"And then I met with one who was my fate, he saw
me and I knew
'Twas Love, like swift lightning darted through
My spirit 'ere I thought, my heart was won--
Spell-bound to his, forever and forever!"
In this interesting meanwhile, life was unfolding its strange mysteries
just as unexpectedly to Honor Edgeworth as to Guy Elersley. After she
had returned from her pleasant drive, a half hour after Guy's departure
from his uncle's house, dinner was announced, immediately after which
Mr. Rayne had to excuse himself, having had an engagement "up town."
Honor, left to her own resources for distractions, repaired, as usual,
to the sitting room, and seated herself on the floor before the grate.
Her eyes assumed their old hazy look, she clasped her hands over her
knees and looked vacantly into the fire. What a strange girl this was!
So dreamy, so pensive. She was reasoning with herself now as she often
did, trying to feel thankful for all the good things with which her life
was blest, but though she acknowledged to herself that youth and health,
and comfort and kind friends were grand gifts of Providence, she could
not stifle the dissatisfaction that filled her as she yearned for
"something else." She could not say what it was, only she knew that she
yearned for a gratification that is not found in any of those things
that she enjoyed so profusely.
Oh, that "something else!" Why do we not stop and gather it by the
roadside we are passing now? We will not find it farther on. That which
is enticing us onward is only the illusionary flicker of a will
o'-the-wisp! We will stretch out our hands too late--when we have been
caught in its fatal snares, and then in the darkness and misery that
will surround us, we will feel how foolish we have been, and our cries
of despair and distress will be echoed back to our own ears in sounds of
mockery and scorn. Let us not build upon that "something else" that is
always buried in the to-morrows, for we are losing the present and
risking the future thereby.
Poor Honor, after thinking until her head sank wearily upon her
shoulder, sighed and rose up, pacing the room with her hands behind her
back. As she passed by the little _etagere_ she smiled curiously, and
stretching out her hand drew towards her Guy's book of poetic
selections. As she slid the pages through her delicate fingers, she
murmured slowly--
"I have said that my life is a terrible thing,
All ruined and-"
She stopped suddenly, for her eyes had fallen on the pencil marks traced
under these little verses she was accustomed to recite--her heart gave a
sudden bound--
"Oh, sweeter self, like me art thou astray"
She quoted the words in bewilderment. What did it mean? There was no one
in the house to write such meaning words there! That pretty, legible
penmanship did not correspond with anyone's she had ever known--except--
where was it she had noticed something just the same? Suddenly she
remembered. On the fly-leaf of the book were words traced in the same
hand. She turned over the leaves and compared them. There was no
doubting their identity. It was, then, G. E. who had written this
passionate little quotation. "G. E. How strange" she muttered. Was it
her "fairy prince" had come to visit her while she was away? She could
not fathom it--some hidden meaning lay stowed away under those pretty
words. "They were not there when last I had the book, of that I am
sure," Honor said meditatively. "Some one has been in here since, and
that 'some one' sympathises with me, that 'some one,' I feel, is my
long-sought ideal. Has destiny changed its frown into a smile at last
for this lone, eccentric girl, I wonder?" She dropped her hands
negligently, still clasping the mysterious volume, and looked wistfully
into the space before her. She was undergoing the change that comes over
each of us as soon as we yield our hearts to the strange influence that
fascinates them. We have been told that "Love is a great transformer,"
and if we had never heard it we would have found it out for ourselves.
Honor Edgeworth, sitting alone in the cosy enclosures of a cushioned
_fauteuil_, thought out the queer circumstance that had visited her
to-night; never noticing how fast time flitted by, never heeding the
stillness of advancing night, until Mr. Rayne's late arrival roused her
from her reverie, and brought her suddenly back from the sunlight of her
dreams to the grim darkness of the reality. Kissing him a sleepy good-
night, Honor left the room, henceforth haunted by the spirits of her
earliest conceptions of love, and went silently, almost gloomily, up to
her own handsome little room, bringing to her friendly pillow all the
hazardous hopes and fears, and interesting experiences of a love unborn
but well conceived.
In the gray of the following morning, the angels of slumber on their
upward flight must have borne one another an interesting message, for
Honor's guardian spirit had noted the happy smile creeping over her
face, as in her dreams she saw the noble hero of her waking reverie--and
Guy, as he tossed restlessly on his pillow, betrayed to his "silent
watcher" a heart overflowing with a new-born love for a creature to whom
he had yet spoken no word. And how those angels must have smiled,
knowing, as they did, that 'ere another day had passed those two would
have met, to recognize in one another the destiny of each!
