Mary Jane Holmes

“ Poor Anna! her heart gave one great throb as she said this, and then lay like a dead weight in her bosom, while with sparkling eyes and blushing cheeks, Lucy exclaimed:
“I am so glad,—so glad. I have only known you since Sunday, but you seem like an old friend, and you won’t mind my telling you that ever since I first met Arthur among the Alps, I have lived in a kind of ideal world, of which he was the centre. I am an orphan, you know, and an heiress, too. There is half a million, they say; and Uncle Hetherton has charge of it. ”

“ Squire Russell loved Dora with a great, warm, sheltering love, which would shield her from all harm, and unselfishly yield to her everything, but he had not the nice, quick perception of Dr. West, and had he been younger he could never have satisfied the wants of her higher nature as could the rival whose existence he did not suspect. But he loved her very much. He must have her. He could not live without her, he thought, and womanish man that he was, a tear was gathering in his eyes when Johnnie entered the room abruptly, and locking the door, came and stood beside him. ”

“ Poor Margaret! her married life has not been very happy with all those children born so fast, and if she lives how much I will love her to make amends for the past. My trunks are packed and standing in the hall, and I am looking, for the last time it may be, on the woods and hills of Morrisville, where the moonlight is falling so softly. I can see a little of the cemetery in the distance, and I know where Anna’s grave is so well. I have been there but once since that day, and then I found Jessie with Mrs. West planting flowers over Robin. ”

“ She is no more to me than a friend, and possibly not that. Sometimes I fancy she avoids and even dislikes me. I’ve suspected it ever since that fatal fair when she urged me to buy what I could not afford just then. She thought me avaricious, no doubt, a reputation I fear I sustain, at least among the fast young men; but my heavenly Father knows, and some time maybe Dora will. I like to call her Dora here alone. The name is suited to her, brown-eyed, brown-haired Dora. If she were one whit more like Anna, I never could have liked her as I do,—brown-eyed, brown-haired Dora. ”

“ As for Dora, Jessie and Bell found her after the interview weeping bitterly over what she called her own wicked selfishness and John’s great generous goodness in giving her up so kindly, and making her feel while he was talking to her that it really was no matter about him. He was not injured so very much, although he had loved her dearly. He still had his children, and with them he should be happy.
“Oh, he is the best man!” Dora said; “the very best man that ever lived, and I wish he might find some suitable wife, whom he could love better than he did me, and who would make him happy.” ”

“ Every day I see some new virtue in him, and the tears often come as I wonder why God should have blessed me above the generality of womankind. I know I have the kindest, and best, and dearest husband in the world. He has gone for a few days to Fortress Monroe, where Robert is at present with his men, while Mother West has gone into the hospital as nurse. She felt it was her duty, and we did not oppose her, knowing how much good she would do to the poor, suffering soldiers. My heart bleeds for them, and yet I cannot feel it the doctor’s duty to go. ”

“ Lucy went on, her voice sounding very low, and her bright shoulder-knots of ribbon trembling with the rapid beating of her heart. “When he was talking to me I could be almost willing to die, but the moment he was gone the doubts and fears came back, and death was terrible again. I was always better with Arthur. Everybody is, and I think your seeing so much of him is one reason why you are so good.”
“No, no, I am not good,” and Anna’s hands pressed hard upon the girlish head lying in her lap. “I am wicked beyond what you can guess. ”

“ Men do not often lay bare their secrets except to one they love! It has cost me a great effort to go over the past, and talk to you of Anna, but I felt that I must do it. I must tell you that the heart I would offer you has on its surface a scar, but, Dora, only a scar; believe me, only a scar. It does not quicken now one pulse the faster when I remember Anna, who was to have been my wife. ”

“ Meredith told her of the days when she lay so unconscious of all that was passing around her, never heeding the kindly voice of Thornton Hastings, who more than once had stood by her pillow with his hand on her feverish brow, and tokens of whose thoughtfulness were visible in the choice bouquets he sent each day, with notes of anxious inquiry when he did not come himself. Anna had not seen him yet since her convalescence. She would rather not see any one until strong enough to talk, she said. ”

“ Anna exclaimed, her eyes flashing with unwonted brilliancy, and the rich color mantling her cheek. “You surely are not taking me to Saratoga on such a shameful errand as that?”
“Shameful errand as what?” Mrs. Meredith asked, looking quickly up, while Anna replied:
“Trying to find a husband. I cannot go if you are, much as I have anticipated it. I should despise and hate myself forever. No, aunt, I cannot go.” ”

“ There was a little too much of the lady patroness about her to suit the plain Hanoverians, especially those who were neither high enough nor low enough to be honored with her notice; and as they returned to their wreath-making and gossip, they wondered under their breath if it would not on the whole have been better if their clergyman had married Anna Ruthven, instead of the fine city girl with her Parisian manners. As they said this, a gleam of intelligence shot from the gray eyes of Valencia Le Barre, who was there at work in a most unamiable mood. ”

