Some of the boarders were of opinion that Iris did not return the
undisguised attentions of the handsome young Marylander. Instead of
fixing her eyes steadily on him, as she used to look upon the Little
Gentleman, she would turn them away, as if to avoid his own. They often
went to church together, it is true; but nobody, of course, supposes
there is any relation between religious sympathy and those wretched
“sentimental” movements of the human heart upon which it is commonly
agreed that nothing better is based than society, civilization,
friendship, the relation of husband and wife, and of parent and child,
and which many people must think were singularly overrated by the Teacher
of Nazareth, whose whole life, as I said before, was full of sentiment,
loving this or that young man, pardoning this or that sinner, weeping
over the dead, mourning for the doomed city, blessing, and perhaps
kissing, the little children,——so that the Gospels are still cried over
almost as often as the last work of fiction!
But one fine June morning there rumbled up to the door of our
boarding-house a hack containing a lady inside and a trunk on the
outside. It was our friend the lady-patroness of Miss Iris, the same who
had been called by her admiring pastor “The Model of all the Virtues.”
Once a week she had written a letter, in a rather formal hand, but full
of good advice, to her young charge. And now she had come to carry her
away, thinking that she had learned all she was likely to learn under her
present course of teaching. The Model, however, was to stay awhile,——a
week, or more,——before they should leave together.
Iris was obedient, as she was bound to be. She was respectful, grateful,
as a child is with a just, but not tender parent. Yet something was
wrong. She had one of her trances, and became statue-like, as before,
only the day after the Model’s arrival. She was wan and silent, tasted
nothing at table, smiled as if by a forced effort, and often looked
vaguely away from those who were looking at her, her eyes just glazed
with the shining moisture of a tear that must not be allowed to gather
and fall. Was it grief at parting from the place where her strange
friendship had grown up with the Little Gentleman? Yet she seemed to
have become reconciled to his loss, and rather to have a deep feeling of
gratitude that she had been permitted to care for him in his last weary
days.
The Sunday after the Model’s arrival, that lady had an attack of
headache, and was obliged to shut herself up in a darkened room alone.
Our two young friends took the opportunity to go together to the Church
of the Galileans. They said but little going,——“collecting their
thoughts” for the service, I devoutly hope. My kind good friend the
pastor preached that day one of his sermons that make us all feel like
brothers and sisters, and his text was that affectionate one from John,
“My little children, let us not love in word, neither in tongue, but in
deed and in truth.” When Iris and her friend came out of church, they
were both pale, and walked a space without speaking.
At last the young man said,——You and I are not little children, Iris!
She looked in his face an instant, as if startled, for there was
something strange in the tone of his voice. She smiled faintly, but spoke
never a word.