trifle. I am much obliged to you for your advice, and for your threats
I am not at all troubled at them. If Maria has been weak enough to
betray a friend who meant to do her a service, I pity her from the
bottom of my heart, and regret that her confiding disposition should be
so abused." And she glanced in an unmistakable way from Olive to the
gentleman.
"Did you mean to do her confiding disposition a service when you told
her that Miss McHenry made insinuations against her character to my
father?" inquired Mrs. Tower. "Permit me to tell you that I shall
inform him of the way you have used his name in this matter in order
that he may take such steps as he thinks best."
Miss Tucker heard this with another sigh, as though in pity for such
deep depravity, but she did not seem inclined to say any more, and
walked in a dignified manner out of the room. The next thing heard of
her was that she had gone to spend some time with a school-mate who
lived at the West, somewhere about Green Bay.
Olive was very glad, for she disliked very much the idea of a
collision, and feared further mischief. The Lamberts, heartily ashamed
of being influenced by such a person, were more her friends than ever,
and Olive took pains to show them by every means in her power that she
did not cherish any resentment. Isabella improved in usefulness every
day, and Olive grew more and more attached to her the more she knew her.
Olive's Sunday-school class at last began to reward her for the pains
she had taken. When Mr. Gregory announced an approaching confirmation,
four of the oldest girls gave in their names at once. Julia stood aloof
for the time. She seemed very anxious to make a profession of her
faith, but was afraid she should not always persevere, and that she
would be the means of bringing discredit upon her profession.
"But Julia," said Olive, "you are not required to persevere always all
at once. Every duty has its day, and for every day strength will be
provided according to the need. It is not as if you were dependent on
yourself, you know, and is it not something like a distrust of God's
mercy to doubt his giving you that power which he has promised?"
Julia pondered.
"It is such a little time since I began to think about such things.
Miss McHenry, I used to think I was so much superior to the rest of the
girls because I did not care for going to church, and religious books
and such things."
"But you do not feel so now, Julia."
"No indeed! I can not tell you how ashamed and humbled I am when I
look back at that time. It is more that than any thing else which
discourages me now, for fear that I should go back and be as proud and
careless as ever."
"I do not think there is much danger of that, Julia. You could never
forget that feeling of unworthiness, and of the mercy which brought you
to the knowledge of it."
"Perhaps not; and yet people do become careless, you know."
"Yes; and they are much more likely to become so if they have nothing
outward to prevent them. You will have the communion, coming at
least every month, to make you examine your self, to remind you of
your Saviour's dying love and mercy, to renew your self-consecration
to himself and his Church. Will not this be a great help to you in
maintaining a Christian character?"
Julia thought so, but she still seemed to feel that she was unworthy.
"So are we all, my dear. There never was a communicant yet who was
worthy of the mercy of God. But if, with all your unworthiness, you
have not hesitated to accept the salvation of which the communion is
only the outward and visible sign, why should you be stopped by the
sign itself?"
Julia thought and considered, and finally made up her mind to take
the step. She had left school, but still continued to be a frequent
visitor, and Olive was very fond of her, though she had given her
more trouble than any other girl in school. But there was something
about her so truthful and hearty, and so far removed from the aimless
frivolity that wearied her life out in so many of her other pupils,
that she was ready to forgive a good deal of willfulness.
If Julia was sometimes conceited, and now and then rebellious, she
learned her lessons and took an interest in them, and in things which
illustrated them. She really thought and talked, instead of dreaming
and chattering. Then she was eminently truthful, and resorted to none
of the mean artifices which some of the other girls used to conceal
their faults. She would have scorned to bring in a false excuse for
being late in the morning, or to lay a plot for getting called out of
school half an hour before it was over, or pretend a headache or weak
eyes as an excuse for neglecting a lesson.
With many of Olive's pupils, seriousness upon any subject whatever,
seemed all but out of the question. Senseless chattering and equally
senseless giggling seemed their only idea of social intercourse, and
any attempt to develop or employ their higher faculties only made them
sullen. Educating these young persons was almost out of the question.
