Mrs. Gleason, with the quicker perception of woman, penetrated deeper than her husband, and saw that pa.s.sions were aroused in that hitherto insensible heart which, if opposed, might be terrible in their power.
Since her conversation with Mittie, where she yielded up all attempt at maternal influence, and like "Ephraim joined to idols, _let her alone_,"
she had never uttered a word of counsel or rebuke. She had been coldly, distantly courteous, and as she had prophesied, met with at least the semblance of respect. It was more than the semblance, it was the reality. Mittie disdained dissimulation, and from the moment her step-mother a.s.serted her own dignity, she felt it. Mrs Gleason would have lifted up her warning voice, but she knew it would be disregarded, and moreover, she had pledged herself to neutrality, unless admonition or counsel were asked.
"Let us go in and see Miss Thusa," said Louis, as they were returning one evening from a long walk in the woods. "I must show Clinton all the lions in the neighborhood, and Miss Thusa is the queen of the menagerie."
"It is too late, brother," cried Mittie, well knowing that she was no favorite of Miss Thusa, who might recall some of the incidents of her childhood, which she now wished buried in oblivion.
"Just the hour to make a fashionable call," said Clinton. "I should like to see this belle of the wild woods."
"Oh! she is very old and very ugly," exclaimed Mittie, "and I a.s.sure you, will give you a very uncourteous reception."
"Youth and beauty and courtesy will only appear more lovely by force of contrast," said Clinton, offering her his hand to a.s.sist her over the stile, with a glance of irresistible persuasion.
Mittie was constrained to yield, but an anxious flush rose to her cheek for the result of this dreaded interview. She had not visited Miss Thusa since her return from school, for she had no pleasing a.s.sociations connected with her to draw her to her presence. Since her memorable journey with her wheel, Miss Thusa had taken possession of her former abode, and no entreaties could induce her to resume her wandering life.
She never revealed the mystery of the advertis.e.m.e.nt, or the result of her journey, but a female Ixion, bound to the wheel, spun away her solitary hours, and nursed her own peculiar, solemn traits of character.
The house looked very much like a hermitage, with its low, slanting, wigwam roof, and dark stone walls, planted in the midst of underbrush, through which no visible path was seen. There was no gate, but a stile, made of ma.s.sy logs, piled in the form of steps, which were beautifully carpeted with moss. A well, whose long sweep was also wreathed with moss, was just visible above the long, rank gra.s.s, with its old oaken bucket swinging in the air.
"What a superb old hermitage!" exclaimed Clinton, as they approached the door. "I feel perfectly sublime already. If the lion queen is worthy of her lair, I would make a pilgrimage to visit her."
"Now, pray, brother," said Mittie, determined to make as short a stay as possible, "don"t ask her to tell any of her horrible stories. I am sure," she added, turning to Clinton, "you would find them exceedingly wearisome."
"They are the most interesting things in the world," said Louis, with provoking enthusiasm, as opening the door, he bowed his sister in--then taking Clinton"s arm, ushered him into the presence of the stately spinster.
Miss Thusa did not rise, but suffering her foot to pause on the treadle, she pushed her spectacles to the top of her head, and looked round upon her unexpected visitors. Mittie, who felt that the dark shaded eye of Clinton was upon her, accosted her with unwonted politeness, but it was evident the stern hostess returned her greeting with coldness and repulsion. Her features relaxed, when Louis, cordially grasping her hand, expressed his delight at seeing her looking so like the Miss Thusa of his early boyhood. Perceiving the aristocratic stranger, she acknowledged his graceful, respectful bow, by rising, and her tall figure towered like a column of gray marble in the centre of the low apartment.
"And who is Mr. Bryant Clinton?" said she, scanning him with her eye of prophecy, "that he should visit the cabin of a poor, old, lonely woman like me? I didn"t expect such an honor. But I suppose he came for the sake of the company he brought--not what he could find here."
"We brought him, Miss Thusa," said Louis; "we want him to become acquainted with all our friends, and you know we would not forget you."
"We!" repeated Miss Thusa, looking sternly at Mittie, "don"t say _we_.
It is the first time Mittie ever set foot in my poor cabin, and I know she didn"t come now of her own good will. But never mind--sit down,"
added she, drawing forward a wooden settee, equivalent to three or four chairs, and giving it a sweep with her handkerchief. "It is not often I have such fine company as this to accommodate."
