"I am sorry, Mittie," cried Louis, touched by her paleness and emotion, and attributing it entirely to wounded feeling, "I am very sorry that I have been the indirect cause of giving you pain. It was certainly unintentional. Miss Thusa was in rather a savage mood this evening, I must acknowledge; but she is not malicious, Clinton. With all her eccentricities, she has some sterling virtues. If you could only see her inspired, and hear one of her _powerful_ tales!"
"If you ever induce him to go there a second time!" exclaimed Mittie, withdrawing herself from the arm with which he had encircled her waist, and giving him a glance from her dark, bright eyes, that might have scorched him, it was so intensely, dazzlingly angry.
"Believe me," said Clinton, "no inducement could tempt me again to a place a.s.sociated with painful remembrances in your mind."
He had not seen the glance, for he was walking on the other side, and when she turned towards him, in answer to his soothing remark, the starry moon of night is not more darkly beautiful or resplendent than her face.
So he told her when Louis left them at the gate leading to their dwelling, and so he told her again when they were walking alone together in the star-bright night.
"Why do they talk to me of Helen?" said he, and his voice stole through the stilly air as gently as the falling dew. "What can she be, in comparison with you? Little did I think Louis had another sister so transcendent, when I saw you standing on the rustic bridge, the most radiant vision that ever beamed on the eye of mortal. You remember that evening. All the sunbeams of Heaven gathered around _you_, the focus of the golden firmament."
"Louis loves me not as he does Helen," replied Mittie, her heart bounding with rapture at his glowing praises, "no one does. Even you, who now profess to love me beyond all created beings, if Helen came, might be lured by _her_ attractions to forget all you have been breathing into my ears."
"I confess I should like to see one whose attractions _you_ can fear.
She must be superlatively lovely."
"She is not beautiful nor lovely, Clinton. No one ever called her so.
Fear! I never knew the sensation of fear. It is not fear that she could inspire, but a stronger, deeper pa.s.sion."
He felt the arm tremble that was closely locked in his, and he could see her lip curl like a rose-leaf fluttering in the breeze.
"Speak, Mittie, and tell me what you mean. I can think of but one pa.s.sion now, and that the strongest and deepest that ever ruled the heart of man."
"I cannot describe my meaning," replied Mittie, pausing under a tree that shaded their path, and leaning against its trunk; "but I can feel it. Till you came, I knew not what feeling was; I read of it in books.
It was the theme of many a fluent tongue, but all was cold and pa.s.sive _here_," said she, pressing her hand on the throbbing heart that now ached with the intensity of its emotion. "Everybody said I had no heart, and I believed them. You first taught me that there was a vital spark burning within it, and blew upon it with a breath of flame. I tell you, Clinton, you had better tamper with the lightning"s chain than the pa.s.sions of this suddenly awakened heart. I tell you I am a dangerous being. There is a power within me that makes me tremble with its consciousness. I am a young girl, with no experience. I know nothing of the blandishments of art, and if I did I would scorn to exercise them.
You have told me a thousand times that you loved me and I have believed you. I would willingly die a thousand times for the rapture of hearing it once; but if I thought the being lived who could supplant me--if I thought you could ever prove false to me--"
Her eye flashed and her cheek glowed in the night-beams that, as Clinton said, made her their focus, so brightly were they reflected from her face. What Clinton said, it is unnecessary to repeat, for the language of pa.s.sion is commonplace, unless it flows from lips as fresh and unworldly and impulsive as Mittie"s.
"Let me put a mark on this tree," she said, stooping down and picking up a sharp fragment of rock at its base. "If you ever forget what you have said to me this night, I will lead you to this spot, and show you the wounded bark--"
She began to carve her own initials, but he insisted upon subst.i.tuting his penknife and a.s.sisting her in the task, to which she consented. As they stood side by side, he guiding her hand, and his long, soft locks playing against her cheek, or mingling with her own, she surrendered herself to a feeling of unalloyed happiness, when all at once Miss Thusa"s legend of the Black Knight, with the dark, far-flowing hair, and the maiden with the bleeding heart, came to her remembrance, and she involuntarily shuddered.
"Why am I ever recalling that wild legend?" thought she. "I am getting to be as weak and superst.i.tious as Helen. Why, when it seems to me that the wing of an angel is fluttering against my cheek, should I remember that demon-sprite?"
Underneath her initials he carved his own, in larger, bolder characters.
"Would you believe it," said she, in a light mocking tone, "that I felt every stroke of your knife on that bark? Oh, you do not know how deep you cut! It seems that my life is infused into that tree, and that it is henceforth a part of myself."
"Strange, romantic girl that you are! Supposing the lightning should strike it, think you that you would feel the shaft?"
"Yes, if it shattered the tablet that bears those united names. But the lightning does not often make a channel in the surface of the silver barked beech. There are loftier trees around. The stately oak and branching elm will be more likely to win the fiery crown of electricity than this."
Mittie clasped her arms around the tree, and laid her cheek against the ciphers. The next moment she flitted away, ashamed of her enthusiasm, to hide her blushes and agitation in the solitude of her own chamber.
The next morning she found a wreath of roses round the tablet, and the next, and the next. So day after day the pa.s.sion of her heart was fed by love-gifts offered at that shrine, where, by the silver starlight, they had met, and ONE at least had worshiped.
PART THIRD.
CHAPTER VIII.
----A countenance in which did meet Sweet records,--promises as sweet-- A creature not too bright or good For human nature"s daily food; For transient sorrows, simple wiles, Praise, blame, love, kisses, tears and smiles.
_Wordsworth._
And now we have arrived at the era, to which we have looked forward with eager antic.i.p.ation, the return of Helen and Alice, the period when the severed links of the household chain were again united, when the folded bud of childhood began to unclose its spotless leaves, and expand in the solar rays of love and pa.s.sion.
