Edith

“ I say, Edith, you are not to think I don’t want you to marry father, for I do. I like you ever so much, and I’m going to stand by you through thick and thin, and at first there’ll be more thick than thin, for Julia will not be pleased with a step-mother, and Em will follow Julia, and Alice, who is there a great deal, will sniff any way, and Aunt Christine will ride her highest horse; but you are sure to win in the end. Only wear your most queen-like air, and keep a stiff upper lip, and act as if born to the purple, and you’ll conquer at last, with the governor and me to uphold you. ”

“ So you see, instead of being my maid, you have been my faithful companion—and nurse. Dear Star, I love you, and if you will always remain with me, I shall be the happiest person on earth."
"Dear Edith," said Star, with tears of gratitude in her eyes, "I knew you were good when first I beheld you; but I never knew that such goodness could be in any kinsman of mine. I never told you of the life I lived; I never told you how we lived at home; I never told you of my father or my mother. For it always gave me grief to think of it. Poor father is dead!"
"Dead!" said Edith. ”

“ Edith was deeply agitated, and her cheek grew pale, as she murmured: “You are right in obeying your father, Edward; happiness never yet waited on one who was deficient in filial duty.”
“And is this all you can say, Edith,” exclaimed Edward passionately. “Is this cold approval all I can hope to receive from the object of my first and only love? Have not my every look and tone told you how deeply I loved you, and can you let me depart without one word of tenderness or regret? ”

“ If there is anything worth while, it is Edith's love, the love that never dies. Blind man, as you are, and too considerate of high state, and too proud of your own, you are the only one to make her sweet soul happy. Bestir yourself, John, and come out of the fog of self-consciousness that has kept you in obscurity so long as to your final intentions. High state and low state are all the same to the Cupid that has engaged you so relentlessly. High caste and low caste do not count for him. ”

“ Edith, you don't understand. I wish—I wish I dared tell you the secret that took Victor from your side that day! He loves you—no, that is too poor a word to express what he feels; his life is paying the penalty of his loss. He is dying, Edith, dying of heart disease, brought on by what he has suffered in losing you. In his dying hour he will tell you all; and his one prayer is for death, that he may tell you, that you may cease to wrong and hate him as you do. O Edith, listen to me—pity me—pity him who is dying for you! Don't be so hard. ”

“ The idea of Edith Allen, the girl he had meant to marry, grubbing in the dirt and soiling her hands in that style! It was his impression that only Dutch women worked in a garden; and for all he knew of its products she might be setting out a potato plant. Quick Edith caught his expression, and while she crimsoned with vexation at her plight, felt a new and sudden sense of contempt for the semblance of a man before her. ”

“ Not until five o'clock in the afternoon did I receive any explanation of the lights at Grassmere. Edith had been to her bridge club, and came rushing up on the veranda, eager and excited. There were little bright spots in the center of each cheek. Edith's a handsome woman, thirty-five or eight, I think, and very smart in appearance. She has dark brilliant eyes, and a quality in her voice and manner that makes you feel as if there were about eight cylinders and all in perfect order, too, chugging away underneath her shiny exterior. ”

“ Our Father which art in heaven let me come back to Thy kingdom. Bless my wife Edith and our little Marjorie and give them to me again. I am not worthy of them; I have sinned against them and against Thee. I have been drunken, adulterous, heartless, but from this night I will be good again. I will try with all my soul, and with Thy help I will succeed. Teach me to be strong. Forgive me my trespasses and help Edith to forgive them. Make my wife beautiful in my sight and make all those other beautiful faces ugly in my eyes so that I shall see only Edith as I used to. ”

“ So, Gundred my son's daughter, thou hast been to London town; and thou hast seen this new Queen Edith, whom men in the French tongue call Maulde; and she is the fairest lady who ever in all the world sat beside king in high-seat; the most gracious, the meekest, the freest-handed, the most ruthful! Edith, quoth the child? Long ago there was an Edith.... Well, daughter, a queen once spoke to thy grandfather, and he to her; and a mighty wonder marked their meeting, which will be remembered while time shall last. Young folk love tales, and the old are fain to the telling of tales. ”

