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diff --git a/17891-h/17891-h.htm b/17891-h/17891-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..c96a196 --- /dev/null +++ b/17891-h/17891-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,2291 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"> +<html> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1"> +<title>The Project Gutenberg eBook of Evelina's Garden, by Mary E. Wilkins Freeman</title> + <style type="text/css"> + hr.full { width: 100%; + height: 5px; } + pre {font-size: 75%;} + </style> +</head> +<body> +<h1 align="center">The Project Gutenberg eBook, Evelina's Garden, by Mary E. Wilkins Freeman</h1> +<pre> +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at <a href = "http://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a></pre> +<p>Title: Evelina's Garden</p> +<p>Author: Mary E. Wilkins Freeman</p> +<p>Release Date: March 1, 2006 [eBook #17891]</p> +<p>Language: English</p> +<p>Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1</p> +<p>***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK EVELINA'S GARDEN***</p> +<br><br><center><h3>E-text prepared by Jeff Kaylin and Andrew Sly</h3></center><br><br> +<hr class="full" noshade> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<h2 align="center">Evelina's Garden</h2> +<h3 align="center">By Mary E. Wilkins</h3> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<p align="center">New York and London<br> +Harper & Brothers<br> +MDCCCXCIX</p> +<br> +<br> +<br> + +<p>On the south a high arbor-vitæ hedge separated Evelina's +garden from the road. The hedge was so high that when the +school-children lagged by, and the secrets behind it fired them with +more curiosity than those between their battered book covers, the +tallest of them by stretching up on tiptoe could not peer over. And +so they were driven to childish engineering feats, and would set to +work and pick away sprigs of the arbor-vitæ with their little +fingers, and make peep-holes—but small ones, that Evelina might +not discern them. Then they would thrust their pink faces into the +hedge, and the enduring fragrance of it would come to their nostrils +like a gust of aromatic breath from the mouth of the northern woods, +and peer into Evelina's garden as through the green tubes of vernal +telescopes.</p> + +<p>Then suddenly hollyhocks, blooming in rank and file, seemed to be +marching upon them like platoons of soldiers, with detonations of +color that dazzled their peeping eyes; and, indeed, the whole garden +seemed charging with its mass of riotous bloom upon the hedge. They +could scarcely take in details of marigold and phlox and pinks and +London-pride and cock's-combs, and prince's-feather's waving overhead +like standards.</p> + +<p>Sometimes also there was the purple flutter of Evelina's gown; and +Evelina's face, delicately faded, hung about with softly drooping +gray curls, appeared suddenly among the flowers, like another flower +uncannily instinct with nervous melancholy.</p> + +<p>Then the children would fall back from their peep-holes, and +huddle off together with scared giggles. They were afraid of Evelina. +There was a shade of mystery about her which stimulated their +childish fancies when they heard her discussed by their elders. They +might easily have conceived her to be some baleful fairy intrenched +in her green stronghold, withheld from leaving it by the fear of some +dire penalty for magical sins. Summer and winter, spring and fall, +Evelina Adams never was seen outside her own domain of old +mansion-house and garden, and she had not set her slim lady feet in +the public highway for nearly forty years, if the stories were +true.</p> + +<p>People differed as to the reason why. Some said she had had an +unfortunate love affair, that her heart had been broken, and she had +taken upon herself a vow of seclusion from the world, but nobody +could point to the unworthy lover who had done her this harm. When +Evelina was a girl, not one of the young men of the village had dared +address her. She had been set apart by birth and training, and also +by a certain exclusiveness of manner, if not of nature. Her father, +old Squire Adams, had been the one man of wealth and college learning +in the village. He had owned the one fine old mansion-house, with its +white front propped on great Corinthian pillars, overlooking the +village like a broad brow of superiority.</p> + +<p>He had owned the only coach and four. His wife during her short +life had gone dressed in rich brocades and satins that rustled loud +in the ears of the village women, and her nodding plumes had dazzled +the eyes under their modest hoods. Hardly a woman in the village but +could tell—for it had been handed down like a folk-lore song +from mother to daughter—just what Squire Adams's wife wore when +she walked out first as bride to meeting. She had been clad all in +blue.</p> + +<p>“Squire Adams's wife, when she walked out bride, she wore a +blue satin brocade gown, all wrought with blue flowers of a darker +blue, cut low neck and short sleeves. She wore long blue silk mitts +wrought with blue, blue satin shoes, and blue silk clocked stockings. +And she wore a blue crape mantle that was brought from over seas, and +a blue velvet hat, with a long blue ostrich feather curled over +it—it was so long it reached her shoulder, and waved when she +walked; and she carried a little blue crape fan with ivory +sticks.” So the women and girls told each other when the +Squire's bride had been dead nearly seventy years.</p> + +<p>The blue bride attire was said to be still in existence, packed +away in a cedar chest, as the Squire had ordered after his wife's +death. “He stood over the woman that took care of his wife +whilst she packed the things away, and he never shed a tear, but she +used to hear him a-goin' up to the north chamber nights, when he +couldn't sleep, to look at 'em,” the women told.</p> + +<p>People had thought the Squire would marry again. They said +Evelina, who was only four years old, needed a mother, and they +selected one and another of the good village girls. But the Squire +never married. He had a single woman, who dressed in black silk, and +wore always a black wrought veil over the side of her bonnet, come to +live with them, to take charge of Evelina. She was said to be a +distant relative of the Squire's wife, and was much looked up to by +the village people, although she never did more than interlace, as it +were, the fringes of her garments with theirs. “She's stuck +up,” they said, and felt, curiously enough, a certain pride in +the fact when they met her in the street and she ducked her long chin +stiffly into the folds of her black shawl by way of salutation.</p> + +<p>When Evelina was fifteen years old this single woman died, and the +village women went to her funeral, and bent over her lying in a last +helpless dignity in her coffin, and stared with awed freedom at her +cold face. After that Evelina was sent away to school, and did not +return, except for a yearly vacation, for six years to come. Then she +returned, and settled down in her old home to live out her life, and +end her days in a perfect semblance of peace, if it were not +peace.</p> + +<p>Evelina never had any young school friend to visit her; she had +never, so far as any one knew, a friend of her own age. She lived +alone with her father and three old servants. She went to meeting, +and drove with the Squire in his chaise. The coach was never used +after his wife's death, except to carry Evelina to and from school. +She and the Squire also took long walks, but they never exchanged +aught but the merest civilities of good-days and nods with the +neighbors whom they met, unless indeed the Squire had some matter of +business to discuss. Then Evelina stood aside and waited, her fair +face drooping gravely aloof. She was very pretty, with a gentle +high-bred prettiness that impressed the village folk, although they +looked at it somewhat askance.</p> + +<p>Evelina's figure was tall, and had a fine slenderness; her silken +skirts hung straight from the narrow silk ribbon that girt her slim +waist; there was a languidly graceful bend in her long white throat; +her long delicate hands hung inertly at her sides among her skirt +folds, and were never seen to clasp anything; her softly clustering +fair curls hung over her thin blooming cheeks, and her face could +scarce be seen, unless, as she seldom did, she turned and looked full +upon one. Then her dark blue eyes, with a little nervous frown +between them, shone out radiantly; her thin lips showed a warm red, +and her beauty startled one.</p> + +<p>Everybody wondered why she did not have a lover, why some fine +young man had not been smitten by her while she had been away at +school. They did not know that the school had been situated in +another little village, the counterpart of the one in which she had +been born, wherein a fitting mate for a bird of her feather could +hardly be found. The simple young men of the country-side were at +once attracted and intimidated by her. They cast fond sly glances +across the meeting-house at her lovely face, but they were confused +before her when they jostled her in the doorway and the rose and +lavender scent of her lady garments came in their faces. Not one of +them dared accost her, much less march boldly upon the great +Corinthian-pillared house, raise the brass knocker, and declare +himself a suitor for the Squire's daughter.</p> + +<p>One young man there was, indeed, who treasured in his heart an +experience so subtle and so slight that he could scarcely believe in +it himself. He never recounted it to mortal soul, but kept it as a +secret sacred between himself and his own nature, but something to be +scoffed at and set aside by others.</p> + +<p>It had happened one Sabbath day in summer, when Evelina had not +been many years home from school, as she sat in the meeting-house in +her Sabbath array of rose-colored satin gown, and white bonnet +trimmed with a long white feather and a little wreath of feathery +green, that of a sudden she raised her head and turned her face, and +her blue eyes met this young man's full upon hers, with all his heart +in them, and it was for a second as if her own heart leaped to the +surface, and he saw it, although afterwards he scarce believed it to +be true.</p> + +<p>Then a pallor crept over Evelina's delicately brilliant face. She +turned it away, and her curls falling softly from under the green +wreath on her bonnet brim hid it. The young man's cheeks were a hot +red, and his heart beat loudly in his ears when he met her in the +doorway after the sermon was done. His eager, timorous eyes sought +her face, but she never looked his way. She laid her slim hand in its +cream-colored silk mitt on the Squire's arm; her satin gown rustled +softly as she passed before him, shrinking against the wall to give +her room, and a faint fragrance which seemed like the very breath of +the unknown delicacy and exclusiveness of life came to his bewildered +senses.</p> + +<p>Many a time he cast furtive glances across the meeting-house at +Evelina, but she never looked his way again. If his timid boy-eyes +could have seen her cheek behind its veil of curls, he might have +discovered that the color came and went before his glances, although +it was strange how she could have been conscious of them; but he +never knew.</p> + +<p>And he also never knew how, when he walked past the Squire's house +of a Sunday evening, dressed in his best, with his shoulders thrust +consciously back, and the windows in the westering sun looked full of +blank gold to his furtive eyes, Evelina was always peeping at him +from behind a shutter, and he never dared go in. His intuitions were +not like hers, and so nothing happened that might have, and he never +fairly knew what he knew. But that he never told, even to his wife +when he married; for his hot young blood grew weary and impatient +with this vain courtship, and he turned to one of his villagemates, +who met him fairly half way, and married her within a year.</p> + +<p>On the Sunday when he and his bride first appeared in the +meeting-house Evelina went up the aisle behind her father in an array +of flowered brocade, stiff with threads of silver, so wonderful that +people all turned their heads to stare at her. She wore also a new +bonnet of rose-colored satin, and her curls were caught back a +little, and her face showed as clear and beautiful as an angel's.</p> + +<p>The young bridegroom glanced at her once across the meeting-house, +then he looked at his bride in her gay wedding finery with a faithful +look.