Mary caught a great yellow maple leaf as it floated by, and twisting it over her hand, formed a fairy pitcher that looked like mottled gold, out of which they both drank; laughing gleefully when the brim bent and let the water dash over their dresses.
"Now," said Mary, flinging away her golden cup, which had transformed itself into a leaf again, "let us take a good rest and look about before we go into the woods. Look how grand and large Judge Sharp"s house is, down below us; and away off there, don"t you see, Isabel--is the old homestead? Stand up and you can see almost all of the orchard, and a corner of the roof."
Isabel stood up, shading her eyes with one hand. The river was sweeping its bright waves at her feet, enfolding the opposite mountain at the base as with a belt of condensed sunshine. The village hidden amid its trees, lay dreamily in the curve of the valley, and beyond the river rose a line of broken hills, clothed to the top of their lofty peaks with the glory of a first autumn frost.
"I am so happy, I can hardly breathe," said Mary Fuller, clasping her hands. "It seems as if one could bathe in all that sea of colors! the mist as it floats up seems to make them eddy in waves like the river, Isabel. I am feeling strangely glad, everything is so bright, so soft--oh! Isabel, Isabel, what a great, good G.o.d it was who made all this!"
Isabel saw all the marvellous beauty that surrounded her, but she could not feel it as Mary did--few on earth ever do so look upon nature. To Isabel the scene was a pleasure, to Mary a thrilling delight; she dwelt upon it with the eye of an artist and the spirit of a Christian.
"Oh!" she said, in that sweet overflow of feelings, "I want to hide my face and cry!"
She sat down upon a rock covered with scarlet woodbine, and allowed the tears that were swelling up from her heart to flow softly as the dew is shaken from a flower. It was pleasant to see deep feelings melt away in tears, to that gentle and sweet serenity which soon fell upon the child.
Isabel could not entirely comprehend this almost divine feeling, but she respected it and sat down in silence, with an arm around her friend, sorry that she had no power to share all her joy in its fullness.
Thus, for a long time, they sat together in dreamy silence, with the spring murmuring behind them, and a carpet of brake leaves, touched with white by the frost, scattering its new-born perfume around their feet.
It was a touching picture, those two girls so loving and yet so unlike, the one so wonderfully beautiful, the other awaking a deeper interest with her soul beauty alone.
They arose together and walked quietly to the woods. Once within its gorgeous shades, all their cheerfulness came back, and the squirrels that peeped at them through the branches, and rattled nuts over their heads from the yawning chestnut buds, were not more full of simple enjoyment than they were.
A light wind had followed the frost, and all the mossy turf was carpeted with leaves crimson, green, russet and gold. Sometimes a commingling of all these colors might be found on one leaf; sometimes, as they looked upward, the great branches of an oak stooped over their heads, heavy with leaves of the deepest green, fringed and matted with blood-red, as if the great heart of the tree were broken and bleeding to death, through all the veins of its foliage.
Again the maple trees shook their golden boughs above them, as if they had been h.o.a.rding up sunshine for months, and poured it in one rich deluge over their billowy and restless leaves.
They wandered on, picking up leaves with far more interest than they had ever felt in searching for wild flowers. It was wonderful, the infinite variety that they found. Now, Isabel would hold up a crimson leaf, clouded with pink and veined with a brown so deep that it looked almost black; again, she would h.o.a.rd up a windfall from the gum tree, shaped like a slender arrow-head, and with its glossy crimson so thickly covered with tiny dark spots, that it seemed mottled with gems; again, it would be an ash leaf, long, slender and of a pale straw color, or a tuft of wood-moss, that contrasted its delicate green with all this gorgeousness so strongly, that they could not help but gather it.
Thus, filled with admiration of each leaf as it presented itself, they wandered on overclouded with the same foliage in gorgeous ma.s.ses. The sunbeams came shining through it in a rich haze, as if the branches were only throwing off their natural light, and the very wind as it stirred the woods seemed sluggish with healthy scents flung off by the dying undergrowth.
But even delight brings its own weariness, and at last the two girls sat down upon a hemlock log, completely covered with moss, that lay like a great round cushion among the ferns, and dropped into conversation as they sorted over the treasure of leaves that each had gathered in her ap.r.o.n.
"I suppose," said Isabel, "this will be almost our last day together for a long, long time."
Isabel spoke rather sadly, for she was becoming thoughtful.