"It will soon be four o'clock," Honor said to herself on the afternoon
of this same day, looking, as she spoke, towards the delicately tinted
window-sill. She had whiled away so many afternoons in this little
_boudoir_, or family sitting room, that she could tell by the progress
of the sun on the broad sill when to expect Mr. Rayne home from his
office. "He will be here in half-an-hour," she soliloquized, then
looking aimlessly around for distraction, Honor spied a half-knitted
stocking and a ponderous looking pair of gold-mounted spectacles lying
carefully on a side table. Smiling mischievously, she adjusted the
glasses, very low down on her nose, for of course she can see much
better _over_ than through them, and unwinding a yard or two of the
wool, tucked the ball professionally under her arm, and began slowly to
penetrate the intricate mysteries of "narrowing the gore." She had just
seated herself in the great rocking chair, when a very familiar sort of
tap at the door caused her to look up. She thought to make a joke for
Fitts, and feigned "Nanette" accordingly--she dropped her head on her
shoulder, slowly moving her needles all the while--and with closed lids,
and mouth half-way open, she considered the _tableau_ perfect. The knock
was not repeated, but she knew that the door had been opened. For a few
seconds longer she remained in her interesting attitude, and then
considering that Fitts was rather slow to appreciate a joke, she opened
her eyes, and was about to close her mouth, but the exclamation of
surprise that rose to her lips, kept it wide open for a second or two
longer. The blankest of blank stupid wonder looked out from her eyes
over the old-fashioned, gold-rimmed spectacles.
"I hope you won't think I am intruding," said the person at the door,
"but being quite at home in the house, and having received no answer
when I announced myself, I thought I might admit myself here as usual."
Honor detected an effort in the speaker's voice to refrain from laughing
outright, and did not feel too comfortable at the success of her joke.
"Did you--did you wish to see Mr. Rayne?" she stammered, dragging the
unsightly spectacles off her nose, and throwing them back on the table.
"I certainly expected he was here," the stranger answered mischievously,
"but I had mistaken you for him on coming suddenly in."
Honor felt mortified, while her companion evidently was very much
amused. She looked at him suddenly, her pretty face suffused with
blushes, but on raising her eyes they met his in a quick glance--the
large, passionate gray and the deep, dreamy blue penetrated each other's
depths in an instant--only during one short breath, and then Honor's
fell. She had been about to speak, but the mischief in his look reminded
her of the absurdity of this _recontre_, and she could only turn aside,
and show him by her shaking shoulders that she was forced to laugh.
At last the situation became too ridiculous, and Honor, between
smothered fits of laughter, said,
"If you have made any appointment with Mr. Rayne, he will not detain
you, I know. Be seated; I will enquire if he has yet arrived"
"Do not trouble yourself," her companion answered. "My uncle, Mr. Rayne
makes no ceremony for me, I assure I you. I must only await his
pleasure. But lest I have disturbed you--"
"Not at all," Honor interrupted, "I was only amusing myself."
"We may as well not be strangers," Guy said, courteously advancing
towards Honor, "for we are likely to meet very often henceforward. I am
Mr. Rayne's nephew, his sister's son, and I was the only toy in the big
nursery of his heart until Miss Edgeworth appeared, which young lady I
think I have at present the honor to address."
Honor bowed, and, extending her hand, said in her sweetest voice--
"For Mr. Rayne's sake we must certainly be friends,"--then feeling a
little more at home with her visitor, she continued, "As no one comes in
here unannounced, I ventured to attempt a little disguise this
afternoon. I mistook your knock for some one's of the household, and had
just struck the last attitude of my assumed character when you caught
me--I hope the effect on your nerves was nothing serious," and as she
spoke this in her bewitching confusion Guy felt like taking her up in
his arms, little bundle of blushes and smiles as she looked, and
devouring her, but before he had time for word or action, the door
opened again, and this time Henry Rayne bustled in, glaring in
bewilderment upon them--
"Why! You two young rascals, how did you come together? Here you've
cheated me out of anticipated pleasure by finding one another out behind
my back--this is too bad!" and Mr. Rayne as he spoke looked suspiciously
at each of them.