</p> + +<p>When Evelina met them in the doorway, after meeting was done, she +bowed with a sweet cold grace to the bride, who courtesied blushingly +in return, with an awkward sweep of her foot in the bridal satin +shoe. The bridegroom did not look at Evelina at all. He held his chin +well down in his stock with solemn embarrassment, and passed out +stiffly, his bride on his arm.</p> + +<p>Evelina, shining in the sun like a silver lily, went up the +street, her father stalking beside her with stately swings of his +cane, and that was the last time she was ever seen at meeting. Nobody +knew why.</p> + +<p>When Evelina was a little over thirty her father died. There was +not much active grief for him in the village; he had really figured +therein more as a stately monument of his own grandeur than anything +else. He had been a man of little force of character, and that little +had seemed to degenerate since his wife died. An inborn dignity of +manner might have served to disguise his weakness with any others +than these shrewd New-Englanders, but they read him rightly. +“The Squire wa'n't ever one to set the river a-fire,” +they said. Then, moreover, he left none of his property to the +village to build a new meeting-house or a town-house. It all went to +Evelina.</p> + +<p>People expected that Evelina would surely show herself in her +mourning at meeting the Sunday after the Squire died, but she did +not. Moreover, it began to be gradually discovered that she never +went out in the village street nor crossed the boundaries of her own +domains after her father's death. She lived in the great house with +her three servants—a man and his wife, and the woman who had +been with her mother when she died. Then it was that Evelina's garden +began. There had always been a garden at the back of the Squire's +house, but not like this, and only a low fence had separated it from +the road. Now one morning in the autumn the people saw Evelina's +man-servant, John Darby, setting out the arbor-vitæ hedge, and +in the spring after that there were ploughing and seed-sowing +extending over a full half-acre, which later blossomed out in +glory.</p> + +<p>Before the hedge grew so high Evelina could be seen at work in her +garden. She was often stooping over the flower-beds in the early +morning when the village was first astir, and she moved among them +with her watering-pot in the twilight—a shadowy figure that +might, from her grace and her constancy to the flowers, have been +Flora herself.</p> + +<p>As the years went on, the arbor-vitæ hedge got each season a +new growth and waxed taller, until Evelina could no longer be seen +above it. That was an annoyance to people, because the quiet mystery +of her life kept their curiosity alive, until it was in a constant +struggle, as it were, with the green luxuriance of the hedge.</p> + +<p>“John Darby had ought to trim that hedge,” they said. +They accosted him in the street: “John, if ye don't cut that +hedge down a little it'll all die out.” But he only made a +surly grunting response, intelligible to himself alone, and passed +on. He was an Englishman, and had lived in the Squire's family since +he was a boy.</p> + +<p>He had a nature capable of only one simple line of force, with no +radiations or parallels, and that had early resolved itself into the +service of the Squire and his house. After the Squire's death he +married a woman who lived in the family. She was much older than +himself, and had a high temper, but was a good servant, and he +married her to keep her to her allegiance to Evelina. Then he bent +her, without her knowledge, to take his own attitude towards his +mistress. No more could be gotten out of John Darby's wife than out +of John Darby concerning the doings at the Squire's house. She met +curiosity with a flash of hot temper, and he with surly taciturnity, +and both intimidated.</p> + +<p>The third of Evelina's servants was the woman who had nursed her +mother, and she was naturally subdued and undemonstrative, and +rendered still more so by a ceaseless monotony of life. She never +went to meeting, and was seldom seen outside the house. A passing +vision of a long white-capped face at a window was about all the +neighbors ever saw of this woman.</p> + +<p>So Evelina's gentle privacy was well guarded by her own household, +as by a faithful system of domestic police. She grew old peacefully +behind her green hedge, shielded effectually from all rough bristles +of curiosity. Every new spring her own bloom showed paler beside the +new bloom of her flowers, but people could not see it.</p> + +<p>Some thirty years after the Squire's death the man John Darby +died; his wife, a year later. That left Evelina alone with the old +woman who had nursed her mother. She was very old, but not feeble, +and quite able to perform the simple household tasks for herself and +Evelina. An old man, who saved himself from the almshouse in such +ways, came daily to do the rougher part of the garden-work in John +Darby's stead. He was aged and decrepit; his muscles seemed able to +perform their appointed tasks only through the accumulated inertia of +a patiently toilsome life in the same tracks. Apparently they would +have collapsed had he tried to force them to aught else than the +holding of the ploughshare, the pulling of weeds, the digging around +the roots of flowers, and the planting of seeds.</p> + +<p>Every autumn he seemed about to totter to his fall among the +fading flowers; every spring it was like Death himself urging on the +resurrection; but he lived on year after year, and tended well +Evelina's garden, and the gardens of other maiden-women and widows in +the village. He was taciturn, grubbing among his green beds as +silently as a worm, but now and then he warmed a little under a fire +of questions concerning Evelina's garden. “Never see none sech +flowers in nobody's garden in this town, not sence I knowed 'nough to +tell a pink from a piny,” he would mumble. His speech was +thick; his words were all uncouthly slurred; the expression of his +whole life had come more through his old knotted hands of labor than +through his tongue. But he would wipe his forehead with his +shirt-sleeve and lean a second on his spade, and his face would +change at the mention of the garden. Its wealth of bloom illumined +his old mind, and the roses and honeysuckles and pinks seemed for a +second to be reflected in his bleared old eyes.</p> + +<p>There had never been in the village such a garden as this of +Evelina Adams's. All the old blooms which had come over the seas with +the early colonists, and started as it were their own colony of flora +in the new country, flourished there. The naturalized pinks and phlox +and hollyhocks and the rest, changed a little in color and fragrance +by the conditions of a new climate and soil, were all in Evelina's +garden, and no one dreamed what they meant to Evelina; and she did +not dream herself, for her heart was always veiled to her own eyes, +like the face of a nun. The roses and pinks, the poppies and +heart's-ease, were to this maiden-woman, who had innocently and +helplessly outgrown her maiden heart, in the place of all the loves +of life which she had missed. Her affections had forced an outlet in +roses; they exhaled sweetness in pinks, and twined and clung in +honeysuckle-vines. The daffodils, when they came up in the spring, +comforted her like the smiles of children; when she saw the first +rose, her heart leaped as at the face of a lover.</p> + +<p>She had lost the one way of human affection, but her feet had +found a little single side-track of love, which gave her still a zest +in the journey of life. Even in the winter Evelina had her flowers, +for she kept those that would bear transplanting in pots, and all the +sunny windows in her house were gay with them. She would also not let +a rose leaf fall and waste in the garden soil, or a sprig of lavender +or thyme. She gathered them all, and stored them away in chests and +drawers and old china bowls—the whole house seemed laid away in +rose leaves and lavender. Evelina's clothes gave out at every motion +that fragrance of dead flowers which is like the fragrance of the +past, and has a sweetness like that of sweet memories. Even the cedar +chest where Evelina's mother's blue bridal array was stored had its +till heaped with rose leaves and lavender.</p> + +<p>When Evelina was nearly seventy years old the old nurse who had +lived with her her whole life died. People wondered then what she +would do. “She can't live all alone in that great house,” +they said. But she did live there alone six months, until spring, and +people used to watch her evening lamp when it was put out, and the +morning smoke from her kitchen chimney. “It ain't safe for her +to be there alone in that great house,” they said.</p> + +<p>But early in April a young girl appeared one Sunday in the old +Squire's pew. Nobody had seen her come to town, and nobody knew who +she was or where she came from, but the old people said she looked +just as Evelina Adams used to when she was young, and she must be +some relation. The old man who had used to look across the +meeting-house at Evelina, over forty years ago, looked across now at +this young girl, and gave a great start, and his face paled under his +gray beard stubble. His old wife gave an anxious, wondering glance at +him, and crammed a peppermint into his hand. “Anything the +matter, father?” she whispered; but he only gave his head a +half-surly shake, and then fastened his eyes straight ahead upon the +pulpit. He had reason to that day, for his only son, Thomas, was +going to preach his first sermon therein as a candidate. His wife +ascribed his nervousness to that. She put a peppermint in her own +mouth and sucked it comfortably. “That's all 't is,” she +thought to herself. “Father always was easy worked up,” +and she looked proudly up at her son sitting on the hair-cloth sofa +in the pulpit, leaning his handsome young head on his hand, as he had +seen old divines do. She never dreamed that her old husband sitting +beside her was possessed of an inner life so strange to her that she +would not have known him had she met him in the spirit. And, indeed, +it had been so always, and she had never dreamed of it. Although he +had been faithful to his wife, the image of Evelina Adams in her +youth, and that one love-look which she had given him, had never left +his soul, but had given it a guise and complexion of which his +nearest and dearest knew nothing.</p> + +<p>It was strange, but now, as he looked up at his own son as he +arose in the pulpit, he could seem to see a look of that fair young +Evelina, who had never had a son to inherit her beauty. He had +certainly a delicate brilliancy of complexion, which he could have +gotten directly from neither father nor mother; and whence came that +little nervous frown between his dark blue eyes? His mother had blue +eyes, but not like his; they flashed over the great pulpit Bible with +a sweet fire that matched the memory in his father's heart.</p> + +<p>But the old man put the fancy away from him in a minute; it was +one which his stern common-sense always overcame. It was impossible +that Thomas Merriam should resemble Evelina Adams; indeed, people +always called him the very image of his father.</p> + +<p>The father tried to fix his mind upon his son's sermon, but +presently he glanced involuntarily across the meeting-house at the +young girl, and again his heart leaped and his face paled; but he +turned his eyes gravely back to the pulpit, and his wife did not +notice. Now and then she thrust a sharp elbow in his side to call his +attention to a grand point in their son's discourse. The odor of +peppermint was strong in his nostrils, but through it all he seemed +to perceive the rose and lavender scent of Evelina Adams's youthful +garments. Whether it was with him simply the memory of an odor, which +affected him like the odor itself, or not, those in the vicinity of +the Squire's pew were plainly aware of it. The gown which the strange +young girl wore was, as many an old woman discovered to her neighbor +with loud whispers, one of Evelina's, which had been laid away in a +sweet-smelling chest since her old girlhood. It had been somewhat +altered to suit the fashion of a later day, but the eyes which had +fastened keenly upon it when Evelina first wore it up the +meeting-house aisle could not mistake it. “It's Evelina Adams's +lavender satin made over,” one whispered, with a sharp hiss of +breath, in the other's ear.