CHAPTER XVI.
WE suppose the heroine of a novel, among other privileges andimmunities, has a prescriptive right to her own private boudoir, where,as a French writer has it, ‘she appears like a lovely picture in itsframe.’
Well, our little Mary is not without this luxury, and to its sacredprecincts we will give you this morning a ticket of admission. Know,then, that the garret of this gambrel-roofed cottage had a projectingwindow on the seaward side, which opened into an immensely large oldapple-tree, and was a look-out as leafy and secluded as a robin’s nest.
Garrets are delicious places, in any case, for people of thoughtful,imaginative temperament. Who has not loved a garret in the twilightdays of childhood, with its endless stores of quaint, cast-off,suggestive antiquity,—old worm-eaten chests,—rickety chairs,—boxesand casks full of old comminglings, out of which, with tiny,childish hands, we fished wonderful hoards of fairy treasure? Whatpeep-holes, and hiding-places, and undiscoverable retreats we madeto ourselves,—where we sat rejoicing in our security, and biddingdefiance to the vague, distant cry which summoned us to school, or tosome unsavoury every-day task! How deliciously the rain came patteringon the roof over head, or the red twilight streamed in at the window,while we sat snugly ensconced over the delicious pages of some romance,which careful aunts had packed away at the bottom of all things, to besure we should never read it! If you have anything, beloved friends,which you wish your Charlie or your Susie to be sure and read, pack itmysteriously away at the bottom of a trunk of stimulating rubbish, inthe darkest corner of your garret;—in that case, if the book be at allreadable, one that by any possible chance can make its way into a youngmind, you may be sure that it will not only be read, but remembered tothe longest day they have to live.
Mrs. Katy Scudder’s garret was not an exception to the general rule.Those quaint little people who touch with so airy a grace all thelights and shadows of great beams, bare rafters, and unplasteredwalls, had not failed in their work there. Was there not there a grandeasy-chair of stamped-leather, minus two of its hinder legs, which hadgenealogical associations through the Wilcoxes with the Vernons, andthrough the Vernons quite across the water with Old England? and wasthere not a dusky picture, in an old tarnished frame, of a woman ofwhose tragic end strange stories were whispered,—one of the sufferersin the time when witches were unceremoniously helped out of the world,instead of being, as now-a-days, helped to make their fortune in it bytable-turning?
Yes, there were all these things, and many more which we will not stayto recount, but bring you to the boudoir which Mary has constructed forherself around the dormer-window which looks into the whispering oldapple-tree.
The enclosure was formed by blankets and bed-spreads, which, by reasonof their antiquity, had been pensioned off to an undisturbed old agein the garret,—not _common_ blankets or bed-spreads, either,—bought,as you buy yours, out of a shop,—spun or woven by machinery,—withoutindividuality or history. Every one of these curtains had its story.The one on the right, nearest the window, and already falling intoholes, is a Chinese linen, and even now displays unfaded, quaintpatterns of sleepy-looking Chinamen, in conical hats, standing on theleaves of most singular herbage, and with hands for ever raised in actto strike bells, which never are struck and never will be till theend of time. These, Mrs. Katy Scudder had often instructed Mary, werebrought from the Indies by her great-great-grandfather, and were hergrandmother’s wedding-curtains,—the grandmother who had blue eyes likehers, and was just about her height.
The next spread was spun and woven by Mrs. Katy’s beloved AuntEunice,—a mythical personage, of whom Mary gathered vague accounts thatshe was disappointed in love, and that this very article was part of abridal outfit, prepared in vain, against the return of one from sea,who never came back,—and she heard of how she sat wearily and patientlyat her work, this poor Aunt Eunice, month after month, starting everytime she heard the gate shut, every time she heard the tramp of ahorse’s hoof, every time she heard the news of a sail in sight,—hercolour, meanwhile, fading and fading as life and hope bled away at aninward wound,—till at last she found comfort and reunion beyond theveil.
