 CHAPTER XIV The affair proceeded rapidly. As such affairs should do where there is no reason for delay. There was no more talk of Birmingham. The journey, which was to have been taken in a few days, was not spoken of again. The external arrangements advanced well, so many as there were anxious about this part of the matter, and accomplished in habits of business. Mr. Rowland was happy to let the corner house to Mr. Hope, not even taking advantage, as his lady advised, of its being peculiarly fit for a surgeon's residence from its having a door round the corner, made to be a surgery door, to raise the rent. Mr. Rowland behaved handsomely about everything—rent, alterations, painting and papering, and laying out the garden anew. Mr. Gray besturred himself to get the affairs that Birmingham settled, and he was soon enabled to inform Mr. Hope that Hester's fortune was a certain, and that it was smaller than could have been wished. He believed his cousins would have seventy pounds a year each, and no more. It was some compensation for the mortifying nature of this announcement, that Mr. Hope evidently did not care at all about the matter. He was not an ambitious, nor yet a luxurious man. His practice supplied an income sufficient for the ease of young married people, and it was on the increase. No one seemed to doubt for a moment that Margaret would live with her sister. There was no other home for her. She and Hester had never been parted. There seemed no reason for their parting now, and every inducement for their remaining together. Margaret did not dream of objecting to this. She only made it a conditioned that fifty pounds of her yearly income should go into the family stock, thus saving her from obligation to anyone for her maintenance. Living was so cheap in Dearbrook that Margaret was assured that she would render herself quite independent by paying fifty pounds a year for her share of the household expenses, and reserving twenty for her personal wants. Both the sisters were surprised to find how much pleasure they took in the preparations for this marriage. They could not have believed it, and but that they were too happy to feel any kind of contempt, they would have despised themselves for it. But such contempt would have been misplaced. All things are according to the ideas and feelings with which they are connected, and if, as old George Herbert says, dusting a room is an act of religious grace when it is done from a feeling of religious duty, furnishing a house is a process of high enjoyment when it is the preparation of a home for happy love. The dwelling is hung all round with bright anticipations, and crowded with blissful thoughts, spoken by none, perhaps, but present to all. On this table and by this snug fireside will the cheerful winter breakfast go forward when each is about to enter on the gladsome business of the day, and the sofa will be drawn out, and those window curtains will be closed when the intellectual pleasures of the evening, the rewards of the laborious day, begin. Those ground windows will stand open all the summer noon, and the flower stands will be gay and fragrant, and the shaded parlor will be the cool retreat of the wearied husband when he comes in to rest from his professional toils. There will stand the books destined to refresh and refine his higher tastes, and there the music with which the wife will indulge him. Here will they first feel what it is to have a home of their own, where they will first enjoy the privacy of it, the security, the freedom, the consequence in the eyes of others, the sacredness in their own. Here they will first exercise the graces of hospitality and the responsibility of control. Here will they feel that they have attained the great resting place of their life, the resting place of their individual lot, but only the starting point of their activity. Such is the work of furnishing a house once in a lifetime. It may be a welcome task to the fine lady decking her drawing-room anew to gratify her ambition or divert her ennui. It may be a satisfactory labor to the elderly couple, settling themselves afresh when their children are dispersed abroad, and it becomes necessary to discard the furniture that the boys have battered and spoiled. It may be a refined amusement to the selfish man of taste, wishing to prolong or recall the pleasures of foreign travel. But to none is it the conscious delight that it is to young lovers and their sympathizing friends, whether the scene be the two rooms of the hopeful young artisan about to bring home his bride from service, or the palace of a noble man, enriched with intellectual luxuries for the lady of his adoration, or the quiet abode of an unambitious professional man whose aim is privacy and comfort. Margaret's delight in the process of preparation was the most intense of all that was felt, except perhaps by one person. Mrs. Gray and Sophia enjoyed the bustle and the consequence, and the exercise of their feminine talents, and the gossip of the village and the spitefulness of Mrs. Rowland's criticisms, when she had recovered from her delight at her brother's escape from Hester, and had leisure to be offended at Mr. Hope's marrying into the gray connections so decidedly. The children relished the mystery of buying their presents secretly and hiding them from their cousins till the day before the wedding. Sydney was proud to help Margaret in training the chrysanthemums, putting the garden into winter trim, and in planting round the walls of the surgery with large evergreens. Mr. Gray came down almost every evening to suggest and approve, and Morris left her needle, now busy from morning till night in Hester's service, to admire and to speak her wishes when desired, about the preparations in her department. Morris, another maid, and a foot boy, were the only servants, and Morris was to have everything as she liked best for her own region. But Margaret was as eager and interested as all the rest together. Her heart was light for her sister, and for the first time since she was capable of thought, she believed that Hester was going to be happy. Her own gain was almost too great for gratitude, a home, a brother, and relief from the responsibility of her sister's peace, as often as she thought of these blessings, she looked almost as bright as Hester herself. How was Mr. Hope, all this while? Well, and growing happier every day. He believed himself a perfectly happy man, and looked back with wonder to the struggle which it had cost him to accept his present lot. He was not only entirely recovered from his accident before the rich month of October came in, but truly thankful for it, as the means of bringing to his knowledge, sooner at least, the devoted affection which he had inspired. It cannot but be animating, flattering, delightful to a man of strong domestic tendencies to know himself the object of the exclusive attachment of a strong minded and noble-hearted woman. And when, in addition to this, her society affords the delight of mental accomplishment and personal beauty, such as Hester's, he must be a churl indeed if he does not greatly enjoy the present and indulge in sweet anticipations for the future. Hope also brought the whole power of his will to bear upon his circumstances. He dwelt upon all the happiest features of his lot, and in his admiration of Hester thought as little as he could of Margaret. He had the daily delight of seeing how he constituted the newborn happiness of her whose life was to be devoted to him. He heard of nothing but rejoicings and blessings, and fully believed himself the happy man that everyone declared him. He dwelt on the prospect of a home full of domestic attachment, of rational pursuit, of intellectual resource, and looked forward to a life of religious usefulness, of vigorous devotedness to others, of which he trusted that his first act of self-sacrifice and its consequences were the earnest and the pledge. He had never for a moment repented when he had done, and now when he hastily recurred to the struggle it had cost him. It was chiefly to moralize on the short-sightedness of men in their wishes, and to be grateful for his own present satisfaction. A few cold misgivings had troubled him, and continued to trouble him, if Hester at any time looked at all less bright and serene than usual. But he concluded that these were merely the cloud shadows which necessarily checker all the sunshine of this world. He told himself that when two human beings become closely dependent on each other their peace must hang upon the variations in one and other's moods, and that moods must vary in all mortals. He persuaded himself that this was a necessary consequence of the relation, and to be received as a slight set-off against the unfathomable blessings of sympathy. He concluded that he had deceived himself about his feelings for Margaret. He must have been mistaken, for he could now receive from her the opening confidence of a sister. He could cordially agree to the arrangement of her living with them. He could cooperate with her in the preparation for the coming time without any emotion which was inconsistent with his duty to Hester. With unconscious prudence he merely said this to himself and let it pass, reverting to his beautiful, his happy, his own Hester, and the future years over which her image spread its sunshine. The one person who relished the task of preparation more than Margaret herself was Hope. Every advance in the work seemed to bring him nearer to the source of the happiness he felt. Every day of which they marked the lapse appeared to open wider the portals of that home, which he was now more than ever habituated to view as the sanctuary of duty, of holiness, and of peace. All remarked on Mr. Hope's altered looks, the shyness and coldness with which he had seemed to receive the first congratulations on his engagement, and which excited wonder in many, and uneasiness in a few, had now given place to a gaiety only subdued by a more tender happiness. Even Mrs. Gray need no longer watch his countenance in manner, and weigh his words with anxiety, and try to forget that there was a secret between them. One ground of Mr. Hope's confidence was Hester's candor. She had truly told her sister. She felt it was no time for pride when he offered himself to her. Her pride was strong, but there was something in her as much stronger in force than her pride as it was higher in its nature, and she had owned her love with the frankness which had commanded his esteem as much as it engaged his generosity. She had made a no less open avowal of her faults to him. She had acknowledged the imperfections of her temper, the sorrest of her troubles, both at the outset of their engagement, and often since. At first the confession was made in an undoubting confidence that she should be reasonable and amiable and serene henceforth forever, while she had him by her side. Subsequent experience had moderated this confidence into a hope that, by his example and under his guidance, she should be enabled to surmount her failings. He shared this hope with her, pledged himself to her and to himself to forbear as he would be forborn, to aid her and to honor her efforts, and he frequently declared for his own satisfaction in hers that all must be safe between them while such generous candor was the foundation of their intercourse. A generosity and candor in whose noble presence superficial failings of temper were as nothing. He admitted that her temper was not perfect, and he must ever remember his own foreknowledge of this. But he must also bear in mind whence this foreknowledge was derived, and pay everlasting honor