</p> + +<p>The lavender satin, deepening into purple in the folds, swept in a +rich circle over the knees of the young girl in the Squire's pew. She +folded her little hands, which were encased in Evelina's +cream-colored silk mitts, over it, and looked up at the young +minister, and listened to his sermon with a grave and innocent +dignity, as Evelina had done before her. Perhaps the resemblance +between this young girl and the young girl of the past was more one +of mien than aught else, although the type of face was the same. This +girl had the same fine sharpness of feature and delicately bright +color, and she also wore her hair in curls, although they were tied +back from her face with a black velvet ribbon, and did not veil it +when she drooped her head, as Evelina's used to do.</p> + +<p>The people divided their attention between her and the new +minister. Their curiosity goaded them in equal measure with their +spiritual zeal. “I can't wait to find out who that girl +is,” one woman whispered to another.</p> + +<p>The girl herself had no thought of the commotion which she +awakened. When the service was over, and she walked with a gentle +maiden stateliness, which seemed a very copy of Evelina's own, out of +the meeting-house, down the street to the Squire's house, and entered +it, passing under the stately Corinthian pillars, with a last purple +gleam of her satin skirts, she never dreamed of the eager attention +that followed her.</p> + +<p>It was several days before the village people discovered who she +was. The information had to be obtained, by a process like mental +thumb-screwing, from the old man who tended Evelina's garden, but at +last they knew. She was the daughter of a cousin of Evelina's on the +father's side. Her name was Evelina Leonard; she had been named for +her father's cousin. She had been finely brought up, and had attended +a Boston school for young ladies. Her mother had been dead many +years, and her father had died some two years ago, leaving her with +only a very little money, which was now all gone, and Evelina Adams +had invited her to live with her. Evelina Adams had herself told the +old gardener, seeing his scant curiosity was somewhat awakened by the +sight of the strange young lady in the garden, but he seemed to have +almost forgotten it when the people questioned him.</p> + +<p>“She'll leave her all her money, most likely,” they +said, and they looked at this new Evelina in the old Evelina's +perfumed gowns with awe.</p> + +<p>However, in the space of a few months the opinion upon this matter +was divided. Another cousin of Evelina Adams's came to town, and this +time an own cousin—a widow in fine black bombazine, portly and +florid, walking with a majestic swell, and, moreover, having with her +two daughters, girls of her own type, not so far advanced. This woman +hired one of the village cottages, and it was rumored that Evelina +Adams paid the rent. Still, it was considered that she was not very +intimate with these last relatives. The neighbors watched, and saw, +many a time, Mrs. Martha Loomis and her girls try the doors of the +Adams house, scudding around angrily from front to side and back, and +knock and knock again, but with no admittance. “Evelina she +won't let none of 'em in more 'n once a week,” the neighbors +said. It was odd that, although they had deeply resented Evelina's +seclusion on their own accounts, they were rather on her side in this +matter, and felt a certain delight when they witnessed a crestfallen +retreat of the widow and her daughters. “I don't s'pose she +wants them Loomises marchin' in on her every minute,” they +said.</p> + +<p>The new Evelina was not seen much with the other cousins, and she +made no acquaintances in the village. Whether she was to inherit all +the Adams property or not, she seemed, at any rate, heiress to all +the elder Evelina's habits of life. She worked with her in the +garden, and wore her old girlish gowns, and kept almost as close at +home as she. She often, however, walked abroad in the early dusk, +stepping along in a grave and stately fashion, as the elder Evelina +had used to do, holding her skirts away from the dewy roadside weeds, +her face showing out in the twilight like a white flower, as if it +had a pale light of its own.</p> + +<p>Nobody spoke to her; people turned furtively after she had passed +and stared after her, but they never spoke. This young Evelina did +not seem to expect it. She passed along with the lids cast down over +her blue eyes, and the rose and lavender scent of her garments came +back in their faces.</p> + +<p>But one night when she was walking slowly along, a full half-mile +from home, she heard rapid footsteps behind, and the young minister, +Thomas Merriam, came up beside her and spoke.</p> + +<p>“Good-evening,” said he, and his voice was a little +hoarse through nervousness.</p> + +<p>Evelina started, and turned her fair face up towards his. +“Good-evening,” she responded, and courtesied as she had +been taught at school, and stood close to the wall, that he might +pass; but Thomas Merriam paused also.</p> + +<p>“I—” he began, but his voice broke. He cleared +his throat angrily, and went on. “I have seen you in +meeting,” he said, with a kind of defiance, more of himself +than of her. After all, was he not the minister, and had he not the +right to speak to everybody in the congregation? Why should he +embarrass himself?</p> + +<p>“Yes, sir,” replied Evelina. She stood drooping her +head before him, and yet there was a certain delicate hauteur about +her. Thomas was afraid to speak again. They both stood silent for a +moment, and then Evelina stirred softly, as if to pass on, and Thomas +spoke out bravely. “Is your cousin, Miss Adams, well?” +said he.</p> + +<p>“She is pretty well, I thank you, sir.”</p> + +<p>“I've been wanting to—call,” he began; then he +hesitated again. His handsome young face was blushing crimson.</p> + +<p>Evelina's own color deepened. She turned her face away. +“Cousin Evelina never sees callers,” she said, with grave +courtesy; “perhaps you did not know. She has not for a great +many years.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, I did know it,” returned Thomas Merriam; +“that's the reason I haven't called.”</p> + +<p>“Cousin Evelina is not strong,” remarked the young +girl, and there was a savor of apology in her tone.</p> + +<p>“But—” stammered Thomas; then he stopped again. +“May I—has she any objections to—anybody's coming +to see you?”</p> + +<p>Evelina started. “I am afraid Cousin Evelina would not +approve,” she answered, primly. Then she looked up in his face, +and a girlish piteousness came into her own. “I am very +sorry,” she said, and there was a catch in her voice.</p> + +<p>Thomas bent over her impetuously. All his ministerial state fell +from him like an outer garment of the soul. He was young, and he had +seen this girl Sunday after Sunday. He had written all his sermons +with her image before his eyes, he had preached to her, and her only, +and she had come between his heart and all the nations of the earth +in his prayers. “Oh,” he stammered out, “I am +afraid you can't be very happy living there the way you do. Tell +me—”</p> + +<p>Evelina turned her face away with sudden haughtiness. “My +cousin Evelina is very kind to me, sir,” she said.</p> + +<p>“But—you must be lonesome with nobody—of your +own age—to speak to,” persisted Thomas, confusedly.</p> + +<p>“I never cared much for youthful company. It is getting +dark; I must be going,” said Evelina. “I wish you +good-evening, sir.”</p> + +<p>“Sha'n't I—walk home with you?” asked Thomas, +falteringly.</p> + +<p>“It isn't necessary, thank you, and I don't think Cousin +Evelina would approve,” she replied, primly; and her light +dress fluttered away into the dusk and out of sight like the pale +wing of a moth.</p> + +<p>Poor Thomas Merriam walked on with his head in a turmoil. His +heart beat loud in his ears. “I've made her mad with me,” +he said to himself, using the old rustic school-boy vernacular, from +which he did not always depart in his thoughts, although his +ministerial dignity guarded his conversations. Thomas Merriam came of +a simple homely stock, whose speech came from the emotions of the +heart, all unregulated by the usages of the schools. He was the first +for generations who had aspired to college learning and a profession, +and had trained his tongue by the models of the educated and polite. +He could not help, at times, the relapse of his thoughts, and their +speaking to himself in the dialect of his family and his ancestors. +“She's 'way above me, and I ought to ha' known it,” he +further said, with the meekness of an humble but fiercely independent +race, which is meek to itself alone. He would have maintained his +equality with his last breath to an opponent; in his heart of hearts +he felt himself below the scion of the one old gentle family of his +native village.</p> + +<p>This young Evelina, by the fine dignity which had been born with +her and not acquired by precept and example, by the sweetly formal +diction which seemed her native tongue, had filled him with awe. Now, +when he thought she was angered with him, he felt beneath her lady +feet, his nostrils choked with a spiritual dust of humiliation.</p> + +<p>He went forward blindly. The dusk had deepened; from either side +of the road, from the mysterious gloom of the bushes, came the twangs +of the katydids, like some coarse rustic quarrellers, each striving +for the last word in a dispute not even dignified by excess of +passion.</p> + +<p>Suddenly somebody jostled him to his own side of the path. +“That you, Thomas? Where you been?” said a voice in his +ear.</p> + +<p>“That you, father? Down to the post-office.”</p> + +<p>“Who was that you was talkin' with back there?”</p> + +<p>“Miss Evelina Leonard.”</p> + +<p>“That girl that's stayin' there—to the old +Squire's?”</p> + +<p>“Yes.” The son tried to move on, but his father stood +before him dumbly for a minute. “I must be going, father. I've +got to work on my sermon,” Thomas said, impatiently.</p> + +<p>“Wait a minute,” said his father. “I've got +something to say to ye, Thomas, an' this is as good a time to say it +as any. There ain't anybody 'round. I don't know as ye'll thank me +for it—but mother said the other day that she thought you'd +kind of an idea—she said you asked her if she thought it would +be anything out of the way for you to go up to the Squire's to make a +call. Mother she thinks you can step in anywheres, but I don't know. +I know your book-learnin' and your bein' a minister has set you up a +good deal higher than your mother and me and any of our folks, and I +feel as if you were good enough for anybody, as far as that goes; but +that ain't all. Some folks have different startin'-points in this +world, and they see things different; and when they do, it ain't much +use tryin' to make them walk alongside and see things alike. Their +eyes have got different cants, and they ain't able to help it. Now +this girl she's related to the old Squire, and she's been brought up +different, and she started ahead, even if her father did lose all his +property. She 'ain't never eat in the kitchen, nor been scart to set +down in the parlor, and satin and velvet, and silver spoons, and +cream-pots 'ain't never looked anything out of the common to her, and +they always will to you. No matter how many such things you may live +to have, they'll always get a little the better of ye. She'll be 'way +above 'em; and you won't, no matter how hard you try. Some ideas +can't never mix; and when ideas can't mix, folks can't.”</p> + +<p>“I never said they could,” returned Thomas, shortly. +“I can't stop to talk any longer, father. I must go +home.”</p> + +<p>“No, you wait a minute, Thomas. I'm goin' to say out what I +started to, and then I sha'n't ever bring it up again. What I was +comin' at was this: I wanted to warn ye a little. You mustn't set too +much store by little things that you think mean consider'ble when +they don't. Looks don't count for much, and I want you to remember +it, and not be upset by 'em.”</p> + +<p>Thomas gave a great start and colored high. “I'd like to +know what you mean, father,” he cried, sharply.</p> + +<p>“Nothin'. I don't mean nothin', only I'm older'n you, and +it's come in my way to know some things, and it's fittin' you should +profit by it. A young woman's looks at you don't count for much. I +don't s'pose she knows why she gives 'em herself half the time; they +ain't like us. It's best you should make up your mind to it; if you +don't, you may find it out by the hardest. That's all. I ain't never +goin' to bring this up again.”</p> + +<p>“I'd like to know what you mean, father.” Thomas's +voice shook with embarrassment and anger.</p> + +<p>“I ain't goin' to say anything more about it,” replied +the old man. “Mary Ann Pease and Arabella Mann are both in the +settin'-room with your mother. I thought I'd tell ye, in case ye +didn't want to see 'em, and wanted to go to work on your +sermon.”