Amelia E. Barr

“ Then, turning to his sisters, he said: "I hope you are satisfied, girls."
"There is no other course for us," answered Isabel. "We must stay where mother stays. It would be unkind to leave her now—when you are practically leaving her."
"I hope Theodora will be nice," said Christina. "If she is, we may be happy."
"Do your best, Christina, to make all pleasant, and you will please me very much," said Robert. "And, Isabel, I am not leaving any of you. Marriage will not alter me in regard to my relationship to mother, yourself, and Christina. I promise you that." ”

“ I sent the whole contents of the drawer to the kitchen—the servant lasses may quarrel about them."
"Was there nothing worth taking to your new home? No single thing that had a loving, or a pleasant memory?"
"Not one. The whole mess of needlework, and painted cards, toilet toys, and sham trinkets represented my existence until Dora came. It was just as useless and unsatisfying as the trash flung into the kitchen. Dora opened the gates of life for me. Poor Dora!"
"Why do you say 'poor Dora'?"
"She is unhappy, disappointed, I have sometimes thought almost frightened. She is much changed. ”

“ He knew it well, he himself was never one to prompt, nor to correct, so it was certain that Theodora had taught the boy to pray for those who constantly spoke evil of her. He resolved to tell his mother of this incident, and again he tried to read the feeling on his wife's face. It was not depression, it was not sorrow, it was far from anger, there was nothing of indifference in it, and nothing restless or uncertain. He did not understand it. How could such a man as Robert understand a life of pure piety and intelligence, working its way upward through love and pain. ”

“ I have lived long enough to learn the wisdom of building my wall with the stones I find at the foot of it."
"Many a sore heart the poor thing will get!" said Christina, with an air of mock pity.
"We cannot say too much or go too far, while Robert is as daft in love as he is at present," continued Mrs. Campbell. "We must be cautious, and that is the good way—the bit-by-bitness is what tells; now a look, now a word, now a hint, there a suspicion, there a worriment, there a hesitation or a doubt. It is the bit-by-bitness tells! ”

“ Had Robert deceived her? Had she been deceived in Robert?
It was, however, a consciousness of having fallen below herself, which hurt her worst of all. She had made concessions, where concession was wrong; she had made apologies for her husband, whereas he ought to have made them to her.
"I have been weak," she whispered to her Inner Woman, and that truthful monitor replied:
"To be weak is to be wicked."
"I have resigned my just rights and my just anger."
"And so have encouraged others to be unjust and unkind, and to sin against you." ”

“ The light on her face, the sweet gentleness of her voice, the touch of her hand on his arm, all these things urged him to ask that question, which if asked from the heart, is never forgotten. Theodora answered it with a shy but loving honesty. The little word which made all things sure was softly spoken, and then the purple Bible was given, and clasping it between their hands, they made over it their solemnly happy promises of eternal love and faithfulness. And what conversation followed is not to be written down; it was every word of it in the delicious, stumbling patois of love. ”

“ Christina and Rathey introduced a new life—a life of constant visiting, gaiety, and entertaining; and Mrs. Campbell accepted it without dissent. Jamie Rathey indeed ruled her more absolutely than he ruled his wife. And she petted him, as she had never petted her own sons—ordered luxuries for his eating, gave him presents, paid his bills, and excused all his extravagances.
"Between Jamie and little Margaret, I am not my own woman at all," she admitted, and as time went on, it was difficult to say which of these two treated her with the most tyrannical affection. ”

“ Robert, Robert! I am ashamed of you. Suppose Theodora went back to Glasgow with you, what would be her position, and what would people—especially women—say about it? She would be a wife who ran away from her husband, but whom her husband discovered, and brought back to her duties. Upon this text, what cutting, cruel speeches mother and all the women in your set would make. The position would be a triumph for you—some men would envy and admire you, all would praise you for standing up so persistently for the authority of the male. But poor Theodora, who would stand by her? ”

“ And Theodora thought until sleep came of the girl's sad face, and pitied her more than she pitied herself. For hope was building a new life in her heart, and she looked forward to a future, that in its freedom, beauty, and usefulness would atone for the present, and the past years of her married life; but, oh the sameness, and ennui, and moral and mental death of a life without aim or purpose, without love or expectations, or sensible work to do. ”

