MISS BARTRAM'S TROUBLE

I.

It was a day of unusual excitement at the Rambo farm-house. On the
farm, it is true, all things were in their accustomed order, and
all growths did their accustomed credit to the season. The fences
were in good repair; the cattle were healthy and gave promise of
the normal increase, and the young corn was neither strangled with
weeds nor assassinated by cut-worms. Old John Rambo was gradually
allowing his son, Henry, to manage in his stead, and the latter
shrewdly permitted his father to believe that he exercised the
ancient authority. Leonard Clare, the strong young fellow who had
been taken from that shiftless adventurer, his father, when a mere
child, and brought up almost as one of the family, and who had
worked as a joiner's apprentice during the previous six months, had
come back for the harvest work; so the Rambos were forehanded, and
probably as well satisfied as it is possible for Pennsylvania
farmers to be.

In the house, also, Mrs. Priscilla Rambo was not severely haunted
by the spectre of any neglected duty. The simple regular
routine of the household could not be changed under her charge;
each thing had its appropriate order of performance, must be done,
and WAS done. If the season were backward, at the time
appointed for whitewashing or soap-making, so much the worse for
the season; if the unhatched goslings were slain by thunder, she
laid the blame on the thunder. And if--but no, it is quite
impossible to suppose that, outside of those two inevitable,
fearful house-cleaning weeks in each year, there could have been
any disorder in the cold prim, varnish-odored best rooms, sacred to
company.

It was Miss Betty Rambo, whose pulse beat some ten strokes faster
than its wont, as she sat down with the rest to their early country
dinner. Whether her brother Henry's participated in the
accelerated movement could not be guessed from his demeanor. She
glanced at him now and then, with bright eyes and flushed cheeks,
eager to speak yet shrinking from the half magisterial air which
was beginning to supplant his old familiar banter. Henry was
changing with his new responsibility, as she admitted to herself
with a sort of dismay; he had the airs of an independent farmer,
and she remained only a farmer's daughter,--without any
acknowledged rights, until she should acquire them all, at a single
blow, by marriage.

Nevertheless, he must have felt what was in her mind; for, as he
cut out the quarter of a dried apple pie, he said carelessly:

"I must go down to the Lion, this afternoon. There's a fresh drove
of Maryland cattle just come."

"Oh Harry!" cried Betty, in real distress.

"I know," he answered; "but as Miss Bartram is going to stay two
weeks, she'll keep. She's not like a drove, that's here one day,
and away the next. Besides, it is precious little good I shall
have of her society, until you two have used up all your secrets
and small talk. I know how it is with girls. Leonard will drive
over to meet the train."

"Won't I do on a pinch?" Leonard asked.

"Oh, to be sure," said Betty, a little embarrassed, "only Alice--
Miss Bartram--might expect Harry, because her brother came for me
when I went up."

"If that's all, make yourself easy, Bet," Henry answered, as he
rose from the table. "There's a mighty difference between here and
there. Unless you mean to turn us into a town family while she
stays--high quality, eh?"

"Go along to your cattle! there's not much quality, high or low,
where you are."

Betty was indignant; but the annoyance exhausted itself healthfully
while she was clearing away the dishes and restoring the room to
its order, so that when Leonard drove up to the gate with the
lumbering, old-fashioned carriage two hours afterwards, she came
forth calm, cheerful, fresh as a pink in her pink muslin, and
entirely the good, sensible country-girl she was.

Two or three years before, she and Miss Alice Bartram, daughter of
the distinguished lawyer in the city, had been room-mates at the
Nereid Seminary for Young Ladies. Each liked the other for
the contrast to her own self; both were honest, good and lovable,
but Betty had the stronger nerves and a practical sense which
seemed to be admirable courage in the eyes of Miss Alice, whose
instincts were more delicate, whose tastes were fine and high, and
who could not conceive of life without certain luxurious
accessories. A very cordial friendship sprang up between them,--
not the effusive girl-love, with its iterative kisses, tears, and
flow of loosened hair, but springing from the respect inspired by
sound and positive qualities.