"Or you would have a velvet sofa for us to sit down upon," cried Louis, laughing, while he occupied with the others the wooden seat; "but I like this better, with its lofty back and broad, substantial frame. Every thing around you is in keeping, Miss Thusa, and looks antique and majestic; the walls of gray stone, the old, moss-covered well-sweep, the dear old wheel, your gray colored dress, always the same, yet always looking nice and new. I declare, Miss Thusa, I am tempted to turn hermit myself, and come and live with you, if you would let me. I am beginning to be tired of the world."
He laughed gayly, but a shade pa.s.sed over his countenance, darkening its sunshine.
"And I am just beginning to be awake to its charms," said Clinton, "just beginning to _live_. I would not now forsake the world; but if disappointment and sorrow be my lot, I must plead with Miss Thusa to receive me into her hermitage, and teach me her admirable philosophy."
Though he addressed Miss Thusa, his glances played lambently on Mittie"s face, and told her the meaning of his words.
"Pshaw!" exclaimed Miss Thusa, "don"t try to make a fool of me, young gentleman. Louis, Master Louis, Mr. Gleason--what shall I call you now, since you"re grown so tall, and seem so much farther off than you used to be."
"Call me Louis--nothing but Louis. I cannot bear the thought of being _Mistered_, and put off at a distance. Oh, there is nothing so sweet as the name a mother"s angel lips first breathed into our ears."
"I"m glad you have not forgotten your mother, Louis," said Miss Thusa, her countenance softening into an expression of profound sensibility; "she was a woman to be remembered for a life-time; though weak in body, she was a powerful woman for all that. When she died, I lost the best friend I ever had in the world, and I shall love you and Helen as long as I live, for her sake, as well as your own. I won"t be unjust to anybody. _You"ve_ always been a good, respectful boy; and as for Helen, Heaven bless the child! she wasn"t made for this world nor anybody in it. I never see a young flower, or a tender green leaf, but I think of her, and when they fade away, or are bitten and shrivelled by the frost, I think of her, too, and it makes me melancholy. When is the dear child coming home?"
Before the conclusion of this speech, Mittie had risen and turned her burning cheek towards the window. She felt as if a curse were resting upon her, to be thus excluded from all partic.i.p.ation in Miss Thusa"s blessing, in the presence of Bryant Clinton. Yes, at that moment she felt the value of Miss Thusa"s good opinion--the despised and contemned Miss Thusa. The praises of Helen sounded as so many horrible discords in her ears, and when she heard Louis reply that "Helen would return soon, very soon, with that divine little blind Alice," she wished that years on years might intervene before that period arrived, for might she not supplant her in the heart of Clinton, as she had in every other?
While she thus stood, playing with a hop-vine that climbed a tall pole by the window, and shaded it with its healthy, luxuriant leaves, Clinton manifested the greatest interest in Miss Thusa"s wheel, and the manufacture of her thread. He praised the beauty of its texture, the fineness and evenness of its fibres.
"I admire this wheel," said he, "it has such a venerable, antique appearance. Its ma.s.sy frame and brazen hoops, its grooves and swelling lines are a real study for the architect."
"Why, I never saw those brazen rings before," exclaimed Louis, starting up and joining Clinton, in his study of the instrument. "When did you have them put on, Miss Thusa, and what is their use?"
"I had them made when I took that long journey," replied Miss Thusa, pushing back the wheel with an air of vexation. "It got battered and bruised, and needed something to strengthen it. Those saucy stage drivers made nothing of tossing it from the top of the stage right on the pavement, but the same man never dared to do it but once."
"This must be made of lignum-vitae," said Clinton, "it is so very heavy.
Such must have been the instrument that Hercules used, when he bowed his giant strength to the distaff, to gratify a beautiful woman"s whim."
"Well, I can"t see what there is in an old wheel to attract a young gentleman like you, so!" exclaimed Miss Thusa, interposing her tall figure between it and the collegian. "I don"t want Hercules, or any sort of man, to spin at my distaff, I can tell you. It"s woman"s work, and it"s a shame for a man to interfere with it. No, no! it is better for you to ride about the country with your black horse and gold-colored fringes, turning the heads of silly girls and gaping children, than to meddle with an old woman and her wheel."
"Why, Miss Thusa, what makes you so angry?" cried Louis, astonished at the excitement of her manner. "I never knew you impolite before."
"I apologise for my own rudeness," said Clinton, with inexpressible grace and ease. "I was really interested in the subject, and forgot that I might be intrusive. I respect every lady"s rights too much to infringe upon them."
