Senator Burleigh came up for a few days to the hotel before going West,
and Betty, who had anticipated his visit, invited two of the prettiest
girls she knew to assist her to entertain him. They had been at one of
the hotels on the lower lake, and came to her for a few days before
joining their parents. She showed Burleigh every possible attention,
permitting him to eat nothing but breakfast at his hotel; but he did
not see her alone for a moment. When he left, he felt that he had had
three cheerful days among warm and admiring friends, but his
satisfaction was far from complete.
"Betty," said Senator North, one morning a fortnight later, "how much
do you like Burleigh? If you had not met me, do you think you could
have loved him?"
"I think I could have persuaded myself that I liked him better than I
ever could have liked anybody; but it would not have been love."
"Are you sure?"
"Oh, yes, I am sure! You know that I am sure. It may be possible to
mistake liking for love, but it is not possible to mistake love for
anything else. And you cannot even pretend to believe that I do not
know what love is."
"Oh, yes," he said softly, "I think you know." He resumed in a moment:
"You are so young--I would leave you in a moment if I thought that you
did not really love me, that you were deluding yourself and wasting
your life. But I believe that you do; and you are happier than you
would be with a man who could give you only the half that you demand.
Marriage is not everything. I love you well enough to make any
sacrifice for you but a foolish one. And I know that there is much less
in the average marriage than in the incomplete relation we have
established. And there is another marriage that is incomparably worse.
I shall never let you go--so long as I can hold you--unless I am
satisfied that it is for your good."
"If you leave me for any Quixotic idea, I'll marry the first man that
proposes to me," said Betty, lightly. "I am too happy to even consider
such a possibility. There are no to-morrows when to-day is
flawless--Hark! What is that?"
They were on the upper lake. Over the mountains came the sonorous yet
wailing, swinging yet rapt, intonation of the negro at his hymns.
"There is a darky camp-meeting somewhere," said Senator North,
indifferently. "I hope they don't fish."
The fervent incantation rose higher. It seemed to fill the forest, so
wide was its volume, so splendid its energy. The echoes took it up, the
very mountains responded. Five hundred voices must have joined in the
chorus, and even Senator North threw back his head as the columns of
the forest seemed to be the pipes of some stupendous organ. As for
Betty, when the great sound died away in a wail that was hardly
separable from the sighing of the pines, she trembled from head to foot
and burst into tears.
He took hold of the oars, and rowed out of the lake and down to the
spot where he was in the habit of landing. She had quite recovered
herself by that time, and nodded brightly to him as he handed her the
oars and stepped on shore.
At the breakfast-table she mentioned casually that there was a negro
camp-meeting in the neighborhood, and that she never had heard such
magnificent singing. She saw an eager hungry flash leap into Harriet's
eyes, but they were lowered immediately. Harriet had lost much of her
satisfied mien in the last few weeks, and of late had looked almost
haggard. But she had fallen back into her old habit of reticence, a
condition Betty always was careful not to disturb. That afternoon,
however, she asked Betty if she could speak alone with her, and they
went out to the summer-house.
"I want to go to that camp-meeting," she began abruptly. "Betty, I am
nearly mad." She began to weep violently, and Betty put her arms about
her.
"Is there any new trouble?" she asked. "Tell me and I will do all I can
to help you. Why do you wish to go to this camp-meeting?"
"So that I can shout and scream and pray so loud perhaps the Lord'll
hear me. Betty, I don't have one peaceful minute, dreading your mother
will tell him, and that if she doesn't that dreadful Miss Trumbull
will. She hated me, and she laughed that dry conceited laugh of hers
when she said good-bye to me. What's to prevent her writing to Jack any
minute? I lost her a good place, and we both insulted her common morbid
vanity. What's to prevent her taking her revenge? Ever since that
thought entered my head it has nearly driven me mad."
The same thought had occurred to Betty more than once, but she assured
Harriet as earnestly as she could that there was no possible danger,
that the woman was conscientious in her way, and prided herself on
being better than her neighbors.
"You must put these ideas out of your head," she continued. "Any fixed
idea soon grows to huge proportions, and dwarfs all the other and more
reasonable possibilities. You sail now in a few weeks. Keep up your
courage till then--"
"That's why I want to go to the camp-meeting. I used to go to them
regularly every year with Uncle, and they always did me good. I'm right
down pious by nature, and I loved to shout and go on and feel as if the
Lord was right there: I could 'most see him. Of course I gave up the
idea of going to camp-meetings after you made a high-toned lady of me,
and I've never sung since you objected that morning; but it's hurt me
not to--_it's all there;_ and if it could come out in camp-meeting
along with all the rest that's torturing me, I think I'd feel better.
You've always been fine and happy, you don't know the relief it is to
holler."
Betty drew a long breath. "But, Harriet, I thought you did not like
negroes. I don't think any white people are at this camp."
"I despise them except when they're full of religion, and then we're
all equal. Betty, I must go. Can you think of an excuse to make to
Jack? Couldn't I pretend to stay at the hotel all day?"
"There is no reason to lie about it. Nothing would induce him to go to
a camp-meeting. But he knows that you are a Methodist, and that you
were raised in the thick of that religion. I will row you to the next
lake to-morrow morning before he is up, and tell him that I am to
return for you. I don't approve of it at all. I think it is a horrid
thing for you to do, if you want to know the truth, and there are
certain tastes you ought to get rid of, not indulge. But if you must
go, you must, I suppose."