"Forgiven!" cried she, fervently. "How can I ever thank you, ever be sufficiently grateful for your goodness?"
"By treasuring up my words, and remembering them when you are far away.
I have influence over you now, because you are so very young, and know so little of the world, but a few years hence it will be very different.
You may think of me then as a severe mentor, a cold, unfeeling sage, and wonder at the gentleness with which you bore my reproofs, and the docility with which you yielded to my will."
"I shall always think of you as the best and truest friend I ever had in the world," cried Helen, enthusiastically, as they entered the sitting-room, where Mrs. Hazleton and Alice awaited them.
"Because he sent you out into the woods alone?" said Mrs. Hazleton, smiling, "young despot that he is."
"Yes," replied Helen, "for I feel so much better, stronger and happier for having gone. Then, if possible, I love Alice more than ever."
"How do you account for that, Helen?" asked Arthur.
"I don"t know," she answered, "unless it is I went through a trial for her sake."
"Helen is a metaphysician," said the young doctor. "She could not have given a better solution."
CHAPTER VI.
"And can it be those heavenly eyes Blue as the blue of starry skies, Those eyes so clear, so soft so bright, Have never seen G.o.d"s blessed light?"
Helen returned to her father"s, to prepare for her departure to the school, which Mittie was about to leave. Arthur had long resolved to place Alice in an Inst.i.tution for the blind, and as there was a celebrated one in the same city to which Helen was bound, he requested Mr. Gleason to be her guardian on the journey, and suffer her to be the companion of Helen. This arrangement filled the two young girls with rapture, and reconciled them to the prospect of leaving home, and of being cast among strangers in a strange city.
Ever since Alice was old enough to feel the misfortune that rested so darkly upon her, and had heard of those glorious inst.i.tutions, where the children of night feel the beams of science and benevolence penetrate the closed bars of vision, and receive their illumination in the inner temple of the spirit, she had expressed an earnest wish to be sent where she could enjoy such advantages.
"Oh!" she would repeat a thousand times, unconscious of the pain she inflicted on her mother; "oh! if I could only go where the blind are taught every thing, how happy should I be!"
It is seldom that the widow of a country minister is left with more than the means of subsistence. Mrs. Hazleton was no exception to the general rule. But Arthur treasured up every word his blind sister uttered, and resolved to appropriate to this sacred purpose the first fruits of his profession. It was for this he had antic.i.p.ated the years of manhood, and commenced the practice of medicine, under the auspices of his father"s venerable friend, Doctor Sennar, at an age when most young men are preparing themselves for their public career. Success far transcending his most sanguine hopes having crowned his youthful exertions, he was now enabled to purchase the Parsonage, and present it as a filial offering to his mother, and also to defray the expenses of his sister"s education.
Alice had never before visited the home of Helen, and it was an interesting sight to see with what watchful care and protecting tenderness Helen guided and guarded her steps. Louis, who was at home also pa.s.sing his summer holidays, beheld for the first time the lovely blind girl of whom Helen had so often spoken and written.
He was now a man in appearance, of n.o.ble stature, and most prepossessing countenance. Helen was enthusiastically fond of her brother, and had said to Alice, with unconscious repet.i.tion--
"Oh! how I wish you could see Louis. He is so handsome and is so good.
He has such a brave rejoicing look. Somehow or other, I always feel safe in his presence."
"Is he handsomer than Arthur?" Alice would ask.
"No, not handsomer--but then he"s so different, one cannot compare them.
Arthur is so much older, you know."
"Arthur doesn"t look old, does he?"
"No, not old--but he has such an air of authority sometimes, which gives you such an impression of power, that I would fear him, did he not all at once appear so gentle and so kind. Louis makes you love him all the time, and you never think of his being displeased."
Still, while Helen dwelt on her brother"s praise with fond and fluent tongue, she felt without being able to describe her feelings, that he had lost something of his original beauty. The breath of the world had pa.s.sed over the mind and dimmed its purity. His was the joyous, reckless spirit that gave life to the convivial board; and temptations, which a colder temperament might have resisted, often held him in ign.o.ble va.s.salage. Now inhaling the hallowed atmosphere of home, all the pure influences of his boyhood resumed their empire over his heart--and he wondered that he could ever have mingled with the grosser elements of society.
"Blind!" repeated he to himself, while gazing on the calm, angelic countenance of Alice, so beautiful in its repose. "Is it possible that a creature so fair and bright, dwells in the darkness of perpetual midnight? Can no electric ray pierce the cloud that is folded over her vision? Is there no power in science to remove the dark fillet that binds those celestial eyes, and pour in upon them the light of a new-born day?"
While he thus gazed on the unseeing face, so near him that perhaps she might have had a vague consciousness of the intensity, the warmth of the gaze, Helen approached, and taking the hand of Alice, pa.s.sed it softly over the features of her brother, as well as his profuse and cl.u.s.tering hair.
"Alice has eyes in her fingers, Louis--I want her to _see_ you and tell me if I have been a true painter."
Louis felt the blood mounting to his temples, as the soft hand of Alice a.n.a.lyzed the outline of his face, and lingered in his hair. It seemed to him a cherub was fluttering its wings against his cheek, diffusing a peace and balminess that no language could describe.
Alice, who had yielded involuntarily to the movement of Helen, drew her hand blushingly away.
"I cannot imagine how any one can see without touching," said Alice, "how they can take in an image into the soul, by looking at it far off.
