The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 05, No. 28, February, 1860

I followed him out, and we went almost silently across the fields to the hill that overlooked the strip of meadow between our houses. There was the stile over which I had looked to see him spring, many a time.

"Sit down a moment, until the sun is quite down," he said, making room for me beside him on the topmost step. "See how splendid that sky is! a pavilion for the gods!"

"I should think they were airing all their finery," I answered. "It looks more like a counter spread with bright goods than anything else I can think of."

"That's a decidedly vulgar comparison, and you're not in a spiritual mood at all," he said. "You've snubbed me two or three times to-night, when I've tried to be sentimental. What's amiss with you?" and he bent his eyes, full of a saucy sort of triumph, upon mine.

"I don't like parting with friends; it sets me all awry," I said, giving back his own self-assured look. I was sorry to have him go; but if he thought I was going to cry or blush, he was mistaken.

"You'll write to me, Miss Rachel?" he asked.

"No, Mr. Ames,—not at all," I said.

"Not write? Why not?" he asked, in astonishment.

"Because I don't believe in galvanizing dead friendships," I answered.

"Dead friendships, Miss Rachel? I hope ours has much life in it yet," he said.

"It's in the last agony, Sir. It will be comfortably dead and buried before long, with a neat little epitaph over it,—which is much the best way to dispose of them finally, I think."

"You're harder than I thought you were," he said. "Is that the way you feel towards all your friends?"

"I love my friends as well as any one," I answered. "But I never hold them when they wish to be gone. My life-yarn spins against some other yarn, catches the fibres, and twists into the very heart"–

"So far?" he asked, turning his eyes down to mine.

"Yes," I said, coolly,—"for the time being. You don't play at your friendships, do you? If so, I pity you. As I was saying, they're like one thread. By-and-by one spindle is moved, the strands spin away from each other, and become strange yarn. What's the use of sending little locks of wool across to keep them acquainted? They're two yarns from henceforth. Reach out for some other thread,—there's plenty near,—and spin into that. We're made all up of little locks from other people, Mr. Ames. Won't it be strange, in that great Hereafter, to hunt up our own fibres, and return other people's? It would take about forty-five degrees of an eternity to do that."

"I shall never return mine," he said. "I couldn't take myself to pieces in such a style. But won't you write at all?"

"To what purpose? You'll be glad of one letter,—possibly of two. Then it will be, 'Confound it! here's a missive from that old maid! What a bore! Now I suppose I must air my wits in her behalf; but, if you ever catch me again,'–Exit."

"And you?" he asked, laughing.

"I shall be as weary as you, and find it as difficult to keep warmth in the poor dying body. No, Mr. Ames. Let the poor thing die a natural death, and we'll wear a bit of crape a little while, and get a new friend for the old."

"So you mean to forget me altogether?"

"No, indeed! I shall recollect you as a very pleasant tale that is told,—not a friend to hanker after. Isn't that good common sense?"

"It's all head-work,—mere cold calculation," he said; "while I"–He stopped and colored.

"Your gods, there, are downright turn-coats," I said, coming down from the stile. "Their red mantles are nothing but pearl-colored now, and presently they'll be russet-gray. That whippoorwill always brings the dew with him, too; so I must go home. Good-night, and good-bye, Mr. Ames."

"I scarcely know how to part with you," he said, taking my hand. "It's not so easy a thing to do."

"People say, 'Good-bye,' or 'God bless you,' or some such civil phrase, usually," I said, with just the least curl of my lip,—for I knew I had got the better of him.

He colored again, and then smiled a little sadly.

"Ah! I'm afraid I leave a bigger lock than I take," he exclaimed. "Well, then, good friend! good-bye, and God bless you, too! Don't be quite so hard as you promise to be."

I missed him very much, indeed; but if any think I cried after him, or wrote verses, or soliloquized for his sake, they are much mistaken. I had lost friends before, and made it a point to think just as little of them as possible, until the sore spot grew strong enough to handle without wincing. Besides, my cousin stayed with me, and all my good friends in the village had to come out for a call or a visit to see how the land lay; so I had occupation enough. Once in a while I used to look over to the old house, and wish for one good breezy conversation with its master; and when the snow came and lay in one mass upon the old roof, clear down to the eaves, like a night-cap pulled down to the eyes of a low-browed old woman, I moved my bed against the window that looked that way. These forsaken nests are gloomy things enough!

