Think not I love him, though I ask for him;
’Tis but a peevish boy;--yet he talks well:--
But what care I for words? yet words do well,
When he that speaks them pleases those that hear.
It is a pretty youth;--not very pretty:--
But, sure, he’s proud; and yet his pride becomes him.
Shakspere.
When Helen Grahame opened her eyes, after a somewhat protracted sleep,
she looked around her for a minute in unutterable surprise. The morning
previously, she had awakened in an agony of sorrow, it is true, but to
look upon all the luxurious refinements and comforts which are to be
met with in the sleeping chambers of the wealthy alone. Now she beheld
herself in a small sitting-room; the bed appointments being evidently
supplemental, and not fitly pertaining to the room. Clean they were, but
vastly inferior in material and pattern to what she had been accustomed.
A fire was burning clearly in the small grate, and a kettle, steaming
and singing cheerfully, stood upon the hob. Upon a table, at the foot of
the bed, was spread the breakfast appurtenances; and at the window sat a
young girl plying her needle with a rapidity and skill something magical
in its character.
A moment more, and Helen Grahame realised her position.
She remembered her terrible conversation with Mrs. Truebody, her nurse,
the latter’s charge, and her own fearful conviction of its truth. She
remembered the sleepless horrors of that dreadful night; the simulated
sleep at dawn, the absence of the nurse, the hasty dressing, the
scribbled note, the slinking glide down the servants’ staircase,
the swift dash into the garden, and the rapid exit--as it happened,
unseen--by the private entrance.
She had a confused recollection of streets crowded with throngs of
people, of the roar of carriages, the bewildering turmoil of active
daily business life, and then faint and weak, of a long, long, dreamy
rest upon a seat in an open park, of wild schemes for the future
floating through her brain, without the power to reduce them to
practicability, of a sinking foreboding sense of helplessness, a
startling perception that she must starve and die.
And she shivered, and her teeth chattered as she remembered the grim
water--remembered how, like a magnet, it drew her towards it; how it
wooed her with a low dirge, the burden of which was that Hugh was there;
how it offered her eternal repose, and stilled its surface so that
calmness and peace seemed alone to be found within its placid bosom.
Then she remembered the small voice that rose up and made a claim on
life; the agonized struggle that followed; the sudden interposition of
a stranger; the deep voice of Lester Vane, being saved from his loathly
arms; and on, on, incident by incident, until her eyes and thoughts
rested upon the face of the young fair girl who sat at the window, her
eyes bent fixedly upon her work, and her hand swiftly and unceasingly
moving to and fro.
Then she remembered that she had made her her _confidante_; that she was
now the only friend she had in the wide, wide world; and that, but for
her, she would have been at this moment face to face with an offended
Creator; that, but for her, she must now even become a wretched outcast.
She began to see that pride was a hollow phantom, powerless to serve at
need; that selfishness slaughtered sympathy, and repelled friendship;
that true worth and pure human philanthropy were to be found in the
humble; that human creatures were human clay alike; and the distinctions
of the world proved their shadowy nature by melting away at the first
touch of adversity.
She saw that the young girl who had saved her was what the world calls
humble; she involuntarily placed her hands before her eyes, and felt how
humble she herself was by comparison in the eyes of God.
Presently she felt soft fingers gently drawing her hands from her eyes,
and she heard a sweet, low voice.
It said--
“Do not weep, pray, do not, It will make you ill, and me so wretched.
Tears are foes when they deter us from doing our duty to ourselves. Will
you not rise and dress. We will talk of the future over breakfast. Do
you know, miss, I have secured you the dearest little room, next to
this, where nobody can intrude upon you, and where I will strive to make
you as cheerful and as happy as I can, if you should feel depressed and
lonely, as at times I daresay you will--but you know that you have had
too much indulgence in grief just now, and so you must dry your eyes and
exert yourself. Come, come, you will try to oblige me--will you not?”
Helen caught her hands in her own with a sudden clutch, and pressed them
to her burning lips. Then she flung back her dark tresses from her face
of marble hue, over which, escaped from their bands, they had straggled.
“I will exert myself,” she said; “I will face my trial; I will be firm,
and meet the worst, as becomes a----No--no--no!--not that name; I must
breathe that name no more.”
Once again she pressed her hands convulsively over her eyes, but she
removed them quickly.
“Bear with me,” she said; “I will not distress you again by giving way
to my sorrow; but, with patience and fortitude, I will look back on the
past, and await the future.”
