Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 11, No. 23, February, 1873

"What do you do while you are waiting?"

"I think about you, and wonder how soon you will be here; and I walk about, or lie on the grass and look at the clouds."

"Well, did I ever hear of such an idle girl? I shall not come again if you don't learn to read." Nellie was not much given to laughter or tears. She had lived too much alone for such outward appeals for sympathy. Why laugh when there is no one near to smile in return? Why weep when there is no one to give comfort? She only regarded him with a world of reproach in her large eyes.

"Nellie," he said, in reply to her eyes, "you ought to learn to read, and you must. Did no one ever try to teach you?"

She shook her head.

"Have you no books?"

Again a negative shake.

"Just come along with me to the house. I'll see about this thing: it must be stopped." And Danby rose and walked off with a determined air, while the girl, abashed and wondering, followed him. When they arrived he plunged into the subject at once: "Nurse Bridget, can you read?"

"An' I raly don't know, as I niver tried."

"Fiddlesticks! Of course Maurice is too blind, and very likely he never tried either. Are there no books in the house?"

"An' there is, then—a whole room full of them, Master Danby. We are not people of no larnin' here, I can tell you. There is big books, an' little books, an' some awful purty books, an' some," she added doubtfully, "as is not so purty."

"You know a great deal about books!" said the boy sarcastically.

"An' sure I do. Haven't I dusted them once ivery year since I came to this blessed place? And tired enough they made me, too. I ain't likely to forgit them."

"Well, let us see them."

"Sure they're locked."

"Open them," said the impatient boy.

"Do open them," added Nellie timidly.

But it required much coaxing to accomplish their design, and after nurse did consent time was lost in looking for the keys, which were at last found under a china bowl in the cupboard. Then the old woman led the way with much importance, opening door after door of the unused part of the house, until she came to the library. It was a large, sober-looking room, with worn furniture and carpet, but rich in literature, and even art, for several fine pictures hung on the walls. The ancestor from whom the house had descended must have been a learned man in his day, and a wise, for he had gathered about him treasures. Danby shouted with delight, and Nellie's eyes sparkled as she saw his pleasure.

"Open all the windows, nurse, please, and then leave us. Why, Nellie, there is enough learning here to make you the most wonderful woman in the world! Do you think you can get all these books into your head?" he asked mischievously, "because that is what I expect of you. We will take a big one to begin with." The girl looked on while he, with mock ceremony, took down the largest volume within reach and laid it open on a reading-desk near. "Now sit;" and he drew a chair for her before the open book, and another for himself. "It is nice big print. Do you see this word?" and he pointed to one of the first at the top of the page.

She nodded her head gravely.

"It is love: say it."

She repeated the word after him.

"Now find it all over the page whereever it occurs."

With some mistakes she finally succeeded in recognizing the word again.

"Don't you forget it."

"Yes."

"No, you must not."

"I mean I won't."

"All right! Here is another: it is called the. Now find it."

Many times she went through the same process. In his pride of teaching Danby did not let his pupil flag. When he was going she asked timidly, "Shall you come again?"

"Of course I shall, Ignoramus, but don't you forget your lesson."

"No, no," she answered brightening. "I will think of it all the time I am asleep."

"That is a good girl," he said patronizingly, and bade her good-bye.

It was thus she learned to read, not remarkably well, but well enough to content Danby, which was sufficient to content Nellie also; and the ambitious boy was not satisfied until she could write as well.

An end came to this peaceful life when the youth left home for college. The girl's eyes seemed to grow larger from intense gazing at him during the last few weeks that preceded his departure, but that was her only expression of feeling. The morning after he left, the nurse, not finding her appear at her usual time, went to her chamber to look for her. She lay on the bed, as she had been lying all the night, sleepless, with pale face and red lips. Nurse asked her what was the matter.

"Nothing," was the reply.

"Come get up, Beauty," coaxed the nurse.

But Nellie turned her face to the wall and did not answer. She lay thus for a week, scarcely eating or sleeping, sick in mind and body, struggling with a grief that she hardly knew was grief. At the end of that time she tottered from the bed, and, clothing herself with difficulty, crept to the library.