"Oh, Mr. Rayne," and "Really, uncle," broke simultaneously from their
lips, and then Guy, advancing, explained the interesting circumstances
of their premature introduction.
"Well, it's just as well," Henry Rayne said, laughing, "we are all to be
the one family henceforth, and the sooner it began the better--sit down
Honor--sit down my boy," continued he, drawing chairs towards the fire,
"come Guy, tell us the news, you have nothing else to do but gather it."
It was all over and done, those hands that had been groping in the
darkness for so long, had met at length in one another's clasp. True it
was, that no word had yet betrayed the feeling of either heart, no
action, no sign had been made, and yet each knew full well that they had
met at a threshold which they were both destined to cross, hand in hand.
It was not presumption on either side, but each felt so truly that it
would be easy now to love, that they had met. It seemed as though one
had sought the other for a long tune, and that now they had met never,
never to part.
It will avail us nothing to dwell upon the details that made up the
happy days of Honor Edgeworth's life after her meeting with Guy
Elersley. To those who know what it is to breathe, live, and act under
the soothing influence of a first love, the page would be a superfluous
one, and to those for whom such a blessed phase of life is yet among the
things to be, mine must not be the pen that will spoil the luxury
thereof by anticipating its joy--and again, to the wrinkled brows and
aching hearts for which such a thing lies among the "might have beens,"
oh, I will not surely speak--I see their blinding tears--I hear a long,
mournful sigh--somebody's fate is cursed, somebody's hope is trampled,
somebody's heart is withered and dead! There remain only those who live
their love-days in a holy remembrance, those who, in going backward
through time go
"--hand in hand
With spirits from the shadowland,"
and to those I whisper the words of our poet, and say--
"'Tis better to have loved and lost,
Than never to have loved at all."
All I will say is, that the sun which set upon the world on the day
when, for the first time, Guy and Honor linked hands, never, since nor
before, went down upon any two creatures who were more thoroughly
satisfied with themselves than were these two.
When Guy left Mr. Rayne's house, the evening was far spent--and such an
evening! If an exclamation point cannot imply its happiness it must
remain a mystery. Long after he had bade his earnest "good-night," Honor
and her guardian sat together over the dying coals and chatted
pleasantly. It was their custom to hold this nightly gossip no matter at
how late an hour their visitors left them.
"And so that is my brave nephew for you," Henry Rayne said, as Honor
stood up and placed her chair against the wall, "How do you like him?"
Like him? If he could have seen her averted face--her eyes--her mouth!
"Don't you ask an opinion a little soon?" she replied, so carelessly,
that the shrewdest observer would be baffled.
"Well, I don't mean to ask you if you're crazy about him, or anything
like that," Mr. Rayne said, half-laughing, "but do you take to him, do
you think you will be _friends_? That's what I'd like to know."
"Oh," she exclaimed, disguising her excitement in a smile of surprise,
"I do not doubt that, at least so far as _I_ am concerned, I have been
friends with more--with less--I mean with more--no, with _less_
intereresting people."
"Gracious! it seems to have puzzled you if you have," Henry Rayne said,
mischievously, as he saw her color and grow impatient with herself, "you
seem at a loss to know on what equality you would put poor Guy's
interest"
"Now, you needn't teaze, just because I'm dreadfully sleepy and can't
talk right; I won't say another word, only--Good-night," and kissing him
brusquely on the cheek, she skipped out of the room.
But the subject had not dropped through with these remarks.
The following day as Honor sat in the library alone, Mr. Rayne bustled
in, and sat down beside her, as he said, to read her some interesting
item from the morning _Citizen_, but instead of leaving her again, Honor
saw that he was lingering in the room purposely. (I wonder if anyone
ever yet loitered around a place pretendingly to no purpose without
immediately betraying that he was full of purpose.) After Henry Rayne
had looked at the titles of several books, and gazed vacantly at the
paintings that decorated the walls, and raised the cover of a massive
ink-stand just to drop it again, he made a bold stroke and began his
subject as though it had only entered his head at that very moment.
"Honor," he said somewhat timidly, "I was going to ask you to do
something, last night, but you left me so suddenly that I had to put it
off."
"Oh, I am so sorry," Honor answered, raising her lace frame to her
mouth, not to hide her face, but only to bite off an obstinate knot of
thread that provoked her. "Is it too late, now?" she queried anxiously,
looking at him.
"Oh, no; it's not too late. It's about Guy."
"Guy?"
