LEAF-GLORY.
There was a pretty general break-up at Outledge during the week
following. The tableaux were the _finale_ of the season's gayety,--of
this particular little episode, at least, which grew out of the
association together of these personages of our story. There might come
a later set, and later doings; but this last week of August sent the
mere summer-birds fluttering. Madam Routh must be back in New York, to
prepare for the reopening of her school; Mrs. Linceford had letters from
her husband, proposing to meet her by the first, in N----, and so the
Haddens would be off; the Thoresbys had stayed as long as they cared to
in any one place where there seemed no special inducement; General
Ingleside was going through the mountains to Dixville Notch. Rose
Ingleside,--bright and charming as her name; just a fit flower to put
beside our Ladies' Delight, finding out at once, as all girls and women
did, her sweetness, and leaning more and more to the rare and delicate
sphere of her quiet attraction,--Oliver and Dakie Thayne,--these were
his family party; but there came to be question about Leslie and
Delight. Would not they make six? And since Mrs. Linceford and her
sisters must go, it seemed so exactly the thing for them to fall into;
otherwise Miss Goldthwaite's journey hither would hardly seem to have
been worth while. Early September was so lovely among the hills;
opportunities for a party to Dixville Notch would not come every day; in
short, Dakie had set his heart upon it, Rose begged, the General was as
pressing as true politeness would allow, and it was settled.
"Only," Sin Saxon said suddenly, on being told, "I should like if you
would tell me, General Ingleside, the precise military expression
synonymous with 'taking the wind out of one's sails.' Because that's
just what you've done for me."
"My dear Miss Saxon! In what way?"
"Invited my party,--some of them,--and taken my road. That's all. I
spoke first, though I didn't speak out loud. See here!" And she produced
a letter from her mother, received that morning. "Observe the date, if
you please,--August 24. 'Your letter reached me yesterday.' And it had
traveled round, as usual, two days in papa's pocket, beside. I always
allow for that. 'I quite approve your plan; provided, as you say, the
party be properly matronized. I'--H'm--h'm! that refers to little
explanations of my own. Well, all is, I was going to do this very
thing,--with enlargements. And now Miss Craydocke and I may collapse."
"Why, when with you and your enlargements we might make the most
admirable combination? At least, the Dixville road is open to all."
"Very kind of you to say so,--the first part, I mean,--if you could
possibly have helped it. But there are insurmountable obstacles on that
Dixville road--to us. There's a lion in the way. Don't you see we should
be like the little ragged boys running after the soldier-company? We
couldn't think of putting ourselves in that 'bony light,' especially
before the eyes of Mrs.--Grundy." This last, as Mrs. Thoresby swept
impressively along the piazza in full dinner costume.
"Unless you go first, and we run after you," suggested the General.
"All the same. You talked Dixville to her the very first evening, you
know. No, nobody can have an original Dixville idea any more. And I've
been asking them,--the Josselyns, and Mr. Wharne and all, and was just
coming to the Goldthwaites; and now I've got them on my hands, and I
don't know where in the world to take them. That comes of keeping an
inspiration to ripen. Well, it's a lesson of wisdom! Only, as Effie says
about her housekeeping, the two dearest things in living are butter and
experience!"
Amidst laughter and banter and repartee, they came to it, of course; the
most delightful combination and joint arrangement. Two wagons, the
General's and Dr. Ingleside's two saddle-horses, Frank Scherman's little
mountain mare, that climbed like a cat, and was sure-footed as a
chamois,--these, with a side-saddle for the use of a lady sometimes upon
the last, made up the general equipment of the expedition. All Mrs.
Grundy knew was that they were wonderfully merry and excited together,
until this plan came out as the upshot.
The Josselyns had not quite consented at once, though their faces were
bright with a most thankful appreciation of the kindness that offered
them such a pleasure; nay, that entreated their companionship as a thing
so genuinely coveted to make its own pleasure complete. Somehow, when
the whole plan developed, there was a little sudden shrinking on Sue's
part, perhaps on similar grounds to Sin Saxon's perception of
insurmountable obstacles; but she was shyer than Sin of putting forth
her objections, and the general zeal and delight, and Martha's longing
look, unconscious of cause why not, carried the day.
There had never been a blither setting off from the Giant's Cairn. All
the remaining guests were gathered to see them go. There was not a mote
in the blue air between Outledge and the crest of Washington. All the
subtile strength of the hills--ores and sweet waters and resinous
perfumes and breath of healing leaf and root distilled to absolute
purity in the clear ether that sweeps only from such bare,
thunder-scoured summits--made up the exhilarant draught in which they
drank the mountain joy and received afar off its baptism of delight.
It was beautiful to see the Josselyns so girlish and gay; it was lovely
to look at old Miss Craydocke, with her little tremors of pleasure, and
the sudden glistenings in her eyes; Sin Saxon's pretty face was clear
and noble, with its pure impulse of kindliness, and her fun was like a
sparkle upon deep waters. Dakie Thayne rushed about in a sort of general
satisfaction which would not let him be quiet anywhere. Outsiders looked
with a kind of new, half-jealous respect on these privileged few who had
so suddenly become the "General's party." Sin Saxon whispered to Leslie
Goldthwaite: "It's neither his nor mine, honeysuckle; it's
yours,--Henny-penny and all the rest of it, as Mrs. Linceford said."