Lotte replied in hopeful language, and assisted her to dress. She saw,
with an astonishment she could scarcely conceal, how much help her guest
required, and how natural it seemed for her to expect it to be afforded
her. Helen, on the other hand, could not avoid noticing how unused Lotte
was to her task, and said, with a faint smile--
“I must learn to dress myself. It will serve to pave the way for
the many changes I shall have to encounter. I shall, no doubt, be
troublesome to you at first; but I trust, by persevering efforts, to
acquire that selfreliance I now understand to be so essential to my new
condition in life.”
And she kept her word, At first she looked upon every feature of her
altered position with wonder; the novelty of the circumstances by which
she was surrounded helped in some degree to alleviate her anguish, and
served to teach her a lesson of life she could scarcely have obtained
through any other medium. Everything about her was different to what she
had been accustomed. Life itself seemed to be squeezed into such narrow
limits. The rooms, the sparse furniture, the appointments at meals, even
the meals themselves, with no one to wait at table to hand anything,
all seemed small and poverty-stricken, and she kept wondering why the
apartments should be so cramped, and why the comforts and the luxuries
she had possessed at home were not here.
She even hinted so much to Lotte, who explained to her that the
distinction was occasioned by the difference of income. Poor Lotte!
she had flattered herself that her little room was a small terrestrial
paradise. However, she did not spare herself, but went so much into her
own circumstances as to show that, by incessant labour, she realised an
income which, when fairly, justly, and economically apportioned, enabled
her to accomplish--no more than Helen saw around her.
Helen heard the amount of her weekly earnings with an air of
incredulity.
“Can it be possible, that you toil so long and so wearily for a sum so
small?” she asked.
“Ah, but I am rather fortunate,” said Lotte, with a cheerful smile, and
added with a grave and thoughtful face--“Oh, Miss Grahame, many, many
hundred girls and women, some with families, work harder and longer
hours than I do, for less than half that sum.”
“And I have, in a moment, squandered thrice that amount on the veriest
trifles, upon which I have not looked a second time,” said Helen, with a
deep sigh.
Lotte changed the conversation, and perceiving as well as conceiving how
much Helen would feel the change from her splendid home to these humble
apartments, did all in her power, by cheerfulness of manner and by
paying her every attention, to lighten her care and to make her moments
pass at least peacefully.
She had to work later at night and to submit to some small privations,
of which Helen knew nothing, to accomplish her generous kindness; but
she felt rewarded in seeing that Helen was softened by her considerate
and thoughtful conduct, in noting too that the dull, settled cloud upon
her brow was gradually passing away.
Helen’s nature was of that mixed kind found mostly in women of her
class, because its faults are mainly those created by position and false
teachers. She was gifted with all the tenderness pertaining to a gentle,
loving creature, but she possessed also an indomitable haughtiness which
had been fostered and cultivated by her proud mother. Her self-will had
been permitted to have its course until it grew into a tyranny, because
her weak, proud parent believed it to be a symbol of high breeding. She
ruled all beneath her with a lofty domination, taught by those who alone
claimed control over her actions that such a line of conduct became
the eldest daughter of an ancient house. All the soft and endearing
qualities which she possessed were pressed back and allowed few
opportunities of appearing; they did now and then peep forth, like a
gleam of sunshine from a sky overspread with a cold austere pall, but it
was only when nature rebelled, and would make a sign to show that they
had not been slain outright by harsh conventional forms.
Helen was at once high-minded, impassioned, and ambitious, but having
given her self-will entire control she suffered impulses to govern her.
Hence the whole of the circumstances which had transpired between her
and Hugh Riversdale. She saw him and was struck with his handsome face
and noble bearing, as he was by her beauty. He became the ardent wooer,
but in secret. His burning looks, his fervid language, his tender
adoration, created a new feeling in her breast. Love and passion sprang
up in her soul together, and she suffered them to proceed in their
course impetuously, without an attempt to arrest or check their career.
Her mother and her instructors taking their cue from her father, had
been more careful to instil into her mind the doctrines and practices of
pride, than the precepts of religion or the practice of morality.
She loved Hugh with all the fierceness of an ungovernable passion,
and she let it have its way. They had met in secret, and the notion of
having a secret pleased her--she kept it as such. It is just to her to
say that she had no sense of having committed wrong, or any act of shame
or sin. She had been from infancy taught and permitted to exercise her
self-will, and she did it in this--with what result we have seen.