Next to this was a bed-quilt pieced in tiny blocks, none of them biggerthan a sixpence, containing, as Mrs. Katy said, pieces of the gowns ofall her grandmothers, aunts, cousins, and female relatives for yearsback,—and mated to it was one of the blankets which had served Mrs.Scudder’s uncle in his bivouac at Valley Forge, when the Americansoldiers went on the snows with bleeding feet, and had scarce anythingfor daily bread except a morning message of patriotism and hope fromGeorge Washington.
Such were the memories woven into the tapestry of our little boudoir.Within, fronting the window, stands the large spinning-wheel, one endadorned with a snowy pile of fleecy rolls,—and beside it, a reel anda basket of skeins of yarn,—and open, with its face down on the beamof the wheel, lay always a book, with which the intervals of work werebeguiled.
The dusky picture of which we have spoken hung against the rough wallin one place, and in another appeared an old engraved head of oneof the Madonnas of Leonardo da Vinci, a picture which to Mary had amysterious interest, from the fact of its having been cast on shoreafter a furious storm, and found like a waif lying in the sea-weed;and Mrs. Marvyn, who had deciphered the signature, had not ceasedexploring till she found for her, in an Encyclopædia, a life of thatwonderful man, whose greatness enlarges our ideas of what is possibleto humanity,—and Mary, pondering thereon, felt the sea-worn picture asa constant vague inspiration.
Here our heroine spun for hours, and hours with intervals, when,crouched on a low seat in the window, she pored over her book, andthen, returning again to her work, thought of what she had read to thelulling burr of the sounding wheel.
By chance a robin had built its nest so that from her retreat she couldsee the five little blue eggs whenever the patient brooding motherleft them for a moment uncovered. And sometimes, as she sat in dreamyreverie, resting her small, round arms on the window-sill, she fanciedthat the little feathered watcher gave her familiar nods and winks of aconfidential nature,—cocking the small head first to one side and thento the other, to get a better view of her gentle human neighbour.
I dare say it seems to you, reader, that we have travelled, in ourstory, over a long space of time, because we have talked so much, andintroduced so many personages and reflections; but, in fact, it is onlyWednesday week since James sailed, and the eggs which were brooded whenhe went are still unhatched in the nest, and the apple-tree has changedonly in having now a majority of white blossoms over the pink buds.
This one week has been a critical one to our Mary: in it she has madethe great discovery that she loves; and she has made her first stepinto the gay world; and now she comes back to her retirement to thinkthe whole over by herself. It seems a dream to her, that she who sitsthere now reeling yarn in her stuff petticoat and white short-gown isthe same who took the arm of Colonel Burr amid the blaze of wax-lights,and the sweep of silks and rustle of plumes. She wonders dreamily asshe remembers the dark, lovely face of the foreign madame, so brilliantunder its powdered hair and flashing gems,—the sweet, foreign accentsof the voice,—the tiny, jewelled fan, with its glancing pictures andsparkling tassels, whence exhaled vague and floating perfumes; then shehears again that manly voice, softened to tones so seductive, and seesthose fine eyes with the tears in them, and wonders within herself that_he_ could have kissed her hand with such veneration, as if she hadbeen a throned queen.
But here the sound of busy, pattering footsteps is heard on the old,creaking staircase, and soon the bows of Miss Prissy’s bonnet part thefolds of the boudoir drapery, and her merry, May-day face looks in.
‘Well, really, Mary, how do you do, to be sure? You wonder to see me,don’t you? but I thought I must just run in a minute on my way up toMiss Marvyn’s. I promised her at least a half a day, though I didn’tsee how I was to spare it,—for I tell Miss Wilcox I just run and runtill it does seem as if my fee
t would drop off; but I thought I mustjust step in to say, that I, for my part, _do admire_ the Doctor morethan ever, and I was telling your mother we mus’n’t mind too muchwhat people say. I ’most made Miss Wilcox angry, standing up for him;but I put it right to her, and says I, “Miss Wilcox, you know folks_must_ speak what’s on their mind,—in particular ministers must; andyou know, Miss Wilcox,” I says, “that the Doctor _is_ a good man, andlives up to his teaching, if anybody in this world does, and givesaway every dollar he can lay hands on to those poor negroes, and worksover ’em and teaches ’em as if they were his brothers;” and says I,“Miss Wilcox, you know I don’t spare myself, night nor day, tryingto please you and do your work to give satisfaction; but when itcomes to my conscience,” says I, “Miss Wilcox, you know I always mustspeak out, and if it was the last word I had to say on my dying bed,I’d say that I think the Doctor is right.” Why! what things he toldabout the slave-ships, and packing those poor creatures so that theycouldn’t move nor breathe!—why, I declare, every time I turned overand stretched in bed, I thought of it; and says I, “Miss Wilcox, I dobelieve that the judgments of God will come down on us, if somethinga’n’t done, and I shall always stand by the Doctor,” says I;—and ifyou’ll believe me, just then I turned round and saw the General; andthe General, he just haw-hawed right out, and says he, “Good for you,Miss Prissy! that’s real grit,” says he, “and I like you better forit.”’—‘Laws,’ added Miss Prissy, reflectively, ‘I sha’n’t lose by it,for Miss Wilcox knows she never can get anybody to do the work for herthat I will.’