“ And again she searched Edith's face and eyes as if she would read her inmost thoughts.
She met her glance clearly, unshrinkingly.
"I am sure that you never committed a willful wrong in your life," she gravely replied. "It was a sad mistake to go away from your home and parents, as you did; but there is no intent to sin to be laid to your charge—your soul shines, like a beacon light, through these dear eyes, and I am sure it is as pure and lovely as your face is beautiful." ”

“ And now the choice of a companion for Miss Rachel Harley, the stern, middle-aged aunt, whom even the elder girls could scarcely remember to have seen, had fallen upon Edith.
The news came to her first as a great blow. There could not be very much sympathy between the gentle, ailing, slightly querulous mother and the vigorous, active girl; yet Edith had very strong, if half-concealed, home affections, and it hurt her more than she cared to show that even her mother seemed to feel a sort of relief in the prospect of her going away for so long. ”

“ Edith had a place near the reading-desk where she could see the countenances of all those children who were sitting side by side in row after row and filling every seat in the room, a restless, eager, expectant crowd, half disciplined and only held quiet by the order and authority they had learned to respect. Such faces as she looked into! In scarcely a single one could she find anything of true childhood, and they were so marred by suffering and evil! ”

“ Edith certainly would concede so much to his feelings. She would not thrust this great humiliation upon him in the face of all the world. And if they never found the girl,—but he dared not allow himself to consider that possibility for a moment. Something told him they would find her, and he caught himself wondering how she looked, if she was at all like her mother; or had she lived so long with the people in Dorset Street that every vestige of grace and beauty and refinement had been destroyed, and she was like her aunt, Jenny Nesbit, in far-off Alnwick, with her bare arms and dreadful slang. ”

“ Poor Edith's answers were very far from satisfying Miss Harley.
"You say you have had no teacher but your sister since Miss Phelps, or Phipps, or whatever her name was, left. And how old is your sister, may I ask?"
"Jessie is eighteen," answered Edith. "And she is very clever—every one says so, especially at music." ”

“ Edith is seated near the only window of their sordid apartment in the afternoon of a sultry summer day; the sun is shining without with overpowering splendor; a heated vapor rises from the paved streets and seems to shimmer in the breathless atmosphere. Edith had lost all the freshness and roundness of youth; her cheek was deadly white, and her emaciated form seemed to indicate the approach of the terrible disease of which her brother had died. ”

“ Edith’s dress was very plain and simple, a rich black silk, with some kind of a gauzy white scarf around her shoulders and a white chip bonnet, with lace and blue ribbons; and yet she was very elegant, as with eyes cast down and a flush on her cheek she walked up the aisle and took her seat in the Schuyler pew. ”

“ Pure, perfectly beneficent, lived Edith, and never thought of any thing or person, but for its own sake. When she had attained midway the hill of life, she happened to be boarding in the house with a young farmer, who was lost in admiration of her lore. How he wished he, too, could read! "What, can't you read? O, let me teach you!"—"You never can; I was too thick-skulled to learn even at school. I am sure I never could now." But Edith was not to be daunted by any fancies of incapacity, and set to work with utmost zeal to teach this great grown man the primer. ”

“ He continued his reassuring talk to the woman whose husband was ill, but he was at the same time thinking of Ruth's eager questionings about Edith, about Edith's children, her hunger for every smallest thing he could tell her. When he went down to his car Edith, looking up and seeing him, gayly waved her hand. He returned the salute and stood there as if doing something to the car. Sitting there in the morning sunshine with her two children Edith looked the very picture of the woman for whom things had gone happily. Life had opened its pleasantest ways to Edith. ”