A veil had now fallen from before her eyes; she saw whither her faults
had hurried her, and she prepared to undergo the penance imposed upon
her without shrinking from its rigour, or attempting to evade its
obligations. In the hurry of her flight, she had not thought of the
means of providing for the future, and save a few pounds which happened
to be in her purse, she had brought no money with her. It suggested
itself to her now that she would need more when the trifle she possessed
was gone, but where was it to come from?
She felt that Lotte would solve that problem for her. Apply to those
whom she had quitted, she would not; but she had some skill with her
needle, and she hoped to be able to assist her young benefactor at
first, in order that ultimately she might be able to produce the means
requisite for her own support.
Some two or three days had elapsed ere she had come to comprehend her
position in its true light, but when she did, she applied herself to the
work before her bravely.
Charles Clinton had called to see his sister, as he promised, upon the
following day, and after a few inquiries respecting her companion of
the previous evening, which Lotte answered evasively, he gave her
a narrative of his rapid voyage to the United States and back, and
prolonged it, hoping that her friend who, he understood, resided in
the next room, would appear. He guessed that there was some mystery
connected with her, and the surmise set him longing to know what it
could be; but as Lotte did not volunteer a word about her, and he knew
her firmness on certain points, he felt it would be useless to question
her. The mysterious lady did not, notwithstanding that he spun his
narrative out, present herself to his eyes; and as Lotte told him that
he could not stay there all night, and that it was quite time he was at
home, he rose laughingly, kissed her affectionately, took his departure,
determining to return shortly and abruptly, that he might pop upon the
strange lady in his sister’s apartment.
The day succeeding this, a smart ring at the bell conducted Lotte down
to the street door, and there she saw Mr. Bantom standing glowing in his
best clothes, and smiling over the edges of a tall white shirt-collar.
But he had a most unfavourable looking black eye, and strips of plaster
were placed upon his nose, his cheekbone, and his forehead.
Lotte uttered an exclamation of surprise, but immediately welcomed him,
and invited him up to her little room, asking, in rather a loud tone,
as she ascended the stairs, how Mrs. Bantom and all the little Bantoms
were--a signal which was responded to by her finding her room untenanted
when she reached it.
She bade Mr. Bantom sit down, and begged him to excuse her working while
he talked, for she could listen and stitch too. She had a presentiment
that this was not a mere visit of ceremony, but it had reference to the
disordered aspect of his visage--perhaps, her help was needed--and if it
were so, so far as it was possible, she was ready and anxious to afford
it.
But no; it turned out not to be the object of Mr. Bantom’s visit.
He explained that he had called upon her the night before the one
preceding, and that, without giving him an opportunity to say who he
was, and why he was in this locality, the police had seized upon him in
the most tyranical manner, and bore him to the station-house.
“It took five on ’em to do it, miss,” he said, with a cunning and a
satisfied smile; “and when I came to ’splain matters to the inspector,
he said I ’ad been werry hardly used. He dismissed me at once, and
suspended the policeman as first collared me, and I’m going to bring a
action agin him, and the lawyer says I shall get swishing damages. But
lor, miss, that ain’t no interest to you, that ain’t. Wot I’ve come
about is becos it’s a matter consarning your good--a bit of good fortin
for you, miss.”
“Good fortune!” echoed Lotte, in surprise. Then she added, with a smile,
“Let me hear it Mr. Bantom. It will be very acceptable to me, you know.”
“An’ you deserves it--Lord bless your pretty face, you does. Hem!--I begs
your parding, miss, but you knows I allus speaks my mind, p’raps when I
shouldn’t.”
“But my good fortune, Mr. Bantom--tell me that, and never find my face,”
returned Lotte, laughing, “I have heard you say that ‘handsome is that
handsome does.’ You remember that, don’t you?”
“And I sticks to it!” cried Mr. Bantom, slapping his thigh. “You’ve done
the thing that’s handsome to me, and to everybody, I’m sure; and you’re,
as handsome a young beauty as ever walked, to my thinking; ah! and to
others, too, as you’ll see.”
Lotte raised her finger, and, turning her soft, sweet, laughing eyes
upon him, she said--
“Oh! Mr. Bantom, if you continue in this praiseful strain, I shall think
you have come here only to court me; and what will Mrs. Bantom say to
that, when I tell her?”
Mr. Bantom indulged in a short hyena-like howl. For him to court her
would have been in his eyes an attempt to be palliated only on the
ground of the wildest lunacy.
“I thinks, then,” said he, smoothing the long nap of his new beaver-hat
carefully with his coat-sleeve, “that I’d better ’old ’ard on that
pint, and at once let you know why I’ve come. You remember that orful
night when you went out in the evening, and didn’t come back agin,
miss.”