‘Do you think,’ said Mary, ‘that there are a great many made angry?’
‘Why, bless your heart, child, haven’t you heard? Why, there neverwas such a talk in all Newport. Why, you know Mr. Simeon Brown isgone clear off to Doctor Stiles; and Miss Brown, I was making up herplum-coloured satin a’ Monday, and you ought to ’a’ heard her talk.But, I tell you, I fought her. She used to talk to me,’ said MissPrissy, sinking her voice to a mysterious whisper, ‘’cause I nevercould come to it to say that I was willin’ to be lost, if it wasfor the glory of God; and she always told me folks could just bringtheir minds right up to anything they knew they must; and I just gotthe tables turned on her, for they talked and abused the Doctor tillthey fairly wore me out, and says I, “Well, Miss Brown, I’ll give in,that you and Mr. Brown _do_ act up to your principles; you certainly_act_ as if you were willing to be damned;”—and so do all thosefolks who will live on the blood and groans of the poor Africans, asthe Doctor said; and I should think, by the way Newport people aremaking their money, that they were all pretty willing to go that way,though, whether it’s for the glory of God, or not, I’m doubting. Butyou see, Mary,’ said Miss Prissy, sinking her voice again to a solemnwhisper, ‘I never was _clear_ on that point; it always did seem to me adreadful high place to come to, and it didn’t seem to be given to me;but I thought, perhaps, if it _was_ necessary, it would be given, youknow,—for the Lord always has been so good to me that I’ve faith tobelieve that, and so I just say, “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall notwant;”’—and Miss Prissy hastily whisked a little drop out of her blueeye with her handkerchief.
At this moment Mrs. Scudder came into the boudoir with a faceexpressive of some anxiety.
‘I suppose Miss Prissy has told you,’ she said, ‘the news about theBrowns. That’ll make a great falling off in the Doctor’s salary; and Ifeel for him, because I know it will come hard to him not to be ableto help and do, especially for these poor negroes, just when he will.But then we must put everything on the most economical scale we can,and just try, all of us, to make it up to him. I was speaking toCousin Zebedee about it, when he was down here, on Monday, and he isall clear;—he has made out three papers for Candace and Cato and Dinah,and they couldn’t, one of ’em, be hired to leave him; and he says, fromwhat he’s seen already, he has no doubt but they’ll do enough more topay for their wages.’
‘Well,’ said Miss Prissy, ‘I haven’t got anybody to care for butmyself. I was telling sister Elizabeth, one time (she’s married andgot four children), that I could take a storm a good deal easier thanshe could, ’cause I hadn’t near so many sails to pull down; and now,you just look to me for the Doctor’s shirts, ’cause, after this,they shall all come in ready to put on, if I have to sit up tillmorning. And I hope, Miss Scudder, you can trust me to make them; forif I do say it myself, I a’n’t afraid to do fine stitching ’longsideof anybody,—and hemstitching ruffles, too; and I haven’t shown youyet that French stitch I learned of the nuns;—but you just set yourheart at rest about the Doctor’s shirts. I always thought,’ continuedMiss Prissy, laughing, ‘that I should have made a famous hand aboutgetting up that tabernacle in the wilderness, with the blue and thepurple and fine-twined linen; it’s one of my favourite passages, thatis;—different things, you know, are useful to different people.’
