"But didn"t you like him? He used to be the most popular boy. One summer when mother was with me at the island she invited him to come to us, but his vacation had already been bespoken. I should like to renew our acquaintance. Perhaps Judge Trent will ask him here now. I hope so."
This girl had everything, everything. It wasn"t fair. Sylvia bit her lip to keep back the excited tears. Her host saw the agitation in her face and quickly changed the conversation, talking to Edna of her affairs at Hawk Island, occasionally turning to Sylvia to explain some reference, but giving her the opportunity to keep silence.
At last, to the great relief of one of the company, bedtime arrived.
"Do forgive me for yawning," said Edna, "but I"ve had a strenuous day with Benny Merritt. I"ll warrant the poor boy has been asleep for hours, I worked him so hard; but the cottage is in fine shape and all ready for Miss Martha and me to descend upon it. Oh, you must stay,"
turning suddenly to Sylvia. "You must come over to Anemone Cottage and make me a visit." Edna did not say a long visit, for the impression made upon her by this mute, cold girl in black was chilling; but she seemed to need cheering, and Edna was prepared to do any missionary work which would be a help to her dear Thinkright.
"Thank you, but I couldn"t," returned Sylvia hastily. "I couldn"t, possibly."
"I wonder what is the matter with her?" thought Miss Derwent, as she made ready for bed that night. "Perhaps her bereavement is very recent.
At all events, she has come to the right place to be helped."
Sylvia, as soon as she had closed the door of her chamber, went to the window and knelt down with her hot forehead against the cold gla.s.s. The stars were twinkling in an invisible sky, and she could hear a rhythmic sound of many waters.
That girl had everything. It wasn"t fair. She knew Mr. Dunham well. He was popular, he was admired. He was of Edna Derwent"s world. She was doubtless popular and admired. What would they both think of Nat?
Nat,--stout, red-faced, not too careful of his hands. Sylvia had often demurred concerning his careless habits. Now she knew that they alone made him impossible. There were many other things that made him impossible, and strangely, they were all points which were the opposite of certain characteristics she had observed in Mr. Dunham during their brief but informal and almost intimate relation. Miss Derwent"s speech and p.r.o.nunciation reminded her sharply of his, and as her thought dwelt upon this enviable girl making ready for her healthful, care-free slumber in the apartment usually sacred to Judge Trent, the burden of Sylvia"s vague and helpless future bore down upon her and seemed heavier than she could bear. Long-repressed tears were rising scaldingly to her eyes when she heard a light tap on her door.
It might be she! She shouldn"t come in! With a light bound Sylvia was at the door, pressing upon it.
"Who is it?" she demanded in a choked voice.
It was Thinkright"s voice that answered her. "Gone to bed, or sitting up, little one?" he asked.
"Well--I"m sitting up--so far," she answered, and she opened the door slowly.
"I thought you might be feeling a little homesick, the first night in a strange place," he went on, "and I wanted to say good-night to you once again."
A great, resentful sob rose in the girl"s breast, and with a sudden impulse she flung both her arms around his neck.
"Kiss me," she said chokingly. "You kissed her. How did she dare to kiss you!"
Thinkright drew the speaker out into the corridor as he caressed her cheek. "Come downstairs a few minutes," he said. "We might disturb Edna if we talked up here. Can"t have you go to bed thinking wrong," he went on when they had reached the living-room where one tiny lamp still twinkled. "Now sit right down here by me, Sylvia. My heart feels for you. You miss your father, I know, and I wish I could be the comfort to you I"d like to be; but we must all at last find comfort in the great Father of all. We learn little by little that we can"t lean on any arm of flesh."
Sylvia bit back her sobs and pressed her eyes. "Poor father is better off," she said. "I wouldn"t want him back. He suffered, and he said there wasn"t any place for him here any more,--and there isn"t for me, there isn"t for me!" she added pa.s.sionately in a voice that shook.
"Wait, little Princess. The King"s daughter is distrusting her Father, and pitying herself, Sylvia. That"s low thinking, child."
"Of course I pity myself," the girl flashed back, "and ten times more since Miss Derwent came, taking possession of you, and Aunt Martha, and Uncle Calvin. She has everything. Why should she, while I have nothing?"
In the silence that followed Sylvia could see the patient lines in her companion"s forehead, and the shining of his deep eyes.
"Except you," she added contritely, clasping her hands around his shabby coat sleeve, "I have you, but it kills me to cling to you like a drowning man, while that girl smiles at you from the top of the wave,--and owns everybody and everything!"
"Edna does some very good thinking," was the quiet response. "Her temptations are different from yours, and she has struggled with them."
"What has _she_ to bear?"
"Sickness,--not her own, but that of dear ones, and an overdose of wealth."
"Oh!" The exclamation was scornful and skeptical.