The winter before, Betty had been invited to visit her friend in
the city, and had passed a very excited and delightful week in the
stately Bartram mansion. If she were at first a little fluttered
by the manners of the new world, she was intelligent enough to
carry her own nature frankly through it, instead of endeavoring to
assume its character. Thus her little awkwardnesses became
originalities, and she was almost popular in the lofty circle when
she withdrew from it. It was therefore, perhaps, slightly
inconsistent in Betty, that she was not quite sure how Miss Bartram
would accept the reverse side of this social experience. She
imagined it easier to look down and make allowances, as a host,
than as a guest; she could not understand that the charm of the
change might be fully equal.

It was lovely weather, as they drove up the sweet, ever-changing
curves of the Brandywine valley. The woods fairly laughed in the
clear sunlight, and the soft, incessant, shifting breezes.
Leonard, in his best clothes, and with a smoother gloss on his
brown hair, sang to himself as he urged the strong-boned horses
into a trot along the levels; and Betty finally felt so quietly
happy that she forgot to be nervous. When they reached the station
they walked up and down the long platform together, until the train
from the city thundered up, and painfully restrained its speed.
Then Betty, catching sight of a fawn-colored travelling dress
issuing from the ladies' car, caught hold of Leonard's arm, and
cried: "There she is!"

Miss Bartram heard the words, and looked down with a bright, glad
expression on her face. It was not her beauty that made Leonard's
heart suddenly stop beating; for she was not considered a beauty,
in society. It was something rarer than perfect beauty, yet even
more difficult to describe,--a serene, unconscious grace, a pure,
lofty maturity of womanhood, such as our souls bow down to in the
Santa Barbara of Palma Vecchio. Her features were not "faultlessly
regular," but they were informed with the finer harmonies of her
character. She was a woman, at whose feet a noble man might kneel,
lay his forehead on her knee, confess his sins, and be pardoned.

She stepped down to the platform, and Betty's arms were about her.
After a double embrace she gently disengaged herself, turned to
Leonard, gave him her hand, and said, with a smile which was
delightfully frank and cordial: "I will not wait for Betty's
introduction, Mr. Rambo. She has talked to me so much of her
brother Harry, that I quite know you already."

Leonard could neither withdraw his eyes nor his hand. It was like
a double burst of warmth and sunshine, in which his breast seemed
to expand, his stature to grow, and his whole nature to throb with
some new and wonderful force. A faint color came into Miss
Bartram's cheeks, as they stood thus, for a moment, face to face.
She seemed to be waiting for him to speak, but of this he never
thought; had any words come to his mind, his tongue could not have
uttered them.

"It is not Harry," Betty explained, striving to hide her
embarrassment. "This is Leonard Clare, who lives with us."

"Then I do not know you so well as I thought," Miss Bartram said to
him; "it is the beginning of a new acquaintance, after all."

"There isn't no harm done," Leonard answered, and instantly feeling
the awkwardness of the words, blushed so painfully that Miss
Bartram felt the inadequacy of her social tact to relieve so
manifest a case of distress. But she did, instinctively, what was
really best: she gave Leonard the check for her trunk, divided her
satchels with Betty, and walked to the carriage.

He did not sing, as he drove homewards down the valley. Seated on
the trunk, in front, he quietly governed the horses, while the two
girls, on the seat behind him, talked constantly and gaily. Only
the rich, steady tones of Miss Bartram's voice WOULD make their
way into his ears, and every light, careless sentence printed
itself upon his memory. They came to him as if from some
inaccessible planet. Poor fellow! he was not the first to
feel "the desire of the moth for the star."

When they reached the Rambo farm-house, it was necessary that he
should give his hand to help her down from the clumsy carriage. He
held it but a moment; yet in that moment a gentle pulse throbbed
upon his hard palm, and he mechanically set his teeth, to keep down
the impulse which made him wild to hold it there forever. "Thank
you, Mr. Clare!" said Miss Bartram, and passed into the house.
When he followed presently, shouldering her trunk into the upper
best-room, and kneeling upon the floor to unbuckle the straps, she
found herself wondering: "Is this a knightly service, or the
menial duty of a porter? Can a man be both sensitive and ignorant,
chivalrous and vulgar?"