"I don"t mean to be rude," replied Miss Thusa, giving her gla.s.ses a downward jerk, "but I"ve lived so much by myself, that I don"t know any thing about the soft, palavering ways of the world. I say again, I don"t want to be rude, and I"m not ashamed to ask pardon if I am so; but I know this fine young gentleman cares no more for me, nor my wheel, than the man in the moon, and I don"t like to have any one try to pa.s.s off the show for the reality."
She fixed her large, gray eye so steadfastly on Clinton, that his cheek flushed with the hue of resentful sensibility, and Louis thinking Miss Thusa in a singularly repulsive mood, thought it better to depart.
"If it were not so late," said he, approaching the door, "I would ask you for one of your interesting legends, Miss Thusa, but by the long shadow of the well-sweep on the gra.s.s, the sun must be almost down. Why do you never come to see us now? My mother would give you a cordial welcome."
"That"s right. I love to hear you call her mother, Louis. She is worthy of the name. She is a lady, a n.o.ble hearted lady, that honored the family by coming into it; and they who wouldn"t own her, disgrace themselves, not her. Go among the poor, _if_ you want to know her worth.
Hear _them_ talk--but as for my stories, I never can tell them, if there is a scoffing tongue, and an unbelieving ear close by. I cannot feel my _gift_. I cannot glorify the Lord who gave it. When Helen comes, bring her to me, for I"ve something to tell her that I mustn"t carry to my grave. The blind child, too, I should like to see her again. I would give one of my eyes now, to put sight into hers--both of them, I might say, for I shan"t use them much longer."
"Why, Miss Thusa, you are a _powerful_ woman yet," said Louis, measuring her erect and commanding figure, with an upward glance. "I shouldn"t wonder if you lived to preside at all our funerals. I don"t think you ever can grow weak and infirm."
Miss Thusa shook her head, and slipped up the sleeve of her left arm, showing the shrunken flesh and shrivelled skin.
"There"s weakness and infirmity coming on," said she, "but I don"t mind it. This world isn"t such a paradise, at the best, that one would want to stay in it forever. And there"s one comfort, I shall leave n.o.body behind to bewail me when I"m gone."
"Ah! Miss Thusa, how unjust you are. _I_ shall bewail you; and, as for Helen, I do believe the sweet, tender-hearted soul would cry her eyes out. Even the lovely, blind Alice would weep for your loss. And Mittie--but it seems to me you are not quite kind to Mittie. I should think you had too much magnanimity to remember the idle pranks of childhood against any one. Why, see what a handsome, glorious looking girl she is now."
Mittie turned haughtily away, and stepped out on the mossy door-stone.
All her early scorn and hatred of Miss Thusa revived with even added force. Clinton followed her, but lingered on the threshold for Louis, whose hand the ancient sibyl grasped with a cordial farewell pressure.
"Mittie and I never were friends, and never can be," said she, "but I wish her no harm. I wish her better luck than I think is in her path now. As for yourself, if you should get into trouble, and not want to vex those that are kin, you can come to me, and if you don"t despise my counsel and a.s.sistance, perhaps it may do you good. I have a legend that I"ve been storing up for your ears, too, and one of these days I should like to tell it to you. But," lowering her voice to a whisper, "leave that long-haired, smooth-tongued gentleman behind."
"Was I not right," said Mittie, when they had pa.s.sed the stile, and could no longer discern the ancestral figure of Miss Thusa in the door of her lonely dwelling, "in saying that she is a very rude, disagreeable person? She is so vindictive, too. She never could forgive me, because when a little child I cared not to listen to her terrible tales of ghosts and monsters. Helen believed every word she uttered, till she became the most superst.i.tious, fearful creature in the world."
"You should add, the sweetest, dearest, best," interrupted Louis, "unless we except the angelic blind maiden."
"I should think if you had any affection for me, Louis," said Mittie, turning pale, as his praises of Helen fell on Clinton"s ear, "you would resent the rudeness and impertinence to which you have just exposed me.
What must your friend think of me? Was it to lower me in his opinion that you carried him to her hovel, and drew forth her spiteful and bitter remarks?"
"Do you think it possible that _she_ could alter my opinion of _you_?"
said Clinton, in a low, earnest tone. "If any thing could have exalted it, it would be the dignity and forbearance with which you bore her insinuations, and defeated her malice."