“ John Donovan worshiped the slender slippers on Edith's feet. Sight of the woman's fairness wrought in the lonely man a silent longing and, more than this, an all-powerful awe. This was the reason he had been absent from the stone room so much. He was afraid his presence might disturb Edith, perhaps annoy her. ”

“ Seeing Edith was the only thing that was worth while. He refused to contemplate with any calmness a life in which it would be impossible for him to see her. If the poor prodigal had not chosen the most elevated situation for the building of his house of life, he was always making desperate efforts to leave the insalubrious spot, and return to the high and windswept mansions of his youth. To be with Edith was to nourish the illusion of return. Return itself seemed possible, when goodness, in the person of Edith, looked at him with such tender and alluring eyes. ”

“ I am hardly strong enough,” Edith said; “but I will come some day if she does not get well; and now carry her this soft shawl; it will answer for a pillow. I do not need it at all, and Norah shall take her some oranges and wine.” ”

“ Edith became a flighty, negligible girl, not to be worried over; rather to be laughed at. She fitted like a figure of his own dream into the surface world forming about him. He himself became in a measure symbolic, a type of the continent bacchanal, the brilliant dreamer at play. ”

“ Edith Hamilton, who stood behind the chair of her aunt, did not make any answer.
Mrs. Ravensworth continued—"Edward's father was your father's own brother. A man of nobler spirit never moved on English soil; and I hear that Edward is the worthy son of a worthy sire."
"If he were as pure and perfect as an angel, aunt," replied Edith, "it would be all the same to me. I have never seen him, and cannot, therefore, meet him as one who has a right to claim my hand."
"Your father gave you away when you were a child, Edith; and Edward comes now to claim you by virtue of this betrothal." ”

“ You are to me, Edith, more perfect than any human being I ever dreamed of or imagined; so lovely, darling, that when you burst on me first, in your young, pure loveliness, I was almost in doubt if you, indeed, belonged to our dull earth. How could I love you!”
“What a simple question; yet, how deep in its very simplicity and artlessness. Yes, Edith, I almost ask myself the same question—how I could dare to love one so like an angel. I will not suffer myself to search into my right—lest I say with truth ”

“ Edith admitted loyally.
They were silent, seized irresistibly by the emotion that mastered the mighty crowd in the dark streets below. Edith was strangely moved. Presently she could speak:
"Is there anything sweeter in life than to know that you have done a good thing—and done it well?"
"Yes," said Clayton, "just one: to have a few friends who understand."
"You are right," said Edith. "It is so with art, and it must be so with life; it makes an art of life."
It was dark enough there by the window for her to slip her hand into that of Neil, who had been musing silently on the crowd. ”

“ He wishes Edith, when she comes, to see him as he once was. It is not vanity; it is pride of home. He wishes her to see life as it really is in a well directed loving home, where toil is the simple reward of living. He wishes her to see what life is to these people of the hills, how they thrive, and how they bear their burdens. He wishes her to see all this in contrast to her own life, and how love and duty can go on perpetually in a humble home, as well as in a mansion. ”

“ Opposite him sat Edith and Star. Edith, in her pale blue evening gown, was the essence of delicacy. Her face was fulling into health again, though showing the toning wounds of long illness. Her eyes sparkled almost as the diamonds that were set in ring and brooch. Star was like a fresh young sun on a bright summer day. Mrs. Jarney was as bouncing as ever in her sprightliness. Monroe was cold, as marble-like, as statue-like, as ever. The dinner was very formal, very cheerless, very unappetizing to every one, save Monroe, who ate with relish everything set before him. ”

“ And Edith did not grow tired with constant watching. On the contrary, both strength and flesh came back to her, and, when at last the fever turned, and she knew her child would live, she gained faster than Gertie, and it seemed to the colonel that she grew young and fair and smooth each day until it was very hard to believe her the mother of the sick girl, who, with the marks of disease upon her face, looked her nineteen years. ”