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diff --git a/9311.txt b/9311.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..9f0d123 --- /dev/null +++ b/9311.txt @@ -0,0 +1,6438 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Hetty's Strange History, by Anonymous + +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: Hetty's Strange History + +Author: Anonymous + +Release Date: November, 2005 [EBook #9311] +Posting Date: August 6, 2009 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HETTY'S STRANGE HISTORY *** + + + + +Produced by Juliet Sutherland, David Widger and PG +Distributed Proofreaders + + + + + + +HETTY'S STRANGE HISTORY + + +By Anonymous + +THE AUTHOR OF "MERCY PHILBRICK'S CHOICE." + + +"IS THE GENTLEMAN ANONYMOUS? IS HE A GREAT UNKNOWN?" + + Daniel Deronda. + + + +1877. + + +_I._ + + + _What lover best his love doth prove and show? + The one whose words are swiftest, love to state? + The one who measures out his love by weight + In costly gifts which all men see and know? + Nay! words are cheap and easy: they may go + For what men think them worth: or soon or late, + They are but air. And gifts? Still cheaper rate + Are they at which men barter to and fro + Where love is not!_ + + _One thing remains. Oh, Love, + Thou hast so seldom seen it on the earth, + No name for it has ever sprung to birth; + To give one's own life up one's love to prove, + Not in the martyr's death, but in the dearth + Of daily life's most wearing daily groove_. + + +_II_. + + _And unto him who this great thing hath done, + What does Great Love return? No speedy joy! + That swift delight which beareth large alloy + Is guerdon Love bestowed on him who won + A lesser trust: the happiness begun + In happiness, of happiness may cloy, + And, its own subtle foe, itself destroy. + But steadfast, tireless, quenchless as the sun + Doth grow that gladness which hath root in pain. + Earth's common griefs assail this soul in vain. + Great Love himself, too poor to pay such debt, + Doth borrow God's great peace which passeth yet + All understanding. Full tenfold again + Is found the life, laid down without regret!_ + + + + +HETTY'S STRANGE HISTORY + + + + +I. + +When Squire Gunn and his wife died, within three months of each other, +and Hetty their only child was left alone in the big farm-house, +everybody said, "Well, now Hetty Gunn'll have to make up her mind to +marry somebody." And it certainly looked as if she must. What could +be lonelier than the position of a woman thirty-five years of age sole +possessor of a great stone house, half a dozen barns and out-buildings, +herds of cattle, and a farm of five hundred acres? The place was known +as "Gunn's," far and wide. It had been a rich and prosperous farm ever +since the days of the first Squire Gunn, Hetty's grandfather. He was +one of Massachusetts' earliest militia-men, and had a leg shot off at +Lexington. To the old man's dying day he used to grow red in the face +whenever he told the story, and bring his fist down hard on the table, +with "damn the leg, sir! 'Twasn't the leg I cared for: 'twas the not +having another chance at those damned British rascals;" and the +wooden leg itself would twitch and rap on the floor in his impatient +indignation. One of Hetty's earliest recollections was of being led +about the farm by this warm-hearted, irascible, old grandfather, whose +wooden leg was a perpetual and unfathomable mystery to her. Where the +flesh leg left off and the wooden leg began, and if, when the wooden leg +stumped so loud and hard on the floor, it did not hurt the flesh leg +at the other end, puzzled little Hetty's head for many a long hour. Her +grandfather's frequent and comic references to the honest old wooden pin +did not diminish her perplexities. He was something of a wag, the old +Squire; and nothing came handier to him, in the way of a joke, than a +joke at his own expense. When he was eighty years old, he had a stroke +of paralysis: he lived six years after that; but he could not walk about +the farm any longer. He used to sit in a big cane-bottomed chair +close to the fireplace, in winter, and under a big lilac-bush, at the +north-east corner of the house, in summer. He kept a stout iron-tipped +cane by his side: in the winter, he used it to poke the fire with; in +the summer, to rap the hens and chickens which he used to lure round his +chair by handfuls of corn and oats. Sometimes he would tap the end of +the wooden leg with this cane, and say, laughingly, "Ha! ha! think of a +leg like that's being paralyzed, if you please. Isn't that a joke? It 's +just as paralyzed as the other: damn those British rascals." And only a +few hours before he died, he said to his son: "Look here, Abe, you put +on my grave-stone,--'Here lies Abraham Gunn, all but one leg.' What do +you suppose one-legged men're going to do in the resurrection, hey, Abe? +I'll ask the parson if he comes in this afternoon," he added. But, when +the parson came, the brave, merry eyes were shut for ever, and the old +hero had gone to a new world, on which he no doubt entered as resolutely +and cheerily as he had gone through nearly a century of this. These +glimpses of the old Squire's characteristics are not out of place here, +although he himself has no place in our story, having been dead and +buried for more than twenty years before the story begins. But he lived +again in his granddaughter Hetty. How much of her off-hand, comic, +sturdy, resolute, disinterested nature came to her by direct inheritance +from his blood, and how much was absorbed as she might have absorbed it +from any one she loved and associated with, it is impossible to tell. +But by one process or the other, or by both, Hetty Gunn was, as all the +country people round about said, "Just the old Squire over again," and +if they sometimes added, as it must be owned they did, "It's a thousand +pities she wasn't a boy," there was, in this reflection on the Creator, +no reflection on Hetty's womanliness: it was rather on the accepted +theory and sphere of woman's activities and manifestations. Nobody in +this world could have a tenderer heart than Hetty: this also she had +inherited or learned from her grandfather. Many a day the two had spent +together in nursing a sick or maimed chicken, or a half-frozen lamb, +even a woodchuck that had got its leg broken in a trap was not an +outcast to them; and as for beggars and tramps, not one passed "Gunn's," +from June till October, that was not hailed by the old squire from under +his lilac-bush, and fed by Hetty. Plenty of sarcastic and wholesome +advice the old gentleman gave them, while they sat on the ground eating; +and every word of it sank into Hetty's wide-open ears and sensible soul, +developing in her a very rare sort of thing which, for want of a better +name, we might call common-sense sympathy. To this sturdy common-sense +barrier against the sentimental side of sympathy with other people's +sufferings, Hetty added an equally sturdy, and she would have said +common-sense, fortitude in bearing her own. This invaluable trait she +owed largely to her grandfather's wooden leg. Before she could speak +plain, she had already made his cheerful way of bearing the discomfort +and annoyance of that queer leg her own standard of patience and +equanimity. Nothing that ever happened to her, no pain, no deprivation, +seemed half so dreadful as a wooden leg. She used to stretch out her own +fat, chubby, little legs, and look from them to her grandfather's. Then +she would timidly touch the wooden tip which rested on the floor, and +look up in her grandfather's face, and say, "Poor Grandpa!" + +"Pshaw! pshaw! child," he would reply, "that's nothing. It does almost +as well to walk on, and that's all legs are for. I'd have had forty +legs shot off rather than not have helped drive out those damned British +rascals." + +Not even for sake of Hetty's young ears could the old Squire mention +the British rascals without his favorite expletive. Here, also, came +in another lesson which sank deep into Hetty's heart. It was for his +country that her grandfather had lost that leg, and would have gladly +lost forty, if he had had so many to lose, not for himself; for +something which he loved better than himself: this was distinct in Hetty +Gunn's comprehension before she was twelve years old, and it was a most +important force in the growth of her nature. No one can estimate the +results on a character of these slow absorptions, these unconscious +biases, from daily contact. All precepts, all religions, are +insignificant agencies by their side. They are like sun and soil to a +plant: they make a moral climate in which certain things are sure to +grow, and certain other things are sure to die; as sure as it is that +orchids and pineapples thrive in the tropics, and would die in New +England. + +When old Squire Gunn was buried, all the villages within twenty miles +turned out to his funeral. He was the last revolutionary hero of the +county. An oration was delivered in the meeting-house; and the brass +band of Welbury played "My country, 'tis of thee," all the way from the +meeting-house to the graveyard gate. After the grave was filled up, guns +were fired above it, and the Welbury village choir sang an anthem. +The crowd, the music, the firing of guns, produced an ineffaceable +impression upon Hetty's mind. While her grandfather's body lay in the +house, she had wept inconsolably. But as soon as the funeral services +began, her tears stopped; her eyes grew large and bright with +excitement; she held her head erect; a noble exaltation and pride shone +on her features; she gazed upon the faces of the people with a composure +and dignity which were unchildlike. No emperor's daughter in Rome could +have borne herself, at the burial of her most illustrious ancestor, more +grandly and yet more modestly than did little Hetty Gunn, aged twelve, +at the burial of this unfamed Massachusetts revolutionary soldier: and +well she might; for a greater than royal inheritance had come to her +from him. The echoes of the farewell shots which were fired over the old +man's grave were never to die out of Hetty's ears. Child, girl, woman, +she was to hear them always: signal guns of her life, they meant +courage, cheerfulness, self-sacrifice. + +Of Hetty's father, the "young Squire," as to the day of his death he was +called by the older people in Welbury, and of Hetty's mother, his +wife, it is not needful to say much here. The young Squire was a lazy, +affectionate man to whom the good things of life had come without his +taking any trouble for them: even his wife had been more than half wooed +for him by his doting father; and there were those who said that pretty +Mrs. Gunn had been quite as much in love with the old Squire, old as he +was, as with the young one; but that was only an idle village sneer. +The young Squire and his wife loved each other devotedly, and their only +child, Hetty, with an unreasoning and unreasonable affection which would +have been the ruin of her, if she had been any thing else but what she +was, "the old Squire over again." As it was, the only effect of this +overweening affection, on their part, was to produce a slow reversal of +some of the ordinary relations between parents and children. As +Hetty grew into womanhood, she grew more and more to have a sense of +responsibility for her father's and mother's happiness. She was the most +filially docile of creatures, and obeyed like a baby, grown woman as she +was. It was strange to hear and to see. + +"Hetty, bring me my overcoat," her father would say to her in her +thirty-fifth year, exactly as he would have said it in her twelfth; and +she would spring with the same alacrity and the same look of pleasure at +being of use. But there was a filial service which she rendered to her +parents much deeper than these surface obediences and attentions. They +were but dimly conscious of it; and yet, had it been taken away from +them, they had found their lives blighted indeed. She was the link +between them and the outside world. She brought merriment, cheer, hearty +friendliness into the house. She was the good comrade of every young +woman and every young man in Welbury; and she compelled them all to +bring a certain half-filial affection and attention to her father and +mother. The best tribute to what she had accomplished in this direction +was in the fact, that you always heard the young people mention Squire +Gunn and his wife as "Hetty Gunn's father" or "Hetty Gunn's mother;" and +the two old people were seen at many a gathering where there was not a +single old face but theirs. + +"Hetty won't go without her father and mother," or "Hetty'll be so +pleased if we ask her father and mother," was frequently heard. From +this free and unembarrassed association of the old and the young, grew +many excellent things. In this wholesome atmosphere honesty and good +behavior thrived; but there was little chance for the development of +those secret sentimental preferences and susceptibilities out of which +spring love-making and thoughts of marriage. + +There probably was not a marriageable young man in Welbury who had not +at one time or another thought to himself, what a good thing it would be +to marry Hetty Gunn. Hetty was pretty, sensible, affectionate, and rich. +Such girls as that were not to be found every day. A man might look +far and long before he could find such a wife as Hetty would make. But +nothing seemed to be farther from Hetty's thoughts than making a wife +of herself for anybody. And the world may say what it pleases about its +being the exclusive province of men to woo: very few men do woo a woman +who does not show herself ready to be wooed. It is a rare beauty or +a rare spell of some sort which can draw a man past the barrier of +a woman's honest, unaffected, and persistent unconsciousness of any +thoughts of love or matrimony. So between Hetty's unconsciousness and +her perpetual comradeship with her father and mother, the years went on, +and on, and no man asked Hetty to marry him. The odd thing about it was +that every man felt sure that he was the only man who had not asked her; +and a general impression had grown up in the town that Hetty Gunn had +refused nearly everybody. She was so evidently a favorite; "Gunn's" was +so much the headquarters for all the young people; it was so open to +everybody's observation how much all men admired and liked Hetty,--she +was never seen anywhere without one or two or three at her service: it +was the most natural thing in the world for people to think as they did. +Yet not a human being ever accused Hetty of flirting; her manner was +always as open, friendly, and cordial as an honest boy's, and with no +more trace of self-seeking or self-consciousness about it. She was as +full of fun and mischief, too, as any boy could be. She had slid down +hill with the wildest of them, till even her father said sternly,-- + +"Hetty,--you're too big. It's a shameful sight to see a girl of your +size, out on a sled with boys." And Hetty hung her head, and said +pathetically,-- + +"I wish I hadn't grown. I'd rather be a dwarf, than not slide down +hill." + +But after the sliding was forbidden, there remained the chestnuttings +in the autumn, and the trout fishings in the summer, and the Mayflower +parties in the spring, and colts and horses and dogs. Until Hetty was +twenty-two years old, you might have been quite sure that, whenever +you found her in any out-door party, the masculine element was largely +predominant in that party. After this time, however, life gradually +sobered for Hetty: one by one her friends married; the maidens became +matrons, the young men became heads of houses. In wedding after wedding, +Hetty Gunn was the prettiest of the bridesmaids, and people whispered as +they watched her merry, kindly face,-- + +"Ain't it the queerest thing in life, Hetty Gunn won't marry. There +isn't a fellow in town she mightn't have." + +If anybody had said this to Hetty herself, she would probably have +laughed, and said with entire frankness,-- + +"You're quite mistaken. They don't want me," which would only have +strengthened her hearers' previous impressions that they did. + +In process of time, after the weddings came the christenings, and at +these also Hetty Gunn was still the favorite friend, the desired guest. +Presently, there came to be so many little Hetty Gunns in the village, +that no young mother had courage to use the name more, however much she +loved Hetty. Hetty used to say laughingly that it was well she was an +only child, for she had now more nieces and nephews than she knew what +to do with. Very dearly she loved them all; and the little things all +loved her, the instant she put her arms round them: and more than one +young husband, without meaning to be in the least disloyal to his wife, +thought to himself, when he saw his baby's face nestling down to Hetty +Gunn's brown curls,-- + +"I wonder if she'd have had me, if I'd asked her. But I don't believe +Hetty'll ever marry,--a girl that's had the offers she has." + +And so it had come to pass that, at the time our story begins, Hetty was +thirty-five years old, and singularly alone in the world. The death of +her mother, which had occurred first, was a great shock to her, for it +had been a sudden and a painful death. But the loss of her mother was to +Hetty a trivial one, in comparison with the loss of her father. On the +day of her grandfather's death, she had seemed, child as she was, to +have received her father into her hands, as a sacred legacy of trust; +and he, on his part, seemed fully to reciprocate and accept without +comprehending the new relation. He unconsciously leaned upon Hetty more +and more from that hour until the hour when he died, bolstered up in +bed with his head on her shoulder, and gasping out, between difficult +breaths, his words of farewell,--strange farewell to be spoken to a +middle-aged woman, whose hair was already streaked with gray,-- + +"Poor little girl! I've got to leave you. You've been a good little +girl, Hetty, a good little girl." + +Neighbors and friends crowded around Hetty, in the first moments of +her grief. But they all, even those nearest and most intimate, found +themselves bewildered and baffled, nay almost repelled, by Hetty's +manner. Her noble face was so grief-stricken that she looked years older +in a single day. But her voice and her smile were unaltered; and +she would not listen to any words of sympathy. She wished to hear no +allusions to her trouble, except such as were needfully made in the +arranging of practical points. Her eyes filled with tears frequently, +but no one saw a tear fall. At the funeral, her face wore much the +same look it had worn, twenty-three years before, at her grandfather's +funeral. There were some present who remembered that day well, and +remembered the look, and they said musingly,-- + +"There 's something very queer about Hetty Gunn, after all. Don't you +remember how she acted, when she was a little thing, the day old Squire +Gunn was buried? Anybody'd have thought then a funeral was Fourth of +July, and she looks much the same way now." + +Then they fell to discussing the probabilities of her future course. It +was not easy to predict. + +"The Squire's left every thing to her, just as if she was a man. She can +sell the property right off, if she wants to, and go and live where she +likes," they said. + +"Well, you may set your minds to rest on that," said old Deacon Little, +who had been the young squire's most intimate friend, and who knew Hetty +as well as if she were his own child, and loved her better; for his own +children, poor man, had nearly brought his gray hairs down to the grave +with distress and shame. + +"Hetty Gunn'll never sell that farm, not a stick nor a stone on't, any +more than the old Squire himself would. You'll see, she'll keep it a +goin', jest the same's ever. It's a thousand pities, she warn't born a +boy." + + + + +II. + +The funeral took place late in the afternoon of a warm April day. The +roads were very muddy, and the long procession wound back to the village +about as slowly as it had gone out. One by one, wagon after wagon fell +out of the line, and turned off to the right or left, until there were +left only the Gunns' big carryall, in which sat Hetty, with her two +house-servants,--an old black man and his wife, who had been in her +father's house so long, that their original patronymic had fallen +entirely out of use, and they were known as "Caesar Gunn" and "Nan Gunn" +the town over. Behind this followed their farm wagon, in which sat the +farmer and his wife with their babies, and the two farm laborers,--all +Irish, and all crying audibly after the fashion of their race. As they +turned into the long avenue of pines which led up to the house, their +grief broke out louder and louder; and, when the wagon stopped in front +of the western piazza, their sobs and cries became howls and shrieks. +Hetty, who was just entering the front-door, turned suddenly, and +walking swiftly toward them, said, in a clear firm tone,-- + +"Look here! Mike, Dan, Norah, I'm ashamed of you. Don't you see you're +frightening the poor little children? Be quiet. The one who loved my +father most will be the first one to go about his work as if nothing had +happened. Mike, saddle the pony for me at six. I am going to ride over +to Deacon Little's." + +The men were too astonished to reply, but gazed at her dumbly. Mike +muttered sullenly, as he drove on,-- + +"An' it's a quare way to be showin' our love, I'm thinkin'." + +"An' it's Miss Hetty's own way thin, by Jasus!" answered Dan; "an' I'd +jist loike to see the man 'ud say, she didn't fairly worship the very +futsteps of 'im." + +When Deacon Little heard Hetty Gunn's voice at his door that night, the +old man sprang to his feet as he had not sprung for twenty years. + +"Bless my soul!" he exclaimed, "what can have brought Hetty Gunn here +to-night?" and he met her in the hall with outstretched hands. + +"Hetty, my dear, what is it?" he exclaimed, in a tone of anxiety. "Oh!" +said Hetty, earnestly. "I have frightened you, haven't I? was it wrong +for me to come to-night? There are so many things I want to talk +over with you. I want to get settled; and all the work on the farm is +belated: and I can't have the place run behindhand; that would worry +father so." + +The tears stood in her eyes, but she spoke in as matter-of-course a tone +as if she had simply come as her father's messenger to ask advice. The +old deacon pushed his spectacles high upon his forehead, and, throwing +his head back, looked at Hetty a moment, scrutinizingly, in silence. +Then, he said, half to himself, half to her,-- + +"You're your grandfather all over, Hetty. Now let me know what I can +help you about. You can always come to me, as long as I 'm alive, Hetty. +You know that." + +"Yes," said Hetty, walking back and forth in the little room, rapidly. +"You are the only person I shall ever ask any thing of in that way." + +"Sit down, Hetty, sit down," said the old man. "You must be all worn +out." + +"Oh, no! I 'm not tired: I was never tired in my life," replied Hetty. +"Let me walk: it does me good to walk; I walked nearly all last night; +it seems to be something to do. You see, Mr. Little," she said,--pausing +suddenly, and folding her arms on her breast, as she looked at him,--"I +don't quite see my way clear yet; and one must see one's way clear +before one can be quiet. It's horrible to grope." + +"Yes, yes, child," said the deacon, hesitatingly. He did not understand +metaphor. "You are not thinking of going away, are you, Hetty?" + +"Going away!" exclaimed Hetty. "Why, what do you mean? How could I go +away? Besides, I wouldn't go for any thing in the world. What should I +go away for?" + +"Well, I'm real glad to hear you say so, Hetty," replied the deacon +warmly; "some folks have said, you'd most likely sell the farm, and go +away." + +"What fools! I'd as soon sell myself," said Hetty, curtly. "But I can't +live there all alone. And one thing I wanted to ask you about tonight +was, whether you thought it would do for your James and his wife to +come and live there with me: I would give him a good salary as a sort of +overseer. Of course, I should expect to control every thing; and that's +not much more than I have done for three or four years: but the men will +do better with a man to give them their orders, than they will with me +alone. I could do this better with Jim than I could with a stranger. +I've always liked Jim." + +Deacon Little did not reply. His eyes were fixed on the ground, and his +face flushed with agitation. At last he said huskily,-- + +"Would you really take Jim and Sally home to your house, to live with +you, Hetty?" + +"Why, certainly," replied Hetty, in an impatient tone, "that's what I +said: didn't I make it plain?" and she walked faster and faster back and +forth. + +"Hetty, you're an angel," exclaimed the old man, solemnly. "If there's +any thing that could make him hold up his head again, it would be just +that thing. But--" he hesitated, "you know Sally?" + +"Yes, yes, I know her. I know all about her. She's a poor, weak thing," +said Hetty, with no shade of tenderness in her voice; "but Jim was the +most to blame, and it's abominable the way people have treated her. I +always wished I could do something for them both, and now I've got the +chance: that is if you think they'd like to come." + +The deacon hesitated again, began to speak, broke off, hesitated, tried +again, and at last stammered:--"Don't think I don't feel your kindness, +Hetty; but, low's Jim's fallen, I don't quite feel like having them go +into anybody's kitchen, especially with black help." + +"Kitchen!" interrupted Hetty. "What do you take me for, Deacon Little? +If Jim comes to live with me as my overseer, he is just the same as my +partner in the place, so far as his position goes. How do you suppose I +thought that the men would respect him, and take orders from him, if +I meant to put him in the kitchen with Caesar and Nan? No indeed, they +shall live with me as if they were my brother and sister. There are +plenty of rooms in the house for them to have their own sitting-room, +and be by themselves as much as they like. Kitchen indeed! I think +you've forgotten that Jim and I were schoolmates from the time we were +six till we were twenty. I always liked Jim, and he hasn't had half a +chance yet: that miserable affair pulled him down when he was so young." + +"That's so, Hetty; that's so," said the deacon, with tears rolling +down his wrinkled cheeks. "Jim wasn't a bad boy. He never meant to harm +anybody, and he hasn't had any chance at all since that happened. It +seems as if it took all the spirit right out of him; and Sally, she +hasn't got any spirit either: she's been nothin' but a millstone round +his neck. It's a mercy the baby died: that's one thing." + +"I don't think so at all, Mr. Little," said Hetty, vehemently. "I think +if the baby had lived, it would have strengthened them both. It would +have made Sally much happier, at any rate. She is a motherly little +thing." + +"Yes," said the old man, reluctantly. "Sally's affectionate; I won't +deny that: but"--and an expression of exceeding bitterness passed over +his face--"I wish to the Lord I needn't ever lay my eyes on her face +again! I can't feel right towards her, and I don't suppose I ever +shall." + +"I wouldn't wonder if the time came when she was a real comfort to you, +Mr. Little," said Hetty, cheerily. "You get them to come and live with +me and see what that'll do. I can afford to give Jim more than he can +make at surveying. I have a notion he's a better farmer than he is +engineer, isn't he?" + +"Yes, there's nothing Jim don't know about a farm. I always did hope +he'd settle down here at home with us. But we couldn't have Sally in the +house: it would have killed Mrs. Little. It gives her a day's nervous +headache now, long ago 's 'tis, whenever she sees her on the street." + +"Well, well," said Hetty, impatiently, "she won't give anybody nervous +headaches in my house, poor little soul, that's certain; and the sooner +they can come the better I shall like it. So you will arrange it all for +me at once, won't you?" + +Then Hetty went on to speak of some matters in regard to the farm about +which she was in doubt,--as to certain fields, and crops, and what +should be done with the young stock from last year. Presently the old +clock in the hall struck nine, and the village bells began to ring. + +Hetty sprang to her feet. + +"Dear me!" she exclaimed, "I had no idea it was so late. I only meant to +stay an hour. Nan will be frightened about me." And she was out of the +house and on her pony's back almost before Deacon Little could say,-- + +"But, Hetty, ain't you afraid to go home by yourself. I can go with you +'s well 's not." + +"Bless me, no!" said Hetty. "I always ride alone. Polly knows the road +as well as I do;" and she cantered off, saying cheerily, "Goodnight, +deacon, I can't tell you how much I'm obliged to you. Please see Jim 's +early 's you can to-morrow: I want to get settled and begin work." + +When Hetty reached home, the house was silent and dark: only one feeble +light glimmered in the hall. As she threw open the door, old Caesar +and Nan rushed forward together from the kitchen, exclaiming, half +sobbing,-- + +"Oh, Miss Hetty! Miss Hetty! we made sure you was killed." + +"Nonsense, Nan!" said Hetty, goodnaturedly: "what put such an idea into +your head? Haven't I ridden Polly many a darker night than this?" + +"Yes'm," sobbed Nan; "but to-night's different. All our luck's gone: +'When the master's dead, the house is shook,' they say where I was +raised. Oh, Miss Hetty! it's lonesome's death in the kitchen." + +Hetty threw open the door into the sitting-room. "Put on a stick of +wood, Nan, and make the fire blaze up," she said. + +While Nan was doing this, Hetty lighted the lamps, drew down the +curtains, and gave the room its ordinary evening look. Then she said,-- + +"Now, Nan, sit down: I want to talk with you," and Hetty herself sat +down in her father's chair on the right hand of the fireplace. + +"Oh, Miss Hetty!" cried Nan, "don't you go set in that chair: you'll die +before the year 's out if you do. Oh please, Miss Hetty! get right up;" +and the poor old woman took forcible hold of her young mistress's arms, +and tried to lift her from the chair. + +"To please you, I will sit in another chair now, Nan, because I want +you to be quiet and listen to me. But that will be my chair to sit in +always, just as it used to be my father's; and I shall not die before +the year 's out, Nan, nor I hope for a great many years to come yet," +said Hetty. + +"Oh, no! please the Lord, Miss Hetty," sobbed Nan: "who'd take care of +Caesar an' me ef you was to die." + +"But I expect you and Caesar to take care of me, Nan," replied Hetty, +smiling, "and I want to have a good talk with you now, and make you +understand about our life here. You want to please me, don't you, Nan?" + +"Oh, yes! Miss Hetty. You knows I do, and so does Caesar. We wouldn't +have no other missus, not in all these Norf States: we'd sooner go back +down where we was raised." Hetty smiled involuntarily at this violent +comparison, knowing well that both Caesar and Nan would have died sooner +than go back to the land where they were "raised." But she went on,-- + +"Very well. You never need have any other mistress as long as I +live: and when I die you and Caesar will have money enough to make you +comfortable, and a nice little house. Now the first thing I want you to +understand is that we are going to live on here in this house, exactly +as we did when my father was here. I shall carry on the farm exactly +as he would if he were alive; that is, as nearly as I can. Now you will +make it very hard for me, if you cry and are lonesome, and say such +things as you said to-night. If you want to please me, you will go right +on with your work cheerfully, and behave just as if your master were +sitting there in his chair all the time. That is what will please him +best, too, if he is looking on, as I don't doubt he very often will be." + +"But is you goin' to be here all alone, Miss Hetty? yer don't know what +yer a layin' out for, yer don't," interrupted Nan. + +"No," replied Hetty: "Mr. James Little and his wife are coming here to +stay. He will be overseer of the farm." + +"What! Her that was Sally Newhall?" exclaimed Nan, in a sharp tone. + +"Yes, that was Mrs. Little's name before she was married," replied +Hetty, looking Nan full in the face with a steady expression, intended +to restrain any farther remarks on the subject of Mrs. Little. But Nan +was not to be restrained. + +"Before she was married! Yes'm! an' a good deal too late 'twas she was +married too. 'Deed, Miss Hetty, yer ain't never going to take her in to +live with you, be yer?" she muttered. + +"Yes, I am, Nan," Hetty said firmly; "and you must never let such a word +as that pass your lips again. You will displease me very much if you do +not treat Mrs. Little respectfully." + +"But, Miss Hetty," persisted Nan. "Yer don't know"-- + +"Yes, I do, Nan: I know it all. But I pity them both very much. We have +all done wrong in one way or another; and it is the Lord's business to +punish people, not ours. You 've often told me, Nan, about that pretty +little girl of yours and Caesar's that died when I was a baby. Supposing +she had lived to be a woman, and some one had led her to do just as +wrong as poor Sally Little did, wouldn't you have thought it very hard +if the whole world had turned against her, and never given her a fair +chance again to show that she was sorry and meant to live a good life?" + +Nan was softened. + +"'Deed would I, Miss Hetty. But that don't make me feel like seein' that +gal a settin' down to table with you, Miss Hetty, now I tell yer! Caesar +nor me couldn't stand that nohow!" + +"Yes you can, Nan; and you will, when you know that it would make me +very unhappy to have you be unkind to her," answered Hetty, firmly. "She +and her husband both, have done all in their power to atone for their +wrong; and nobody has ever said a word against Mrs. Little since her +marriage; and one thing I want distinctly understood, Nan, by every +one on this place,--any disrespectful word or look towards Mr. or Mrs. +Little will be just the same as if it were towards me myself." + +Nan was silenced, but her face wore an obstinate expression which gave +Hetty some misgivings as to the success of her experiment. However, she +knew that Nan could be trusted to repeat to the other servants all that +she had said, and that it would lose nothing in the recital; and, as for +the future, one of Hetty's first principles of action was an old proverb +which her grandfather had explained to her when she was a little girl,-- + +"Don't cross bridges till you come to them." + + + + +III. + +The gratitude with which James Little's wife received Hetty's +proposition was so great that it softened even her father-in-law's +heart. + +"I do believe, Hetty," he said, when he gave her their answer, "I do +believe that poor girl has suffered more 'n we've given her credit for. +When I explained to her that you was goin' to take her right in to be +like one o' your own family, she turned as white as a sheet, and says +she,-- + +"'You don't mean it, father: she won't ever dare to:' and when I said, +says I,-- + +"'Yes, she does: Hetty Gunn ain't a girl not to know what she means to +do. And that's just what she says she's goin' to do with you and Jim,' +she broke right out crying, out loud, just like a little baby, and says +she,-- + +"'If the Lord don't bless Hetty Gunn for bein' so good to us! she +sha'n't ever be sorry for it's long's she lives.'" + +"Of course I sha'n't," said Hetty, bluntly. "I never was sorry yet for +any thing I did which was right, and I am as sure this is right as I am +that I am alive. When will they come?" + +"Sarah said she would come right over to-day, if you'd like to have her +help you; and Jim he could fix up things at home, and shut the house +up. Jim said they'd better not let the house till you had tried how +it worked havin' 'em here. Jim don't seem very sanguine about it. Poor +fellow, he's got the spirit all taken out of him." + +"Well, well, we'll put it back again, see if we don't, before the +year is out," replied Hetty, with a beaming smile, which made her face +beautiful. + +It happened fortunately that poor Sarah Little first came to her new +home alone, rather than with her husband. The years of solitude and +disgrace through which they had lived, had made him dogged and defiant +of manner, but had made her humble and quiet. She still kept a good +deal of the beauty of her youth; and there were few persons who could +be unmoved by the upward glance of her saddened blue eyes. In less than +five minutes, she conquered old Nan, and secured her as an ally for +ever. As she entered the house, Hetty met her, and saying cordially,-- + +"I'm glad to see you, Sally. It was so good of you to come right over at +once; we have a great deal to do,"--she kissed her on her forehead. + +Sarah burst into tears. Nan stood by with a sullen face. Turning towards +her involuntarily, perhaps because she hardly dared to speak to Hetty, +Sarah said,-- + +"Oh, Nan, I'm only crying because she is so kind to me. I can't help +it;" and the poor thing sank into a chair and sobbed. No wonder! it was +six years since she had returned to her native village, a shame-stricken +woman, bearing in her arms the child whose birth had been her disgrace. +That its father was now her husband did little or nothing to repair the +loss which her weakness and wrong-doing had entailed on her. If there be +a pitiless community in this world, it is a small New England village. +Calvinism, in its sternest aspects, broods over it; narrowness and +monotony make rigid the hearts which theology has chilled; and a grim +Pharisaism, born of a certain sort of intellectual keen-wittedness, +completes the cruel inhumanity. It was six years since poor Sarah +Little, baby in arms, had come into such an air as this,--six years, and +until this moment, when Hetty Gunn kissed her forehead and spoke to her +with affection, no woman had ever said to her a kindly word. When the +baby died, not a neighbor came to its funeral. The minister, the weeping +father and mother, and the stern-looking grandfather, alone followed the +little unwelcomed one to its grave. After that, Sarah rarely went out of +her house except at night. The tradesmen with whom she had to deal came +slowly to have a pitying respect for her. The minister went occasionally +to see her, and in his clumsy way thought he perceived what he called +"the right spirit" in her. Sarah dreaded his calls more than any thing +else. What made her isolation much harder to bear was the fact that, +only two years before, every young girl in the county had been her +friend. There was no such milliner in all that region as Sarah Newhall. +In autumn and in spring, her little shop at Lonway Four Corners was +crowded with chattering and eager girls, choosing ribbons and hats, and +all deferring to her taste. Now they all passed her by with only a cold +and silent bow. Not one spoke. To Sarah's affectionate, mirth-loving +temperament, this was misery greater than could be expressed. She +said not a word about it, not even to her husband: she bore it as dumb +animals bear pain, seeking only a shelter, a hiding-place; but she +wished herself dead. Jim's share of the punishment had been in some ways +lighter than hers, in others harder. He had less loneliness; but, on +the other hand, by his constant intercourse with men, he was frequently +reminded of the barrier which separated himself and his wife from +all that went on in the village. He had the same mirthful, social +temperament which she had: the thoughtless, childish, pleasure-loving +quality, which they had in common, had been the root of their sin; and +was now the instrument of their suffering. Stronger people could have +borne up better; worse people might have found a certain evil solace in +evil ways and with evil associates: but Jim and Sally were incapable +of any such course; they were simply two utterly broken-spirited and +hopeless children whose punishment had been greater than they could +bear. In a dogged way, because they must live, Jim went on earning a +little money as surveyor and draughtsman. He often talked of going away +into some new faraway place where they could have, as he said, in the +same words Hetty had used, "a fair chance;" but Sally would not go. "It +would not make a bit of difference," she said: "it would be sure to be +found out, and strange folks would despise us even more than our own +folks do; perhaps things will come round right after a while, if we stay +here." Jim did not insist, for he loved Sally tenderly; and he felt, to +the core of his heart, that the least he could do for her now was to let +her live where she chose to live: but he grew more sullen and dogged, +day by day; and Sally grew sadder and quieter, and things were fast +coming to a bad pass, when Hetty Gunn's generous offer came to them, +like a great rift of sunlight in a black sky. + +When Sally sank into the chair sobbing, Hetty made a quick movement +towards her, and was about to speak; but, seeing that old Nan was +hastening to do the same thing, she wisely waited, thinking to +herself,-- + +"If Nan will only take her under her wing, all will go well." + +Old Nan's tenderness of heart was unlimited. If her worst enemy were +in pain or sorrow, she would succor him: ready perhaps to take up +the threads of her resentment again, as soon as his sufferings were +alleviated; but a very Samaritan of good offices as long as he needed +them. Caesar, so well understood this trait in her, that in their +matrimonial disputes, which, it must be confessed, were frequent and +sharp, when all other weapons failed him, he fell back on the colic. He +had only to interrupt the torrent of her reproaches, with a groan, and a +twist of his fat abdomen, and "oh, honey, I'm so bad in my stomach!" +and she was transformed, in an instant from a Xantippe into a Florence +Nightingale: the whole current of her wrath deviated from him to the +last meal he had eaten, whatever it might be. + +"Now, it's jist nothin' but that pesky bacon you ate this mornin', +Caesar: you sha'n't never touch a bit again's long's you live; do you +hear?" and with hot water and flannels, she would proceed to comfort and +coddle him as if no anger had ever stirred her heart. + +When she saw poor Sarah Little sink crying into a chair, and heard the +humble gratefulness of her words; and, moreover, felt herself, as it +were, distinctly taken into confidence by the implied reference to the +unhappy past,--old Nan melted. + +"There, there, honey: don't ye take on so. We're jest powerful glad to +get you here, we be. I was a tellin' Miss Hetty yesterday she couldn't +live here alone, noways: we couldn't any of us stand it. Come along +into the dinin'-room, an' Caesar he'll give you a glass of his blackberry +wine. Caesar won't let anybody but hisself touch the blackberry wine, an' +hain't this twenty year." + +"Here, Caesar! you, Caesar! where be yer? Come right in here, you loafin' +niggah." This was Nan's most affectionate nickname for her husband; it +was always accompanied with a glance of proud admiration, which was +the key to the seemingly opprobrious epithet, and revealed that all +it really meant was a complacent satisfaction in her breast that her +husband was in a position to loaf if he liked to,--a gentleman of +leisure and dignity, so to speak, subject to no orders but her own. + +Caesar could hardly believe his ears when he heard himself called upon to +bring a glass of his blackberry wine to Mrs. Sarah Little. This was +not at all in keeping with the line of conduct which Nan had announced +beforehand that she should pursue in regard to that lady. Bewildered by +his perplexed meditations on this change of policy, he moved even more +slowly than was his wont, and was presently still more bewildered +by finding the glass snatched suddenly from his hand, with a sharp +reprimand from Nan. + +"You're asleep, ain't you? p'raps you'd better go back to bed, seein' +it's nigh noon." + +"There, honey, you jest drink this, an' it'll do you good," came in the +next second from the same lips, in such dulcet tones, that Caesar rubbed +his head in sheer astonishment, and gazed with open mouth and eyes upon +Nan, who was holding the glass to Sally's mouth, as caressingly as she +would to a sick child's. + +The battle was won; won by a tone and a tear; won, as, ever since the +days of Goliath, so many battles have been won by the feebleness of +weapons, and not by their might. + +When two days later, James Little, more than half unwillingly, spite +of his gratitude to Hetty, came to take his position as overseer +at "Gunn's," he was met at the great gate by his wife, who had been +watching there for him for an hour. He looked at her with undisguised +wonder. There was a light in her eyes, a color in her cheeks, he had not +seen there for many years. "Why, Sally!" he exclaimed, but gave no other +expression to his amazement. She understood. + +"Oh, Jim!" she said, "it is like heaven here: they're all so kind. I +told you things would come round all right if we waited." + +The new overseer found himself welcomed because he was Sally's husband, +and the strangeness of this was a bewilderment indeed. He could hardly +understand the atmosphere of cordial good feeling which seemed in so +short time to have grown up between his wife and all the household. He +had become so used to Sally's sweet sad face, that he did not know +how great a charm it held for others; and he had never seen in her the +manner which she now wore to every one. One day's kindly treatment had +been to her like one day's sunlight to a drooping plant. + +Hetty was relieved and glad. All her misgivings had vanished; and she +found growing up in her heart a great tenderness toward Sally. She +recollected well the bright rosy face Sally had worn only a few years +before, and the contrast between it and her pale sorrow-stricken +countenance now smote Hetty whenever she looked at her. Her sympathy, +however, took no shape in words or caresses. She was too wise for that. +She simply made it plain that Sally's place in the family was to be a +fixed and a busy one. + +"I shall look after the out-door things, Sally," she said. "I have done +that ever since father was so poorly, and I like it best. I shall trust +to you to keep the house going all straight. Old Nan isn't much of a +housekeeper, though she's a good cook: she needs looking after." + +And so the new household entered on its first summer. The crops sprang +up, abundant and green: all the cattle throve and increased: the big +garden bloomed full of its old-fashioned flowers; its wide borders of +balm and lavender made the whole road-side sweet: the doors stood open, +and the cheery sounds of brisk farm life were to be heard all day long. +To all passers-by "Gunn's" seemed unchanged, unless it were that it had +grown even more prosperous and active. But in the hall, two knobbed old +canes which used to stand in the corner were hung by purple ribbons +from the great antlers on the wall, and would never be taken down again. +Hetty had hung them there the day after the funeral, and had laid the +squire's riding-whip across them, saying to herself as she did so,-- + +"There! I'll keep those up there as long as I live, and I wonder what +will become of them then or of the farm either," and she had a long and +sad reverie, standing with the riding-whip in her hand in the doorway, +and tying and untying the purple ribbons. But she shook the thought off +at last, saying to herself,-- + +"Well, well, I don't suppose the farm'll go begging. There are plenty of +people that would be glad enough to have me give it to them. I expect +it will have to go to Cousin Josiah after all; but father couldn't abide +him. It's a great pity I wasn't a boy, then I could have married and had +children to take it." A sudden flush covered Hetty's face as she said +this, and with a shamefaced, impatient twist of her expressive features, +she ran in hastily and laid the whip above the canes. + +The only thing which broke in on the even tenor of this summer at Gunn's +was Caesar's experiencing religion in a great revival at the Methodist +church. Caesar had been under conviction again and again; but, as old Nan +said pathetically to her minister, there didn't seem to be "nothin' to +ketch hold by in Caesar." By the time his emotions had worked up to the +proper climax for a successful result, he was "done tired out," and +would "jest give right up" and "let go," and "there he was as bad's +ever, if not wuss." Poor old Nan was a very ardent and sincere +Christian, spite of her infirmities of temper, and she would wrestle +in prayer with and for her husband till her black cheeks shone under +streams of tears. She wrestled all the harder because the ungodly Caesar +would sometimes turn upon her, and in the most sarcastic and ungenerous +way ask if he didn't keep his temper better "without religion than she +did with it:" upon which Nan would groan and travail in spirit, and +beseech the Lord not to "go an' let her be a stumbler-block in Caesar's +way." The Squire's death had produced a great impression on Caesar: from +that day he had been, Nan declared, "quite a changed pusson;" and the +impression deepened until three months later, in the course of a great +midnight meeting in the Methodist church, Caesar Gunn suddenly announced +that he had "got religion." The one habit which it was hardest for Caesar +to give up, in his new character, was the habit of swearing. Profanity +had never been strongly discountenanced at "Gunn's." The old Squire and +the young Squire had both been in the habit of swearing, on occasion, +as roundly as troopers! and black Caesar was not going to be behind his +masters, not he. So he, too, in spite of old Nan's protestations and +entreaties, had become a confirmed swearer. It had really grown into so +fixed a habit that the words meant nothing: it was no more than a trick +of physical contortion of which a man may be utterly unconscious. How to +break himself of this was Caesar's difficulty. + +"Yer see, Nan!" he said, "I dunno when it's a comin': the fust I know, +it's said and done, an' what am I goin' to do 'bout it then, 'll yer +tell me?" At last, Caesar hit on a compromise which seemed to him a +singularly happy one. To avoid saying "damn" was manifestly impossible: +the word slipped out perpetually without giving him warning; as soon as +he heard it, however, his righteous soul remorsefully followed up the +syllable by,-- + +"Bress the Lord," in Stentorian tones. The compound ejaculation thus +formed was one which nobody's gravity could resist; and the surprised +and grieved expression with which poor Caesar would look round upon an +audience which he had thus convulsed was even more irresistible than +the original expression. Everybody who came to "Gunn's" went away and +said,-- + +"Have you heard the new oath Caesar Gunn swears with since he got +religion?" and "Damn bress the Lord" soon became a very by-word in the +town. + + + + +IV. + +Early in the autumn, Deacon Little's wife came one morning to the house +and asked to see Hetty alone. Hetty met her with great coolness and +remained standing, with evident purpose to regard the interview as +simply one of business. As heartily as it was in Hetty Gunn's nature to +dislike any one, and that was very heartily, she disliked Mrs. Little. +Again and again, during the six months that James and Sally had been +living in her house, Hetty had asked Deacon and Mrs. Little to come +and spend the day with them there. The deacon always had come alone, +bringing feeble apologies for Mrs. Little, on score of headaches, +previous engagements, and so on; but privately, to Hetty, he had +confessed the truth, saying,-- + +"You see, Hetty, she hasn't spoken to Sally yet; and she says she +never will: just to see her on the street, gives her a dreadful nervous +headache, sometimes for two days. Mrs. Little's nerves are too much for +her always: she ain't strong, you know, Hetty." + +"Nonsense!" exclaimed Hetty at last, bluntly. "It isn't nerves, it's +temper, and a most unchristian temper too, begging your pardon. Deacon, +I know she's your wife. If I were Jim, I'd never go near her, never, so +long as she wouldn't speak to Sally. I shan't ask her again, and you may +tell her so; and you may tell her, too, that I say I'd rather take +my chance of being forgiven for what Sally's done than for what she's +doing." And Hetty strode up and down her piazza wrathfully. + +"There are plenty of people in town who do come here, and do speak to +Sally," she continued; "and ever so many of them have told me how much +they were coming to like her. She hasn't got any great force I know. If +she had had, such a fellow as your Jim couldn't have led her away as he +did: but she's got all the force the Lord gave her; and if ever there +was a girl that repented for a sin, and atoned for it too, it's Sally; +and I'd a good deal rather be in her place to-day, than in the place of +any of the people that set themselves up as too good to speak to her. +She's a loving, patient-souled creature, and she's been a real comfort +to me ever since she came into my house; and anybody that won't speak to +her needn't speak to me, that's all." Poor Deacon Little twirled his +hat in his hands, and moved about uneasily on his chair, during Hetty's +excited speech. When he spoke, his distress was so evident in his voice +that Hetty relented and was ashamed of herself instantly. + +"Don't be too hard on Mrs. Little, Hetty," he said, "you know Jim was +her favorite of all the children; and she can't never see it anyways +but that Sally's been his ruin. Now I don't see it that way; and I 've +always tried to be good to Sally, in all ways that I could be, things +being as they were at home. You know a man ain't always free to do's +he likes, Hetty. He can't go against his wife, leastways not when she's +feeble like Mrs. Little." + +"No, no, Deacon Little," Hetty hastened to say, "I never meant to +reproach you. Sally always says you've been good to her. I 'm very sorry +that I spoke so about Mrs. Little; not that I can take a word of it +back, though," added Hetty, her anger still rising hotly at mention of +the name; "but I'll never say a word to you about it again. It isn't +fair." + +Deacon Little repeated this conversation to his wife, and told Hetty +that he had done so. It was therefore with great surprise that Hetty +found herself on this morning face to face in her own home with Mrs. +Little. + +"What in the world can have brought her here?" thought Hetty, as she +walked slowly towards the sitting-room, "no good I'll be bound;" and it +was with a look almost of defiance that she stood before her, waiting +for her to speak. Mrs. Little with all her immovability of prejudice was +a timid woman, and moreover was especially afraid of Hetty Gunn. Hetty's +independent, downright, out-spoken ways were alarming to her nervous, +conservative, narrow-minded soul. + +"I expect you're surprised to see me here, Hetty," she began. + +"Very much," interrupted Hetty curtly, in a hard tone. A long silence +ensued, which Hetty made no movement to break, but stood with her arms +folded, looking Mrs. Little in the eye. + +"I came--to--tell--to let you know--Mr. Little he wanted me to come and +tell you--he didn't like to--" she stammered. + +Hetty's quick instinct took alarm. + +"If it's any thing you've got to say against that poor girl out there," +pointing to the garden, where Sally was busy tying up chrysanthemums +"you may as well save yourself the trouble. I shan't hear it," and Hetty +looked her unwelcome visitor still more defiantly in the face. Mrs. +Little colored, and stung at last into a command of her organs of +speech, said, not without dignity: + +"You needn't suppose that I wish to do any thing to injure the woman my +son has married. It was Jim who asked his father to tell you--" + +"For goodness' sake, do say what it is you've got to say, can't you?" +burst out Hetty, impatiently. But Mrs. Little was not to be hurried. +Between her uneasiness at being face to face with Hetty, and her false +sense of embarrassment in speaking of the subject she had come to speak +of, it took her a long time to make Hetty understand that poor Sally, +finding that she was to be a mother again, had been afraid to tell Hetty +herself, and had taken this method of letting her know the fact. + +Hetty listened breathlessly, her blue eyes opening wide, and her cheeks +growing red. She did not speak. Mrs. Little misinterpreted her silence. + +"If you didn't want the baby here, I 'd take it," she said almost +beseechingly, "if Sally'd let me: it would break Jim's heart if they +should have to leave here." + +"Not want the baby!" shouted Hetty, in a voice which reached Sally in +the garden, and made her look up, thinking she was called. "I should +think you must be crazy, Mrs. Little;" and, with the involuntary words, +there entered for the first time into her mind a wonder whether Mrs. +Little's whole treatment of her son and his wife were not so monstrous +as to warrant a doubt as to her sanity. "Not want the baby! Why I'd give +half the farm to have a baby running about here. How could Sally help +knowing I'd be glad?" and Hetty moved swiftly towards the door, to go +and seek Sally. Recollecting herself suddenly, she turned, and, halting +on the threshold, said in her hardest tone: + +"Is there any thing else you wish to say?" + +There was ignominious dismissal in her tone, her look, her attitude; and +Mrs. Little said hastily: + +"Oh, no, nothing, nothing! I only want to tell you that I'd like to +thank you, though, for all your kindness to Jim;" and Mrs. Little's lips +quivered, and the tears came into her eyes. Hetty was unmoved by them. + +"I think more of Sally than I do of Jim," she said severely. "It's all +owing to Sally that he's got a chance to hold up his head again. Good +morning, Mrs. Little;" and Hetty walked out of one door, leaving her +guest to make her own way out of the other. + +Sally found it hard to believe in Hetty's readiness to welcome her baby. + +"Oh! you don't know, Hetty, how it will set everybody to talking again," +said the poor girl. "You are so different from other folks. You can't +understand. I don't suppose my children ever would be allowed to play +with other children, do you?" she asked mournfully. "That was one thing +which comforted me when my baby died. I thought she wouldn't live to +have anybody despise her because she had had me for a mother. Somehow it +don't seem fair, does it, Hetty, to have people punished for what their +parents do? But the minister over at the Corners, that used to come +and see me, he said that was what it meant in the Bible, where it said: +'Unto the third and fourth generation.' But I can't think it's so bad +as that. You don't believe, Hetty, do you, that if I should have several +children, and they should be married, that their grandchildren would +ever hear any thing about me, how wicked I had been: do you, Hetty?" +"No, indeed, child!" said Hetty sharply, feeling as if she should cry." +Of course I don't believe any such thing; and, if I did, I wouldn't +worry over it. Why, I don't even know my great-grandmother's name," she +laughed, "much less whether she were good or bad." + +"Oh, but the bad things last so!" said Sally. "Nobody says any thing +about the good things: it's always the bad ones. I don't see why people +like to: if they didn't, there'd be some chance of a thing's being +forgotten." + +"Never you mind, Sally," said Hetty, in a tone unusually caressing for +her. "Never you mind, nobody talks about you now, except to say the good +things; and you are always going to stay with me as long as I live, and +when that baby comes we'll just wonder how we ever got along without +him." + +"Oh, Hetty, you're just one of the Lord's angels!" cried Sally. + +"Humph!" said Hetty. "I hope he's got better ones. There wasn't much +angel about me this morning when that mother-in-law of yours was here, +I can tell you. I wonder if she'll have the heart to keep away after the +baby's born." + +"I thought of that, too," said Sally, timidly. "If it should be a boy, +I think maybe she'd be pleased. She always did worship Jim. That's the +reason she hates me so," sighed Sally. + +It was the last of March before the longed-for baby came. Never did +baby have a better welcome. It was as if three mothers had awaited his +coming. Hetty's happiness was far greater than Sally's, and Nan's was +hardly less. Hetty had been astonished at herself for the passionate +yearning she had felt towards the little unborn creature from the +beginning, and, when she took the little fellow in her arms, her first +thought was, "Dear me! if mothers feel any more than I feel now, how +can they bear it?" Turning to Jim, she exclaimed, "Oh, Jim! I'm sure +you ought to be happy now. We'll name this little chap after you, James +Little, Junior." + +"No!" said Jim, doggedly, "I'll not hand down that name. The sooner it +is forgotten the better." All the sunshine and peace of his new home had +not been enough wholly to brighten or heal Jim's wounded spirit. Hetty +had found herself baffled at every turn by a sort of inertia of sadness, +harder to deal with than any other form of mental depression. + +"You're very wrong, Jim," replied Hetty, earnestly. "The name is your +own to make or to mar, and you ought to be proud to hand it down." + +"You can't judge about that, Hetty," said Jim. "It stands to reason that +you can't have any idea about the feeling of being disgraced. I don't +believe a man can ever shake it off in this world: if he can in any +other, I have my doubts. I don't know what the orthodox people ever +wanted to get up their theory of a hell for. A man can be a worse hell +to himself, than any hell they can invent to put him into. I know that." + +"Jim!" exclaimed Hetty, "how dare you speak so, with this dear little +innocent baby's eyes looking up at you?" + +"That's just the reason," answered Jim, bitterly. "If this baby hadn't +come, there seemed to be some chance of our outgrowing the memory of the +things we'd like to forget and have forgotten. But this just rakes it +all up again as bad as ever. You'll see: you don't know people so well +as Sally and I do." + +Before many weeks had passed, Hetty was forced to admit that Jim was +partly in the right. Neighbor after neighbor, under the guise of a +friendly interest in the baby, took occasion to go over all the details +of the first baby's life and death; and there was, in their manner to +Sally, a certain new and pitying condescension which filled Hetty with +wrath. + +"What a mercy 'tis, 'tis a boy," said one visitor sanctimoniously to +Hetty, as they left Sally's room together. Hetty turned upon her like +lightning. + +"I'd like to know what you mean by that," she said sharply. The woman +hesitated, and at last said: + +"Why you know, of course, such things are not so much consequence to +men." + +"Such things as what?" said Hetty, bluntly. "I don't understand you." +When at last her visitor put her meaning into unmistakable words, Hetty +wheeled (they were walking down the long pine-shaded avenue together); +stood still; and folding her arms on her bosom said: + +"There! that was what I wanted. I thought if you were driven to putting +it into plain English, perhaps you 'd see how abominable it was to think +it." + +"No, no, you needn't try to smooth it down," she continued, interrupting +her guest's efforts to mollify her by a few deprecating words. "You +can't unsay it, now it's said; and saying it's no worse than thinking +it. I don't envy you your thoughts, though. I've always stood up for +Sally, and I always shall, and anybody that is stupid enough to suppose, +because I stand up for her, I justify what she did that was wrong, is +welcome: I don't care. Sally is a good, patient, loving woman to-day; I +don't know anybody more so: I, for one, respect her. I wish I could be +half as patient;" and Hetty stooped, and, picking up a handful of the +pine-needles with which the road was thickly strewn, crumbled them up +fiercely in her hands, and tossing the dust high in the air, exclaimed: + +"I wouldn't give that for the character of any woman that can't believe +in another woman's having thoroughly repented of having done wrong." + +"Oh! nobody doubts that Sally has repented," said the embarrassed +visitor. + +"Oh, they don't?" said Hetty, in a sarcastic tone; "well then I'd like +to ask them what they mean by treating her as they do. I 'd like to ask +them what the Lord does to sinners that repent. He says they are to come +and be with him in Heaven, I believe; and I'd like to know whether after +He's taken them to Heaven, they 're going to be reminded every minute of +all the sins they've repented of. Oh, but I've no patience with it!" +As Hetty was walking slowly back to the house after this injudicious +outburst, she met Dr. Eben Williams coming down the avenue. Her first +impulse was to plunge into the shrubbery, on the right hand or the left, +and escape him. The baby was now four weeks old, and yet Hetty had never +till to-day seen the doctor. It had been a very sore point between her +and Sally, that Sally would persist in having this young Dr. Williams +from the "Corners," instead of old Dr. Tuthill, who had been the family +doctor at "Gunn's" for nearly fifty years. It was the only quarrel that +Hetty and Sally had ever had; and it came near being a very serious one: +but Hetty suddenly recollected herself, and exclaiming: + +"Why bless me, Sally, I haven't any right to decide what doctor you're +to have when you're sick; I'll never say another word about it; only you +needn't expect me ever to speak to that Eben Williams; I never expected +to see him under my roof," she dropped the subject and never alluded to +it again. + +Her first impulse, as we said, when she saw the obnoxious doctor coming +towards her now, was to fly; her second one of anger with herself for +the first. "I'm on my own ground," she thought with some of the old +Squire's honest pride stirring her veins, "I think I will not run away +from the popinjay." + +It was hard to know just how such a dislike to Dr. Eben Williams had +grown up in Hetty's friendly heart. He had come some four years before +to practise medicine at Lonway Four Corners. His bright and cordial +face, his social manner, his superior education, readiness, and +resource, had quickly won away many patients from old Dr. Tuthill, who +still drove about the country as he had driven for half a century, with +a ponderous black leather case full of calomel and jalap swung under +his sulky. A few old families, the Gunns among the number, adhered +faithfully to the old doctor, and became bitter partisans against the +new one. + +"Let him stick to the Corners: if they like him there, they 're welcome +to him. He needn't be trying to get all Welbury besides," they said +angrily. "Welbury's done very well for a doctor, these good many years: +since before Eben Williams was born, for that matter;" and words ran +high in the warfare. Squire Gunn was one of the most violent of Dr. +Williams's opposers; and when, a few days before his death, old +Dr. Tuthill had timidly suggested that it might be well to have a +consultation, the Squire broke out with: + +"Not that damned Eben Williams then. I won't have that damned rascal set +foot in this house. You're a fool, Tuthill, to let that young upstart +get all your practice as he's a doing." + +The old man smiled sadly. He did not in the least share his friends' +hostility to the handsome, young, and energetic physician who was so +plainly soon to be his successor in the county. + +"Ah, Squire!" he said, "you forget how old you and I are. It is nearly +my time to pass on, and make room for a younger man. Eben's a good +doctor. I 'd rather he'd have the circuit here than anybody I know." + +"Damned interloper! let him wait till you're dead," growled the Squire. +"He shan't have a hand in finishing me off at any rate. I don't want any +of their new-fangled notions." And the Squire died as he had lived, on +the old plan, with the old doctor. + +When Eben Williams saw that he was about to meet Hetty Gunn, his +emotions were hardly less conflicting than hers. He, too, would have +liked to escape the meeting, for he had understood clearly that his +presence in her house was most unwelcome to her. But he, too, had his +own pride, as distinct and as strong as hers, and at the very moment +that Hetty was saying to herself, "I'm on my own ground: I won't run +away from the popinjay," Dr. Eben was thinking in his heart, "What a +fool I am to care a straw about meeting her! I'm about my own business, +and she is an obstinate simpleton." + +The expressions of their faces as they met, and passed, with cold +bows, were truly comical; each so thoroughly conscious of the other's +antagonism, and endeavoring to look unconscious of it. + +"By Jove, she's got a charming face, if she didn't look so obstinate," +said Dr. Eben to himself, as he hurried on. + +"He looked at me as he'd have looked at a snake," thought Hetty. "I +guess he's an honest fellow after all. He's got a handsome beard of his +own." + +When she entered Sally's room, Sally exclaimed, "Oh, Hetty! didn't you +meet the doctor?" + +"Yes," said Hetty, coolly. Sally looked wistfully at her for a few +seconds. "Oh, Hetty!" she said, "I thought, perhaps, if you saw him, +you'd like him better." + +"I never said any thing against his looks, did I?" laughed Hetty. "He +is a very handsome man: he is the handsomest man I ever saw, if that's +all!" + +"But it isn't all; it isn't any thing!" exclaimed Sally. "If he were an +ugly dwarf, I should love him just as well. Oh, Hetty, if you only knew +how good he was to me, when I was sick seven years ago! I should have +died if it hadn't been for him. There wasn't a woman at the Corners that +ever came near me, except Mrs. Patrick, the Irish woman I boarded with; +and, he used to stop and make broth for me, on my stove, with his +own hands, and sit and hold the baby on his knees, and talk to me so +beautifully about her. He just kept me alive." + +Hetty's face flushed. Sally had never told her so much before; she +could not help a glow at her heart, at the picture of the handsome young +doctor sitting with the poor, outcast baby on his knees, and comforting +the poor outcast mother. But Hetty was a Gunn; and, as Dr. Eben had +said, obstinate. She could not forget her partisanship for Dr. Tuthill. +She was even all the angrier with the young doctor for being so clever, +so kind, so skilful, so handsome, and so pleasant, that everybody wanted +him. "I dare say," she replied. "He'd do any thing to curry favor. He's +been determined from the first to get all the practice of the whole +county, and I suppose as soon as Doctor Tuthill dies, he'll have it; and +he may as well, for I don't doubt he's a good doctor: but I think it was +a mean underhand thing to come in here and try to cut another man out." + +"Why, Hetty!" remonstrated Sally, in a tone of unusual vehemence for +her. "Why, Hetty; there wasn't any doctor at the Corners: he didn't cut +anybody out there; and I'm sure they needed a doctor bad enough; and it +was his native place too." + +"Oh! that's all very well to say," answered Hetty. "It's a likely story, +isn't it, that anybody'd settle in Lonway Four Corners, just for the +little practice there is in that handful of a village. He knew very well +he'd get Welbury, and Springton, and all the county." + +"But, Hetty," persisted Sally. "He wasn't to blame, if people in these +towns sent for him, hearing how good he was. Indeed, indeed, Hetty, he +don't care for the money. He wouldn't take a cent from Jim, and he never +does from poor people. I've heard him say a dozen times, that he should +have come home to live on the old farm, even if they hadn't needed a +doctor there: he loves the country so, he can't be happy in the city; +and he loves every stick and stone of the old farm." + +"Humph!" said Hetty. "He looks like a country fellow, doesn't he, with +his fine clothes, and his gauntlet gloves! Don't tell me! I say he is +a popinjay, with all his learning. Now don't talk any more about it, +little woman, for your cheeks are getting too red," and Hetty took up +the baby, and began to toss him and talk to him. + +Hetty knew in her heart that she was unjust. More than she would have +owned to herself, and still more than she would have acknowledged +to Sally, she had admired Eben Williams's honest, straightforward, +warm-hearted face. But she preferred to dislike Eben Williams: her +father had disliked him, and had said he should never set foot in the +house; and Hetty felt a certain sort of filial obligation to keep up the +animosity. + +But Nature had other plans for Hetty. In fact if one were disposed to be +superstitious, one might well have said that fate itself had determined +to thwart Hetty's resolution of hostility. + + + + +V. + +Sally did not recover rapidly from her illness: her long mental +suffering had told upon her vitality, and left her unprepared for any +strain. The little baby also languished, sharing its mother's depressed +condition. Day after day, Doctor Eben came to the house. His quick step +sounded in the hall and on the stairs; his voice rang cheery, whenever +the door of Sally's room stood open. Hetty found herself more and more +conscious of his presence: each day she felt a half guilty desire to see +him again; she caught herself watching for his knock, listening for his +step; she even went so far as to wonder in a half impatient way why he +never sent for her, to give her the directions about Sally, instead of +giving them to the nurse. She little dreamed that Doctor Eben was as +anxious to avoid seeing her, as she had been to avoid seeing him. He had +a strangely resentful feeling towards Hetty, as if she were a personal +friend who had been treacherous to him. She was the only one of all +the partisans of Doctor Tuthill that he could not sympathize with and +heartily forgive. He would have found it very hard to explain why he +thus singled out Hetty, but he had done so from the outset. Strange +forerunning instinct of love, which uttered its prophecy in an unknown +tongue in an alien country! There came a day before long, when Doctor +Eben and Hetty were forced to forget all their prejudices, and to come +together on a common ground, where no antagonisms could exist. + +Sally and the baby were both very ill. Hetty, in her inexperience of +illness, had not realized how serious a symptom Sally's long continued +prostration was. In her own busy and active life, the days flew by +almost uncounted: she was out early and late, walking or riding over the +farm; and when she came back to Sally's room, and found her always with +the same placid smile, and fair untroubled face, and heard always the +same patient reply, "Very comfortable, thank you, dear Hetty," it never +occurred to her that any thing was wrong. It seemed strange to her that +the baby was so still, that he neither cried nor laughed like other +babies; and it seemed to her very hard for Sally to have to be shut up +in the house so long: but this was all; she was totally unprepared +for any thought of danger, and the shock was terrible to her, when the +thought came. It was on a sunny day in May, one of those incredible +summer days which New England sometimes flashes out like frost-set +jewels in her icy spring. Hetty had listened, as usual, to hear the +Doctor leave Sally's room: she was more than usually impatient to have +him go, for she was waiting to take in to Sally a big basket of arbutus +blossoms which old Caesar had gathered, and had brought to Hetty with a +characteristic speech. + +"Seems's if the Lord meant 'em for baby's cheeks, don't it, Miss Hetty? +they're so rosy." + +"Our poor little man's cheeks are not so pink yet," said Hetty, and as +she looked at the pearly pink bells nestling in their green leaves, she +sighed, and wished that the baby did not look so pale. "But he'll be all +right as soon as we can get him out of doors in the June sunshine," she +added, and turned from the dining-room into the hall, with the great +basket of arbutus in her hand. As she turned, she gave a cry, and +dropped her flowers: there sat Dr. Eben, in a big arm-chair, by the +doorway. He sprang to pick up the flowers. Hetty looked at him without +speaking. "I was waiting here to see you, Miss Gunn," he said, as +he gave back the flowers. "I am very sorry to be obliged to speak to +you,"--here Hetty's eyes twinkled, and a slight, almost imperceptible, +but very comic grimace passed over her face. She was thinking to +herself, "Honest, that! I expect he is very sorry,"--"I am very sorry to +have to speak to you about Mrs. Little," he continued; "but I think it +is my duty to tell you that she is sinking very fast." + +"What! Sally! what is the matter with her?" exclaimed Hetty. "Come right +in here, doctor;" and she threw open the sitting-room door, and, leading +him in, sank into the nearest chair, and said, like a little child: + +"Oh, dear! what shall I do?" + +Dr. Eben looked at her for a second, scrutinizingly. + +This was not the sort of person he had expected to see in Miss Hetty +Gunn. This was an impulsive, outspoken, loving woman, without a trace of +any thing masculine about her, unless it were a certain something in the +quality of her frankness, which was masculine rather than feminine; it +was more purely objective than women's frankness is wont to be: this Dr. +Eben thought out later; at present, he only thought: "Poor girl! I've +got to hurt her sadly." + +"You don't mean that Sally's going to die, do you?" said Hetty, in a +clear, unflinching tone. + +"I am afraid she will, Miss Gunn," replied Dr. Eben, "not immediately; +perhaps not for some months: but there seems to be a general failure of +all the vital forces. I cannot rouse her, body or soul." + +"Nonsense!" said Hetty. "If rousing is all she wants, surely we can +rouse her somehow. Isn't there any thing wrong with her anywhere?" + +Dr. Eben smiled in spite of himself at this off-hand, non-professional +view of the case; but he answered, sadly: + +"Not what you mean by any thing wrong; if there were, it would be easier +to cure her." + +Hetty knitted her brows, and looked at him in her turn, scrutinizingly. +"Have you had patients like her before?" + +"Yes," said Dr. Eben. + +"Did they all die? Didn't you cure one?" continued Hetty, inexorably. + +"I have known persons in such a condition to recover," said Dr. Eben, +with dignity; "but not by the help of medicine so much as by an entire +change of conditions." + +"What do you mean by conditions?" said Hetty, never having heard, in her +simple and healthful life, of anybody's needing what is called a "change +of scene." Dr. Eben smiled again, and, as he smiled, he noted with an +involuntary professional delight the clear, fine skin, the firm flesh, +the lustrous eye, the steady poise of every muscle in this woman, +who was catechising him, with so evident a doubt as to his skill and +information. + +"I hardly think; Miss Gunn," he went on, "that I could make you +understand, in your superb health, just all I mean by change of +conditions. It means change of food, air, surroundings; every thing in +short, which addresses itself to the senses. It means an entire new set +of nerve impressions." + +"Sally isn't in the least nervous," broke in Hetty. "She's always as +quiet as a mouse." + +"You mean that she isn't in the least fidgety," replied the doctor. +"That is quite another thing. Some of the most nervous people I know +have absolute quiet of manner. Mrs. Little's nervous system has been for +several years under a terrible strain. When I was first called to her, I +thought her trouble and suffering would kill her; and I didn't think it +would take so long. But it is that which is killing her now." Hetty was +not listening: she was thinking very perplexedly of what the doctor had +said a few moments before; interrupting him now, she said, "Would it do +Sally good to take her to another place? that is easily done." Dr. Eben +hesitated. + +"I think sea-air might help her; but I am not sure," he replied. + +"Would you go with us?" asked Hetty. "She wouldn't go without you." The +doctor hesitated again. He looked into Hetty's eyes: they were fixed +on his as steadily, as unembarrassedly, as if he and Hetty had been +comrades for years. "What a woman she is," he thought to himself, "to +coolly ask me to become their travelling physician, when for six weeks I +have been coming to the house every day, and she would not even speak to +me!" + +"I am not sure that I could, Miss Gunn," he replied. Hetty's face +changed. A look of distress stamped every feature. + +"Oh, Dr. Williams, do!" she exclaimed. "Sally would never go without +you; and she will die, you say, unless she has change." Then hesitating, +and turning very red, Hetty stammered, "I can pay you any thing--which +would be necessary to compensate you: we have money enough." Dr. Eben +bowed, and answered with some asperity: + +"The patients that I had hesitancy about leaving are patients who pay me +nothing. It is not in the least a question of money, Miss Gunn." + +"Forgive me," exclaimed Hetty, "I did not know--I thought--" + +"Your thought was a perfectly natural one, Miss Gunn," interrupted +the doctor, pitying her confusion. "I have never had need to make my +profession a source of income: I have