I had no thought of hearing again of him or from him, and was surprised, when, in a month, a review came, and before long another, and afterwards a box, by express, with a finely kept bouquet, and, in mid-winter, a little oil-painting,—a delicious bit of landscape for my sanctum, as he said in the note that accompanied it. I heard from him in this way all winter, although I never sent word or message back again, and tried to think I was sorry that he did not forget me, as I had supposed he would. Of course I never thought of acknowledging to myself that it was possible for me to love him. I was too good a sophist for that; and, indeed, I think that between a perfect friendship and a perfect love a fainter distinction exists than many people imagine. I have known likings to be colored as rosily as love, and seen what called itself love as cold as the chilliest liking.

One day, after spring had been some time come, I was returning from a walk and saw that Mr. Ames's house was open. I could not see any person there; but the door and windows were opened, and a faint smoke crept out of the chimney and up among the new spring foliage after the squirrels. I had walked some distance, and was tired, and the weather was not perfect; but I thought I would go round that way and see what was going on. It was one of those charming child-days in early May, laughing and crying all in one, the fine mist-drops shining down in the sun's rays, like star-dust from some new world in process of rasping up for use. I liked such days. The showers were as good for me as for the trees. I grew and budded under them, and they filled my soul's soil full of singing brooks.

When I reached the lawn before the door, Mr. Ames came out to see me,—so glad to meet that he held my hand and drew me in, asking two or three times how I was and if I were glad to see him. He had called at the house and seen Cousin Mary, on his way over, he said,—for he was hungering for a sight of us. He was not looking as well as when he left in the autumn,—thinner, paler, and with a more anxious expression when he was not speaking; but when I began to talk with him, he brightened up, and seemed like his old self. He had two or three workmen already tearing down portions of the finishing, and after a few moments asked me to go round and see what improvements he was to make. We stopped at last at his chamber, a room that looked through the foliage towards my house.

"This is my lounging-place," he said, pointing to the sofa beneath the window. "I shall sit here with my cigar and watch you this summer; so be circumspect! But are you sure that you are glad to see me?"

"To be sure. Do you take me for a heathen?" I said. "But what are you making such a change for? Couldn't the old house content you?"

"It satisfies me well enough; but I expect visitors this summer who are quite fastidious, and this old worm-eaten wood-work wouldn't do for them. What makes you look so dark? Don't you like the notion of my lady-visitors?"

"I didn't know that they were to be ladies until you told me," I said; "and it's none of my business whom you entertain, Mr. Ames."

"There wasn't much of a welcome for them in your face, at any rate," he answered. "And to tell the truth, I am not much pleased with the arrangement myself. But they took a sudden fancy for coming, and no amount of persuasion could induce them to change their minds. It's hardly a suitable place for ladies; but if they will come, they must make the best of it."

"How came you ever to take a fancy to this place? and what makes you spend so much money on it?" I asked.

"You don't like to see the money thrown away," he said, laughing. "The truth is, that I've got a skeleton, like many another man, and I've been trying these two years to get away from it. The first time I stopped to rest under this tree, I felt light-hearted. I don't know why, except it was some mysterious influence; but I loved the place, and I love it no less now, although my skeleton has found a lodging-place here too."

"Of course," I said, "and very appropriately. The house was haunted before you came."

"It was haunted for me afterward," he said softly, more to himself than to me; "sweet, shadowy visions I should be glad to call up now." And he turned away and swallowed a sigh.

I pitied him all the way home, and sat up to pity him, looking through the soft May starlight to see the lamp burning steadily at his window until after midnight. From that time I seemed to have a trouble,—though I could scarcely have named or owned it, it was so indefinite.

He came to see me a few days afterward, and sat quite dull and abstracted until I warmed him up with a little lively opposition. I vexed him first, and then, when I saw he was interested enough to talk, I let him have a chance; and I had never seen him so interesting. He showed me a new phase of his character, and I listened, and answered him in as few words as possible, that I might lose nothing of the revelation. When he got up to go away, I asked him where he had been to learn and think so much since the last autumn. He began to be, I thought and hoped, what a sterner teaching might have made him before.