</p> + +<p>Thomas made an impatient ejaculation as he strode off. When he +reached the large white house where he lived he skirted it carefully. +The chirping treble of girlish voices came from the open sitting-room +window, and he caught a glimpse of a smooth brown head and a high +shell comb in front of the candle-light. The young minister tiptoed +in the back door and across the kitchen to the back stairs. The +sitting-room door was open, and the candle-light streamed out, and +the treble voices rose high. Thomas, advancing through the dusky +kitchen with cautious steps, encountered suddenly a chair in the dark +corner by the stairs, and just saved himself from falling. There was +a startled outcry from the sitting-room, and his mother came running +into the kitchen with a candle.</p> + +<p>“Who is it?” she demanded, valiantly. Then she started +and gasped as her son confronted her. He shook a furious warning fist +at the sitting-room door and his mother, and edged towards the +stairs. She followed him close. “Hadn't you better jest step in +a minute?” she whispered. “Them girls have been here an +hour, and I know they're waitin' to see you.” Thomas shook his +head fiercely, and swung himself around the corner into the dark +crook of the back stairs. His mother thrust the candle into his hand. +“Take this, or you'll break your neck on them stairs,” +she whispered.</p> + +<p>Thomas, stealing up the stairs like a cat, heard one of the girls +call to his mother—“Is it robbers, Mis' Merriam? Want us +to come an' help tackle 'em?”—and he fairly shuddered; +for Evelina's gentle-lady speech was still in his ears, and this rude +girlish call seemed to jar upon his sensibilities.</p> + +<p>“The idea of any girl screeching out like that,” he +muttered. And if he had carried speech as far as his thought, he +would have added, “when Evelina is a girl!”</p> + +<p>He was so angry that he did not laugh when he heard his mother +answer back, in those conclusive tones of hers that were wont to +silence all argument: “It ain't anything. Don't be scared. I'm +coming right back.” Mrs. Merriam scorned subterfuges. She took +always a silent stand in a difficulty, and let people infer what they +would. When Mary Ann Pease inquired if it was the cat that had made +the noise, she asked if her mother had finished her blue and white +counterpane.</p> + +<p>The two girls waited a half-hour longer, then they went home. +“What do you s'pose made that noise out in the kitchen?” +asked Arabella Mann of Mary Ann Pease, the minute they were +out-of-doors.</p> + +<p>“I don't know,” replied Mary Ann Pease. She was a +broad-backed young girl, and looked like a matron as she hurried +along in the dusk.</p> + +<p>“Well, I know what I think it was,” said Arabella +Mann, moving ahead with sharp jerks of her little dark body.</p> + +<p>“What?”</p> + +<p>“It was him.”</p> + +<p>“You don't mean—”</p> + +<p>“I think it was Thomas Merriam, and he was tryin' to get up +the back stairs unbeknownst to anybody, and he run into +something.”</p> + +<p>“What for?”</p> + +<p>“Because he didn't want to see <em>us</em>.”</p> + +<p>“Now, Arabella Mann, I don't believe it! He's always real +pleasant to me.”</p> + +<p>“Well, I do believe it, and I guess he'll know it when I set +foot in that house again. I guess he'll find out I didn't go there to +see him! He needn't feel so fine, if he is the minister; his folks +ain't any better than mine, an' we've got 'nough sight handsomer +furniture in our parlor.”</p> + +<p>“Did you see how the tallow had all run down over the +candles?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, I did. She gave that candle she carried out in the +kitchen to him, too. Mother says she wasn't never any kind of a +housekeeper.”</p> + +<p>“Hush! Arabella: here he is coming now.”</p> + +<p>But it was not Thomas; it was his father, advancing through the +evening with his son's gait and carriage. When the two girls +discovered that, one tittered out quite audibly, and they scuttled +past. They were not rivals; they simply walked faithfully side by +side in pursuit of the young minister, giving him as it were an +impartial choice. There were even no heart-burnings between them; one +always confided in the other when she supposed herself to have found +some slight favor in Thomas's sight; and, indeed, the young minister +could scarcely bow to one upon the street unless she flew to the +other with the news.</p> + +<p>Thomas Merriam himself was aware of all this devotion on the part +of the young women of his flock, and it filled him with a sort of +angry shame. He could not have told why, but he despised himself for +being the object of their attention more than he despised them. His +heart sank at the idea of Evelina's discovering it. What would she +think of him if she knew all those young women haunted his house and +lagged after meeting on the chance of getting a word from him? +Suppose she should see their eyes upon his face in meeting time, and +decipher their half-unconscious boldness, as he had done against his +will. Once Evelina had looked at him, even as the older Evelina had +looked at his father, and all other looks of maidens seemed to him +like profanations of that, even although he doubted afterwards that +he had rightly interpreted it. Full it had seemed to him of that +tender maiden surprise and wonder, of that love that knows not +itself, and sees its own splendor for the first time in another's +face, and flees at the sight. It had happened once when he was coming +down the aisle after the sermon and Evelina had met him at the door +of her pew. But she had turned her head quickly, and her soft curls +flowed over her red cheek, and he doubted ever after if he had read +the look aright. When he had gotten the courage to speak to her, and +she had met him with the gentle coldness which she had learned of her +lady aunt and her teacher in Boston, his doubt was strong upon him. +The next Sunday he looked not her way at all. He even tried +faithfully from day to day to drive her image from his mind with +prayer and religious thoughts, but in spite of himself he would lapse +into dreams about her, as if borne by a current of nature too strong +to be resisted. And sometimes, upon being awakened from them, as he +sat over his sermon with the ink drying on his quill, by the sudden +outburst of treble voices in his mother's sitting-room below, the +fancy would seize him that possibly these other young damsels took +fond liberties with him in their dreams, as he with Evelina, and he +resented it with a fierce maidenliness of spirit, although he was a +man. The thought that possibly they, over their spinning or their +quilting, had in their hearts the image of himself with fond words +upon his lips and fond looks in his eyes, filled him with shame and +rage, although he took the same liberty with the delicately haughty +maiden Evelina.</p> + +<p>But Thomas Merriam was not given to undue appreciation of his own +fascination, as was proved by his ready discouragement in the case of +Evelina. He had the knowledge of his conquests forced upon his +understanding until he could no longer evade it. Every day were +offerings laid upon his shrine, of pound-cakes and flaky pies, and +loaves of white bread, and cups of jelly, whereby the culinary skill +of his devotees might be proved. Silken purses and beautiful socks +knitted with fancy stitches, and holy book-marks for his Bible, and +even a wonderful bedquilt, and a fine linen shirt with hem-stitched +bands, poured in upon him. He burned with angry blushes when his +mother, smiling meaningly, passed them over to him. “Put them +away, mother; I don't want them,” he would growl out, in a +distress that was half comic and half pathetic. He would never taste +of the tempting viands which were brought to him. “How you act, +Thomas!” his mother would say. She was secretly elated by these +feminine libations upon the altar of her son. They did not grate upon +her sensibilities, which were not delicate. She even tried to assist +two or three of the young women in their designs; she would often +praise them and their handiwork to her son—and in this she was +aided by an old woman aunt of hers who lived with the family. +“Nancy Winslow is as handsome a girl as ever I set eyes on, an' +I never see any nicer sewin',” Mrs. Merriam said, after the +advent of the linen shirt, and she held it up to the light +admiringly. “Jest look at that hem-stitchin'!” she +said.</p> + +<p>“I guess whoever made that shirt calkilated 't would do for +a weddin' one,” said old Aunt Betty Green, and Thomas made an +exclamation and went out of the room, tingling all over with shame +and disgust.</p> + +<p>“Thomas don't act nateral,” said the old woman, +glancing after him through her iron-bound spectacles.</p> + +<p>“I dun'no' what's got into him,” returned his +mother.</p> + +<p>“Mebbe they foller him up a leetle too close,” said +Aunt Betty. “I dun'no' as I should have ventured on a shirt +when I was a gal. I made a satin vest once for Joshua, but that don't +seem quite as p'inted as a shirt. It didn't scare Joshua, nohow. He +asked me to have him the next week.”</p> + +<p>“Well, I dun'no',” said Mrs. Merriam again. “I +kind of wish Thomas would settle on somebody, for I'm pestered most +to death with 'em, an' I feel as if 't was kind of mean takin' all +these things into the house.”</p> + +<p>“They've 'bout kept ye in sweet cake, 'ain't they, +lately?”</p> + +<p>“Yes; but I don't feel as if it was jest right for us to eat +it up, when 't was brought for Thomas. But he won't touch it. I can't +see as he has the least idee of any one of them. I don't believe +Thomas has ever seen anybody he wanted for a wife.”</p> + +<p>“Well, he's got the pick of 'em, a-settin' their caps right +in his face,” said Aunt Betty.</p> + +<p>Neither of them dreamed how the young man, sleeping and eating and +living under the same roof, beloved of them since he entered the +world, holding himself coldly aloof from this crowd of +half-innocently, half-boldly ardent young women, had set up for +himself his own divinity of love, before whom he consumed himself in +vain worship. His father suspected, and that was all, and he never +mentioned the matter again to his son.</p> + +<p>After Thomas had spoken to Evelina the weeks went on, and they +never exchanged another word, and their eyes never met. But they +dwelt constantly within each other's thoughts, and were ever present +to each other's spiritual vision. Always as the young minister bent +over his sermon-paper, laboriously tracing out with sputtering quill +his application of the articles of the orthodox faith, Evelina's blue +eyes seemed to look out at him between the stern doctrines like the +eyes of an angel. And he could not turn the pages of the Holy Writ +unless he found some passage therein which to his mind treated +directly of her, setting forth her graces like a prophecy. “The +fairest among women,” read Thomas Merriam, and nodded his head, +while his heart leaped with the satisfied delight of all its fancies, +at the image of his love's fair and gentle face. “Her price is +far above rubies,” read Thomas Merriam, and he nodded his head +again, and saw Evelina shining as with gold and pearls, more precious +than all the jewels of the earth. In spite of all his efforts, when +Thomas Merriam studied the Scriptures in those days he was more +nearly touched by those old human hearts which throbbed down to his +through the ages, welding the memories of their old loves to his +living one until they seemed to prove its eternity, than by the +Messianic prophecies. Often he spent hours upon his knees, but arose +with Evelina's face before his very soul in spite of all.</p> + +<p>And as for Evelina, she tended the flowers in the elder Evelina's +garden with her poor cousin, whose own love-dreams had been +illustrated as it were by the pinks and lilies blooming around them +when they had all gone out of her heart, and Thomas Merriam's +half-bold, half-imploring eyes looked up at her out of every flower +and stung her heart like bees. Poor young Evelina feared much lest +she had offended Thomas, and yet her own maiden decorum had been +offended by him, and she had offended it herself, and she was faint +with shame and distress when she thought of it. How had she been so +bold and shameless as to give him that look at the meeting-house? and +how had he been so cruel as to accost her afterwards? She told +herself she had done right for the maintenance of her own maiden +dignity, and yet she feared lest she had angered him and hurt him. +“Suppose he had been fretted by her coolness?” she +thought, and then a great wave of tender pity went over her heart, +and she would almost have spoken to him of her own accord. But then +she would reflect how he continued to write such beautiful sermons, +and prove so clearly and logically the tenets of the faith; and how +could he do that with a mind in distress? Scarcely could she herself +tend the flower-beds as she should, nor set her embroidery stitches +finely and evenly, she was so ill at ease. It must be that Thomas had +not given the matter an hour's worry, since he continued to do his +work so faithfully and well. And then her own heart would be sorer +than ever with the belief that his was happy and at rest, although +she would chide herself for it.