, that Felix is dependent upon her, and would not derive half the
benefit from the trip if she remained at home. I confess she has cured
me to a great extent of my horror of literary characters. She is the
only one I ever saw who was really lovable, and not a walking parody on
her own writings. You would be surprised at the questions constantly
asked me about her habits and temper. People seem so curious to learn
all the routine of her daily life. Last week a member of our club
quoted something from her writings, and said that she was one of the
few authors of the day whose books, without having first examined, he
would put into the hands of his daughters. He remarked: 'I can trust my
girls' characters to her training, for she is a true woman; and if she
errs at all in any direction, it is the right one, only a little too
rigidly followed.' I am frequently asked how she is related to me, for
people can not believe that she is merely the governess of our
children. Kate, will you tell her that it is my desire that she should
accompany you? Speak to her at once, that I may know how many
staterooms I shall engage on the steamer."
"Come with me, Louis, and speak to her yourself."
They went upstairs together, and paused on the threshold of Felix's
room to observe what was passing within.
The boy was propped by pillows into an upright position on the sofa,
and was looking curiously into a small basket which Edna held on her
lap.
She was reading to him a touching little letter just received from an
invalid child, who had never walked, who was confined always to the
house, and wrote to thank her, in sweet, childish style, for a story
which she had read in the Magazine, and which made her very happy.
The invalid stated that her chief amusement consisted in tending a few
flowers that grew in pots in her windows; and in token of her
gratitude, she had made a nosegay of mignonette, pansies, and geranium
leaves, which she sent with her scrawling letter.
In conclusion, the child asked that the woman whom, without having
seen, she yet loved, would be so kind as to give her a list of such
books as a little girl ought to study, and to write her "just a few
lines" that she could keep under her pillow, to look at now and then.
As Edna finished reading the note, Felix took it, to examine the small,
indistinct characters, and said:
"Dear little thing! Don't you wish we knew her? 'Louie Lawrence.' Of
course, you will answer it, Edna?"
"Yes, immediately, and tell her how grateful I am for her generosity in
sparing me a portion of her pet flowers. Each word in her sweet little
letter is as precious as a pearl, for it came from the very depths of
her pure heart."
"Oh! what a blessed thing it is to feel that you are doing some good in
the world! That little Louie says she prays for you every night before
she goes to sleep! What a comfort such letters must be to you! Edna,
how happy you look! But there are tears shining in your eyes, they
always come when you are glad. What books will you tell her to study?"
"I will think about the subject, and let you read my answer. Give me
the 'notelet'; I want to put it away securely among my treasures. How
deliciously fragrant the flowers are! Only smell them, Felix! Here, my
darling, I will give them to you, and write to the little Louie how
happy she made two people."
She lifted the delicate bouquet so daintily fashioned by fairy
child-fingers, inhaled the perfume, and, as she put it in the thin
fingers of the cripple, she bent forward and kissed his fever-parched
lips. At this instant Felix saw his parents standing at the door, and
held up the flowers triumphantly.
"Oh, mamma! come smell this mignonette. Why can't we grow some in boxes
in our window?"
Mr. Andrews leaned over his son's pillows, softly put his hand on the
boy's forehead, and said:
"My son, Miss Earl professes to love you very much, but I doubt whether
she really means all she says; and I am determined to satisfy myself
fully. Just now I can not leave my business, but mamma, intends to take
you to Europe next week, and I want to know whether Miss Earl will
leave all her admirers here, and go with you and help mamma to nurse
you. Do you think she will?"
Mrs. Andrews stood with her hand resting on the shoulder of the
governess, watching the varying expression of her child's countenance.
"I think, papa--I hope she will; I believe she--"
He paused, and, struggling up from his pillows, he stretched out his
poor little arms, and exclaimed:
"Oh, Edna! you will go with me? You promised you would never forsake
me! Tell papa you will go."
His head was on her shoulder, his arms were clasped tightly around her
neck. She laid her face on his, and was silent.