"You remember the tale where the members of a community by common agreement met in the city"s public square, and each one laid down his burden, and taking up some one else"s went home with it? The story runs that on the following day every man and woman returned to discard the new burden and take up his own again. Supposing Edna took yours"--
Sylvia broke in: "She would be a girl who is a stranger in a strange land with no rights anywhere; whose nearest ones cast her off; who has no future, no money, no home, no plans. A girl who doesn"t know how to clear a table or wash a dish in her cousin"s house, while a strange girl comes in and takes charge of everything. I didn"t even know how to kiss you!"
Thinkright smiled. "Edna," he said, "began that when she was twelve years old. It was the year I first came here, and I let her ride on the hay-wagon and gave her the sort of good times she had never known in her life. Her father is a chronic invalid. The doctors recommended the sea, and quiet, and great simplicity of life, so they built Anemone Cottage. Mrs. Derwent is a woman devoted to the world and fashion, but she made heroic efforts to endure Hawk Island for her husband"s sake during several seasons. But there wasn"t any right thinking done in that cottage except what Edna did, a child as happy there as a bird let loose from a cage; and after a while they gave it up. Edna continues to come, every season they"ll let her, and I can a.s.sure you, little one, she needs the refreshment. She needs it. Brave, beautiful Edna!"
The peroration was uttered as an audible soliloquy, and it caused the listener to pull her hand from the calloused palm where it had been clinging.
"Good-night," she said abruptly, and started to rise.
Thinkright seized her arm gently and drew her back beside him. "Just a moment," he said quietly. "You said a minute ago that you had me; as if I counted for something."
"What"s the use, when your interest is all wrapped up in that girl?"
"Oh, you poor little thing, you poor little thing!" he murmured.
His thoughtful tone made Sylvia hot.
"And every word I say you despise me more," she flashed forth. "You know you"re sorry you came to Boston to get me. I can"t be any different; I"m just myself."
"Of course you are. That"s the comfort that we have. You"ll find yourself some time, and discover a very different being from the one you are conscious of now. I"d like to see you get well, little one, for your mother"s sake and your own, and mine."
"I am nearly well," returned Sylvia, surprised at the sudden digression.
Her companion shook his head. "Fevers of body are bad, but fevers of mind are worse. Will you take me for your doctor, child, and let me help you to find the sane, sweet, capable Sylvia Lacey who manifests her inheritance from the Father of us all?"
The girl"s eyes grew moist, and she bit her lip. Her poor, vain sense struggled, but she was sore at the heart which this tone of his always pressed strangely.
"I"d better go away," she said in a voice that trembled.
Her companion placed a kind hand on her shoulder. "If you were to go away, you would not escape from Love," he answered. "Love enfolds you this moment and all moments. It needs only to be recognized and trusted to begin its transforming work in your consciousness. Even life is only consciousness, Sylvia, and you cannot be conscious without thinking.
Then what it means to guard the thought,--to think truth, and not falsity!"
"How are we to know when we are thinking truth?" returned the girl, her breast heaving.
"As we are told to judge everything,--by its fruits. The fruit of your thinking has not brought you happiness; then let us get a new set of thoughts. That is all you need to begin with, Sylvia, a new set of thoughts; and you can"t get them until you welcome a new guest into your heart." He paused.
"Who? You?" asked the girl.
Her companion smiled. "No, not I, little one. The guest"s name is Humility." He waited a moment and then proceeded. "You are entertaining two guests now who are eating you out of house and home; devouring your substance literally. Their names are Vanity and Self-love. Vanity has a thin skin, is very easily injured. The other one whispers to you to hate your aunt and uncle, and to be jealous of Edna Derwent. They can"t stay where Humility enters. Take her in. Listen to her. She will whisper to you that it isn"t of so much consequence what comes to the Sylvia Lacey you are conscious of at present. She will promise you that if you will listen to her and make her your own, you will learn a happier Sylvia, a better consciousness in G.o.d"s good time. "Great peace have they who love His law. Nothing shall offend them." What a new world you would enter, my girl, when you found that nothing could give you offense!"
A strange wrestling was going on in his listener"s breast and her breathing was unsteady. Seeing that she was not ready to speak, Thinkright proceeded:--
"You have heard of the Brotherhood of Man. It isn"t a mere phrase when you think right. All,--all of us, children of one Father, all with rights to the same inheritance, what should make us cold or grudging, one toward another? What is to prevent our spontaneous gladness in another"s success. His happiness and good fortune become ours. It is all in the family, you see. There are no limitations to be placed on an _infinite_ inheritance, are there? Our Father"s love is impartial, and all that we ask in His name He has promised to give us. You couldn"t ask in His name to eclipse Edna Derwent, could you? or to receive any other gift which would appeal to those two guests I hope you will turn out. These are small beginnings of great thoughts, Sylvia, but they point to that "large place" where your consciousness belongs, and where Love waits to lead you."
The pressure on the door of the girl"s heart overwhelmed its resistance. She leaned her forehead against the shoulder so near her.
Her breath caught in a sob. "I"ll try," she breathed humbly, "I"ll try."