to the greatness of soul to which he owed it. An early day in December was fixed for the marriage, and no cause of delay occurred. There happened to be no patience so dangerously ill as to prevent Mr. Hope's absence for his brief wedding trip. The workpeople were as nearly punctual as could be expected, and the house was all but ready. The wedding was really to take place, therefore, though Mrs. Rowland gave out that in her opinion the engagement had been a surprisingly short one, that she hoped the young people knew what they were about, while all their friends were in such a hurry, that it was a wretched time of the year for a wedding, and that in her opinion it would have been much pleasanter to wait for fine spring weather. As it happened the weather was finer than it had been almost any day of the preceding spring. The day before the wedding was sunny and mild as an October morning, and the fires seemed to be blazing more for show than use. When Mr. Hope dropped in at the graze at two o'clock he found the family dining. It was a fancy of Mrs. Graves to dine early on what she considered busy days. An early dinner was, with her, a specific for the despatch of business. On this day the arrangement was rather absurd, for the great evil of the time was that everything was done except what could not be transacted till the evening, and the hours were actually hanging heavy on the hands of some members of the family. Morris had packed Hester's clothes for her little journey, and put out of sight all the morning but both sisters, except what they actually had on. Sophia's dress for the next morning was laid out in readiness to be put on, and the preparations for the breakfast were as complete as they could be twenty hours beforehand. It only remained to take a final view of the house in the evening when the children's presents were to be discovered, and to cut the wedding cake. In the interval there was nothing to be done. Conversation flagged, everyone was dull, and it was a relief to the rest when Mr. Hope proposed to Hester to take a walk. Mrs. Rowland would have laughed at the idea of a walk on a December afternoon if she had happened, no, of the circumstance, but others than lovers might have considered it pleasant. The sun was still an hour from its setting, and high in the pale heaven was the large moon, ready to shine upon the fields and woods and shed a milder day. No frost had yet bound up the earth. It had only striped the trees with a touch as gentle as that of the fruit-gatherer. No wintry gusts had yet swept through the woods, and all there was this day as still as in the autumn noon, when the net is heard to drop upon the fallen leaves, and the light squirrel is startled at a rustle along its own path. As a matter of course the lovers took their way to the spring in Vernon Woods, the spot which had witnessed more of their confidence than any other. In the alcove above it they had taken shelter from their summer storm and the autumn shower. They had sat on its brink for many an hour, when the pure depths of its rocky basin seemed like coolness itself in the midst of heat, and when falling leaves fluttered down the wind, and dimpled the surface of the water. They now paused once more under shelter of the rock which overhung one side of the basin, and listened to the trickle of the stream. If, aside the devil turned for envy, in the presence of the parent paradise, it might be thought that he would take flight from this scene also, from the view of this rusting of the lovers on their marriage eve, when the last son of their separate lives was sinking, and the separate business of their existence was finished, and their paths had met before the gate of their paradise, and they were only waiting for the portal to open to them. But there was that on Hester's brow which would have made the devil look closer. She was discomposed, and her replies to what was said were brief, and not much to the purpose. After a few moments' silence, Mr. Hope said gaily, There is something on our minds, Hester, come, what is it? Do not say our minds. You know you never have anything on yours. I believe it is against your nature, and I know it is against your principles. Do not say our minds. I say it because it is true. I never see you look grave, but my heart is as heavy. But never mind that. What is the matter, love? Nothing, side Hester. Nothing that anyone can help. People may say what they will, Edward, but there can be no escape from living alone in this world, after all. What do you mean? I mean what no one, not even you, can gain say. I mean that the heart knoweth its own bitterness, that we have disappointments, and anxieties, and remorse, and many, many kinds of trouble, that we can never tell to any human being, that none have any concern with, that we should never dare to tell. We must be alone in the world, after all. Where is your faith while you feel so, asked Edward Smiling? Do you really think that confidence proceeds only while people believe each other perfect, while they have no anxieties and disappointments and remorse? Do you not feel that our faults, or rather our failures, bind us together? Our faults bind us together, exclaimed Hester. Oh, how happy I should be, I could think that. We cannot but think it. We shall find it so, love, every day. When our faith fails, when we are discouraged, instead of fighting the battle, with our faithlessness alone, we shall come to one another for courage, for stimulus, for help, to see the bright, the true side of everything. That supposes that we can do so, said Hester, sadly, but I cannot. I have all my life intended to repose entire confidence, and I have never done it yet. Yes, you have been me. You cannot help it. You think that you cannot, only because you mean more by reposing confidence than others do. Your spirit is too noble, too ingenuous, too humble for concealment. You cannot help yourself, Hester. You have fully confided in me, and you will go on to do so. Hester shook her head mournfully. I have done it hitherto with you, and with you only, said she. And the reason has been—you know the reason—the same which made me own, all to you, that first evening in the shrubbery. Ah, I see you think that this is the lasting security. That, as you will never change, I never shall. You do not understand me wholly yet. There is something that you do not know, that I cannot make you believe, but you will find it true when it is too late. No good influence is permanent with me. Many, all have been tried, and the evil that is in me gets the better of them all at last. She snatched her hand from her lovers, and covered her face to hide her tears. I shall not contradict you, Hester, said he tenderly, because you will only abase yourself the more in your own eyes. But tell me again, where is your faith, while you let specters from the past glide over into the future to terrify you? I say you, and not us, because I am not terrified. I fear nothing. I trust you, and I trust him who brought us together, and moved you to lay open your honest heart to me. My sick heart, Edward, it is sick with fear. I thought I had got over it. I thought you had cured it. And that now, on this day of all days, I should have been full of your spirit, of this spirit which made me so happy a few weeks ago, that I was sure I should never fall back again. But I am disappointed in myself, Edward, wholly disappointed in myself. I have often been so before, but this time it is fatal. I shall never make you happy, Edward. Neither God nor man requires it of you, Hester. Dismiss it. Oh, hear me! cried Hester, in great agitation. I vowed to devote myself to my father's happiness when my mother died. I promised to place the most absolute confidence in him. I failed. I fancied miserable things. I fancied he loved Margaret better, and that I was not necessary to him. And I was too proud, too selfish to tell him so. And when he was dying, and commended Margaret and me to each other, oh, so solemnly, I am sure it was in compassion to me, and I shrank from it, even at that moment. When we came here and Margaret and I felt ourselves alone among strangers, we promised the same confidence I vowed to my father. The next thing was, perhaps you sought. I grew jealous of Margaret's having another friend, though Maria was as ready to be my friend as hers if I had only been worthy of it. Up to this hour, at this very moment I believe I am jealous of Maria, and with Margaret before my eyes, Margaret who loves me as her own soul, and yet has never felt one moment's jealousy of you I am certain, if her heart was known. We will rejoice then, in Margaret's peace of mind, the reward of her faith. Oh, so I do. I bless God that she is rewarded better than by me. But you see how it is. You see how I poison everyone's life. I never made anybody happy. I never shall make anyone happy. Let us put the thought of making happiness out of our minds altogether, said Hope. I am persuaded that half the misery in the world comes of straining after happiness. After our own, said Hester, I could give up my own, but yours? I cannot put yours out of my thoughts. Yes, you can, and you will when you give your faith fair play. Why cannot you trust God with my happiness as well as your own? And why cannot you trust me to do without happiness, if it be necessary, as well as yourself? I know, said Hester, that you are willing to forego all for me as I am for you, but I cannot, I dare not, consent to the risk. Oh, Edward, if ever you wished to give me ease, do what I ask now. Give me up. I shall make you wretched. Give me up, Edward." Hope's spirit was, for one instant, wrapped in storm. He recoiled from the future, and at the moment of recoil came this offer of release. One moment's thought of freedom, one moment's thought of Margaret convulsed his soul, but before he could speak the tempest had passed away. Hester's face, frightfully agitated, was upraised. His countenance seemed heavenly to her, when he smiled upon her and replied, I will not, you are mine, and, as I said before, all are our failures, all are our heart sickness, must bind us the more to each other. Then you must sustain me, you must cure me, you must do what no one has ever yet been able to do. But above all, Edward, you must never, happen what may, cast me off. That is, as you say, what no one has ever been able to do, said he smiling. Your father's tenderness was greatest at the last, and Margaret loves you, you know, as her own soul. Let us avoid promises, but let us rest upon these truths. And now, continued he, as he drew nearer to her, and made his shoulder a resting place for her throbbing head. I have heard your thoughts for the future. Will you hear mine? Hester made an effort to still her weeping. I said, just now, that I believe half the misery in our lives is owing to straining after happiness. And I think, too, that much of our sin is owing to our disturbing ourselves too much about our duty. Instead of yielding a glad obedience from hour to hour, it is the weakness of many of us to stretch far forward into the future, which is beyond our present reach, and torment ourselves with apprehensions of sin, which we should be ashamed of if they related to pain and danger. Oh, if you could prove to me that such is my weakness, cried Hester. I believe that it is yours, and I know that it is my own, my Hester. We must watch over one another. Tell me, is it not faithless to let our hearts be troubled about any possible evil which we cannot at the moment of the trouble prevent? Are we not sacrificing what is, at the time, of the most importance, our repose of mind, the holiness, the