The tears sprang into Lotte’s eyes.
“I do, indeed,” she replied, in a low tone.
“Well,” he continued, “early the next morning a flunkey comes to me,
dressed in pupple livery, and brings a fippun note in a letter from you.
The Lord bless your thoughtful natur!”
“Pray go on. What of that circumstance?” said Lotte, with an aspect of
wonder.
“Well,” said Mr. Bantom, “a few days ago that same pupple flunkey comes
to me, and axes me a lot of questions about you.”
“About me!” ejaculated Lotte, astonished. “What could he wish to know
about me? Miss Wilton, his mistress, is acquainted with my address, and
would write here to me if she wished to see and speak with me.”
“Ah! it ain’t his young missus as wants to know, but his young master, I
suxpexs,” observed Mr. Bantom, with a knowing nod.
“His young master,” said Lotte, turning a crimson. “Miss Wilton’s
brother!”
“I only suxpexs, mind, jest as much as that. He said a gentleman--”
“What day did he come to you, did you say?”
Mr. Bantom counted on his fingers.
“Four days ago,” he replied; “Monday it vus.”
“It could not have been he,” said Lotte to herself, a sigh unconsciously
escaping her lips.
Mr. Bantom proceeded.
“I wouldn’t answer nothin’ until I know’d what he wanted with you,” he
observed.
“That was right and kind of you, Mr. Bantom!” responded Lotte,
thoughtfully.
“No,” said the simple fellow, “but he told me that a gen’leman as he
knew had taken a great interest in your welfare, and he didn’t like to
think that such a pretty girl as you--I beg pardon, miss, them was his
very words--should be working your eyes out o’ your ’ed when you orter
be ridin’ in a carriage of your own, and therefore he wants to see you,
and come to a arrangement with you, whereby he will give you a fortun’
and a carriage, and to make a lady on you, so that you should never
’ave to work no more.”
Lotte listened to him in breathless astonishment. Gradually, as he
proceeded, she felt her neck, face, and brow burn as if a hectic fever
raged there.
In the intensity of her scorn at this proposal, the purpose of which,
with a woman’s quickness and penetration, she at once comprehended, her
power of speech almost failed her, but, by an effort, she cleared her
throat and said--
“Pray did the servant mention the _gentleman’s_ name?”
“Well, no,” replied Mr. Bantom, not perceiving her emotion; “he wouldn’t
do that; I axed him; but he said the gentleman ’ud do that hisself
when he saw you.”
Lotte drew a long breath, and, fixing her eyes upon Bantom’s face with
a steadfast gaze to read all that was passing within his mind, she said,
gravely--
“When you heard this extraordinary offer made, Mr. Bantom, what did you
think of it? What said you in reply?”
Mr. Bantom’s face brightened up.
“I said,” he answered, earnestly, “that you deserved all the good
fortun’ the Lord could shower upon you in this life, and I told him it
would be a _‘appy day for me when I know’d that you _‘ad a fortun, and
was a ridin’ in your own carridge.”
Lotte saw that Bantom, in his simplicity of heart, did not detect the
intention disguised in this liberal offer, but that he believed it to be
a genuine sample of philanthropy on the part of some wealthy, romantic
individual.
“Did you mention my address?” she inquired anxiously.
“Mr. Pupple wanted that badly, he did,” returned Mr. Bantom, smoothing
his rough though new beaver hat, “but my wife said no. It ’ud be best
to leave all in your ’ands, ’cos she was quite sure you’d act the
right down true thing.”
“Oh! Mr. Bantom,” said Lotte, laying her hand gently upon his arm, and
looking him sadly in the face, “your wife was right in her suggestion,
and you, too, in following it. I know not who the person is who has thus
singled me out for cruel insult; but it is right that you should know
the nature of the errand upon which you have been sent to me. You have
seen at night, in the street, a poor frail creature wearing a hollow
smile upon her painted face, daunting in a gaudy dress, shunned by the
respectable of her own sex, and frequently harshly repelled of treated
as a shameless object by numbers of yours. A being whose position is at
once horrifying to the virtuously disposed, and a misery and a curse
to herself. But the position of this poor abandoned outcast is less
degraded than that of the ‘lady’ which the gentleman of whom you have
spoken would make me; because into her sin and shame the first may
have been driven by dreadful destitution, while the other voluntarily
purchases her pollution by empty phantoms of luxury, but remains still an
object of scorn and contumely.”
The truth struck Mr. Bantom now.
