"I once believed in ghosts," replied Helen, "and even now, in solitude and darkness, the memories of childhood come back to me so powerfully, they are appalling. Miss Thusa might tell me a thousand stories now, without inspiring belief, while those told me in childhood can never be forgotten, or their impressions effaced."
"Yet you like Miss Thusa, and seem to remember her with affection."
"She was so kind to me that I could not help loving her--and she seemed so lonely, with so few to love her, it seemed cruel to shut up the heart against her."
"One may be incredulous without being cruel, I should think," said Mittie, with asperity. She felt the reproach, and could not believe it accidental. Poor Mittie! how much she suffered.
Helen, who was really desirous of seeing Miss Thusa, and did not wish for the companionship of Clinton, stole away from the rest and took the path she well remembered, through the woods. The excessive hilarity of the morning had faded from her spirits. There was something indescribable about Mittie that annoyed and pained her. The gleam of kindness with which she had greeted her had all gone out, and left dullness and darkness in its stead. She could not get near her heart. At every avenue it seemed closed against her, and resisted the golden key of affection as effectually as the wrench of violence.
"She must love me," thought Helen, pursuing her way towards Miss Thusa"s, and picking up here and there a yellow leaf that came fluttering down at her feet. "I cannot live in coldness and estrangement with one I ought to love so dearly. It must be some fault of mine; I must discover what it is, and if it he my right eye, I would willingly pluck it out to secure her affection. Alice is going home, and how worse than lonely will I be!"
Helen caught a glimpse of the stream where, when a child, she used to wade in the wimpling waters, and gather the diamond mica that sparkled on the sand. She thought of the time when the young doctor had washed the strawberry stains from her face, and wiped it with his nice linen handkerchief, and her heart glowed at the remembrance of his kindness.
Mingled with this glow there was the flush of shame, for she could not help starting at every sudden rustling sound, thinking the coiling snake was lurking in ambush.
There was an air of desolation about Miss Thusa"s cabin, which she had never noticed before. The stepping-stones of the door looked so much like grave-stones, so damp and mossy, it seemed sacrilege to tread upon them. Helen hardly did touch them, she skipped so lightly over the threshold, and stood before Miss Thusa smiling and out of breath.
There she sat at her wheel, solemn and ancestral, and gray as ever, her foot upon the treadle, her hand upon the distaff, looking so much like a fixture of the place, it seemed strange not to see the moss growing green and damp on her stone-colored garments.
"Miss Thusa!" exclaimed Helen, and the aged spinster started at the sound of that sweet, childish voice. Helen"s arms were around her neck in a moment, and without knowing why, she burst into an unexpected fit of weeping.
"I am so foolish," said Helen, after she had dashed away her tears, and squeezed herself into a little seat between Miss Thusa and her wheel, "but I am so glad to get home, so glad to see you all once more."
Miss Thusa"s iron nerves seemed quite unstrung by the unexpected delight of greeting her favorite child. She had not heard of her return, and could scarcely realize her presence. She kept wiping her gla.s.ses, without seeming conscious that the moisture was in her own eyes, gazed on Helen"s upturned face with indescribable tenderness, smoothed back her golden brown hair, and then stooping down, kissed, with an air of benediction, her fair young brow.
"You have not forgotten me, then! You are still nothing but a child, nothing but little Helen. And yet you are grown--and you look healthier and rounder, and a shade more womanly. You are not as handsome as Mittie, and yet where one stops to look at her, ten will turn to gaze on you."
"Oh, no! Mittie is grown so beautiful no one could think of any one else when she is near."
"The young man with the long black hair thinks her beautiful? Does he not?"
"I believe so. Who could help it?"
"Does she love you better than she used to?" asked Miss Thusa.
"I will try to deserve her love," replied Helen, evasively; "but, Miss Thusa, I am coming every day to take spinning lessons of you. I really want to learn to spin. Perhaps father may fail one of these days, and I be thrown on my own resources, and then I could earn my living as you do now. Will you bequeath me your wheel, Miss Thusa?"
The bright smile with which she looked up to Miss Thusa, died away in a kind of awe, as she met the solemn earnestness of her glance.
"Yes, yes, child, I have long intended it as a legacy of love to you.
There is a history hanging to it, which I will tell you by and by. For more than forty years that wheel and I have been companions and friends, and it is so much a part of myself, that if any one should cut into the old carved wood, I verily believe the blood-drops would drip from my heart. Things will grow together, powerfully, Helen, after a long, long time. And so you want to learn to spin, child. Well! suppose you sit down and try. These little white fingers will soon be cut by the flax, though, I can tell you."
"May I, Miss Thusa, may I?" cried Helen, seating herself with childish delight at the venerable instrument, and giving it a whirl that might have made the flax smoke. Miss Thusa looked on with a benevolent and patronizing air, while Helen pressed her foot upon the treadle, wondering why it would jerk so, when it went round with Miss Thusa so smoothly, and pulled out the flax at arm"s length, wondering why it would run into knots and bunches, when it glided so smooth and even through Miss Thusa"s practiced fingers. Helen was so busy, and so excited by the new employment, she did not perceive a shadow cross the window, nor was she aware of the approach of any one, till an unusually gay laugh made her turn her head.