</p> + +<p>And yet this young Evelina was a philosopher and an analyst of +human nature in a small way, and she got some slight comfort out of a +shrewd suspicion that the heart of a man might love and suffer on a +somewhat different principle from the heart of a woman. “It may +be,” thought Evelina, sitting idle over her embroidery with +far-away blue eyes, “that a man's heart can always turn a while +from love to other things as weighty and serious, although he be just +as fond, while a woman's heart is always fixed one way by loving, and +cannot be turned unless it breaks. And it may be wise,” thought +young Evelina, “else how could the state be maintained and +governed, battles for independence be fought, and even souls be +saved, and the gospel carried to the heathen, if men could not turn +from the concerns of their own hearts more easily than women? Women +should be patient,” thought Evelina, “and consider that +if they suffer 't is due to the lot which a wise Providence has given +them.” And yet tears welled up in her earnest blue eyes and +fell over her fair cheeks and wet the embroidery—when the elder +Evelina was not looking, as she seldom was. The elder Evelina was +kind to her young cousin, but there were days when she seemed to +dwell alone in her own thoughts, apart from the whole world, and she +seldom spoke either to Evelina or her old servant-man.</p> + +<p>Young Evelina, trying to atone for her former indiscretion and +establish herself again on her height of maiden reserve in Thomas +Merriam's eyes, sat resolutely in the meeting-house of a Sabbath day, +with her eyes cast down, and after service she glided swiftly down +the aisle and was out of the door before the young minister could +much more than descend the pulpit stairs, unless he ran an indecorous +race.</p> + +<p>And young Evelina never at twilight strolled up the road in the +direction of Thomas Merriam's home, where she might quite reasonably +hope to meet him, since he was wont to go to the store when the +evening stage-coach came in with the mail from Boston.</p> + +<p>Instead she paced the garden paths, or, when there was not too +heavy a dew, rambled across the fields; and there was also a lane +where she loved to walk. Whether or not Thomas Merriam suspected +this, or had ever seen, as he passed the mouth of the lane, the +flutter of maidenly draperies in the distance, it so happened that +one evening he also went a-walking there, and met Evelina. He had +entered the lane from the highway, and she from the fields at the +head. So he saw her first afar off, and could not tell fairly whether +her light muslin skirt might not be only a white-flowering bush. For, +since his outlook upon life had been so full of Evelina, he had found +that often the most common and familiar things would wear for a +second a look of her to startle him. And many a time his heart had +leaped at the sight of a white bush ahead stirring softly in the +evening wind, and he had thought it might be she. Now he said to +himself impatiently that this was only another fancy; but soon he saw +that it was indeed Evelina, in a light muslin gown, with a little +lace kerchief on her head. His handsome young face was white; his +lips twitched nervously; but he reached out and pulled a spray of +white flowers from a bush, and swung it airily to hide his agitation +as he advanced.</p> + +<p>As for Evelina, when she first espied Thomas she started and half +turned, as if to go back; then she held up her white-kerchiefed head +with gentle pride and kept on. When she came up to Thomas she walked +so far to one side that her muslin skirt was in danger of catching +and tearing on the bushes, and she never raised her eyes, and not a +flicker of recognition stirred her sweet pale face as she passed +him.</p> + +<p>But Thomas started as if she had struck him, and dropped his spray +of white flowers, and could not help a smothered cry that was half a +sob, as he went on, knocking blindly against the bushes. He went a +little way, then he stopped and looked back with his piteous hurt +eyes. And Evelina had stopped also, and she had the spray of white +flowers which he had dropped, in her hand, and her eyes met his. Then +she let the flowers fall again, and clapped both her little hands to +her face to cover it, and turned to run; but Thomas was at her side, +and he put out his hand and held her softly by her white arm.</p> + +<p>“Oh,” he panted, “I—did not mean to +be—too presuming, and offend you. I—crave your +pardon—”</p> + +<p>Evelina had recovered herself. She stood with her little hands +clasped, and her eyes cast down before him, but not a quiver stirred +her pale face, which seemed turned to marble by this last effort of +her maiden pride. “I have nothing to pardon,” said she. +“It was I, whose bold behavior, unbecoming a modest and +well-trained young woman, gave rise to what seemed like presumption +on your part.” The sense of justice was strong within her, but +she made her speech haughtily and primly, as if she had learned it by +rote from some maiden school-mistress, and pulled her arm away and +turned to go; but Thomas's words stopped her.</p> + +<p>“Not—unbecoming if it came—from the +heart,” said he, brokenly, scarcely daring to speak, and yet +not daring to be silent.</p> + +<p>Then Evelina turned on him, with a sudden strange pride that lay +beneath all other pride, and was of a nobler and truer sort. +“Do you think I would have given you the look that I did if it +had not come from my heart?” she demanded. “What did you +take me to be—false and a jilt? I may be a forward young woman, +who has overstepped the bounds of maidenly decorum, and I shall never +get over the shame of it, but I am truthful, and I am no jilt.” + The brilliant color flamed out on Evelina's cheeks. Her blue eyes +met Thomas's with that courage of innocence and nature which dares +all shame. But it was only for a second; the tears sprang into them. +“I beg you to let me go home,” she said, pitifully; but +Thomas caught her in his arms, and pressed her troubled maiden face +against his breast.</p> + +<p>“Oh, I love you so!” he whispered—“I love +you so, Evelina, and I was afraid you were angry with me for +it.”</p> + +<p>“And I was afraid,” she faltered, half weeping and +half shrinking from him, “lest you were angry with me for +betraying the state of my feelings, when you could not return +them.” And even then she used that gentle formality of +expression with which she had been taught by her maiden preceptors to +veil decorously her most ardent emotions. And, in truth, her training +stood her in good stead in other ways; for she presently commanded, +with that mild dignity of hers which allowed of no remonstrance, that +Thomas should take away his arm from her waist, and give her no more +kisses for that time.</p> + +<p>“It is not becoming for any one,” said she, “and +much less for a minister of the gospel. And as for myself, I know not +what Mistress Perkins would say to me. She has a mind much above me, +I fear.”</p> + +<p>“Mistress Perkins is enjoying her mind in Boston,” +said Thomas Merriam, with the laugh of a triumphant young lover.</p> + +<p>But Evelina did not laugh. “It might be well for both you +and me if she were here,” said she, seriously. However, she +tempered a little her decorous following of Mistress Perkins's +precepts, and she and Thomas went hand in hand up the lane and across +the fields.</p> + +<p>There was no dew that night, and the moon was full. It was after +nine o'clock when Thomas left her at the gate in the fence which +separated Evelina Adams's garden from the field, and watched her +disappear between the flowers. The moon shone full on the garden. +Evelina walked as it were over a silver dapple, which her light gown +seemed to brush away and dispel for a moment. The bushes stood in +sweet mysterious clumps of shadow.</p> + +<p>Evelina had almost reached the house, and was close to the great +althea bush, which cast a wide circle of shadow, when it seemed +suddenly to separate and move into life.</p> + +<p>The elder Evelina stepped out from the shadow of the bush. +“Is that you, Evelina?” she said, in her soft, melancholy +voice, which had in it a nervous vibration.</p> + +<p>“Yes, Cousin Evelina.”</p> + +<p>The elder Evelina's pale face, drooped about with gray curls, had +an unfamiliar, almost uncanny, look in the moonlight, and might have +been the sorrowful visage of some marble nymph, lovelorn, with +unceasing grace. “Who—was with you?” she asked.</p> + +<p>“The minister,” replied young Evelina.</p> + +<p>“Did he meet you?”</p> + +<p>“He met me in the lane, Cousin Evelina.”</p> + +<p>“And he walked home with you across the field?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, Cousin Evelina.”</p> + +<p>Then the two entered the house, and nothing more was said about +the matter. Young Evelina and Thomas Merriam agreed that their +affection was to be kept a secret for a while. “For,” +said young Evelina, “I cannot leave Cousin Evelina yet a while, +and I cannot have her pestered with thinking about it, at least +before another spring, when she has the garden fairly growing +again.”</p> + +<p>“That is nearly a whole year; it is August now,” said +Thomas, half reproachfully, and he tightened his clasp of Evelina's +slender fingers.</p> + +<p>“I cannot help that,” replied Evelina. “It is +for you to show Christian patience more than I, Thomas. If you could +have seen poor Cousin Evelina, as I have seen her, through the long +winter days, when her garden is dead, and she has only the few plants +in her window left! When she is not watering and tending them she +sits all day in the window and looks out over the garden and the +naked bushes and the withered flower-stalks. She used not to be so, +but would read her Bible and good books, and busy herself somewhat +over fine needle-work, and at one time she was compiling a little +floral book, giving a list of the flowers, and poetical selections +and sentiments appropriate to each. That was her pastime for three +winters, and it is now nearly done; but she has given that up, and +all the rest, and sits there in the window and grows older and +feebler until spring. It is only I who can divert her mind, by +reading aloud to her and singing; and sometimes I paint the flowers +she loves the best on card-board with water-colors. I have a poor +skill in it, but Cousin Evelina can tell which flower I have tried to +represent, and it pleases her greatly. I have even seen her smile. +No, I cannot leave her, nor even pester her with telling her before +another spring, and you must wait, Thomas,” said young +Evelina.</p> + +<p>And Thomas agreed, as he was likely to do to all which she +proposed which touched not his own sense of right and honor. Young +Evelina gave Thomas one more kiss for his earnest pleading, and that +night wrote out the tale in her journal. “It may be that I +overstepped the bounds of maidenly decorum,” wrote Evelina, +“but my heart did so entreat me,” and no blame whatever +did she lay upon Thomas.</p> + +<p>Young Evelina opened her heart only to her journal, and her cousin +was told nothing, and had little cause for suspicion. Thomas Merriam +never came to the house to see his sweetheart; he never walked home +with her from meeting. Both were anxious to avoid village gossip, +until the elder Evelina could be told.</p> + +<p>Often in the summer evenings the lovers met, and strolled hand in +hand across the fields, and parted at the garden gate with the one +kiss which Evelina allowed, and that was all.</p> + +<p>Sometimes when young Evelina came in with her lover's kiss still +warm upon her lips the elder Evelina looked at her wistfully, with a +strange retrospective expression in her blue eyes, as if she were +striving to remember something that the girl's face called to mind. +And yet she could have had nothing to remember except dreams.</p> + +<p>And once, when young Evelina sat sewing through a long summer +afternoon and thinking about her lover, the elder Evelina, who was +storing rose leaves mixed with sweet spices in a jar, said, suddenly, +“He looks as his father used to.”