From that evening till the day Mrs. Ashleigh and Lilian went on the
dreaded visit, I was always at their house, when my avocations allowed
me to steal to it; and during those few days, the happiest I had ever
known, it seemed to me that years could not have more deepened my
intimacy with Lilian’s exquisite nature, made me more reverential of its
purity, or more enamoured of its sweetness. I could detect in her but
one fault, and I rebuked myself for believing that it was a fault.
We see many who neglect the minor duties of life, who lack watchful
forethought and considerate care for others, and we recognize the
cause of this failing in levity or egotism. Certainly, neither of those
tendencies of character could be ascribed to Lilian. Yet still in daily
trifles there was something of that neglect, some lack of that care and
forethought. She loved her mother with fondness and devotion, yet it
never occurred to her to aid in those petty household cares in which her
mother centred so much of habitual interest. She was full of tenderness
and pity to all want and suffering, yet many a young lady on the Hill
was more actively beneficent,--visiting the poor in their sickness, or
instructing their children in the Infant Schools. I was persuaded
that her love for me was deep and truthful; it was clearly void of all
ambition; doubtless she would have borne, unflinching and contented,
whatever the world considers to be a sacrifice and privation,--yet I
should never have expected her to take her share in the troubles
of ordinary life. I could never have applied to her the homely but
significant name of helpmate. I reproach myself while I write for
noticing such defect--if defect it were--in what may be called the
practical routine of our positive, trivial, human existence. No doubt it
was this that had caused Mrs. Poyntz’s harsh judgment against the wisdom
of my choice. But such chiller shade upon Lilian’s charming nature was
reflected from no inert, unamiable self-love. It was but the consequence
of that self-absorption which the habit of revery had fostered. I
cautiously abstained from all allusion to those visionary deceptions,
which she had confided to me as the truthful impressions of spirit, if
not of sense. To me any approach to what I termed “superstition” was
displeasing; any indulgence of fantasies not within the measured
and beaten track of healthful imagination more than displeased me in
her,--it alarmed. I would not by a word encourage her in persuasions
which I felt it would be at present premature to reason against, and
cruel indeed to ridicule. I was convinced that of themselves these
mists round her native intelligence, engendered by a solitary and musing
childhood, would subside in the fuller daylight of wedded life. She
seemed pained when she saw how resolutely I shunned a subject dear to
her thoughts. She made one or two timid attempts to renew it, but
my grave looks sufficed to check her. Once or twice indeed, on such
occasions, she would turn away and leave me, but she soon came back;
that gentle heart could not bear one unkindlier shade between itself
and what it loved. It was agreed that our engagement should be, for the
present, confided only to Mrs. Poyntz. When Mrs. Ashleigh and Lilian
returned, which would be in a few weeks at furthest, it should be
proclaimed; and our marriage could take place in the autumn, when I
should be most free for a brief holiday from professional toils.
So we parted-as lovers part. I felt none of those jealous fears
which, before we were affianced, had made me tremble at the thought of
separation, and had conjured up irresistible rivals. But it was with a
settled, heavy gloom that I saw her depart. From earth was gone a glory;
from life a blessing.