“ I don't blame you, brother, for a desperate effort to change your life. If I were a man I should run away."
"What do you mean by a desperate effort, Christina?"
"I mean marriage. Sometimes I feel that I would run away with any man that would marry me."
"Hush! Such a feeling is shameful. What do you wish instead of Campbelton?"
The courage of the desperate possessed Christina and she answered: "I should like to travel. I want to see Edinburgh and London and Paris like other girls whose families have money, and Isabel feels as badly at our restrictions as I do." ”

“ Campbell came into the big, empty dining-room. She was dressed for dinner, but there were no signs of the meal. She looked cross and forlorn, and began to grumble to herself, as she impatiently stirred the fire into a blaze. "It is too bad of Isabel," she muttered; "she cares for nothing but her own way. I am left to look after everything—house, callers, what not—and there is a ring at the door now! I hope Jepson heard it."
The next moment the room door was thrown open, and Christina, in a flurry of beautiful silk and fur, fell on her knees by her mother's side. ”

“ Their faces were dull and uninteresting for want of that interior light of the soul and intellect without which "the human face divine" is not divine—is indeed only flesh and blood. Their abundant hair was badly cared for, and not becomingly arranged; their figures, in spite of tight lacing, badly managed and ungracefully clothed; their eyes, though dark and long-lashed, carried no illumination and were only expressive of evil or bitter emotions; they knew not either the languors or the sweet lights of love or pity. Isabel and Christina had slipped about sick rooms too much ”

“ It was brutal to expect me to give up my business, my family, and my country," and then he ceased, for something reminded him that Theodora had once made that same sacrifice for him. In any crisis the "set" of the life will count, and the "set" of Robert's life was selfishness. This passion now boldly combated all dissent from his personal satisfaction, denied any supremacy but his will, drowned the voice of Honor, the pleadings of Love, and insisted on his own pleasure and interest, at all costs.
Sorrow, if it be possible, takes refuge in sleep; but sleep was far from Robert Campbell. ”

“ The next morning Robert went to the Methodist Chapel with Theodora, but his Calvinism was in no degree prejudiced by the Arminian sermon, for he did not hear a word of it. He was listening to the tale of love in his heart, Theodora sat at his side, and he would not have changed places with the king on his throne. Love had thrown the gates of life wide open for the Queen of Love to enter in, and for the first time in all his thirty years of existence, he knew what it was to be joyful. ”

“ Thank you, Isabel. I owe you more than I can ever pay. I shall go to San Francisco, and see with my own eyes how things are."
"You will see nothing wrong, Robert. Be sure of that. Dora is as good as she is beautiful. I did not love her when I thought her an intruder into my home, but in her own home, she is adorable. Every one loves her."
"I object to every one loving her. She is mine. I am going to bring her to her own home—where she ought to be."
He would not remain to dinner. ”

“ Such enthusiasm over Mercedes' beauty in her pink satin costume! Such an enjoyable little lunch at one o'clock! Such a bewildering number of pleasant events crowded into a few hours. If ever there was in any earthly home a sense of heavenly love and joy, it was in the Newton house that day. Angels might—and probably did—rest in the flower-scented atmosphere of its spotless rooms, for if angels rejoice with the sinner forgiven and accepted, surely still more will they rejoice in the fruition of tried and accepted love, and in the unselfish affection of those who rejoice, because others rejoice. ”

“ I am sure she loves you now."
"I am just going to her," and he turned away with such a mournful look that his brother called him back.
"Look here, Robert," he said, "faint heart never won fair lady, or anything else for that matter. Your face is enough to frighten any woman. Women do not fancy despairers."
"David, you don't know what a hopeless task it is to court your wife. She knows all your weak points, and just how most cruelly to snub you."
"That is not Theodora's way! Speak to her kindly, but bravely. Be straight in all you say, for I declare to you she feels a lie." ”

