"I have studied you. If you will give yourself five years to think, to grow, you will marry at thirty the man that you would refuse to-day. You are impetuous to-day, you form your judgments rashly, you despise what you can not understand, and you are not yet capable of the love that hopeth all things, endureth all things, that suffereth long and is _kind_."
"That is true; I am not capable of it. I have no patience with myself, nor with others."
"If you will wait these five years, your life and another life might be more blessed."
"Mrs. Towne! No one loves me. There is no occasion for me not to wait. I could promise without the least difficulty for the happiness or unhappiness of marriage is as unattainable to me to-day as the happiness or unhappiness of old age."
"I will not ask you to promise, my daughter, but I will ask you to promise this; before you say to any man, "Yes," will you come to me and talk it all out to me? As if I were really your mother!"
Tessa promised with misty eyes.
"I promised to show you an old jewel-case this afternoon," said Mrs.
Towne in a lighter tone. "I wish that I might tell you the history of each piece." She brought the box from a small table and pushed her chair nearer Tessa that she might open it in her lap. "This emerald is for you," she said, slipping a ring containing an emerald in old-fashioned setting upon the first finger of Tessa"s left hand; "and it means what you have promised. All that your mother will permit me, I give to you this hour."
"You are very kind to me."
"I am very kind to myself. All my life I have wanted a daughter like you: a girl with blue eyes and a pure heart; one who would not care to flirt and dress, but who would love me and talk to me as you talk to me.
I am proud of my boy, but I want a daughter."
"I am not very good; you may be disappointed in me."
"I do not fear that. This, my mother gave me," lifting pin and ear-rings from the box. A diamond set in silver formed the centre of the pin; the diamond was surrounded by pearls of different sizes. "I was very proud of this pin. I did not know then that I could not have every thing in the world and out of it. This pin my father gave me."
Tessa laid it in her hand and counted the diamonds; it was a diamond with nine opals radiating from it, between each opal a small diamond.
"It looks like a dahlia," she said. "I love pretty things. This ring is the first ring that I ever had."
"People say that the emerald means success in love," replied Mrs. Towne.
"I did not remember it when I chose that for you. Perhaps you would prefer a diamond."
"I like best what you chose," said Tessa, taking from among the jewels, bracelet, pin, ear-rings and chatelaine of turquoises and pearls, and examining each piece with interested eyes. "These are old, too."
"Every thing in this box is old. Some day you shall see my later jewels.
You will like this," she added, placing in her hands a bracelet formed of a network of iron wire, clasped with a medallion of Berlin iron on a steel plate; the necklace that matched it was also of medallions; the one in the centre held a bust of Psyche; upon the others were busts of men and women whom Tessa did not recognize; to this set belonged comb, pin, and ear-rings.
"These belonged to my mother. How old they are I do not know. See this ring, a portrait of Washington, painted on copper, and covered with gla.s.s. It is said to be one of the finest portraits in the country. I used to wear it a great deal. My father gave it to me on my fifteenth birthday. Have I told you that Lafayette kissed me when I was an infant in my mother"s arms?"
While Tessa replaced the treasures with fingers that lingered over them, with the new weight of the emerald upon her finger, and the new weight of a promise upon her heart, Mrs. Towne related the story of the kiss from Lafayette.
Tessa was a perfect listener, Mrs. Towne thought; the lighting or darkening of her eyes, a flush rising to her cheeks now and then, the curving of the mobile lips, an exclamation of surprise or appreciation, were most grateful to the old heart that had found after long and intense waiting the daughter that she could love and honor.
In the late twilight Dr. Towne returned; Tessa was still listening, with the jewel-case in her lap.
"I have missed my husband with all the old loneliness since we came into Dunellen," she was saying when her tall son entered and stood at her side.
"Mother," he said, in the shy way that Tessa knew, "you forget that you have me."
"No, son, I do not forget; but your life is full of new interests.
Yesterday I did not have ten minutes alone with you."
"It shall not happen again."
"I have persuaded Tessa to stay and hear Philip to-night; she says that he is like a west wind to her."
"He would not fall upon the hindmost in your army, Miss Tessa."
"I am sure that he would not."
"Not if they coaxed him to?"
"He should have manliness enough to resist all their pretty arts, and enticing ways."
"Mother, can"t you convince her? She has been rating me soundly for flirting, when it is the girls that are flirting with me."
"It takes two to flirt," replied his mother.
Dr. Towne was sent for as they were rising from the dinner table; Mrs.
Towne and Tessa crossed the Park alone; at the entrance of the Lecture Room Sue Greyson met them.
"I _had_ to come," Sue whispered, seizing Tessa"s arm. "Father is so horrid and hateful, and said awful things to me just because I asked _him_ to write to Stacey. The letter is written anyhow, and I"m thankful it"s over. Father says that he won"t give me the house, and that I sha"n"t be married under his roof. He is mad with Gerald, too, and told him to leave his house. So Gerald left and went to see a patient. He is so happy that he don"t care what father says."
As they pa.s.sed down the aisle, Tessa"s dress brushed against Felix Harrison; he was sitting alone with his father.
"Why! Felix Harrison! Did you ever?" whispered irrepressible Sue.
The Lecture Room was well-lighted, and well-filled. Professor Towne was the fashion in Dunellen. During the opening prayer there was a stir in one of the pews behind Tessa; she did not lift her head, her heart beat so rapidly that she felt as if she were suffocating.
"Poor fellow," came in Sue"s loud whisper close to her ear. "They have taken him out! I should think that he would know better than to go among folks."
Tessa could not follow the speaker for some minutes; the lights went out, she could not catch her breath; Mrs. Towne took her hand and held it firmly, then the lights came dim, through a misty and waving distance, her breath was drawn more easily, she could discern the outline of the preacher, and then his dark face was brought fully into view, his voice sounded loud in her ears; for some time longer she could not catch and connect his words; then, clear and strong, the words fell from his lips, and she could listen and understand-
"Good is the will of the Lord concerning me."
If Felix could have listened and understood, would he have been comforted, too?
His voice held her when her attention wavered; afterward, that one sentence was all that had fastened itself; and was not that enough for one life time?
At the door, Dr. Towne stood waiting for his mother, and Mr. Hammerton and Dinah were moving towards the group.
"I knew that you would be here," said Dinah, "so I coaxed Gus away from father. I couldn"t wait to tell you that your books have come. Two splendid dozens in all colors; I had to open them. You don"t mind? Gus and I each read a brown one; we think the crimson and blue ones must be splendid."
Sue drew Tessa aside to coax in her plaintively miserable voice, "Come home with me; father will say things, and I shall be afraid."
"I can"t help you, Sue."
"You mean you _won"t_. I"ll elope with Dr. Lake, and then Dunellen will be on fire, and you don"t care."
"I"m not afraid. He has good sense, if you haven"t."
"I"ll come and see you to-morrow, then."