no ambition to be rich; and, as +I am alone in the world, I can afford to do what many other physicians +could not." + +"When can you tell if you could go?" continued Hetty, not apparently +hearing what the doctor had said. + +"She only thinks of me as she would of a chair or a carriage which would +make her friend more comfortable," thought the doctor; "and why should +she think of me in any other way," he added, impatient with himself for +the selfish thought. + +"To-morrow," said he, curtly. "If I can go, I will; and there is no time +to be lost." + +Hetty nodded her head, but did not speak another word: she was too near +crying; and to have cried in the presence of Dr. Eben Williams would +have mortified Hetty to the core. + +"Oh, to think," she said to herself, "that, after all, I should have to +be under such obligations to that man! But it is all for Sally's sake, +poor dear child. How good he is to her! If he were anybody else, I +should like him with all my heart." + +The next morning, as Dr. Williams walked slowly up the avenue, he +saw Hetty standing in the doorway, shading her eyes with her hand and +looking towards him. The morning sun shone full upon her, and made +glints of golden light here and there in her thick brown curls. Hetty +had worn her hair in the same style for fifteen years; short, clustering +curls close to her head on either side, and a great mass of curls +falling over a comb at the back. If Hetty had a vanity it was of her +hair; and it was a vanity one was forced to forgive,--it had such +excellent reason for being. The picture which she made in the doorway, +at this moment, Dr. Eben never forgot: a strange pleasure thrilled +through him at the sight. As he drew near, she ran down the steps +towards him; ran down with no more thought or consciousness of the +appearance of welcoming him, than if she had been a child of seven: she +was impatient to know whether Sally could go to the sea-shore. This +man who approached held the decision in his hands; and he was, at that +moment, no more to Hetty than any messenger bringing word which she was +eager to hear. But Dr. Eben would have been more or less than man, could +he have seen, unmoved, the swift motion, the outstretched hands, the +eager eyes, the bright cheeks, the sunlit hair, of the beautiful woman +who ran to meet him. + +"Well?" was all that Hetty said, as, panting for want of breath, she +turned as shortly as a wild creature turns, and began to walk by Dr. +Eben's side. He forgot, for the instant, all the old antagonisms; he +forgot that, until yesterday, he had never spoken with Hetty Gunn; and, +meeting her eager gaze with one about as eager, he said in a familiar +tone: + +"Yes; well! I am going." + +Hetty stopped short, and, looking up at him, exclaimed: + +"Oh, I am so glad!" + +The words were simple enough, but the tone made them electric. The +doctor felt the blood mounting in his face, under the unconscious look +of this middle-aged child. She did not perceive his expression. She did +not perceive any thing, except the fact that Sally's doctor would help +her take Sally away, and save Sally's life. She continued: + +"We'll take her to 'The Runs.' Did you ever go there, doctor? It is only +a day's journey from here, the loveliest little sea-side place I ever +saw. It isn't like the big sea-side places with their naked rocks, and +their great, cruel, thundering beaches. I hate those. They make me sad +and desperate. I know Sally wouldn't like them. But this little place +is as sweet and quiet as a lake; and yet it is the sea. It is hugged in +between two tongues of land, and there are ever so many little threads +of the sea, running way up into the meadows, which are thick with high +strong grass, so different from all the grasses we have here. I buy salt +hay from there every year, and the cattle like it, just a little of it, +as well as we like a bit of broiled bacon for breakfast. There is a nice +bit of beach, too,--real beach; but there are trees on it, and it looks +friendly: not as if it were just made on purpose for wrecks to drift up +on, like the big beaches: oh, but I hate a great, long sea-beach! There +is a farm-house there, not two minutes' walk from this beach, where they +always take summer boarders. In July it wouldn't be pleasant, because +it is crowded; but now it will be empty, and we can have it all to +ourselves. There is a dear, old, retired, sea captain there, too, who +takes people out in such a nice sail-boat. I shall keep Sally and the +baby out on the water all day long. I am afraid you will find it very +dull, Dr. Williams. Do you like the sea? Of course you will stay with us +all the time. I don't mean in the least, that you are to come only +once a day to see Sally, as you do here. You will be our guest, you +understand. I dare say you will do more to cure Sally than all the +sea-air and all the medicine put together. She has had so few people to +love in this world, poor girl, that those she does love are very dear to +her. She is more grateful to you than to anybody else in the world." + +"Except you, Miss Gunn," replied the doctor, earnestly. "You have +done for her far more than I ever could. I could show only a personal +sympathy; but you have added to the personal sympathy material aid." + +"Yes, yes, I know," said Hetty, absently. She did not wish to hear any +thing said about this. "We can set out to-morrow, if you can be ready," +she continued. "I shall have Caesar drive the horses over next week. They +can't very well be spared this week. The worst thing is, we have to set +out so early in the morning, and Sally is always so much weaker then. +Could you"--Hetty hesitated, and fairly stammered in her embarrassment. +"Couldn't you come over here to-night and sleep, so as to be here when +she first wakes up? You might do something to help her." Before Hetty +had finished her sentence, her face was crimson. Dr. Eben's was full +of a humorous amusement. Already, in twenty-four hours, had it come to +this, that Hetty was urging that popinjay Dr. Ebenezer Williams, to come +and sleep under her roof? The twinkle in his face showed her plainly +what he was thinking. He began to reply: + +"You are very kind, Miss Gunn"--Hetty interrupted him: + +"No, I am not at all kind, Dr. Williams; and I see you are laughing at +me, because I've had to speak to you, after all, as if I liked you. But, +of course, you understand that it is all for Sally's sake. If I were to +be ill myself, I should have Dr. Tuthill," said Hetty, in a tone meant +to be very resolute and dignified, but only succeeding in being comical. + +The doctor bowed ceremoniously, replying: "I will be as frank as you +are, Miss Gunn. As you say, 'of course' I understand that any apparent +welcome which you extend to me is entirely for Mrs. Little's sake; and +that it is sorely against your will that you have been obliged to speak +to me; and that it is solely in my capacity as physician that I am asked +to sleep under your roof to-night; and I beg your pardon for saying that +I accept the invitation in that capacity, and no other, solely because +I believe it will be for the interest of my patient that I do so. Good +morning, Miss Gunn," and, as at that moment they reached the house, Dr. +Eben bowed again as ceremoniously as before, sprang up the piazza steps, +and ran up the staircase, two steps at a time, to Sally's room. Hetty +stood still in the doorway: she felt herself discomfited. She was half +angry, half amused. She did not like what the doctor had said; but she +admitted to herself that it was precisely what she would have said in +his place. + +"I don't blame him," she thought, "I don't blame him a bit; but, it is +horridly disagreeable. I don't see how we're ever to get on; and it is +so provoking, for, if he were anybody else, we'd be real good friends. +He isn't in the least what I thought he was. I hope he won't come over +before tea. It would be awkward enough. But then, he's got to take all +his meals with us at 'The Runs.' Oh, dear!" and Hetty went about her +preparations for the journey, with feelings by no means of unalloyed +pleasure. + +No danger of Dr. Eben's coming before tea. It was very late when he +appeared, valise in hand, and said in a formal tone to Hetty, who met +him at the door, in fact had been nervously watching for him for four +whole hours: + +"I am very sorry to see you still up, Miss Gunn. I ought to have +recollected to tell you that I should not be here until late: I have +been saying good-by to my patients. Will you have the kindness to let +me be shown to my room?" and like a very courteous traveller, awaiting a +landlady's pleasure, he stood at foot of the stairs. + +With some confusion of manner, and in a constrained tone, unlike her +usual cheery voice, Hetty replied: + +"The next door to Sally's, doctor." She wished to say something more, +but she could not think of a word. + +"What a fool I am!" she mentally ejaculated, as the doctor, with a hasty +"good-night," entered his room. "What a fool I am to let him make me so +uncomfortable. I don't see what it is. I wish I hadn't asked him to go." + +"That woman's a jewel!" the doctor was saying to himself the other side +of the door: "she is as honest as a man could be. I didn't know there +could be any thing so honest in shape of a woman under fifty: she +doesn't look a day over twenty-five; but, they say she's nearly forty; +it's the strangest thing in life she's never married. I'll wager any +thing, she's wishing this minute I was in Guinea; but she'll put it +through bravely for sake of Sally, as she calls her, and I'll keep out +of her way all I can. If it weren't for the confounded notion she's +taken up against me, I'd like to know her. She's a woman a man could +make a friend of, I do believe," and Dr. Eben jumped into bed, and was +fast asleep in five minutes, and dreamed that Hetty came towards him, +dressed like an Indian, with her brown curls stuck full of painted +porcupine quills, and a tomahawk brandished in her hand. + + + + +VI. + +The journey was a hard one, though so short. How many times an hour did +Hetty bless the good fortune which had given them Dr. Williams for an +escort! Sally had been so much excited and pleased at the prospect +of the trip to the sea-shore, that she had seemed in the outset far +stronger than she really was. Before mid-day a reaction had set in, and +she had grown so weak that the doctor was evidently alarmed. The baby +disturbed, and frightened by the noise and jar, had wailed almost +incessantly; and Hetty was more nearly at her wits' end than she had +ever been in her life. It was piteous to see her,--usually so brisk, so +authoritative, so unhesitating,--looking helplessly into the face of the +doctor, and saying: + +"Oh, what shall we do! what shall we do!" At last, the weary day came +to an end; and when Hetty saw her two sufferers quietly asleep in snowy +beds, in a great airy room, with a blazing log-fire on the hearth, she +drew a long breath, and said to the doctor: + +"This is the most awful day I ever lived through." + +Dr. Eben smiled. "You have had a life singularly free from troubles, +Miss Gunn." + +"No!" said Hetty, "I've had a great deal. But there has always been +something to do. The only things one can't bear, it seems to me, are +where one can't do any thing, like to-day: that poor little baby crying, +crying, and nothing to be done, but to wait for him to stop; and Sally +looking as if she would die any minute; and that screaming steam-engine +whirling us all along as if we were only dead freight. I suppose if +Sally had died, we should have had to keep right on, shouldn't we?" + +"Yes," said the doctor. Something in his tone arrested Hetty's ear. She +looked at him inquiringly; then she said slowly: + +"I understand you. I am ashamed. We were only three people out of +hundreds: it is just like life, isn't it: how selfish we are without +realizing it! It isn't of any consequence how or where or when any one +of us dies: the train must keep right on. I see." + +"Yes," said the doctor again: and this monosyllable meant even more than +the other. Dr. Eben was a philosopher. Epictetus, and that most royal of +royal emperors, Marcus Aurelius, had been his masters: their words +were ever present with him. "It is not possible that the nature of the +universe, either through want of power or want of skill, has made a +mistake;" "nothing happens to any man which he is not formed by nature +to bear,"--were hourly watchwords of thought with him. In this regard he +and Hetty were alike, though they had reached their common standpoint +by different roads: he by education and reasoning, and a profound +admiration for the ancient classics; she by instinct and healthfulness +of soul, and a profound love for that old Massachusetts militia-man, her +grandfather. + +"The Runs" was, as Hetty had said, one of the loveliest of sea-side +places. Dr. Eben, who was familiar with all the well-known sea-side +resorts in America, was forced to admit that this little nook had a +charm of its own, unlike all the others. The epithet "hugged in," which +Hetty had used, was the very phrase to best convey it. It was at the +mouth of a small river, which, as it drew near the sea, widened so +suddenly that it looked like a lake. The country, for miles about, was +threaded by little streams of water: which of them were sea making up, +and which were river coming down, it was hard to tell. In early morning +they were blue as the sky overhead; at sunset they glowed like a fiery +net, suddenly flung over the grasses and rushes. Great flocks of marsh +birds dwelt year after year in these cool, green labyrinths, and made +no small part of the changeful beauty of the picture, rising sometimes, +suddenly, in a dusky cloud, and floating away, soaring, and sinking, and +at last dropping out of sight again, as suddenly as they had risen. +The meadows were vivid green in June, vivid claret in October: no other +grass spreads such splendor of tint on so superb a palette, as the +salt-marsh grasses on the low, wide stretches of some of New England's +southern shores. Sailing down this river, and keeping close to the +left-hand bank, one came almost unawares on a sharp bend to the left: +here the river suddenly ended, and the sea began; the rushes and reeds +and high grasses ceased; a low, rocky barrier stayed them. Rounding this +point, lo, your boat swayed instantly to the left: a gentle surf-wave +took possession of you, and irresistibly bore you towards a yellow +sand beach, which curved inward like a reaper's sickle, not more than a +quarter of a mile long, from the handle to the shining point; smooth and +glistening, strewn with polished pebbles and tiny shells, it seemed some +half-hidden magic beach on which shallops of fairies might any moment +come to moor. On the farther point, so close to the sea that it +seemed to rise out of the water, stood a high stone lighthouse, with +a revolving light, whose rays swept the open sea for many miles. The +opposite river bank was a much higher one, and ran farther out to sea. +On this promontory was Safe Haven, a small, thickly settled town, whose +spires and house-tops, as seen from the beach at "The Runs," looked +always like a picture, painted on the sky; white on gray in the morning, +gray on crimson at sunset. The farmhouse of which we have spoken stood +only a few rods back from the beach, and yet it had green fields on +either hand; and a row of Balm of Gilead trees in front; an old and +sandy road, seldom disturbed by wheels, ran between these trees and the +house, and rambled down towards the light-house. Wild pea and pimpernel +made this road gay; white clover and wild rose made it fragrant; and +there branched off from it a lane, on which if you turned and strayed +back into the fields, a mile or so, you came to thickets of wild azalia, +and tracts of pink laurel; and, a little way farther in, you came to +fresh-water ponds which in July were white with lilies. No storm ever +lashed the water high on the beach at "The Runs"; no sultriest summer +calm ever stilled it; the even rhythm and delightsome cooling of its +waves seemed to obey a law of their own, quite independent of the great +booming sea outside the light-house bar. + +In the quiet, and the beauty, and the keen salt air of this charmed +spot, poor Sally Little lifted up her head, and began to live again, +like a flower taken from desert sands and set by a spring. The baby also +bloomed like a rose. In an incredibly short time, both mother and child +had so altered that one would hardly have known them. The days went by, +to them all, as days go by for children: unnamed, uncounted; only marked +by joy of sleep, and the delight of waking. In after years, when Hetty +looked back upon these weeks, they seemed to her, not like a dream, +which is usually the heart's first choice of a phrase to describe the +swift flight of a happy time, but like a few days spent on some other +planet, where, for the interval, she had been changed into a sort of +supernatural child. Except at night, they were never in the house. The +harsh New England May laid aside for them all its treacheries, and was +indeed the month of spring. Their mornings they spent on the water, +rowing or sailing; their afternoons in driving through the budding +and blossoming country. Always the baby lay in Hetty's lap: from the +beginning, his nurse had found herself perpetually set aside by Hetty's +imperious affection. As Eben Williams looked, day after day, on the +picture which Hetty and the baby made, he found himself day after day +more and more bewildered by Hetty. She had adopted towards him a uniform +manner of cordial familiarity, which had in it, however, no shade of +intimacy. If Hetty had been the veriest coquette living, she could +not have devised a more effectual charm to a man of Eben Williams's +temperament. He had come out unscathed from many sieges which had +been laid to him by women. He knew very well the ordinary methods, the +atmosphere of the average wooing or wooable woman, and he was proof +against them all. He was thirty years old and he had never yet been in +love. But this woman, who treated him with the same easy, unconscious +frankness with which men treat men, who never seemed to observe his +going or his coming, otherwise than as it might affect her friend's need +of him as a physician; this woman who seemed all mother while she was +holding the baby, and all boy while she was trying, under old Captain +Mayhew's guidance to learn to sail a boat; this woman who was a spinster +in years, and a child in simplicity and directness; who was beautiful, +and never once thought of her beauty; who was alone, and never seemed +lonely: she was a perpetual problem and fascination to him. Dr. Eben +was not usually given to concerning himself much as to other people's +opinion of him: but he found himself for ever wondering what Hetty +Gunn thought of him; whether she were beginning to lose any of her old +prejudice against him; and whether, after this seaside idyl were over, +he should ever see her again. The more he pondered, the less he could +solve the question. No wonder. The simple truth was that Hetty was not +thinking about him at all. She had accepted the whole situation with +frankness and good sense: she found him kind, helpful, cheery, and +entertaining; the embarrassments she had feared, did not arise, and +she was very glad of it. She often said to herself: "The doctor is very +sensible. He does not show any foolish feeling of resentment;" and she +felt a sincere and increasing gratitude to him, because Sally and her +child were fast regaining health under his care. But, beyond this, Hetty +did not occupy her thoughts with Dr. Eben. It had never been her way to +think about men, as most women think about them: good comradeship seemed +to be all that she was capable of towards a man. Dr. Eben said this to +himself hundreds of times each day; and then hundreds of other times +each day, as he watched the looks which she bent on the baby in her +arms, he knew that he had said what was not true; that there must be +unstirred depths in her nature, which only the great forces of love +could move. All this time Dr. Eben fancied that he was simply analyzing +Hetty as a psychological study. He would have admitted frankly to any +one, that she interested him more than any woman he had ever seen, +puzzled him more, occupied his thoughts more; but that he could be in +love with this rather eccentric middle-aged woman, beautiful though she +was, Dr. Eben would have warmly denied. His ideal maiden, the woman whom +he had been for ten years confidently expecting some day to find, woo, +and win, was quite unlike Hetty; unlike even what Hetty must have been +in her youth: she was to be slender and graceful; gentle as a dove; +vivacious, but in no wise opinionated, gracious and suave and versed in +all elegancies; cultured too, and of a rare, fine wit: so easy is it for +the heart to garnish its unfilled chambers, and picture forth the sort +of guest it will choose to entertain. Meanwhile, by doors which the +heart knows not of, quietly enters a guest of quite different presence, +takes up abode, is lodged and fed by angels, till grown a very monarch +in possession and control, it suddenly surprises the heart into an +absolute and unconditional allegiance; and this is like what the apostle +meant, when he said,-- + +"The kingdom of God cometh not by observation." + +When Hetty said to Dr. Eben, one night, "I really think we must go home. +Sally seems perfectly well, and baby too: do you not think it will be +quite safe to take them back?" he gave an actual start, and colored. +Professionally, Dr. Eben was more ashamed of himself in that instant +than he had ever been in his life. He had absolutely forgotten, for many +days, that it was in the capacity of a physician that he was living on +this shore of the sea. They had been at "The Runs" now two months; and, +except in his weekly visits to Lonway Corners, he had hardly recollected +that he was a physician at all. The sea and the wind had been Sally's +real physicians, and the baby's; and as for the other two, in the happy +quartette, had they needed a physician? Perhaps; but no physician was +there for them. + +"Certainly! certainly!" he stammered, "it will be safe;" and his face +grew redder and redder, as he spoke. Hetty looked at him in honest +amazement. She could put but one interpretation on his manner. + +"Why, there is no need of our going yet, if it isn't best. Don't look +so! Sally can stay here all summer if it will do her good." + +"You misunderstood me, Miss Gunn," said the doctor, now himself again. +"It will really be perfectly safe for Mrs. Little to go home. She is +entirely well." + +"What did you mean then?" said Hetty, looking him straight in the eye +with honest perplexity in her face. "You looked as if you didn't think +it best to go." + +"No, Miss Gunn," replied Dr. Eben. "I looked as if I did not want to go. +It has been so pleasant here: that was all." + +"Oh," said Hetty, in a relieved tone, "was that it? I feel just so, too: +it has been delightful; it is the only real play-spell I ever had in my +life. But for all that I'm really impatient to get home: they need me on +the farm; the men have not been doing just as they ought to. Jim Little +is all right when I'm there; but they take advantage of him when I'm +away. I really must get home before haying. I think we must certainly go +some day next week." + +Dr. Eben was just going over to town for the letters. As he walked +slowly down to the beach, he said to himself: + +"Haying! By Jove!" and this was pretty much all he thought during the +whole of the hour that he spent in rowing to and from the Safe Haven +wharf. "Haying!" he ejaculated again, and again. "What a woman that is! +I believe if we were all dead, she'd have just as keen an eye to that +haying!" + +By "we all" in that sentence of his soliloquy, Dr. Eben really meant +"I." He was beginning to be half aware of a personal unhappiness, +because Hetty showed no more consciousness of his existence. Her few +words this morning about returning home had produced startling results +in his mind; like those a chemist sometimes sees in his crucible, when, +on throwing in a single drop of some powerful agent, he discovers by +its instantaneous and infallible test, the presence of things he had not +suspected were there. Dr. Eben Williams clenched his hands as he paced +up and down the beach. He did not wish to love Hetty Gunn. He did +not approve of loving Hetty Gunn; but love her he did with the whole +strength of his soul. In this one brief hour, he had become aware of it. +What would be its result, in vain he tried to conjecture. One moment, he +said to himself that it was not in Hetty's nature to love any man; the +next moment, with a lover's inconsistency, he reproached himself for a +thought so unjust to her: one moment, he rated himself soundly for his +weakness, and told himself sternly that it was plain Hetty cared no more +for him than she did for one of her farm laborers; the next moment, he +fell into reverie full of a vague and hopeful recalling of all the kind +and familiar things she had ever done or said. The sum and substance of +his meditations was, however, that nothing should lead him to commit the +folly of asking Hetty to marry him, unless her present manner toward him +changed. + +"I dare say she would laugh in my face," thought he; "I don't know but +that she would in any man's face who should ask her," and, armed and +panoplied in this resolution, Dr. Eben walked up to the spot where Hetty +sat under one of the old Balm of Gilead trees sewing, with the baby +in its cradle at her feet. It was still early morning: the Safe Haven +spires shone in the sun, and the little fishing schooners were racing +out to sea before the wind. This was one of the prettiest sights from +the beach at "The Runs." Every morning scores of little fishing vessels +came down the river, shot past like arrows, and disappeared beyond the +bar. At night they came home again slowly; sometimes with their sails +cross-set, which made them look like great white butterflies skimming +the water. Hetty never wearied of watching them: still pictures never +wholly pleased her. The things in nature which had motion, evident aim, +purpose, arrested her eye, and gave her delight. + +"I haven't learned to sail a boat yet, after all," she said regretfully, +as the doctor came up. "Only see how lovely they are. I wish I could buy +this whole place, and carry it home. I think we will all come here again +next summer." + +"Not all," said Dr. Eben; "I shall not be here with you." + +"No, I hope not," replied Hetty, unconsciously. Dr. Eben laughed +outright: her tone was so unaffectedly honest. + +"Oh, you know what I mean," exclaimed Hetty, "I mean, I hope Sally will +not have to bring you as a physician. Of course, there is nothing to +hinder your coming here at any time, if you like," she added, in a +kindly but indifferent tone. + +"But I should not want to come alone," said the doctor. + +"No," said Hetty, reflectively. "It would be dull, I shouldn't like it +myself, to be here all alone. The sea is the loneliest of things in the +universe, I think. The fields and the woods and the hills all look as +if they had good fellowship with each other perpetually; but the great, +blank, bare sea, looks for ever alone; and sometimes the waves seem +to me to run up on the shore as fiercely as starved wolves leaping on +prey!" + +"Not on this little comfortable beach, though," said Dr. Eben. + +"Oh, no!" replied Hetty, "I did not mean such sea-shore as this. But +even here, I should find it sad if I were alone." + +"All places are sad if one is alone, Miss Gunn," replied the doctor, in +a pensive tone, rare with him. Hetty turned a surprised glance at him, +and did not speak for a moment. Then she said: + +"Yes; but nobody need be alone: there are always plenty of people to +take into one's house. If you are lonely, why don't you get somebody +to live with you, or you might be married," she added, in as purely +matter-of-fact a tone, as she would have said, "you might take a +journey," or "you might build on a wing to your house." + +This suggestion sounded oddly enough, coming so soon from the lips of +the woman whom the doctor had just been ardently wishing he could marry; +but its cool and unembarrassed tone was sufficient to corroborate his +utmost disheartenment. + +"Ah!" he thought, "I knew she didn't care any thing for me!" and he fell +into a silent brown study which Hetty did not attempt to break. This was +one among her many charms to Dr. Eben, that she was capable of sitting +quietly by a person's side for long intervals of silence. The average +woman, when she is in the company of even a single person, seems to +consider herself derelict in duty, if conversation is not what she calls +"kept up;" an instinctive phrase, which, by its universal use, is the +bitterest comment on its own significance. Men have no such feeling. Two +men will sit by each other's side, it may be for hours, in silence, +and feel no derogation from good comradeship. Why should not women? The +answer is too evident. Women have a perpetual craving to be recognized, +to be admired; and a large part of their ceaseless chatter is no more +nor less than a surface device to call your attention to them; as little +children continually pull your gown to make you look at them. Hetty was +incapable of this. She was a vivacious talker when she had any thing to +say; but a most dogged holder of her tongue when she had not. In this +instance she had nothing to say, and she did not speak: the doctor had +so much to say that he did not speak, and they sat in silence till the +shrill bell from the farm-house door called them to dinner. As they +walked slowly up to the house, the doctor said: + +"You don't wonder that I hate to go away from this lovely place, do you, +Miss Gunn?" + +Any other woman but Hetty would have felt something which was in his +tone, though not in his words. But Hetty answered bluntly: + +"Yes, I do wonder; it is very lovely here: but I should think you'd want +to be at work; I do. I think we've had play-spell enough; for, after +all, it hasn't been any thing but play-spell for you and me." + +"Now she despises me," thought poor Dr. Eben. "She hasn't any tolerance +in her, anyhow," and he was grave and preoccupied all through dinner. + + + + +VII. + +It was settled that they should set out for home a week from that day. +"Only seven days left," said the doctor. "What can I do in that time?" + +Never was man so baffled in attempts to woo. Hetty saw nothing, heard +nothing, understood nothing; unwittingly she defeated every project he +made for seeing her alone; unconsciously she chilled and dampened and +arrested every impulse he had to speak to her, till Dr. Eben's temper +was tried as well as his love. Sally, the baby, the nurse, all three, +were simply a wall of protection around Hetty. Her eyes, her ears, her +hands were full; and as for her heart and soul, they were walled about +even better than her body. Nothing can be such a barrier to love's +approach as an honest nature's honest unconsciousness. Dr. Eben was +wellnigh beside himself. The days flew by. He had done nothing, gained +nothing. How he cursed his folly in having let two whole months slip +away, before he found out that he loved this woman, whom now he could +no more hope to impress in a few hours' time than a late afternoon sun +might think to melt an iceberg. + +"It would take a man a lifetime to make her understand that he loved +her," groaned the doctor, "and I've only got two days;" and more than +ever his anxiety deepened as he wondered whether, after they returned +home, she would allow him to continue these friendly and familiar +relations. This uncertainty led to a most unfortunate precipitation on +his part. The night before they were to go, he found Hetty at sunset +sitting under the trees, and looking dreamily out to sea. Her attitude +and her look were pensive. He had never seen such an expression on +Hetty's face or figure, and it gave him a warmer yearning towards her +than he had ever yet dared to let himself feel. It was just time for the +lamp in the lighthouse to be lit, and Hetty was watching for it. As the +doctor approached her, she said, "I am waiting for the lighthouse light +to flash out. I like so to see its first ray. It is like seeing a new +planet made." Dr. Eben sat down by her side, and they both waited in +silence for the light. The whole western and southern sky glowed red; a +high wind had been blowing all day, and the water was covered with foamy +white caps; the tall, slender obelisk of the lighthouse stood out black +against the red sky, and the shining waves leaped up and broke about +its base. But all was quiet in the sheltered curve of the beach on which +Hetty and Dr. Eben were sitting: the low surf rose and fell as gently as +if it had a tide of its own, which no storm could touch. Presently the +bright light flashed from the tower, shone one moment on the water of +the river's mouth, then was gone. + +"Now it is lighting the open sea," said Hetty. In a few moments more the +lantern had swung round, and again the bright rays streamed towards the +beach, almost reaching the shore. + +"And now it is lighting us," said Dr. Eben: "I wish it were as easy +to get light upon one's path in life, as it is to hang a lantern in a +tower." + +Hetty laughed. + +"Are you often puzzled?" she asked lightly. + +"No," said the doctor, "I never have been, but I am now." + +"What about?" asked Hetty, innocently: "I don't see what there is to +puzzle you here." + +"You, Miss Gunn," stoutly answered Dr. Eben, feeling as if he were +taking a header into unfathomed waters. "Me!" exclaimed Hetty, in a tone +of utmost surprise. "Why, what do you mean?" + +Dr. Eben hesitated a single instant. He had not intended to do this +thing, but the occasion had been too much for him. "I may as well do +it first as last," he said; "she can but refuse me:" and, in a very few +manly words, Dr. Eben Williams straightway asked Hetty Gunn to marry +him. He was not prepared for what followed, although in a soliloquy, +only a few days before, he had predicted it to himself. Hetty laughed +merrily, unaffectedly, in his very face. + +"Why, Dr. Williams!" she said, "you can't know what you're saying. You +can't want to marry me: I'm not the sort of woman men want to marry"-- + +He interrupted her. His voice was husky with deep feeling. + +"Miss Gunn," he said, "I implore you not to speak in this way. I do know +what I am saying, and I do love you with all my heart." + +"Nonsense," answered Hetty in the kindliest of tones; "of course you +think you do: but it is only because you have been shut up here two +whole months, with nothing else to do but fancy that you were in love. +I told you it was time we went home. Don't say any thing more about it. +I'll promise you to forget it all," and Hetty laughed again, a merry +little laugh. A sharp suspicion crossed the doctor's mind that she was +coquetting with him. In a constrained tone he said: + +"Miss Gunn, do you really wish me to understand that you reject me?" + +"Not at all," said Hetty, gayly. "I wish you to understand that I +haven't permitted you to offer yourself. I have simply assured you that +you are mistaken: you'll see it for yourself as soon as we get home. Do +you suppose I shouldn't know if you were really in love with me?" + +"I didn't know it myself till a week ago," replied Dr. Eben: "I did not +understand myself. I never loved any woman before." + +"And no man ever asked me to marry him before," answered the honest +Hetty, like a child, and with an amused tone in her voice. "It is very +odd, isn't it?" + +Dr. Eben was confounded. In spite of himself, he felt the contagion of +Hetty's merry and unsentimental view of the situation; and it was with +a trace of obstinacy rather than of a lover's pain in his tones that he +continued: + +"But, Miss Gunn, indeed you must not make light of this matter in this +way. It is not treating me fairly. With all the love of a man's heart I +love you, and have asked you to be my wife: are you sure that you could +not love me?" + +"I don't really think I could," said Hetty; "but I shall not try, +because I am sure you are mistaken. I am too old to be married, for one +thing: I shall be thirty-seven in the fall. That's reason enough, if +there were no other. A man can't fall in love with a woman after she's +as old as that." + +Dr. Eben laughed outright. He could not help it. + +"There!" said Hetty, triumphantly; "that's right; I like to hear you +laugh now; for goodness' sake, let's forget all this. I will, if you +will; and we will be all the better friends for it perhaps. At any rate, +you'll be all the more friend to me for having saved you from making +such a blunder as thinking you were in love with me." + +Dr. Eben was on the point of persisting farther; but he suddenly thought +to himself: + +"I'd better not: I might make her angry. I'll take the friendship +platform for the present: that is some gain." + +"You will permit me then to be your friend, Miss Gunn," he said. "Why, +certainly," said Hetty, in a matter-of-fact way: "I thought we were very +good friends now." + +"But you recollect, you distinctly told me I was to come only as +physician to Mrs. Little," retorted the doctor. + +Hetty colored: the darkness sheltered her. + +"Oh! that was a long time ago," she said in a remorseful tone: "I should +be very ungrateful if I had not forgotten that." + +And with this Dr. Eben was forced to be contented. When he thought the +whole thing over, he admitted to himself that he had fared as well as +he had a right to expect, and that he had gained a very sure vantage, +in having committed the loyal Hetty to the assertion that they were +friends. He half dreaded to see her the next morning, lest there should +be some change, same constraint in her manner; not a shade of it. He +could have almost doubted his own recollections of the evening before, +if such a thing had been possible, so absolutely unaltered was Hetty's +treatment of him. She had been absolutely honest in all she said: she +did honestly believe that his fancied love for her was a sentimental +mistake, a caprice born of idleness and lack of occupation, and she did +honestly intend to forget the whole thing, and to make him forget it. +And so they went back to the farm, where the summer awaited them with +overflowing harvests of every thing, and Hetty's hands were so full that +very soon she had almost ceased to recollect the life at "The Runs." +Sally and the baby were strong and well. The whole family seemed newly +glad and full of life. All odd hours they could snatch from work, Old +Caesar and Nan roamed about in the sun, following the baby, as his nurse +carried him in her arms. He had been christened Abraham Gunn Little; +poor James Little having persistently refused to let his own name be +given to the child, and Hetty having been cordially willing to give her +father's. To speak to a baby as Abraham was manifestly impossible, and +the little fellow was called simply "Baby" month after month, until, +one day, one of Norah's toddlers, who could not speak plain, hit upon a +nickname so fortunate that it was at once adopted by everybody. +"Raby," little Mike called him, by some original process of compounding +"Abraham" and "Baby;" and "Raby" he was from that day out. He was a +beautiful child: his mother's blue eyes, his father's dark hair, and a +skin like a ripe peach, but not over fair,--made a combination of color +which was rarely lovely. He was a joyous child, as joyous as if no +shadow had ever rested on his mother's heart. Sally watched him day by +day with delight; but the delight was never wholly free from pain: the +wound she had received, the wound she had inflicted on herself, could +never wholly heal. A deep, moral hurt must for ever leave its trace, as +surely as a deep wound in a man's flesh must leave its scar. It is of +no use for us to think to evade this law; neither is it a law wholly +of retribution. The scar on the flesh is token of nature's process of +healing: so is the scar of a perpetual sorrow, which is left on a soul +which has sinned and repented. Sally and Jim were leading healthful and +good lives now; and each day brought them joys and satisfactions: but +their souls were scarred; the fulness of joy which might have been +theirs they could never taste. And the loss fell where it could never +be overlooked for a moment,--on their joy in their child. In the very +holiest of holies, in the temple of the mother's heart, stood for ever a +veiled shape, making ceaseless sin-offering for the past. + +As the winter set in, an anxiety fell on the family which had passed so +sunny a summer. With the first sharp cold winds, little Raby