Mr. Andrews placed his hand on the orphan's bowed head.
"Miss Earl, you must let me tell you that I look upon you as a member
of my family; that my wife and I love you almost as well as if you were
one of our children; and I hope you will not refuse to accompany Kate
on the tour she contemplates. Let me take your own father's place; and
I shall regard it as a great favor to me and mine if you will consent
to go, and allow me to treat you always as I do my Hattie. I have no
doubt you will derive as much benefit from travelling, as I certainly
hope for Felix."
"Thank you, Mr. Andrews, I appreciate your generosity, and I prize the
affection and confidence which you and your wife have shown me. I came,
an utter stranger, into your house, and you kindly made me one of the
family circle. I am alone in the world, and have become strongly
attached to your children. Felix is not merely my dear pupil, he is my
brother, my companion, my little darling! I can not be separated from
him. Next to his mother he belongs to me. Oh! I will travel with him
anywhere that you and Mrs. Andrews think it best he should go. I will
never, never leave him."
She disengaged the boy's arms, laid him back on his pillows, and went
to her own room.
In the midst of prompt preparations for departure Edna's new novel
appeared. She had christened it "SHINING THORNS ON THE HEARTH," and
dedicated it "To my countrywomen, the Queens who reign thereon."
The aim of the book was to discover the only true and allowable and
womanly sphere of feminine work, and, though the theme was threadbare,
she fearlessly picked up the frayed woof and rewove it.
The tendency of the age was to equality and communism, and this, she
contended, was undermining the golden thrones shining in the blessed
and hallowed light of the hearth, whence every true woman ruled the
realm of her own family. Regarding every pseudo "reform" which struck
down the social and political distinction of the sexes, as a blow that
crushed one of the pillars of woman's throne, she earnestly warned the
Crowned Heads of the danger to be apprehended from the unfortunate and
deluded female malcontents, who, dethroned in their own realm, and
despised by their quondam subjects, roamed as pitiable, royal exiles,
threatening to usurp man's kingdom; and to proud, happy mothers,
guarded by Praetorian bands of children, she reiterated the assurance
that
"Those who rock the cradle rule the world."
Most carefully she sifted the records of history, tracing in every
epoch the sovereigns of the hearth-throne who had reigned wisely and
contentedly, ennobling and refining humanity; and she proved by
illustrious examples that the borders of the feminine realm could not
be enlarged, without rendering the throne unsteady, and subverting
God's law of order. Woman reigned by divine right only at home. If
married, in the hearts of husband and children, and not in the gilded,
bedizened palace of fashion, where thinly veiled vice and frivolity
hold carnival, and social upas and social asps wave and trail. If
single, in the affections of brothers and sisters and friends, as the
golden sceptre in the hands of parents. If orphaned, she should find
sympathy and gratitude and usefulness among the poor and the afflicted.
Consulting the statistics of single women, and familiarizing herself
with the arguments advanced by the advocates of that "progress," which
would indiscriminately throw open all professions to women, she
entreated the poor of her own sex, if ambitious, to become sculptors,
painters, writers, teachers in schools or families; or else to remain
mantau-makers, milliners, spinners, dairymaids; but on the peril of all
womanhood not to meddle with scalpel or red tape, and to shun rostra of
all description, remembering St. Paul's injunction, that "IT IS NOT
PERMITTED UNTO WOMEN TO SPEAK"; and even that "IT IS A SHAME FOR WOMEN
TO SPEAK IN THE CHURCH."
To married women who thirsted for a draught of the turbid waters of
politics, she said: "If you really desire to serve the government under
which you live, recollect that it was neither the speeches thundered
from the forum, nor the prayers of priests and augurs, nor the iron
tramp of glittering legions, but the ever triumphant, maternal
influence, the potent, the pleading 'My son!' of Volumnia, the mother
of Coriolanus, that saved Rome."