We have said but little lately of the young doctor, not that we have forgotten him, but he had so little fellowship with the characters of our last chapter, that we forbore to introduce him in the same group. He did feel a strong interest in Louis, but the young collegian was so fascinated by his new friend, that he unconsciously slighted him whom he had once looked upon as a mentor and an elder brother. Mittie, the handsome, brilliant, haughty, but now impa.s.sioned girl, was as little to his taste as Mittie, the cold, selfish and repulsive child. Clinton, the accomplished courtier, the dashing equestrian, the graceful spendthrift--the apparently resistless Clinton had no attraction for him. He sometimes wondered if his little, simple-hearted pupil Helen would be carried away by the same magnetic influence, and longed to see her character exposed to a test so powerful and dangerous.
Mr. Gleason went for the children, as he continued to call them, and when the time for his arrival drew near, there was more than the usual excitement on such occasions. Mittie could never think of her sister"s coming without a fluctuating cheek and a throbbing heart. Mrs. Gleason wondered at this sensibility, unknowing its latent source, and rejoiced that all her affections seemed blooming in the fervid atmosphere that now surrounded her. Perhaps even she might yet be loved. But it was to Helen the heart of the step-mother went forth, whom she remembered as so gentle, so timid, so grateful and endearing. Would she return the same sweet child of nature, unspoiled by contact with other grosser elements?
Clinton felt an eager curiosity to see the sister of Mittie, for whom she cherished such precocious jealousy, yet who, according to her own description, was neither beautiful nor lovely. Louis was all impatience, not only to see his favorite Helen, but the lovely blind girl, who had made such an impression on his young imagination. It is true her image had faded in the sultry, worldly atmosphere to which he had been exposed; but as he thought of the blue, sightless...o...b.., so beautiful yet soulless, the desire to loosen the fillet of darkness which the hand of G.o.d had bound around her brow, and to pour upon her awakening vision the noontide glories of creation, rekindled in his bosom.
For many days Mrs. Gleason had filled the vases with fresh flowers, for she remembered how Helen delighted in their beauty, and Alice in their fragrance. There was a room prepared for Helen and Alice, while the latter remained her guest, and Mittie resolved that if possible, she would exclude her permanently from the chamber which Mrs. Gleason had so carefully furnished for both. She could not bear the idea of such close companionship with any one. She wanted to indulge in solitude her wild, pa.s.sionate dreams, her secret, deep, incommunicable thoughts.
At length the travelers arrived; weary, dusty and exhausted from sleepless nights, and hurried, rapid days. No magnificent sun-burst glorified their coming. It was a dull, grayish, dingy day, such as often comes, the herald of approaching autumn. Mittie could not help rejoicing, for she knew the power of first impressions. She knew it by the raptures which Clinton always expressed when he alluded to her first appearance on the rustic bridge, as the youthful G.o.ddess of the blooming season. She knew it by her own experience, when she first beheld Clinton in all the witchery of his n.o.ble horsemanship.
Helen was unfortunately made very sick by traveling, _sea-sick_, and when she reached home she was exactly in that state of pa.s.sive endurance which would have caused her to lie under the carriage wheels unresistingly had she been placed perchance in that position. The weather was close and sultry, and the dust gathered on the folds of her riding-dross added to the warmth and discomfort of her appearance. Her father carried her in his arms into the house, her head reclining languidly on his shoulder, her cheeks white as her muslin collar. Mittie caught a glimpse of Clinton"s countenance as he stood in the back-ground, and read with exultation an expression of blank disappointment. After gazing fixedly at Helen, he turned towards Mittie, and his glance said as plainly as words could speak--
"You beautiful and radiant creature, can you fear the influence of such a little, spiritless, sickly dowdy as this?"
Relieved of the most intolerable apprehensions, her greeting of Helen was affectionate beyond the most sanguine hopes of the latter. She took off her bonnet with a.s.siduous kindness, (though Helen would have preferred wearing it to her room, to displaying her disordered hair and dusty raiment,) leaving to Mrs. Gleason the task of ministering to the lovely blind girl.
"Where"s brother? I do not hear his step," said Alice, looking round as earnestly as if she expected to see his advancing figure.
"He has just been called away," said Louis, "or he would be here to greet you. My poor little Helen, you do indeed look dreadfully used up.
You were never made for a traveler. Why Alice"s roses are scarcely wilted."
"Nothing but fatigue and a little sea-sickness," cried her father, "a good night"s sleep is all she needs. You will see a very different looking girl to-morrow, I a.s.sure you."
"Better, far better as she is," thought Mittie, as she a.s.sisted the young travelers up stairs.
Ill and weary as she was, Helen could not help noticing the astonishing improvement in Mittie"s appearance, the life, the glow, the sunlight of her countenance. She gazed upon her with admiration and delight.
"How handsome you have grown, Mittie," said she, "and I doubt not as good as you are handsome. And you look so much happier than you used to do. Oh! I do hope we shall love each other as sisters ought to do. It is so sweet to have a sister to love."
The exchange of her warm, traveling dress for a loose, light undress, gave inexpressible relief to Helen, who, reclining on her _own delightful bed_, began to feel a soft, living glow stealing over the pallor of her cheek.
"Shall I comb and brush your hair for you?" asked Mittie, sitting down by the side of the bed, and gathering together the tangled tresses of hazel brown, that looked dim in contrast with her own shining raven hair.
"Thank you," said Helen, pressing her hand gratefully in both hers. "You are so kind. Only smooth Alice"s first. If her brother comes, she will want to see him immediately--and you don"t know what a pleasure it is to arrange her golden ringlets."
"Don"t _you_ want to see the young doctor, too, Helen?"