CONSCIENTIOUSNESS.
THE letters from Rose Cottage had been highly satisfactory until the
last. In that, Marion wrote that Hannah was slowly recovering from an
attack of fever which had much prostrated her strength.
"Paul," she said, "I brought home with me; and he has been my special
care ever since. Bridget has proved herself a wonderful nurse; and at
the same time has superintended the dairy work, so that all has gone on
as orderly as usual. We hope Hannah will be entirely recovered in a few
weeks."
"In the mean tithe papa and mamma have become so much attached to my
boy, as I proudly call him, that it will be difficult to separate them
when it is time for him to go back to Rose Cottage. Indeed, if I did
not take him in for a call every day, neither Hannah nor Bridget could
be pacified. He grows more beautiful every hour; and what you will
care for more than all the rest, he grows so conscientious. Papa has a
large book of engravings of which he is very choice. Once or twice I
have shown them to Paul, explaining the scenes they were intended to
represent; but the child had been told not to take the volume from the
shelf as it is too large for him to handle without injury."
"I went out on an errand for mamma a few days ago, not taking my usual
companion on account of the rain. Mamma was busy in her chamber, and
papa out on parish duty. I gave Paul a game of dissected pictures
to keep him employed; and left him in the study. When I returned, I
noticed he looked uneasy, his face flushed, and his eye avoiding mine.
I glanced around the room fearing he had been trying to write, as he
loves to do; and had spilled the ink; but I saw no marks of disorder,
and concluded not to urge him to tell me what ailed him."
"I took a book into the bow window, and he sat near me sighing
repeatedly. At last his lip began to quiver, and with an exclamation:"
"'I want my mamma to come home quick,' the poor little fellow burst
into tears."
"I caught him in my arms where he sobbed a long time before he could
explain."
"'I've been naughty, aunt Marion. I took that nice book of pictures
down from the shelf.'"
"'Oh, I'm sorry, darling!'" I said. "'Did you enjoy seeing them?'"
"'No, I didn't. I was afraid somebody would come; and then I knew God
could see right through the sky. I'm so sorry now.'"
"How could I utter one word of reproof? The gentle monitor in his
breast had done that. I only reminded him how ready God is to forgive
us when we have sinned; and we knelt down together to ask him to have
compassion for the sake of his Son Jesus Christ."
"He jumped up from his low chair, with such a bright face, and asked
quickly:"
"'Has he forgiven me, aunt Marion?'"
"'Yes, dear, I think he has; and you will not touch the book again.'"
"'No, I wont till you show it to me. That is the way I like to see it
best. Now I feel glad.'"
"I longed for you to see him then. His eyes sparkled with happiness,
and a heart at ease; his cheeks were mantled with roses; and his cherry
lips were dimpled with smiles. Do you wonder we all love him so dearly?"
Mr. Wallingford's health was now confirmed. A regular correspondence
had been kept up between him and Marion, in which they had learned to
understand each other well. There seemed to be a peculiar harmony in
their views, as well as in the principles which actuated their conduct.
The travellers' return was fixed for June, when it was arranged that
a certain ceremony at the parsonage should be followed by a tour to
Canada, the lakes, Chicago, and home by the Southern route; via,
Washington, Philadelphia and New York.
It had never been Mr. Wallingford's intention to give up the practice
of law. He believed it better for every man to have some regular
business; and to endeavor to excel in it. Early in the spring,
therefore, he had written Mr. Van Husen, requesting that gentleman to
purchase him a handsome residence in a pleasant and healthy location.
This was to be their winter home, where Gertrude and her boy would
always be welcomed as part of the family. A wing, thrown out on the
West side of Rose Cottage, would give ample accommodations to the two
families in summer.
Under these circumstances, it is not strange that the lawyer should
feel drawn toward his native land; nor that he should consider the
caution of his medical adviser, to remain abroad until June, entirely
needless.
The last days of February found them slowly making their way, in
company with Mr. Radcliffe, the English nobleman, above mentioned,
through France, pausing for a few days at Nice, where they had made
some agreeable friends; and then crossing that country to England.
Reaching London the middle of March, they passed a month in making
the tour of Great Britain, by which time Mr. Wallingford assured his
sister, it was quite safe for him to embark for home. So without
waiting to announce to their friends that they were about to anticipate
the time of sailing, they took passage in the Steamship China, the last
week in April, instead of waiting till the first of June.
There was one circumstance which decided Mrs. Wallingford not to oppose
her brother leaving England sooner than the date they had written
home. But in order to explain this, I must go back a little to their
residence in Rome.
Sir Jones Radcliffe, from his first introduction to Gertrude, was
charmed with the sweet gentleness of her manners; and the enthusiasm
with which she conversed on literary and religious subjects. At that
time he supposed her to be the wife of Mr. Wallingford; and remarked
frankly to a friend who had often joked him upon his fastidiousness
with regard to ladies:
"At last I have met one who is my beau ideal of what a wife should
be; with beauty, accomplishments, and a mind enriched by culture; all
softened by the pearl of meekness, and Christian principle."
Soon after he heard her address Edward as her brother; and the violent
beating of his heart, showed him how easy it would be to surrender
it to her keeping. From this hour, by the most constant, delicate
attentions, he sought to win her affections; and nothing but her
increasing reserve of manner, when she suspected his object, deterred
him from making proposals for her hand.