</p> + +<p>Young Evelina started. “Whom do you mean, Cousin +Evelina?” she asked, wonderingly; for the elder Evelina had not +glanced at her, nor even seemed to address her at all.</p> + +<p>“Nothing,” said the elder Evelina, and a soft flush +stole over her withered face and neck, and she sprinkled more cassia +on the rose leaves in the jar.</p> + +<p>Young Evelina said no more; but she wondered, partly because +Thomas was always in her mind, and it seemed to her naturally that +nearly everything must have a savor of meaning of him, if her cousin +Evelina could possibly have referred to him and his likeness to his +father. For it was commonly said that Thomas looked very like his +father, although his figure was different. The young man was taller +and more firmly built, and he had not the meek forward curve of +shoulder which had grown upon his father of late years.</p> + +<p>When the frosty nights came Thomas and Evelina could not meet and +walk hand in hand over the fields behind the Squire's house, and they +very seldom could speak to each other. It was nothing except a +“good-day” on the street, and a stolen glance, which set +them both a-trembling lest all the congregation had noticed, in the +meeting-house. When the winter set fairly in they met no more, for +the elder Evelina was taken ill, and her young cousin did not leave +her even to go to meeting. People said they guessed it was Evelina +Adams's last sickness, and they furthermore guessed that she would +divide her property between her cousin Martha Loomis and her two +girls and Evelina Leonard, and that Evelina would have the house as +her share.</p> + +<p>Thomas Merriam heard this last with a satisfaction which he did +not try to disguise from himself, because he never dreamed of there +being any selfish element in it. It was all for Evelina. Many a time +he had looked about the humble house where he had been born, and +where he would have to take Evelina after he had married her, and +striven to see its poor features with her eyes—not with his, +for which familiarity had tempered them. Often, as he sat with his +parents in the old sitting-room, in which he had kept so far an +unquestioning belief, as in a friend of his childhood, the scales of +his own personality would fall suddenly from his eyes. Then he would +see, as Evelina, the poor, worn, humble face of his home, and his +heart would sink. “I don't see how I ever can bring her +here,” he thought. He began to save, a few cents at a time, out +of his pitiful salary, to at least beautify his own chamber a little +when Evelina should come. He made up his mind that she should have a +little dressing-table, with an oval mirror, and a white muslin frill +around it, like one he had seen in Boston. “She shall have that +to sit before while she combs her hair,” he thought, with +defiant tenderness, when he stowed away another shilling in a little +box in his trunk. It was money which he ordinarily bestowed upon +foreign missions; but his Evelina had come between him and the +heathen. To procure some dainty furnishings for her bridal-chamber he +took away a good half of his tithes for the spread of the gospel in +the dark lands. Now and then his conscience smote him, he felt +shamefaced before his deacons, but Evelina kept her first claim. He +resolved that another year he would hire a piece of land, and combine +farming with his ministerial work, and so try to eke out his salary, +and get a little more money to beautify his poor home for his +bride.</p> + +<p>Now if Evelina Adams had come to the appointed time for the +closing of her solitary life, and if her young cousin should inherit +a share of her goodly property and the fine old mansion-house, all +necessity for anxiety of this kind was over. Young Evelina would not +need to be taken away, for the sake of her love, from all these +comforts and luxuries. Thomas Merriam rejoiced innocently, without a +thought for himself.</p> + +<p>In the course of the winter he confided in his father; he couldn't +keep it to himself any longer. Then there was another reason. Seeing +Evelina so little made him at times almost doubt the reality of it +all. There were days when he was depressed, and inclined to ask +himself if he had not dreamed it. Telling somebody gave it +substance.</p> + +<p>His father listened soberly when he told him; he had grown old of +late.</p> + +<p>“Well,” said he, “she 'ain't been used to living +the way you have, though you have had advantages that none of your +folks ever had; but if she likes you, that's all there is to it, I +s'pose.”</p> + +<p>The old man sighed wearily. He sat in his arm-chair at the kitchen +fireplace; his wife had gone in to one of the neighbors, and the two +were alone.</p> + +<p>“Of course,” said Thomas, simply, “if Evelina +Adams shouldn't live, the chances are that I shouldn't have to bring +her here. She wouldn't have to give up anything on my +account—you know that, father.”</p> + +<p>Then the young man started, for his father turned suddenly on him +with a pale, wrathful face. “You ain't countin' on that!” +he shouted. “You ain't countin' on that—a son of mine +countin' on anything like that!”</p> + +<p>Thomas colored. “Why, father,” he stammered, +“you don't think—you know, it's all for +<em>her</em>—and they say she can't live anyway. I had never +thought of such a thing before. I was wondering how I could make it +comfortable for Evelina here.”</p> + +<p>But his father did not seem to listen. “Countin' on +that!” he repeated. “Countin' on a poor old soul, that +'ain't ever had anything to set her heart on but a few posies, dyin' +to make room for other folks to have what she's been cheated out on. +Countin' on that!” The old man's voice broke into a hoarse +sob; he got up, and went hurriedly out of the room.</p> + +<p>“Why, father!” his son called after him, in alarm. He +got up to follow him, but his father waved him back and shut the door +hard.</p> + +<p>“Father must be getting childish,” Thomas thought, +wonderingly. He did not bring up the subject to him again.</p> + +<p>Evelina Adams died in March. One morning the bell tolled seventy +long melancholy tones before people had eaten their breakfasts. They +ran to their doors and counted. “It's her,” they said, +nodding, when they had waited a little after the seventieth stroke. +Directly Mrs. Martha Loomis and her two girls were seen hustling +importantly down the road, with their shawls over their heads, to the +Squire's house. “Mis' Loomis can lay her out,” they said. +“It ain't likely that young Evelina knows anything about such +things. Guess she'll be thankful she's got somebody to call on now, +if she 'ain't mixed much with the Loomises.” Then they +wondered when the funeral would be, and the women furbished up their +black gowns and bonnets, and even in a few cases drove to the next +town and borrowed from relatives; but there was a great +disappointment in store for them.</p> + +<p>Evelina Adams died on a Saturday. The next day it was announced +from the pulpit that the funeral would be private, by the particular +request of the deceased. Evelina Adams had carried her delicate +seclusion beyond death, to the very borders of the grave. Nobody, +outside the family, was bidden to the funeral, except the doctor, the +minister, and the two deacons of the church. They were to be the +bearers. The burial also was to be private, in the Squire's family +burial-lot, at the north of the house. The bearers would carry the +coffin across the yard, and there would not only be no funeral, but +no funeral procession, and no hearse. “It don't seem scarcely +decent,” the women whispered to each other; “and more +than all that, she ain't goin' to be <em>seen</em>.” The +deacons' wives were especially disturbed by this last, as they might +otherwise have gained many interesting particulars by proxy.</p> + +<p>Monday was the day set for the burial. Early in the morning old +Thomas Merriam walked feebly up the road to the Squire's house. +People noticed him as he passed. “How terribly fast he's grown +old lately!” they said. He opened the gate which led into the +Squire's front yard with fumbling fingers, and went up the walk to +the front door, under the Corinthian pillars, and raised the brass +knocker.</p> + +<p>Evelina opened the door, and started and blushed when she saw him. +She had been crying; there were red rings around her blue eyes, and +her pretty lips were swollen. She tried to smile at Thomas's father, +and she held out her hand with shy welcome.</p> + +<p>“I want to see her,” the old man said, abruptly.</p> + +<p>Evelina started, and looked at him wonderingly. +“I—don't believe—I know who you mean,” said +she. “Do you want to see Mrs. Loomis?”</p> + +<p>“No; I want to see her.”</p> + +<p>“<em>Her?</em>”</p> + +<p>“Yes, <em>her</em>.”</p> + +<p>Evelina turned pale as she stared at him. There was something +strange about his face. “But—Cousin Evelina,” she +faltered—“she—didn't want— Perhaps you don't +know: she left special directions that nobody was to look at +her.”</p> + +<p>“I <em>want to see her</em>,” said the old man, and +Evelina gave way. She stood aside for him to enter, and led him into +the great north parlor, where Evelina Adams lay in her mournful +state. The shutters were closed, and one on entering could +distinguish nothing but that long black shadow in the middle of the +room. Young Evelina opened a shutter a little way, and a slanting +shaft of spring sunlight came in and shot athwart the coffin. The old +man tiptoed up and leaned over and looked at the dead woman. Evelina +Adams had left further instructions about her funeral, which no one +understood, but which were faithfully carried out. She wished, she +had said, to be attired for her long sleep in a certain rose-colored +gown, laid away in rose leaves and lavender in a certain chest in a +certain chamber. There were also silken hose and satin shoes with it, +and these were to be put on, and a wrought lace tucker fastened with +a pearl brooch.</p> + +<p>It was the costume she had worn one Sabbath day back in her youth, +when she had looked across the meeting-house and her eyes had met +young Thomas Merriam's; but nobody knew nor remembered; even young +Evelina thought it was simply a vagary of her dead cousin's.</p> + +<p>“It don't seem to me decent to lay away anybody dressed +so,” said Mrs. Martha Loomis; “but of course last wishes +must be respected.”</p> + +<p>The two Loomis girls said they were thankful nobody was to see the +departed in her rose-colored shroud.</p> + +<p>Even old Thomas Merriam, leaning over poor Evelina, cold and dead +in the garb of her youth, did not remember it, and saw no meaning in +it. He looked at her long. The beautiful color was all faded out of +the yellow-white face; the sweet full lips were set and thin; the +closed blue eyes sunken in dark hollows; the yellow hair showed a +line of gray at the edge of her old woman's cap, and thin gray curls +lay against the hollow cheeks. But old Thomas Merriam drew a long +breath when he looked at her. It was like a gasp of admiration and +wonder; a strange rapture came into his dim eyes; his lips moved as +if he whispered to her, but young Evelina could not hear a sound. She +watched him, half frightened, but finally he turned to her. “I +'ain't seen her—fairly,” said he, hoarsely—“I +'ain't seen her, savin' a glimpse of her at the window, for over +forty year, and she 'ain't changed, not a look. I'd have known her +anywheres. She's the same as she was when she was a girl. It's +wonderful—wonderful!”</p> + +<p>Young Evelina shrank a little. “We think she looks +natural,” she said, hesitatingly.</p> + +<p>“She looks jest as she did when she was a girl and used to +come into the meetin'-house. She <em>is</em> jest the same,” +the old man repeated, in his eager, hoarse voice. Then he bent over +the coffin, and his lips moved again. Young Evelina would have called +Mrs. Loomis, for she was frightened, had he not been Thomas's father, +and had it not been for her vague feeling that there might be some +old story to explain this which she had never heard. “Maybe he +was in love with poor Cousin Evelina, as Thomas is with me,” +thought young Evelina, using her own leaping-pole of love to land +straight at the truth. But she never told her surmise to any one +except Thomas, and that was long afterwards, when the old man was +dead. Now she watched him with her blue dilated eyes. But soon he +turned away from the coffin and made his way straight out of the +room, without a word. Evelina followed him through the entry and +opened the outer door. He turned on the threshold and looked back at +her, his face working.