religion of the hour? I know I have defiled the holiness of this hour, said Hester Humbly. But, as my thoughts were troubled, was it not better to speak them? I could not but speak them. You cannot but do and speak what is most honourable and true and generous, Hester. And that is the very reason why I would feign have you trust for the future as well as the present, to the impulse of the hour. Surely, love, the probation of the hour is enough for the strength of every one of us. Far, far too much for me, at times too much for all. Well, then, what have we to do? To rest the care of each other's happiness upon him whose care it is, to be ready to do without it, as we would hold ourselves ready to do without this, or that, or the other comfort, or suppose it means happiness. Depend upon it, this happiness is too subtle and too divine a thing for our management. We have nothing to do with it, but to enjoy it when it comes. Men say of it, lo, it is here, lo there, but never has man laid hold of it with a voluntary grasp. But we can banish it, said Hester. Alas, yes. And what else do we do at the very moment when we afflict ourselves about the future? Surely our business is to keep our hearts open for it, holy and at peace, from moment to moment, from day to day. And yet, is it not our privilege, said, at least to be so, to look before and after? I am not sure, however, that I always think this is a privilege. I long sometimes to be any bird in the air that I might live for the present moment alone. And yet, is it not our privilege, said, at least to be so, to look before and after? I am not sure, however, that I always think this is a privilege. I long sometimes to be any bird of the air that I might live for the present moment alone. Let us be so far birds of the air, free as they, neither toiling nor spinning out anxious thoughts for the future. But why, with all this, should we not use our human privilege of looking before and after, to enrich and sanctify the present? Should we enjoy the wheat fields in June, as we do, if we knew nothing of any seed time, and had never heard of harvest? And how should you and I feel at this moment, sitting here, if we had no recollection of walks and shrubberies, and no prospect of a home, and a lifetime to spend in it, to make this moment sacred? Look at those red breasts. Shall we change lots with them? No, no. Let us look forward. But how? We cannot persuade ourselves that we are better than we are, for the sake of making the future bright. True. And therefore it must be God's future, and not our own, that we must look forward to. That is for confessors and martyrs, said Hester. They can look peacefully before and after, when there is a bright life and a world of hopes lying behind, and nothing around and before them, but ignomy and poverty, or prison, or torture or death. They can do this, but not such as I. God's future is enough for them, the triumph of truth and holiness, but—and I believe it would be enough for you in their situation, Hester. I believe you could be a martyr for opinion. Why cannot you and I brave the suffering of our own faults, as we would meet sickness or bereavement from heaven, and torture and death from men? Is this the prospect and view of which you marry me? It is the prospect and view of which all of us are ever living, since we are all faulty, and must all suffer. But marriage justifies a holier and happier anticipation. The faults of human beings are temporary features of their virtues. Their virtues are the firm ground under their feet, and the bright arch over their heads. Is not it so? If so, how selfish, how ungrateful have I been in making myself and you so miserable, but I do so fear myself? Let us fear nothing, but give all our care to the day and the hour. I am confident that this is the true obedience and the true wisdom. If the temper of the hour is right, nothing is wrong. And I am sure if the temper of the hour is wrong, nothing is right. If one could always remember this, if we could always remember this, we should perhaps find ourselves a little above the angels instead of being, like the serene, the phenylons of our race, a little below them. We shall not always remember it, love, but we must remind each other, as faithfully as may be. You must bring me here when I forget, said Hester. This spring will always murmur the truth to me. If the temper of the hour is right, nothing is wrong. How wrong has my temper been within this hour? Let it pass, my Hester. We are all faithless at times, and without the excuse of meek and anxious love. Is it possible that the moon casts that shadow? The dark, dark hour is gone, said Hester, smiling as she looked up, and the moon shone on her face. Nothing is wrong. Who would have believed an hour ago that I should now say so, when you would have given me up, said Hope, smiling? Oh, let us forget it all. Let us go somewhere else. Who will say this is winter? Is it October or the first mild day of March? It might be either. There is not a breath to chill us, and these leaves, what a soft autumn carpet they make. They have no wintry crispness yet. There is not a breath to chill us, and these leaves, what a soft autumn carpet they make. They have no wintry crispness yet. There was one inexhaustible subject to which they now retecured. Mr. Hope's family. He told over again what Hester was never weary of hearing, how his sisters would cherish her whenever circumstances should allow them to meet, how Emily and she would suit best, but how Anne would look up to her. As for Frank, but this representation of what Frank would say and think and do was somewhat checked and impaired by the recollection that Frank was just about this time receiving the letter in which Margaret's superiority to Hester was pretty plainly set forth. The answer to that letter would arrive, some time or other, and the anticipated awkwardness of that circumstance caused some unpleasant feelings at this moment, as it had often done before during the last few weeks. Nothing could be easier than to set the matter right with Frank, as was already done with Emily and Anne. The first letter might occasion some difficulty. Frank was passed over lightly, and the foreground of the picture of family welcome was occupied by Emily and Anne. It was almost an hour from their leaving the spring, before the lovers reached home. They were neither cold nor tired, they were neither merry nor sad. The traces of tears were on Hester's face, but even Margaret was satisfied when she saw her leaning on Edward's arm, receiving the presence of the children where, alone, the children would present them in the new house. There was no fancy about the arrangements, no ceremony about the cake and the ring, to which Hester did not submit, with perfect grace, not withstanding the traces of her tears, she had never looked so beautiful. The same opinion was repeated the next morning by all the many who saw her in church, or who cut a glimpse of her, in her way to and from it. No wedding was ever kept a secret in Dearbrook, and Mr. Hope's was the one in which concealment was least of all possible. The church was half full, and the path to the church door was lined with gazers. Those who were bludged, to remain at home, looked abroad from their doors, so that all were gratified more or less. Everyone on Mr. Gray's premises had a holiday, including Miss Young, though Mrs. Rowland did not see why her children should lose a day's instruction, because a distant cousin of Mr. Gray's was married. The marriage was made far too much effusive for her taste, and she vowed that whenever she parted with her own Matilda there should be a much greater refinement in the mode. Everyone else appeared satisfied. The sun shone, bells rang, and the servants drank the health of the bride and the bridegroom. Margaret succeeded in swallowing her tears and was, in her inmost soul, thankful for Hester and herself. The letters to Mr. Hope's sisters and brother, left open for the signatures of Edward and Hester Hope, were closed and dispatched, and the news was communicated to two or three of the Ibbotson's nearest friends at Birmingham. Mr. and Mrs. Gray agreed, at the end of the day, that a wedding was, to be sure, a most fatiguing affair, for quiet people like themselves, but that nothing could have gone off better. CHAPTER XV of DEAR BROOK by Harriet Martinio Mr. Hope's professional duties would not permit him to be long absent, even on such an occasion as his wedding journey. The young couple went only to Oxford, and were to return in a week. Margaret thought that this week never would be over. It was not only that she longed for rest in a home once more, and was eager to repose upon her new privilege of having a brother. She was also anxious about Hester, anxious to be convinced, by the observation of the eye and the hearing of the ear, that her sister was enjoying that peace of spirit, which reason seemed to declare must be hers. It would be difficult to determine how much Margaret's attachment to her sister was deepened and strengthened by the incessant solitude she had felt for her, ever since this attachment had grown out of the companionship of their childhood. She could scarcely remember the time when she had not been in a state of either hope or fear for Hester. Hope that in some new circumstances she would be happy at last, or dread less these new circumstances should fail, as all preceding influences had failed, if Hester had been less candid and less generous than she was. Her sister's affection might have been given way under the repeated trials and disappointments it had had to sustain, and there were times when Margaret's patience had given way, and she had for a brief while wished, and almost resolved that she could and would regard with indifference the state of mind of one who was not reasonable and who seemed incapable of being contented, but such resolutions of indifference dissolved before her sister's next manifestations of generosity, or appeals to the forgiveness of those about her. Margaret always ended by supposing herself the cause of the evil that she had been inconsiderate, that she could not allow sufficiently for a sensitiveness greater than her own, and above all that she was not fully worthy of such affection as Hester's, not sufficient for such a mind and heart. She had looked forward with ardent expectation when she was happiest, and with sickly dread when she was depressed to the event of Hester's marriage, as that which must decide whether she could be happy or whether her life was to be throughout the scene of conflict, that its opening years had been. Hester's connexion was all that she could have desired, and far beyond her utmost hopes, this brother-in-law was one of a thousand, one whom she was ready to consider a good angel sent to shed peace over her sister's life, and during the months of her engagement, she had kept anxiety at bay, and resigned herself to the delights of gratitude, and of sweet anticipations, and to the satisfaction of feeling that her own responsibilities might be considered at an end. She had delivered Hester's happiness over into the charge of one who would cherish it better and more successfully than she had done, and she could not but feel the relief of the freedom she had gained, but neither could she repress her anxiety to know at the outset, whether all was indeed as well as she had till now undoubtedly supposed that it would be. Margaret's attachment to her sister would have been in greater danger of being worn out but for the existence of a closer sympathy between them than anyone but themselves, and perhaps Morris was aware