"I thought Miss Thusa looked wonderfully rejuvenated," said Arthur Hazleton, leaning against the window-frame on the outside of the building, "but methinks she is the more graceful spinner, after all."
"This is only my first lesson," cried Helen, jumping up, for the band had slipped from the groove, and hung in a hopeless tangle--"and I fear Miss Thusa will never be willing to give me another."
"Ten thousand, child, if you will take them," cried Miss Thusa, good-naturedly, repairing the mischief her pupil had done.
"Do you know the sun is down?" asked Arthur, "and that your path lies through the woods?"
Helen started, and for the first time became aware that the shadows of twilight were deepening on the landscape. She did not think Arthur Hazleton would accompany her home. He would test her courage as he had done before, and taking a hurried leave of Miss Thusa, promising to stay and hear many a legend next time, she jumped over the stile before Arthur could overtake her and a.s.sist her steps.
"Would you prefer walking alone?" said Arthur, "or will you accept of my escort?"
"I did not think you intended coming with me," said Helen, "or I would have waited."
"You thought me as rude and barbarous as ever."
"Perhaps you think me as foolish and timid as ever."
"You have become courageous and fearless then--I congratulate you--I told you that you would one day be a heroine."
"That day will never come," said Helen, blushing. "My fears are hydras--as fast as one is destroyed another is born. Shadows will always be peopled with phantoms, and darkness is to me the shadow of the grave."
"I am sorry to hear you say so, Helen," said the young doctor, taking her hand, and leading her along the shadowy path, "and yet you feel safe with me. You fear not when I am with you."
"Oh, no!" exclaimed Helen, involuntarily drawing nearer to him--"I never fear in your presence. Midnight would seem noonday, and all phantoms flee away."
"And yet, Helen," he cried, "you have a friend always near, stronger to protect than legions of angels can be. Do you realize this truth?"
"I trust, I believe I do," answered Helen, looking upward into the dome of darkening blue that seemed resting upon the tall, dark pillars of the woods. "I sometimes think if I were really exposed to a great danger, I could brave it without shrinking--or if danger impended over one I loved, I should forget all selfish apprehensions. Try not to judge me too severely--and I will do my best to correct the faults of my childhood."
They walked on in silence a few moments, for there was something hushing in the soft murmurs of the branches, something like the distant roaring of the ocean surge.
"I must take Alice home to-morrow," said he, at length; "her mother longs to behold her. I wish you were going with her. I fear you will not be happy here."
"I cannot leave my father," said Helen, sadly, "and if I can only keep out of the way of other people"s happiness, I will try to be content."
"May I speak to you freely, Helen, as I did several years ago? May I counsel you as a friend--guide you as a brother still?"
"It is all that I wished--more than I dared to ask. I only fear that I shall give you too much trouble."
There was a gray, old rock by the way-side, that looked exactly as if it belonged to Miss Thusa"s establishment. Arthur Hazleton seated Helen there, and threw himself on the moss at her feet.
"I am going away to-morrow," said he, "and I feel as if I had much to say. I leave you exposed to temptation; and to put you on your guard, I must say perhaps what you will think unauthorized. You know so little of the world--are so guileless and unsuspecting--I cannot bear to alarm your simplicity; and yet, Helen, you cannot always remain a child."
"Oh, I wish I could," she exclaimed; "I cannot bear the thought of being otherwise. As long as I am a child, I shall be caressed, cherished, and forgiven for all my faults. I never shall be able to act on my own responsibility--never."
"But, Helen, you have attained the stature of womanhood. You are looked upon as a candidate for admiration--as the rival of your beautiful sister. You will be flattered and courted, not as a child, but as a woman. The young man who has become, as it were, domesticated in your family, has extraordinary personal attractions, and every member of the household appears to have yielded to his influence. Were I as sure of his moral worth as of his outward graces, I would not say what I have done. But, with one doubt on my mind, as your early friend, as the self-elected guardian of your happiness, I cannot forbear to caution, to admonish, perhaps to displease, by my too watchful, too officious friendship."
Arthur paused. His voice had become agitated and his manner excited.
"You cannot believe me capable of the meanness of envy," he added. "Were Bryant Clinton less handsome, less fascinating, his sincerity and truth might be a question of less moment."
"How could you envy any one," cried Helen, earnestly, unconscious how much her words and manner expressed. "Displeased! Oh! I thank you so much. But indeed I do not admire Mr. Bryant Clinton at all. He is entirely too handsome and dazzling. I do not like that long, curling, shining hair of his. The first time I saw him, it reminded me of the undulations of that terrible snake in the strawberry patch, and I cannot get over the a.s.sociation. Then he does not admire me at all, only as the sister of Mittie."
"He has paid Mittie very great and peculiar attention, and people look upon them as betrothed lovers. Were you to become an object of jealousy to her, you would be very, very unhappy. The pleasure of gratified vanity would be faint to the stings exasperated and wounded love could inflict."