‘Well,’ said Mrs. Scudder, ‘I see that it’s our call to be a remnantsmall and despised, but I hope we sha’n’t shrink from it. I thought,when I saw all those fashionable people go out Sunday, tossing theirheads and looking so scornful, that I hoped grace would be given me tobe faithful.’
‘And what does the Doctor say?’ said Miss Prissy.
‘He hasn’t said a word; his mind seems to be very much lifted above allthese things.’
‘La, yes,’ said Miss Prissy, ‘that’s one comfort; he’ll never knowwhere his shirts come from; and besides that, Miss Scudder,’ she said,sinking her voice to a whisper, ‘as you know, I haven’t any childrento provide for,—though I was telling Elizabeth t’other day, when I wasmaking up frocks for her children, that I believed old maids, first andlast, did more providing for children than married women: but still Ido contrive to slip away a pound-note, now and then, in my little oldsilver teapot that was given to me when they settled old Mrs. Simpson’sproperty (I nursed her all through her last sickness, and laid her outwith my own hands), and, as I was saying, if ever the Doctor shouldwant money, you just let me know.’
‘Thank you, Miss Prissy,’ said Mrs. Scudder; ‘we all know where yourheart is.’
‘And now,’ added Miss Prissy, ‘what do you suppose they say? Why, theysay Colonel Burr is struck dead in love with our Mary; and you knowhis wife’s dead, and he’s a widower; and they do say that he’ll getto be the next President. Sakes alive! Well, Mary must be careful, ifshe don’t want to be carried off; for they do say that there can’tany woman resist him, that sees enough of him. Why, there’s that poorFrenchwoman, Madame —— what do you call her, that’s staying with theVernons?—they say she’s over head and ears in love with him.’
‘But she’s a married woman,’ said Mary; ‘it can’t be possible!’
Mrs. Scudder looked reprovingly at Miss Prissy, and for a few momentsthere was great shaking of heads and a whispered conference between thetwo ladies, ending in Miss Prissy’s going off, saying, as she went downstairs,—
‘Well, if women will do so, I, for my part, can’t blame the men.’
In a few moments Miss Prissy rushed back as much discomposed as aclucking hen who has seen a hawk.
‘Well, Miss Scudder, what do you think? Here’s Colonel Burr come tocall on the ladies!’
Mrs. Scudder’s first movement, in common with all middle-agedgentlewomen, was to put her hand to her head and reflect that she hadnot on her best cap; and Mary looked down at her dimpled hands, whichwere blue from the contact with mixed yarn she had just been spinning.
‘Now, I’ll tell you what,’ said Miss Prissy,—‘wasn’t it lucky you hadme here? for I first saw him coming in at the gate, and I whipped inquick as a wink and opened the best room window-shutters, and then Iwas back at the door, and he bowed to me as if I’d been a queen, andsays he, “Miss Prissy, how fresh you’re looking this morning!” You see,I was in working at the Vernons’, but I never thought as he’d noticedme. And then he inquired in the handsomest way for the ladies and theDoctor, and so I took him into the parlour and settled him down, andthen I
ran into the study, and you may depend upon it I flew roundlively for a few minutes. I got the Doctor’s study-gown off, and gothis best coat on, and put on his wig for him, and started him up kinderlively,—you know it takes me to get him down into this world,—and sothere he’s in talking with him; and so you can just slip down and dressyourselves,—easy as not.’
