"She had been there, through the winter and spring, with her father, who, save myself, was the only near friend she had in all the world.
"The business which took him there detained him until later in the season than Northerners are accustomed to feel safe in staying. And still, important affairs hindered his departure.
"He wrote to me, that, for himself, he must risk a residence there for some weeks yet; but that his daughter must be placed in safety. There was every indication of a sickly summer. She knew nothing of his writing, and he feared would hardly consent to leave him. But, if I came, she would yield to me. Our marriage might take place there, and I could bring her home. Without her, he said, he could more quickly dispatch what remained for him to do; and I must persuade her of this, and that it was for the safety of all that she should so fulfill the promise which was to have been at this time redeemed, had their earlier return been possible.
"In the New Orleans papers that came by the same mail, were paragraphs of deadly significance. The very cautiousness with which they were worded weighted them the more.
"Miss Faith! my friend! in that city of pestilence, was my life! Night and day I journeyed, till I reached the place. I found the address which had been sent me--there were only strangers there! Mr. Waldo had been, but the very day before, seized with the fatal disease, and removed to a fever hospital. Miriam had gone with him--into plague and death!
"Was I wrong, child? Could I have helped it? I followed. Ah! G.o.d lets strange woes into this world of His! I cannot tell you, if I would, what I saw there! Pestilence--death--corruption!
"In the midst of all, among the gentle sisters of charity, I found a New England woman--a nurse--her whom I met yesterday. She came to me on my inquiry for Mr. Waldo. He was dead. Miriam had already sickened--was past hope. I could not see her. It was against the rule. She would not know me.
"I only remember that I refused to be sent away. I think my brain reeled with the weariness of sleepless nights and horror of the shock.
"I cannot dwell upon the story. It was ended quickly. When I struggled back, painfully, to life, from the disease that struck me down, there were strange faces round me, and none could even tell me of her last hours. The nurse--Miss Sampson--had been smitten--was dying.
"They sent me to a hospital for convalescents. Weeks after, I came out, feeble and hopeless, into my lonely life!
"Since then, G.o.d, who had taken from me the object I had set for myself, has filled its room with His own work. And, doing it, He has not denied me to find many a chastened joy.
"Dear young friend!" said he, with a tender, lingering emphasis--it was all he could say then--all they had left him to say, if he would--"I have told you this, because you have come nearer into my sympathies than any in all these years that have been my years of strangerhood and sorrow! You have made me think, in your fresh, maidenly life, and your soul earnestness, of Miriam!
"When your way broadens out into busy sunshine, and mine lies otherwise, do not forget me!"
A solemn baptism of mingled grief and joy seemed to touch the soul of Faith. One hand covered her face, that was bowed down, weeping. The other lay in her companion"s, who had taken it as he uttered these last words. So it rested a moment, and then its fellow came to it, and, between the two, held Roger Armstrong"s reverently, while the fair, tearful face lifted itself to his.
"I do thank you so!" And that was all.
Faith was his "dear, young friend!" How the words in which her mother limited his thoughts of her to commonplace, widened, when she spoke them to herself, into a great beat.i.tude! She never thought of more--scarcely whether more could be. This great, n.o.ble, purified, G.o.d-loving soul that stood between her and heaven, like the mountain peak, bathing its head in clouds, and drawing lightnings down, leaned over her, and blessed her thus!
She never suspected her own heart, even when the remembrance of Paul came up and took a tenderness from the thought how he, too, might love, and learn from, this her friend. She turned back with a new gentleness to all other love, as one does from a prayer!
CHAPTER XXIII.
QUESTION AND ANSWER.
"Unless you can swear, "For life, for death!"
Oh, fear to call it loving!"
MRS. BROWNING.
Faith sent Nurse Sampson in to talk with Mr. Armstrong. Then he learned all that he had longed to know, but had never known before; that which took him to his lost bride"s deathbed, and awoke out of the silent years for him a moment refused to him in its pa.s.sing.
Miss Sampson came from her hour"s interview, with an unbending of the hard lines of her face, and a softness, even, in her eyes, that told of tears.
"If ever there was an angel that went walking about in black broadcloth, that man is the one," said she.
And that was all she would say.
"I"m staying," she explained, in answer to their inquiries, "with a half-sister of mine at Sedgely. Mrs. Crabe, the blacksmith"s wife. You see, I"d got run down, and had to take a rest. Resting is as much a part of work as doing, when it"s necessary. I had a chance to go to Europe with an invaleed lady; but I allers hate such halfway contrivances. I either want to work with all my might, or be lazy with all my might. And so I"ve come here to do nothing, as hard as ever I can."
"I know well enough," she said again, afterwards, "that something"s being cut out for me, tougher"n anything I"ve had yet. I never had an hour"s extra rest in my life, but I found out, precious soon, what it had been sent for. I"m going to stay on all summer, as the doctor told me to; but I"m getting strong, already; and I shall be just like a tiger before the year"s out. And then it"ll come, whatever it is. You"ll see."
Miss Sampson stayed until the next day after, and then Mr. Gartney drove her back to Sedgely.
In those days it came to pa.s.s that Glory found she had a "follower."
Luther Goodell, who "did round" at Cross Corners, got so into the way of straying up the field path, in his nooning hours, and after ch.o.r.es were done at night, that Miss Henderson at last, in her plain, outright fashion, took the subject up, and questioned Glory.
"If it means anything, and you mean it shall mean anything, well and good. I shall put up with it; though what anybody wants with men folks cluttering round, is more than I can understand. But, if you don"t want him, he shan"t come. So tell me the truth, child. Yes, or no. Have you any notion of him for a husband?"
Glory blushed her brightest at these words; but there was no falling of the eye, or faltering of the voice, as she spoke with answering straightforwardness and simplicity.
"No ma"am. I don"t think I shall ever have a husband."
"No ma"am"s enough. The rest you don"t know anything about. Most likely you will."
"I shouldn"t want anybody, ma"am, that would be likely to want me."
And Glory walked out into the milk room with the pans she had been scalding.
It was true. This woman-child would go all through life as she had begun; discerning always, and reaching spiritually after, that which was beyond; which in that "kingdom of heaven" was hers already; but which to earthly having and holding should never come.
G.o.d puts such souls, oftener than we think, into such life. These are His vestals.
Miss Henderson"s foot had not grown perfectly strong. She, herself, said, coolly, that she never expected it to. More than that, she supposed, now she had begun, she should keep on going to pieces.
"An old life," she said, "is just like old cloth when it begins to tear.
It"ll soon go into the ragbag, and then to the mill that grinds all up, and brings us out new and white again!"
"Glory McWhirk," said she, on another day after, "if you could do just the thing you would like best to do, what would it be?"
"To-day, ma"am? or any time?" asked Glory, puzzled as to how much her mistress"s question included.
"Ever. If you had a home to live in, say, and money to spend?"
Glory had to wait a moment before she could so grasp such an extraordinary hypothesis as to reply.
"Well?" said Miss Henderson, with slight impatience.
"If I had--I should like best to find some little children, without any fathers or mothers, as I was, and dress them up, as you did me, and curl their hair, and make a real good time for them, every day!"
"You would! Well, that"s all. I was curious to know what you"d say. I guess those beans in the oven want more hot water."