“ Miss Freeman, you know my brother, and know that there lives no better, more upright man, or one who will make you happier as your husband. You have heard my errand, and now what word shall I take back to Richard, or will you go yourself and see him?”
Dora had sat like one stunned as Robert told his story; hope, joy, and despair alternately succeeding each other in her heart as she listened. ”

“ All night the gas had burned dimly in the sick-room across the street, and all the night the sick man had prayed that he might be prepared for what the future had in store, whether of joy or sorrow. All night Jessie and Johnnie had slept uneasily, dreaming, one of the Roman Forum, where he repeated the speech made at his last exhibition, and the other that she, instead of Dora, wore the bridal wreath and stood at John Russell’s side, and found it not so very terrible after all. ”

“ About the house at Beechwood the May flowers were blooming, and in the maple-trees the birds were building their nests, cooing lovingly to each other as they did so, and seeming all unconscious of the young heart which within the doors felt that never before had there come to it a spring so full of sorrow and harrowing dread. Jessie and Bell Verner were both there now, and Jessie had brought two immense trunks and a hat-box, as if her intention was to spend the entire summer. ”

“ I can love John, or at least I can keep myself from hating him, knowing how happy I make him, and I do love his children, especially Johnnie. O Johnnie, I should die if it were not for you!”
The pen dropped from the trembling fingers, and again the face was buried in the hands, while Dora nerved herself to do what she vainly imagined was her duty. Squire Russell she knew was in the library, Bell and Jessie in their room, Johnnie in the street, and the other children in bed. There was nothing in the way, and she would go at once, so that the worst might be over as soon as possible. ”

“ Jessie upon the grassy lawn was romping with the children, and occasionally addressing some saucy, teasing remark to the bridegroom-elect, who was smoking his cigar demurely beneath the trees, and wishing Dora would join them. But Dora was differently employed. With the quiet which had suddenly fallen upon the household, a terrible reaction had come to her, and as if waking from some horrid nightmare, she began to realize her position, to feel that only a few hours lay between herself and a living death. ”

“ Through much sorrow he had been tried and purified, until now in his heart, always unselfish and kind, there was room for the holier, gentler feelings which only the peace of God can give. Not in vain had he in the solitude of his chamber writhed and groaned over the crushing pang with which he gave Dora up, while the tears wept over his dead children were to him a holier baptism than any received before, washing him clean and making him a noble-minded Christian man. ”

“ His caresses had wearied Anna, and he would not err this way again, so he never touched the lips which would have paid him back so gladly, but merely pressed the little hand which trembled in his, as he said to her, “A year is not very long, Dora. It will pass sooner than we think, and you must not forget me.” Another pressure of the hand, and he was gone, leaving the maiden far more desolate than he dreamed. Could he have known how fast the tears came, when alone in her room she went over with the parting and said to herself, “He does not love me now. ”

“ It hardly does her justice, for no artist can ever give a correct idea of what that face was when lighted up with life, and health, and love. I have never seen a face one half as beautiful as Anna’s. She knew that she was beautiful, but it did not make her vain, for she knew that God had given her the dangerous gift of beauty, and she tried to keep His gift unsullied, just as she tried to keep her heart pure in His sight. ”

“ With a great sobbing cry Johnnie sprang towards Dora, but suddenly checked himself, as there flashed upon his mind that to his father belonged the first greeting of sorrow. And who that has passed through such a scene that knows not the comfort there is in the sympathy of a warm-hearted child! Squire Russell felt it keenly, as he held his first-born in his arms and heard his boyish attempts at consolation.
“We’ll love each other more, father, now our mother’s gone. Poor father, don’t cry so hard. If you’ll stop I’ll try to do so too. We’ve got Aunt Dora left and all the children. ”

“ There were roses now on Dora’s cheeks, and they made her positively beautiful as she kissed her sister and the little ones good-by, glancing nervously across the broad, quiet street to where a small, white office was nestled among the trees. But though the blinds were down, the door was not opened, while around the house in the same yard there were no signs of life except at an upper window, where a head, which was unmistakably that of Dr. West’s landlady, Mrs. Markham, was discernible behind the muslin curtain. ”

“ Afterwards in Venice, beneath the influence of those glorious moonlight nights, he had been conscious of a deeper feeling, which, had he tarried longer at the syren’s side, might have ripened into love. But he left her just in time to escape what he felt would have been a most unfortunate affair for him, for sweet and beautiful as she was, Lucy was not the wife for a clergyman to choose. ”

“ Cunningly and carefully for the next half hour she talked, telling Anna that she was not to be thrust upon the notice of any one,—that she herself had no patience with those intriguing mammas who push their bold daughters forward, but that as a good marriage was the ultima thule of a woman’s hopes, it was but natural that she, as Anna’s aunt, should wish to see her well settled in life, and settled, too, near herself, where they could see each other every day. ”

“ Lucy had insisted that she did not care to go to Saratoga. She preferred remaining in Hanover, where it was cool and quiet, and where she would not have to dress three times a day and dance every night until twelve. She was beginning to find that there was something to live for besides consulting one’s own pleasure, and she meant to do good the rest of her life, she said, assuming such a sober, nun-like air, that no one who saw her could fail to laugh, it was so at variance with her entire nature. ”