Meanwhile Colonel Burr was entertaining the simple-minded Doctor withall the grace of a young neophyte come to sit at the feet of superiortruth. There are some people who receive from Nature as a gift a sortof graceful facility of sympathy by which they incline to take on,for the time being, the sentiments and opinions of those with whomthey converse, as the chameleon was fabled to change its hue withevery surrounding. Such are often supposed to be wilfully acting apart, as exerting themselves to flatter and deceive, when in factthey are only framed so sensitive to the sphere of mental emanationwhich surrounds others that it would require an exertion _not_ in somemeasure to harmonize with it. In approaching others in conversation,they are like a musician who joins a performer on an instrument,—itis impossible for them to strike a discord; their very nature urgesthem to bring into play faculties according in vibration with thosewhich another is exerting. It was as natural as possible for Burr tocommence talking with the Doctor on scenes and incidents in the familyof President Edwards, and his old tutor, Dr. Bellamy,—and thence toglide on to the points of difference and agreement in theology, witha suavity and deference which acted on the good man like a June sunon a budding elm-tree. The Doctor was soon wide awake, talking withfervent animation on the topic of disinterested benevolence,—Burrthe meanwhile studying him with the quiet interest of an observer ofnatural history, who sees a new species developing before him. At allthe best possible points he interposed suggestive questions, and set upobjections in the quietest manner for the Doctor to knock down, smilingever the while as a man may who truly and genuinely does not care a_sou_ for truth on any subject not practically connected with his ownschemes in life. He therefore gently guided the Doctor to sail down thestream of his own thoughts till his bark glided out into the smoothwaters of the Millennium, on which, with great simplicity, he gave hisviews at length.
It was just in the midst of this that Mary and her mother entered.Burr interrupted the conversation to pay them the compliments ofthe morning,—to inquire for their health, and hope they suffered noinconvenience from their night ride from the party; then, seeing theDoctor still looking eager to go on, he contrived with gentle dexterityto tie again the broken thread of conversation.
‘Our excellent friend,’ he said, ‘was explaining to me his views ofa future Millennium. I assure you, ladies, that we sometimes findourselves in company which enables us to believe in the perfectibilityof the human species. We see family retreats, so unaffected, socharming in their simplicity, where industry and piety so go handin hand! One has only to suppose all families such, to imagine aMillennium!’
There was no disclaiming this compliment, because so delicately worded,that, while perfectly clear to the internal sense, it was, in a manner,veiled and unspoken.
Meanwhile, the Doctor, who sat ready to begin where he left off, turnedto his complaisant listener and resumed an exposition of the Apocalypse.
‘To my mind, it is certain,’ he said, ‘as it is now three hundred yearssince the fifth vial was poured out, there is good reason to supposethat the sixth vial began to be poured out at the beginning of the lastcentury, and has been running for a hundred years or more, so that itis run nearly out; the seventh and last vial will begin to run earlyin the next century.’
‘You anticipate, then, no rest for the world for some time to come?’said Burr.
‘Certainly not,’ said the Doctor, definitively; ‘there will be no restfrom overturnings till He whose right it is shall come.’
‘The passage,’ he added, ‘concerning the drying up of the riverEuphrates, under the sixth vial, has a distinct reference, I think,to the account in ancient writers of the taking of Babylon, andprefigures, in like manner, that the resources of that modern Babylon,the Popish power, shall continue to be drained off, as they have nowbeen drying up for a century or more, till, at last, there will come asudden and final downfall of that power. And after that will come thefirst triumphs of truth and righteousness,—the marriage-supper of theLamb.’
‘These investigations must undoubtedly possess a deep interest foryou, sir,’ said Burr; ‘the hope of a future as well as the traditionof a past age of gold seems to have been one of the most cherishedconceptions of the human breast.’
‘In those times,’ continued the Doctor, ‘the whole earth will be of onelanguage.’
‘Which language, sir, do you suppose will be considered worthy of suchpre-eminence?’ inquired his listener.
‘That will probably be decided by an amicable conference of allnations,’ said the Doctor; ‘and the one universally considered mostvaluable will be adopted; and the literature of all other nations beingtranslated into it, they will gradually drop all other tongues. BrotherStiles thinks it will be the Hebrew. I am not clear on that point. TheHebrew seems to me too inflexible, and not sufficiently copious. I donot think,’ he added, after some consideration, ‘that it will be theHebrew tongue.’
‘I am most happy to hear it, sir,’ said Burr, gravely; ‘I never feltmuch attracted to that language. But, ladies,’ he added, starting upwith animation, ‘I must improve this fine weather to ask you to showme the view of the sea from this little hill beyond your house, it isevidently so fine;—I trust I am not intruding too far on your morning?’