developed a +tendency to croup. Neither Sally nor Hetty had ever seen a case of this +terrible and alarming disease; and, in Raby's first attack of it, they +had both thought the child dying. Now was Doctor Eben brought again +into close and intimate relations with Hetty. During the months of the +summer, he had, in spite of all his efforts, in spite of his frequent +visits to her house, in spite of all Hetty's frank cordiality of manner, +felt himself slowly slipping away from the vantage-ground he hoped he +had gained with her. This was the result of two things,--one which he +knew, and one which he did not dream of: the cause which he knew, was a +very simple and evident one, Hetty's constant preoccupation. Hetty was +a very busy woman: what with Raby, the farm, the house, her social +relations with the whole village, she had never a moment of leisure. +Often when Dr. Eben came to the house, he found her away; and often when +he found her at home, she was called away before he had talked with her +half an hour. The other reason, which, if Dr. Eben had only known it, +would have more than comforted him for all he felt he had lost on the +surface, was that Hetty, in the bottom of her heart, was slowly growing +conscious that she cared a great deal about him. + +No woman, whatever she may say and honestly mean, can entirely dismiss +from her thoughts the memory of the words in which a man has told her he +loves her. Especially is this true when those words are the first words +of love which have ever been spoken to her. Morning and night, as Hetty +came and went, in her brisk cheery way, in and out of the house and +about the farm, she wore a new look on her face. The words, "I love you +with all my heart," haunted her. She did not believe them any more now +than before; but they had a very sweet sound. She was no nearer now than +then to any impulse to take Dr. Williams at his word: nothing could be +deeper implanted in a soul than the conviction was in Hetty's that +no man was likely to love her. But she was no longer so sure that she +herself could not love. Vague and wistful reveries began to interrupt +her activity. She would stand sometimes, with her arms folded, leaning +on a stile, and idly watching her men at work, till they wondered what +had happened to their mistress. She lost a little of the color from her +cheeks, and the full moulded lines of her chin grew sharper. + +"Faith, an' Miss Hetty's goin' off, sooner 'n she's any right to," +said Mike to Norah one day. "What puts such a notion in your head thin, +Mike?" retorted Norah, "sure she's as foine a crayther as's in all the +county, an' foiner too." + +"Foine enough, but I say for all that that she's a goin' off in her +looks mighty fast," replied the keen-eyed Mike. "You don't think she'd +be a pinin' for anybody, do you?" + +Norah gave a hearty Irish laugh. + +"Miss Hetty a pinin'!" she repeated over and over with bursts of +merriment: + +"Ah, but yez are all alike, ye men. Miss Hetty a pinin'! I'd like to see +the man Miss Hetty wud pine fur." + +Mike and Norah were both right. There was no "pining" in Hetty's busy +and sensible soul; but there had been planted in it a germ of new +life, whose slow quickening and growth were perplexing and disturbing +elements: not as yet did she recognize them; she only felt the +disturbance, and its link with Dr. Eben was sufficiently clear to make +her manner to him undergo an indefinable change. It was no less cordial, +no less frank: you could not have said where the change was; but it was +there, and he felt it. He ought to have understood it and taken heart. +But he was ignorant like Hetty, only felt the disturbance, and taking +counsel of his fears believed that things were going wrong. Sometimes +he would stay away for many days, and then watch closely Hetty's +manner when they met. Never a trace of resentment or even wonder at +his absence. Sometimes he would go there daily for an interval; never +a trace of expectation or of added familiarity. But now things were +changed. Little Raby's illness seemed to put them all back where they +were during the days of the sea-side idyl. Now the doctor felt himself +again needed. Both Hetty and Sally lived upon his words, even his looks. +Again and again the child's life seemed hanging in even balances, and +it was with a gratitude almost like that they felt to God that the two +women blessed Dr. Eben for his recovery. Night after night, the three, +watched by the baby's bed, listening to his shrill and convulsive +breathings. + +Morning after morning, Dr. Eben and Hetty went together out of the +chamber, and stood in the open door-way, watching the crimson dawn on +the eastern hills. At such times, the doctor felt so near Hetty that +he was repeatedly on the point of saying again the words of love he had +spoken six months before. But a great fear deterred him. + +"If she refuses me once more, that would settle it for ever," he said to +himself, and forced the words back. + +One morning after a night of great anxiety and fear, they left Sally's +room while it was yet dark. It was bitterly cold; the winter stars shone +keen and glittering in the bleak sky. Hetty threw on a heavy cloak, and +opening the hall-door, said: + +"Let us go out into the cold air; it will do us good." + +Silently they walked up and down the piazza. The great pines were +weighed down to the ground by masses of snow. Now and then, when the +wind stirred the upper branches, avalanches slid noiselessly off, and +built themselves again into banks below. There was no moon, but the +starlight was so brilliant that the snow crystals glistened in it. As +they looked at the sky, a star suddenly fell. It moved very slowly, and +was more than a minute in full sight. + +"One light-house less," said Dr. Eben. + +"Oh," exclaimed Hetty, "what a lovely idea! who said that? Who called +the stars lighthouses?" + +"I forget," said the doctor; "in fact I think I never knew; I think +it was an anonymous little poem in which I saw the idea, years ago. It +struck me at the time as being a singularly happy one. I think I can +repeat a stanza or two of it." + + GOD'S LIGHT-HOUSES. + + When night falls on the earth, the sea + From east to west lies twinkling bright + With shining beams from beacons high, + Which send afar their friendly light. + + The sailors' eyes, like eyes in prayer, + Turn unto them for guiding ray: + If storms obscure their radiance, + The great ships helpless grope their way. + + When night falls on the earth, the sky + Looks like a wide, a boundless main; + Who knows what voyagers sail there? + Who names the ports they seek and gain? + + Are not the stars like beacons set, + To guide the argosies that go + From universe to universe, + Our little world above, below? + + On their great errands solemn bent, + In their vast journeys unaware + Of our small planet's name or place + Revolving in the lower air. + + Oh thought too vast! oh thought too glad: + An awe most rapturous it stirs. + From world to world God's beacons shine: + God means to save his mariners! + +Hetty was silent. The mention of light-houses had carried her thoughts +back to that last night at "The Runs," when, with Dr. Eben by her side, +she had watched the great revolving light in the stone tower on the bar. + +Dr. Eben was thinking of the same thing; he wondered if Hetty were not: +after a few moments' silence, he became so sure of it that he said: + +"You have not forgotten that night, have you?" + +"Oh, no!" replied Hetty, in a low voice. + +"I should like to think that you did not wish to forget it," said the +doctor, in a tender tone. + +"Oh, don't, please don't say any thing about it," exclaimed Hetty, in a +tone so full of emotion, that Dr. Eben's heart gave a bound of joy. In +that second, he believed that the time would come when Hetty would +love him. He had never heard such a tone from her lips before. Her hand +rested on his arm. He laid his upon it,--the first caressing touch he +had ever dared to offer to Hetty; the first caressing touch which Hetty +had ever received from hand of man. + +"I will not, Hetty, till you are willing I should," he said. He had +never called her "Hetty" before. A tumult filled Hetty's heart; but all +she said was, in a most matter-of-fact tone: "That's right! we must go +in now. It is too cold out here." + +Dr. Eben did not care what her words were: nature had revealed herself +in a tone. + +"I'll make her love me yet," he thought. "It won't take a great while +either; she's beginning, and she doesn't know it." He was so happy that +he did not know at first that Hetty had left him alone in front of the +fire. When he found she had gone, he drew up a big arm-chair, sank back +in its depths, put his feet on the fender, and fell to thinking how, by +spring, perhaps, he might marry Hetty. In the midst of this lover-like +reverie, he fell asleep in the most unlover-like way. He was worn out +with his long night's watching. In a few minutes, Hetty came back with +hot broth which she had prepared for him. Her light step did not +rouse him. She stood still by his chair, looking down on his face. His +clear-cut features, always handsome, were grand in sleep. The solemnity +of closed eyes adds to a noble face something which is always very +impressive. He stirred uneasily, and said in his sleep, "Hetty." A great +wave of passionate feeling swept over her face, as, standing there, she +heard this tender sound of her name on his unconscious lips. + +"Oh what will become of me if I love him after all," she thought. + +"Why not, why not?" answered her heart; wakened now and struggling for +its craved and needed rights. "Why not, why not?" and no answer came to +Hetty's mind. + +Moving noiselessly, she set the broth on a low table by the doctor's +side, covered him carefully with her own heavy cloak, and left the room. +On the threshold, she turned back and looked again at his face. Her +conscious thoughts were more than she could bear. In sudden impatience +with herself, she exclaimed, "Pshaw! how silly I am!" and hastened +upstairs, more like the old original Hetty than she had been for many +days. Love could not enthrone himself easily in Hetty's nature: it was +a rebellious kingdom. "Thirty-seven years old! Hetty Gunn, you're a +goose," were Hetty's last thoughts as she fell asleep that night. But +when she awoke the next morning, the same refrain, "Why not, why not?" +filled her thoughts; and, when she bade Dr. Eben good-morning, the rosy +color that mounted to her very temples gave him a new happiness. + +Why prolong the story of the next few days? They were just such days as +every man and every woman who has loved has lived through, and knows far +better than can be said or sung. Love's beginnings are varied, and +his final crises of avowal take individual shape in each individual +instance: but his processes and symptoms of growth are alike in all +cases; the indefinable delight,--the dreamy wondering joy,--the half +avoidance which really means seeking,--the seeking which shelters itself +under endless pleas,--the ceaseless questioning of faces,--the mute +caresses of looks, and the eloquent caresses of tones,--are they not +written in the books of the chronicles of all lovers? What matter how +or when the crowning moment of full surrender comes? It came to Eben and +Hetty, however, more suddenly at last than it often comes; came in a +way so characteristic of them both, that perhaps to tell it may not be a +sin, since we aim at a complete setting forth of their characters. + + + + +VIII. + +For three days little Raby had been so ill that the doctor had not +left the house day nor night, except for imperative calls from other +patients. Each night the paroxysms of croup returned with great +severity, and the little fellow's strength seemed fast giving way under +them. Sally and Hetty, his two mothers, were very differently affected +by the grief they bore in common. Sally was speechless, calm, almost +dogged in her silence. When Dr. Eben trying to comfort her, said: + +"Don't feel so, Mrs. Little: I think we shall pull the boy through all +right." She looked up in his face, and shook her head, speaking no +word. "I am not saying it merely to comfort you; indeed, I am not, Mrs. +Little," said the doctor. "I really believe he will get well. These +attacks of croup seem much worse than they really are." + +"I don't know that it comforts me," replied Sally, speaking very slowly. +"I don't know that I want him to live; but I think perhaps he might be +allowed to die easier, if I didn't need so much punishing. It is worse +than death to see him suffer so." + +"Oh, Mrs. Little! how can you think thus of God?" exclaimed the doctor. +"He never treats us like that, any more than you could Raby." + +"The minister at the Corners said so," moaned Sally. "He said it was +till the third and fourth generations." + +At such moments, Dr. Eben, in his heart, thought undevoutly of +ministers. "A bruised reed, he will not break," came to his mind, often +as he looked at this anguish-stricken woman, watching her only child's +suffering, and morbidly believing that it was the direct result of her +own sin. But Dr. Eben found little time to spare for his ministrations +to Sally, when Hetty was in such distress. He had never seen any thing +like it. She paced the house like a wounded lioness. She could not bear +to stay in the room: all day, all night, she walked, walked, walked; now +in the hall outside his door; now in the rooms below. Every few moments, +she questioned the doctor fiercely: "Is he no better?" "Will he have +another?" "Can't you do something more?" "Do you think there is a +possibility that any other doctor might know something you do not?" +"Shan't I send Caesar over to Springton for Dr. Wilkes; he might think of +something different?" These, and a thousand other such questions, Hetty +put to the harassed and tortured Dr. Eben, over and over, till even his +loving patience was wellnigh outworn. It was strengthened, however, +by his anxiety for her. She did not eat; she did not drink; she looked +haggard and feverish. This child had been to her from the day of his +birth like her own: she loved him with all the pent-up forces of the +great womanhood within her, which thus far had not found the natural +outlet of its affections. + +"Doctor," she would cry vehemently, "why should Raby die? God never +means that any children should die. It is all our ignorance and +carelessness; all the result of broken law. I've heard you say a hundred +times, that it is a thwarting of God's plan whenever a child dies: why +don't you cure Raby?" + +"That is all true, Hetty," Dr. Eben would reply; "all very true: it is a +thwarting of God's plan whenever any human being dies before he is fully +ripe of old age. But the accumulated weight of generations of broken law +is on our heads. Raby's little life has been all well ordered, so far +as we can see; but, farther back, was something wrong or he would not be +ill today. I have done my best to learn, in my little life, all that is +known of methods of cure; but I have only the records of human ignorance +to learn from, and I must fail again and again." + +At last, on the fourth night, Raby slept: slept for hours, quietly, +naturally, and with a gentle dew on his fair forehead. The doctor sat +motionless by his bed and watched him. Sally, exhausted by the long +watch, had fallen asleep on a lounge. The sound of Hetty's restless +steps, in the hall outside, had ceased for some time. The doctor sat +wondering uneasily where she had gone. She had not entered the room for +more than an hour; the house grew stiller and stiller; not a sound was +to be heard except little Raby's heavy breathing, and now and then one +of those fine and mysterious noises which the timbers of old houses have +a habit of making in the night-time. At last the lover got the better +of the physician. Doctor Eben rose, and, stealing softly to the door, +opened it as cautiously as a thief. All was dark. + +"Hetty," he whispered. No answer. He looked back at Raby. The child was +sleeping so soundly it seemed impossible that he could wake for some +time. Doctor Eben groped his way to the head of the great stairway, and +listened again. All was still. + +"Hetty!" he called in a low voice, "Hetty!" No answer. + +"She must have fallen asleep somewhere. She will surely take cold," the +doctor said to himself; persuading his conscience that it was his duty +to go and find her. Slowly feeling his way, he crept down the staircase. +On the last step but one, he suddenly stumbled, fell, and barely +recovered himself by his firm hold of the banisters, in time to hear +Hetty's voice in a low imperious whisper: + +"Good heavens, doctor! what do you want?" + +"Oh Hetty! did I hurt you?" he exclaimed; "I never dreamed of your being +on the stairs." + +"I sat down a minute to listen. It was all so still in the room, I was +frightened; and I must have been asleep a good while, I think, I am so +cold," answered Hetty; her teeth beginning to chatter, and her whole +body shaking with cold. "Why, how dark it is!" she continued; "the hall +lamp has gone out: let me get a match." + +But Dr. Eben had her two cold hands in his. "No, Hetty," he said, "come +right back into the room: Raby is so sound asleep it will not wake him; +and Sally is asleep too;" and he led her slowly towards the door. The +night-lamp was burning low; its pale flame, and the flickering blaze of +the big hickory logs on the hearth, made a glimmering twilight, whose +fantastic lights and shadows shot out through the door-way into the +gloom of the hall. As the first of these lights fell on Hetty's face, +Dr. Eben started to see how white it was. Involuntarily he put his arm +around her; and exclaimed "How pale you are, my poor Hetty! you are all +worn out;" and, half supporting her with his arm, he laid his free hand +gently on her hair. + +Hetty was very tired; very cold; half asleep, and half frightened. She +dropped her head on his shoulder for a second, and said: "Oh, what a +comfort you are!" + +The words had hardly left her lips when Doctor Eben threw both his arms +around her, and held her tightly to his breast, whispering: + +"Indeed, I will be a comfort to you, Hetty, if you will only let me." + +Hetty struggled and began to speak. + +"Hush! you will wake Raby," he said, and still held her firmly, looking +unpityingly down into her face. "You do love me, Hetty," he whispered +triumphantly. + +The front stick on the fire broke, fell in two blazing upright brands to +right and left, and cast a sudden flood of light on the two figures +in the door-way. Sally and Raby slept on. Still Doctor Eben held Hetty +close, and looked with a keen and exultant gaze into her eyes. + +"It isn't fair when I am so cold and sleepy," whispered Hetty, with a +half twinkle in her half-open eyes. + +"It is fair! It is fair! Any thing is fair! Every thing is fair," +exclaimed the doctor in a whisper which seemed to ring like a shout, +and he kissed Hetty again and again. Still Sally and Raby slept on: the +hickory fire leaped up as in joy; and a sudden wind shook the windows. + +Hetty struggled once more to free herself, but the arms were like arms +of oak. + +"Say that you love me, Hetty," pleaded the doctor. + +"When you let me go, perhaps I will," whispered Hetty. + +Instantly the arms fell; and the doctor stood opposite her in the +door-way, his head bent forward and his eyes fixed on her face. + +Hetty cast her eyes down. Words did not come. It would have been easier +to have said them while she was held close to Doctor Eben's side. +Suddenly, before he had a suspicion of what she was about to do, she had +darted away, was lost in the darkness, and in a second more he heard her +door shut at the farther end of the hall. + +Dr. Eben laughed a low and pleasant laugh. "She might as well have said +it," he thought: "she will say it to-morrow. I have won!" and he sank +into the great white dimity-covered chair, at the head of Raby's bed, +and looked into the fire. The very coals seemed to marshal themselves +into shapes befitting his triumph: castles rose and fell; faces grew, +smiled, and faded away smiling; roses and lilies and palms glowed ruby +red, turned to silver, and paled into spiritual gray. The silence of the +night seemed resonant with a very symphony of joy. Still Sally and Raby +slept on. The boy's sweet face took each hour a more healthful tint; +and, as Doctor Eben watched the blessed change, he said to himself: + +"What a night! what a night! Two lives saved! Raby's and mine." As the +morning drew near, he threw up the shades of the eastern window, and +watched for the dawn. "I will see this day's sun rise," he said with a +thrill of devout emotion; and he watched the horizon while it changed +like a great flower calyx from gray to pearly yellow, from yellow to +pale green, and at last, when it could hold back the day no longer, to a +vast rose red with a golden sun in its centre. + + + + +IX. + +That morning's light could have fallen on no happier house, the world +over, than "Gunn's." A little child brought back to life, out of the +gates of death; two hearts entering anew on life, through the gates of +love; half a score of hearts, each glad in the gladness of each other, +and in the gladness of all,--what a morning it was! + +Doctor Eben and Hetty met at the head of the stairs. + +"Oh, Hetty!" exclaimed the doctor. + +"Well?" said Hetty, in a half-defiant tone, without looking up. He came +nearer, and was about to kiss her. + +She darted back, and lifting her eyes gave him a glance of such mingled +love and reproof that he was bewildered. + +"Why, Hetty, surely I may kiss you?" he exclaimed. + +"I was asleep last night," she answered gravely, "and you did very +wrong," and without another word or look she passed on. + +Doctor Eben was thoroughly angry. + +"What does she mean?" he said to himself. "She needn't think I am to be +played with like a boy;" and the doctor took his seat at the breakfast +table, with a sterner countenance than Hetty had ever seen him wear. In +a few moments she began to cast timid and deprecating looks at him. His +displeasure hurt her indescribably. She had not intended to offend or +repel him. She did not know precisely what she had intended: in fact +she had not intended any thing. If the doctor had understood more about +love, he would have known that all manifestations in Hetty at this time +were simply like the unconscious flutterings of a bird in the hand in +which it is just about to nestle and rest. But he did not understand, +and when Hetty, following him into the hall, stood shyly by his side, +and looking up into his face said inquiringly, "Doctor?" he answered +her as she had answered him, a short time before, with the curt +monosyllable, "Well?" His tone was curter than his words. Hetty colored, +and saying gently, "No matter; nothing now," turned away. Her whole +movement was so significant of wounded feeling that it smote Doctor +Eben's heart. He sprang after her and laid his hand on her arm. "Hetty," +he said, "do tell me what it was you were going to say; I did not mean +to hurt your feelings: but I don't know what to make of you." + +"Not--know--what--to--make--of--me!" repeated Hetty, very slowly, in a +tone of the intensest astonishment. + +"You wouldn't say you loved me," replied the doctor, beginning to feel a +little ashamed of himself. + +Hetty's eyes were fixed on his now, with no wavering in their gaze. She +looked at him, as if her life lay in the balance of what she might read +in his face. + +"Did you not know that I loved you before you asked me to say so?" she +said with emphasis. It was the doctor's turn now to color. He answered +evasively: + +"A man has no right to know that, Hetty, until a woman tells him so." + +"Did you not think that I loved you," repeated Hetty, with the same +emphasis, and a graver expression on her face. + +Dr. Eben hesitated. Already, he felt a sort of fear of the incalculable +processes and changes in this woman's mind. Would she be angry if he +said, he had thought she loved him? Would she be sure to recognize any +equivocation, and be angrier at that? + +"Hetty," he said, taking her hand in his, "I did hope very strongly that +you loved me, or else I should never have asked you to say so; but you +ought to be willing to say so, if it be true. Think how many times I +have said it to you." + +Hetty's eyes did not leave his: their expression deepened until they +seemed to darken and enlarge. She did not speak. + +"Will you not say it now, Hetty?" urged the doctor. + +"I can't," replied Hetty, and turned and walked slowly away. Presently +she turned again, and walked swiftly back to him, and exclaimed: + +"What do you suppose is the reason it is so hard for me to say it?" + +Dr. Eben laughed. "I can't imagine, Hetty. The only thing that is hard +for me, is not to keep saying it all the time." + +Hetty smiled. + +"There must be something wrong in me. I think I shall never say it. But +I suppose"--She hesitated, and her eyes twinkled. "I suppose you might +come to be very sure of it without my ever saying it?" + +"I am sure of it now, you darling," exclaimed the doctor; and threw both +his arms around her, and this time Hetty did not struggle. + +When Welbury heard that Hetty Gunn was to marry Doctor Ebenezer +Williams, there was a fine hubbub of talk. There was no half-way opinion +in anybody's mind on the question. Everybody was vehement, one way or +the other. All Doctor Eben's friends were hilarious; and the greater +part of Hetty's were gloomy. They said, he was marrying her for her +money; that Hetty was too old, and too independent in all her ways, to +be married at all; that they would be sure to fall out quickly; and +a hundred other things equally meddlesome and silly. But nobody so +disapproved of the match that he stayed away from the wedding, which was +the largest and the gayest wedding Welbury had ever seen. It went sorely +against the grain with Hetty to invite Mrs. Deacon Little, but Sally +entreated for it so earnestly that she gave way. + +"I think if she once sees me with Raby in my arms, may be she'll feel +kinder," said Sally. James Little had carried the beautiful boy, and +laid him in his grandmother's arms many times; but, although she showed +great tenderness toward the child, she had never yet made any allusion +to Sally; and James, who had the same odd combination of weakness and +tenacity which his mother had, had never broken the resolution which +he had taken years ago: not to mention his wife's name in his mother's +presence. Mrs. Little had almost as great a struggle with herself before +accepting the invitation, as Hetty had had before giving it. Only her +husband's earnest remonstrances decided her wavering will. + +"It's only once, Mrs. Little," he said, "and there'll be such a crowd +there that very likely you won't come near Sally at all. It don't look +right for you to stay away. You don't know how much folks think of Sally +now. She's been asked to the minister's to tea, she and James, with +Hetty and the doctor, several times." + +"She hain't, has she?" exclaimed Mrs. Little, quite thrown off her +balance by this unexpected piece of news, which the wary deacon had been +holding in reserve, as a good general holds his biggest guns, for some +special occasion. "You don't tell me so! Well, well, folks must do as +they like. For my part, I call that downright countenancing of iniquity. +And I don't know how she could have the face to go, either. I must say, +I have some curiosity to see how she behaves among folks." + +"She's as modest and pretty in her ways as ever a girl could be," +replied the deacon, who had learned during the past year to love his +son's wife; "you won't have any call to be ashamed of her. I can tell +you that much beforehand." + +When Mrs. Little's eyes first fell upon her daughter-in-law, she gave +an involuntary start. In the two years during which Mrs. Little had not +seen her, Sally had changed from a timid, nervous, restless woman to a +calm and dignified one. Very much of her old girlish beauty had returned +to her, with an added sweetness from her sorrow. As she moved among the +guests, speaking with gentle greeting to each, all eyes followed her +with evident pleasure and interest. She wore a soft gray gown, which +clung closely to her graceful figure: one pale pink carnation at her +throat, and one in her hair, were her only ornaments. When Raby, with +his white frock and blue ribbons, was in her arms, the picture was one +which would have delighted an artist's eye. Mrs. Little felt a strange +mingling of pride and irritation at what she saw. Very keenly James +watched her: he hovered near her continually, ready to forestall any +thing unpleasant or to assist any reconciliation. She observed this; +observed, also, how his gaze followed each movement of Sally's: she +understood it. "You needn't hang round so, Jim," she said: "I can see +for myself. If it's any comfort to you, I'll say that your wife's the +most improved woman I ever saw; and I 'm very glad on't. But I ain't +going to speak to her: I 've said I won't, and I won't. People must lie +on their beds as they make 'em." + +James made no reply, but walked away. It seemed to him that, at that +instant, a chord in his filial love snapped, and was for ever lost. + +Moment by moment, Sally watched and waited for the recognition which +never came. Bearing Raby in her arms, she passed and repassed, drawing +as near Mrs. Little as she dared. "Surely she must see that nobody else +here wholly despises me," thought the poor woman; and, whenever any one +spoke with especial kindness to her, she glanced involuntarily to see if +her mother-in-law were observing it. But all in vain. Mrs. Little's pale +and weak blue eyes roamed everywhere, but never seemed to rest on Sally +for a second. Gradually Sally comprehended that all her hopes had been +unfounded, and a deep sadness settled on her expressive face. "It's no +use," she thought, "she'll never speak to me in the world, if she won't +to-night." + +Even during the moments of the marriage ceremony, Hetty observed the woe +on Sally's countenance; and, strange as it may seem,--or would seem in +any one but Hetty,--while the minister was making his most impressive +addresses and petitions, she was thinking to herself: "The hard-hearted +old woman! She hasn't spoken to Sally. I wish I hadn't asked her. I'll +pay her off yet, before the evening is over." + +After the ceremony was done, and the guests were crowding up to +congratulate Hetty, she whispered to James: + +"Bring Sally up here." + +When Sally came, Hetty said: + +"Stand here close to me, Sally. Don't go away." + +Presently Deacon Little approached with Mrs. Little. Hetty kissed the +good old man as heartily as if he had been her father; then, turning to +Mrs. Little, she said in a clear voice: + +"I am very glad to see you in my house at last, Mrs. Little. Have you +seen Sally yet? She has been so busy receiving our friends, that I +am afraid you have hardly had a chance to talk with her. Sally," she +continued, turning and taking Sally by the hand, "I shall be at liberty +now to attend to my friends, and you must devote yourself to Mrs. +Little;" and, with the unquestioning gesture of an empress, Hetty passed +Mrs. Little over into Sally's charge. + +Nobody could read on Hetty's features at this moment any thing except +most cordial good-will and the tender happiness of a bride; but her +heart was fighting like a knight in a tournament for rescue of one +beset, and she was inwardly saying: "If she dares to refuse speak to her +now, I'll expose her before this whole roomful of people." + +Mrs. Little did not dare. More than ever she dreaded Hetty at this +moment, and her surprise and fear added something to her manner towards +Sally which might almost have passed for eagerness, as they walked +away together; poor Sally lifting one quick deprecating look at Hetty's +smiling and inexorable face. Deacon Little hastily retreated to a +corner, where he stood wiping his forehead, endeavoring not to look +alarmed, and thinking to himself: + +"Well, if Hetty don't beat all! What'll Mrs. Little do now, I wonder?" +And presently, as cautiously as a man stalking a deer, he followed the +couple, and tried to judge, by the expression of his wife's face, how +things were going. Things were going very well. Mrs. Little had, in +common with all weak and obstinate persons, a very foolish fear of +ever being supposed to be dictated to or controlled by anybody. She +was distinctly aware that Hetty had checkmated her. She had strong +suspicions that there might be others looking on who understood the +game; and the only subterfuge left her, the only shadow of pretence +of not having been outwitted, was to appear as if she were glad of the +opportunity of talking with Sally. Sally's appealing affectionateness +of manner went very far to make this easy. She had no resentment to +conceal: all these years she had never blamed Jim's mother; she had only +yearned to win her love, to be permitted to love her. She looked up in +her face now, and said, as they walked on: + +"Oh! I did so want to speak to you, but I did not dare to." + +It consoled weak Mrs. Little, for her present consciousness of being +very much afraid of Hetty, to hear that she herself had inspired a great +terror in some one else; and she answered, condescendingly: + +"I have always wished you well,"--she hesitated for a word, but finally +said,--"Sally." + +"Thank you," said Sally. "I know you did. I never wondered." + +Mrs. Little was much appeased. She had not counted on such humility. +At this moment they were met by the nurse, carrying Raby; and he was a +fruitful subject of conversation. Presently he began to cry; and Sally, +taking him in her arms, said, as if by a sudden inspiration, "I think +I had better take him upstairs. Wouldn't you like to go up with me, and +see what lovely rooms Hetty has given to Jim and me?" + +The friendliness of the bedroom, the disarming presence of the baby, +completed Mrs. Little's surrender; and when James Little, missing his +wife, went to her room to seek her, he stood still on the threshold, +mute with surprise. There sat his mother with Raby on her lap; Sally +on her knees by an opened bureau-drawer, was showing her all Raby's +clothes, and the two women's faces were aglow with pleasure. James stole +in softly, came behind his mother, and kissed her as he had not kissed +her since he was a boy. Neither of the three spoke; but little Raby +crowed out a sudden and unexplained laugh, which seemed a fitting sign +and seal of the happy moment, and set them all at ease. When Sally +described the scene to Hetty, she said: + +"Oh, I was so frightened when Jim came in! I thought he'd be sure to say +something to his mother that would spoil every thing. But the Lord put +it into Raby's head to go off in one of his great laughs at nothing, and +that made us all laugh, and the first thing that came into my head was +that verse, 'And a little child shall lead them.'" + +"Dear me, Sally, does any thing happen that doesn't put you in mind of +some verse in the Bible?" laughed Hetty. + +"Not many things, Hetty," replied Sally. "Those years that I was alone +all the time, I used to read it so much that it 's always coming into my +head now, whatever happens." + +After the last guest had gone, Doctor Eben and Hetty stood alone before +the blazing fire. Hetty was beautiful on this night: no white lace, no +orange blossoms, to make the ill-natured sneer at the middle-aged bride +attired like a girl; no useless finery to be laid away in chests and +cherished as sentimental mementos of an occasion. A substantial heavy +silk of a useful shade of useful gray was Hetty Gunn's wedding gown; and +she wore on her breast and in her hair white roses, "which will do for +my summer bonnets for years," Hetty had said, when she bought them. + +But her cheeks were pink, her eyes bright, and her brown curls lovelier +than ever. Dr. Eben might well be pardoned the pride and delight with +which he drew her to his side and exclaimed, "Oh, Hetty! are you really +mine? How beautiful you look!" + +"Do you think so?" said Hetty, taking a survey of herself in the +old-fashioned glass slanted at a steep angle above the mantel-piece. "I +don't. I hate fine gowns and flowers on me. If I'd have dared to, I'd +have been married in my old purple." + +"I shouldn't have cared," replied her husband. "But it is better as it +is. Welbury people would have never left off talking, if you had done +that." + +They were a beautiful sight, the two, as they stood with their arms +around each other, in the fire-light. Dr. Eben was tall and of a +commanding figure; his head was almost too massive for even his broad +shoulders; his black hair was wellnigh shaggy in its thickness; and his +dark gray eyes looked out from under eyebrows which were like projecting +eaves, and threw shadows on his cheeks below. Hetty's fair, rosy face, +and golden-brown curls, were thrown out into relief by all this dark +coloring so near, as a sunbeam is when it plays on a dark cloud. The +rooms were full of the delicate fragrance of apple blossoms. The corners +were filled with them; the walls were waving with them. Sally had begged +permission to have, for once, all the apple blossoms she desired; and, +despite groans and grumblings from Mike, she had rifled the orchards. + +"Faith, an' a good tin bushel she's taken off the russets," Mike said to +Norah; "an' as for thim gillies yer was so fond of, there's none left to +spake of on any o' the trees. Now if she'd er tuk thim old blue pearmain +trees, I wouldn't have said a word. But, 'Oh no!' sez she, 'I must have +all pink uns;' an' it was jest the pink uns that was our best trees; +that's jest as much sinse as ye wimmin 's got." + +"Wull, thin, an' I'm thinkin' yer wouldn't have grudged Miss Hetty +her own apples, if it was in barrls ye had 'em," replied the practical +Norah, "an' I don't see where 's the differ." + +"Yer don't!" said Mike, angrily. "If it had ha plazed God to make a man +o' yer, ye'd ha known more 'n yer do;" and with this characteristically +masculine shifting of his premises, Mike turned his back on Norah. + +Neither Hetty nor Doctor Eben had ever heard that lovers should not +wed in May; and, as they looked up at the great fragrant pink and white +boughs on the walls, Hetty exclaimed: "Nobody ought to be married except +when apple-trees are in bloom. Nothing else could have been half so +lovely in the rooms, and the fire-light makes them all the prettier. +What a genius Sally has for arranging flowers. Who would have thought +common stone jars could look so well?" + +Sally had taken the largest sized gray stone jars she could buy in +Welbury, and in these had set boughs six and seven feet long, looking +like young trees. On the walls she had placed deep wooden boxes with +shield-shaped fronts; these fronts were covered with gray lichens from +the rocks; the rosy blossoms waved from out these boxes, looking as much +at home as they did above the lichen-covered trunks of the trees in the +orchard. + +"Poor dear Sally!" Hetty continued, "she had a hard time the first part +of the evening. That stony old woman wouldn't speak to her. But I took +her in hand afterward. Did you observe?" + +"Observe!" shouted Dr. Eben. "I should think so. You hardly waited till +the minister had got through with us." + +"I didn't wait till then," replied Hetty, demurely. "I was planning it +all the while he was telling me about my duty to you. I didn't believe +he could tell me much about that, anyway; and the duty that weighed on +my mind most at that minute was my duty to Sally." + +And thus, in the flickering fire-light and the apple-blossom fragrance, +the two wedded lovers sat talking and dreaming, and taking joy of each +other while the night wore on. There was no violent transition, no great +change of atmosphere, in the beginnings of their wedded life. Dr. Eben +had now lived so much at "Gunn's," that it seemed no strange thing for +him to live there altogether. If it chafed him sometimes that it was +Hetty's house and not his, Hetty's estate, Hetty's right and rule, he +never betrayed it. And there was little reason that it should chafe him; +for, from the day of Hetty Gunn's marriage, she was a changed woman in +the habits and motives of her whole life. The farm was to her, as if it +were not. All the currents of her being were set now in a new channel, +and flowed as impetuously there as they had been wont to flow in the old +ones. Her husband, his needs, his movements, were now the centre around +which her fine and ceaseless activity revolved. There was not a trace +of sentimental expression to this absorption. A careless observer might +have said that her manner was deficient in tenderness; that she was +singularly chary of caresses and words of love. But one who saw