</p> + +<p>“Don't ye go to lottin' too much on what ye're goin' to get +through folks that have died an' not had anything,” he said; +and he shook his head almost fiercely at her.</p> + +<p>“No, I won't. I don't think I understand what you mean, +sir,” stammered Evelina.</p> + +<p>The old man stood looking at her a moment. Suddenly she saw the +tears rolling over his old cheeks. “I'm much obliged to ye for +lettin' of me see her,” he said, hoarsely, and crept feebly +down the steps.</p> + +<p>Evelina went back trembling to the room where her dead cousin lay, +and covered her face, and closed the shutter again. Then she went +about her household duties, wondering. She could not understand what +it all meant; but one thing she understood—that in some way +this old dead woman, Evelina Adams, had gotten immortal youth and +beauty in one human heart. “She looked to him just as she did +when she was a girl,” Evelina kept thinking to herself with +awe. She said nothing about it to Mrs. Martha Loomis or her +daughters. They had been in the back part of the house, and had not +heard old Thomas Merriam come in, and they never knew about it.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Loomis and the two girls stayed in the house day and night +until after the funeral. They confidently expected to live there in +the future. “It isn't likely that Evelina Adams thought a young +woman no older than Evelina Leonard could live here alone in this +great house with nobody but that old Sarah Judd. It would not be +proper nor becoming,” said Martha Loomis to her two daughters; +and they agreed, and brought over many of their possessions under +cover of night to the Squire's house during the interval before the +funeral.</p> + +<p>But after the funeral and the reading of the will the Loomises +made sundry trips after dusk back to their old home, with their best +petticoats and cloaks over their arms, and their bonnets dangling by +their strings at their sides. For Evelina Adams's last will and +testament had been read, and therein provision was made for the +continuance of the annuity heretofore paid them for their support, +with the condition affixed that not one night should they spend after +the reading of the will in the house known as the Squire Adams house. +The annuity was an ample one, and would provide the widow Martha +Loomis and her daughters, as it had done before, with all the +needfuls of life; but upon hearing the will they stiffened their +double chins into their kerchiefs with indignation, for they had +looked for more.</p> + +<p>Evelina Adams's will was a will of conditions, for unto it she had +affixed two more, and those affected her beloved cousin Evelina +Leonard. It was notable that “beloved” had not preceded +her cousin Martha Loomis's name in the will. No pretence of love, +when she felt none, had she ever made in her life. The entire +property of Evelina Adams, spinster, deceased, with the exception of +Widow Martha Loomis's provision, fell to this beloved young Evelina +Leonard, subject to two conditions—firstly, she was never to +enter into matrimony, with any person whomsoever, at any time +whatsoever; secondly, she was never to let the said spinster Evelina +Adams's garden, situated at the rear and southward of the house known +as the Squire Adams house, die through any neglect of hers. Due +allowance was to be made for the dispensations of Providence: for +hail and withering frost and long-continued drought, and for times +wherein the said Evelina Leonard might, by reason of being confined +to the house by sickness, be prevented from attending to the needs of +the growing plants, and the verdict in such cases was to rest with +the minister and the deacons of the church. But should this beloved +Evelina love and wed, or should she let, through any wilful neglect, +that garden perish in the season of flowers, all that goodly property +would she forfeit to a person unknown, whose name, enclosed in a +sealed envelope, was to be held meantime in the hands of the +executor, who had also drawn up the will, Lawyer Joshua Lang.</p> + +<p>There was great excitement in the village over this strange and +unwonted will. Some were there who held that Evelina Adams had not +been of sound mind, and it should be contested. It was even rumored +that Widow Martha Loomis had visited Lawyer Joshua Lang and broached +the subject, but he had dismissed the matter peremptorily by telling +her that Evelina Adams, spinster, deceased, had been as much in her +right mind at the time of drawing the will as anybody of his +acquaintance.</p> + +<p>“Not setting store by relations, and not wanting to have +them under your roof, doesn't go far in law nor common-sense to send +folks to the madhouse,” old Lawyer Lang, who was famed for his +sharp tongue, was reported to have said. However, Mrs. Martha Loomis +was somewhat comforted by her firm belief that either her own name or +that of one of her daughters was in that sealed envelope kept by +Lawyer Joshua Lang in his strong-box, and by her firm purpose to +watch carefully lest Evelina prove derelict in fulfilling the two +conditions whereby she held the property.</p> + +<p>Larger peep-holes were soon cut away mysteriously in the high +arbor-vitæ hedge, and therein were often set for a few moments, +when they passed that way, the eager eyes of Mrs. Martha or her +daughter Flora or Fidelia Loomis. Frequent calls they also made upon +Evelina, living alone with the old woman Sarah Judd, who had been +called in during her cousin's illness, and they strolled into the +garden, spying anxiously for withered leaves or dry stalks. They at +every opportunity interviewed the old man who assisted Evelina in her +care of the garden concerning its welfare. But small progress they +made with him, standing digging at the earth with his spade while +they talked, as if in truth his wits had gone therein before his body +and he would uncover them.</p> + +<p>Moreover, Mrs. Martha Loomis talked much slyly to mothers of young +men, and sometimes with bold insinuations to the young men +themselves, of the sad lot of poor young Evelina, condemned to a +solitary and loveless life, and of her sweetness and beauty and +desirability in herself, although she could not bring the old +Squire's money to her husband. And once, but no more than that, she +touched lightly upon the subject to the young minister, Thomas +Merriam, when he was making a pastoral call.</p> + +<p>“My heart bleeds for the poor child living all alone in that +great house,” said she. And she looked down mournfully, and did +not see how white the young minister's face turned. “It seems +almost a pity,” said she, furthermore—“Evelina is a +good housekeeper, and has rare qualities in herself, and so many get +poor wives nowadays—that some godly young man should not court +her in spite of the will. I doubt, too, if she would not have a +happier lot than growing old over that garden, as poor Cousin Evelina +did before her, even if she has a fine house to live in and a goodly +sum in the bank. She looks pindling enough lately. I'll warrant she +has lost a good ten pound since poor Evelina was laid away, +and—”</p> + +<p>But Thomas Merriam cut her short. “I see no profit in +discussing matters which do not concern us,” said he, and only +his ministerial estate saved him from the charge of impertinence.</p> + +<p>As it was, Martha Loomis colored high. “I'll warrant he'll +look out which side his bread is buttered on; ministers always +do,” she said to her daughters after he had gone. She never +dreamed how her talk had cut him to the heart.</p> + +<p>Had he not seen more plainly than any one else, Sunday after +Sunday, when he glanced down at her once or twice cautiously from his +pulpit, how weary-looking and thin she was growing? And her bright +color was wellnigh gone, and there were pitiful downward lines at the +corners of her sweet mouth. Poor young Evelina was fading like one of +her own flowers, as if some celestial gardener had failed in his care +of her. And Thomas saw it, and in his heart of hearts he knew the +reason, and yet he would not yield. Not once had he entered the old +Squire's house since he attended the dead Evelina's funeral, and +stood praying and eulogizing, with her coffin between him and the +living Evelina, with her pale face shrouded in black bombazine. He +had never spoken to her since, nor entered the house; but he had +written her a letter, in which all the fierce passion and anguish of +his heart was cramped and held down by formal words and phrases, and +poor young Evelina did not see beneath them. When her lover wrote her +that he felt it inconsistent with his Christian duty and the higher +aims of his existence to take any further steps towards a matrimonial +alliance, she felt merely that Thomas either cared no more for her, +or had come to consider, upon due reflection, that she was not fit to +undertake the responsible position of a minister's wife. “It +may be that in some way I failed in my attendance upon Cousin +Evelina,” thought poor young Evelina, “or it may be that +he thinks I have not enough dignity of character to inspire respect +among the older women in the church.” And sometimes, with a +sharp thrust of misery that shook her out of her enforced patience +and meekness, she wondered if indeed her own loving freedom with him +had turned him against her, and led him in his later and sober +judgment to consider her too light-minded for a minister's wife. +“It may be that I was guilty of great indecorum, and almost +indeed forfeited my claim to respect for maidenly modesty, inasmuch +as I suffered him to give me kisses, and did almost bring myself to +return them in kind. But my heart did so entreat me, and in truth it +seemed almost like a lack of sincerity for me to wholly withstand +it,” wrote poor young Evelina in her journal at that time; and +she further wrote: “It is indeed hard for one who has so little +knowledge to be fully certain of what is or is not becoming and a +Christian duty in matters of this kind; but if I have in any manner, +through my ignorance or unwarrantable affection, failed, and so lost +the love and respect of a good man, and the opportunity to become his +helpmeet during life, I pray that I may be forgiven—for I +sinned not wilfully—that the lesson may be sanctified unto me, +and that I may live as the Lord order, in Christian patience and +meekness, and not repining.” It never occurred to young +Evelina that possibly Thomas Merriam's sense of duty might be +strengthened by the loss of all her cousin's property should she +marry him, and neither did she dream that he might hesitate to take +her from affluence into poverty for her own sake. For herself the +property, as put in the balance beside her love, was lighter than air +itself. It was so light that it had no place in her consciousness. +She simply had thought, upon hearing the will, of Martha Loomis and +her daughters in possession of the property, and herself with Thomas, +with perfect acquiescence and rapture.</p> + +<p>Evelina Adams's disapprobation of her marriage, which was +supposedly expressed in the will, had indeed, without reference to +the property, somewhat troubled her tender heart, but she told +herself that Cousin Evelina had not known she had promised to marry +Thomas; that she would not wish her to break her solemn promise. And +furthermore, it seemed to her quite reasonable that the condition had +been inserted in the will mainly through concern for the beloved +garden.</p> + +<p>“Cousin Evelina might have thought perhaps I would let the +flowers die when I had a husband and children to take care of,” +said Evelina. And so she had disposed of all the considerations which +had disturbed her, and had thought of no others.</p> + +<p>She did not answer Thomas's letter. It was so worded that it +seemed to require no reply, and she felt that he must be sure of her +acquiescence in whatever he thought best. She laid the letter away in +a little rosewood box, in which she had always kept her dearest +treasures since her school-days. Sometimes she took it out and read +it, and it seemed to her that the pain in her heart would put an end +to her in spite of all her prayers for Christian fortitude; and yet +she could not help reading it again.</p> + +<p>It was seldom that she stole a look at her old lover as he stood +in the pulpit in the meeting-house, but when she did she thought with +an anxious pang that he looked worn and ill, and that night she +prayed that the Lord would restore his health to him for the sake of +his people.