‘By no means, sir,’ said Mrs. Scudder, rising; ‘we will go with you ina moment.’
And soon Colonel Burr, with one on either arm, was to be seen on thetop of the hill beyond the house,—the very one from which Mary, theweek before, had seen the retreating sail we all wot of. Hence, thoughher companion contrived, with the adroitness of a practised man ofgallantry, to direct his words and looks as constantly to her as ifthey had been in a _tête-à-tête_, and although nothing could be moregraceful, more delicately flattering, more engaging, still the littleheart kept equal poise; for where a true love has once bolted the door,a false one serenades in vain under the window.
Some fine, instinctive perceptions of the real character of the manbeside her seemed to have dawned on Mary’s mind in the conversationof the morning;—she had felt the covert and subtile irony that lurkedbeneath his polished smile, felt the utter want of faith or sympathyin what she and her revered friend deemed holiest, and therefore therewas a calm dignity in her manner of receiving his attentions whichrather piqued and stimulated his curiosity. He had been wont to boastthat he could subdue any woman, if he could only see enough of her: inthe first interview in the garden, he had made her colour come and go,and brought tears to her eyes in a manner that interested his fancy,and he could not resist the impulse to experiment again. It was a newsensation to him, to find himself quietly studied and calmly measuredby those thoughtful blue eyes; he felt, with his fine instinctivetact, that the soul within was enfolded in some crystalline sphere ofprotection, transparent, but adamantine, so that he could not touch it.What was that secret poise, that calm, immutable centre on which sherested, that made her, in her rustic simplicity, so unapproachable andso strong?
Burr remembered once finding in his grandfather’s study, among a massof old letters, one in which that great man, in early youth, describedhis future wife, then known to him only by distant report. With hiskeen natural sense of everything fine and poetic, he had been struckwith this passage, as so beautifully expressing an ideal womanhood,that he had in his earlier days copied it in his private _recueil_.
‘They say,’ it ran, ‘that there is a young lady who is beloved of thatGreat Being who made and rules the world, and that there are certainseasons in which this Great Being, in some way or other invisible,comes to her and fills her mind with such exceeding sweet delight,that she hardly cares for anything except to meditate on Him; that sheexpects, a
fter a while, to be received up where He is, to be raisedup out of the world and caught up into heaven, being assured that Heloves her too well to let her remain at a distance from Him always.Therefore, if you present all the world before her, with the richestof its treasures, she disregards it. She has a strange sweetness inher mind, and singular purity in her affections; and you could notpersuade her to do anything wrong or sinful, if you should give her allthe world. She is of a wonderful sweetness, calmness, and universalbenevolence of mind, especially after this great God has manifestedHimself to her mind. She will sometimes go from place to place singingsweetly, and seems to be always full of joy and pleasure; and no oneknows for what. She loves to be alone, walking in fields and groves,and seems to have some invisible one always conversing with her.’
A shadowy recollection of this description crossed his mind more thanonce, as he looked into those calm and candid eyes. Was there, then, atruth in that inner union of chosen souls with God, of which his motherand her mother before her had borne meek witness,—their souls shiningout as sacred lamps through the alabaster walls of a temple?
But then, again, had he not logically met and demonstrated, to hisown satisfaction, the nullity of the religious dogmas on which NewEngland faith was based? There could be no such inner life, he saidto himself,—he had demonstrated it as an absurdity. What was it,then,—this charm, so subtile and so strong, by which this fair child,his inferior in age, cultivation, and knowledge of the world, held himin a certain awe, and made him feel her spirit so unapproachable? Hiscuriosity was piqued. He felt stimulated to employ all his powers ofpleasing. He was determined that, sooner or later, she should feel hispower.
With Mrs. Scudder his success was immediate: she was completely wonover by the deferential manner with which he constantly referredhimself to her matronly judgments; and, on returning to the house, shewarmly pressed him to stay to dinner.