He seemed a little embarrassed; said no one else had discovered any change in him, and he thought it must be only a reflected light. He had observed that I had "a remarkable faculty for drawing people out. What was my witchcraft?"

I disclaimed all witchcraft, and told him it was only because I quarrelled with people. A little wholesome opposition had warmed him into quite a flight of fancy.

"If I could only,"–he began, hurriedly; but took out his watch, said it was time for him to go, and went off quite hastily. It was very weak in me, but I wished very much to know what he would have said.

The next time, he called a few moments to tell me that his lady-visitors, with a friend of theirs, had come, and had expressed a wish to make my acquaintance. He promised them that he would call and let me know,—though he hoped I would not come, unless I felt inclined. He was very absent-minded, and went off the moment I asked him where he had left his good spirits. This made me a little cold to him when I called on the ladies, for I found them all sitting after tea out at the door. It was a miserably constrained affair, though we all tried to be civil,—for I could see that both ladies were taking, or trying to take, my measure, and it did not set me at ease in the least. But in the mean time I had measured them; and as experience has confirmed that first impression, I may as well sketch them here. I protest, in the first place, against any imputation of prejudice or jealousy. I thought much more charitably of them than others did.

Mrs. Winslow was one of those pleasant, well-bred ladies, who can look at you until you are obliged to look away, contradict you flatly, and say the most grossly impertinent things in the mildest voice and choicest words. A woman of the world, without nobility enough to appreciate a magnanimous thought or action, and with very narrow, shallow views of everything about her, she had still some agreeable traits of character,—much shrewd knowledge of the world, as she saw it, some taste for Art, and an excellent judgment in relation to all things appertaining to polite society. I had really some pleasant intercourse with her, although I think she was one of the most insulting persons I ever met. I made a point of never letting her get any advantage of me, and so we got along very well. Whenever she had a chance, she was sure to say something that would mortify or hurt me; and I never failed to repay both principal and interest with a voice and face as smooth as hers. And here let me say that there is no other way of dealing with such people. Self-denial, modesty, magnanimity, they do not and cannot understand. Never turn them the other cheek, but give a smart slap back again. It will do them good.

The daughter was a very pretty, artificial, silly girl, who might have been very amiable in a different position, and was not ill-natured as it was. I might have liked her very well, if she had not conceived such a wonderful liking for me, and hugged and kissed me as much as she did. She cooed, too, and I dislike to hear a woman coo; it is a sure mark of inferiority.

We were quite intimate soon, and Miss Lucy fell into the habit of coming early in the morning to ride with me, and after dinner to sit and sew, and after tea for a walk. She showed me all her heart, apparently, though there was not much of it, and vowed that she scarcely knew how she should exist without me. I let her play at liking me, just as I should have indulged a playful kitten, and tried to say and do something that might improve her for Mr. Ames's sake. I saw now what his skeleton was. He was to marry the poor child, and shrunk from it as I should have shrunk from a shallow husband.

He used to come with her sometimes, and I must confess that he behaved admirably. I never saw him in the least rude, or ill-natured, or contemptuous towards her, even when she was silliest and tried his patience most severely; and I felt my respect for him increasing every day. As for Mrs. Winslow, she came sometimes to see me, and was very particular to invite me there; but I saw that she watched both me and Mr. Ames, and suspected that she had come to Huntsville for that purpose. She sought every opportunity, too, of making me seem awkward or ignorant before him; and he perceived it, I know, and was mortified and annoyed by it, though he left the chastisement entirely to me. Once in a while Cousin Mary and I had a real old-fashioned visit from him all alone, either when it was very stormy, or when the ladies were visiting elsewhere. He always came serious and abstracted, and went away in good spirits, and he said that those few hours were the pleasantest he passed. Mrs. Winslow looked on them with an evil eye, I knew, and suspected a great deal of which we were all innocent; for one day, when she had been dining at my house with her daughter, and we were all out in the garden together, I overheard her saying,—