The question was not so easily decided, though no one guessed how
much Miss Bartram pondered it, during the succeeding days. She
insisted, from the first, that her coming should make no change in
the habits of the household; she rose in the cool, dewy summer
dawns, dined at noon in the old brown room beside the kitchen, and
only differed from the Rambos in sitting at her moonlit window, and
breathing the subtle odors of a myriad leaves, long after Betty was
sleeping the sleep of health.

It was strange how frequently the strong, not very graceful figure
of Leonard Clare marched through these reveries. She occasionally
spoke to him at the common table, or as she passed the borders of
the hay-field, where he and Henry were at work: but his words to
her were always few and constrained. What was there in his
eyes that haunted her? Not merely a most reverent admiration of
her pure womanly refinement, although she read that also; not a
fear of disparagement, such as his awkward speech implied, but
something which seemed to seek agonizingly for another language
than that of the lips,--something which appealed to her from equal
ground, and asked for an answer.

One evening she met him in the lane, as she returned from the
meadow. She carried a bunch of flowers, with delicate blue and
lilac bells, and asked him the name.

"Them's Brandywine cowslips," he answered; "I never heard no other
name.

"May I correct you?" she said, gently, and with a smile which she
meant to be playful. "I suppose the main thing is to speak one's
thought, but there are neat and orderly ways, and there are
careless ways." Thereupon she pointed out the inaccuracies of his
answer, he standing beside her, silent and attentive. When she
ceased, he did not immediately reply.

"You will take it in good part, will you not?" she continued. "I
hope I have not offended you."

"No!" he exclaimed, firmly, lifting his head, and looking at her.
The inscrutable expression in his dark gray eyes was stronger than
before, and all his features were more clearly drawn. He reminded
her of a picture of Adam which she had once seen: there was the
same rather low forehead, straight, even brows, full yet strong
mouth, and that broader form of chin which repeats and
balances the character of the forehead. He was not positively
handsome, but from head to foot he expressed a fresh, sound quality
of manhood.

Another question flashed across Miss Bartram's mind: Is life long
enough to transform this clay into marble? Here is a man in form,
and with all the dignity of the perfect masculine nature: shall the
broad, free intelligence, the grace and sweetness, the taste and
refinement, which the best culture gives, never be his also? If
not, woman must be content with faulty representations of her
ideal.

So musing, she walked on to the farm-house. Leonard had picked up
one of the blossoms she had let fall, and appeared to be curiously
examining it. If he had apologized for his want of grammar, or
promised to reform it, her interest in him might have diminished;
but his silence, his simple, natural obedience to some powerful
inner force, whatever it was, helped to strengthen that phantom of
him in her mind, which was now beginning to be a serious trouble.

Once again, the day before she left the Rambo farmhouse to return
to the city, she came upon him, alone. She had wandered off to the
Brandywine, to gather ferns at a rocky point where some choice
varieties were to be found. There were a few charming clumps,
half-way up a slaty cliff, which it did not seem possible to scale,
and she was standing at the base, looking up in vain longing, when
a voice, almost at her ear, said:

"Which ones do you want?"

Afterwards, she wondered that she did not start at the voice.
Leonard had come up the road from one of the lower fields: he wore
neither coat nor waistcoat, and his shirt, open at the throat,
showed the firm, beautiful white of the flesh below the strong tan
of his neck. Miss Bartram noticed the sinewy strength and
elasticity of his form, yet when she looked again at the ferns, she
shook her head, and answered:

"None, since I cannot have them."

Without saying a word, he took off his shoes, and commenced
climbing the nearly perpendicular face of the cliff. He had done
it before, many a time; but Miss Bartram, although she was familiar
with such exploits from the pages of many novels, had never seen
the reality, and it quite took away her breath.

When he descended with the ferns in his hand, she said: "It was a
great risk; I wish I had not wanted them."

"It was no risk for me," he answered.

"What can I send you in return?" she asked, as they walked
forwards. "I am going home to-morrow."

"Betty told me," Leonard said; "please, wait one minute."

He stepped down to the bank of the stream, washed his hands
carefully in the clear water, and came back to her, holding them,
dripping, at his sides.