"I suppose so," answered Mary, dropping the leaf whose purplish brown she had been admiring; "but," after a moment"s thoughtfulness, she added, quite cheerfully, "but, why should we fret about that; we can practice hard and write to each other every week; I dare say, just now, we might read each other"s writing; it seems to me as if I would make out some meaning even in a straight mark if you wrote it, Isabel!"
"Yes," said Isabel, still sadly, "that is something; but if I could only have stayed here, and gone to school with you, we should not have to think about writing."
"But it"ll be very nice to write letters," answered Mary; "you don"t know how proud I shall be with a whole letter all to myself; won"t it be pleasant to ask for it at the post office!"
"But, Mary," persisted Isabel, "do you know they mean to send me to a great, grand school, where I"m to learn music and French, and everything, and be with nothing but proud, stuck-up rich men"s daughters, that"ll try to make me just as hateful as they are?"
"But, all rich men"s daughters are not hateful, I dare say. Remember Frederick, he was a rich man"s son, and yet, he"s almost as good as Joseph!"
"No, I won"t stand that, no one ever was so good as Joseph," persisted Isabel; "besides, Fred is a Farnham, he"s got his father"s name, and his father"s blood too; I don"t see how you can speak of Fred and Joseph in the same day."
"At any rate," answered Mary, "we ought to be very grateful to young Mr. Farnham, for he was good to us; only think how kind he was to bring Joseph over to see us so often, after we came from the hospital, and all without giving Mrs. Farnham a chance to scold!"
"Scold!" said Isabel, "I sometimes thought she liked Joseph better than her own son--she always was glad to see him."
"That was because Frederick persuaded her."
"I don"t believe that; she was always so hateful to Fred it was not to please him that she took to Joseph, I am sure."
"Well, at any rate, she was very good to let him visit us so often."
"I don"t know," said Isabel, determined not to give any credit to Mrs.
Farnham; "at any rate I don"t like her and I won"t try."
"This is wrong, Isabel--at first I thought I never could like aunt Hannah she was so queer, but now I love her dearly, almost as well as uncle Nathan, for all her hard way of speaking, she"s as kind as kind can be."
"Oh, aunt Hannah, I like her myself, anybody couldn"t help liking her, and there"s Salina Bowles, she"s just the best creature you ever knew, both of "em have got feelings, but I don"t believe Mrs. Farnham has got one bit."
"Don"t let us talk of her faults," said Mary.
"Well, don"t scold, I won"t say a word against her, but there is one thing, Mary, that I must speak about, for it poisons all the rest. I cannot be content with Mrs. Farnham till that is settled. Mary, I am sure Mr. Farnham killed my father--hush, hush, I know how it was. He did not strike him dead, but it was his cruelty in driving him from the police that did it in the end."
"Yes," said Mary, with quiet sadness, "I think it was Mr. Farnham that did it."
"Is it right then, tell me, Mary, isn"t it mean and cruel for me, his own little girl, to live with these people and let them support me--the father"s murderers, as one might say supporting his child?"
Mary remained silent some time, not that this idea had never struck her before, but the flood of remembrance it brought back affected her painfully.
"I have thought of that a great many times, Isabel," she said, "for I felt a good deal as you do at first, but it isn"t a right feeling, and so I did the best I could to conquer it without saying a word."
"Why is it a wrong feeling?" said Isabel quickly, "wouldn"t it seem horrid to any one? Every mouthful I eat belongs to the people who murdered my own father."
"But Mr. Farnham was the only one to blame, and he was very, very sorry before he died."
"How do you know that?"
A faint color came into Mary"s face as she answered,
"Joseph Esmond told me, Mr. Farnham came to his father"s only three nights before he died, and he told Joseph with his own lips that he did not mean to kill your father, and Joseph said he looked more sorrowful than his words. It was the last time they ever saw each other. Poor Joseph cried when he told me about it."
"Then Joseph believes he really was sorry," said Isabel, softening.
"Yes, and that he didn"t mean to do it; but even if he did, and was really sorry, we have nothing to do but forgive him, just as your father would have done."
"Yes, forgive him, but not eat his bread."
Again Mary was thoughtful, she was pondering over the question in her mind.
"I think," she said at last, "to take kindnesses willingly from those that are sorry for a wrong is the best sort of forgiveness; G.o.d forgives in that way when he lets us serve him, and strive by good acts to make up for the evil thing we have done. I think you need only remember that, when you wish to know the right."
"I did not think of it in that way," said Isabel.