The only thing that could be done was to drag them perseveringly
through a course of lessons in hopes that some knowledge would stick
to them which might afterwards bear fruit. This was hard work enough,
and thankless enough, but now and then one would come out from her
companions, and after a while attain to a respectable degree of
learning, and these few examples encouraged Olive to persevere.
Olive's warm friendship with Ruth and Augusta continued and increased,
and it did them all good. In Mrs. Tower indeed the improvement was not
so apparent, but in Ruth every one saw it. She was as cheerful and
useful as ever, but she was much gentler, and did not say nearly so
many sharp things. Moreover, she was more careful in her manners and
dress. Her superb hair was put up with some attention to the becoming,
as well as to the shortest possible time in which it could be put up,
and her general appearance was much improved.
The Milton and Tennyson war still waged sometimes, but with diminished
force. Olive had learned to see new beauties in the English classics,
and Ruth allowed that not many poems were superior to the "Palace of
Art," and that Dryden never wrote any thing equal to "Œnone." Ruth
even treated the ingenious Mr. Ruskin with something short of absolute
contempt, a degree of toleration at which Augusta never expected her to
arrive. And Augusta, who had a secret leaning to candlesticks, allowed
that in the present state of the world, it would be better worth while
to build four churches worth four thousand dollars a piece and leave
the rest of the money for parish purposes than to erect one edifice
costing fifty thousand.
They had been studying German together during the last winter, Olive
acting as teacher, and they found a new source of pleasure as they
learned to read it with some degree of facility. Together they admired
and pitied Egmont, and heartily detested Wilhelm Meister, and set
critics at defiance by alternately ridiculing and railing at Faust.
They studied the beloved Schiller, laughed over "Puss in Boots," and
regretted that Goethe's years of life had not been granted to the good
and pure Fouqué and Novalis.
Mr. Gregory shook his head sometimes over these German raptures, and
wished that they would spend the time upon Greek. And Mrs. Felton
was made very uneasy on their account, having imbibed the idea
that all the Germans since Luther's time were either infidels or
transubstantialists—meaning probably trancendentalists—but as Ruth lost
none of her fondness for the Bible and religious reading, and seemed
to enjoy her lessons very much, her fears gradually subsided, and she
regarded the obnoxious volumes with more complacency, even when opened
in her presence.
But before long an event happened which for some time put an end to
their studies. One evening the three friends were sitting over their
books in the pleasant little study at the parsonage which looked out
upon the road. It was a warm spring evening, and the long windows were
thrown open to their full extent to admit the spring air and the last
lingering rays of the sun.
"Decidedly it is too dark for study," said Augusta, closing her book.
"I have been looking for you to find that out," replied Ruth; "I have
been unable to tell one letter from another for the last half-hour."
"There is nothing very strange in that," answered Augusta, laughing.
"You never will be able to tell your 'B's and your 'V's apart, even in
broad daylight. If we were to study two years, I should expect to find
you looking for 'beugen' among the 'v's."
"There is some one coming to see your father," remarked Olive, glancing
out of the window; "do you know who it is?"
"It is no one I ever saw before, I am sure," said Augusta. "How
miserably ill he looks! Bless me, Ruth, what is the matter? You look as
if you had seen a ghost."
Ruth was indeed extremely pale. She stood looking at the stranger, who
came straight across the grass to the study-windows, as though familiar
with the ways of the place. He was a respectably-dressed man, tall and
large, but looking very pale and ill. The girls glanced from him to
Ruth in surprise, seeing nothing in his appearance to cause alarm. But
before they could speak, he reached the window.
Ruth sprang forward to meet him, and seemed as though she would have
fallen, but he caught her in his arms.
"God bless you, Ruth!" he exclaimed. "You knew me, if no one else did."
Augusta caught his hand and looked in his face.
"Frederick! Can it be possible?"
"I did not think I was so altered that no one could recognize me," he
said mournfully. "Yes, Augusta, I have come back to see if there is a
corner of the old house left for me—to die in," he added in a lower
tone, as he sank upon the sofa. "Where are my father and mother?"
"Shall I go and find them?" asked Olive in a low tone. And without
waiting for an answer, she hurried away.
She met Mr. and Mrs. Gregory sauntering slowly homeward through the
deepening twilight, the one burdened with a basket of early radishes
and lettuce from a neighbor's hotbeds, the other with a bunch of
flowers.
