It"s all right. Your checks please; there is but little time."
His manner was so quiet and a.s.sured, that she handed them to him hesitatingly, and a moment later stepped out on the platform.
In a few moments she called: "Oh, Mr. Stanton, you have lost your train."
"Not at all. I am going to Boston. There are your checks once more, and here is your train and seat," he added, as he accompanied her to it. Then he lifted his hat, and was about to depart, when she said: "Since you are on the same train, perhaps you will venture to take this seat near me. I never was curious about a gentleman"s business before; but it strikes me as a rather odd coincidence that you are going to Boston to-day."
"A great many people go to Boston," he replied.
"It"s for my sake you are taking this long journey, Mr. Stanton,"
she said, regretfully.
"Yes," he replied, in the same quiet, undemonstrative manner that he had maintained towards her for some weeks past; "this journey is for your sake, and for your sake I shall take a very different journey through life from the one I had marked out for myself. I know your sad story, Miss Burton. I expect nothing from you, I hope for nothing, and I shall never ask anything, except a little confidence on your part, so that I can render you an occasional service. Never for a moment imagine that I am cherishing hopes that I know well you cannot reward."
"Mr. Stanton, this is beyond my comprehension!"
"There seems to me nothing strange or unnatural in it," he said.
"You found me a pleasure-loving animal, and through your influence I think I am becoming somewhat different. You have taught me that there is a higher and better world than that of sense. How good a work I can do in life I will let the years prove as they pa.s.s.
But I do not think my feelings will ever change towards you, save as time deepens and strengthens them. Van thinks all the world of you, as well he may; but his life will be very happy and full of many interest. I shall think of you alone, and the work I do for your sake until I can add another motive. Of course I believe in a heaven--such lives as your make one necessary; and I mean to find a way of getting there. In the meantime, you are my motive; but my regard for you shall be so very un.o.btrusive that I trust you will not resent it, and the thought of my unseen care and watchfulness may in time come to be a pleasant one."
There was nothing in his tone or manner to indicate that to their fellow-travelers that he was not speaking on the most ordinary topic; and he looked her full in the face with his clear dark eyes, in which she saw only truth and faithfulness.
She was very, very deeply touched, and she could not keep the tears out of her eyes as she leaned towards him and said in tones that no others could hear:
"I am no longer the friendless orphan I was when I came to the Lake House. In Mr. Van Berg I have found a friend whom I can trust; in you, Ik Stanton, a brother that I can love."
If the reader"s patience has not failed him up to this long-deferred moment, it shall now be rewarded by a few brief, concluding words.
Mrs. Mayhew felt considerably aggrieved that she had had so little part in Ida"s engagement with the wealthy and aristocratic Mr.
Van Berg, and in later years she complained that they were very unfashionable, and spent an unreasonable amount of time in looking after all kinds of charitable inst.i.tutions. Mr. Mayhew drank ever deeper at the full fountain of his child"s love, and is serenely pa.s.sing on to an honorable old age. Mr. Eltinge is now beyond age and weakness, but Ida often murmurs with tears in her eyes as she looks at his portrait, "He is just speaking to me as he did when my heart was breaking." Stanton"s city friends say that he has greatly changed and might stand very high as a lawyer and politician if he were not so quixotic and p.r.o.ne to take cases in which there was no money, but he receives letters from New England which seem to compensate him for lack of large fees. Van Berg has not yet regretted that he entrusted "faulty Ida Mayhew" with his happiness, and he is more anxious than ever to lure her to his studio. For a long time he had to take the truth of her faith on trust but at last he stood by her side at G.o.d"s altar and confessed that Name which has been the lowliest and grandest of earth.
Ida is still very human, but with all her faults, her husband often whispers in her ear: "Not Ida, but Ideal." She is continually giving up her life for Christ"s sake, and as often finds it coming back to her in some richer, sweeter form; and by her simple, joyous faith has led many to the Friend she found in the quaint old garden, and who says of all who come, "I will give unto them eternal life."
Jennie Burton is still waiting; but at the end of each day of faithful work she sings the song of hope that Ida taught her:
No hope, "tis said, though buried deep, But angels o"er it vigils keep; No love in sepulchre shall stay, For Christ MY Friend will roll away The heavy stone of death.
THE END.