"Oh, you are an angel. I know you are that!"
"No, no!" cried the poor girl, covering her face with her hands.
"But you are. I drink in beauty from your voice, there is beauty in your touch. Oh! how I love to hear you talk, it was music to me from the first day I ever saw you."
"Oh, forbear, forbear, it is Isabel you are describing," said Mary, shrinking away from him. "Oh! she is all this and more."
"Hush, Mary, hush; I feel the tones of your voice thrilling through and through me. This is the best beauty I can comprehend. When you disclaim it, I hear the tears breaking up through your voice, and it grows heavenly in its sadness. Your beauty is immortal, it can never grow old!"
The youth paused, and turned towards aunt Hannah, for his quick sense had caught the sobs that she was striving to smother by burying her face in her folded arms. Many a stern grief and sore trial had wrung that aged heart, but for a quarter of a century she had not wept heartily before. As she looked on these young persons, and witnessed the first rich joy of their love, her heart gave way. The memories of her youth came back, and in the fullness of her regrets she cried like a child.
Mary Fuller withdrew her hand from her lover, and moving close to aunt Hannah, stole her arm around her neck.
"Aunt, dear aunt, look up and tell Joseph that he must not leave us.
Tell him how strong I am to work for us all."
Aunt Hannah lifted her face, and swept the grey locks back from her temples.
"What day of the month is this?" asked the old lady, standing up and speaking in a subdued voice; "it should be near the tenth of November."
"To-morrow will be the tenth," answered Mary.
"Stay together while I go talk with Isabel." With these words the old woman went up stairs feebly, as if her tears had swept all the strength from her frame.
Mary and her lover sat down by the hearth and fell into a sweet fragmentary conversation. Soft low words and broken sentences, the overflow of two hearts brimful of happiness alone, pa.s.sed between them. A strange timidity crept over them. Neither dared approach the subject of a separation, though both were saddened by it.
Aunt Hannah came down at last, calmer, and with more of her usual cold manner.
"Help me," said Mary, appealing to her; "oh! aunt, persuade him to stay with us!"
"To-morrow will be time enough," was the answer. "Go away, now, and G.o.d bless you both!"
Never in her whole life had the voice of aunt Hannah sounded so deep with meaning, so solemn in its earnestness. It was seldom that she ever blessed any one aloud, or entered, save pa.s.sively, into the devotions of the family--now her benediction had the energy of an earnest soul in it. The very tones of her voice were changed. She seemed to have thrown off the icy crust from her heart, and breathed deeper for it.
Mary and Joseph went out, and sat down together in the starlight, that fell softly upon them through the apple boughs. They had so many things to say, and confessions to make; each was timidly anxious to search the heart of the other, and read all the sweet hidden mysteries that seemed fathomless there.
Meanwhile aunt Hannah went into the out-room--that in which her sister Anna died, and kneeling down, with her hands pressed on the bottom of a chair, broke into a pa.s.sion so deep and earnest that her whole frame shook with the agony of her struggle. She arose at length and began to walk the floor, wringing her hands and moaning as if in pain. Thus she toiled and struggled in prayer all night, for it was the anniversary of her sister"s anguish and death. Many a softening influence had crept into that frozen nature, with the young persons who brought their joys and their sorrows beneath her roof, and now came the solemn breaking up of her heart. She learned the true method of atonement in the stillness of that night.w.a.tch. It was the regeneration of a soul.
When the day broke, she stole up to Isabel Chester"s room, and kissed her pallid cheeks as she slept. "Be comforted," she said, smiling down upon the unconscious face; "be comforted, for the day of your joy is at hand."
CHAPTER XLIX.
THE DOUBLE BIRTH-DAY.
Brother awake--my soul is strong with pain-- And humbled with a night of solemn prayer, Never--oh, never, can I rest again, Till rest.i.tution lifts me from despair!
When aunt Hannah entered uncle Nathan"s room he was sound asleep, with a smile upon his half-open mouth, and two large arms folded lovingly over his head, as if a sweet morning nap were the most, exquisite enjoyment known to him. For a moment aunt Hannah stood by the bed-side with her eyes, full of dark trouble, fixed upon his serene face. When had she slept so tranquilly? would she ever know an hour of innocent, child-like slumber like that again?
"Nathan--brother Nathan," she said, in a husky voice that aroused the old man from its very strangeness; "get up--I have something for you to do."
"Why, Hannah," said the old man, rubbing his eyes like a great fat child, "am I late? what is the matter? just give me my clothes there, and I"ll be up before you can get the breakfast on the table. I"m very sorry, very sorry, indeed; but somehow, I couldn"t seem to get asleep, last night, tired as I was--you know what night it was. Old times keep me awake nights, Hannah, I think so much just now of poor little Anna!"
"It isn"t late, Nathan," answered the sister, still in her hoa.r.s.e, unnatural voice, "but I want you to go up the street, and ask our minister to come here at ten o"clock."
"The minister! why, what for, sister Hannah? You ain"t getting anxious, nor nothing--I thought the day of regeneration had come, long ago, with both of us."
"Do not ask me questions, now, brother, but get up and go my errand."
"Yes, yes, of course," answered uncle Nat, eyeing the pale face before him, anxiously; "I"ll do anything that"s best."
"When you have seen the minister, go down to Mrs. Farnham"s, and ask them all to come--Mr. Farnham, his mother, and Salina. After that call for Judge Sharp."
"Do you want them at ten?"
"Yes!"
Aunt Hannah went out, and from that hour till after nine, was shut up alone in the out-room. The family sat down to breakfast without her, marvelling why she chose to fast, that morning, all but uncle Nathan--he remembered that it was the anniversary of his sister"s death; and when he came in from the performance of his errands, there was a gentle look of tenderness on his face that made those around long to comfort him.
After breakfast aunt Hannah came forth, still very pale, but with a look of serene resolution that no one had ever observed on her face before.
"Children," she said, addressing Joseph and Mary Fuller, "tell me, once again, that you love one another."
"We do--we do?" cried the young pair, lifting their faces, full of holy sunshine, to hers, while their hands crept together, and intertwined unconsciously.
"And you would be glad to marry this girl, Joseph?"
"Marry her!" exclaimed the youth, trembling from head to foot, "how dare I--how can I?"
"Answer me, Joseph, yes or no, would it make you happy, if within an hour, this girl could be your wife, to live with you, and love you for ever and ever?"
"So happy," cried the youth, flushing red to the temples, "so happy that I dare not think of it."
"And you, Mary Fuller?" she questioned, moving close to the shrinking girl, and speaking in a low voice, impelled to gentleness by womanly compa.s.sion.
"Oh, do not ask me, dear, dear aunt! you know how it is with me, I have not dared to think of this."
Aunt Hannah bent down, and kissed that portion of the burning forehead which Mary"s hands had left uncovered.
Mary started, and lifted her moist eyes in amazement. Scarcely in her life had she seen that cold woman kiss any one before.
Aunt Hannah looked kindly into her eyes, and laying a hand on her head, addressed Joseph.
"This child is not beautiful, my son," she said, "but she has something in her face, this moment, worth all the beauty in the world."
"I know it; I feel the sunshine of her presence," answered the youth.