"I am very ignorant," he then continued,--"ignorant and rough. You
are good, to want to send me something, but I want nothing. Miss
Bartram, you are very good."

He paused; but with all her tact and social experience, she did not
know what to say.

"Would you do one little thing for me--not for the ferns, that was
nothing--no more than you do, without thinking, for all your
friends?"

"Oh, surely!" she said.

"Might I--might I--now,--there'll be no chance tomorrow,--shake
hands with you?"

The words seemed to be forced from him by the strength of a fierce
will. Both stopped, involuntarily.

"It's quite dry, you see," said he, offering his hand. Her own
sank upon it, palm to palm, and the fingers softly closed over
each, as if with the passion and sweetness of a kiss. Miss
Bartram's heart came to her eyes, and read, at last, the question
in Leonard's. It was: "I as man, and you, as woman, are equals;
will you give me time to reach you?" What her eyes replied she
knew not. A mighty influence drew her on, and a mighty doubt and
dread restrained her. One said: "Here is your lover, your
husband, your cherished partner, left by fate below your station,
yet whom you may lift to your side! Shall man, alone, crown the
humble maiden,--stoop to love, and, loving, ennoble? Be you the
queen, and love him by the royal right of womanhood!" But the
other sternly whispered: "How shall your fine and delicate fibres
be knit into this coarse texture? Ignorance, which years cannot
wash away,--low instincts, what do YOU know?--all the servile
side of life, which is turned from you,--what madness to choose
this, because some current of earthly magnetism sets along your
nerves? He loves you: what of that? You are a higher being to
him, and he stupidly adores you. Think,--yes, DARE to
think of all the prosaic realities of life, shared with him!"

Miss Bartram felt herself growing dizzy. Behind the impulse which
bade her cast herself upon his breast swept such a hot wave of
shame and pain that her face burned, and she dropped her eyelids to
shut out the sight of his face. But, for one endless second, the
sweeter voice spoke through their clasped hands. Perhaps he kissed
hers; she did not know; she only heard herself murmur:

"Good-bye! Pray go on; I will rest here."

She sat down upon a bank by the roadside, turned away her head, and
closed her eyes. It was long before the tumult in her nature
subsided. If she reflected, with a sense of relief, "nothing was
said," the thought immediately followed, "but all is known." It
was impossible,--yes, clearly impossible; and then came such a wild
longing, such an assertion of the right and truth and justice of
love, as made her seem a miserable coward, the veriest slave of
conventionalities.

Out of this struggle dawned self-knowledge, and the strength which
is born of it. When she returned to the house, she was pale and
weary, but capable of responding to Betty Rambo's constant
cheerfulness. The next day she left for the city, without having
seen Leonard Clare again.



II.



Henry Rambo married, and brought a new mistress to the farm-house.
Betty married, and migrated to a new home in another part of
the State. Leonard Clare went back to his trade, and returned no
more in harvest-time. So the pleasant farm by the Brandywine,
having served its purpose as a background, will be seen no more in
this history.

Miss Bartram's inmost life, as a woman, was no longer the same.
The point of view from which she had beheld the world was shifted,
and she was obliged to remodel all her feelings and ideas to
conform to it. But the process was gradual, and no one stood near
enough to her to remark it. She was occasionally suspected of that
"eccentricity" which, in a woman of five-and-twenty, is looked upon
as the first symptom of a tendency to old-maidenhood, but which is
really the sign of an earnest heart struggling with the questions
of life. In the society of cities, most men give only the shallow,
flashy surface of their natures to the young women they meet, and
Miss Bartram, after that revelation of the dumb strength of an
ignorant man, sometimes grew very impatient of the platitudes and
affectations which came to her clad in elegant words, and
accompanied by irreproachable manners.

She had various suitors; for that sense of grace and repose and
sweet feminine power, which hung around her like an atmosphere,
attracted good and true men towards her. To some, indeed, she gave
that noble, untroubled friendship which is always possible between
the best of the two sexes, and when she was compelled to deny the
more intimate appeal, it was done with such frank sorrow, such
delicate tenderness, that she never lost the friend in losing
the lover. But, as one year after another went by, and the younger
members of her family fell off into their separate domestic orbits,
she began to shrink a little at the perspective of a lonely life,
growing lonelier as it receded from the Present.