deeper +would observe that not the smallest motion of the doctor's escaped her +eye; not his lightest word failed to reach her ear; and every act of +hers was planned with either direct or indirect reference to him. In +his absence, she was preoccupied and uneasy; in his presence, she was +satisfied, at rest, and her face wore a sort of quiet radiance hard to +describe, but very beautiful to see. As for Dr. Eben, he thought he had +entered into a new world. Warmly as he had loved and admired Hetty, he +had not been prepared for these depths in her nature. Every day he said +to her, "Oh, Hetty, Hetty! I never knew you. I did not dream you +were like this." She would answer lightly, laughingly, perhaps almost +brusquely; but intense feeling would glow in her face as a light shines +through glass; and often, when she turned thus lightly away from him, +there were passionate tears in her eyes. It very soon became her habit +to drive with him wherever he went. Old Doctor Tuthill had died some +months before, and now the county circuit was Doctor Eben's. His love +of his profession was a passion, and nothing now stood in the way of his +gratifying it to the utmost. Books, journals, all poured in upon him. +Hetty would have liked to be omniscient that she might procure for him +all he could desire. Every morning they might be seen dashing over the +country with a pair of fleet, strong gray horses. In the afternoon, they +drove a pair of black ponies for visits nearer home. Sometimes, while +the doctor paid his visits, Hetty sat in the carriage; and, when she +suspected that he had fallen into some discussion not relative to the +patient's case, she would call out merrily, with tones clear and ringing +enough to penetrate any walls: "Come, come, doctor! we must be off." And +the doctor would spring to his feet, and run hastily, saying: "You see I +am under orders too: my doctor is waiting outside." Under the seat, +side by side with the doctor's medicine case, always went a hamper which +Hetty called "the other medicine case;" and far the more important it +was of the two. Many a poor patient got well by help of Hetty's soups +and jellies and good bread. Nothing made her so happy as to have the +doctor come home, saying: "I've got a patient to-day that we must feed +to cure him." Then only, Hetty felt that she was of real help to her +husband: of any other help that she might give him Hetty was still +incredulous; intangible things were a little out of Hetty's range. +Even her great and passionate love had not fully opened her eyes to all +love's needs and expressions. All that it meant to her was a perpetual +doing, ministration, a compelling of the happiness of the loved object. +And here, as everywhere else in her life, she was fully content only +when there was something evident and ready to be done. If her husband +had taken the same view of love,--had insisted on perpetual ministerings +to her in tangible forms,--she would have been bewildered and +uncomfortable; and would, no doubt, have replied most illogically: "Oh, +don't be taking so much trouble about me. I can take care of myself; I +always have." But Doctor Eben was in no danger of disturbing Hetty in +this way. Without being consciously a selfish man, he had a temperament +to which acceptance came easy. And really Hetty left him no time, +no room, for any such manifestations towards her, even had they been +spontaneously natural. Moreover, Hetty was a most difficult person for +anybody to help in any way. She never seemed to have needs or wants: she +was always well, brisk, cheery, prepared for whatever occurred. There +really seemed to be nothing to do for Hetty but to kiss her; and that +Doctor Eben did most heartily, and of persistence; and Hetty liked it +better than any thing in this world. With his whole heart and strength, +Eben Williams loved his wife; and he loved her better and better, day +by day. But she herself, by her peculiar temperament, her habits of +activity, and disinterestedness, made it, in the outset, out of the +question that any man living with her as her husband should ever fully +learn a husband's duties and obligations. + + + + +X. + +And now we shall pass over an interval of eight years in the history of +"Gunn's." For it is only the "strange history" of Eben and Hetty that +was to be told in this story, and in these years' history was nothing +strange; unless, indeed, it might be said that they were strangely happy +years. The household remained unchanged, except that there were three +more babies in Mike's cottage, and Hetty had been obliged to build on +another room for him. Old Nan and Caesar still reigned. Caesar's head +was as white and tight-curled as the fleece of a pet lamb. He was now +a shining light in the Methodist meeting; but he had not yet broken +himself of his oaths. "Damn--bress de Lord" was still heard on occasion: +but everybody, even Nan, had grown so used to it that it did not pass +for an oath; and, no doubt, even the recording angel had long since +ceased to put it down. James Little and his wife were now as much a part +of the family as if they had had the old Squire's blood in their veins; +and nobody thought about the old time of their disgrace,--nobody but Jim +and Sally themselves. From their thoughts it was never absent, when they +looked on the beautiful, joyous face of Raby. He had grown beyond his +years, and looked like a boy of twelve. He was manly, frank, impulsive; +a child after Hetty's own heart, and much more like her than he was like +his father or his mother. It was a question, also, if he did not love +her more than he loved either of his parents: all his hours with her +were unclouded; over his intercourse with them, there always hung the +undefined cloud of an unexpressed sadness. + +Hetty was changed. Her hair was gray; her fair skin weather-beaten; and +the fine wrinkles around the corners of her merry eyes radiated like the +spokes of a wheel. She had looked young at thirty-seven; she looked +old at forty-five. The phlegmatic and lazy sometimes seem to keep their +youth better than the sanguine and active. It is a cruel thing that +laughter should age a woman's face almost as much as weeping; but it +does. Sunny as Hetty's face was, it had come to have a look older than +it ought, simply because the kindly eyes had so often twinkled and half +closed in merry laughter. + +Time had dealt more kindly with Doctor Eben. He was a handsomer man at +forty-one than he had been at thirty-three: the eight years had left no +other trace upon him. Face, figure, step, all were as full of youth +and vigor as upon the day when Hetty first met him walking down +the pine-shaded road. The precise moment when the first pang of +consciousness of the discrepancy between her husband's looks and her own +entered Hetty's mind would be hard to determine. It began probably in +some thoughtless jest of her own, or even of his; for, in his absolute +loyalty of love, his unquestioning and long-established acceptance of +their relation as a perfect one, it would never have crossed Doctor +Eben's mind that Hetty could possibly care whether she looked older +or younger than he. He never thought about her age at all: in fact, he +could not have told either her age or his own with exactness; he was +curiously forgetful of such matters. He did not see the wrinkles around +her eyes. He did not know that her skin was weather-beaten, her figure +less graceful, her hair fast turning gray. To him she was simply +"Hetty:" the word meant as it always had meant, fulness of love, +delight, life. Doctor Eben was a man of that fine fibre of organic +loyalty, to which there is not possible, even a temptation to forsake or +remove from its object. Men having this kind of uprightness and loyalty, +rarely are much given to words or demonstrations of affection. To them +love takes its place, side by side with the common air, the course of +the sun, the succession of days and nights, and all other unquestioned +and unalterable things in the world. To suggest to such a man the +possibility of lessening in his allegiance to a wife, is like proposing +to him to overthrow the whole course of nature. He simply cannot +conceive of such a thing; and he has no tolerance for it. He is by the +very virtue of his organic structure incapable of charity for men who +sin in that way. There are not many such men, but the type exists; and +well may any woman felicitate herself to whom it is given to rest +her life on such sure foundations. If there be some lack of the daily +manifestations of tenderness, the ready word, the ever-present caress, +she may recollect that these are often the first fruits of a passion +whose early way-side harvest will be scorched and shrivelled as soon as +the sun is high; while the seed which bringeth forth a hundred, nay +a thousand fold, of true grain, sleeps in long silence, and grows up +noiseless and slow. + +Doctor Eben did not know that he was in many small ways an unloverlike +husband. He did not know that his absorption in his professional studies +made him often seem unaware of Hetty's presence for hours together, +when she was watching and waiting for a word. He did not know that he +sometimes did not hear when she spoke, and did not answer when he heard. +He did not know a hundred things which he would have known, if he +had been a less upright and loyal man, and if Hetty had been a less +unselfish woman. Neither did Hetty know any of these things, or note +them, until the poisoned consciousness awoke in her mind that she was +fast growing old, and her face was growing less lovely. This was the +first germ of Hetty's unhappiness. It had been very hard for her in the +beginning to believe herself loved: now all her old incredulity returned +with fourfold strength; and now it was not met as then by constant and +vehement evidence to conquer it. Here again, had Hetty been like other +women, she might have been spared her suffering. Had it been possible +for her to demand, to even invite, she would have won from her husband, +at any instant, all that her anxiety could have asked; but it was not +possible. She simply went on silently, day after day, watching her +husband more intently; keeping record, in her morbid feeling, of every +moment, every look, every word which she misapprehended. Beyond this +morbidness of misapprehension, there was no other morbidness in Hetty's +state. She did not pine or grieve; she only began slowly to wonder what +she could do for Eben now. Her sense of loss and disappointment, in that +she had borne him no children, began to weigh more heavily upon her. "If +I were mother of his children," she said to herself, "it would not +make so much difference if I did grow old and ugly. He would have the +children to give him pleasure." "I don't see what there is left for me +to do," she said again and again. Sometimes she made pathetic attempts +to change the simplicity of her dress. "Perhaps if I wore better +clothes, I should look younger," she thought. But the result was not +satisfactory. Her severe style had always been so essentially her own +that any departure from it only made her look still more altered. All +this undercurrent of annoyance and distress added continually to the +change in her face: gradually its expression grew more grave; she smiled +less frequently; had fits of abstraction and reverie, which she had +never been known to have before. + +In a vague way, Doctor Eben observed these, and wondered what Hetty was +thinking about; but he never asked. Often they drove for a whole day +together, without a dozen words being spoken; but the doctor was buried +in meditations upon his patients, and did not dislike the silence. Hetty +did not realize that the change here was more in her than in him: in the +old days it had been she who talked, not the doctor; now that she was +silent, he went on with his trains of thought undisturbed, and was +as content as before, for she was by his side. He felt her presence +perpetually, even when he gave no sign of doing so. + +Many months went by in this way, a summer, a winter, part of a spring, +and Hetty's forty-fifth birthday came, and found her a seriously unhappy +woman. Yet, strange to say, nobody dreamed of it. So unchanged was the +external current of her life: such magnificent self-control had she, and +such absolute disinterestedness. Little Raby was the only one who ever +had a consciousness that things were not right. He was Hetty's closest +comrade and companion now. All the hours that she did not spend driving +with the doctor (and she drove with him less now than had been her +custom) she spent with Raby. They took long rambles together, and long +rides, Raby being already an accomplished and fearless little rider. By +the subtle instinct of a loving child, Raby knew that "Aunt Hetty" was +changed. A certain something was gone out of the delight they used to +take together. Once, as they were riding, he exclaimed: + +"Aunt Hetty, you haven't spoken for ever so long! What's the matter? you +don't talk half so much as you used to." + +And Hetty, conscience-stricken, thought to herself: "Dear me, how +selfish it makes one to be unhappy! Here I am, letting it fall on this +dear, innocent darling. I ought to be ashamed." But she answered gayly: + +"Oh, Raby! Aunty is growing old and stupid, isn't she? She must look +out, or you'll get tired of her." + +"I shan't either: you're the nicest aunty in the whole world," cried +Raby. "You ain't a bit old; but I wish you'd talk." + +Then and there, Hetty resolved that never again should Raby have +occasion to think thus; and he never did. Before long he had forgotten +all about this conversation, and all was as before. This was in May. One +day, in the following June, as Hetty and the doctor were driving through +Springton, he said suddenly: + +"Oh, Hetty! I want you to come in with me at one place this morning. +There is the most perfectly beautiful creature there I ever saw,--the +oldest daughter of a Methodist minister who has just come here to +preach. Poor child! she cannot sit up, or turn herself in bed; but she +is an angel, and has the face of one, if ever a human creature had. They +are very poor and we must help them all we can. I have great hopes +of curing the child, if she can be well fed. It is a serious spinal +disease, but I believe it can be cured." + +When Hetty first looked on the face of Rachel Barlow, she said in her +heart: "Eben was right. It is the face of an angel;" and when she heard +Rachel's voice, she added, "and the voice also." Some types of spinal +disease seem to have a marvellously refining effect on the countenance; +producing an ethereal clearness of skin, and brightness of eye, and a +spiritual expression, which are seen on no other faces. Rachel Barlow +was a striking instance of this almost abnormal beauty. As her fair +face looked up at you from her pillow, your impulse was to fall on your +knees. Not till she smiled did you feel sure she was human; but when she +smiled, the smile was so winningly warm, you forgot you had thought her +an angel. For two years she had not moved from her bed, except as she +was lifted in the strong arms of her father. For two years she had not +been free from pain for a moment. Often the pain was so severe that she +fainted. And yet her brow was placid, unmarked by a line, and her face +in repose as serene as a happy child's. + +Doctor Eben and Hetty sat together by the bed. + +"Rachel," said the doctor, "I have brought my wife to help cure you. She +is as good a doctor as I am." And he turned proudly to Hetty. + +Rachel gazed at her earnestly, but did not speak. Hetty felt herself +singularly embarrassed by the gaze. + +"I wish I could help you," she said; "but I think my husband will make +you well." + +Rachel colored. + +"I never permit myself to hope for it," she replied. "If I did, I should +be discontented at once." + +"Why! are you contented as it is?" exclaimed Hetty impetuously. + +"Oh, yes!" said Rachel. "I enjoy every minute, except when the pain +is too hard: you don't know what a beautiful thing life seems to me. +I always have the sky you know" (glancing at the window), "and that +is enough for a lifetime. Every day birds fly by too; and every day my +father reads to me at least two hours. So I have great deal to think +about." + +"Miss Barlow, I envy you," said Hetty in a tone which startled even +herself. Again Rachel bent on her the same clairvoyant gaze which had so +embarrassed her before. Hetty shrank from it still more than at first, +and left the room, saying to her husband: "I will wait for you outside." + +As they drove away, Hetty said: + +"Eben, what is it in her look which makes me so uneasy? I don't like to +have her look at me." + +"Now that is strange," replied the doctor. "After you had left the room, +the child said to me: 'What is the matter with your wife? She is not +well,' and I laughed at the idea, and told her I never knew any woman +half so well or strong. Rachel is a sort of clairvoyant, as persons in +her condition are so apt to be; but she made a wrong guess this time, +didn't she?" + +Hetty did not answer; and the doctor turning towards her saw that her +eyes were fixed on the sky with a dreamy expression. + +"Why, Hetty!" he exclaimed. "Why do you look so? You are perfectly well, +are you not, dear?" + +"Oh, yes! oh, yes!" Hetty answered, quickly rousing herself. "I am +perfectly well; and always have been, ever since I can remember." + +After this, Hetty went no more with her husband to see Rachel. When he +asked her, she said: "No, Eben: I am going to see her alone. I will not +go with you again. She makes me uncomfortable. If she makes me feel +so, when I am alone with her, I shall not go at all. I don't like +clairvoyants." + +"Why, what a queer notion that is for you, wife!" laughed the doctor, +and thought no more of it. + +Hetty's first interview with Rachel was a constrained one. Nothing in +Hetty's life had prepared her for intercourse with so finely organized +a creature: she felt afraid to speak, lest she should wound her; her +own habits of thought and subjects of interest seemed too earthy to be +mentioned in this presence; she was vaguely conscious that all Rachel's +being was set to finer issues than her own. She found in this an +unspeakable attraction; and yet it also withheld her at every point and +made her dumb. In spite of these conflicting emotions, she wanted to +love Rachel, to help her, to be near her; and she went again and again, +until the constraint wore off, and a very genuine affection grew up +between them. Never, after the first day, had she felt any peculiar +embarrassment under Rachel's gaze, and her memory of it had nearly died +away, when one day, late in the autumn, it was suddenly revived with +added intensity. It was a day on which Hetty had been feeling unusually +sad. Even by Rachel's bedside she could not quite throw off the sadness. +Unconsciously, she had been sitting for a long time silent. As she +looked up, she met Rachel's eyes fixed full on hers, with the same +penetrating gaze which had so disturbed her in their first interview. +Rachel did not withdraw her gaze, but continued to look into Hetty's +eyes, steadily, piercingly, with an expression which held Hetty +spell-bound. Presently she said: + +"Dear Mrs. Williams, you are thinking something which is not true. Do +not let it stay with you." + +"What do you mean, Rachel?" asked Hetty, resentfully. "No one can read +another person's thoughts." + +"Not exactly," replied Rachel, in a timid voice, "but very nearly. Since +I have been ill, I have had a strange power of telling what people were +thinking about: I can sometimes tell the exact words. I cannot tell how +it is. I seem to read them in the air, or to hear them spoken. And I +can always tell if a person is thinking either wicked thoughts or untrue +ones. A wicked person always looks to me like a person in a fog. There +have been some people in this room that my father thought very good; but +I knew they were very bad. I could hardly see their faces clear. When a +person is thinking mistaken or untrue thoughts, I see something like a +shimmer of light all around them: it comes and goes, like a flicker from +a candle. When you first came in to see me, you looked so." + +"Pshaw, Rachel," said Hetty, resolutely. "That is all nonsense. It is +just the nervous fancy of a sick girl. You mustn't give way to it." + +"I should think so too," replied Rachel, meekly. "If it did not so often +come exactly true. My father will tell you how often we have tried it." + +"Well, then, tell me what I was thinking just now," laughed Hetty. + +Rachel colored. "I would rather not," she replied, in an earnest tone. + +"Oh! you're afraid it won't prove true," said Hetty. "I'll take the +risk, if you will." + +Rachel hesitated, but finally repeated her first answer. "I would rather +not." + +Hetty persisted, and Rachel, with great reluctance, answered her as +follows: + +"You were thinking about yourself: you were dissatisfied about something +in yourself; you are not happy, and you ought to be; you are so good." + +Hetty listened with a wonder-struck face. She disliked this more than +she had ever in her life disliked any thing which had happened to her. +She did not speak. + +"Do not be angry," said Rachel. "You made me tell you." + +"Oh! I am not angry," said Hetty. "I'm not so stupid as that; but it's +the most disagreeable thing, I ever knew. Can you help seeing these +things, if you try?" + +"Yes, I suppose I might," said Rachel. "I never try. It interests me to +see what people are thinking about." + +"Humph!" said Hetty, sarcastically. "I should think so. You might make +your fortune as a detective, if you were well enough to go about in the +world." + +"If I were that, I should lose the power," replied Rachel. "The doctors +say it is part of the disease." + +"Rachel," exclaimed Hetty, vehemently, "I'll never come near you again, +if you don't promise not to use this power of yours upon me. I should +never feel comfortable one minute where you are, if I thought you were +reading my thoughts. Not that I have any special secrets," added Hetty, +with a guilty consciousness; "but I suppose everybody thinks thoughts he +would rather not have read." + +"I'll promise you, indeed I will, dear Mrs. Williams," cried Rachel, +much distressed. "I never have read you, except that first day. It +seemed forced upon me then, and to-day too. But I promise you, I will +not do it again." + +"I suppose I shouldn't know if you were doing it, unless you told me," +said Hetty, reflectively. + +"I think you would," answered Rachel. "Do I not look peculiarly? My +father tells me that I do." + +"Yes, you do," replied Hetty, recollecting that, in each of these +instances, she had been much disturbed by Rachel's look. "I will trust +you, then, seeing that you probably can't deceive me." + +When Hetty told the doctor of this, expecting that he would dismiss +it as unworthy of attention, she was much surprised at the interest he +showed in the account. He questioned her closely as to the expression of +Rachel's face, her tones of voice, during the interval. + +"And was it true, Hetty?" he asked; "was what she said true? Were you +thinking of something in yourself which troubled you?" + +"Yes, I was," said Hetty, in a low voice, fearing that her husband would +ask her what; but he was only studying the incident from professional +curiosity. + +"You are sure of that, are you?" he asked. + +"Yes, very sure," replied Hetty. + +"Extraordinary! 'pon my word extraordinary!" ejaculated the doctor. "I +have read of such cases, but I have never more than half believed them. +I'd give my right hand to cure that girl." + +"Your right hand is not yours to give," said Hetty, playfully. +The doctor made no reply. He was deep in meditation on Rachel's +clairvoyance. Hetty looked at him for some moments, as earnestly as +Rachel had looked at her. "Oh if I could only have that power Rachel +has!" she thought. + +"Eben," she said, "is it impossible for a healthy person to be a +clairvoyant?" + +"Quite," answered the doctor, with a sudden instinct of what Hetty +meant. "No chance for you, dear. You'll never get at any of my secrets +that way. You might as well try to make yourself Rachel's age as to +acquire this mysterious power she has." + +Unlucky words! Hetty bore them about with her. "That showed that he +feels that I am old," she said, as often as she recalled them. + +A month later, as she was sitting with Rachel one morning, there was a +knock at the door. Hetty was sitting in such a position that she could +not be seen from the door, but could see, in the looking-glass at the +foot of Rachel's bed, any person entering the room. As the door opened, +she looked up, and, to her unspeakable surprise, saw her husband coming +in; saw, in the same swift second's glance, the look of gladness and +welcome on his face, and heard him say, in tones of great tenderness: + +"How are you to-day, precious child?" In the next instant, he had seen +his wife, and was, in his turn, so much astonished, that the look +of glad welcome which he had bent upon Rachel, was instantaneously +succeeded by one of blank surprise, bent upon Hetty; surprise, and +nothing else, but so great surprise that it looked almost like dismay +and confusion. "Why, Hetty!" he said, "I did not expect to see you +here." + +"Nor I you," said Hetty, lightly; but the lightness of tone had a +certain something of constraint in it. This incident was one of those +inexplicably perverse acts of Fate which make one almost believe +sometimes in the depravity of spirits, if not in that of men. When Dr. +Eben had left home that morning, Hetty had said to him: + +"Are you going to Springton, to-day?" + +"No, not to-day," was the reply. + +"I am very sorry," answered Hetty. "I wanted to send some jelly to +Rachel." + +"Can't go to-day, possibly," the doctor had said. "I have to go the +other way." + +But later in the morning he had met a messenger from Springton, riding +post-haste, with an imperative call which could not be deferred. And, as +he was in the village, he very naturally stopped to see Rachel. All of +this he explained with some confusion; feeling, for the first time in +his long married life, that it was awkward for a man to have to account +for his presence in any particular spot at any particular time. Hetty +betrayed no annoyance or incredulity: she felt none. She was too +sensible and reasonable a woman to have felt either, even if it had been +simply a change of purpose on the doctor's own part which had brought +him to Springton. The thing which had lent the shade of constraint to +Hetty's voice, and which lay like an icy mountain on Hetty's heart, was +the look which she had seen on his face, the tone which she had heard in +his voice, as he greeted Rachel. In that instant was planted the second +germ of unhappiness in Hetty's bosom. Of jealousy, in the ordinary +acceptation of the term; of its caprices, suspicions, subterfuges; and, +above all, of its resentments,--Hetty was totally incapable. If it +had been made evident to her in any one moment, that her husband loved +another woman, her first distinct thoughts would have been of sorrow for +him rather than for herself, and of perplexity as to what could be done +to make him happy again. At this moment, however, nothing took distinct +shape in Hetty's mind. It was merely the vague pain of a loving woman's +sensitive heart, surprised by the sight of tender looks and tones given +by her husband to another woman. It was wholly a vague pain, but it +was the germ of a great one; and, falling as it did on Hetty's +already morbid consciousness of her own loss of youth and beauty +and attractiveness, it fell into soil where such germs ripen as in a +hot-bed. In a less noble nature than Hetty's there would have grown +up side by side with this pain a hatred of Rachel, or, at least, an +antagonism towards her. In the fine equilibrium of Hetty's moral nature, +such a thing was impossible. She felt from that day a new interest in +Rachel. She looked at her, often scrutinizingly, and thought: "Ah, if +she were but well, what a sweet young wife she might make! I wish Eben +could have had such a wife! How much better it would have been for him +than having me!" She began now to go oftener with her husband to visit +Rachel. Closely, but with no sinister motive, no trace of ill-feeling, +she listened to all which they said. She observed the peculiar +gentleness with which the doctor spoke, and the docility with which +Rachel listened; and she said to herself: "That is quite unlike Eben's +manner to me, or mine to him. I wonder if that is not more nearly the +way it ought to be between husbands and wives. The wife ought to look +up to her husband as a little child does." Now, much as Hetty loved Dr. +Eben, passionately as her whole life centred around him, there had never +been such a feeling as this: they were the heartiest of comrades, but +each life was on a plane of absolute independence. Hetty pondered much +on this. + + + + +XI. + +One day, as they sat by Rachel's bed, the doctor had been counting her +pulse. Her little white hand looked like a baby's hand in his. Holding +it up, he said to Hetty: + +"Look at that hand. It couldn't do much work, could it!" + +Involuntarily Hetty stretched out her large, well-knit brown hand, +and put it by the side of Rachel's. There are many men who would have +admired Hetty's hand the more of the two. It was a much more significant +hand. To one who could read palmistry, it meant all that Hetty was; and +it was symmetrical and firm. But, at that moment, to Dr. Eben it looked +large and masculine. + +"Oh, take it away, Hetty!" he said, thoughtlessly. "It looks like a +man's hand by the side of this child's." + +Hetty laughed. She thought so too. But the words remained in her mind, +and allied themselves to words that had gone before, and to things that +had happened, and to thoughts which were restlessly growing, growing in +Hetty's bosom. + +If Rachel had remained an invalid, probably Hetty's thoughts of her, +as connected with her husband, would never have gone beyond this vague +stage which we have tried to describe. She would have been to Hetty only +the suggestion of a possible ideal wife, who, had she lived, and had +she entered into Dr. Eben's life, might have made him happier than +Hetty could. But Rachel grew better and stronger every day. Early in the +spring she began to walk,--creeping about, at first, like a little child +just learning to walk, by pushing a chair before her. Then she walked +with a cane and her father's arm; then with the cane alone; and at +last, one day in May,--oddly enough it was the anniversary of Hetty's +wedding-day,--Dr. Eben burst into her room, exclaiming: "Hetty! Hetty! +Rachel has walked several rods alone. She is cured! She is going to be +as well as anybody." + +The doctor's face was flushed with excitement. Never had he had what +seemed to him so great a professional triumph. It was the physician +and not the man that felt so intensely. But Hetty could not wholly know +this. She had shared his deep anxiety about the case; and she had shared +much of his strong interest in Rachel, and it was with an unaffected +pleasure that she exclaimed: "Oh, I'm so thankful!" but her next +sentence was one which arrested her husband's attention, and seemed to +him a strange one. + +"Then there is nothing to hinder her being married, is there?" + +"Why, no," laughed the doctor, "nothing, except the lack of a man fit +to marry her! What put such a thought as that into your head, Hetty? I +don't believe Rachel Barlow will ever be married. I'm sure I don't know +the man that's worthy to so much as kiss the child's feet!" and the +unconscious Dr. Eben hastened away, little dreaming what a shaft he had +sped. + +Hetty stood at the open window, watching him, as far as she could see +him, among the pines. The apple orchard, near the house, was in full +bloom, and the fragrance came in at every window. A vase of the blossoms +stood on Hetty's bureau: it was one of her few, tender reminiscences, +the love which she had had for apple blossoms ever since the night of +her marriage. She held a little cluster of them now in her hand, as she +leaned on the window-sill; they had been gathered for some days, and, as +a light wind stirred the air, all the petals fell, and slowly fluttered +down to the ground. Hetty looked wistfully at the bare stems. A distinct +purpose at that moment was forming in her mind; a purpose distinct +in its aim, but, as yet, very vague in its shape. She was saying to +herself: "If I were out of the way, Eben might marry Rachel. He needn't +say, he doesn't know a man fit to do it. He is fit to marry any woman +God ever made, and I believe he would be happier with such a wife as +that, and with children, than he can ever be with me." + +Even now there was in Hetty no morbid jealousy, no resentment, no +suspicion that her husband had been disloyal to her even in thought. +There had simply been forced upon her, by the slow accumulations of +little things, the conviction that her husband would be happier with +another woman for his wife than with her. It is probably impossible to +portray in words all the processes of this remarkable woman's mind and +heart during these extraordinary passages of her life. They will seem, +judged by average standards, morbid and unhealthy: yet there was no +morbidness in them; unless we are to call morbid all the great and +glorious army of men and women who have laid down their own lives for +the sake of others. That same fine and rare quality of self-abnegation +which has inspired missionaries' lives and martyrs' deaths, inspired +Hetty now. The morbidness, if there were any, was in the first entering +into her mind of the belief that her husband's happiness could be +secured in any way so well as by her. But here let us be just to Hetty. +The view she took was the common-sense view, which probably would have +been taken by nine out of ten of all Dr. Eben's friends. Who could say +that it did not stand to reason, that a man would be happier with a +wife, young, beautiful, of angelic sweetness of nature, and the mother +of sons and daughters, than with an old, childless, and less attractive +woman. The strange thing was that any wife could take this common-sense +view of such a situation. It was not strange in Hetty, however. It +was simply the carrying out of the impulses and motives which had +characterized her whole life. + +About this time, Hetty began with Raby to practise rowing on Welbury +Lake. This lake was a beautiful sheet of water, lying between Welbury +and Springton. It was some two miles long, and one wide; and held two or +three little wooded islands, which were much resorted to in the summer. +On two sides of the lake, rose high, rocky precipices; no landing was +possible there: the other two sides were thick wooded forests of pines +and hemlocks. Nothing could exceed in loveliness the situation of this +lake. Two roads led to it: one from the Springton, the other from the +Welbury side; both running through the hemlock forests. In the winter +these were used for carrying out ice, which was cut in great quantities +on the lake. In the summer, no one crossed these roads, except parties +of pleasure-seekers who went to sail or row on the lake. In a shanty on +the Welbury side, lived an old man, who made a little money every summer +by renting a few rather leaky boats, and taking charge of such boats as +were kept moored at his beach by their owners. + +Hetty had promised Raby that when he was ten years old he should have a +fine boat, and learn to row. The time had come now for her to keep this +promise. Every Saturday afternoon during the summer following Rachel's +recovery, Hetty and Raby spent on the lake. Hetty was a strong and +skilful oars-woman. Little Raby soon learned to manage the boat as well +as she did. The lake was considered unsafe for sail-boats, on account of +flaws of wind which often, without any warning, beat down from the hills +on the west side; but rowing there was one of the chief pleasures of the +young people of Welbury and Springton. In Hetty's present frame of mind, +this lonely lake had a strange fascination for her. In her youth she had +never loved it: she had always been eager to land on one of the islands, +and spend hours in the depths of the fragrant woods, rather than on the +dark and silent water. But now she never wearied of rowing round and +round its water margin, and looking down into its unsounded depths. +It was believed that Welbury Lake was unfathomable; but this notion +probably had its foundation in the limited facilities in that region for +sounding deep waters. + +One day Hetty rowed across the lake to the point where the Springton +road came down to the shore. Pushing the boat up on the beach, she +sprang out; and, telling Raby to wait there till she returned, she +walked rapidly up the road. A guide-post said, "Six miles to Springton." +Hetty stood some time looking reflectingly at this sign: then she walked +on for half a mile, till she came to another road running north; here +a guide-post said, "Fairfield, five miles." This was what Hetty was in +search of. As she read the sign, she said in a low tone: "Five miles; +that is easily walked." Then she turned and hastened back to the +shore, stopping on the way to gather for Raby a big bunch of the snowy +Indian-pipes, which grew in shining clumps in the moist dark hemlock +woods. A strange and terrible idea was slowly taking possession of +Hetty. Day and night it haunted her. Once having been entertained as +possible, it could never be banished from her mind. How such an impulse +could have become deep-seated in a nature like Hetty's will for ever +remain a mystery. One would have said that she was the last woman in +the world to commit a morbid or ill-regulated act. But the act she was +meditating now was one which seemed like the act of insanity. Yet had +Hetty never in her life seemed farther removed from any such tendency. +She was calm, cheerful, self-contained. If any one saw any change in +her, it seemed like nothing more than the natural increase of quiet and +decorum coming with her increased age. Even her husband, when he looked +back on these months, trying in anguish to remember every day, every +hour, could recall no word or deed or look of hers which had seemed to +him unnatural. And yet there was not a day, hardly an hour, in which her +mind was not occupied with the details of a plan for going away secretly +from her house, under such circumstances as to make it appear that she +had been drowned in the lake. That she must leave her husband free to +marry Rachel Barlow had become a fixed idea in Hetty's mind. She was too +conscientious to kill herself for this purpose: moreover, she did not in +the least wish to die. She was very unhappy in this keen conviction that +she no longer sufficed for her husband's happiness; that she was, as she +would have phrased it, "in the way." But she was not heart-broken over +it, as a sentimental and feeble woman would have been. "There is plenty +to do in the world," she said to herself. "I've got a good many years' +work left in me yet: the thing is how to get at it." For many weeks she +had revolved the matter hopelessly, till one day, as she was rowing with +Raby on the lake, she heard a whistle of a steam-engine on the Springton +side of the lake. In that second, her whole plan flashed upon her brain. +She remembered that a railroad, leading to Canada, ran between Springton +and the lake. She remembered that there was a station not many miles +from Springton. She remembered that far up in Canada was a little French +village, St. Mary's, where she had once spent part of a summer with her +father. St. Mary's was known far and near for its medicinal springs, and +the squire had been sent there to try them. She remembered that there +was a Roman Catholic priest there of whom her father had been very fond. +She remembered that there were Sisters of Charity there, who used to go +about nursing the sick. She remembered the physician under whose +care her father was. She remembered all these things with a startling +vividness in the twinkling of an eye, before the echoes of the +steam-engine's whistle had died away on the air. She was almost +paralyzed by the suddenness and the clearness with which she was +impressed that she must go to St. Mary's. She dropped the oars, leaned +forward, and looked eagerly at the opening in the woods where the +Springton road touched the shore. + +"What is it, aunty? What do you see!" asked Raby. The child's voice +recalled her to herself. + +"Nothing! nothing! Raby. I was only listening to the car-whistle. Didn't +you hear it?" answered Hetty. + +"No," said Raby. "Where are they going? Can't you take me some day." + +The innocent words smote on Hetty's heart. How