The instinct that sends a sick animal to the plant that will cure it seemed to teach Nellie where to find comfort. Danby was gone, but memory remained, and the place where he had been was to her made holy and possessed healing power, as does the shrine of a saint for a believer. Her shrine was the reading-desk, and the chair on which he had sat during those happy lessons. To make all complete, she lifted the heavy book from the shelf and opened it at the page from which she had first learned. She put herself in his chair and caressed the words with her thin hand, her fingers trembling over the place that his had touched, then dropping her head on the desk where his arm had lain, she smiling slept.

She awoke with the nurse looking down on her, saying, "Beauty, you are better."

And so she was: she drank the broth and ate the bread and grapes that had been brought her, and from that day grew stronger. But the shadow in her eyes was deeper now, and the veins in her temples were bluer, as if the blood had throbbed and pained there. Every morning found her at her post: she had no need to roam the woods and fields now—her world lay within her. It was sad for one so young to live on memory.

For many days her page and these few words were sufficient to content her, and to recall them one after another, as Danby had taught, was her only occupation. But by and by the words themselves began to interest her, then the context, and finally the sense dawned upon her—dawned not less surely that it came slowly, and that she was now and then compelled to stop and think out a word.

And what did she learn? Near the top of the large page the first word, "love." It ended a sentence and stood conspicuous, which was the reason it had caught the eye of the eager boy when he began to teach. What did it mean? What went before? What after? It was a long time before she asked herself these questions, for her understanding had not formed the habit of being curious. Previously her eyes alone had sight, now her intellect commenced seeing. What was the web of which this word was the woof, knitting together, underlying, now appearing, now hidden, but always there? She turned the leaves and counted where it recurred again and again, like a bird repeating one sweet note, of which it never tires. Then the larger type in the middle of each page drew her attention: she read, As You Like It. "What do I like? This story is perhaps as I like it. I wonder what it is about? I don't care now for pirates and robbers: I liked them when he read to me, but not now." Her thoughts then wandered off to Danby, and she read no more that day.

However, Nellie had plenty of time before her, and when her thinking was ended she would return to her text. I do not know how long a time it required for her to connect the sentence that followed the word "love;" but it became clear to her finally, just as a difficult puzzle will sometimes resolve itself as you are idly regarding it. And this is what she saw: "Love! But it cannot be sounded: my affection hath an unknown bottom, like the bay of Portugal." The phrase struck her as if it was her own, and for the first time in her life she blushed. She did not know much about the bay of Portugal, it is true, but she understood the rest. From that time forth the book possessed a strange interest for her. Much that she did not comprehend she passed by. Often for several days she would not find a passage that pleased her, but when such a one was discovered her slow perusal of it and long dwelling on it gave a beauty and power to the sentiment that more expert students might have lost. I cannot describe the almost feverish effect upon her of that poetical quartette beginning with—

Good shepherd, tell this youth what 'tis to love.

How she hung over it, smiled at it, brightening into delight at the echo of her own feelings! In the raillery of Rosalind her heart found words to speak; and her sense and wit were awakened by the sarcasm of the same character. "Pray you, no more of this: 'tis like the howling of Irish wolves against the moon," came like a healthy tonic after a week of ecstasy spent over the preceding lines.

Her mind grew in such companionship. She lived no more alone: she had found friends who sympathized with her. Smiles and tears became frequent on her face, making it more beautiful. As You Like It was just as she liked it. The forest of Arden was her forest. Rosalind's banished father was her father: that busy man she had never seen. With the book for interpreter she fell in love with her world over again. Sunset and dawn possessed new charms; the little flowers seemed dignified; moonlight and fairy-land unveiled their mysteries; nothing was forgotten. It appeared as if all the knowledge of the world was contained in those magic pages, and the master-key to this treasure, the dominant of this harmony, was love—the word that Danby had taught her. The word? The feeling as well, and with the feeling—all.

Circling from this passion as from a pole-star, all those great constellations of thought revolved. With Lear's madness was Cordelia's affection; with the inhumanity of Shylock was Jessica's trust; with the Moor's jealousy was Desdemona's devotion. The sweet and bitter of life, religion, poetry and philosophy, ambition, revenge and superstition, controlled, created or destroyed by that little word. And how they loved—Perdita, Juliet, Miranda—quickly and entirely, without shame, as she had loved Danby—as buds bloom and birds warble. Oh it was sweet, sweet, sweet! Amid friends like these she became gay, moved briskly, grew rosy and sang. This was her favorite song, to a melody she had caught from the river:

Under the greenwood tree
Who loves to lie with me,
And turn his merry note
Unto the sweet bird's throat,