By this time, Leonard Clare had become almost a dream to her. She
had neither seen him nor heard of him since he let go her hand on
that memorable evening beside the stream. He was a strange,
bewildering chance, a cypher concealing a secret which she could
not intelligently read. Why should she keep the memory of that
power which was, perhaps, some unconscious quality of his nature
(no, it was not so! something deeper than reason cried:), or long
since forgotten, if felt, by him?

The man whom she most esteemed came back to her. She knew the
ripeness and harmony of his intellect, the nobility of his
character, and the generosity of a feeling which would be satisfied
with only a partial return. She felt sure, also, that she should
never possess a sentiment nearer to love than that which pleaded
his cause in her heart. But her hand lay quiet in his, her pulses
were calm when he spoke, and his face, manly and true as it was,
never invaded her dreams. All questioning was vain; her heart gave
no solution of the riddle. Perhaps her own want was common to all
lives: then she was cherishing a selfish ideal, and rejecting the
positive good offered to her hands.

After long hesitation she yielded. The predictions of society came
to naught; instead of becoming an "eccentric" spinster, Miss
Bartram was announced to be the affianced bride of Mr. Lawrie. A
few weeks and months rolled around, and when the wedding-day came,
she almost hailed it as the port of refuge, where she should find
a placid and peaceful life.

They were married by an aged clergyman, a relative of the
bridegroom. The cross-street where his chapel stood, fronting a
Methodist church--both of the simplest form of that architecture
fondly supposed to be Gothic,--was quite blocked up by the
carriages of the party. The pews were crowded with elegant guests,
the altar was decorated with flowers, and the ceremony lacked
nothing of its usual solemn beauty. The bride was pale, but
strikingly calm and self-possessed, and when she moved towards the
door as Mrs. Lawrie, on her husband's arm, many matrons, recalling
their own experience, marvelled at her unflurried dignity.

Just as they passed out the door, and the bridal carriage was
summoned, a singular thing happened. Another bridal carriage drew
up from the opposite side, and a newly wedded pair came forth from
the portal of the Methodist church. Both parties stopped, face to
face, divided only by the narrow street. Mrs. Lawrie first noticed
the flushed cheeks of the other bride, her white dress, rather
showy than elegant, and the heavy gold ornaments she wore. Then
she turned to the bridegroom. He was tall and well-formed, dressed
like a gentleman, but like one who is not yet unconscious of his
dress, and had the air of a man accustomed to exercise some
authority.

She saw his face, and instantly all other faces disappeared. From
the opposite brink of a tremendous gulf she looked into his eyes,
and their blended ray of love and despair pierced her to the heart.

There was a roaring in her ears, followed a long sighing sound,
like that of the wind on some homeless waste; she leaned more
heavily on her husband's arm, leaned against his shoulder, slid
slowly down into his supporting clasp, and knew no more.

"She's paying for her mock composure, after all," said the matrons.

"It must have been a great effort."



III.


Ten years afterwards, Mrs. Lawrie went on board a steamer at
Southampton, bound for New York. She was travelling alone, having
been called suddenly from Europe by the approaching death of her
aged father. For two or three days after sailing, the thick, rainy
spring weather kept all below, except a few hardy gentlemen who
crowded together on the lee of the smoke-stack, and kept up a
stubborn cheerfulness on a very small capital of comfort. There
were few cabin-passengers on board, but the usual crowd of
emigrants in the steerage.

Mrs. Lawrie's face had grown calmer and colder during these years.
There was yet no gray in her hair, no wrinkles about her clear
eyes; each feature appeared to be the same, but the pale,
monotonous color which had replaced the warm bloom of her youth,
gave them a different character. The gracious dignity of her
manner, the mellow tones of her voice, still expressed her
unchanging goodness, yet those who met her were sure to feel, in
some inexplicable way, that to be good is not always to be happy.
Perhaps, indeed, her manner was older than her face and form: she
still attracted the interest of men, but with a certain doubt and
reserve.