should she leave Raby? +What would her life be without him? his without her? But thinking about +herself had never been Hetty's habit. That a thing would be hard for +her had never been to Hetty any reason for not doing it, since she was +twelve years old. From all the pain and loss which were involved to +her in this terrible step she turned resolutely away, and never thought +about them except with a guilty sense of selfishness. She believed with +all the intensity of a religious conviction that it would be better for +her husband, now, to have Rachel Barlow for his wife. She believed, with +the same intensity, that she alone stood in the way of this good for +him. Call it morbid, call it unnatural, call it wicked if you will, in +Hetty Williams to have this belief: you must judge her conduct from its +standpoint, and from no other. The belief had gained possession of +her. She could no more gainsay it, resist it, than if it had been +communicated to her by supernatural beings of visible presence and +actual speech. Given this belief, then her whole conduct is lifted to a +plane of heroism, takes rank with the grand martyrdoms; and is not to be +lightly condemned by any who remember the words,--"Greater love hath no +man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friend." + +The more Hetty thought over her plan, the simpler and more feasible +it appeared. More and more she concentrated all her energies on the +perfecting of every detail: she left nothing unthought of, either in her +arrangements for her own future, or in her arrangements for those she +left behind. Her will had been made for many years, leaving unreservedly +to her husband the whole estate of "Gunn's," and also all her other +property, except a legacy to Jim and Sally, and a few thousand dollars +to old Caesar and Nan. Hetty was singularly alone in the world. She +had no kindred to whom she felt that she owed a legacy. As she looked +forward to her own departure, she thought with great satisfaction of +the wealth which would now be her husband's. "He will sell the farm, no +doubt,--it isn't likely that he will care to live on here; and when +he has it all in money he can go to Europe, as he has so often said he +would," she said to herself, still, as ever, planning for her husband's +enjoyment. + +As the autumn drew near, she went oftener with Raby to row on the Lake. +A spell seemed to draw her to the spot. She continually lived over, +in her mind, all the steps she must take when the time came. She rowed +slowly back and forth past the opening of the Springton road, and +fancied her own figure walking alone up that bank for the last time. +Several times she left Raby in the boat, and walked as far as the +Fairfield guide-post, and returned. At last she had rehearsed the +terrible drama so many times that it almost seemed to her as if it had +already happened, and she found it strange to be in her own house with +her husband and Jim and Sally and her servants. Already she began to +feel herself dissevered from them. When every thing was ready, she +shrank from taking the final step. Three times she went with Raby to the +Lake, having determined within herself not to return; but her courage +failed her, and she found a ready excuse for deferring all until the +next day. She had forgotten some little thing, or the weather looked +threatening; and the last time she went back, it was simply to kiss her +husband again. "One day more or less cannot make any difference," she +said to herself. "I will kiss Eben once more." Oh, what a terrible thing +is this barrier of flesh, which separates soul from soul, even in the +closest relation! Our nearest and dearest friend, sitting so near that +we can hear his every breath, can see if his blood runs by a single +pulse-beat faster to his cheek, may yet be thinking thoughts which, if +we could read them, would break our hearts. When the time came in which +Eben Williams tried to recall the last moments in which he had seen his +wife, all he could recollect was that she kissed him several times with +more than usual affection. At the time he had hardly noted it: he was +just setting off to see a patient, and Raby was urging Hetty to make +haste; and their good-byes had been hurried. + +It was on a warm hazy day in October. The woods through which Hetty and +Raby walked to the lake were full of low dogwood bushes, whose leaves +were brilliant; red, pink, yellow, and in places almost white. Raby +gathered boughs of these, and carried them to the boat. It was his +delight to scatter such bright leaves from the stern of the boat, +and watch them following in its wake. They landed on the small island +nearest the Springton shore, and looked for wild grapes, which were now +beginning to be ripe. After an hour or two here, Hetty told Raby that +they must set out: she had errands to do in the town before going home. +She rowed very quickly to the beach, and, just as they were leaving the +boat, she exclaimed: + +"Oh, Raby, I have left my shawl on the island; way around on the other +side it is too. I must row back and get it." + +Raby was about to jump into the boat, but she exclaimed: + +"No, you stay here, and wait. I can row a great deal quicker with +only one in the boat. Here, dear," she said, taking off her watch, and +hanging it round his neck, "you can have this to keep you from being +lonely, and you can tell by this how long it will be before I get back. +Watch the hands, and that will make the time seem shorter, they go +so fast. It will take me about half an hour; that will be--let me +see--yes--just five o'clock. There is a good long daylight after that;" +and, kissing him, she jumped into the boat and pushed off. What a moment +it was. Her arms seemed to be paralyzed; but, summoning all her will, +she drove the boat resolutely forward, and looked no more back at Raby. +As soon as she had gained the other side of the island, where she was +concealed from Raby's sight by the trees, she pulled out vigorously +for the Springton shore. When she reached it, she drew the boat up +cautiously on the beach, fastened it, and hid herself among the trees. +Her plan was to wait there until dusk, then push the boat adrift in the +lake, and go out herself adrift into the world. She dared not set out +on her walk to Fairfield until it was dark; she knew, moreover, that +the northern train did not pass until nearly midnight. These hours that +Hetty spent crouched under the hemlock-trees on the shore of the lake +were harder than any which she lived through afterward. She kept her +eyes fixed on the opposite shore, on the spot where she knew the patient +child was waiting for her. She pictured him walking back and forth, +trying by childish devices to while away the time. As the sun sank +low she imagined his first anxious look,--his alarm,--till it seemed +impossible for her to bear the thoughts her imagination called up. He +would wait, she thought, about one hour past the time that she had set +for her return: possibly, for he was a brave child, he might wait until +it began to grow dark; he would think that she was searching for the +shawl. She hoped that any other explanation of her absence would not +occur to him until the very last. As the twilight deepened into dusk, +the mysterious night sounds began to come up from the woods; strange +bird notes, stealthy steps of tiny creatures. Hetty's nerves thrilled +with the awful loneliness: she could bear it no longer; she began to +walk up and down the beach; the sound of her footsteps drowned many +of the mysterious noises, and made her feel less alone. At last it was +dark. With all her strength she turned her boat bottom side up, shoved +it out into the lake, and threw the oars after it. Then she wrapped +herself in a dark cloak, and walked at a rapid pace up the Springton +road. When she reached the road which led to Fairfield, she stopped, +leaned against the guide-post, and looked back and hesitated. It seemed +as if the turning northward were the turning point of every thing. Her +heart was very heavy: almost her purpose failed her. "It is too late to +go back now," she said, and hurried on. + + + + +XII. + +The station-master at Fairfield, if he had been asked whether a woman +took the midnight train north at Fairfield that night, would have +unhesitatingly said, "No." An instinctive wisdom seemed to direct +Hetty's every step. She waited at some little distance from the station +till the train came up: then, without going upon the station platform at +all, she entered the rear car from the opposite side of the road. No one +saw her; not even a brakeman. When the train began to move, the sense of +what she had done smote her with a sudden terror, and she sprang to +her feet, but sank down again, before any of the sleepy passengers had +observed her motion. In a few moments she was calm. Her long habits of +firm, energetic action began to resume sway: she compelled herself to +look forward into the future, and not backward into the past she was so +resolutely leaving behind her. Strangely enough, it was not her husband +that she found hardest to banish from her thoughts now, but Raby. She +could not escape from the vivid imagination of the dear child running in +terror alone through the long stretch of woods. + +"I wonder if he will cry," thought poor Hetty: "I hope not." And the +tears filled her eyes. Then she fell to wondering if there would be any +doubt in anybody's mind that her boat had suddenly capsized. "They will +think I leaned over to pick something off the bushes on the edge of the +island," said she. "I have come very near capsizing that way more than +once, and I have always told Eben when it had happened. That is the +first thing he will think of." And thus, in a maze of incoherent +crowding conjectures and imaginings, all making up one great misery, +Hetty sat whirling away from her home. By and by, her brain grew less +active; thought was paralyzed by pain. She sat motionless, taking no +note of the hours of the night as they sped by, and roused from her +dull reverie only when she saw the first faint red tinge of dawn in the +eastern sky. Then she started up, with a fresh realization of all. +"Oh, it is morning!" she said. "Have they given over looking for me, I +wonder. I suppose they have been looking all night. By this time, they +must be sure I am drowned. After I know all that is over, I shall feel +easier. It can't be quite so hard to bear as this." + +In all Hetty's imaginings of her plan, she had leaped over the interval +of transition from the life she left to the life she proposed to lead. +She had pictured herself always as having attained the calm rest of the +shelter she would seek, the strong moral support of the work she would +do. She had not dwelt on this wretched interval of concealment and +flight; she had not thought of this period of being an unknown outcast. +A sense of ignominy began to crush her. It was a new thing for her +to avoid a human eye: she felt guilty, ashamed, terror-stricken; and, +doubly veiling her face, she sat with her eyes closed, and her head +turned away, like one asleep or ill. The day dragged slowly on. Now and +then she left the train, and bought a new ticket to carry her farther. +Even had there been suspicions of her flight, it would have been +impossible to have traced her, so skilfully had she managed. She had +provided herself with a time-table of the entire route, and bought +new tickets only at points of junction where several roads met, and no +attention could possibly be drawn to any one traveller. + +At night she reached the city, where she had planned to remain for some +days, to make purchases. When she entered the hotel, and was asked to +register her name, no one who saw the quick and ready signature which +she wrote would have dreamed that it was not her own: + +"MRS. HIBBA SMAILLI, St. Mary's, Canada." + +"One of those Welsh women, from St. Mary's, I guess," said the clerk; +"they all have those fresh, florid skins when they first come over +here." And with this remark he dismissed Hetty from his mind, only +wondering now and then, as he saw her so often coming in, laden with +parcels, "what a St. Mary's woman wanted with so many things." + +During these days, while Hetty was unflinchingly going forward with all +her preparations for her new home, the home she had left was a scene of +terrible dismay and suffering. + +It was long after dark when little Raby, breathless and sobbing, had +burst open the sitting-room door, crying out: + +"Auntie's drowned in the lake. I know she is; or else a bear's eaten her +up. She said she'd be back in an hour. And here's her watch,"--opening +his little hot hand, in which he had held the watch tight through all +his running,--"she gave it to me to hold till she came back. And she +said it would be five; and I stayed till seven, and she never came; +and a man brought me home." And Raby flung himself on the floor, crying +convulsively. + +His father and mother tried to calm him, and to get a more exact +account from him of what had happened; but, between their alarm and his +hysterical crying, all was confusion. + +Presently, the man entered who had brought Raby home in his wagon. He +was a stranger to them all. His narrative merely corroborated Raby's, +but threw no light on what had gone before. He had found the child on +the main road, running very fast, and crying aloud. He had asked him to +jump into his wagon; and Raby had replied: "Yes, sir: if you will whip +your horse and make him run all the way to my house? My auntie's drowned +in the lake;" and this was all the child had said. + +Poor Raby! his young nerves had entirely given way under the strain of +those hours of anxious waiting. He had borne the first hour very well. +When the watch said it was five o'clock, and Hetty was not in sight, +he thought, as she had hoped he would, that she was searching for the +shawl; but, when six o'clock came, and her boat was not in sight, his +childish heart took alarm. He ran to the shanty where the old boatman +lived; and pounded furiously on the door, shouting loud, for the man was +very deaf. The door was locked; no one answered. Raby pushed logs under +the windows, and, climbing up, looked in. The house was empty. Then the +little fellow jumped into the only boat which was there, and began to +row out into the lake in search of Hetty. + +Alas! the boat leaked so fast that it was with difficulty he got back to +the shore. Perhaps, if Hetty, from her hiding-place, had seen the dear, +brave child rowing to her rescue, it might have been a rescue indeed. It +might have changed for ever the current of her life. But this was not +to be. Wet and chilled, and clogged by his dripping shoes, Raby turned +towards home. The woods were dark and full of shadows. The child had +never been alone in them at night before; and the gloom added to his +terrors. His feet seemed as if they would fail him at every step, and +his sobbing cries left him little breath with which to run. + +Jim and Sally turned helplessly to the stranger, as he concluded his +story. + +"Oh, what shall we do! what shall we do!" they said. "Oh, take us right +back to the lake, won't you? and the rest will follow: we may find her." + +"There isn't any boat," cried Raby, from the floor. "I tried to go for +her, and the boat is all full of holes, and she must have been drowned +ever so long by this time; she told me it only took half an hour, that +nobody could be brought to life after that," and Raby's cries rose +almost to shrieks, and brought old Caesar and Nan from the kitchen. As +the first words of what had happened reached their ears, they broke into +piercing lamentations. Nan, with inarticulate groans, and Caesar with, +"Damn! damn! bress de Lord! No, damn! damn! dat lake. Haven't I always +told Miss Hetty not to be goin' there. Oh, damn! damn! no, no, bress de +Lord!" and the old man, clasping both hands above his head, rushed +to the barn to put the horses into the big farm-wagon. With anguished +hearts, and hopelessly, Jim and Sally piled blankets and pillows into +the wagon, and took all the restoratives they could think of. They +knew in their hearts all would be of no use. As they drove through the +village they gave the alarm; and, in an incredibly short time, the whole +shore of the lake was twinkling with lights borne high in the hands +of men who were searching. Two boats were rowing back and forth on the +lake, with bright lights at stern and prow; and loud shouts filled +the air. No answer; no clew: at last, from the island, came a pistol +shot,--the signal agreed on. Every man stood still and listened. Slowly +the boats came back to shore, drawing behind them Hetty's boat; bringing +one of the oars, and also Hetty's shawl, which they had found, just +where Raby had told them they would, in the wild-grape thicket. + +"Found it bottom-side up," was all that the men said, as they shoved the +boat high up on the sand. Then they all looked in each other's faces, +and said no more. There was nothing more to be done: it was now ten +o'clock. Slowly the sad procession wound back to town through the +rayless hemlock woods. Midway in them, they met a rider, riding at the +maddest gallop. It was the doctor! No one had known where to send for +him; and there was no time to be lost. Coming home, and wondering, as he +entered, at the open doors and the unlighted windows, he had found Norah +sitting on the floor by the weeping Raby, and trying to comfort him. +Barely comprehending, in his sudden distress what they told him, the +doctor had sprung upon his horse and galloped towards the lake. As he +saw the group of people moving towards him, looking shadowy and dim +in the darkness, his heart stood still. Were they bearing home Hetty's +body? Would he see it presently, lying lifeless and cold in their +arms? He dashed among them, reining his horse back on his haunches, and +looking with a silent anguish into face after face. Nobody spoke. That +first instant seemed a century long. Nobody could speak. At a glance the +doctor saw that they were not bearing the sad burden he had feared. + +"Not found her?" he gasped. + +"No, doctor," replied one nearest him, laying his hand on his arm. + +"Then by God what have you come away for! have you got the souls of men +in you?" exclaimed Eben Williams, in a voice which seemed to shake the +very trees, as he plunged onward. + +"It's no use, doctor," they replied sadly. + +"We found her boat bottom up, and one of the oars; and it was hours +since it capsized." + +"What then!" he shouted back. "My wife was as strong as any man: she +can't have drowned; Hetty can't have drowned;" and his horse's hoofs +struck sparks from the stones as he galloped on. A few of the younger +men turned back and followed him; but, when they reached the lake, he +was nowhere to be seen. Old Caesar, who was sitting on the ground, his +head buried on his knees, said: + +"He wouldn't hear a word. He jest jumped into one of thim boats, and he +was gone like lightning: he's 'way across the lake by this time." + +Silently the young men re-entered their boats and rowed out, carrying +torches. Presently they overtook the doctor. + +"Oh, thank God for that light!" he exclaimed, "Give one to me; let me +have it here in my boat: I shall find her." + +Like a being of superhuman strength, the doctor rowed; no one could keep +up with him. Round and round the lake, into every inlet, close under +the shadows of the islands; again and again, over every mile of that +treacherous, glassy, beautiful water, he rowed, calling every few +moments, in heart-breaking tones, "Hetty! Hetty! Hetty! I am here, +Hetty!" + +As the hours wore on, his strength began to flag; he rowed more and more +slowly: but, when they begged him to give over the search, and return +home, he replied impatiently. "Never! I'll never leave this lake till I +find her." It was useless to reason with him. He hardly heard the words. +At last, his friends, worn out by the long strain, rowed to the shore, +and left him alone. As he bade them good-by, he groaned, "Oh, God! will +it never be morning? If only it were light, I am sure I should find +some trace of her." But, when the morning broke, the pitiless lake shone +clear and still, and all the hopelessness of his search flashed on the +bereaved man's mind: he dropped his oars, and gazed vacantly over +the rippleless surface. Then he buried his face in his hands, and sat +motionless for a long time: he was trying to recall Hetty's last looks, +last words. He recollected her last kisses. "It was as if they were to +bid me good-bye," he thought. Presently, he took up the oars and rowed +back to the shore. Old Caesar still sat there on the ground. The doctor +touched him on the shoulder. He lifted a face so wan, so altered, that +the doctor started. + +"My poor old fellow," he said, "you ought not to have sat here all +night. We will go home now. There is nothing more to be done." + +"Oh, yer ain't a goin' to give up, doctor, be yer?" cried Caesar. "Oh, +don't never give up. She must be here somewheres. Bodies floats allers +in fresh water: she'll come to shore before long. Oh, don't give up! +I'll set here an' watch, an' you go home an' git somethin' to eat. You +looks dreadful." + +"No, no, Caesar," the doctor replied, with the first tears he had felt +yet welling up in his eyes, "you must come home with me. There is no +hope of finding her." + +Caesar did not move, but fixed a sullen gaze on the water. The doctor +spoke again, more firmly: + +"You must come, Caesar. Your mistress would tell you so herself." At this +Caesar rose, docile, and the two went home in silence through the hemlock +woods. + +For three days the search for Hetty continued. It was suggested that +possibly she might have gone over to the Springton shore for some +purpose, and there have met with some accident or assault. This +suggestion opened up new vistas of conjecture, almost more terrible than +the certainty of her death would have been. Parties of three and four +scoured the woods in all directions. Again and again Dr. Eben passed +over the spot where she had lain crouched so long: the bushes which had +been brushed back as she passed, bent back again to let him go over her +very footsteps; but nothing could speak to betray her secret. Nature +seems most mute when we most need her help: she keeps, through all +our distresses, a sort of dumb and faithful neutrality, which is not, +perhaps, so devoid of sympathy as it appears. + +After the third day was over, it was accepted by tacit consent that +farther search would be useless. Hetty was mourned as dead: in every +home her name was tenderly and sorrowingly spoken; old memories of her +gay and mirthful youth, of her cheery and busy womanhood, were revived +and dwelt upon. But in her own home was silence that could be felt. The +grief there was grief that could not speak. Only little Raby, of all the +household, found words to use; and his childish and inconsolable laments +made the speechless anguish around him all the greater. To Dr. Eben, the +very sight of the child was a bitter and unreasonable pain. Except for +Raby, he thought, Hetty would still be alive. He had never approved of +her taking him on the water; had remonstrated with her in the beginning, +but had been overruled by her impetuous confidence in her own strength +and skill. Now, as often as he saw the poor little fellow's woe-begone +face, he had a strange mixture of pity and hatred towards him. In vain +he reasoned against it. "He has lost his best friend, as well as I," he +said to himself; "I ought to try to comfort him." But it was impossible: +the child's presence grew more and more irksome to him, until, at last, +he said to Sally, one day: + +"Sally, you and Raby are both looking very ill. I want you to go away +for a time. How would you like to go to 'The Runs,' for a month?" + +"Oh, not there, dear doctor! please do not send us there!" cried Sally. +"Indeed I could not bear it. We might go to father's for a while. That +would be change enough; and Raby would have children to play with there, +in the village, all the time, and that would be the best thing for him." + +So Jim and Sally went to Deacon Little's to stay for a time. Mrs. Little +welcomed them with a cordiality which it would have done Hetty's heart +good to see. Her old aversion to Sally had been so thoroughly conquered +that she was more than half persuaded in her own mind it had never +existed. When the doctor was left alone in the house, he found it easier +to bear the burden of his grief. It is only after the first shock of +a great sorrow is past that we are helped by faces and voices and the +clasping of hands. At the first, there is but one help, but one healing; +and that is solitude. + +Dr. Eben came out from this grief an altered man. Poor Hetty! How little +she had understood her value to her husband! Could she have seen him +walking slowly from house to house, his eyes fixed on the ground, his +head bent forward; all his old elasticity of tread gone; his ready +smile gone; the light, glad look of his eyes gone,--how would she have +repented her rash and cruel deed! how would the scales have fallen from +her eyes, revealing to her the monstrous misapprehension to which she +had sacrificed her life and his! Even long after people had ceased to +talk about Hetty's death, or to remember it unless they saw the doctor, +the first sight of his tall bowed figure recalled it all; and again +and again, as he passed men on the street, they turned and said to each +other, with a sad shake of the head: + +"He's never got over it." + +"No, nor ever will." + +On the surface, life seemed to be going on at "Gunn's" much as before. +Jim and Sally and Raby made a family centre, to which the lonely doctor +attached himself more and more. He came more and more to feel that Raby +was a legacy left by Hetty to him. He had ceased to have any unjust +resentment towards the child from his innocent association with her +death: he knew that she had loved the boy as if he were her own; and, +in his long sad reveries about the future, he found a sort of melancholy +pleasure in planning for Raby as he would have done had he been Hetty's +child. These plans for Raby, and his own devotion to his profession, +were Dr. Eben's only pleasure. He was fast becoming a physician of note. +He was frequently sent for in consultation to all parts of the county; +and his contributions to medical journals were held in high esteem. The +physician, the student, had gained unspeakably by the loss which had so +nearly crushed the man. + +Development and strength, gained at such cost, are like harvests +springing out of land which had to be burned black with fire before it +would yield its increase. + + + + +XIII. + +Hetty first entered the village of St. Mary's at sunset. The chapel bell +was ringing for the Angelus, and as the nondescipt little vehicle, half +diligence half coach, crept through the sandy streets, Hetty, looking +eagerly out, saw men, women, and children falling on their knees by the +road-side. She recollected having noted this custom when she was in +St. Mary's before: then it had seemed to her senseless mummery; now it +seemed beautiful. Hetty had just come through dark places, in which she +had wanted help from God more than she had ever in her life wanted it; +and these evident signs of faith, of an established relation between +earth and heaven, fell most gratefully upon her aching heart. The +village of St. Mary's is a mere handful of houses, on a narrow stretch +of sandy plain, lying between two forests of firs. Many years ago, +hunters, finding in the depths of these forests springs of great +medicinal value, made a little clearing about them, and built there +a few rough shanties to which they might at any time resort for the +waters. Gradually, the fame of the waters was noised abroad, and drew +settlers to the spot. The clearing was widened; houses were built; +a village grew up; line after line, as a new street was needed, the +forests were cut down, but remained still a solid, dark-green wall and +background to the east and the west. On the outskirts of the village, in +the edge of the western forest, stood the Roman Catholic chapel,--a low +wooden building, painted red, and having a huge silver cross on the top. + +At the moment of Hetty's arrival, a burial service was just about +to take place in this little chapel, and the procession was slowly +approaching: the priest walking in front, lifting up a high gilt +crucifix; a little white-robed acolyte carrying holy water in a silver +basin; a few Sisters of Charity with their long black gowns and flapping +white bonnets; behind these the weeping villagers, bearing the coffin on +a rude sort of litter. As Hetty saw this procession, she was seized with +an irresistible desire to join it. She was the only passenger in the +diligence, and the door was locked. She called to the driver, and at +last succeeded in making him hear, and also understand that she wished +to be set down immediately: she would walk on to the inn. She wished +first to go into the church. The driver was a good Catholic; very +seriously he said: "It is bad luck to say one's prayers while there is +going on the mass for the dead; there is another chapel which Madame +would find less sad at this hour. It is only a short distance farther +on." + +But Hetty reiterated her request; and the driver, shrugging his +shoulders, and saying in an altered tone: + +"As Madame pleases; it is all the same to me: nevertheless, it is bad +luck;" assisted her to alight. + +The procession had just entered the church. Dim lights twinkled on the +altar, and a smell of incense filled the place. Hetty fell on her knees +with the rest, and prayed for those she had left behind her. Her prayer +was simple and short, repeated many times: "Oh God, make them happy! +make them happy!" When the mass was over, Hetty waited near the door, +and watched anxiously to see if the priest were the same whom her father +had known so well twenty years before. Yes, it was--no--could this be +Father Antoine? This fat, red-faced, jovial-looking old man? Father +Antoine had been young, slender and fair; but there was no mistaking the +calm and serious hazel eyes. It was Father Antoine, but how changed! + +"If I have changed as much as that," thought Hetty, "he'll never believe +I am I; and I dare say I have. Dear me, what a frightful thing is this +old age!" + +Hetty had resolved, in the outset, that she would take Father Antoine +into her confidence. She knew the sacredness of secrecy in which Roman +Catholic priests are accustomed to hold all confessions made to them. +She felt that her secret would be too heavy to bear unshared, and that +times might arise when she would need advice or help from one knowing +all the truth. + +Early the next morning, she went to Father Antoine's house. The good old +man was at work in his garden. His little cottage was surrounded by beds +which were gay with flowers from June till November. Nothing was left +in bloom now, except asters and chrysanthemums: but there was no flower, +not even his July carnations, in which he took such pride, as in his +chrysanthemums. As he heard the little gate shut, he looked up; saw that +it was a stranger; and came forward to meet her, bearing in his hand one +great wine-colored chrysanthemum blossom, as large as a blush rose: + +"Is it to see me, daughter?" he said, with his inalienable old French +courtesy. Father Antoine had come of a race which had noble blood in its +veins. His ancestry had worn swords, and lived at courts, and Antoine +Ladeau never once, in his half century of work in these Canadian +forests, forgot that fact. Hetty looked him full in the face, and +colored scarlet, before she began to speak. + +"You do not remember me," she said. + +Father Antoine shook his head. "It is that I see so many faces each +year," he replied apologetically, "that it is not possible to remember;" +and he gazed earnestly into Hetty's expressive face. + +"It is twenty years since I was here," Hetty continued. She felt a great +longing that Father Antoine should recollect her. It would seem to make +her task easier. + +A reminiscence dawned on the priest's mind. "Twenty years?" he said, +"ah, but that is long! we were both young then. Is it--ah, is it +possible that it is the daughter with the father that I see?" Father +Antoine had never forgotten the beautiful relation between Hetty and her +father. + +"Yes, I came with my father: you knew him very well," replied Hetty, +"and I always thought then that, if I had any trouble, I would like to +have you help me." + +Father Antoine's merry face clouded over instantly. "And have you +trouble, my daughter? If the good God permits that I help you, I shall +be glad. I had a love for your father. He is no longer alive, or you +would not be in trouble;" and, leading Hetty into his little study, +Father Antoine sat down opposite her, and said: + +"Tell me, my daughter." + +Hetty's voice trembled, and tears filled her eyes: sympathy was harder +to bear than loneliness. The story was hard to tell, but she told it, +without pause, without reserve. Father Antoine's face grew stern as she +proceeded. When she ceased speaking, he said: + +"My daughter, you have sinned; sinned grievously: you must return +to your husband. You have violated a holy sacrament of the Church. I +command you to return to your husband." + +Hetty stared at him in undisguised wonder. At last she said: + +"Why do you speak to me like that, sir? I can obey no man: only my own +conscience is my law. I will never return to my husband." + +"The Church is the conscience of all her erring children," replied +Father Antoine, "and disobedience is at the peril of one's soul. I lay +it upon you, as the command of the Church, that you return, my daughter. +You have sinned most grievously." + +"Oh," said Hetty, with apparent irrelevance. "I understand now. You took +me for a Catholic." + +It was Father Antoine's turn to stare. + +"Why then, if you are not, came you to me?" he said sternly. "I am here +only as priest." + +Hetty clasped her hands, and said pleadingly: + +"Oh no! not only as priest: you are a good man. My father always said +so. We were not Catholics; and I could not be of any other religion than +my father's, now he is dead," (here Hetty unconsciously touched a +chord in Antoine Ladeau's breast, which gave quick response): "but I +recollected how he trusted you, and I said, if I can hide myself in that +little village, Father Antoine will be good to me for my father's sake. +But you must not tell me to go back to my home: no one can judge about +that but me. The thing I have done is best: I shall not go back. And, if +you will not keep my secret and be my friend, I will go away at once and +hide myself in some other place still farther away, and will ask no one +again to be my friend, ever till I die!" + +Father Antoine was perplexed. All the blood of ancient knighthood which +was in his veins was stirred with chivalrous desire to help Hetty: +but, on the other hand, both as man and as priest, he felt that she +had committed a great wrong, and that he could not even appear to +countenance it. He studied Hetty's face: in spite of its evident marks +of pain, it was as indomitable as rock. + +"You have the old Huguenot soul, my daughter," he said. "Antoine Ladeau +knows better than to try to cause you to swerve from the path you have +chosen. But the good God can give you light: it may be that he has +directed you here to find it in his true Church. Be sure that your +father was a good Catholic at heart." + +"Oh, no! he wasn't," exclaimed Hetty, impetuously. "There was nothing +he disliked so much as a Catholic. He always said you were the only +Catholic he ever saw that he could trust" + +Father Antoine's rosy face turned rosier. He was not used among his +docile Canadians to any such speech as this. The unvarnished fashions of +New England honesty grated on his ear. + +"It is not well for men of one religion to rail at the men of another," +he said gravely. "I doubt not, there are those whom the Lord loves in +all religions; but there is but one true Church." + +"Forgive me," said Hetty, in a meeker tone. "I did not mean to be rude: +but I thought I ought not to let you have such a mistaken idea about +father. Oh, please, be my friend, Father Antoine!" + +Father Antoine was silent for a time. Never had he been so sorely +perplexed. The priest and the man were arrayed against each other. + +Presently he said: + +"What is it that you would have me do, my daughter? I do not see that +there is any thing; since you have so firm a will and acknowledge not +the Church." + +"Oh!" said Hetty, perceiving that he relented, "there is not any thing +that I want you to do, exactly. I only want to feel that there is one +person who knows all about me, and will keep my secret, and is willing +to be my friend. I shall not want any help about any thing, unless it is +to get work; but I suppose they always want nurses here. There will be +plenty to do." + +"Daughter, I will keep your secret," said Father Antoine, solemnly: +"about that you need have had no fear. No man of my race has ever +betrayed a trust; and I will be your friend, if you need aught that I +can do, while you choose to live in this place. But I shall pray daily +to the good God to open your eyes, and make you see that you are living +in heinous sin each day that you live away from your husband;" and +Father Antoine rose with the involuntary habit of the priest of +dismissing a parishioner when there was no more needful to be said. +Hetty took her leave with a feeling of meek gratitude, hitherto unknown +in her bosom. Spite of Father Antoine's disapproval, spite of his +arbitrary Romanism, she trusted and liked him. + +"It is no matter if he does think me wrong," she said to herself. "That +needn't disturb me if I know I am right. I think he is wrong to pray to +the Virgin and the saints." + +Hetty had brought with her a sum of money more than sufficient to buy +a little cottage, and fit it up with all needful comforts. She had no +sentimental dispositions towards deprivation and wretchedness. All her +plannings looked toward a useful, cheery, comfortable life. Among her +purchases were gardening utensils, which she could use herself, and +seeds and shrubs suited to the soil of St. Mary's. Strangely enough, the +only cottage which she could find at all adapted to her purpose was one +very near Father Antoine's, and almost precisely like it. It stood in +the edge of the forest, and had still left in its enclosure many of the +stumps of recently felled trees. All Hetty's farmer's instincts revived +in full force; and, only a few days after Father Antoine's conversation +with her, he found her one morning superintending the uprooting of these +stumps, and making preparations for grading the land. As he watched her +active movements, energetic tones, and fresh open face, he fell into a +maze of wondering thought. This was no morbid sentimentalist; no pining, +heart-broken woman. Except that truthfulness was stamped on every +lineament of Hetty's countenance, Father Antoine would have doubted her +story; and, except that her every act showed such vigorous common sense, +he would have doubted her sanity. As it was, his perplexity deepened; +so also did his interest in her. It was impossible not to admire this +brisk, kindly, outspoken woman, who already moved about in the village +with a certain air of motherly interest in every thing and everybody; +had already begun to "help" in her own sturdy fashion, and had already +won the goodwill of old and young. + +"The good God will surely open her eyes in his own time," thought Father +Antoine, and in his heart he pondered much what a good thing it would +be, if, when that time came, Hetty could be persuaded to become the Lady +Superior of the Convent of the Bleeding Heart, only a few miles from St. +Mary's. "She is born for an abbess," he said to himself: "her will is +like the will of a man, but she is full of succor and tender offices. +She would be a second Angelique, in her fervor and zeal." And the good +old priest said rosaries full of prayers for Hetty, night and day. + +There were two "Houses of Cure" in St. Mary's, both under the care of +skilful physicians, who made specialties of treatment with the waters of +the springs. One of these physicians was a Roman Catholic, and employed +no nurses except the Sisters from the Convent of the Bleeding Heart. +They came in turn, in bands of six or eight; and stayed three months +at a time. In the other House, under the care of an English physician, +nurses were hired without reference to their religion. As soon as +Hetty's house was all in order, and her shrubs and trees set out, +she went one morning to this House, and asked to see the physician in +charge. With characteristic brevity, she stated that she had come