"Where are you hurrying at such a rate?" asked the lady in wonder.
"I was going to look for you," replied Olive breathlessly, though
trying to conceal her agitation. "There is a gentleman at the house
that wants very much to see you."
"Why, child, how flurried you are!" exclaimed Mr. Gregory. "Is it
Walter?"
"It is no one I ever saw before," said Olive, as they walked along more
quickly, "but Augusta and Ruth know him, and sent me to look for you."
"Augusta and Ruth! Husband, can it be—!" And Mrs. Gregory quickened her
steps almost to a run, to keep pace with her husband's long strides.
Olive followed at a distance, thinking she might be needed, and sat
down in the parlor. She heard a faint scream, an exclamation from Mrs.
Gregory, and then the door closed between them. She sat patiently for
half an hour, struggling against a forlorn kind of feeling of being a
stranger, and out of place. Why is it that this feeling so often comes
to us in the presence of joy in which we have no share, and so seldom
when the scene at which we are present is one of sorrow? She was just
wondering what Mrs. Felton would imagine had become of them, when she
heard Augusta's voice calling to her.
"What—are you sitting here in the dark? Come in, do. I am afraid we
have not been very hospitable, but we have been so surprised with
Frederick, that—"
"That you have forgotten me," said Olive smiling; "and no wonder. How
is Ruth?"
"She hardly knows, herself, I believe. Was it not wonderful that she
should have known him the first moment? It is six years since we have
any of us seen him. Poor fellow! He is sadly worn and tired now, but I
hope he will be better to-morrow."
"Where has he been all this time?" asked Olive.
"Oh! In many places here and there. Mostly in the Indian Ocean. He has
come home quite a rich man he says."
Olive could not so much wonder at Ruth's recognition of her long-absent
lover, when she looked at him as he sat between his father and mother
on the sofa. He was so exactly like Augusta, despite his beard and
moustache, and all other differences, she thought she should have known
him anywhere. He looked pale and worn, for all his bronze complexion,
and there was a languor in his manners which seemed to indicate either
illness or great fatigue. One hand was clasped in his mother's, the
other rested on his father's arm. But his eyes seemed all for Ruth,
who sat leaning back in the rocking-chair, looking pale, but with an
expression of intense yet subdued happiness that fully transfigured her
face, and made Olive wonder how she could ever have thought her plain.
Augusta was the only one of the party who looked sad. Her brother had
left them in the beginning of her engagement, and since then she had
been a beloved wife, a widow, and a childless mother.
"Ruth, what will your mother think has become of us?" asked Olive,
after a while. "We ought to have been at home by eight, and it is now
eleven."
"We must go," said Ruth, rousing herself. "I had no idea that it
was so late. I wonder what mother will say?" she continued, as they
were walking homeward by themselves, having declined Mr. Gregory's
escort. "Would you mind telling her about it, Olive, and letting me go
up-stairs? I want so much to be alone."
Olive consented, of course, and as they found the door open, Ruth went
straight to her own apartment, and Olive went into the sitting-room,
where she found Mrs. Felton asleep on the sofa.
"Bless me. Olive!" she said peevishly, as she roused herself and rubbed
her eyes. "Where have you been all this time? Here I have been sitting
up for you till my eyes are fairly out of my head. Where is Ruth?"
"She is gone up-stairs," replied Olive. "I am sorry we kept you up,
but we could not help it very well. They have had rather an exciting
evening at the parsonage. Frederick has come home."
"Why, do tell!" exclaimed Mrs. Felton, wide awake at once. "Well, if
I ever! You don't say he has come home! Why, every one thought he was
dead long ago. And so he has come back! When did he get here? Tell me
all about it, won't you?"
Olive complied, making her tale as circumstantial as possible. When she
mentioned the circumstance of Ruth's being the first to recognize the
stranger, Mrs. Felton exclaimed: "There now! That is just like her!
I never did see such a girl. I dare say she would have him now if he
asked her, though she has refused so many good offers."
"He does not seem to me as though he were likely to have any body,"
said Olive. "I think he looks very ill indeed, but that might have been
only fatigue and agitation."