You tell me the eyes feel no pleasure when gazing at any thing--that it is the mind only which perceives. But my fingers thrill with delight when I touch any thing that pleases, long afterwards."
Louis longed to ask her if she felt the vibration then, but he dared not do it. He, in general so reckless in words, experienced a restraining influence he had never felt before. She seemed so set apart, so holy, it would be sacrilegious to address her with levity. He felt a sudden desire to be an oculist, that he might devote himself to the task of restoring to her the blessing of sight. Then he thought how delightful it would be to lead such a sweet creature through the world, to be eyes to her darkness, strength to her helplessness--the sun of her clouded universe. Louis had a natural chivalry about him that invested weakness, not only with a peculiar charm, but with a sacred right to his protection. With the quick, bounding impulses of eighteen, his spirit sprang forward to meet every new attraction. Here was one so novel, so pure, that his soul seemed purified from the soil of temptation, while he involuntarily surrendered himself to it, as Miss Thusa"s thread grew white under the bleaching rays of a vernal sun.
Miss Thusa! yes, Miss Thusa came to welcome home her young protege, unchanged even in dress. It is probable she had had several new garments since she related to Helen the history of the worm-eaten traveler, but they were all of the same gray color, relieved by the black silk neckerchief and white tamboured muslin cap--and under the cap there was the same opaque fold of white paper, carefully placed on the top of the head.
Alice had a great curiosity to _see_ Miss Thusa, as she expressed it, and hear some of her wild legends. When she traced the lineaments, of her majestic profile, and her finger suddenly rose on the lofty beak of her nose, she laughed outright. Alice did not often laugh aloud, but when she did, her laugh was the most joyous, ringing, childish burst of silvery music that ever gushed from the fountain of youth. It was impossible not to echo it. Helen feared that Miss Thusa would be offended, especially as Louis joined merrily in the chorus--and she looked at Alice as if her glance had power to check her. But she did not know all the windings of Miss Thusa"s heart. Any one like Alice, marked by the Almighty, by some peculiar misfortune, was an object not only of tenderness, but of reverence in her eyes. The blasted tree, the blighted flower, the smitten lamb--all touched by the finger of G.o.d, were sacred things--and so were blindness and deafness--and any personal calamity.
It was strange, but it was only in the shadows of existence she felt the presence of the Deity.
"Never mind her laughing," said she, in answer to the apprehensive glance of Helen, "it don"t hurt me. It does me good to hear her. It sounds like a singing bird in a cage; and, poor thing, she"s shut in a dark cage for life."
"No, not for life, Miss Thusa," exclaimed Louis; "I intend to study optics till I have mastered the whole length and breadth of the science, on purpose to unseal those eyes of blue."
Alice turned round so suddenly, and following the sound of his voice, fixed upon him so eagerly those blue eyes, the effect was startling.
"Will you do so?" she cried, "can you do so? oh! do not say it, unless you mean it. But I know it is impossible," she added in a subdued tone, "for I was _born blind_. G.o.d made me so, and He has made me very happy too. I sometimes think it would be beautiful to see, but it is beautiful to feel. As brother says, there is an inner-light which keeps us from being _all_ dark."
Louis regretted the impulse which urged him to utter his secret wishes.
He resolved to be more guarded in future, but he was already in imagination a student in Germany, under some celebrated optician, making discoveries so amazing that he would undoubtedly give a new name to the age in which he lived.
When night came on they gathered round Miss Thusa, entreating her for a farewell legend, not a gloomy one, not one which would give Alice a sad, dark impression, but something that would come to her memory like a ray of light.
"You must let me have my own way," said she, putting her spectacles on the top of her head, and looking around her with remarkable benignity.
"If the spirit moves me one way, I cannot go another. But I will try my best, for may-be it"s the last time some of you will ever listen to old Thusa"s tales. She"s never felt just right since they tangled up her heart-strings with that whitened thread. Oh! that was a vile, mean trick!"
"Forget and forgive, Miss Thusa," cried Louis; "I dare say Mittie has repented of it in dust and ashes."
"I have forgiven, long ago," resumed Miss Thusa, "but as for _forgetting_, that is out of the question. Ever since then, when the bleaching time comes, it keeps me perfectly miserable till it is over.
I"ve never had any thread equal to it, for I"m afraid to let it stay long enough to be as powerful white as it used to be. Well, well, let it rest. You want me to tell you a story, do you?"
Miss Thusa had an auditory a.s.sembled round her that might have animated a spirit less open to inspiration than hers. There was Mr. and Mrs.
Gleason, the latter a fine, dignified-looking lady, and the young doctor, with his countenance of grave sweetness, and Louis, with an expression of resolute credulity, and Helen and Alice, with their arms interlaced, and the locks of their hair mingling like the tendrils of two forest vines. And what perhaps gave a glow to her spirit, deeper than the presence of all these, Mittie, her arch enemy, was _not there_, to mock her with her deriding black eyes.
"You"ve talked to me so much about not telling you any terrible things,"
said she, with a troubled look, "that you"ve made me like a candle under a bushel, instead of a light upon a hill-top. I"ve never told such stories since, as I used to tell when the first Mrs. Gleason was alive, and I spun in the nursery all the evening, and little Helen was the only one to listen to what I had to say. There was something in the child"s eyes that kept me going, for they grew brighter and larger every word I said."