Certain it is that when she made her appearance on deck, glad of
the blue sky and sunshine, and threw back her hood to feel the
freshness of the sea air, all eyes followed her movements, except
those of a forlorn individual, who, muffled in his cloak and
apparently sea-sick, lay upon one of the benches. The captain
presently joined her, and the gentlemen saw that she was bright and
perfectly self-possessed in conversation: some of them immediately
resolved to achieve an acquaintance. The dull, passive existence
of the beginning of every voyage, seemed to be now at an end. It
was time for the little society of the vessel to awake, stir
itself, and organize a life of its own, for the few remaining days.

That night, as Mrs. Lawrie was sleeping in her berth, she suddenly
awoke with a singular feeling of dread and suspense. She listened
silently, but for some time distinguished none other than the small
sounds of night on shipboard--the indistinct orders, the dragging
of ropes, the creaking of timbers, the dull, regular jar of the
engine, and the shuffling noise of feet overhead. But, ere long,
she seemed to catch faint, distant sounds, that seemed like cries;
then came hurry and confusion on deck; then voices in the
cabin, one of which said: "they never can get it under, at this
rate!"

She rose, dressed herself hastily, and made her way through pale
and excited stewards, and the bewildered passengers who were
beginning to rush from their staterooms, to the deck. In the wild
tumult which prevailed, she might have been thrown down and
trampled under foot, had not a strong arm seized her around the
waist, and borne her towards the stern, where there were but few
persons.

"Wait here!" said a voice, and her protector plunged into the
crowd.

She saw, instantly, the terrible fate which had fallen upon the
vessel. The bow was shrouded in whirls of smoke, through which
dull red flashes began to show themselves; and all the length and
breadth of the deck was filled with a screaming, struggling,
fighting mass of desperate human beings. She saw the captain,
officers, and a few of the crew working in vain against the
disorder: she saw the boats filled before they were lowered, and
heard the shrieks as they were capsized; she saw spars and planks
and benches cast overboard, and maddened men plunging after them;
and then, like the sudden opening of the mouth of Hell, the
relentless, triumphant fire burst through the forward deck and shot
up to the foreyard.

She was leaning against the mizen shrouds, between the coils of
rope. Nobody appeared to notice her, although the quarter-deck was
fast filling with persons driven back by the fire, yet still
shrinking from the terror and uncertainty of the sea. She
thought: "It is but death--why should I fear? The waves are at
hand, to save me from all suffering." And the collective horror of
hundreds of beings did not so overwhelm her as she had both fancied
and feared; the tragedy of each individual life was lost in the
confusion, and was she not a sharer in their doom?

Suddenly, a man stood before her with a cork life-preserver in his
hands, and buckled it around her securely, under the arms. He was
panting and almost exhausted, yet he strove to make his voice firm,
and even cheerful, as he said:

"We fought the cowardly devils as long as there was any hope. Two
boats are off, and two capsized; in ten minutes more every soul
must take to the water. Trust to me, and I will save you or die
with you!"

"What else can I do?" she answered.

With a few powerful strokes of an axe, he broke off the top of the
pilot-house, bound two or three planks to it with ropes, and
dragged the mass to the bulwarks.

"The minute this goes," he then said to her, "you go after it, and
I follow. Keep still when you rise to the surface."

She left the shrouds, took hold of the planks at his side, and they
heaved the rude raft into the sea. In an instant she was seized
and whirled over the side; she instinctively held her breath, felt
a shock, felt herself swallowed up in an awful, fathomless
coldness, and then found herself floating below the huge towering
hull which slowly drifted away.

In another moment there was one at her side. "Lay your hand on my
shoulder," he said; and when she did so, swam for the raft, which
they soon reached. While she supported herself by one of the
planks he so arranged and bound together the pieces of timber that
in a short time they could climb upon them and rest, not much
washed by the waves. The ship drifted further and further, casting
a faint, though awful, glare over the sea, until the light was
suddenly extinguished, as the hull sank.

The dawn was in the sky by this time, and as it broadened they
could see faint specks here and there, where others, like
themselves, clung to drifting spars. Mrs. Lawrie shuddered with
cold and the reaction from an excitement which had been far more
powerful than she knew at the time.