Leslie was glad with the crowning gladness of her bright summer.
"That girl has played her cards well," Mrs. Thoresby said of her, a
little below her voice, as she saw the General himself making her
especially comfortable with Cousin Delight in a back seat.
"Particularly, my dear madam," said Marmaduke Wharne, coming close and
speaking with clear emphasis, "as she could not possibly have known that
she had a trump in her hand!"
* * * * *
To tell of all that week's journeying, and of Dixville Notch; the
adventure, the brightness, the beauty, and the glory; the sympathy of
abounding enjoyment, the waking of new life that it was to some of them;
the interchange of thought, the cementing of friendships,--would be to
begin another story, possibly a yet longer one. Leslie's summer,
according to the calendar, is already ended. Much in this world must
pause unfinished, or come to abrupt conclusion. People "die suddenly at
last," after the most tedious illnesses. "Married and lived happy ever
after," is the inclusive summary that winds up many an old tale whose
time of action only runs through hours. If in this summer-time with
Leslie Goldthwaite your thoughts have broadened somewhat with hers, some
questions for you have been partly answered; if it has appeared to you
how a life enriches itself by drawing toward and going forth into the
life of others through seeing how this began with her, it is no
unfinished tale that I leave with you.
A little picture I will give you, farther on, a hint of something
farther yet, and say good-by.
Some of them came back to Outledge, and stayed far into the still, rich
September. Delight and Leslie sat before the Green Cottage one morning,
in the heart of a golden haze and a gorgeous bloom.
All around the feet of the great hills lay the garlands of early-ripened
autumn. You see nothing like it in the lowlands,--nothing like the fire
of the maples, the carbuncle-splendor of the oaks, the flash of scarlet
sumachs and creepers, the illumination of every kind of little leaf in
its own way, upon which the frost touch comes down from those tremendous
heights that stand rimy in each morning's sun, trying on white caps that
by and by they shall pull down heavily over their brows, till they cloak
all their shoulders also in the like sculptured folds, to stand and
wait, blind, awful chrysalides, through the long winter of their death
and silence.
Delight and Leslie had got letters from the Josselyns and Dakie Thayne.
There was news in them such as thrills always the half-comprehending
sympathies of girlhood. Leslie's vague suggestion of romance had become
fulfillment. Dakie Thayne was wild with rejoicing that dear old Noll was
to marry Sue. "She had always made him think of Noll, and his ways and
likings, ever since that day of the game of chess that by his means
came to grief. It was awful slang, but he could not help it: it was just
the very jolliest go!"
Susan Josselyn's quiet letter said,--"That kindness which kept us on and
made it beautiful for us, strangers, at Outledge, has brought to me, by
God's providence, this great happiness of my life."
After a long pause of trying to take it in, Leslie looked up. "What a
summer this has been! So full; so much has happened! I feel as if I had
been living such a great deal!"
"You have been living in others' lives. You have had a great deal to do
with what has happened."
"Oh, Cousin Delight! I have only been _among_ it! I could not
_do_--except such a very little."
"There is a working from us beyond our own. But if our working runs with
that?--You have done more than you will ever know, little one." Delight
Goldthwaite spoke very tenderly. Her own life, somehow, had been closely
touched, through that which had grown and gathered about Leslie. "It
depends on that abiding. 'In me, and I in you; so shall ye bear much
fruit.'"
She stopped. She would not say more. Leslie thought her talking rather
wide of the first suggestion; but this child would never know, as
Delight had said, what a centre, in her simple, loving way, she had
been for the working of a purpose beyond her thought.
Sin Saxon came across the lawn, crowned with gold and scarlet, trailing
creepers twined about her shoulders, and flames of beauty in her full
hands. "Miss Craydocke says she praised God with every leaf she took.
I'm afraid I forgot to, for the little ones. But I was so greedy and so
busy, getting them all for her. Come, Miss Craydocke; we've got no end
of pressing to do, to save half of them!"
"She can't do enough for her. Oh, Cousin Delight, the leaves _are_
glorified, after all! Asenath never was so charming; and she is more
beautiful than ever!"
Delight's glance took in also another face than Asenath's, grown into
something in these months that no training or taking thought could have
done for it. "Yes," she said, in the same still way in which she had
spoken before, "that comes too,--as God wills. All things shall be
added."
* * * * *
My hint is of a Western home, just outside the leaping growth and
ceaseless stir of a great Western city; a large, low, cosy mansion, with
a certain Old World mellowness and rest in its aspect,--looking forth,
even, as it does on one side, upon the illimitable sunset-ward sweep of
the magnificent promise of the New; on the other, it catches a glimpse,
beyond and beside the town, of the calm blue of a fresh-water ocean.
The place is "Ingleside;" the General will call it by no other than the
family name,--the sweet Scottish synonym for Home-corner. And here,
while I have been writing and you reading these pages, he has had them
all with him; Oliver and Susan, on their bridal journey, which waited
for summer-time to come again, though they have been six months married;
Rose, of course, and Dakie Thayne, home in vacation from a great school
where he is studying hard, hoping for West Point by and by; Leslie
Goldthwaite, who is Dakie's inspiration still; and our Flower, our
Pansy, our Delight,--golden-eyed Lady of innumerable sweet names.
The sweetest and truest of all, says the brave soldier and high-souled
gentleman, is that which he has persuaded her to wear for life,--Delight
Ingleside.