To discontented spinsters, who travelled like Pandora over the land,
haranguing audiences that secretly laughed at and despised them, to
these unfortunate women, clamoring for power and influence in the
national councils, she pointed out that quiet, happy home at "Barley
Wood," whence immortal Hannah More sent forth those writings which did
more to tranquilize England, and bar the hearts of its yeomanry against
the temptations of red republicanism than all the eloquence of Burke,
and the cautious measures of Parliament.
Some errors of style, which had been pointed out by critics as marring
her earlier writings, Edna had endeavored to avoid in this book, which
she humbly offered to her countrywomen as the best of which she was
capable.
From the day of its appearance it was a success; and she had the
gratification of hearing that some of the seed she had sown broadcast
in the land fell upon good ground, and promised an abundant harvest.
Many who called to bid her good-bye on the day before the steamer
sailed, found it impossible to disguise their apprehensions that she
would never return; and some who looked tearfully into her face and
whispered "God-speed!" thought they saw the dread signet of death set
on her white brow.
To Edna it was inexpressibly painful to cross the Atlantic while Mr.
Hammond's health was so feeble; and over the long farewell letter which
she sent him, with a copy of her new book, the old man wept. Mrs.
Murray had seemed entirely estranged since that last day spent at Le
Bocage, and had not written a line since the orphan's return to New
York. But when she received the new novel, and the affectionate,
mournful, meek note that accompanied it, Mrs. Murray laid her head on
her son's bosom and sobbed aloud.
Dr. Howell and Mr. Manning went with Edna aboard the steamer, and both
laughed heartily at her efforts to disengage herself from a
pertinacious young book-vender, who, with his arms full of copies of
her own book, stopped her on deck, and volubly extolled its merits,
insisting that she should buy one to while away the tedium of the
voyage.
Dr. Howell gave final directions concerning the treatment of Felix, and
then came to speak to the governess.
"Even now, sadly as you have abused your constitution, I shall have
some hope of seeing gray hairs about your temples, if you will give
yourself unreservedly to relaxation of mind. You have already
accomplished so much that you can certainly afford to rest for some
months at least. Read nothing, write nothing (except long letters to
me), study nothing but the aspects of nature in European scenery, and
you will come back improved to the country that is so justly proud of
you. Disobey my injunctions, and I shall soon be called to mourn over
the announcement that you have found an early grave, far from your
native land, and among total strangers. God bless you, dear child! and
bring you safely back to us."
As he turned away, Mr. Manning took her hand and said:
"I hope to meet you in Rome early in February; but something might
occur to veto my programme. If I should never see you again in this
world, is there anything that you wish to say to me now?"
"Yes, Mr. Manning. If I should die in Europe, have my body brought back
to America and carried to the South--my own dear South, that I love so
well--and bury me close to Grandpa, where I can sleep quietly in the
cool shadow of old Lookout; and be sure, please be sure, to have my
name carved just below Grandpa's, on his monument. I want that one
marble to stand for us both."
"I will. Is there nothing else?"
"Thank you, my dear, good, kind friend. Nothing else."
"Edna, promise me that you will take care of your precious life."
"I will try, Mr. Manning."
He looked down into her worn, weary face and sighed, then for the first
time he took both her hands, kissed them and left her.
Swiftly the steamer took its way seaward; through the Narrows, past the
lighthouse; and the wind sang through the rigging, and the purple hills
of Jersey faded from view, proving Neversink a misnomer.
One by one the passengers went below and Edna and Felix were left on
deck, with stars burning above, and blue waves bounding beneath them.
As the cripple sat looking over the solemn, moaning ocean, awed by its
brooding gloom, did he catch in the silvery starlight a second glimpse
of the rose-colored veils, and snowy vittae, and purple-edged robes of
the Parcae, spinning and singing as they followed the ship across the
sobbing sea? He shivered, and clasping tightly the hand of his
governess, said:
"Edna, we shall never see the Neversink again."
"God only knows, dear Felix. His will be done."
"How silvery the echoes run--
Thy will be done--Thy will be done."