of, Margaret had a strong suspicion that in Hester's place, her temper could have been exactly what Hester's was in its least happy characteristics. She had tendencies to jealousy, and if not to morbid self-study, and to dissatisfaction with present circumstances, she was indebted for this. She knew to her being occupied with her sister, and yet more to the perpetual warning held up before her eyes. This conviction generated no sense of superiority in Margaret, interfered with no degree with the reverence she entertained for Hester, a reverence rather enhanced than impaired by the tender compassion with which she regarded her mental conflicts and sufferings. Every moment of irritability in herself, and she was consciousness of many, alarmed and humbled her, but at the same time enabled her better to make allowance for her sister and every harsh word and unreasonable mood of Hester's by restoring her to her self-command and stimulating her magnanimity, made her sensible that she owed much of her power over herself to that circumstance which kept the necessity of it perpetually before her mind for the same reason that men hate those whom they have injured. Margaret loved with unusual fever the sister with whom she had to forbear for the same reason that the children, even the affectionate children of tyrannical or lax parents, love, liberty, and consensuousness above all else, Margaret was in practice gentle, long-suffering, and forgetful of self for the same reason that the afflicted are looked upon by the peer-minded as sacred. Margaret regarded her sister with the reverence which preserved her patience from being spent and her attachment from wasting away. The first letter from her brother and sister had been opened in great internal agitation. All was well, however, it was certain that all was well for while Hester said not one word about being happy. She was full of thought for others. She knew that Margaret meant to take possession of the cornerhouse to go home. A few days before the arrival of the travelers in order to make all comfortable for them, Hester begged that she would take care to be well-amused during these few days. Perhaps she might induce Maria Young to wave the ceremony of being first invited by the real housekeepers and to spend as much time as she could with her friend. Give my kind regards to Maria, said the letter, and tell her I like to fancy you to passing a long evening by that fireside where we all hope we shall often have the pleasure of seeing her. Six months ago, Hester would not have spoken so freely and so kindly of Maria. She would not have so sanctioned Margaret's intimacy with her. All was right and Margaret was happy. Maria came and thanks to the holiday spirit of a wedding week for a long day. Delicious are the pleasures of those who appetite for them is wedded by abstinence. Charming, holy charming was this day to Maria spent in quiet, free from the children, free from the observation of other guests, passed in all external luxury, and in sisterly confidence with the friend to whom she had owed some of the best pleasures of the last year. Margaret was no less happy in indulging her and in opening much more of her heart to her than she could to anyone else since Hester married, which now at the end of six days seemed a long time ago. Miss Young came early that she might see the house and everything in it before dark and the days were now at their shortest. She did not mind the fatigue of moatting to the very top of the house. She must see the view from the window of Morris's attic. Yesterday's fall of snow had made the meadows one sheet of white and the river looked back and the woods somewhat frowning and dismal. But those who knew the place so well could imagine what all this must be in summer. And Morris was assured that her room was the pleasantest in the house. Morris curtsied and smiled and did not say how cold and dreary a wide landscape appeared to her and how much better she should have liked to look out upon the street. If only Mr. Hope had happened to have been settled in Birmingham. She pointed out to Maria how good Miss Hester had been in thinking about the furnishing of this attic. She had taken the trouble to have the pictures of Morris's father and mother, which had always hung opposite her bed at Birmingham, bought Hitler and fixed up in the same place. The bed hangings had come, too, so that except for it's being so much lighter and the prospect from the window so different, it was almost like the same room she had slept in for three and 20 years before. When Maria looked at the pictures, silhouettes taken from shadows on the wall with numerous little deformities and disproportion incident to that method of taking likenesses, she appreciated Hester's thoughtfulness, though she fully agreed in what Margaret said, that if Morris was willing to leave a place where she had lived so many years for the sake of remaining with Hester and her, it was the least they could do to make her feel as much at home as possible in her new abode. Margaret's own chamber was one of the prettiest rooms in the house with its light green paper, its French bed and toilet at one end and the bookcase table and writing desk, footstool and armchair at the other. I shall spend many hours alone here in the bright summer morning, said Margaret. Here I shall write my letters and study and think and not over your books, perhaps, said Maria. These seem comfortable arrangements for an old or infirm person, but I should be afraid they would send you to sleep. You have had little experience of being alone. Do you know the strong tendency that solitary people have to napping? Margaret laughed. She had never slept in the daytime in her life, except an illness. She could not conceive of it in the case of a young person full of occupation, which 100 things to think about and 20 books at a time that she wanted to read. She thought that regular daily solitude must be the most delightful, the most improving thing in the world. She had always envied the privilege of people who could command solitude. And now for the first time in her life, she was going to enjoy it and try to profit by it. You began yesterday, I think, said Maria. How did you like it? It was no fair trial. I felt restless at having the house in my charge, and I was thinking of Hester perpetually. And then I did not know, but that some of the grays might come in at any moment. And besides, I was so busy considering whether I was making the most of the precious hours that I really did next to nothing all day. But you look sadly tired at night, Miss Margaret, said Morris. I never saw you more fit for bed after any party or ball. Maria smiled. She knew something of the fatigues as well as the pleasures of solitude. Margaret smiled, too, but she said it would be quite another thing when the family were settled and when it should have become a habit to spend the morning hours alone. And to this Maria fully agreed. Morris thought that people's liking or not liking to be alone depended much on their having easy or irksome thoughts in their minds. Margaret answered gaily that in that case she was pretty sure of liking solitude. She was made grave by a sigh and a shake of the head from Morris. Morris, what do you mean? Said Margaret apprehensively. Why do you sigh and shake your head? Why should not I have easy thoughts as often as I sit in that chair? We never know, Miss Margaret, my dear, how things will turn out. Do you remember Miss Steven said? That married a gentleman her family all thought a great deal of and she turned out swindler and the girls burst out a laughing and Maria assured Morris that she could never answer for no accident of that kind happening with regard to Mr. Hope. Morris laughed, too, and said she did not mean that, but only that she never saw anybody more confident of everything going right than Miss Stevenson and all her family and within a month after the wedding, they were in the deepest distress. That was what she meant, but there were many other ways of distressing happening. There is death, my dears. She said, remember death, Miss Margaret. Indeed, Morris, I do, said Margaret. I never thought so much of death as I have done since Mr. Hope's accident when I believe death was coming to make us all miserable and the more I have since recoiled from it. The oftener has the thought come back. That is all right, my dear, all very natural. It does not seem unnatural to undertake any great new thing in life without reminding oneself of the end that must come to all our doings. However, I trust my master and mistress and you have many a happy year to live. I like those words, Morris. I like to hear you speak of your master and mistress. It has such a domestic sound. Does it not make one feel at home, Maria? Yes, Morris. There I shall sit and feel so at ease. So at home once more. But there may be other. Morris stopped and changed her mood. She stepped into the closet and opened the door to show Miss Young the provision of shelves and pegs and pointed out the part of the room where she had hoped there would be a sofa. She should have liked that Miss Margaret should have had a sofa to lie down on when she pleased. It seemed to her the only thing wanting. Margaret Gailey declared that nothing was wanting. She had never seen a room more entirely to her taste, though she had inhabited some that were grander. By the time the little breakfast room had been dolly visited and it had been explained that the other small parlor must necessarily be kept for a waiting room for Mr. Hope's patients. And the young ladies had returned to the drawing room. Maria was in full flow of sympathy with the housekeeping interests and ideas which occupied her rather amused. Her companion, woman do inevitably love housekeeping and less educational or other impediment interfere with their natural tastes. Household management is to them the object of their talents, the subject of their interests, the vehicle of their hopes and fears, the medium through which their affections are manifested and much of their benevolence gratified. If it be true, as has been said that there is no good quality of a woman's heart and mind, which is not necessary to perfect housekeeping, it follows that there is no power of the mind or affection of the heart, which may not be gratified in the course of its discharge, as Margaret and her guests enjoyed their pheasant, their table drawn close to the sofa and the fire, that Maria might be saved the trouble of moving their talk was of tradespeople, of shopping at Dearbrook and the market at Birmingham of the kitchen and store room and the winter and summer arrangements of the table, the foot boy who Margaret was teaching to wait, often forgot his function and stood still to listen and at last left the room deeply impressed with the wisdom of his instructor and her guest when the dinner and the wine were gone, they sang, they gossiped, they quizzed. The grays were sacred, of course, but many an antidote came out, told honestly and with good nature of dear old Miss Enterprise and her talent for being pleased of Miss Rowland's transactions abroad and at home, all regulated by the principle of eclipsing the grays and of Mrs. Hallwell's and Miss Midskin's fine sentiments and extraordinary pieces of news, Margaret produced some of her brother-in-law's outlines, which she had picked up and preserved sketches of the children in the oldest attitudes of children, of Dr. Levitt resting his book on the end of his nose and he read in his study chair of Mrs. Plumstead, exasperated by the arrival of an illegible letter of almost every oddity in the place. Then