"Yes."
"Why, what can _I_ have to do with Guy?"
"Well, I just want you to promise me you will do all you are able. If
you do that, I can almost promise you I will never ask you to do me a
favor again."
The puzzled, asking look in her gray eyes deepened, a curious smile
stole round her lips.
"I need not tell you how strange this is to me," she said slowly, "you
must know that you proposed an enigma which I cannot solve."
"Come here, Honor," Mr. Rayne said seriously. She laid down her work and
went towards him. He was sitting in a velvet arm-chair, and she knelt
beside him, with her white, delicate hands clasped on the ruby
upholstering. He put one arm gently around her, and as he smoothed her
wavy hair with one hand, he asked her earnestly,
"Honor, you know how much good is done in the world by mere contact, do
you not?"
"Of course I do, Mr. Rayne; good and evil alike have been kept
circulating from the beginning by individuals."
"That is so. Well, now, don't you think it is a pity when there is a
very susceptible person, one who would be good if he was led, or who
would be wicked if he was led--don't you think it a pity, I ask, that
such a person as that should go to ruin because there is no good
influence open to him in his life?"
"Undoubtedly," the girl answered seriously. "But Mr. Rayne, no one need
be wicked if he wishes to be good, evil is not forced on us you know."
"I know that, my child, but we are not always as strong as our
inclinations--the spirit is one thing and the flesh another. Now, I want
to appoint you a mission--you are a good girl, and your pleasure is in
doing good. Supposing you would favor me by doing good at my request?"
Honor started a little, and looked enquiringly into his face.
"You know you have only to tell me your wish, dear Mr. Rayne. I wish I
could have anticipated it; but as that could not be, I pray you tell me
immediately. What can I do for you worth the asking?"
"I want you to promise me that you will begin right away to work your
influence over Guy." The color rose to her cheeks, and the smile faded
out of her eyes and mouth. "This, mind, is a profound secret, Guy has
neither father nor mother--he has no home, nor no real friends. I, like
the rest, have spoiled him but God has sent me you in time. I know that
my dead sister would rebuke me severely were she to see her boy, my
charge, so reckless and so dissipated. But I fancy it is not so much my
fault--my influence could never change him much.--I want you, for my
sake, to try yours. You have only to meet him often, and talk with him.
If he has eyes at all he must see in our practical life all the theories
he has heard preached to him so often. Show him in all the indirect ways
you can, how foolish and frivolous are the ways of society to-day. He is
a clever boy, and susceptible, and your trouble will not be lost. Come,
now, will you promise me only to try, for my sake?"
"How you exaggerate the capacity of a weak woman," she said a little
sadly, then, after a moment's pause, she continued--"It is no trifling
mission you appoint to me, Mr. Rayne; it is full of responsibilities.
But there!" and she clapped her little hand firmly into his, "That means
my strongest resolution--I will do my best You can ask no more."
"God bless you" the old man murmured slowly, squeezing the slender
fingers tenderly between both his hands, "I am sure you will never
regret it."
No other word was spoken. Henry Rayne had left the room, and Honor stood
there alone--stood with folded hands and dreamy eyes--thinking. What a
strange request this had been! How was she going to fulfil her promise
without betraying the real impulse that had spurred her to make it? How
was she going to work her way into his confidence, and yet guard her
own? Oh, if this were a task for Mr. Rayne's sake only, how easily she
would convert it into a pleasure--but she had promised, that cancelled
all her misgivings. She would do it now, if it were in woman's power,
she would make it her duty, and with a resolute will and an anxious
heart, surely the accomplishment would not prove too hard--"Only--if I
had not seen my want supplied in him--if I had not recognized in him the
hero of my life's dream. Oh, Guy! What a joy it will be to me if I can
teach you to come to me, turning your back upon gaiety, and pleasure,
and temptation, to sit by my side, when the voice of a more powerful
tempter is stifling mine. What joy for me then!--but no, I am wrong!--it
is not my gratification I have been sent to seek; this is a mere duty.
If I had loathed you at this moment, my duty is still the same. Just
now, it is not _your_ sake nor _mine_--it is Henry Rayne's."
The door opened slowly and the croaky voice of the old male servant
broke upon her reverie.
"Beg pardon Miss, but dinner is served."
Heroically she stowed away her emotions, the old pleasant smile stole
back into its home, and with a beaming face and cheerful step she passed
into the dining-room.