"I wonder if he has come home to be a burden on the old folks in the
evening of their days?" Mrs. Felton went on to say. "I think it will be
really too bad if he has."
"He told Augusta that he had come home quite a rich man," answered
Olive, "but even if he had not, I know they would not feel it a burden."
"Quite a rich man, eh? Well now, I'd never expect that of Fred Gregory.
But any way, I am glad he has come home if he has reformed. It will be
a comfort to their minds to see him once more. What did the old lady
say to him when she came in?"
"I don't know. I was not in the room. I thought they would rather be by
themselves."
Mrs. Felton seemed to think this a very remarkable piece of self-denial
on Olive's part, and promised herself the pleasure of going over to
sympathize with Mrs. Gregory, the first thing in the morning. The hint
that Olive had given respecting Frederick having acquired property, was
sufficient to set her imagination at work, and she lay awake half the
night, arranging a romance wherein Mr. Gregory the younger played the
part of an immensely wealthy nabob, come home expressly to marry her
daughter, and to die shortly afterward, leaving Ruth a rich widow.
"We can go on living together just the same," her reverie went on,
"only in more style, of course. Black always was becoming to Ruth. I
wonder whether she will wear caps?" And in deciding whether these caps
should be of muslin or crape, Mrs. Felton finally lost the thread of
her reflections in sleep.
It did not appear, however, that any part of her romance was likely
to be realized, except that which related to her hero's death. In the
morning, he was so ill that he was unable to leave his room, and for
two or three weeks he lay between life and death, in a fever. No one
seemed to think it strange that Ruth was constantly at the parsonage,
and indeed made it her home, till Frederick began to improve a little.
There was a great deal of talk about his unexpected return, and
considerable speculation as to the amount of his property, and people
wondered whether he would marry Ruth in case he got well enough, and
whether she would have him. Mrs. Tucker thought that she would refuse
him with disdain if she had an atom of proper pride about her, as, of
course she had not, or she would not be at the parsonage so much. She
did not think it at all proper, for her part.
Meantime, the objects of all this conversation paid very little
attention to any thing beyond themselves. The prodigal was happy in
being at home again, at peace with himself, the world, and his God,
and looking forward with humble confidence to that city which hath
foundations, where the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary are
at rest. The peace that passeth all understanding brooded over Ruth's
heart and mind. She felt that it was well with her lover, and whether
she enjoyed his society in this world, or looked forward to it in the
next, was comparatively a matter of small concern. It was enough that
he was faithful, repentant, forgiven, safe; that she could minister to
his wants, both of body and mind; that he loved to have her by him;
that he always knew her, even when his father and mother seemed like
strangers to him; that he was at last worthy of her love.
After a time, he recovered sufficiently to ride out, and even to walk
to church. But he continued feeble and suffering, and all felt that his
life hung upon a thread. He had earnestly requested Doctor Gordon's
true opinion, and that opinion was freely given. The physician told him
that he could never recover, even though he might live some time. His
disease was one of the heart, which might terminate his life at any
moment.
Frederick received the announcement calmly and cheerfully, and set
about finding some employment which should occupy without fatiguing
him. This was found in the cataloguing and arranging a large quantity
of East-Indian and Chinese curiosities, which he had picked up in his
travels, and which he proposed to present to the academy. Thus he spent
his time quietly and peacefully, happy in the society of those he loved
best in the world, and awaiting the summons to his heavenly rest.
This was the state of things when Olive went down to New-York to visit
Laura, who would not hear of her stopping anywhere else first.
CHAPTER EIGHTEENTH.
OLIVE found Laura established in a fine house, in a fashionable street,
with abundance of fine furniture, fine visitors, fine servants, every
thing, in short, which had formerly constituted her idea of perfect
happiness. Mrs. Witherington welcomed her sister with much more
cordiality than usual, and seemed to think she could not do too much
to make her comfortable. Olive had never slept in a room so splendidly
furnished as that which Laura assigned to her. The pretty trifles that
covered her dressing-table cost more than all Olive's wardrobe put
together, and the price of the mantel-ornaments would have supported
a Western missionary and his wife for a year. The whole decoration of
the house was upon the same lavish scale, and seemed so extravagant to
Olive that she was glad to learn that it had been furnished before her
sister came into it.