out came the pencils and the girls supplied emissions. They sketched Mr. Hope himself, listening to an old woman's theory of her own case. They sketched each other. Mr. Andabai was almost the only person admitted altogether. In conversation and on paper, where can I have hidden my work bag, asked Maria after tea. You laid it beside you and I put it away, said Margaret. I wanted to see whether you could spend a whole afternoon without the feel of your thimble. You shall have it again now, for you never once asked for it between dinner and tea. I forgot it, but now you must give it me. I must finish my collar or I shall not dolly honor your sister in my first call. We could talk as well as working as idle. Can not I help you? Our affairs are all in such dreadfully perfect order that I have not a stitch of work to do. I see a hole in your glove. Let me mend it. Do. And when you have done that, there is the other two years hence how you will wonder that there ever was a time when you had not a stitch of work in the house. Wedding clothes last about two years, and then they all wear out together. I wish you joy of the work. You will have to do them. If nothing should come between you and it, what should come between us and it, said Margaret, struck by the tone in which Maria spoke the last words, are you following Morris's lead? Are you going to say remember death, Ms. Margaret? Oh no, but there are other things which happen sometimes besides death. I beg your pardon, Margaret, if I am impertinent. How should you be impertinent? You, the most intimate friend, but one that I have in the world. You mean marriage, of course, that I may marry within these same two years. Anyone may naturally say so. I suppose to a girl whose sister is just married, and in another person's case it would seem to me probable enough, but I assure you Maria, I do not feel as if it was all likely that I should marry. I quite believe you, Margaret. I have no doubt you feel so, and that you will feel so till. But, dear, you may one day find yourself feeling very differently without a moment's warning, and that day may happen within two years. Such things have been known. If there was anyone, said Margaret, simply, if I had never seen anyone for whom I could fancy myself feeling as Hester did. If there was anyone, repeated Maria, looking up in some surprise, my dear Margaret, do you mean to say there is no one? Yes, I do. I think so. I know what you mean, Maria. I understand your face and your voice, but I do think it was very hard that one cannot enjoy a pleasant friendship with anybody without seeing the people on the watch for something more. It is so very painful to have such ideas put into one's mind, to spoil all one's intercourse, to throw restraint over it, to mix up selfishness with it. It is so wrong to interfere between those who might and would be the most useful and delightful companions to each other. Without having a thought which need put constraint between them, those who interfere have a great deal to answer for. They do not know what mischief they may be doing, what pain they may be giving, while they are gossiping and making remarks to one another, about what they know nothing at all about. I have no patience with such meddling, so I perceive indeed, replied Maria, somewhat amused, but not a syllable was spoken about any remarks, any observations between any people, or even about reference to any particular person. I alone must be subject to all this displeasure, and even I did not throw out a single hint about any friend of yours. No, you did not. That is all very true, said Margaret, blushing, but neither was I vexed with you, at least not so much as with some others, I was hasty. You were indeed, said Maria, laughing, I never witnessed such an outburst from you before, and you shall not see such another, but I was answering less what you said, than what I have reason to suppose is in the minds of several other people. In their minds, they have not told you their thoughts, then, and several other people, too, why, Margaret, I really think it is not very reasonable in you to find fault with others for thinking something which they have not trouble you to listen to, and which is so natural that it has struck several of them. Surely, Margaret, you must be a little, just a very little touchy upon the matter. Touchy? What should make me touchy? I what? I do assure you, Maria, nothing whatever has passed between that person and me which has anything more than the commonest. No, I will not say the commonest friendship, because I believe ours is a very warm and infinite friendship, but indeed it is nothing more. You may be sure that if it had been otherwise, I should not have said a word upon the whole matter, even to you, and I would not have allowed even you to speak ten words to me about it. Are you satisfied now? I am satisfied that you any what you think. Oh, Maria, what a sigh. If you have no objection, I should like to know the meaning of that sigh. I was thinking of the course of true love, but not that it never does run smooth. That is not true. Witness Hester's Dear Margaret, be not presumptuous. Consider how early the days of that love are yet, and that love in their case has only just leaped out of the fountain, and can hardly be said to have begone its course. Well, may heaven smile on it, but tell me about that course of love which made you sigh as you did just now. What can I tell you about it, and yet you shall know, if you like, how it appears to me. Oh, tell me, I shall see whether you would have understood Hester's case. The first strange thing is that every woman approaches this crisis of her life, as unwares as if she were the first that ever loved. And yet all girls are brought up to think of marriage as almost the only event in life. Their minds are stuffed with thoughts of it. Almost before they have had time to gain any other ideas, merely as means to end low enough for their comprehension, it is not marriage wonderful, holy, mysterious marriage that their minds are full of, but connection with somebody or something which will give them money and ease and station and independence of their parents. This has nothing to do with love. I was speaking of love, the grand influence of a woman's life, but whose name is a mere empty sound to her till it becomes suddenly secretly a voice which shakes her being to the very center, more awful, more tremendous than the crack of doom. But why, why so tremendous? From the struggle which it calls upon her to endure, silently and alone, from the agony of the change of existence, which must be wrought without any eye perceiving it. Depend upon it, Margaret, there is nothing in death to compare with this change, and there can be nothing in entrance upon another state which can transcend the experience I speak of. Our powers can, but be taxed to the utmost. Our being can be strained till not another effort can be made. This is all that we can conceive to happen in death, and it happens in love. With the additional burden of fearful secrecy, one may lie down and await death, with sympathy about one to the last. Though the passage hence must be solitary, and it would be a small trouble if all the world looked on to see the parting of soul and body, but that other passage into a new state, that other process of becoming a new creature must go on in the darkness of the spirit, while the body is up and abroad, and no one must know what is passing within. The spirit's leap from heaven to hell must be made while the smile is on the lips, and light for words are upon the tongue. The struggles of shame, the pangs of despair, must be hidden in the depths and the prison house. Every groan must be stifled before it is heard, and as for tears, there are a solace too gentle for the case. The agony is too strong for tears. End of Chapter 15, Part 1 of 2. Part 2 of Chapter 15 of Dearbrook. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Dearbrook by Harriet Martinu. Chapter 15, Part 2. Is this true love? asked Margaret in agitation. This is true love, but not the whole of it, as for what follows. But is this what every woman has to undergo? Do you suppose that every woman knows what love really is? No, not even every unmarried woman. There are some among them, though I believe but few, who know nothing of what love is. There are undoubtedly a multitude of wives who have experienced liking, preference, affection, and taken it for love, and who reached their life's end without being aware that they have never loved. There are also, I trust, a multitude of wives who have really loved and who have reaped the best fruits of it in regeneration of soul. But how dreadful is the process, if it be as you say? I said I had alluded to only a part of it. As for what follows, according as it is prosperous or unreturned love, heaven ensues upon its purgatory, or one may attain a middle region somewhat dim but serene. You wish me to be planer? I wish to hear all you think, all you know, but do not let us go. Unwith it if it makes you sigh so. What woman ever spoke of love without sighing? said Maria, with a smile. You sighed yourself just now. I was thinking of Hester, I believe. How strange if this process really awaits woman. If it is a region though which their path of life must stretch, and no one gives warning or preparation or help. It is not so strange as at first sight it seems. Every mother and friend hopes that no one else has suffered as she did. That her particular change may escape entirely or get off more easily than there is the shame of confession which is involved. Some conclude at a distance of time that they must have exaggerated their own sufferings, or have been singularly rebellious and unreasonable. Some lose the sense of the anguish in the subsequent happiness, and there are not a few who from constitution of mind forget all together the things that are behind when you remember too that it is the law of nature and providence that each should bear his and her own burden, and that no warning would be of any avail. It seems no longer so strange that while girls hear endlessly of marriage they are kept holy in the dark without love. Would warning really be of no avail? Of no more avail than warning to a pilgrim in the middle of the desert that he will suffer from thirst and be divided by the mirage before he gets into green fields again. He has no longer the choice whether to be a pilgrim in the desert or to stay at home. No one of us has the choice to be or not to be, and we must go through with our experience under its natural conditions. To be or not to be said Margaret with a grave smile. You remind one that the choice of suicide remains and I almost wonder surely suicide has been committed from dread of lighter woes than you have described. I believe so, but in this case there is no dread. We find ourselves in the midst of the struggle before we are aware, and then I and then he who appoints the struggles of the spirit supplies aids and supports. I fully believe that this time of conflict is that in which religion first become to many the reality for which they ever afterwards live, it may have been heather to a name, a fancy a dim abstraction, or an intermittent though bright influence, and it may yet be resorted to merely as a refuge for the spirit which can find no other, but there is a strong prohibitability that it may now be found to be a wonderful reality not only a potent charm and sorrow, but the life of our life. This is with many the reason why and the mode in which the conflict is endured to the end, but the beginning said Margaret what can be the beginning of this