When about to leave Rome she was rather annoyed to find that her
brother had consented to the wish of Sir Jones, and allowed him to
join their party to England. He proved a most agreeable travelling
companion; and now that his whole heart was enlisted in her favor, he
tried his utmost to excel in the powers of conversation for which he
had long been distinguished. In the freedom of their intercourse he
discovered that Gertrude had a son nearly six years of age; and that
his image was scarcely ever absent from the mother's memory. This fact
he turned to good account, leading her on to talk of his infantile
ways, to tell of his wise sayings, and at last even to read from
Marion's letters some of his childish messages. Before this Sir Jones
thought he could not love her more than he did; but now he found his
mistake. When talking of little Paul, the mother-light that beamed
from her eyes and dimpled her mouth so enhanced his affection, that he
determined to risk all, by a confession.
At home Gertrude had received proposals of marriage from several
gentlemen of worth and distinction in her native state; but she had
always shrunk from a new tie as an impossibility as long as Paul was
alive. Now that she had seen him, who had once been her husband, under
circumstances so affecting, she was more resolute in her former opinion
than before.
One morning Sir Jones invited her to accompany him in a visit to a
castle, famous for its historic associations; and supposing her brother
was to be of the party she gladly consented. When it was too late to
recede, she found Mr. Radcliffe had engaged only two horses; and that
her brother was otherwise occupied. She could do nothing but resign
herself to the arrangement in the best manner she was able.
He began to talk of Paul, telling her how the bright face of the little
fellow had haunted him ever since she had shown him the picture. How
it happened she never could recollect, but somehow his kindness and
sympathy led her on, until she told him of the brief life of her little
Rose, every word breathing such a sweet trust in the wisdom of her
heavenly Father in taking the babe to its home in the skies, that he
had no words to express his admiration.
Through all their intercourse he had noticed that she never had
mentioned the name of her husband; now without a suspicion that he
could be alive, he said, tenderly:
"Paul must have been a great comfort to you when his sister was taken
away."
He was surprised and deeply pained by the burst of tears which
accompanied her answer.
"Precious little Rose was my first born! I was just past my seventeenth
birthday when that dream of happiness was over. Poor Paul has never
seen his father."
"Let me be his father," he began; and once released from the violent
restraint in which he had kept back expressions of his affection, he
poured out his heart before her.
In vain she tried to check him, urging:
"It is impossible."
He had now lost self-command; and the tide of love would not be longer
dammed up.
[Illustration: "Paul must have been a great comfort to you."]
"Believe me, Mr. Radcliffe," she urged, still weeping. "I would have
spared you this refusal. I will not deny that before we left Rome, I
began to suspect the nature of your sentiments; and assumed a coldness
foreign to my feelings in order that you might understand that, however
much I admired you as a Christian gentleman, nothing farther could take
place."
"But why? If there are obstacles, I can overcome them. I am at the age
when men desire a home and family; but having found the only one I ever
desired to marry, I am willing to wait if you think it too soon after
your husband's death."
She shuddered. "You are mistaken, Sir Jones," she faltered, every
particle of color vanishing from her face and lips. "In justice to
you I ought to confess that had circumstances been different I might
have yielded to your wishes; but the man who once called me wife still
lives, though just sinking into the grave. Nearly four years ago the
law sundered the tie; and when I tell you that I have just come from
his death-bed, the death-bed of an humble penitent, clinging for pardon
to the cross of his Saviour, you will not wonder that I have no desire
to speak of past trials."
"Is it possible," exclaimed the gentleman, "that the invalid for whom
you have denied yourself the society and admiration of the most eminent
persons in Rome, ever bore such a relation to you? I understand your
character well enough to be sure no trivial reasons would gain your
consent to a divorce; and you have treated him as if he were your best
friend."
"Did not our Saviour, whom we propose to take for an example, do this?
Did he not return blessing for cursing; kindness for unkindness; and
shall not we, with far less provocation, endeavor to do likewise? But
indeed you are giving me too much credit. Surely no one would see
a fellow countryman suffering from disease and privation, without
hastening to his relief; and I have been rewarded," she continued,
turning her humid eyes, beaming with holy fervor, on his, "by
witnessing the most remarkable display of divine grace, that has ever
come to my knowledge."
"With my whole heart I sympathize with your joy," he responded, warmly.
"Will the gentleman remain in Rome?"
"If he lives till June, which I consider doubtful, he will return to
the United States, where his parents reside. I shall probably never see
him more."
Possibly the gentleman made his own inference from the fact that she
had left the invalid, when he might live for months. At any rate his
spirits rose; and she thought he had never been more brilliant in
conversation, than during their return home.
A long private conversation with Mr. Wallingford, resulted in an
earnest invitation for the travellers to make their headquarters at his
country seat, while in Great Britain. But this, though urged by her
brother to accept, Gertrude steadily declined. All she would do was to
spend one day in the beautiful retreat so exactly to her taste, before
she hurried Edward away to London.
When the time for sailing came, she acknowledged to herself, it was
none too early, for her own happiness, to bid Sir Jones adieu. A few
more weeks passed in his society would make it difficult for her to
adhere to a decision which in her case she knew to be right.
Contrary to her expectations, when she went on board the steamer for
New York, she found Mr. Radcliffe awaiting them; and when she expressed
her surprise at finding him there, a merry glance thrown at her
brother, convinced her it was not an accident. She wondered a little at
his manner of bidding her adieu, not at all as if he considered it, as
she did, a final parting; but when he said in her ear, with a hopeful
smile:
"Another year and I intend to be speeding over the waters," the vivid
blushes that dyed her cheeks, proved to her lover that she was aware he
had not abandoned his design.