to +St. Mary's to earn her living as a nurse, and would like to secure a +situation. The doctor looked at her scrutinizingly. + +"Have you ever nursed?" + +"No, sir." + +"What do you know about it then?" + +"I have seen a great many sick people." + +"How was that?" + +Hetty hesitated, but with some confusion replied: + +"My husband was a doctor, and I often went with him to see his +patients." + +"You are a widow then?" + +"No, sir." + +"What then?" said the physician, severely. + +Poor Hetty! She rose to her feet; but, recollecting that she had no +right to be indignant, sat down, and replied in a trembling voice: + +"I cannot tell you, sir, any thing about my trouble. I have come here to +live, and I want to be a nurse." + +"Father Antoine knows me," she added, with dignity. + +Father Antoine's name was a passport. Doctor Macgowan had often wished +that he could have all his nurses from the convent. + +"You are a Catholic, then?" he said. + +"No, indeed!" exclaimed Hetty, emphatically. "I am nothing of the sort." + +"How is it that you mention Father Antoine, then?" + +"He knew my father well, and me also, years ago; and he is the only +friend I have here." + +Dr. Macgowan had an Englishman's instinctive dislike of unexplained +things and mysterious people. But Hetty's face and voice were better +than pedigrees and certificates. Her confident reference to Father +Antoine was also enough to allay any immediate uneasiness, and, "for +the rest, time will show," thought the doctor; and, without any farther +delay, he engaged Hetty as one of the day nurses in his establishment. +In after years Dr. Macgowan often looked back to this morning, and +thought, with the sort of shudder with which one looks back on a danger +barely escaped: + +"Good God! what if I had let that woman go?" + +All Hetty's native traits especially adapted her to the profession of +nursing; and her superb physical health was of itself a blessing to +every sick man or sick woman with whom she came in contact. Before she +had been in Dr. Macgowan's house one week, all the patients had learned +to listen in the morning for her step and her voice: they all wanted +her, and begged to be put under her charge. + +"Really, Mrs. Smailli, I shall have to cut you up into parcels," said +the doctor one day: "there is not enough of you to go round. You have +a marvellous knack at making sick people like you. Did you really never +nurse before?" + +"Not with my hands and feet," replied Hetty, "but I think I have always +been a nurse at heart. I have always been so well that to be sick seems +to me the most dreadful thing in the world. I believe it is the only +trouble I couldn't bear." + +"You do not look as if you had ever had any very hard trouble of any +kind," said the doctor in a light tone, but watching keenly the effect +of his words. + +Dr. Macgowan was beginning to be tormented by a great desire to know +more in regard to his new nurse. Father Antoine's guarded replies to all +his inquiries about her had only stimulated his curiosity. + +"She is a good woman. You may trust her with all your house," Father +Antoine had said; and had told the doctor that he had known both her and +her father twenty years ago. More than this he would not say, farther +than to express the opinion that she would live and die in St. Mary's, +and devote herself to her work so long as she lived. + +"She has for it a grand vocation, as we say." + +Father Antoine exclaimed, "A grand vocation! Ah! if we but had her in +our convent!" + +"You'll never get her there as long as I'm alive, Father Antoine!" Dr. +Macgowan had replied. "You may count upon that." + +When Dr. Macgowan said to Hetty: + +"You do not look as if you had ever had any very hard trouble of any +kind," Hetty looked in his face eagerly, and answered: + +"Do I not, really? I am so thankful, doctor! I have always had such +a dread of looking woe-begone, and making everybody around me +uncomfortable. I think that's a sin, if one can possibly help it." + +And by no sudden surprise of remark or question, could the doctor ever +come any nearer to Hetty's trouble than this. Her words always glanced +off from direct personal issues, as subtlely and successfully as if she +had been a practised diplomatist. Sometimes these perpetual evadings and +non-committals seemed to Dr. Macgowan like art; but they were really the +very simplicity of absolute unselfishness; and, gradually, as he came to +perceive and understand this, he came to have a reverence for Hetty. He +began to be ashamed of the curiosity he had felt as to the details of +the sorrow which had driven her to this refuge of isolation and hard +work. He began to feel about her as Father Antoine did, that there was +a certain sacredness in her vocation which almost demanded a recognition +of title, an investiture of office. Hetty would have been astonished, +and would have very likely laughed, had she known with what a halo +of sentiment her daily life was fast being surrounded in the minds of +people. To her it was simply a routine of good, wholesome work; of a +kind for which she was best fitted, and which enabled her to earn a +comfortable living most easily to herself, and most helpfully to others; +and left her "less time to think," as she often said to herself, "than +any thing else I could possibly have done." "Time to think" was the one +thing Hetty dreaded. As resolutely as if they were a sin, she strove to +keep out of her mind all reminiscences of her home, all thoughts of her +husband, of Raby. Whenever she gave way to them, she was unfitted for +work; and, therefore, her conscience said they were wrong. While she was +face to face with suffering ones, and her hands were busy in ministering +to their wants, such thoughts never intruded upon her. It was literally +true that, in such hours, she never recollected that she was any other +than Hibba Smailli, the nurse. But, when her day's work was done, and +she went home to the little lonely cottage, memories flocked in at the +silent door, shut themselves in with her, and refused to be banished. +Hence she formed the habit of lingering in the street, of chatting with +the villagers on their door-steps, playing with the children, and +often, when there was illness in any of the houses, going into them, and +volunteering her services as nurse. + +The St. Mary's people were, almost without exception, of French descent, +and still kept up many of the old French customs of out-door _fetes_ +and ceremonies. Hetty found their joyous, child-like ways and manners +singularly attractive and interesting. After the grim composure, and +substantial, reflective methods of her New England life, the _abandon_ +and unthinkingness of these French-Canadians were bewildering and +delightful to her. + +"The whole town is every night like a Sunday-school picnic in our +country," she said once to Father Antoine. "What children all these +people are!" + +"Yes, daughter, it is so," replied the priest; "and it is well. Does not +our good Lord say that we cannot enter into His kingdom except we become +as little children?" + +"Yes, I know," replied Hetty; "but I don't believe this is exactly what +he meant, do you?" + +"A part of what he meant," answered the priest; "not all. First, +docility; and, second, joy: that is what the Church teaches." + +"Your Church is better than ours in that respect," said Hetty candidly: +"ours doesn't teach joy; it is pretty much all terror." + +"Should a child know terror of its mother?" asked Father Antoine. "The +Church is mother, and the Holy Virgin is mother. Ah, daughter! it will +be a glad day when I see you in the beautiful sheltering arms." + +Tears sometimes came to Hetty's eyes at such words as these; and +good Father Antoine went with renewed fervor to his prayers for her +conversion. + +In the centre of the village was a square laid out in winding paths, and +surrounded by fir trees. In the middle of this square was a great stone +basin, in which a spring perpetually bubbled up; the basin had a broad +brim, on which the villagers sat when they came of an evening to fill +jugs and bottles with the water. On a bright summer night, the circle +would often widen and widen, by men throwing themselves on the ground; +children toddling from knee to knee; groups standing in eager talk here +and there, until it seemed as if the whole village were gathered around +the spring. These were the times when all the village affairs were +discussed, and all the village gossip retailed from neighbor to +neighbor. The scene was as gay and picturesque as you might see in a +little town of Brittany; and the jargon of the Canadian _patois_ much +more confusing than any dialect one would hear on French soil. Hetty's +New England tongue utterly refused to learn this new mode of speech; but +her quick and retentive ear soon learned its meanings sufficiently to +follow the people in their talk. She often made one of this evening +circle at the spring, and it was a pleasant sight to see the quick stir +of welcome with which her approach was observed. + +"Here comes the good Aunt Hibba from the Doctor's House," and mothers +would push children away, and gossips would crowd, and men would stand +up, all to make room for Hetty: then they would gather about her, and +those who could speak English would translate for those who could not; +and everybody would have something to tell her. It was an odd thing that +lovers sought her more than any one else. Many a quarrel Aunt Hibba's +good sense healed over; and many a worthless fellow was sent about his +business, as he deserved to be, because Aunt Hibba took his sweetheart +in hand, and made her see the rights of things. If a traveller, +strolling about St. Mary's of a June night, had come upon these +chattering groups, and seen how they centred around the sturdy, +genial-faced woman, in a straight gray gown and a close white cap, he +would have been arrested by the picture at once; and have wondered much +who and what Hetty could be: but if you had told him that she was a +farmer's daughter from Northern New England, he would have laughed in +your face, and said, "Nonsense! she belongs to some of the Orders." Very +emphatically would he have said this, if it had chanced to be on one +of the evenings when Father Antoine was walking by Hetty's side. Father +Antoine knew her custom of lingering at the great spring, and sometimes +walked down there at sunset to meet her, to observe her talk with the +villagers, and to walk home with her later. Nothing could be stronger +proof of the reverence in which the whole village held Hetty, than the +fact that it seemed to them all the most fitting and natural thing that +she and Father Antoine should stand side by side speaking to the people, +should walk away side by side in earnest conversation with each other. +If any man had ventured upon a jest or a ribald word concerning them, +a dozen quick hands would have given him a plunge headforemost into +the great stone basin, which was the commonest expression of popular +indignation in St. Mary's; a practice which, strangely enough, did not +appear to interfere with anybody's relish of the waters. + +Father Antoine had an old servant woman, Marie, who had lived in the +Ladeau family since before he was born. She had been by the deathbed of +his mother, his father, his grandmother, and of an uncle who had died +at some German watering-place: wherever a Ladeau was in any need of +service, thither hasted Marie; and if the need were from illness, Marie +was all the happier; to lie like a hound on the floor all night, and +watch by a sick and suffering Ladeau, was to Marie joy. When the young +Antoine had set out for the wildernesses of North America, Marie had +prayed to be allowed to come with him; and when he refused she had wept +till she fell ill. At the last moment he relented, and bore the poor +creature on board ship, wondering within himself if he would be able to +keep her alive in the forests. But as soon as there was work to do for +him she revived; and all these years she had kept his house, and cared +for him as if he were her son. From the day of Hetty's first arrival, +old Marie had adopted her into her affections: no one, not born +a Ladeau, ever had won such liking from Marie. Much to Hetty's +embarrassment, whenever she met her, she insisted on kissing her hand, +after the fashion of the humble servitors of great houses in France. +Probably, in all these long years of solitary service with Father +Antoine, Marie had pined for the sight of some one of her own sex, to +whom she could give allegiance, for she was fond of telling long stories +about the beautiful ladies of the house of Ladeau; and how she had +attired them for balls, and had seen them ride away with cavaliers. +There was neither splendor nor beauty in Hetty to attract Marie's fancy; +but Marie had a religious side to her nature, almost as strong as the +worldly and passionate one. She saw in Hetty's labors an exaltation of +devotion which reminded her of noble ladies who had done penances and +taken pilgrimages in her own country. Father Antoine's friendship for +Hetty, so unlike any thing Marie had seen him feel towards any woman he +had met in these wilds, also stimulated her fancy. + +"Ah! but it is good that he has at last a friend to whom he may speak as +a Ladeau should speak. May the saints keep her! she has the good heart +of one the Virgin loves," said Marie, and many a candle did she buy +and keep burning on the convent's shrines for Hetty's protection and +conversion. + +One night Marie overheard Father Antoine say to Hetty, as he bade her +good-night at the garden gate: + +"My daughter, you look better and younger every day." + +"Do I?" replied Hetty, cheerfully: "that's an odd thing for a woman so +old as I am. My birthday is next month. I shall be forty-six." + +"Youth is not a matter of years," replied Father Antoine. "I have known +very young women much older than you." Hetty smiled sadly, and walked +on. Father Antoine's words had given her a pang. They were almost the +same words which Dr. Eben had said to her again and again, when she had +reasoned with him against his love for her, a woman so much older +than himself. "That is all very well to say," thought Hetty in her +matter-of-fact way, "and no doubt there are great differences in people: +but old age is old age, soften it how you will; and youth is youth; and +youth is beautiful, and old age is ugly. Father Antoine knows it just as +well as any man. Don't I see, good as he is, every day of my life, with +what a different look he blesses the fair young maidens from that with +which he blesses the wrinkled old women. There is no use minding it. +It can't be helped. But things might as well be called by their right +names." + +Marie sat down on a garden bench, and reflected. So the good Aunt +Hibba's birthday was next month, and there would be nobody to keep it +for her in this strange country. "How can we find out?" thought Marie, +"and give her a pleasure." + +In summer weather, Father Antoine took his simple dinners on the porch. +It was cool there, and the vines and flowers gave to the little nook a +certain air of elegance which Father Antoine enjoyed without recognizing +why. On this evening Marie lingered after she had removed the table. +She fidgeted about, picking up a leaf here and there, and looking at her +master, till he perceived that she had something on her mind. + +"What is it, Marie?" he asked. + +"Oh, M'sieur Antoine!" she replied, "it is about the good Aunt Hibba's +birthday. Could you not ask her when is the day? and it should be a +_fete_ day, if we only knew it; there is not one that would not be glad +to help make it beautiful." + +"Eh, my Marie, what is it then that you plan? The people in the country +from which she comes have no _fetes_. It might be that she would think +it a folly," answered Father Antoine, by no means sure that Hetty would +like such a testimonial. + +"All the more, then, she would like it," said Marie. "I have watched +her. It is delight to her when they dance about the spring, and she has +the great love for flowers." + +So Father Antoine, by a little circumlocution, discovered when the +birthday would come, and told Marie; and Marie began straightway to go +back and forth in the village, with a pleased air of mystery. + + + + +XIV. + +The birthday fell on a day in June. It so happened that Hetty was later +than usual in leaving her patients that night; and her purpose had been +to go home by the nearest way, and not pass through the Square. The +villagers had feared this, and had forestalled her; at the turning +where she would have left the main road, she found waiting for her the +swiftest-footed urchin in all St. Mary's, little Pierre Michaud. The +readiest witted, too, and of the freest tongue, and he was charged to +bring Aunt Hibba by the way of the Square, but by no means to tell her +the reason. + +"And if she say me nay, what is it that I am to tell her, then?" urged +Pierrre. + +"Art thou a fool, Pierre?" said his mother, sharply. "Thou'rt ready +enough with excuses, I'll warrant, for thy own purposes: invent one now. +It matters not, so that thou bring her here." And Pierre, reassured by +this maternal _carte blanche_ for the best lie he could think of, raced +away, first tucking securely into a niche of the stone basin the little +pot with a red carnation in it which he had brought for his contribution +to the birthday _fete_. + +When Hetty saw Pierre waiting at the corner, she exclaimed: + +"What, Pierre, loitering here! The sunset is no time to idle. Where are +your goats?" + +"Milked an hour ago, Tantibba,[1] and in the shed," replied Pierre, with +a saucy air of having the best of the argument, "and my mother waits in +the Square to speak to thee as thou passest." + +"I was not going that way, to-night," replied Hetty. "I am in haste. +What does she wish? Will it not do as well in the morning?" + +Alarmed at this suggestion, young Pierre made a master-stroke of +invention, and replied on the instant: + +"Nay, Bo Tantibba,[2] that it will not; for it is the little sister of +Jean Cochot which has been badly bitten by a fierce dog, and the mother +has her there in her arms waiting for thee to dress her wounds. Oh, but +the blood doth run! and the little one's cries would pierce thy heart!" +And the rascally Pierre pretended to sob. + +[Footnote 1: "Tante Hibba."] + +[Footnote 2: The French Canadians often contract "bonne" and "bon" in +this way. "Bo Tantibba" is contraction for "Bonne Tante Hibba."] + +"Eh, eh, how happened that?" said Hetty, hurrying on so swiftly towards +the Square that even Pierre's brisk little legs could hardly keep up +with her. Pierre's inventive faculty came to a halt. + +"Nay, that I do not know," he replied; "but the people are all gathered +around her, and they all cry out for thee by thy name. There is none +like thee, Tantibba, they say, if one has a wound." + +Hetty quickened her pace to a run. As she entered the Square, she +saw such crowds around the basin that Pierre's tale seemed amply +corroborated. Pressing in at the outer edge of the circle, she +exclaimed, looking to right and left, "Where is the child? Where is Mere +Michaud?" Every one looked bewildered; no one answered. Pierre, with an +upward fling of his agile legs, disappeared to seek his carnation; +and Hetty found herself, in an instant more, surrounded by a crowd of +children, each in its finest clothes, and each bearing a small pot with +a flowering-plant in it. + +"For thee! For thee! The good saints bless the day thou wert born!" they +all cried, pressing nearer, and lifting high their little pots. "See +my carnation!" shouted Pierre, struggling nearer to Hetty. "And +my jonquil!" "And my pansies!" "And this forget-me-not!" cried the +children, growing more and more excited each moment; while the chorus, +"For thee! For thee! The good saints bless the day thou wert born!" rose +on all sides. + +Hetty was bewildered. + +"What does all this mean?" she said helplessly. + +Then, catching Pierre by the shoulder so suddenly that his red carnation +tottered and nearly fell, she exclaimed: + +"You mischievous boy! Where is the child that was bitten? Have you told +me a lie?" + +At this moment, Pierre's mother, pushing through the crowd, exclaimed: + +"Ah! but thou must forgive him. It was I that sent him to lie to thee, +that thou shouldst not go home. We go with thee, to do our honor to the +day on which thou wert born!" + +And so saying, Mere Michaud turned, and swinging high up in the air one +end of a long wreath of feathery ground-pine, led off the procession. +The rest followed in preconcerted order, till some forty men and women, +all linked together by the swinging loops of the pine wreath, were in +line. Then they suddenly wheeled and surrounded the bewildered Hetty, +and bore her with them. The children, carrying their little pots of +flowers, ran along shouting and screaming with laughter to see the good +"Tantibba" so amazed. Louder and louder rose the chorus: + +"For thee! For thee! May the good saints bless the day thou wert born!" + +Hetty was speechless: her cheeks flushed. She looked from one to the +other, and all she could do was to clasp her hands and smile. If she +had spoken, she would have cried. When they came to Father Antoine's +cottage, there he stood waiting at the gate, wearing his Sunday robes, +and behind him stood Marie, also in her best, and with her broad silver +necklace on, which the villagers had only two or three times seen her +wear. Marie had her hands behind her, and was trying to hold out her +narrow black petticoat on each side to hide something. Mysterious and +plaintive noises struggled through the woollen folds, and, at each +sound, Marie stamped her foot and exclaimed angrily: + +"Bah! thou silly beast, be quiet! Wilt thou spoil all our sport?" + +The procession halted before the house, and Father Antoine advanced, +bearing in his hands a gay wreath of flowers. The people had wished that +this should be placed on Hetty's head, but Father Antoine had persuaded +them to waive this part of the ceremony. He knew well that this would be +more than Hetty could bear. Holding the wreath in his hands, therefore, +he addressed a few words to Hetty, and then took his place by her side. +Now was Marie's moment of joy. Springing to one side as quickly as her +rheumatic old joints would permit, she revealed what she had been trying +to hide behind her scant petticoat. It was a white lamb, decorated from +ears to tail with knots of ribbon and with flowers. The poor little +thing tugged hard at the string by which it was held, and shook its +pretty head in restless impatience under its load of finery, and bleated +piteously: but for all that it was a very pretty sight; and the broken +English with which Marie, on behalf of the villagers, presented the +little creature to Hetty, was prettier still. When they reached Hetty's +gate, all the women who had hold of the long pine wreath gave their +places to men; and, in the twinkling of an eye, the lithe vigorous +fellows were on the fences, on the posts of the porch, nailing the +wreath in festoons everywhere; from the gateway to the door in long +swinging loops, above the porch, in festoons over the windows, under the +eaves, and hanging in long waving ends on the walls. Then they hung upon +the door the crown which Hetty had not worn, and the little children set +their gay pots of flowers on the window-sills and around the porch; +and all was a merry hubbub of voices and laughter. Hetty grasped Father +Antoine by the arm. + +"Oh, do you speak to them, and thank them for me! I can't!" she said; +and Father Antoine saw tears in her eyes. + +"But you must speak to them, my daughter," he replied, "else they will +be grieved. They cannot understand that you are pleased if you say no +word. I will speak first till you are more calm." + +When Father Antoine had finished his speech, Hetty stepped forward, and +looking round on all their faces, said: + +"I do not know how to thank you, friends. I never saw any thing like +this before, and it makes me dumb. All I can say is that you have filled +my heart with joy, and I feel no more a stranger: your village is my +home." + +"Thanks to thee, then, for that! Thanks to thee! And the good saints +bless the day thou wert born," shouted the people, and the little +children catching the enthusiasm, and wanting to shout something, +shouted: "Bo Tantibba! Bo Tantibba!" till the place rang. Then they +placed the pet lamb in a little enclosed paddock which had been built +for him during the day, and the children fed him with red clover +blossoms through the paling; and presently, Father Antoine considerately +led his flock away, saying,--"The good Aunt is weary. See you not that +her eyes droop, and she has no words? It is now kind that we go away, +and leave her to rest." + +As the gay procession moved away crying, "Good-night, good-night!" Hetty +stood on the porch and watched them. She was on the point of calling +them back. A strange dread of being left alone seized upon her. Never +since she had forsaken her home had she felt such a sense of loneliness, +except when she was crouched under the hemlock-trees by the lake. She +watched till she could no longer see even a fluttering motion in the +distance. Then she went into the house. The silence smote her. She +turned and went out again, and went to the paddock, where the little +lamb was bleating. + +"Poor little creature!" she said, "wert thou torn from thy mother? +Dost thou pine for one thou see'st not?" She untied it, led it into the +house, and spread down hay and blankets for it, in one corner of her +kitchen. The little creature seemed cheered by the light and warmth; +cuddled down and went to sleep. + +Hetty's heart was full of thoughts. "Oh! what would Eben have said if he +could have seen me to-night?" "How Raby would have delighted in it all!" +"How long am I to live this strange life?" "Can this be really I?" "What +has become of my old life, of my old self?" Like restless waves driven +by a wind too powerful to be resisted, thoughts and emotions surged +through Hetty's breast. She buried her face in her hands and wept; +wept the first unrestrained tears she had wept. Only for a few moments, +however. Like the old Hetty Gunn of the old life, she presently sprang +to her feet, and said to herself, "Oh, what a selfish soul I am to +be spending all my strength this way! I shan't be fit for any thing +to-morrow if I go on so." Then she patted the lamb on its head, and +said with a comforting sense of comradeship in the little creature's +presence, "Good-night, little motherless one! Sleep warm," and then she +went to bed and slept till morning. + +I have dwelt on the surface details of Hetty's life at St. Mary's, and +have said little about her mental condition and experiences: this is +because I have endeavored to present this part of her life, exactly as +she lived it, and as she would tell it herself. That there were many +hours of acute suffering; many moments when her courage wellnigh failed; +when she was almost ready to go back to her home, fling herself at her +husband's feet, and cry, "Let me be but as a servant in thy house,"--it +is not needful to say. + +Hearts answer to hearts, and no heart could fail to know that a woman in +Hetty's position must suffer keenly and constantly. But this story would +do great injustice to her, and would be essentially false, if it spoke +often of, or dwelt at any length upon the sufferings which Hetty herself +never mentioned, and put always away from her with an unflinching +resolution. Year after year, the routine of her days went on as we +have described; unchanged except that she grew more and more into the +affections of the villagers among whom she came and went, and of the +hundreds of ill and suffering men and women whom she nursed. She was no +nearer becoming a Roman Catholic than she had been when she sat in the +Welbury meeting-house: even Father Antoine had given over hoping for her +conversion; but her position in St. Mary's was like the position of a +Lady Abbess in a religious community; her authority, which rarely took +on an authoritative shape, was great; and her influence was greater than +her authority. In Dr. Macgowan's House of Cure, she was second only to +the doctor himself; and, if the truth were told, it might have been said +she was second to none. + +Patients went away from St. Mary's every year who stoutly ascribed +their cure to her, and not to the waters nor to the physicians. Her +straightforward, kindly, common sense was a powerful tonic, morally and +physically, to all invalids whom she nursed. She had no tolerance for +any weakness which could be conquered. She had infinite tenderness for +all weakness which was inevitable; and her discriminations between the +two were always just. "I'd trust more to Mrs. Smailli's diagnosis of any +case than I would to my own," said Dr. Macgowan to his fellow-physicians +more than once. And, when they scoffed at the idea, he replied: "I +do not mean in the technicalities of specific disease, of course. The +recognition of those is a matter of specific training; but, in all those +respects, a physician's diagnosis may be faultless; and yet he be much +mistaken in regard to the true condition of the patient. In this finer, +subtler diagnosis of general conditions, especially of moral conditions, +Mrs. Smailli is worth more than all the doctors in Canada put together. +If she says a patient will get well, he always does, and _vice versa_. +She knows where the real possibility of recuperation lies, and detects +it often in patients I despair of." + + + + +XV. + +And now this story must again pass over a period of ten years in the +history of Eben and Hetty Williams. During all these years, Hetty had +been working faithfully in St. Mary's; and Dr. Eben had been working +faithfully in Welbury. Hetty was now fifty-six years old. Her hair was +white, and clustered round her temples in a rim of snowy curls, peeping +out from under the close lace cap she always wore. But the snowy curls +were hardly less becoming than the golden brown ones had been. Her +cheeks were still pink, and her lips red. She looked far less old for +her age at fifty-six than she had looked ten years before. + +Dr. Eben, on the other hand, had grown old fast. His work had not been +to him as complete and healthful occupation as Hetty's had been to her. +He had lived more within himself; and he had never ceased to sorrow. His +sorrow, being for one dead, was without hope; save that intangible hope +to which our faith so pathetically clings, of the remote and undefined +possibilities of eternity. Hetty's sorrow was full of hope, being +persuaded that all was well with those whom she did not see. + +Dr. Eben loved no one warmly or with absorption. Hetty loved every +suffering one to whom she ministered. Dr. Eben had never ceased living +too much in the past. Hetty had learned to live almost wholly in the +present. Hetty had suffered, had suffered intensely; but all that she +had suffered was as nothing in comparison with the sufferings of her +husband. Moreover, Hetty had kept through all these years her superb +health. Dr. Eben had had severe illnesses, which had told heavily upon +his strength. From all these things it had come to pass, that now he +looked older and more worn than Hetty. She looked vigorous; he looked +feeble; she was still comely, he had lost all the fineness of color +and outline, which had made him at forty so handsome a man. He had been +growing restless, too, and discontented. + +Raby was away at college; old Caesar and Nan had both died, and their +places were filled by new white servants, who, though they served Dr. +Eben well, did not love him. Deacon Little had died also, and Jim and +Sally had been obliged to go back to the old homestead to live, to take +care of Mrs. Little, who was now a helpless paralytic. + +"Gunn's," as it was still called, and always would be, was no longer +the brisk and cheerful place which it had once been. The farm was slowly +falling off, from its master's lack of interest in details; and the old +stone house had come to wear a certain look of desolation. The pines met +and interlaced their boughs over the whole length of the road from the +gate to the front-door; and, in a dark day, it was like an underground +passage-way, cold and damp. If Hetty could have been transported to +the spot, how would her heart have ached! How would she have seen, in +terrible handwriting, the record of her mistaken act; the blight which +her one wrong step had cast, not only upon hearts and lives, but even +upon the visible face of nature. But Hetty did not dream of this. +Whenever she permitted her fancy to dwell upon imaginings of her old +home, she saw it bright with sunshine, merry with the voices of little +children: and her husband handsome still, and young, walking by the side +of a beautiful woman, mother of his children. At last Dr. Eben took +a sudden resolution; the result, partly, of his restless discontent; +partly of his consciousness that he was in danger of breaking down and +becoming a chronic invalid. He offered "Gunn's" for sale, and announced +that he was going abroad for some years. Spite of the dismay with which +this news was received throughout the whole county, everybody's second +thought was: "Poor fellow! I'm glad of it. It's the best thing he can +do." + +Hetty's cousin, Josiah Gunn, the man that she had so many years ago +predicted would ultimately have the estate, bought it in, out-bidding +the most determined bidders (for "Gunn's" was much coveted); and paying +finally a sum even larger than the farm was really worth. Dr. Eben was +now a rich man, and free. The world lay before him. When all was done, +he felt a strange unwillingness to leave Welbury. The travel, the +change, which had looked so desirable and attractive, now looked +formidable; and he lingered week after week, unable to tear himself +away from home. One day he rode over to Springton, to bid Rachel Barlow +good-by. Rachel was now twenty-eight years old, and a very beautiful +woman. Many men had sought to marry her, but Dr. Eben's prediction +had been realized. Rachel would not marry. Her health was perfectly +established, and she had been for years at the head of the Springton +Academy. Doctor Eben rarely saw her; but when he did her manner had +the same child-like docility and affectionate gratitude that had +characterized it when she was seventeen. She had never ceased to feel +that she owed her life, and more than her life, to him: how much more +she felt, Dr. Eben had never dreamed until this day. When he told her +that he was going to Europe, she turned pale, but said earnestly: + +"Oh, I am very glad! you have needed the change so much. How long will +you stay?" + +"I don't know, Rachel," he replied sadly. "Perhaps all the rest of my +life. I have done my best to live here; but I can't. It's no use: I +can't bear it. I have sold the place." + +Rachel's lips parted, but she did not speak; her face flushed scarlet, +then turned white; and, without a moment's warning or possibility +of staying the tears, she buried her face in her hands, and wept +convulsively. In the same instant, a magnetic sense of all that this +grief meant thrilled through Doctor Eben's every nerve. No such thought +had ever crossed his mind before. Rachel had never been to him any thing +but the "child" he had first called her. Very reverently seeking now to +shield her womanhood from any after pain of fear, lest she might have +betrayed her secret, he said: + +"Why, my child! you must not feel so badly about it. I ought not to have +spoken so. Of course, you must know that my life has been a very lonely +one, and always must be. But I should not give up and go away, simply +for that. I am not well, and I am quite sure that I need several years +of a milder climate. I dare say I shall be home-sick, and come back +after all." + +Rachel lifted her eyes and looked steadily in his. Her tears stopped. +The old clairvoyant gaze, which he had not seen on her face for many +years, returned. + +"No. You will never come back," she said slowly. Then, as one speaking +in a dream, she said still more slowly, and uttering each word with +difficulty and emphasis: + +"I--do--not--believe--your--wife--is--dead." Much shocked, and thinking +that these words were merely the utterance of an hysterical excitement, +Dr. Eben replied: + +"Not to me, dear child; she never will be: but you must not let yourself +be excited in this way. You will be ill. I must be your doctor again and +prescribe for you." + +Rachel continued to watch him, with the same bright and unflinching +gaze. He turned from her, and, bringing her a glass of water in which he +had put a few drops from a vial, said in his old tone: + +"Drink this, Rachel." + +She obeyed in silence; her eyes drooped; the tension of her whole figure +relaxed; and, with a long sigh, she exclaimed: + +"Oh, forgive me!" + +"There is nothing to forgive, my child," said the doctor, much moved, +and, longing to throw his arms around her as she sat there, so gentle, +appealing, beautiful, loving. "Why can I not love her?" "What else is +there better in life for me to do?" he thought, but his heart refused. +Hetty, the lost dead Hetty, stood as much between him and all other +women to-day, as she had stood ten years before. + +"I must go now, Rachel," he said. "Good-by." + +She put her cold hand in his. As he took it, by a curious freak of his +brain, there flashed into his mind the memory of the day when, by the +side of this fragile white little hand lying in his, Hetty, laughingly, +had placed her own, broad and firm and brown. The thought of that hand +of Hetty's, and her laugh at that moment, were too much for him, and he +dropped Rachel's hand abruptly, and moved toward the door. She gave a +low cry: he turned back; she took a step towards him. + +"I shall never see you again," she said, taking his hand in hers. "I +owe my life to you," and she carried his hand to her lips, and kissed +it again and again. "God bless you, child! Good-by! good-by!" he said. +Rachel did not speak, and he left her standing there, gazing after him +with a look on her face which haunted him as long as he lived. + +Why Doctor Eben should have resolved to sail for England in a Canadian +steamer, and why, having reached Canada, he should have resolved to +postpone his voyage, and make a trial of the famous springs of St. +Mary's, are mysteries hid in that book of Fate whose leaves no mortal +may turn. We prate in our shallow wisdom about causes, but the most that +we can trace is a short line of incidental occasions. A pamphlet which +Doctor Eben found in the office of a hotel was apparently the reason of +his going to St. Mary's; all the reason so far as he knew, or as any man +might know. But that man is to be pitied who lives his life out under +the impression that it is within his own guidance. Only one remove from +the life of the leaf which the winds toss where they list would be such +a life as that. + +It was with no very keen interest that Doctor Eben arrived in St. +Mary's. He had some faint hope that the waters might do him good: but he +found the sandy stretches and long lines of straight firs in Canada very +monotonous; and he was already beginning to be oppressed by the sense of +homelessness. His quiet and domestic life had unfitted him for being a +wanderer, and he was already looking forward to the greater excitements +of European travel; hoping that they would prove more diverting and +entertaining than he had thus far found travel in America. + +He entered St. Mary's as Hetty had done, just at sunset. It was a warm +night in June; and, after his tea at the little inn, Dr. Eben sauntered +out listlessly. The sound of merry voices in the Square repelled him; +unlike Hetty, he shrank from strange faces: turning in the direction +where it seemed stillest, he walked slowly towards the woods. He looked +curiously at the little red chapel, and at Father Antoine's cottage, now +literally imbedded in flowers. Then he paused before Hetty's tiny house. +A familiar fragrance arrested him; leaning on the paling he looked over +into the garden, started, and said, under his breath: "How strange! How +strange!" There were long straight beds of lavender and balm, growing +together, as they used to grow in the old garden at "Gunn's." Both the +balm and the lavender were in full blossom; and the two scents mingled +and separated and mingled in the warm air, like the notes of two +instruments unlike, yet in harmony. The strong lemon odor of the balm, +was persistently present like the mastering chords of the violoncello, +and the fine and subtle fragrances from the myriad cells of the +pale lavender floated above and below, now distant, now melting and +disappearing, like a delicate melody. Dr. Eben was borne away from