belief that all love that is true is foreordained andconsecrated in heaven. Spirits destined to be united in the better worldare divinely commissioned to discover each other and to begin theirunion in this world. The only happy marriages are those in which the twodestined spirits have succeeded in meeting one another in this sphere oflife.
"When the kindred spirits have once met, no human power can really partthem. Sooner or later, they must, by divine law, find each other againand become united spirits once more. Worldly wisdom may force them intowidely different ways of life; worldly wisdom may delude them, or maymake them delude themselves, into contracting an earthly and a fallibleunion. It matters nothing. The time will certainly come when that unionwill manifest itself as earthly and fallible; and the two disunitedspirits, finding each other again, will become united here for the worldbeyond this--united, I tell you, in defiance of all human laws and ofall human notions of right and wrong.
"This is my belief. I have proved it by my own life. Maid, wife, andwidow, I have held to it, and I have found it good.
"I was born, madam, in the rank of society to which you belong. Ireceived the mean, material teaching which fulfills the worldly notionof education. Thanks be to God, my kindred spirit met _my_ spirit whileI was still young. I knew true love and true union before I was twentyyears of age. I married, madam, in the rank from which Christ chosehis apostles--I married a laboring-man. No human language can tell myhappiness while we lived united here. His death has not parted us. Hehelps me to write this letter. In my last hours I shall see him standingamong the angels, waiting for me on the banks of the shining river.
"You will now understand the view I take of the tie which unites theyoung spirits of our children at the bright outset of their lives.
"Believe me, the thing which your husband's brother has proposed to youto do is a sacrilege and a profanation. I own to you freely that I lookon what I have done toward thwarting your relative in this matter as anact of virtue. You cannot expect _me_ to think it a serious obstacle toa union predestined in heaven, that your son is the squire's heir, andthat my grandchild is only the bailiff's daughter. Dismiss from yourmind, I implore you, the unworthy and unchristian prejudices of rank.Are we not all equal before God? Are we not all equal (even in thisworld) before disease and death? Not your son's happiness only, but yourown peace of mind, is concerned in taking heed to my words. I warn you,madam, you cannot hinder the destined union of these two child-spirits,in after-years, as man and wife. Part them now--and YOU will beresponsible for the sacrifices, degradations and distresses throughwhich your George and my Mary may be condemned to pass on their way backto each other in later life.
"Now my mind is unburdened. Now I have said all.
"If I have spoken too freely, or have in any other way unwittinglyoffended, I ask your pardon, and remain, madam, your faithful servantand well-wisher, HELEN DERMODY."
So the letter ended.
To me it is something more than a mere curiosity of epistolarycomposition. I see in it the prophecy--strangely fulfilled in lateryears--of events in Mary's life, and in mine, which future pages are nowto tell.
My mother decided on leaving the letter unanswered. Like many of herpoorer neighbors, she was a little afraid of Dame Dermody; and shewas, besides, habitually averse to all discussions which turned on themysteries of spiritual life. I was reproved, admonished, and forgiven;and there was the end of it.
For some happy weeks Mary and I returned, without hinderance orinterruption, to our old intimate companionship The end was coming,however, when we least expected it. My mother was startled, onemorning, by a letter from my father, which informed her that he had beenunexpectedly obliged to sail for England at a moment's notice; that hehad arrived in London, and that he was detained there by business whichwould admit of no delay. We were to wait for him at home, in dailyexpectation of seeing him the moment he was free.
This news filled my mother's mind with foreboding doubts of thestability of her husband's grand speculation in America. The suddendeparture from the United States, and the mysterious delay in London,were ominous, to her eyes, of misfortune to come. I am now writing ofthose dark days in the past, when the railway and the electric telegraphwere still visions in the minds of inventors. Rapid communicationwith my father (even if he would have consented to take us into hisconfidence) was impossible. We had no choice but to wait and hope.
The weary days passed; and still my father's brief letters described himas detained by his business. The morning came when Mary and I went outwith Dermody, the bailiff, to see the last wild fowl of the season luredinto the decoy; and still the welcome home waited for the master, andwaited in vain.
CHAPTER III. SWEDENBORG AND THE SIBYL.
MY narrative may move on again from the point at which it paused in thefirst chapter.
Mary and I (as you may remember) had left the bailiff alone at thedecoy, and had set forth on our way together to Dermody's cottage.
As we approached the garden gate, I saw a servant from the house waitingthere. He carried a message from my mother--a message for me.
"My mistress wishes you to go home, Master George, as soon as you can. Aletter has come by the coach. My master means to take a post-chaise fromLondon, and sends word that we may expect him in the course of the day."
Mary's attentive face saddened when she heard those words.
"Must you really go away, George," she whispered, "before you see what Ihave got waiting for you at home?"
I remembered Mary's promised "surprise," the secret of which was onlyto be revealed to me when we got to the cottage. How could I disappointher? My poor little lady-love looked ready to cry at the bare prospectof it.
I dismissed the servant with a message of the temporizing sort. My loveto my mother--and I would be back at the house in half an hour.
We entered the cottage.
Dame Dermody was sitting in the light of the window, as usual, with oneof the mystic books of Emanuel Swedenborg open on her lap. She solemnlylifted her hand on our appearance, signing to us to occupy our customarycorner without speaking to her. It was an act of domestic high treasonto interrupt the Sibyl at her books. We crept quietly into our places.Mary waited until she saw her grandmother's gray head bend down, andher grandmother's bushy eyebrows contract attentively, over her reading.Then, and then only, the discreet child rose on tiptoe, disappearednoiselessly in the direction of her bedchamber, and came back tome carrying something carefully wrapped up in her best cambrichandkerchief.
"Is that the surprise?" I whispered.
Mary whispered back: "Guess what it is?"
"Something for me?"
"Yes. Go on guessing. What is it?"
I guessed three times, and each guess was wrong. Mary decided on helpingme by a hint.
"Say your letters," she suggested; "and go on till I stop you."
I began: "A, B, C, D, E, F--" There she stopped me.
"It's the name of a Thing," she said; "and it begins with F."
I guessed, "Fern," "Feather," "Fife." And here my resources failed me.
Mary sighed, and shook her head. "You don't take pains," she said. "Youare three whole years older than I am. After all the trouble I havetaken to please you, you may be too big to care for my present when yousee it. Guess again."
"I can't guess."
"You must!"
"I give it up."
Mary refused to let me give it up. She helped me by another hint.
"What did you once say you wished you had in your boat?" she asked.
"Was it long ago?" I inquired, at a loss for an answer.
"Long, long ago! Before the winter. When the autumn leaves were falling,and you took me out one evening for a sail. Ah, George, _you_ haveforgotten!"
Too true, of me and of my brethren, old and young alike! It is always_his_ love that forgets, and _her_ love that remembers. We were only twochildren, and we were types of the man and the woman already.
Mary lost patience with me. Forgetting the
terrible presence of hergrandmother, she jumped up, and snatched the concealed object out of herhandkerchief.
"There!" she cried, briskly, "_now_ do you know what it is?"
I remembered at last. The thing I had wished for in my boat, all thosemonths ago, was a new flag. And here was the flag, made for me in secretby Mary's own hand! The ground was green silk, with a dove embroideredon it in white, carrying in its beak the typical olive-branch, wroughtin gold thread. The work was the tremulous, uncertain work of a child'sfingers. But how faithfully my little darling had remembered my wish!how patiently she had plied the needle over the traced lines of thepattern! how industriously she had labored through the dreary winterdays! and all for my sake! What words could tell my pride, my gratitude,my happiness?
I too