wonderful experience. The same with that of all the most serious of our experiences levity, unconsciousness, confidence upon what subject in the world is there a greater accumulation of jokes than upon love and marriage, and upon what subject are jokes so infatigably current a girl laughs at her companions and blushes her pouts for herself, as girls have done for thousands of years before her. She finds by degrees new and sweet and elevated ideas of friendship stealing their way into her mind, and she laments and wonders that the range of friendship is not wider, that its action is not freer, that girls may not enjoy intimate friendship with the companions of their brothers, as well as with their own. There is a quick and strong resentment at anyone who smiles at or speculates upon, or even observes the existence of such a friendship. Oh Maria, exclaimed Margaret throwing down her work and covering her face with her hands. This goes on for a while preceded Maria, as if she did not observe her companion. This goes on for a while smoothly, innocently, serenely, mankind are then true and noble, the world is passing fair, and God is tender and bountiful, all evil is seen to be tending to good, all tears are meant to be wiped away. The gloom of the gloomy is faithless, virtue is easy and charming, and the vice of the vicious is unaccountable, thus does young life glide on for a time. Then there comes a day, it is often a mystery why it should be that day of all days. When the innocent and gay and confident young creature finds herself in sudden trouble, the film on which she lightly trod has burst, and she is in an abyss, it seems a mere trifle that plunged her there. Her friend did not come when she looked for him. He is gone somewhere, for he has said something that she did not expect. Some such trifle reveals to her that she depends wholly upon him, that she has for a long been living only for him, and on the unconscious conclusion that she has been living only for her, at the image of his dwelling anywhere, but by her side of his having any interests apart from hers, the universe is in a moment shrouded in gloom, her heart is sick, and there is no rest for it, for her self-respect is gone. She has been reared in a maidenly pride, and in innocent confidence, her confidence is wholly broken down, her pride is wounded, and the agony of the wound is intolerable. We are wont to say, Margaret, that everything is indurable but a sense of guilt. If there is an exception, this is it. This wounding of the spirit ought not perhaps to be, but it is very like the sting of guilt and a wounded spirit who can bear. How is it born so many as are the sufferers, and of a class usually thought so weak? That is a mistake. There is not on earth a being stronger than a woman in the concealment of her love. The soldier is called brave, who cheerfully bears about the pain of a laceration to his dying day, and criminals who after years of struggle, unbosom themselves to their secret, give tremendous accounts of the sufferings of those years, but I question whether a woman whose existence have been burdened with an unrequited love, will not have to unfold in the next world a more harrowing tale than either of these. It ought not to be so, it ought not, where there is no guilt, but how noble is such power of self-restraint. Though the principle of society may be to cultivate our pride to excess, what fortitude grows out of it, there are no bounds to the horror, disgusts and astonishment expressed when a woman owns her love to its object unasked, even urges upon him, but I acknowledge my surprise to be the other way, that the cases are so rare, yet fancying the case one's own. Oh dreadful, cried Margaret. No woman can endure the bare thought of the case being her own, and this proves the strong natural and an educational restraint under which we all lie, but I must think that the frequent and patient endurance proves a strength of soul, a vigor of moral power, which ought to console and animate us in the depth of our abasement, if we could but recall it, then when we want support, and saw this most. It can be little estimated, little understood, said Margaret, or it would not be sported with as it is. Do not let us speak of that, Margaret. You talk of my philosophy sometimes. I own that part of the subject is too much for any philosophy I have. I see nothing philosophical, said Margaret, in making light of deepest cruelty and treachery which is transacted under the sun, a man who trifles with such affections and abuses such moral power and causes cruelty flirtation. Is such in one, as we will not speak of now, well it cannot be, but that good, moral and intellectual good, must issue from such exercise and discipline as this, and such good does issue often, perhaps generally. There are sad tales sung and told everywhere of brains crazed, and graves dug by hopeless love, and I fear that many more sink down into disease and death from this cause, then are at all suspected to be its victims, but not a few find themselves lifted up from their abyss and set free from their bondage of pride and humiliation. They marry their loves and stand against amazed at their own bliss, and are truly the happiest people upon earth, and in the broad road to the widest, in my belief the happiest are ever so. Bless you for that, for Hester's sake, and what of those who are not thus released? They get out of the abyss too, but they have to struggle out alone. Their condition must depend much on what they were before the conflict befell them. Some are soared, and live restlessly, some are weak and come out worldly, and sacrifice themselves in marriage or otherwise for low objects. Some strive to forget and to become as like as possible for what they were before. And of this order are many of the women whom we meet, whose minds are in a state of perpetual and incurable infancy. It is difficult to see the purpose of their suffering. From any effects it appears to have produced, but then there is the hope that their griefs were not of the deepest. And what of those whose griefs are of the deepest? They rise the highest above them, some of these must be content with having learned more or less of what life is, and of what is it for, and with reconciling themselves to its objects and conditions, in short with being philosophical, said Margaret, with an inquiring and affectionate glance at her friend. With being philosophical, Maria Smiling agreed. Others of a happier nature to whom philosophy and religion come as one and are welcomed by energies not wholly destroyed and affections not altogether crushed are strong in the new strength which they have found with hearts as wide as the universe, and spirits the gayest of the gay. You never told me anything of all this before, said Margaret, yet it is plain that you must have thought much about it, that it must have been long in your mind. It has, and I tell it to you, that you may share what I have learned instead of going without the knowledge, or alas, gathering it up for yourself. Oh, then it is so. It is from your own. It is from my own experience that I speak, said Maria, without looking up. And now there is someone in the world who knows it beside myself. I hope you do not. I hope you never will repent having told me, said Margaret, rising and taking your seat on the sofa beside her friend. I do not, and I shall not repent, said Maria. You are faithful and it will be a relief to me to have sympathy, to be able to speak sometimes instead of having to deny and repress my whole heart and soul. But I can tell you no more, not one word. Do not. Only show me how I can comfort. How I can gratify you. I need no special comfort now, said Maria smiling. I have sometimes grievously wanted a friend to love and speak with. And if I could to serve, how I have a friend, and the look with which he gazed at her companion brought the tears into Margaret's eyes. Come, let us speak of something else, said Maria, cheerfully. When do you expect your friend, Mr. Enderby, at Dearbrook again? His sister says nobody knows, and I do not think he can tell himself. You know, he does not live at Dearbrook. I am aware of that. But his last visit was such a long one. Six days, said Margaret, laughing. I did not mean his last week's appearance or any of his pop visits. I was thinking of his summer visitation. It was so long that some people began to look upon him as a resident. If his mother does not grow much better soon, we shall see him again, said Margaret. It is always her illness that brings him. Do you not believe me, Maria? I believe as before that you say what you think, whether you are mistaken, is another question, which I cannot pretend to answer. I hope, Maria, that you have placed so much confidence in me, you will not stop short, at the very point, which is the greatest importance to me. I will not, dear. What I think on the subject of Mr. Enderby, in relation to you, is that some of your friends believe that you are the cause of his stay, having been so long in the summer, and it is coming so often since. I know no more than this, how should I? Then I will tell you something more that I might as well have mentioned before. When Mrs. Rowland had an idea that Mr. Enderby might think of Hester, she told Hester that miserable day in Dingleford Woods, that his family expected he would soon marry a young lady of family and fortune, who was a great favorite with all his connections. Who may this young lady be? Oh, she did not say. Someone too high for our acquaintance, if we are to believe what Mrs. Rowland declared. And do you believe it? Why do you? I daresay Mrs. Rowland may believe it herself, but she may be mistaken. That is exactly what Hester said, observed Margaret eagerly, and that was more than five months ago, and we have not heard a syllable of the matter since. And so intimate a friendship as yours and Mr. Enderby's, said Maria, smiling. It is scarcely probable that his mind should be full of such an affair, and that he should be able to conceal it so perfectly from you. I am glad you think so, said Margaret, ingenuously. You cannot imagine how strange it is to see Mrs. Gray and others taking for granted that he is free when Hester and I could tell them, in a moment, what Mrs. Rowland said. But if you think Mrs. Rowland is all wrong, what do you really suppose about his coming so much to Dearbrook? I have little doubt that those friends of yours, Mrs. Gray, and the others are right. But, but what? Just this, if I might warn you by myself, I would caution you, not only against dwelling much upon such a fact, but against interpreting it to mean more than it possibly may. This is my reason for speaking to you upon the matter of all. I do it because you will be pretty sure to hear now the fact itself is viewed by others. Well, no one else would be likely to give you the caution. Mr. Enderby may come as you suppose, entirely to see his mother. He may come to see you, but supposing he does if he is like other men. He may not know his own mind yet, and there is another possible thing, a thing which is possible, Margaret, though he is such a dear and intimate friend that he may not know yours. All that strength of affection, all of its fidelity, all his trust and power of self-control. Oh, stop, pray, stop, said Margaret. You frighten me with the thoughts of all you have been saying this evening. Though I could so entirely satisfy you as to what our intercourse has been, though I know Mr. Enderby so much better than you do. You need warn me no more. I will think of what you have said. If I find myself doubting whether he comes to see his mother, if