His face darkened until it became almost purple, the veins in his throat
and forehead swelled like cords; he ground his teeth as if he would
reduce them to powder, and he clenched his hands, burying his nails in
the palms.
At length a groan burst from his heaving chest. He sprang to his feet,
and cried hoarsely and rapidly--“Oh, that I should ha’ been picked out
to come with such a object to you. I didn’t know it, miss. Oh! I didn’t
know it--by the living Lord, I didn’t. You’ll never forgive me--you
can’t--you oughtn’t--I don’t deserve it! But miss, I shall see Mr.
Pupplesuit agen. I’ll nip him, I will; I’ll make him tell me who sent
him to me about you; and when I’ve squeezed out of him the party’s
name, I’ll drag the hound here, and force him on his bended knees to beg
parding on you. I will--I will.”
Mr. Bantom, as he concluded, darted out of the room, without a word of
farewell, he rushed down stairs into the street, and closed the door
behind him with a loud bang, ere she could overtake him.
She followed him to the street, opened the door to look after him, and
found herself face to face with Mark Wilton. They recognized each other
instantly, and Lotte unconsciously for the moment forgot Mr. Bantom, for
Mark smiled agreeably upon her, and she could not, somehow, help smiling
pleasantly upon him in return. Mark put out his hand, and she placed
hers in it--a commonplace salutation enough, but it did not convey to
either in the present instance that impression.
Mark evidently wished to be invited to enter the house and Lotte,
blushing like a rose, passed the compliment upon him, not feeling
altogether sure that she was acting in accordance with the strict rules
of rigid propriety.
However, Mark found himself seated in the little room, admiring its
tasteful neatness, and chirruping to the little song bird, who hopped
about his perch, laid his head knowingly on one side, and cried “sweet”
to him almost as familiarly as it did to Lotte.
“I shall make no stranger of you, Mr. Wilton,” said Lotte, renewing her
work. “I am very busy, and my work has to be finished at a stated time.”
“Don’t make a stranger of me, I beg,” responded Mark, somewhat earnestly,
for after every inspection of Lotte’s figure and face, he grew more
anxious for friendly relations with her. “I will talk, and you can work
and listen.”
“And talk, too,” said Lotte, with a laugh. “My sex are not very good
listeners, unless they have the power to interpolate frequently,
you know; but I will try to be a model of attention and goodness. So
commence, if you please, sir.”
“I am acquainted with your merits and your virtues,” returned Mark. “Your
brother enlarged upon them as we came across the Atlantic together.
I knew a great deal about you before I saw you, but I was not quite
prepared, I confess, on meeting you, to find----”
“Him stand convicted of such gross exaggeration, as a result of his
blind partiality,” interposed Lotte, quickly.
“There you err, Miss Clinton; what I intended to say----”
“Had reference to your sister and your father. You told me so, you know,
Mr. Wilton, when you came in,” again interrupted Lotte; this time her
cheek heightened its colour, and her smile gave place to rather a grave
look.
Mark Wilton bowed.
“I feel your reproof, Miss Clinton,” he said, hastily; “pray acquit me
of having any intention to offend you, and, believe me, I will not again
give you cause to complain of the tone of my conversation.”
She turned upon him an expression of such beaming gratefulness, that he
was amply repaid for the momentary pang her observation--recalling
him to the object of his visit, and the grave look with which it was
accompanied--occasioned him.
He saw at once that in her humble, isolated position, she demanded his
respect; she perceived by the instant alteration in his manner, that
he was ready sincerely to accord it, not but that he had at first
involuntarily paid it, and was now only straying from it because he
had been led away by the turn of the conversation, and his sense of the
prettiness of her face.
As he saw the rising blush upon her clear, transparent cheek, he felt
himself become red, too, and he thought it was very ridiculous. It was
at this moment their eyes met, and he received her grateful glance with
a glow of deep gratification, and she read a language in his gaze, which
no words could have framed.
There was an embarrassing silence for a minute, and then Mark dashed
abruptly at the subject of his visit.
It appeared from what he stated that, although he had been to his
father’s late abode in the Regent’s Park, he had not made himself known
there, because his father and sister had quitted for the country, but
had contented himself by making a few inquiries, and in ascertaining
their present address.
He said, too, that he had endeavoured to see his old friend and
companion, Harry Vivian, but had not succeeded, as he, too, was away
from home.
Some business he had to transact in London, he added, was likely to
detain him about a week, and therefore, he told her that it had struck
him that it would be as well if he could obtain some little account of
the changes that had occurred during his absence from England to his
relatives, that he might be somewhat prepared for the new condition in
which he had been assured he should find them, and he looked to Lotte as
the person most capable of affording him that information.
