THE PROFESSOR'S DEFEAT.
THE crisis which Helen had predicted was reached on the very evening
before Frank's arrival from college for the summer vacation. Roswell
Tracy made proposals of marriage to his father's ward. His proposals
were indignantly rejected. Hereupon Mr. Tracy interposed, and
represented the immense benefits which would accrue to Helen and her
brother, were the two families to be united by wedlock.
The young lady bit her lips till the blood came, trying to keep silent.
But when her guardian went on to urge her compliance, by describing the
deep affection of his son, she found it impossible longer to restrain
herself.
"Mr. Tracy," she began, "no arguments you can use will change my
determination. I despise the character of your son. He cares nothing
for me, as you are well aware. His aim is to become possessed of the
fortune my dear papa left me. Impossible, do you say? Then I am forced
to remind you of a conversation which took place between you and
him in this very room nearly a year ago, when you, Monson P. Tracy,
recommended me as a favorable match to your son; and when he, after
bestowing on me various epithets of contempt, was only persuaded into
the plot by your representations of the size of my fortune."
While she spoke, the excited girl stood opposite her horror-stricken
companion, her head haughtily thrown back, her eyes blazing with
defiance, until he really quailed before her.
"No wonder you blush," she exclaimed, noticing a deep flush on his
cheeks. "You, whom my father raised from poverty: You whom he trusted
with all that he most valued on earth. I have often blushed for you
when I have heard you speak his name.
"I have done more for you than you deserve, for I have never repeated
to any one, the precious conversation which I accidentally overheard.
What I shall do in the future I cannot say. My only desire now is to
leave the city. Before the usual time for resuming my studies, a mutual
agreement must be entered into as to my place of residence."
To say that the merchant was astonished by his ward's haughty defiance
of his wishes, would but feebly express the emotions which surged
through his mind as she, a young girl of seventeen summers, expressed
her sentiments without reserve concerning him and the plans he had made
for her future. He acknowledged to himself that for the time she had
conquered; but with an oath, he bound himself to revenge her insult.
He doubted her truthfulness when she said she had never repeated the
conversation she had overheard, for he judged her conduct by his own,
and could scarcely conceive of a sense of honor strong enough to
prevent her from publishing such an event to the disadvantage of one
she disliked.
"Yes," he soliloquized, as she with a contemptuous bow swept from the
room, "yes, I have been too squeamish with regard to her property. I
will invest those outlying bonds to-morrow."
A few hours later, when Frank reached the city, he found his sister
quite calm. The catastrophe she had dreaded for months had taken
place. The necessity for a change of residence had been made apparent.
Roswell's impertinent advances had received a check, and now she could
go forth in peace.
"Where shall we go?" asked Frank, seriously.
"Home to Woodbine Cottage, if the tenants can be persuaded to give up
the lease. I would leave to-night were it possible. But as it is not,
you must come with me while I bid good-by to my teachers and the few
friends I shall leave behind."
"So be it. But as I am within a few months of my majority, I must have
an interview with Mr. Tracy before I leave."
"You can do that while I pack my trunks."
A week later found our young friends once more the inmates of Nurse
Johnson's cottage. Their kind friend, Mr. Knowles, had undertaken to
negotiate with the tenants and endeavor to induce them to relinquish
their lease nine months before its legal termination.
In the meantime, they had received a hearty welcome to the parsonage
whenever they wished to be there. But as Frederic, the youngest son,
the Benjamin of the pastor's old age, was now at home, Helen shrank
from the invitation to take up her abode there, pleasant as on some
accounts, it would have been.
This young man, after graduating at Yale College, had passed two years
in Germany studying theology, and had now come to spend his last year
with his father, writing sermons and laboring among his father's flock.
In some respects the young theologue differed from most students. He
did not imagine that by secluding himself from his fellows and studying
the musty folios found in the library of his alma mater, he could most
effectually fit himself to work upon the minds of men. He considered
that after the study of God's word, the most effective "study of
mankind is man." And that in order to address men most successfully,
a pastor must interest himself in whatever concerns his people, must
visit them often at their homes, watch the workings of their minds
under different circumstances, search out their weaknesses as well as
their strength.
Mr. Frederic, as he was called by the villagers in distinction from his
father, was in his twenty-eighth year, though Sybil's junior by seven
summers. From a boy he had been a special favorite with Mr. Edmond, and
had received many tokens of his affection. It was by the generous aid
of his father's wealthy parishioner that his expenses abroad had been
defrayed. Of course it was to be expected that he would feel a keen
interest in everything which concerned the welfare of the children of
his patron.
Sybil was by no means a match-maker, and yet, for some time, she had
been forming a nice little plan by which her favorite brother was to
be able to settle among them as the successor of their father, and at
the same time become the possessor of a dear little wife and an ample
fortune.
I do not intend to advance the idea that Sybil was mercenary. Such a
charge would rouse up the whole inhabitants of Maytown in her defence.
But Sybil well knew, that while the labors of a faithful pastor are
great, his pay is small; that while he preaches benevolence, the
scarcity of his means will not allow him the luxury of practising
it. By her own experience, she well understood the petty cares and
vexations which arise from the receipt of a very limited salary; and
she did hope that her brother's mind would not be cramped and harassed
by such cases.
It was with a view to keep alive the interest Frederic naturally felt
in Frank and Helen, that this energetic woman made frequent mention of
them in her letters to Germany; and was delighted to find that in his
answers her brother always referred to them. But her dissatisfaction
was extreme, when, on his return, he confided to her the rise and
progress of an affection for an English lady he had met in Halle,
the encouragement he had received from her, and at last his keen
disappointment at her rejection of his proposal.
"I have lost faith in woman," he said, in a despondent tone, "and
therefore I shall never marry."
"Lost fiddlestick! Pshaw, Fred! I supposed you were more of a man. Just
because that flirt of a foreigner presented you the mitten, to give
up in that way! I'm ashamed of you. If your first parish treat you
ungratefully, do you intend to retire to a monastery, and say:
"'I shall never try another parish; I have lost faith in them'?"
"I'm afraid, after all, he isn't worthy of such a prize as my pet
Helen," she soliloquized, after he had retired. "Her fresh, warm heart
deserves a better return than he can give."