I find myself listening to what others may suppose about his reasons, indeed, I will remember what you have said. Then I am glad I ventured to say it, particularly as you are not angry with me this time. I am not at all angry. How can I be so? But I do not agree with you about the fact. I know it, and I may be mistaken. No, tell me, said Margaret. Would you suppose Morris meant when she said what you heard about the pleasure of solitude, depending on one's thoughts being happy or otherwise? I know it is a common old idea enough, but Morris does not know that, and I am sure he had some particular instance in view. Morris does not make general propositions, except with the particular case in her mind's eye, and she is a wise woman, and we think her sayings are weighty. It struck me that she had a real probability in her mind, but I did not think it related to Mr. Enderby, or to anything so exclusively your own concern. No, I hope not, but what then? I think that Morris knows more of life the world than you, and that she does not anticipate quite so much happiness from Hester's marriage as you do. Do not be distressed or alarmed. She means no mistrust of anybody. I imagine, but only that there is no perfect happiness in this life that nobody is faultless, and no home. Not even where her young ladies live is quite free from care and trouble. It would not hurt you, surely, if she was to say this outright to you? Oh no, nor a good deal more of the same tendency she might come much nearer to the point, good soul. Without hurting me, suppose I ask her what it was she did mean. Tonight or tomorrow, when she and I are alone? Well, if she is such a wise woman, but I doubt whether you could get her nearer to the point without danger of hurting her. Can she bring herself to own that either of you have faults? Oh yes, she has never spared us from the time we were two feet high. What can make you so anxious as to what she meant? I really hardly know unless it be that where one loves very much one fears. Oh so faithlessly, I know I ought to fear less for hester than ever. And yet, the door burst open, and the foot boy entered with his jingling tray, and knew that the sedan for Miss Young was at the door. What sedan, Margaret had asked Mrs. Gray for hers as the snow had fallen heavily, and the streets were not fit for Maria's walking. Maria was very thankful. Here was an end of Maria's bright holiday. Mr. Gray's porters must not be kept waiting. The friends assured each other that they should never forget this day. It was little likely that they should. End of Chapter 15. Org Recording by Gary Day Dearbrook by Harriet Martino Section 19 Chapter 16 Home Margaret had an unconscious expectation of seeing her sister altered. This is an irresistible persuasion in almost every case where an intimate friend is absent and is under new influences and omits new circumstances. These accessories alter the image of the beloved one in our minds. Our fancy follows it, acting and being acted upon in ways in which we have no share. Our sympathy is at fault, or we conceive it to be so, and doubt and trouble creep over us. We scarcely know why. Though the letters which come may be natural and hearty, as of old, breathing the very spirit of our friend, we feel a sort of surprise at the handwriting being quite familiar. We look forward with a kind of timidity to meeting and fear there may be some restraint in it. When the hour of meeting comes, there is the very same face, the line of the cheek, the trick of the lip, the glance of the eye, the rise and fall of the voice are the same. And the intense familiarity makes our very spirit swim in joy. We are amazed at our previous fancy. We laugh at the solemn stiffness in which our friend stood before our mind's eye, and to relieve which we had striven to recall the ludicrous situations and merry moods in which that form and that face had been seen. And perhaps we have no peace till we have acknowledged to the beloved one the ingenuity of our self-tormentings. Is there a girl whose heart is with her brother at college who does not feel this regularly as the vacation comes round? Is there a parent whose child is reaping honors in the field of life? And returning childlike from time to time to rest in the old country home? Is there such a parent who is not conscious of the misgiving and the reassurance as often as the absence and the reunion occur? Is there even the most trustful of wives whose husband is on the other side of the globe that is wholly undisturbed by the transmutation of the idol in her mind? When the husband is returning and her hungry heart is feasting on the anticipation of his appearance she may revel in the thought and will I see his face again and will I hear him speak? But it is not till that vivid face and that piercing voice thrill her sight and her ear again that all misgivings vanishes. There is nothing in life that can compensate for long partings. There ought to be few or no insurmountable obstacles to the frequent meetings however short of those who love each other no duties and no privileges can be of more importance than the preservation in all their entireness of domestic familiarity and faith. A very short separation will afford the experience of a long one if it be full of events or if the image of the absent one be dwelt upon from hour to hour with laborious strivings of the fancy. It has been said that this week of Hester's absence was the longest that Margaret had ever known. Besides this she felt that she could have forgotten her sister further than she could have supposed possible after a 10 year separation. On the evening when she was expecting the travellers home her heart was sick with expectation and yet she was conscious of a timidity which made her feel as if alone in the world. Again and again she looked around her to fancy what would be the aspect of everything to Hester's eye. She wandered around the house to see once more all that was in its right place and every arrangement in due order she watched the bright drawing room fire nervously and made herself anxious about the tea table and sat up right on the sofa listening for the sound of horses feet in the snowy street as if it had been a solemn stranger that she was expecting instead of her own sister Hester with whom she had shared all her heart and spent all her days. But a small part of this anxiety was given to Mr Hope. She retained her image of him unperplexed as a treasure of a brother and a man with a mind so healthy that he was sure to receive all things rightly and be pleased and satisfied happen what might. They came and Hester's spring from the carriage and her husband's way of rubbing his hands over the fire put all Margaret's anxieties to flight. How sweet was the welcome. How delicious the contest about which was to give the welcome to this the lasting home of the three. Whether she who had put all in order for them or they who claimed to have the charge of her Margaret's eyes overflowed when Hester led her to Edward for his brotherly kiss. Mr Hope's mind was disturbed for one single moment that he had not given this kiss with all the heartiness and simplicity of a brother but the feeling was gone almost before he was conscious of it. The fire crackled the kettle sang. Hester took her own place at once at the teaboard and her husband threw himself on the sofa after ascertaining that there were no family letters for him. He knew that it was impossible that there should be any in answer to the announcement of his marriage. Even Anne's could not arrive these four or five days yet. He desired Margaret not to tell him at present if there were any messages for him. For if all dear Brooke had colds he had no inclination to go out tonight to cure them. There was a long list of messages Margaret said but they were in the surgery and the pupil there might bring them in if he thought proper. They should not be sent for. This one evening might be stolen for home and comfort. Their journey had been delightful. Oxford was more splendid than Hester had had an idea of. Every facility had been afforded them for seeing it and Mr Hope's acquaintances there had been as kind as possible. The fall of snow had not put them in any danger and the inconveniences it had caused were rather stimulating to people who had travelled but little. Hester had had to get out of the carriage twice and once she had walked a mile when the driver had been uncertain about the road but as Mrs Gray had the foresight to cause a pair of snow boots to be put into the carriage at the last moment no harm had happened not even to the wetting of feet only enough inconvenience to make them glad to be now by their snug fireside. Hester was full of mirth and anecdote she seemed to have been pleased with everybody and awake to everything. As her sister looked upon her brow now open as a sleeping child upon the thick curl of glossy brown hair and upon the bright smile which lighted up her exquisite face she was amazed at herself for having perplexed such an image with apprehensive fancies. How had Margaret spent her week? Above all it was to be hoped she had not fatigued herself in their service. They were four days Gracie act for preparation before they should receive their company Margaret should not have worked so hard. Had Maria Young come yesterday? Dear Maria she must come often should not the Graves be asked to dine in a quiet way before anyone else was admitted into the house? Was it not due to them? But could the foot boy wait at table? Would it be possible to bring him into such training as would prevent Mrs. Graves being too much shocked at their way of getting through dinner? Or was there anyone in Deerbrook who went out as a waiter? Morris must be consulted but they must have the Graves to dinner before Monday. How was Mrs. Endaby? Was her illness really thought serious? Or was it only Mrs. Rowland's way of talking which was just the same whether Mrs. Endaby had a twinge of rheumatism or one of her frightful attacks? Was Mr. Endaby coming? That was the chief point. If he did not appear it was certain that he could not be feeling uneasy about his mother. Margaret blushed when she replied that she had not heard of Mr. Endaby's being expected. She could not but blush for the conversation with Maria came full into her mind. Mr. Hope saw the blush and painfully wondered that it sent trouble through his soul. How were Morris and the new maid likely to agree? Did Morris think the girl promising? Surely it was time to take some notice of the servants. Edward would ring the bell twice the signal for Morris and Morris should introduce the other two into the parlour. They came, Morris in her best gown and with her wedding ribbon on. When she had shaken hands with her master and mistress and spoken a good word for her fellow servants as she called them, the ruddy-faced girl appeared, her cheeks many shades deeper than usual and her cap quillings standing off like the rays on a signpost picture of the sun. Following her came the boy feeling awkward in his new clothes and scraping with his left leg till the process was put to a stop by his masters entering into conversation with him. Hester's beauty was really so striking as with a blushing bashfulness she for the first time enacted the mistress before her husband's eyes that it was impossible not to observe it. Margaret glanced towards her brother and they exchanged smiles. But the effect of Margaret's smile was that Mr. Hope's died away and left him grave. Brother, said Margaret, what is the true story belonging to that great book about the polar sea that you see lying there? How do you mean? Is there