Now, ordinarily, there would be nothing of interest or importance likely
to grow out of such an interview, and Mark might have put his questions,
and Lotte replied to them, without anything arising to move them out
of the even tenour of their way; but it happened that Lotte possessed
charms of feature and person of a peculiarly attractive kind, and Mark
was possessed of discrimination and taste. In addition to this, he was
gifted with an extremely handsome face, being a sun-browned likeness of
his sister Flora; and, as Lotte had taste and discernment, too, it is
not difficult to imagine that during the questioning and the replies,
that each should gradually confirm the favourable opinion of the other
which they had in the first instance formed.
We are loth to confess it, but at least two hours flew by before Mark
or Lotte had a notion of the length to which the interview had extended,
and then Mark rose, quite aware that it was time to leave. He was
very reluctant to do so, but he obtained permission to come again, if
once--if only once, to say good bye to her.
And to convey a message to Flora. Ha! Lotte had forgotten that. He
remembered it--that is to say, he conceived the suggestion, because it
pointed to an opportunity of calling upon Lotte at some future time with
her reply. Lotte was glad he had remembered it, she said she was, and
in truth she was, for, without acknowledging so much to herself, she was
pleased to think that there would be an opportunity of seeing him again
soon.
At last he was gone, and Lotte sat down to her work to think of him, to
ply her needle swiftly and mechanically, to have the material upon which
she worked every now and then blotted out from her sight, and nothing
left in its place but a rich brown face, and deep blue eyes.
Yet she was not so absorbed by her own pleasant thoughts that she wholly
forgot one who needed her attention, and who she knew was making a brave
effort to struggle with her trial of deep humiliation, to endure it with
patience, and to frame herself to meet whatever further mortifications
and privations she might have to undergo.
Lotte knew that to keep her in conversation, to look hopefully and in
a sanguine spirit to the future, while a dead silence was preserved
respecting the past, was the best mode of lifting her out of a killing
despondency, and, therefore, much as she was harrassed by the
incessant application her work demanded of her, she still, in her pure
unselfishness, made the time and opportunity to keep the mind of Helen
from dwelling upon the misery of her situation.
Thus, when sitting thinking of Mark Wilton, she remembered that Helen
was alone, and though she really, justly, had not an instant to spare
from her task, she ran lightly and briskly into her apartment, to tell
her that she was again free from visitors, and to persuade her to come
and sit with her, and tell her all about the beautiful places she had
visited abroad.
She found Helen kneeling by her bedside, her face buried in the
coverlet, and her hands clasped in anguish above her head.
She heard her sobs, and, bending over her, she raised her tenderly, and
supported her in her arms--
“Come with me,” she said, softly; “come and sit with me. You must not
remain alone, dear young lady. It makes you too sad. Come! come!”
She conducted Helen gently to her sitting-room, placed her upon the
sofa, and sat by her side. She pillowed her head upon her own soft
bosom, and she whispered in her ear--
“Your affliction is sore, indeed, but yet be comforted; for, if all
that you have told me be true, and from my heart’s depths I believe you,
there is a limit to your selfreproach. Bitter regret and wild despair
should be the last emotions of a dying heart. He yet lives, be sure, and
living, you are saved. Oh, did he but know that you called to him now
with appealing arms, how he would fly to you! Look up, then, dear young
lady, in strong conviction that God is merciful, and beneficent. His
hand has been laid heavily upon you, but if It has pressed you down,
believe that It will raise you up and sustain you in the time to come.”
By unremitting kindness and such generous sentiments, did Lotte seek to
win her from the indulgence of her deep sorrow, and at other times, by
simple questions about famous cities and spots, of which she had only
heard and Helen had visited, she contrived to restore her to something
like calmness.
It was while speaking--almost in a state of abstraction--that Helen’s
eyes involuntarily fell upon a glass which reflected the door of the
apartment; she uttered an exclamation of affrighted surprise, pressed
her hands over her face to conceal it, and cowering, as if she should
shrink into the place beneath at every step, tottered, rather than ran,
out of the room.
At the same moment, Lotte was startled by hearing a voice, whose tones
were quite unknown to her, exclaim--
“Beg pardon. Don’t let me disturb anybody. I want to see Miss Clinton.”
She turned round in her seat with the rapidity of lightning, and beheld,
standing in the doorway, a young gentleman, who was to her an utter
stranger.