“ He ceased speaking and took his place at the dinner table. "Order dinner, Isabel," he added, in a quiet voice.
Mrs. Campbell was speechless. She was stunned by anger and amazement. Her lips trembled and her eyes filled with tears—a most extraordinary exhibition of feeling in her. Isabel with a piteous look directed his attention to her mother, and he said:
"Take your chair, mother. I want my dinner. I have had a hard day. The men at the works are quarrelling and going to strike. I did not require extra quarrelling at home."
"I cannot eat, Robert. I will not eat again in this house. ”

“ He had caught the very spirit of Paul, and was carried by it far beyond, and above all arguments and sequences, until his glowing climax could find no grander words than:
"Now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the firstfruits of them that slept."
To these words he emphatically closed the Testament, and there were a few moments of profound, sensitive silence. Then, like a lark mounting heaven-ward, Theodora burst into the triumphant melody:
"I know that my Redeemer liveth!"
It was an angelic "Amen" to that old sanguine assurance, which possesses so immovably the heart of humanity. ”

“ Forgive me!"
"Christina, we are the world to each other. No one else seems to care anything about us, and it is foolish to quarrel."
"It was my fault, Isabel. I ought to have known you were not wearing my collar intentionally."
"Why should I? I have plenty of collars of my own. But we will not go into explanations. It is better to agree to forget the circumstance."
"Life is so lonely without you, and our little chats with each other are the only pleasure I have. I wonder if there is, in all Glasgow, a house so dull as this house is." ”

“ What could induce men to travel to the extremity of creation, and then build there a city so large and so splendid? How could they live and trade and make money so far from London and Paris and the centre of the civilized world? He went to the hotel at which his sister had stayed, and was obliged to admit that neither Glasgow, London, nor Paris had anything to rival its luxury and splendor. He began to be interested. He thought it might be worth while to dress a little for dinner.
For to a man as insular in mind as Robert Campbell, the scene was amazing. ”

“ I am so happy, Isabel, I wish every one else to be happy."
She looked at her brother wonderingly, and at night as the sisters sat doing their hair in Christina's room she said: "Love must be an amazing thing, Christina, to change any one the way it has changed Robert Campbell. The man has been in a sense converted—he has found grace, whether it be the grace of God, or the grace of Love, I know not, no, nor anybody else just yet." ”

“ Have you forgotten the spotless neatness and delicacy of Theodora's toilet? You are going a-wooing, and you must be more careful in dressing for Theodora Campbell than you were in dressing for Theodora Newton."
"I cannot think any longer. I will consider what you say in the morning."
"You will be a new man, and begin a new life to-morrow."
"I want the old life."
"You do not. And you will never get it. The old life has gone forever." ”

“ Campbell had dropped her pencil and had quite forgotten her accounts and letters. Her hard, handsome face was flushed with anger, her tawny-colored eyes full of calculating mischief, as she demanded with scornful passion:
"What is your opinion, Isabel?"
"I can only have one opinion, mother. You know on what occasion a young man gives such a Bible. I am compelled to believe that Robert is engaged to marry some woman called Theodora, who lives probably at Kendal."
"He can not! He shall not! He must marry Jane Dalkeith,—Jane, and no other woman. ”

“ A better and a more powerful spirit than her own gave this order, and she perforce obeyed it; but when she reached the dining-room, she threw herself on the sofa in a frantic passion.
"I have been insulted," she cried. "I have been insulted shamefully. Oh, Isabel! that woman will be the death of me!"
"Perhaps she will die herself, mother. Ducie says she has hurt her brain in falling—a concussion, she said." ”

“ You represent the finest ladies of your generation. Theodora is the fruit and flower of a later one, different, but no better than your own. You are everything I want. I would not have you changed in any respect." He looked into her face with eyes full of love, and gently pressed her arm against his side.
Such appreciative words as these were most unusual, and Mrs. Campbell felt them thrill her heart with pleasure. She even half-resolved to try to like Robert's wife, and spoke enthusiastically about the taste her son had displayed. ”

“ That sense of life that knows no death,
That life that maketh all things new."
For the singer had filled every note of the immortal music with her own beautiful, happy soul, and the congregation—old and young—went to their homes loving her.
Robert's heart burned within him, for while sharing the enthusiasm of the crowd he had also his personal delight in the knowledge that this dear, clever woman was his wife, and that she loved him. ”