any story belonging to it at all? Three at least, and Dearbrook has been so hot about it. You should send round the book to call them. It is enough to freeze one to look at the plates of those polar books. Sending round the book is exactly the thing I wanted to do and could not. Mrs. Rowland insists that Mrs. Enderby ordered it in and Mrs. Gray demands to have it first and Mr. Rowland is certain that you bespoke it before anybody else. I was afraid of the responsibility of acting in so nice a case an everlasting quarrel might have come out of it. So I covered it and put it in the list all ready to be sent at a moment's warning. Then I amused myself with it while you were away. Now brother, what will you do? The truth of the matter is that I ordered it in myself as Mr. Rowland says but Mrs. Enderby shall have it at once because she is ill. It is a large fine type for her and she will pour over the plates and forget Dearbrook and all her own ailments in wondering how the people will get out of the ice. Do you remember Margaret's of Hester how she looked one summer day like a ghost from the grave when she came down from her books and had even forgotten her shawl? Oh about the battle! cried Margaret, laughing. What battle aft hope an historical one I suppose and not that of the Rowlands and Greys? Mrs. Enderby is of a higher order than the rest of us Dearbrook people. She gets most of her news and all of her battles out of history. Yes, she elighted among us to tell us that such a great such a wonderful battle had been fought at a place called Blenheim by the Duke of Marlborough who seemed really seemed a surprisingly clever man. It was such a good thought of his to have a swamp at one end of his line and to put some of his soldiers behind some bushes so that the enemy could not get at them and he won the battle. This book will be the very thing for her said Margaret. It is only a pity that it did not come in at midsummer instead of Christmas I am afraid she will sympathize so thoroughly that Phoebe will never be able to put coals on enough to warm her. No, he said Mr. Hope. It is better as it is. She must be told now at all events whereas if this book came to her in midsummer it would chill her the whole month of July. She would start every time she looked out of the window and saw the meadows green. I hope she's really not very ill. said Hester. You were thinking the same thought that I was said her husband starting up from the sofa. It is certainly my business to go and see her tonight if she wishes it. I will step down into the surgery and learn if there is any message from her. And if there is not from her there will be from someone else. said Hester sorrowfully. What a cold night for you to go out and leave this warm room. Mr. Hope laughed as he observed what an innocent speech that was for a surgeon's wife. It was plain that her education in that capacity had not yet begun. And down he went. Here are some things for you. Cards and notes. said Margaret to her sister. As she opened a drawer of the writing table. One from Mrs. Gray marked private. I do not suppose that your husband may not see it but that is your affair. My duty is to give it to you privately. One of the gray mysteries I suppose. said Hester colouring and tearing open the letter with some vehemence. These mysteries were foolish enough before. They are ridiculous now. So you are going out. cried she as her husband came in with his hat on. Yes the old lady will be easier for my seeing her this evening and I shall carry her the polar sea. Where is pen and ink Margaret? We do not know the ways of our own house yet. Margaret bought pen and ink and while Mr. Hope wrote down the dates in the book societies lists Hester exclaimed against Mrs. Gray for having sent a letter marked private now that she was married. If you mean it not to be private you shall tell me about it when I come back said her husband. If I see Mrs. Enderby tonight I must be gone. It was not 20 minutes before he was seated by his own fireside again. His wife looked disturbed and was so she even forgot to inquire after Mrs. Enderby. There is Mrs. Gray's precious letter said she. She may mean to be very kind to me. I dare say she does but she might know that it is not kindness to write so of my husband. I do not see that she writes any harm of me my dear said he laying the letter open upon the table. She only wants to manage me a little and that is her way you know. So exceedingly impertinent cried Hester turning to Margaret. She wants me to use my influence quietly and without betraying her to make my husband. She glanced into her husband's face and checked her communication. In short she said Mrs. Gray wants to be meddling between my husband and one of his patients. Well what then said Margaret. What then? Why if she is to be interfering already in our affairs if she is to be always fancying that she has anything to do with Edward and we living so near I shall never be able to bear it and Hester's eyes overflow with tears. My dear is it possible such a trifle? It is no trifle said Hester trying to command her voice. It can never be a trifle to me that anyone shows disrespect to you. I shall never be able to keep terms with anyone who does. Margaret believed that nothing would be easier than to put a stop to any such attempts if indeed they were serious. Mrs. Gray was so fond of Hester that she would permit anything from her and it would be easy for Hester to say that not wishing to receive any exclusively private letters she had shown Mrs. Gray's to her husband though to no one else and that it was to be the principle of the family not to interfere more or less with Mr. Hope's professional affairs or better still take no notice of the matter in any way whatever this time said Mr. Hope. We can let her have her way while we keep our own cannot we? So let us put the mysterious epistle into the fire shall we? I wait you'll leave he said laughing as he held the letter over the flame it is your property Hester signed to have it burned but she could not forget it she recurred to Mrs. Gray again and again so near as they lived she said so much as they must be together the nearer we all live and the more we must be with our neighbours said her husband the more important it is that we should allow each other our own ways you will soon find what it is to live in a village my love and then you will not mind these little trifles if they would meddle only with me said Hester I should not mind I hope you do not think I should care so much for anything they could do or say about me if they only would let you alone that is the last thing we can expect said Margaret do they let any public man alone Dr. Levitt or Mr. James or the parish clerk added Mr. Hope it was reported lately that steps were to be taken to intimate to Owen that it was a constant habit of his to cough as he took his seat in the desk I was told once myself that it was remarked throughout Dearbrook that it seemed to be half whistling as I walked up the street in the mornings and that was considered a practice too undignified for my profession Hester's colour rose again and Margaret laughed and asked what did you do I made my best bow and thought no more about the matter till events brought it to mind again at this moment so Hester suppose we think no more of Mrs. Gray's hints seeing that her brow did not entirely clear he took his seat by her saying supposing love at how letter does not show enough deference to my important self to satisfy you still it remains that we owe respect to Mrs. Gray she is one of my oldest and most hospitable and faithful friends here and I need say nothing of her attachment to you cannot we overlook in her one little error of judgment oh yes certainly said Hester cheerfully then I will say nothing to her unless she asks and then tell her as lightly as I may what Margaret proposed just now so be it and all was bright and smooth again to all appearance but this little cloud did not pass away without leaving its gloom in more hearts than one as Margaret set down her lamp on her own writing table and sank into the chair of Huziz she had bidden Maria make trial she might have decided if she'd happened at that moment to remember the conversation that the pleasure of solitude does depend much on the ease of the thoughts she sat long wondering how she could have overlooked the obvious probability that Hester instead of finding the habit of mind of a lifetime altered by the circumstances of love and marriage would henceforth suffer from jealousy for her husband in addition to the burden she had borne for herself long did Margaret sit there turning her voluntary musings on the joy of their meeting and the perfect picture of comfort which that little party have presented but perpetually recurring against her will to the trouble which had succeeded and following back the track of this cloud to see whether there were more in the wind whether it did not come from a horizon of storm yet hers was not the most troubled spirit in the house Hester's vexation had passed away and she was unconscious as sufferers of her class usually are of the disturbance she had caused she presently slept and was at peace not so her husband a strange trouble a fearful suspicion had seized upon him he was amazed at the return of his feelings about Margaret and filled with horror when he thought of the days and months and years of close domestic companionship with her from which there was no escape there was no escape the peace of his wife of Margaret his own peace in theirs depended wholly on the deep secrecy in which he should preserve the mistake he had made it was a mistake he could scarcely endure the thought but it was so for some months he had never had a doubt that he was absolutely in the road of duty and if some apprehension about his entire happiness had chilled him from time to time he had cast them off as inconsistent with the resolution of his conscience now he feared he felt he had mistaken his duty as in the stillness of the night the apprehension assailed him that he had thrown away the opportunity and the promise of his life that he had desecrated his own home and doomed to withering the best affections of his nature he for the moment wished himself dead but his was a soul never long thrown off its balance he convinced himself in the course of a long sleepless night that whatever might have been his errors his way was now clear though difficult he must devote himself wholly to her whose devotion to him had caused him his present struggles and he must trust that if Margaret did not air long remove from the daily companionship which must be his saurist trial he should grow perpetually stronger in his self-command of one thing he was certain that no human being suspected the real state of his mind this was a comfort and support of something else he felt nearly certain that Margaret loved Philip this was another comfort if only he could feel it so and he had little doubt that Philip loved her he had also a deep conviction which he now aroused for his support that no consecration of a home is so holy as that of a kindly self-denying trustful spirit in him who is the head and life of his house if there was in himself a love which must be denied there was also one which must be indulged without traveling himself with vows he cheered his soul with the image of his life he might yet fulfill shedding on all under his charge the blessings of his activity patience and love and daily crafting off the burden of the day leaving all care for the morrow to such as happier than himself he would have the future the image of the present End of Chapter 16