The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 82, August, 1864

It was a case which had vastly interested me. I mean that it was quite in my line, detecting a man's secret in his countenance. I was glad of the practice.

Mary Ellen knew, too; and yet she had received no help from the profession. Only an innocent little country-girl! 'Twas her natural penetration. What a pity women can't be lawyers, they have so much to start with!

Poor David! He wasn't sensible of what had befallen him. How should he be? He didn't know why he smarted up his dress, why Bay-fishing wasn't profitable, or why working on the land agreed with him best. He hadn't even found out, as late as June, why he liked to have her bring out the luncheon-basket to the mowers. But before the autumn he had discovered his own secret. He knew very well, then, why he thought it a good plan for Mary Ellen to come in and pare apples with Miss Joey at the halves.

I could have wished him a pleasanter way, though, of finding out his secret.

There was another that saw the alteration, and that was Emily, the sick one,—the care and the blessing of the household. For twelve summers her foot had never pressed the greensward. They told me that once she was a gay, frolicsome girl. 'Twas hard to believe, so tranquil, so spiritual, so heavenly was the expression which long suffering had brought to her face. That face, apart from this wonderful expression, was beautiful to look upon. It seemed as if sickness itself was loath to meddle with aught so lovely. So, while her body slowly wasted from the ravages of disease, her countenance remained fair and youthful.

She often had days of freedom from suffering,—days when, as she expressed it, her Father called away His unwelcome messengers. At these times she would sit in her stuffed chair, or lie on the sofa, and the family went in and out as they chose. Everybody liked to stay in Emily's room. Its very atmosphere was elevating.

Then there were collected so many beautiful things,—for these she craved. "I need them, mother," she would say,—"my soul has need of them. If there are no flowers, get green leaves, or a picture of Christ, or of some saint, or little child." And sometimes I would dream, for a moment, that even I, with all my obtuseness, my earthiness, could have some faint perception of the way in which, in the midst of suffering, any form of beauty was a strength and a consolation.

And singularly enough for a sick girl, she liked gold ornaments and jewels. People used to lend her their chains and bracelets. "I know it is strange, mother," she said, one day, while holding in her hand a ruby bracelet,—"strange that I care for them; but they look so strong, so enduring, so full of life: hang them across the white vase, please; I love to see them there."

It was good for her when Mary Ellen came, vigorous, fresh, beautiful, like the early morning. She liked to have her in the room, to watch her face, to braid her long brown hair, and dress it with flowers, or pearls, or strings of beads,—to clasp her hands about the pretty white throat, as if she were only a pigeon, or a little lamb, brought in for her to play with.

She was pleased, too, about David. "He is so good," she said to me one day. "I always knew he had love and gentleness in his heart, and now an angel has come to roll away the stone."

I thought a great deal of my privilege of going into her room, the same as the rest. After the perplexing, and often low, grovelling duties of my profession, it was like sitting at the gate of heaven.

I used to love to come home, at the close of a long summer's day, and find the family assembled there. I felt the rest of the hour so much more, sitting among people who had been hard at work all day.

The windows would be set wide open, that not a breath of out-door air might he lost. And with the air would seem to come in the deep peace, the solemn Hush of a country-twilight. It pervaded the room; and even my cold, worldly nature would be touched.

In these dim, shadowy hours, when Nature seemed to stand still, breathless, waiting for the coming darkness, if I longed for anything, it was for a voice to sing. Speech seemed harsh. Yet we often repeated hymns and ballads. Emily knew a great many, and, after saying them over, would dwell upon them, drawing the most beautiful meanings from passages which to me had seemed obscure, and sometimes talked like one inspired.

I felt that these seasons were my salvation,—were saving me from my worldliness. Still, I sometimes had a guilty feeling, as if I were drawing from Emily her beautiful life,—as if I were getting something to which I had no right, something too good for me,—as if she might exclaim, at any moment, "Virtue is gone out from me!"

But Mary Ellen could sing. That was good. She knew hymns by dozens, and tunes to them all, both old and new. Besides these, she could sing love-songs and quaint old ballads, that nobody ever heard before.

After she came, we had music to our twilights.

David, of course, was a listener. He said he was always fond of music. I used sometimes to wonder if the pretty singer of love-songs had any special designs upon him. For I had been curiously watching this innocent little country-girl.

In talking with a friend of mine, he had laid it down as a law of Nature, that all women, wild or cultivated, delight to worry and torment all men; that they play with and prey upon their hearts; and that this is done instinctively, as a cat worries a mouse.

"A ministering angel thou," quoted I, rather abstractedly, as if comparing views.

"Angels? Yes,—and so they are," he answered, rather smartly. "And every man's heart is a pool, into which they must descend and trouble the waters!"

I knew my friend had reason for his bitterness. Still, I resolved to watch Mary Ellen.

David's bashful attentions were by no means displeasing to her: that I saw. She had not been accustomed to your glib, off-handed, smartly dressed youths. Here was a good-looking young man, of blameless life, who helped her draw up the bucket, took her to sail, taught her to row, brought her home bushes of huckleberries and branches of swamp-pinks from the pasture, and shells from the beach.

