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diff --git a/17891.txt b/17891.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..46c5e79 --- /dev/null +++ b/17891.txt @@ -0,0 +1,2185 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, Evelina's Garden, by Mary E. Wilkins Freeman + + +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 www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: Evelina's Garden + + +Author: Mary E. Wilkins Freeman + + + +Release Date: March 1, 2006 [eBook #17891] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK EVELINA'S GARDEN*** + + +E-text prepared by Jeff Kaylin and Andrew Sly + + + +EVELINA'S GARDEN + +by + +MARY E. WILKINS + + + + + + + +New York and London +Harper & Brothers +MDCCCXCIX + + + + + +On the south a high arbor-vitae 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-vitae 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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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-vitae 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. + +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. + +As the years went on, the arbor-vitae 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. + +"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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"Good-evening," said he, and his voice was a little hoarse through +nervousness. + +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. + +"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? + +"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. + +"She is pretty well, I thank you, sir." + +"I've been wanting to--call," he began; then he hesitated again. His +handsome young face was blushing crimson. + +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." + +"Yes, I did know it," returned Thomas Merriam; "that's the reason I +haven't called." + +"Cousin Evelina is not strong," remarked the young girl, and there +was a savor of apology in her tone. + +"But--" stammered Thomas; then he stopped again. "May I--has she any +objections to--anybody's coming to see you?" + +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. + +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--" + +Evelina turned her face away with sudden haughtiness. "My cousin +Evelina is very kind to me, sir," she said. + +"But--you must be lonesome with nobody--of your own age--to speak +to," persisted Thomas, confusedly. + +"I never cared much for youthful company. It is getting dark; I must +be going," said Evelina. "I wish you good-evening, sir." + +"Sha'n't I--walk home with you?" asked Thomas, falteringly. + +"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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +Suddenly somebody jostled him to his own side of the path. "That you, +Thomas? Where you been?" said a voice in his ear. + +"That you, father? Down to the post-office." + +"Who was that you was talkin' with back there?" + +"Miss Evelina Leonard." + +"That girl that's stayin' there--to the old Squire's?" + +"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. + +"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." + +"I never said they could," returned Thomas, shortly. "I can't stop to +talk any longer, father. I must go home." + +"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." + +Thomas gave a great start and colored high. "I'd like to know what +you mean, father," he cried, sharply. + +"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." + +"I'd like to know what you mean, father." Thomas's voice shook with +embarrassment and anger. + +"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." + +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. + +"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. + +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. + +"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!" + +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. + +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. + +"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. + +"Well, I know what I think it was," said Arabella Mann, moving ahead +with sharp jerks of her little dark body. + +"What?" + +"It was him." + +"You don't mean--" + +"I think it was Thomas Merriam, and he was tryin' to get up the back +stairs unbeknownst to anybody, and he run into something." + +"What for?" + +"Because he didn't want to see _us_." + +"Now, Arabella Mann, I don't believe it! He's always real pleasant to +me." + +"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." + +"Did you see how the tallow had all run down over the candles?" + +"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." + +"Hush! Arabella: here he is coming now." + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"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. + +"Thomas don't act nateral," said the old woman, glancing after him +through her iron-bound spectacles. + +"I dun'no' what's got into him," returned his mother. + +"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." + +"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." + +"They've 'bout kept ye in sweet cake, 'ain't they, lately?" + +"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." + +"Well, he's got the pick of 'em, a-settin' their caps right in his +face," said Aunt Betty. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"Oh," he panted, "I--did not mean to be--too presuming, and offend +you. I--crave your pardon--" + +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. + +"Not--unbecoming if it came--from the heart," said he, brokenly, +scarcely daring to speak, and yet not daring to be silent. + +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. + +"Oh, I love you so!" he whispered--"I love you so, Evelina, and I was +afraid you were angry with me for it." + +"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. + +"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." + +"Mistress Perkins is enjoying her mind in Boston," said Thomas +Merriam, with the laugh of a triumphant young lover. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"Yes, Cousin Evelina." + +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. + +"The minister," replied young Evelina. + +"Did he meet you?" + +"He met me in the lane, Cousin Evelina." + +"And he walked home with you across the field?" + +"Yes, Cousin Evelina." + +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." + +"That is nearly a whole year; it is August now," said Thomas, half +reproachfully, and he tightened his clasp of Evelina's slender +fingers. + +"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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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." + +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. + +"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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +His father listened soberly when he told him; he had grown old of +late. + +"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." + +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. + +"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." + +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!" + +Thomas colored. "Why, father," he stammered, "you don't think--you +know, it's all for _her_--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." + +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. + +"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. + +"Father must be getting childish," Thomas thought, wonderingly. He +did not bring up the subject to him again. + +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. + +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 _seen_." The deacons' wives were especially +disturbed by this last, as they might otherwise have gained many +interesting particulars by proxy. + +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. + +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. + +"I want to see her," the old man said, abruptly. + +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?" + +"No; I want to see her." + +"_Her?_" + +"Yes, _her_." + +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." + +"I _want to see her_," 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. + +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. + +"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." + +The two Loomis girls said they were thankful nobody was to see the +departed in her rose-colored shroud. + +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!" + +Young Evelina shrank a little. "We think she looks natural," she +said, hesitatingly. + +"She looks jest as she did when she was a girl and used to come into +the meetin'-house. She _is_ 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. + +"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. + +"No, I won't. I don't think I understand what you mean, sir," +stammered Evelina. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"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. + +Larger peep-holes were soon cut away mysteriously in the high +arbor-vitae 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. + +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. + +"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--" + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"I've got a word to say to ye, if ye'll listen," he said. + +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. + +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?" + +Evelina shook her head. "No," she panted--"I don't--I never knew. He +said it was his duty." + +"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?" + +Evelina grasped the old man's arm hard with her little fingers. + +"You don't mean that--was why he did it!" she gasped. + +"Yes, that was why." + +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." + +"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." + +"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. + +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. + +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." + +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. + +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!" + +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. + +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. + +"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. + +"I want to see the minister," said Evelina, faintly, and she looked +at Thomas's mother with piteous eyes. + +"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?" + +"I want to see him," said Evelina, and she almost sobbed. + +"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." + +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. + +"The garden is dead," said she. + +"What do you mean?" he cried out, staring at her, for indeed he +thought for a minute that her wits had left her. + +"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. + +"Why--did you do it?" he stammered. + +"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. + +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. + +"Oh," he cried, with a great sob, "the Lord make me worthy of thee, +Evelina!" + +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. + +"Do you think the young woman is out of her mind?" one of the deacons +asked him, in a whisper. + +"I wish all the young women were as much in their minds; we'd have a +better world," said the lawyer, gruffly. + +"When do you think we can begin to move in here?" asked Mrs. Martha +Loomis, her wide skirts sweeping a bed of uprooted verbenas. + +"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." + +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. + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK EVELINA'S GARDEN*** + + +******* This file should be named 17891.txt or 17891.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/7/8/9/17891 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +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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