Laura appeared to enjoy it all wonderfully, and Mr. Witherington
appeared to think nothing too good or too expensive for her. The first
evening was spent quietly at home, Laura issuing an order to be denied
to visitors, and giving up a party to which she was engaged, for
Olive's sake.
"It is quite a sacrifice, I assure you," she said, laughing; "for I was
expecting to make a very splendid appearance."
"I am sure, my dear, I enjoy the prospect of spending an evening
quietly and rationally at home, and going to bed at a reasonable hour,"
observed Mr. Witherington, "especially as we are to be in town but
a few days longer. I think there is no greater bore upon earth than
continual parties."
"But we have not been to a party in nearly five days," said Laura,
pouting a little; "and the last one was a wedding, too, you know.
Besides, you know this will be the last one."
Mr. Witherington sighed, but did not make any reply, and Olive thought
he looked annoyed and uncomfortable. She could not wonder, when she
found how Laura spent her time, and how little of it was given to her
home and her husband.
True there were no more parties, but something else came along to fill
up every evening. One night a concert, then the opera, where a star of
the first magnitude was then rising, then a few friends at home, fifty
being Laura's most contracted definition of the word few. They were to
go to the country the next week, and then Olive hoped there might be
some respite.
"Confess, now, Olive," Laura said, one morning when they were driving
together, "that with all your philosophy you would like to exchange
with me. Is not this better than school-teaching from day to day, with
no recreation, only now and then a sewing society?"
"I have never had much experience of your way of life, Laura," Olive
replied, "but from what I have observed since I have been here, I would
rather spend my life in teaching district-school from one year to
another, than spend my life as you do. I am sure it would not be any
more fatiguing, and I should at least have the comfort of thinking that
I was bringing something to pass."
Laura looked incredulous.
"I am very sure I never was so tired after the hardest day I ever spent
in school, as I was the morning after Mrs. Blank's party, and you
seemed equally so; and what have you to show for it, after all? Suppose
you pass the whole of next winter in this way—what will it amount to?
You have no time to read or study, and very little, as far as I can
see, to attend to your household. And then, at the end of life, how
will it look as it is passed in review?"
"There is no use in bringing that in," said Laura, abruptly. "If we
were always thinking how things would look when we come to die, we
should never do any thing."
"I don't know about that," said Olive. "I think we should do some
things a good deal better."
"But not any thing we want to do," persisted Laura. "If we were always
thinking upon death, we should have no pleasure in things that are very
agreeable now, because we should all the time feel that we must go and
leave them."
"Perhaps we should only set a more just value upon them. You know the
lines Mr. Witherington was reading last evening from his favorite,
Southey:
"'O Monarch! only in the hour of death,
We learn to value things like these.'
"But at any rate, it does not seem wise to fix one's mind entirely
upon things which we may be called upon to leave at any time, and must
inevitably give up before a good while."
"I declare, Olive, you are a capital preacher!" said Laura, forcing a
laugh. "I hope Walter will accept of your help in writing his sermons.
And by the by, when is that young gentleman to be expected? I thought
he was going to meet you here."
"I expect him to-day or to-morrow—possibly this evening."
"Is he as much given to preaching as yourself, my dear? Because if
he is, I shall be quite afraid of him. You have made me quite blue,
already."
"I don't mean to make you blue, my love," replied Olive affectionately,
"but I do wish I could persuade you to think a little. You have so much
to be thankful for—youth, health, fortune, an excellent husband—I can
not bear to have you ungrateful for it all."
"Well, Olive, he 'is' a good husband," said Laura feelingly. "You don't
know how good he is. I am sure I did not till I came to see him every
day. I did not believe any man could be so thoroughly excellent as he
proves himself. Since we have been married, I have never known or seen
him do or say a thing that I would wish otherwise. I only wish I were
more worthy of him, but some how one's conscience and one's wishes are
so terribly at variance."
"But since it is conscience that must decide the matter at last, would
it not be well to bring one's wishes a little more into harmony with
its teachings?" asked Olive. "At least would it not be worth while to
try?"