</p> + +<p>It was four months after Evelina Adams's death, and her garden was +in the full glory of midsummer, when one evening, towards dusk, young +Evelina went slowly down the street. She seldom walked abroad now, +but kept herself almost as secluded as her cousin had done before +her. But that night a great restlessness was upon her, and she put a +little black silk shawl over her shoulders and went out. It was quite +cool, although it was midsummer. The dusk was deepening fast; the +katydids called back and forth from the wayside bushes. Evelina met +nobody for some distance. Then she saw a man coming towards her, and +her heart stood still, and she was about to turn back, for she +thought for a minute it was the young minister. Then she saw it was +his father, and she went on slowly, with her eyes downcast. When she +met him she looked up and said good-evening, gravely, and would have +passed on, but he stood in her way.</p> + +<p>“I've got a word to say to ye, if ye'll listen,” he +said.</p> + +<p>Evelina looked at him tremblingly. There was something strained +and solemn in his manner. “I'll hear whatever you have to say, +sir,” she said.</p> + +<p>The old man leaned his pale face over her and raised a shaking +forefinger. “I've made up my mind to say something,” said +he. “I don't know as I've got any right to, and maybe my son +will blame me, but I'm goin' to see that you have a chance. It's been +borne in upon me that women folks don't always have a fair chance. +It's jest this I'm goin' to say: I don't know whether you know how my +son feels about it or not. I don't know how open he's been with you. +Do you know jest why he quit you?”</p> + +<p>Evelina shook her head. “No,” she +panted—“I don't—I never knew. He said it was his +duty.”</p> + +<p>“Duty can get to be an idol of wood and stone, an' I don't +know but Thomas's is,” said the old man. “Well, I'll tell +you. He don't think it's right for him to marry you, and make you +leave that big house, and lose all that money. He don't care anything +about it for himself, but it's for you. Did you know that?”</p> + +<p>Evelina grasped the old man's arm hard with her little +fingers.</p> + +<p>“You don't mean that—was why he did it!” she +gasped.</p> + +<p>“Yes, that was why.”</p> + +<p>Evelina drew away from him. She was ashamed to have Thomas's +father see the joy in her face. “Thank you, sir,” she +said. “I did not understand. I—will write to +him.”</p> + +<p>“Maybe my son will think I have done wrong coming betwixt +him and his idees of duty,” said old Thomas Merriam, “but +sometimes there's a good deal lost for lack of a word, and I wanted +you to have a fair chance an' a fair say. It's been borne in upon me +that women folks don't always have it. Now you can do jest as you +think best, but you must remember one thing—riches ain't all. A +little likin' for you that's goin' to last, and keep honest and +faithful to you as long as you live, is worth more; an' it's worth +more to women folks than 't is to men, an' it's worth enough to them. +My son's poorly. His mother and I are worried about him. He don't eat +nor sleep—walks his chamber nights. His mother don't know what +the matter is, but he let on to me some time since.”</p> + +<p>“I'll write a letter to him,” gasped Evelina again. +“Good-night, sir.” She pulled her little black silk +shawl over her head and hastened home, and all night long her candle +burned, while her weary little fingers toiled over pages of +foolscap-paper to convince Thomas Merriam fully, and yet in terms not +exceeding maidenly reserve, that the love of his heart and the +companionship of his life were worth more to her than all the silver +and gold in the world. Then the next morning she despatched it, all +neatly folded and sealed, and waited.</p> + +<p>It was strange that a letter like that could not have moved Thomas +Merriam, when his heart too pleaded with him so hard to be moved. But +that might have been the very reason why he could withstand her, and +why the consciousness of his own weakness gave him strength. Thomas +Merriam was one, when he had once fairly laid hold of duty, to grasp +it hard, although it might be to his own pain and death, and maybe to +that of others. He wrote to poor young Evelina another letter, in +which he emphasized and repeated his strict adherence to what he +believed the line of duty in their separation, and ended it with a +prayer for her welfare and happiness, in which, indeed, for a second, +the passionate heart of the man showed forth. Then he locked himself +in his chamber, and nobody ever knew what he suffered there. But one +pang he did not suffer which Evelina would have suffered in his +place. He mourned not over nor realized the grief of her tender heart +when she should read his letter, otherwise he could not have sent it. +He writhed under his own pain alone, and his duty hugged him hard, +like the iron maiden of the old tortures, but he would not yield.</p> + +<p>As for Evelina, when she got his letter, and had read it through, +she sat still and white for a long time, and did not seem to hear +when old Sarah Judd spoke to her. But at last she rose and went to +her chamber, and knelt down, and prayed for a long time; and then she +went out in the garden and cut all the most beautiful flowers, and +tied them in wreaths and bouquets, and carried them out to the north +side of the house, where her cousin Evelina was buried, and covered +her grave with them. And then she knelt down there, and hid her face +among them, and said, in a low voice, as if in a listening ear, +“I pray you, Cousin Evelina, forgive me for what I am about to +do.”</p> + +<p>And then she returned to the house, and sat at her needlework as +usual; but the old woman kept looking at her, and asking if she were +sick, for there was a strange look in her face.</p> + +<p>She and old Sarah Judd had always their tea at five o'clock, and +put the candles out at nine, and this night they did as they were +wont. But at one o'clock in the morning young Evelina stole softly +down the stairs with her lighted candle, and passed through into the +kitchen; and a half-hour after she came forth into the garden, which +lay in full moonlight, and she had in her hand a steaming teakettle, +and she passed around among the shrubs and watered them, and a white +cloud of steam rose around them. Back and forth she went to the +kitchen; for she had heated the great copper wash-kettle full of +water; and she watered all the shrubs in the garden, moving amid +curling white wreaths of steam, until the water was gone. And then +she set to work and tore up by the roots with her little hands and +trampled with her little feet all the beautiful tender flower-beds; +all the time weeping, and moaning softly: “Poor Cousin Evelina! +poor Cousin Evelina! Oh, forgive me, poor Cousin Evelina!”</p> + +<p>And at dawn the garden lay in ruin, for all the tender plants she +had torn up by the roots and trampled down, and all the +stronger-rooted shrubs she had striven to kill with boiling water and +salt.</p> + +<p>Then Evelina went into the house, and made herself tidy as well as +she could when she trembled so, and put her little shawl over her +head, and went down the road to the Merriams' house. It was so early +the village was scarcely astir, but there was smoke coming out of the +kitchen chimney at the Merriams'; and when she knocked, Mrs. Merriam +opened the door at once, and stared at her.</p> + +<p>“Is Sarah Judd dead?” she cried; for her first thought +was that something must have happened when she saw the girl standing +there with her wild pale face.</p> + +<p>“I want to see the minister,” said Evelina, faintly, +and she looked at Thomas's mother with piteous eyes.</p> + +<p>“Be you sick?” asked Mrs. Merriam. She laid a hard +hand on the girl's arm, and led her into the sitting-room, and put +her into the rocking-chair with the feather cushion. “You look +real poorly,” said she. “Sha'n't I get you a little of my +elderberry wine?”</p> + +<p>“I want to see him,” said Evelina, and she almost +sobbed.</p> + +<p>“I'll go right and speak to him,” said Mrs. Merriam. +“He's up, I guess. He gets up early to write. But hadn't I +better get you something to take first? You do look sick.”</p> + +<p>But Evelina only shook her head. She had her face covered with her +hands, and was weeping softly. Mrs. Merriam left the room, with a +long backward glance at her. Presently the door opened and Thomas +came in. Evelina stood up before him. Her pale face was all wet with +tears, but there was an air of strange triumph about her.</p> + +<p>“The garden is dead,” said she.</p> + +<p>“What do you mean?” he cried out, staring at her, for +indeed he thought for a minute that her wits had left her.</p> + +<p>“The garden is dead,” said she. “Last night I +watered the roses with boiling water and salt, and I pulled the other +flowers up by their roots. The garden is dead, and I have lost all +Cousin Evelina's money, and it need not come between us any +longer.” She said that, and looked up in his face with her +blue eyes, through which the love of the whole race of loving women +from which she had sprung, as well as her own, seemed to look, and +held out her little hands; but even then Thomas Merriam could not +understand, and stood looking at her.</p> + +<p>“Why—did you do it?” he stammered.</p> + +<p>“Because you would have me no other way, and—I +couldn't bear that anything like that should come between us,” +she said, and her voice shook like a harp-string, and her pale face +went red, then pale again.</p> + +<p>But Thomas still stood staring at her. Then her heart failed her. +She thought that he did not care, and she had been mistaken. She felt +as if it were the hour of her death, and turned to go. And then he +caught her in his arms.</p> + +<p>“Oh,” he cried, with a great sob, “the Lord make +me worthy of thee, Evelina!”</p> + +<p>There had never been so much excitement in the village as when the +fact of the ruined garden came to light. Flora Loomis, peeping +through the hedge on her way to the store, had spied it first. Then +she had run home for her mother, who had in turn sought Lawyer Lang, +panting bonnetless down the road. But before the lawyer had started +for the scene of disaster, the minister, Thomas Merriam, had +appeared, and asked for a word in private with him. Nobody ever knew +just what that word was, but the lawyer was singularly +uncommunicative and reticent as to the ruined garden.</p> + +<p>“Do you think the young woman is out of her mind?” one +of the deacons asked him, in a whisper.</p> + +<p>“I wish all the young women were as much in their minds; +we'd have a better world,” said the lawyer, gruffly.</p> + +<p>“When do you think we can begin to move in here?” +asked Mrs. Martha Loomis, her wide skirts sweeping a bed of uprooted +verbenas.</p> + +<p>“When your claim is established,” returned the lawyer, +shortly, and turned on his heel and went away, his dry old face +scanning the ground like a dog on a scent. That afternoon he opened +the sealed document in the presence of witnesses, and the name of the +heir to whom the property fell was disclosed. It was “Thomas +Merriam, the beloved and esteemed minister of this parish,” and +young Evelina would gain her wealth instead of losing it by her +marriage. And furthermore, after the declaration of the name of the +heir was this added: “This do I in the hope and belief that +neither the greed of riches nor the fear of them shall prevent that +which is good and wise in the sight of the Lord, and with the surety +that a love which shall triumph over so much in its way shall endure, +and shall be a blessing and not a curse to my beloved cousin, Evelina +Leonard.”</p> + +<p>Thomas Merriam and Evelina were married before the leaves fell in +that same year, by the minister of the next village, who rode over in +his chaise, and brought his wife, who was also a bride, and wore her +wedding-dress of a pink and pearl shot silk. But young Evelina wore +the blue bridal array which had been worn by old Squire Adams's +bride, all remodelled daintily to suit the fashion of the times; and +as she moved, the fragrances of roses and lavender of the old summers +during which it had been laid away were evident, like sweet +memories.</p> + +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<hr class="full" noshade> +<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK EVELINA'S GARDEN***</p> +<p>******* This file should be named 17891-h.txt or 17891-h.zip *******</p> +<p>This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:<br /> +<a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/7/8/9/17891">http://www.gutenberg.org/1/7/8/9/17891</a></p> +<p>Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed.</p> + +<p>Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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