the +present, out of himself. He thrust his hand through the palings, and +gathered a crushed handful of the lavender blossoms: eagerly he inhaled +their perfume. Drawers and chests at "Gunn's" had been thick strewn with +lavender for half a century. All Hetty's clothes--Hetty herself--had +been full of the exquisite fragrance. The sound of quick pattering steps +roused him from his reverie. A bare-footed boy was driving a flock of +goats past. The child stopped and gazed intently at the stranger. + +"Child, who lives in this little house?" said Dr. Eben, cautiously +hiding his stolen handful of lavender. + +"Tantibba," replied the boy. + +"What!" exclaimed the doctor. "I don't understand you. What is the +name?" + +"Tantibba! Tantibba!" the child shouted, looking back over his shoulder, +as he raced on to overtake his goats. "Bo Tantibba." + +"Some old French name I suppose," thought Dr. Eben: "but, it is very odd +about the herbs; the two growing together, so exactly as Hetty used +to have them;" and he walked reluctantly away, carrying the bruised +lavender blossoms in his hand, and breathing in their delicious +fragrance. As he drew near the inn, he observed on the other side of +the way a woman hurrying in the opposite direction. She had a sturdy +thick-set figure, and her step, although rapid, was not the step of a +young person. She wore on her head only a close white cap; and her gray +gown was straight and scant: on her arm she carried a basket of scarlet +plaited straw, which made a fine bit of color against the gray and +white of her costume. It was just growing dusk, and the doctor could not +distinguish her features. At that moment, a lad came running from the +inn, and darted across the road, calling aloud, "Tantibba! Tantibba!" +The woman turned her head, at the name, and waited till the lad came +to her. Dr. Eben stood still, watching them. "So that is Tantibba?" +he thought, "what can the name be?" Presently the lad came back with a +bunch of long drooping balm-stalks in his hand. + +"Who was that you spoke to then?" asked the doctor. + +"Tantibba!" replied the lad, hurrying on. Dr. Eben caught him by the +shoulder. "Look here!" he exclaimed, "just tell me that name again. This +is the fourth time I've heard it tonight. Is it the woman's first name +or what?" The lad was a stupid English lad, who had but recently come +to service in St. Mary's, and had never even thought to wonder what the +name "Tantibba," meant. He stared vacantly for a moment, and then said: + +"Indeed, sir, and I don't know. She's never called any thing else that +I've heard." + +"Who is she? what does she do?" asked the doctor. + +"Oh, sir! she's a great nurse, from foreign parts: she has a power of +healing-herbs in her garden, and she goes each day to the English House +to heal the sick. There's nobody like her. If she do but lay her hand on +one, they do say it is a cure." + +"She is French, I suppose," said the doctor; thinking to himself, "Some +adventuress, doubtless." + +"Ay, sir, I think so," answered the lad; "but I must not stay to speak +any more, for the mistress waits for this balm to make tea for the cook +Jean, who is like to have a fever;" and the lad disappeared under the +low archway of the basement. + +Dr. Eben walked back and forth in front of the inn, still crushing in +his fingers the lavender flowers and inhaling their fragrance. Idly he +watched "Tantibba's" figure till it disappeared in the distance. + +"This is just the sort of place for a tricky old French woman to make +a fortune in," he said to himself: "these people are simple enough +to believe any thing;" and Dr. Eben went to his room, and tossed the +lavender blossoms down on his pillow. + +When he waked in the morning, his first thoughts were bewildered: +nothing in nature is so powerful in association as a perfume. A sound, a +sight, is feeble in comparison; the senses are ever alert, and the mind +is accustomed always to act promptly on their evidence. But a subtle +perfume, which has been associated with a person, a place, a scene, can +ever afterward arrest us; can take us unawares, and hold us spell-bound, +while both memory and knowledge are drugged by its charm. + +Dr. Eben did not open his eyes. In an ecstasy of half consciousness +he murmured, "Hetty." As he stirred, his hand came in contact with the +withered flowers. Touch was more potent than smell. He roused, lifted +his head, saw the little blossoms now faded and gray lying near his +cheek; and saying, "Oh, I remember," sank back again into a few moments' +drowsy reverie. + +The morning was clear and cool, one window of the doctor's room looked +east; the splendor of the sunrise shone in and illuminated the whole +place. While he was dressing, he found himself persistently thinking of +the strange name, "Tantibba." "It is odd how that name haunts me," he +thought. "I wish I could see it written: I haven't the least idea how it +is spelled. I wonder if she is an impostor. Her garden didn't look like +it." Presently he sauntered out: the morning stir was just beginning in +the village. The child to whom he had spoken at "Tantibba's" gate, +the night before, came up, driving the same flock of goats. The little +fellow, as he passed, pulled the ragged tassel of his cap in token of +recognition of the stranger who had accosted him. Without any definite +purpose, Dr. Eben followed slowly on, watching a pair of young kids, +who fell behind the flock, frolicking and half-fighting in antics so +grotesque that they looked more like gigantic grasshoppers than like +goats. Before he knew how far he had walked, he suddenly perceived that +he was very near "Tantibba's" house. + +"I'll walk on and steal another handful of the lavender," he thought; +"and if the old woman's up, perhaps I'll get a sight of her. I'd like to +see what sort of a face answers to that outlandish name." + +As the doctor leaned over the paling, and looked again at Hetty's +garden, he saw something which had escaped his notice before, and at +which he started again, and muttered--this time aloud, and with +an expression almost of terror,--"Good Heavens, if there isn't a +chrysanthemum bed too, exactly like ours! what does this mean?" Hetty +had little thought when she was laying out her garden, as nearly as +possible like the garden she had left behind her, that she was writing a +record which any eye but her own would note. + +"I believe I'll go in and see this old French woman," he thought: "it +is such a strange thing that she should have just the same flowers Hetty +had. I don't believe she's an adventuress, after all." + +Dr. Eben had his hand on the latch of the gate. At that instant, the +cottage door opened, and "Tantibba," in her white cap and gray gown, and +with her scarlet basket on her arm, appeared on the threshold. Dr. Eben +lifted his hat courteously, and advanced. + +"I was just about to take the liberty of knocking at your door, madame," +he said, "to ask if you would give me a few of your lavender blossoms." + +As he began to speak, "Tantibba's" basket fell from her hand. As he +advanced towards her, her eyes grew large with terror, and all color +left her cheeks. + +"Why do I terrify her so?" thought Dr. Eben, quickening his steps, and +hastening to reassure her, by saying still more gently: + +"Pray forgive me for intruding. I"--the words died on his lips: he stood +like one stricken by paralysis; his hands falling helplessly by his +side, and his eyes fixed in almost ghastly dread on this gray-haired +woman, from whose white lips came, in Hetty's voice, the cry: + +"Eben! oh! Eben!" + +Hetty was the first to recover herself. Seeing with terror how rigid and +pale her husband's face had become; how motionless, like one turned to +stone, he stood--she hastened down the steps, and, taking him by the +hand, said, in a trembling whisper: + +"Oh, come into the house, Eben." + +Mechanically he followed her; she still leading him by the hand, like +a child. Like a child, or rather like a blind man, he sat down in the +chair which she placed for him. His eyes did not move from her face; but +they looked almost like sightless eyes. Hetty stood before him, with her +hands clasped tight. Neither spoke. At last Dr. Eben said feebly: + +"Are you Hetty?" + +"Yes, Eben," answered Hetty, with a tearless sob. He did not speak +again: still with a strange unseeing look, his eyes roved over her +face, her figure. Then he reached out one hand and touched her gown; +curiously, he lifted the soft gray serge, and fingered it; then he said +again: + +"Are you Hetty?" + +"Oh, Eben! dear Eben! indeed I am," broke forth Hetty. "Do forgive me. +Can't you?" + +"Forgive you?" repeated Dr. Eben, helplessly. "What for?" + +"Oh, my God! he thinks we are both dead: what shall I do to rouse him?" +thought Hetty, all the nurse in her coming to the rescue of the woman +and wife. + +"For going away and leaving you, Eben," she said in a clear resolute +voice. "I wasn't drowned. I came away." + +Dr. Eben smiled; a smile which terrified Hetty more than his look or +voice or words had done. + +"Eben! Eben!" she cried, putting both her hands on his shoulders, and +bringing her face close to his. "Don't look like that. I tell you I +wasn't drowned. I am alive: feel me! feel me! I am Hetty;" and she knelt +before him, and laid her arms across his knees. The touch, the grasp, +the warmth of her strong flesh, penetrated his inmost consciousness, and +brought back the tottering senses. His eyes lost their terrifying and +ghastly expression, and took on one searching and half-stern. "You were +not drowned!" he said. "You have not been dead all these years! You went +away! You are not Hetty!" and he pushed her arms rudely from his knees. +Then, in the next second, he had clasped her fiercely in his arms, +crying aloud: + +"You are Hetty! I feel you! I know you! Oh Hetty, Hetty, wife, what does +this all mean? Who took you away from me?" And tears, blessed saving +tears, filled Dr. Eben's eyes. + +Now began the retribution of Hetty's mistake. In this moment, with her +husband's arms around her, his eyes fixed on hers, the whole cloud of +misapprehension under which she had acted was revealed to her as by a +beam of divine light from heaven. Smitten to the heart by a sudden +and overwhelming remorse, Hetty was speechless. She could only look +pleadingly into his face, and murmur: + +"Oh, Eben! Eben!" + +He repeated his questions, growing calmer with each word, and with each +moment's increasing realization of Hetty's presence. + +"Who took you away?" + +"Nobody," answered Hetty. "I came alone." + +"Did you not love me, Hetty?" said Dr. Eben in sad tones, struck by a +new fear. This question unsealed Hetty's lips. + +"Love you!" she exclaimed in a piercing voice. "Love you! oh, Eben!" and +then she poured out, without reserves or disguises, the whole story +of her convictions, her decision, and her flight. Her husband did not +interrupt her by word or gesture. As she proceeded with her narrative, +he slowly withdrew his eyes from her face, and fixed them on the floor. +It was harder for her to speak when he thus looked away from her. +Timidly she said: + +"Do not turn your eyes away from me, Eben. It makes me afraid. I cannot +tell you the rest, if you look so." + +With an evident effort, he raised his eyes again, and again met her +earnest gaze. But it was only for a few seconds. Again his eyes drooped, +evaded hers, and rested on the floor. Again Hetty paused; and said still +more pleadingly: + +"Please look at me, Eben. Indeed I can't talk to you if you do not." + +Like one stung suddenly by some insupportable pain, he wrenched her +hands from his knees, sprang to his feet, and walked swiftly back and +forth. She remained kneeling by the chair, looking up at him with a most +piteous face. "Hetty," he exclaimed, "you must be patient with me. Try +and imagine what it is to have believed for ten years that you were +dead; to have mourned you as dead; to have spent ten whole years of +weary, comfortless days; and then to find suddenly that you have been +all this time living,--voluntarily hiding yourself from me; needlessly +torturing me! Why, Hetty! Hetty! you must have been mad. You must be mad +now, I think, to kneel there and tell me all these details so calmly, +and in such a matter-of-fact way. Do you realize what a monstrous thing +you have been doing?" And Dr. Eben's eyes blazed with a passionate +indignation, as he stopped short in his excited walk and looked down +upon Hetty. Then, in the next second, touched by the look on her +uplifted face, so noble, so pure, so benevolent, he forgot all his +resentment, all his perplexity, all his pain; and, stooping over her, +he lifted her from her knees, and, folding her close to his bosom, +exclaimed: + +"Oh, my Hetty, my own; forgive me. I am the one that is mad. How can I +think of any thing except the joy of having found you again? No wonder +I thought at first we were both dead. Oh, my precious wife, is it +really you? Are you sure we are alive?" And he kissed her again and +again,--hair, brow, eyes, lips,--with a solemn rapture. + +A great silence fell upon them: there seemed no more to say. Suddenly, +Dr. Eben exclaimed: + +"Rachel said she did not believe you were dead." + +At mention of Rachel's name, a spasm crossed Hetty's face. In the +excitement of her mingled terror and joy, she had not yet thought of +Rachel. + +"Where is Rachel?" she gasped, her very heart standing still as she +asked the question. + +"At home," answered the doctor; and his countenance clouded at the +memory of his last interview with her. Hetty's fears misinterpreted the +reply and the sudden cloud on his face. + +"Is she--did you--where is her home?" she stammered. + +A great light broke in on Dr. Eben's mind. + +"Good God!" he cried. "Hetty, it is not possible that you thought I +loved Rachel?" + +"No," said Hetty. "I only thought you could love her, if it were right; +and if I were dead it would be." + +A look of horror deepened on the doctor's face. The idea thus suggested +to his mind was terrible. + +"And supposing I had loved her, thinking you were dead, what then? Do +you know what you would have done?" he said sternly. + +"I think you would have been very happy," replied Hetty, simply. "I have +always thought of you as being probably very happy." + +Dr. Eben groaned aloud. + +"Oh, Hetty! Hetty! How could God have let you think such thoughts? +Hetty!" he exclaimed suddenly, with the manner of one who has taken a +new resolve: "Hetty, listen. We must not talk about this terrible past. +It is impossible for me to be just to you. If any other woman had done +what you have done, I should say she must be mad, or else wicked." + +"I think I was mad," interrupted Hetty. "It seems so to me now. But, +indeed, Eben, oh, indeed, I thought at the time it was right." + +"I know you did, my darling," replied the doctor. "I believe it fully; +but for all that I cannot be just to you, when I think of it. We must +put it away from us for ever. We are old now, and have perhaps only a +few years to live together." + +Here Hetty interrupted him with a sudden cry of dismay: + +"Oh! oh! I forgot every thing but you. I ought to have been at Dr. +Macgowan's an hour ago. Indeed, Eben, I must go this minute. Do not try +to hinder me. There is a patient there who is so ill. I fear he will not +live through the day. Oh, how selfish of me to have forgotten him for a +single moment! But how can I leave you! How can I leave you!" + +As she spoke, she moved hastily about the room, making her preparations +to go. Her husband did not attempt to delay her. A strange feeling was +creeping over him, that, by Hetty's removal of herself from him, by her +new life, her new name, new duties, she had really ceased to be his. +He felt weak and helpless: the shock had been too great, and he was not +strong. When Hetty was ready, he said: + +"Shall I walk with you, Hetty?" + +She hesitated. She feared to be seen talking in an excited way with this +stranger: she dreaded to lose her husband out of her sight. + +"Oh, Eben!" she exclaimed, "I do not know what to do. I cannot bear to +let you go from me for a moment. How shall I get through this day! I +will not go to Dr. Macgowan's any more. I will get Sister Catharine from +the convent to come and take my place at once. Yes, come with me. We +will walk together, but we must not talk, Eben." + +"No," said her husband. + +He understood and shared her feeling. In silence they took their way +through the outskirts of the town. Constantly they stole furtive looks +at each other; Hetty noting with sorrow the lines which grief and +ill-health had made in the doctor's face; he thinking to himself: + +"Surely it is a miracle that age and white hair should make a woman more +beautiful." + +But it was not the age, the white hair: it was the transfiguration of +years of self-sacrifice and ministering to others. + +"Hetty," said Dr. Eben, as they drew near Dr. Macgowan's gate, "what +is this name by which the village people call you? I heard it on +everybody's lips, but I could not make it out." + +Hetty colored. "It is French for Aunt Hibba," she replied. "They speak +it as if it were one word, 'Tantibba.'" + +"But there was more to it," said her husband. "'Bo Tantibba,' they +called you." + +"Oh, that means merely 'Good Aunt Hibba,'" she said confusedly. "You +see some of them think I have been good to them; that's all: but usually +they call me only 'Tantibba.'" + +"Why did you call yourself 'Hibba'?" he said. + +"I don't know," replied Hetty. "It came into my head." + +"Don't they know your last name?" asked her husband, earnestly. + +"Oh!" said Hetty, "I changed that too." + +Dr. Eben stopped short: his face grew stern. + +"Hetty," he said, "do you mean to tell me that you have put my very name +away from you all these years?" + +Tears came to Hetty's eyes. + +"Why, Eben," she replied, "what else could I do? It would have been +absurd to keep my name. Any day it might have been recognized. Don't you +see?" + +"Yes, I see," answered Dr. Eben, bitterly. "You are no longer mine, even +by name." + +Hetty's tears fell. She was dumb before all resentful words, all +passionate outbreaks, from her husband now. All she could say was: + +"Oh, Eben! Eben!" Sometimes she added piteously: "I never meant to do +wrong; at least, no wrong to you. I thought if there were wrong, it +would be only to myself, and on my own head." When they parted, Dr. Eben +said: + +"At what hour are you free, Hetty?" + +"At six," she replied. "Will you wait for me at the house? Do not come +here." + +"Very well," he answered; and, making a formal salutation as to a +stranger, he turned away. + + + + +XVI. + +With a heavy heart, in midst of all her joy, Hetty went about her +duties: vague fears oppressed her. What would Eben do now? What had he +meant when he said: "You are no longer mine, even in name"? + +Now that Hetty perceived that she had been wrong in leaving him; that, +instead of providing, as she had hoped she should, for his greater +happiness, she had only plunged him into inconsolable grief,--her one +desire was to atone for it; to return to him; to be to him, if possible, +more than she had ever been. But great timidity and apprehension filled +her breast. He seemed to be angry with her. Would he forgive her? Would +he take her home? Had she forfeited her right to go home? Hour after +hour, as the weary day went on, she tortured herself with these +thoughts. Wistfully her patients watched her face. It was impossible for +her to conceal her preoccupation and anxiety. At last the slow sun +sank behind the fir-trees, and brought her hour of release. Seeking Dr. +Macgowan, she told him that she would send Sister Catharine on the next +day "to take my place for the present, perhaps altogether," said Hetty. + +"Good heavens! Mrs. Smailli!" exclaimed the doctor. "What is the matter? +Are you ill? You shall have a rest; but we can't give you up." + +"No, I am not ill," replied Hetty, "but circumstances have occurred +which make it impossible for me to say what my plans will be now." + +"What is it? Bless my soul, what shall we do?" said Dr. Macgowan, +looking very much vexed. "Really, Mrs. Smailli, you can't give up your +post in this way." + +The doctor forgot himself in his dismay. + +"I would not leave it, if there were no one to fill it," replied Hetty, +gently; "but Sister Catharine is a better nurse than I am. She will more +than fill my place." + +"Pshaw! Mrs. Smailli," ejaculated the doctor. "She can't hold a candle +to you. Is it any thing about the salary which is taking you away? I +will raise it: you shall fix your own price." + +Flushing red with shame, Hetty said hotly: + +"I have never worked for the money, Dr. Macgowan; only for enough for my +living. Money has nothing to do with it. Good-morning." + +"That's just what comes of depending on women," growled Dr. Macgowan. +"They're all alike; no stability to 'em! What under heaven can it be? +She's surely too old to have got any idea of marrying into her head. +I'll go and see Father Antoine, and see if he can't influence her." + +But when Dr. Macgowan, a few days later, reached Father Antoine's +cottage, he was met by news which slew on the instant all his hopes of +ever seeing Mrs. Hibba Smailli in his House again as a nurse. Hetty and +her husband had spent the previous evening with Father Antoine, and had +laid their case fully before him. Hetty had given him permission to tell +all the facts to Dr. Macgowan, under the strictest pledges of secrecy. + +"'Pon my word! 'pon my word!" said the doctor, "the most extraordinary +thing I ever heard of! Who'd have thought that calm, clearheaded woman +would ever have committed such a folly? It's a case of monomania; a real +monomania, Father Antoine; never can be sure of such a brain's that; +may take another, any day; clear case of monomania; most uncomfortable! +uncomfortable! so embarrassing! don't you know? eh? What's going to be +done now? How does the man take it? Is he a gentleman? Hang me, if +I wouldn't let a woman stay where she was, that had served me such a +trick!" + +Father Antoine laughed a low pleasant laugh. + +"And that would be by how much you had loved her, is it not?" he said. +"He is a physician also, the good Aunt's husband, and he understands. He +will take her with him; and, if he did not, she would die; for, now that +it is plain to her, how grievously she hath caused him to sorrow, her +love is like a fever till she can make amends for all." + +"Amends!" growled Dr. Macgowan, "that's just like a woman too. Amends! +I'd like to know what amends there can be for such a scandal, such a +disgrace: 'pon my word she must have been mad; that's the only way of +accounting for it." + +"It is not that there will be scandal," replied Father Antoine. "I am +to marry them in the chapel, and there is no one in all the wide world, +except to you and to me, that it will be known that they have been +husband and wife before." + +"Eh! What! Married again!" exclaimed Dr. Macgowan. "Well, that's like +a woman too. Why, what damned nonsense! If she was ever his wife, she's +his wife now, isn't she? I shouldn't think you'd lend yourself, Father +Antoine, to any such transaction as that." + +"Gently, gently!" replied Father Antoine: "rail not so at womankind. It +is she who wishes to go with him at once; and who says as thou, that she +is still his wife: but it is he who will not. He says that she hath for +ten years borne a name other than his; that in her own country she hath +been ten years mourned for as dead; that he hath by process of law, on +account of her death, inherited and sold all the estate that she did +own." + +"Rich, was she rich!" interrupted Dr. Macgowan. "Well, 'pon my word, +it's the most extraordinary thing I ever did hear of: never could have +happened in England, sir, never!" + +"I know not if it were a large estate," continued Father Antoine, "it +would be no difference: if it had been millions she would have left it +and come away. She was full of renunciation. Ah! but she must be beloved +of the Virgin." + +"So you are really going to marry them over again, are you?" broke +in the impatient doctor. "I have said that I would," replied Father +Antoine, "and it is great joy to me: neither should it seem strange to +you. Your church doth not recognize the sacrament of baptism, when +it has been performed by unconsecrated hands of dissenters: you +do rebaptize all converts from those sects. So our church does not +recognize the sacrament of marriage, when performed by any one outside +of its own priesthood. I shall with true gladness of heart administer +the holy sacrament of marriage to these two so strangely separated, and +so strangely brought together. They have borne ten years of penance for +whatever of sin had gone before: the church will bless them now." + +"Hem," said Dr. Macgowan, gruffly, unable to controvert the logic of +Father Antoine's position in regard to the sacraments; "that is all +right from your point of view: but what do they make of it; I don't +suppose they admit that their first marriage was invalid, do they?" + +Dr. Macgowan was in the worst of humors. He was about to lose a nurse +who had been to him for ten years, like his right hand; and he was +utterly discomfited and confused in all his confirmed impressions of her +character, by these startling revelations of her history. He would not +have been a Briton if these untoward combinations of events had not made +him surly. + +"Nay, nay!" said Father Antoine, placably. "Not so. It is only the +husband; and he has but one thing to say: that she who was his wife died +to him, to her country, to her friends, to the law. There is even in her +village a beautiful and high monument of marble which sets forth all the +recountal of her death. She would go back to that country with him, +and confess to every man the thing she had done. She prayed him that he +would take her. But he will not. He says it would be shame; and the name +of his wife that died shall never be shamed. It is a narrow strait for +a man who loves a woman. I cannot say that it is clear to me what my own +will would be in such a case. I am much moved by each when I hear them +talk of it. Ah, but she has the grand honesty! Thou shouldst have heard +her cry out when he said that to confess all would be a shame. + +"'Nay, nay!' cried she, 'to conceal is a shame.' "'Ay!' replied her +husband, 'but thou hast thought it no shame to conceal thyself for these +ten years, and to lie about thy name.' He speaketh with a great anger +to her at times, spite of his love. "'Ah,' she answered him, in a voice +which nigh set me to weeping: 'Ah, my husband, I did think it shame: but +I bore it, for sake of my love to thee; and now that I know I was wrong, +all the more do I long to confess all, both that and this, and to stand +forgiven or unforgiven, as I may, clear in the eyes of all who ever knew +me.' + +"But he will not, and I have counselled her to pray him no more. For he +has already endured heavy things at her hands; and, if this one thing +be to her a grievous burden, all the more doth it show her love, if she +accept it and bear it to the end." + +"Well, well," said Dr. Macgowan, somewhat wearied with Father Antoine's +sentiments and emotions, "I have lost the best nurse I ever had, or +shall have. I'll say that much for her; but I can't help feeling that +there was something wrong in her brain somewhere, which might have +cropped out again any day. Most extraordinary! most extraordinary!" And +Dr. Macgowan walked away with a certain lofty, indifferent air, which +English people so well understand, of washing one's hands of matters +generally. + +There had, indeed, been a sore struggle between Hetty and her husband +on this matter of their being remarried by Father Antoine. When Dr. Eben +first said to her: "And now, what are we to do, Hetty?" she looked at +him in an agony of terror and gasped: + +"Why, Eben, there is only one thing for us to do; don't we belong to +each other? don't you love me? don't you mean to take me home with you?" + +"Would you go home with me, Hetty?" he asked emphatically; "go back +to Welbury? let every man, woman, and child in the county, nay, in the +State, know that all my grief for you had been worse than needless, +that I had been a deserted husband for ten years, and that you had been +living under an assumed name all that time? Would you do this?" + +Hetty's face paled. "What else is there to do?" she said. + +He continued: + +"Could you bear to have your name, your father's name, my name, +all dragged into notoriety, all tarnished by being linked with this +monstrous tale of a woman who fled--for no reason whatever--from her +home, friends, husband, and hid herself, and was found only by an +accident?" + +"Oh, Eben! spare me," moaned Hetty. + +"I can't spare you now, Hetty," he answered. "You must look the thing in +the face. I have been looking it in the face ever since the first hour +in which I found you. What are we to do?" + +"I will stay on here if you think it best," said Hetty. "If you will be +happier so. Nobody need ever know that I am alive." + +Doctor Eben threw his arms around her. "Leave you here! Why, Hetty, will +you never understand that I love you?" he exclaimed; "love you, love +you, would no more leave you than I would kill myself?" + +"But what is there, then, that we can do?" asked Hetty. + +"Be married again here, as if we had never been married! You under your +new name," replied Doctor Eben rapidly. + +Hetty's face expressed absolute horror. "We--you and I--married again! +Why Eben, it would be a mockery," she exclaimed. + +"Not so much a mockery," her husband retorted, "as every thing that I +have done, and every thing that you have done for ten whole years." + +"Oh, Eben! I don't think it would be right," cried Hetty. "It would be a +lie." + +"A lie!" ejaculated her husband, scornfully. Poor Hetty! The bitter +harvest of her wrong deed was garnered for her, poured upon her head +at every turn, by the pitilessness of events. Inexorable seasons, surer +than any other seedtime and harvest, are those uncalendared seasons in +which souls sow and reap with meek patience. + +Hetty replied: + +"I know I have lived, acted, told a lie, Eben. Don't taunt me with it. +How can you, if you really believe all I have told you of the reasons +which led me to it?" + +"My Hetty," said Dr. Eben, "I don't taunt you with it. I do believe all +you have told me. I do know that you did it for love of me, monstrous +though it sounds to say so. But when you refuse now to do the only thing +which seems to me possible to be done to repair the mistake, and say +your reason for not doing it is that it would be a lie, how can I help +pointing back to the long ten years' lie you have lived, acted, told? +If your love for me bore you up through that lie, it can bear you up +through this." + +"Shall we never go home, Eben?" asked Hetty sadly. "To Welbury? to New +England? never!" replied her husband with a terrible emphasis. "Never +will I take you there to draw down upon our heads all the intolerable +shame, and gossiping talk which would follow. I tell you, Hetty, you are +dead! I am shielding your name, the name of my dead wife! You don't seem +to comprehend in the least that you have been dead for ten years. You +talk as if it would be nothing more to explain your reappearance than if +you had been away somewhere for a visit longer than you intended." + +The longer they discussed the subject, the more vehement Dr. Eben grew, +and the feebler grew Hetty's opposition. She could not gainsay his +arguments. She had nothing to oppose to them, except her wifely instinct +that the old bond and ceremony were by implication desecrated in +assuming a second: "But what right have I to fall back on that old +bond," thought poor Hetty, wringing her hands as the burden of her long, +sad ten years' mistake weighed upon her. + +Not until Hetty had yielded this point was there any real joy between +her and her husband. As soon as it was yielded, his happiness began to +grow and increase, like a plant in spring-time. + +"Now you are mine again! Now we will be happy! Life and the world are +before us!" he exclaimed. + +"But where shall we live, Eben?" asked the practical Hetty. + +"Live! live!" he cried, like a boy; "live anywhere, so that we live +together!" + +"There is always plenty to do, everywhere," said Hetty, reflectively: +"we should not have to be idle." + +Dr. Eben looked at her with mingled admiration and anger. + +"Hetty!" he exclaimed, "I wish you'd leave off 'doing,' for a while. All +our misery came of that. At any rate, don't ever try to 'do' any thing +for me again as long as you live! I'll look out for my own happiness, +the rest of the time, if you please." + +His healing had begun when he could make an affectionate jest, like +this; but healing would come far slower to Hetty than to him. Complete +healing could perhaps never come. Remorse could never wholly be banished +from her heart. + +When it had once been settled that the marriage should take place, +there seemed no reason for deferring it; no reason, except that Father +Antoine's carnations were for some cause or other, not yet in full +bloom, and both he and Marie were much discontented at their tardiness. +However, the weather grew suddenly hot, with sharp showers in the +afternoons, and both the carnations and the Ayrshire roses flowered out +by scores every morning, until even Marie was satisfied there would be +enough. There was no tint of Ayrshire rose which could not be found in +Father Antoine's garden,--white, pink, deep red, purple: the bushes grew +like trees, and made almost a thicket, along the western boundary of the +garden. Early on the morning of Hetty's wedding, Marie carried heaped +basketfuls of these roses, into the chapel, and covered the altar with +them. Pierre Michaud, now a fine stalwart fellow of twenty-one, just +married to that little sister of Jean Cochot, about whom he had once +told so big a lie, had begged for the privilege of adorning the rest of +the chapel. For two days, he and Jean, his brother-in-law, had worked in +the forests, cutting down young trees of fir, balsam, and dogwood. The +balsams were full of small cones of a brilliant purple color; and the +dogwoods were waving with showy white flowers. Pierre set each tree in +a box of moist earth, so that it looked as thriving and fresh as it had +done in the forest; first, a fir, and then a dogwood, all the way from +the door to the altar, reached the gay and fragrant wall. Great masses +of Linnea vines, in full bloom, hung on the walls, and big vases of +Father Antoine's carnations stood in the niches, with the wax saints. +The delicate odor of the roses, the Linnea blossoms, and carnations, +blended with the spicy scent of the firs, and made a fragrance as strong +as if it had been distilled from centuries of summer. The villagers had +been told by Father Antoine, that this stranger who was to marry their +good "Tantibba," was one who had known and loved her for twenty years, +and who had been seeking her vainly all these years that she had lived +in St. Mary's. The tale struck a warm chord in the breasts of the +affectionate and enthusiastic people. The whole village was in great +joy, both for love of "Tantibba," and for the love of romance, so +natural to the French heart. Every one who had a flower in blossom +picked it, or brought the plant to place in the chapel. Every man, +woman, and child in the town, dressed as for a _fete_, was in the +chapel, and praying for "Tantibba," long before the hour for the +ceremony. When Eben and Hetty entered the door, the fragrance, the +waving flowers, the murmuring crowd, unnerved Hetty. She had not been +prepared for this. + +"Oh, Eben!" she whispered, and, halting for a moment, clung tighter to +his arm. He turned a look of affectionate pride upon her, and, +pressing her hand, led her on. Father Antoine's face glowed with loving +satisfaction as he pronounced the words so solemn to him, so significant +to them. As for Marie, she could hardly keep quiet on her knees: her +silver necklace fairly rattled on her shoulders with her excitement. + +"Ah, but she looks like an angel! may the saints keep her," she +muttered; "but what will comfort M'sieur Antoine for the loss of her, +when she is gone?" + +After the ceremony was over, all the people walked with the bride and +bridegroom to the inn, where the diligence was waiting in which they +were to begin their journey; the same old vehicle in which Hetty had +come ten years before alone to St. Mary's, and Doctor Eben had come a +few weeks ago alone to St. Mary's, "not knowing the things which should +befall him there." + +It was an incongruous old vehicle for a wedding journey; and the flowers +at the ancient horses' heads, and the knots of green at the cracked +windows, would have made one laugh who had no interest in the meaning of +the decorations. But it was the only four-wheeled vehicle in St. Mary's, +and to these simple villagers' way of thinking, there was nothing +unbecoming in Tantibba's going away in it with her husband. + +"Farewell to thee! Farewell to thee! The saints keep thee, Bo Tantibba +and thy husband! and thy husband!" rose from scores of voices as the +diligence moved slowly away. + +Dr. Macgowan, who had somewhat reluctantly persuaded himself to be +present at the wedding, and had walked stiffly in the merry procession +from the chapel to the inn, stood on the inn steps, and raised his hat +in a dignified manner for a second. Father Antoine stood bareheaded by +his side, waving a large white handkerchief, and trying to think only of +Hetty's happiness, not at all of his own and the village's loss. As the +shouts of the people continued to ring on the air, Dr. Macgowan turned +slowly to Father Antoine. + +"Most extraordinary scene!" he said, "'pon my word, most extraordinary +scene; never could happen in England, sir, never." + +"Which is perfectly true; worse luck for England," Father Antoine might +have replied; but did not. A few of the younger men and maidens ran for +a short distance by the side of the diligence, and threw flowers into +the windows. + +"Thou wilt return! thou wilt return!" they cried. "Say thou wilt +return!" + +"Yes, God willing, I will return," answered Hetty, bending to the right +and to the left, taking loving farewell looks of them all. "We will +surely return." And as the last face disappeared from sight, and the +last merry voice died away, she turned to her husband, and, laying her +hand in his, said, "Why not, Eben? Will not that be our best home, +our best happiness, to come back and live and die among these simple +people?" + +"Yes," answered Dr. Eben, "it will. Tantibba, we will come back." + + * * * * * + +And now is told all that I have to tell of the Strange History of Eben +and Hetty Williams. If there be any who find the history incredible, I +have for such a few words more. + +First: I myself have seen, in the old graveyard at Welbury, the +"beautiful and high monument of marble," of which Father Antoine spoke +to Dr. Macgowan. It bears the following inscription: + + "SACRED TO THE MEMORY + OF + HENRIETTA GUNN, + BELOVED WIFE OF DR. EBENEZER WILLIAMS, + Who was drowned in Welbury Lake." + +The dates, which I have my own reasons for not giving, come below; and +also a verse of the Bible, which I will not quote. + +Second: I myself was in Welbury when there was brought to the town +by some traveller a copy of a Canadian newspaper, in which, among the +marriages, appeared this one: + + "In the parish of St. Mary's, Canada, W., by Rev. + Antoine Ladeau, Mrs. Hibba Smailli to Dr. Ebenezer + Williams." + +The condition of Welbury, when this piece of news was fairly in +circulation in the town, could be compared to nothing but the buzz of a +beehive at swarming time. A letter which was received by the Littles, +a few days later, from Dr. Williams himself, did not at first allay the +buzzing. He wrote, simply: "You will be much surprised at the slip which +I enclose" (it was the newspaper announcement of his marriage). "You can +hardly be more surprised than I am myself; but the lady is one whom I +knew and loved a great many years ago. We are going abroad, and shall +probably remain there for some years. When I shall see Welbury again is +very uncertain." + +Thirdly: Since neither of these facts proves my "Strange History" true, +I add one more. + +I know Hetty Williams. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Hetty's Strange History, by Anonymous + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HETTY'S STRANGE HISTORY *** + +***** This file should be named 9311.txt or 9311.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/9/3/1/9311/ + +Produced by Juliet Sutherland, David Widger and PG +Distributed Proofreaders + + +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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