Her preserver then took off his coat, wrapped it around her, and
produced a pocket-flask, saying; "this will support us the longest;
it is all I could find, or bring with me."

She sat, leaning against his shoulder, though partly turned away
from him: all she could say was: "you are very good."

After awhile he spoke, and his voice seemed changed to her ears.
"You must be thinking of Mr. Lawrie. It will, indeed, be terrible
for him to hear of the disaster, before knowing that you are
saved."

"God has spared him that distress," she answered. "Mr. Lawrie
died, a year ago."

She felt a start in the strong frame upon which she leaned. After
a few minutes of silence, he slowly shifted his position
towards her, yet still without facing her, and said, almost in a
whisper:

"You have said that I am very good. Will you put your hand in
mine?"

She stretched hers eagerly and gratefully towards him. What had
happened? Through all the numbness of her blood, there sprang a
strange new warmth from his strong palm, and a pulse, which she had
almost forgotten as a dream of the past, began to beat through her
frame. She turned around all a-tremble, and saw his face in the
glow of the coming day.

"Leonard Clare!" she cried.

"Then you have not forgotten me?"

"Could one forget, when the other remembers?"

The words came involuntarily from her lips. She felt what they
implied, the moment afterwards, and said no more. But he kept her
hand in his.

"Mrs. Lawrie," he began, after another silence, "we are hanging by
a hair on the edge of life, but I shall gladly let that hair break,
since I may tell you now, purely and in the hearing of God, how I
have tried to rise to you out of the low place in which you found
me. At first you seemed too far; but you yourself led me the first
step of the way, and I have steadily kept my eyes on you, and
followed it. When I had learned my trade, I came to the city. No
labor was too hard for me, no study too difficult. I was becoming
a new man, I saw all that was still lacking, and how to reach it,
and I watched you, unknown, at a distance. Then I heard of your
engagement: you were lost, and something of which I had begun
to dream, became insanity. I determined to trample it out of my
life. The daughter of the master-builder, whose first assistant I
was, had always favored me in her society; and I soon persuaded her
to love me. I fancied, too, that I loved her as most married men
seemed to love their wives; the union would advance me to a
partnership in her father's business, and my fortune would then be
secured. You know what happened; but you do not know how the sight
of your face planted the old madness again in my life, and made me
a miserable husband, a miserable man of wealth, almost a scoffer at
the knowledge I had acquired for your sake.

"When my wife died, taking an only child with her, there was
nothing left to me except the mechanical ambition to make myself,
without you, what I imagined I might have become, through you. I
have studied and travelled, lived alone and in society, until your
world seemed to be almost mine: but you were not there!"

The sun had risen, while they sat, rocking on their frail support.
Her hand still lay in his, and her head rested on his shoulder.
Every word he spoke sank into her heart with a solemn sweetness, in
which her whole nature was silent and satisfied. Why should she
speak? He knew all.

Yes, it seemed that he knew. His arm stole around her, and her
head was drawn from his shoulder to the warm breadth of his breast.

Something hard pressed her cheek, and she lifted her hand to move
it aside. He drew forth a flat medallion case; and to the
unconscious question in her face, such a sad, tender smile came to
his lips, that she could not repress a sudden pain. Was it the
miniature of his dead wife?

He opened the case, and showed her, under the glass, a faded,
pressed flower.

"What is it?" she asked.

"The Brandywine cowslip you dropped, when you spoke to me in the
lane. Then it was that you showed me the first step of the way."

She laid her head again upon his bosom. Hour after hour they sat,
and the light swells of the sea heaved them aimlessly to and fro,
and the sun burned them, and the spray drenched their limbs. At
last Leonard Clare roused himself and looked around: he felt numb
and faint, and he saw, also, that her strength was rapidly failing.

"We cannot live much longer, I fear," he said, clasping her closely
in his arms. "Kiss me once, darling, and then we will die."

She clung to him and kissed him.

"There is life, not death, in your lips!" he cried. "Oh, God, if
we should live!"

He rose painfully to his feet, stood, tottering? on the raft, and
looked across the waves. Presently he began to tremble, then to
sob like a child, and at last spoke, through his tears:

"A sail! a sail!--and heading towards us!"

****

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