That few words accompanied his offerings was matter of little moment, since what he would have said was easily enough read in his face. It was sufficient that his eyes spoke, that they followed her motions, that he seemed never ready to go so long as she remained, that when she went he could not long stay behind.

Poor David! It wasn't his fault. He didn't mean to. Everybody knew 't wasn't a bit like him. He was charmed. And that reminds me of what Miss Joey said to Mr. Lane, the old man.

It was just about sundown, and they two were sitting in the front-room, looking out of the windows. It had been a sultry day. I was trying to keep comfortable, and had found a nice little seat just outside the door, underneath the lilacs.

Mary Ellen and David came slowly walking past. They didn't seem to be saying much. She had come out bareheaded, just for a little fresh air and a stroll round the house. How cool she looked, in her light blue gown, and her white apron, that tied behind with white bows and strings, or streams! A May-bee buzzed about their ears, and lighted on her shoulder. Poor David! He brushed it off before he thought. How frightened he looked! how confused! But then just think of all the other may-bes he had in his head, confusing him, buzzing to him all manner of beautiful things!

They stopped under the early-ripe tree. Mary Ellen pointed upwards, laughing. He sprang up and snatched off the apple. Then she pointed higher, and still higher, until at last he climbed the tree, and dropped the apples down into her apron.

"Mr. Lane," said Miss Joey, in an impressive undertone, "did you ever hear of anybody's bewitchin' anybody?"

"In books, Joey," he answered.

"Wal," said she, in a low, but decided voice, "I'll tell you what I think, and what's ben my mind from the beginnin' on't. That gal's bewitched David. Don't you remember," she continued, "that the fust week they come David had a bad cold?"

"Wal, like enough he did," drawled the old man. "David was always subject to a bad cold."

"He did," replied Miss Joey. "I've got the whole on't in my mind now. And mebby you've noticed that these folks are great for gatherin' in herbs, and lobely, and bottlin' up hot-crop?"

"Pepper-tea's a suvverin' remedy for a cold," put in the old man.

"But now," Miss Joey proceeded, sinking her voice almost to a whisper, "I want to fix your thoughts on somethin' dark-colored, in a vial, that she fetched across the entry for him to take."

"Help him any?"

"Can't say it did, and can't say it didn't. But ever sence that, David's ben a different man. He's follered that gal about as if there'd ben a chain a-drawin' him,—as if she'd flung a lassoo round his neck, and was pullin' him along. See him, and you see her. If she wants huckleberries, she has huckleberries. If she wants violets, she has violets. See him now, lookin' down at her through the branches. And see her, turnin' her face up towards him. He's nigh upon addled. Shouldn't wonder this minute, if he didn't know enough to keep his hold o' the branch. Does that seem like our David, Mr. Lane, a bashful young feller like him?"

"Bashful or bold makes no difference," replied the old man. "Love'll go where't is sent,—likely to hit one as t' other. And when they're hit, you can't tell 'em apart.—Why, Joey," he continued, suddenly quickening his tone, "there's the Doctor's boy, as I'm alive!"

Dr. Luce lived the other side of "the Crick." The young man coming along the road was his son, just arrived home.

As he came nearer, I took notice of his dress. I usually did, when people came from the city. He wore a black bombazine coat, white trousers, white waistcoat, blue necktie, and a Panama hat. His complexion was fair, with plenty of light hair waving about his temples. He stepped briskly along, with shoulders set back, twirling his glove.

I knew Warren Luce well enough. I could tell just how it would strike him, seeing David up in a tree, flinging down apples to a girl. I could very well judge, too, how he would encounter the fair apparition beneath.

But how would he strike Mary Ellen,—this polished, smooth-tongued, handsomely dressed youth? I had forebodings. I seemed to divine the future. I fidgeted upon my seat, and straightened myself up, rather pleased that my studies were getting complicated,—that I should have a chance of searching out the natural heart of woman, when under the most trying circumstances.

But just as I was making ready to commence upon my new chapter, Mrs. Lane called me to come and help move Emily. I very often lifted her from the chair to the sofa. It could hardly be called lifting. 'Twas like taking a little bird out of its nest and placing it in another. "The Doctor's boy has come," said I, very quietly, when I had wheeled the sofa so that she might feel the air from the window.

She made no answer then; but a little after, when her mother stepped out a minute, she said, just as quietly,—

"How will it be?"

"How do you think?" I said.

"I wish," she replied, "that he hadn't come. David is a dear brother. I fear."

When Emily said "I fear," there was no need to ask what. She feared the effect upon Warren Luce of Mary Ellen's fresh and simple beauty. She feared the effect upon her of his city-manners and fluent speech. She feared for David an abiding sorrow. Warren Luce had travelled, had been in society, and had been educated. I knew him well for a selfish, heartless fellow, whose very soul had been drowned in worldly pleasures. Just from the midst of artificial life, how charming must appear to him our sweet wild-rose, our singing-bird, our fresh, untutored, innocent little country-girl!

"But why borrow trouble?" I said to myself. "It will come soon enough. If not in this way, then in some other. Trouble stays not long away."

CHAPTER II