Burr accepted the invitation with a frank and almost boyish _abandon_,declaring that he had not seen anything for years that so remindedhim of old times. He praised everything at table,—the smoking brownbread, the baked beans steaming from the oven, where they had beenquietly simmering during the morning walk, and the Indian pudding,with its gelatinous softness, matured by long and patient brooding inthe motherly old oven. He declared that there was no style of livingto be compared with the simple, dignified order of a true New Englandhome, where servants were excluded, and everything came direct fromthe polished and cultured hand of a lady. It realized the dreams ofArcadian romance. A man, he declared, must be unworthy the name, whodid not rise to lofty sentiments and heroic deeds, when even his animalwants were provided for by the ministrations of the most delicate andexalted portion of the creation.
After dinner he would be taken into all the family interests. Gentleand pliable as oil, he seemed to penetrate every joint of the _ménage_by a subtile and seductive sympathy. He was interested in the spinning,in the weaving,—and, in fact, nobody knows how it was done, but beforethe afternoon shadows had turned, he was sitting in the crackedarm-chair of Mary’s garret-boudoir, gravely giving judgment on severalspecimens of her spinning, which Mrs. Scudder had presented to hisnotice.
With that ease with which he could at will glide into the characterof the superior and elder brother, he had, without seeming to askquestions, drawn from Mary an account of her reading, her studies, heracquaintances.
‘You read French, I presume?’ he said to her, with easy negligence.
Mary coloured deeply, and then, as one who recollects one’s self,answered, gravely,—
‘No, Mr. Burr, I know no language but my own.’
‘But you should learn French, my child,’ said Burr, with that gentledictatorship which he could at times so gracefully assume.
‘I should be delighted to learn,’ said Mary, ‘but have no opportunity.’
‘Yes,’ said Mrs. Scudder, ‘Mary has always had a taste for study, andwould be glad to improve in any way.’
‘Pardon me, madam, if I take the liberty of making a suggestion. Thereis a most excellent man, the Abbé Léfon, now in Newport, driven hereby the political disturbances in France; he is anxious to obtain a fewscholars, and I am interested that he should succeed, for he is a mostworthy man.’
‘Is he a Roman Catholic?’
‘He is, madam; but there could be no manner of danger with a person soadmirably instructed as your daughter. If you please to see him, madam,I will call with him some time.’
‘Mrs. Marvyn will, perhaps, join me,’ said Mary. ‘She has been studyingFrench by herself for some time, in order to read a treatise onastronomy, which she found in that language. I will go over to-morrowand see her about it.’
Before Colonel Burr departed, the doctor requested him to step amoment with him into his study. Burr, who had had frequent occasionsduring his life to experience the sort of paternal freedom which theclergy of his country took with him in right of his clerical descent,began to summon together his faculties of address for the avoidanceof a kind of conversation which he was not disposed to meet. He wasagreeably disappointed, however, when, taking a paper from the table,and presenting it to him, the Doctor said,—
‘I feel myself, my dear sir, under a burden of obligation forbenefits received from your family, so that I never see a member ofit without casting about in my own mind how I may in some measureexpress my good-will towards him. You are aware that the papers ofyour distinguished grandfather have fallen into my hands, and fromthem I have taken the liberty to make a copy of those maxims by whichhe guided a life which was a blessing to his country and to the world.May I ask the favour that you will read them with attention? and if youfind anything contrary to right reason or sober sense, I shall be happyto hear of it on a future occasion.’
‘Thank you, Doctor,’ said Burr, bowing, ‘I shall always be sensible ofthe kindness of the motive which has led you to take this trouble on myaccount. Believe me, sir, I am truly obliged to you for it.’
And thus the interview terminated.
That night, the Doctor, before retiring, offered fervent prayersfor the grandson of his revered master and friend, praying that hisfather’s and mother’s God might bless him and make him a living stonein the Eternal Temple.
Meanwhile, the object of these prayers was sitting by a table indressing-gown and slippers, thinking over the events of the day.The paper which Dr. H. had handed him contained the celebrated‘Resolutions’ by which his ancestor led a life nobler than any meredogmas can possibly be. By its side lay a perfumed note from Madamede Frontignac,—one of those womanly notes, so beautiful, so sacred inthemselves, but so mournful to a right-minded person who sees whitherthey are tending. Burr opened and perused it,—laid it by,—opened thedocument which the Doctor had given, and thoughtfully read the first ofthe ‘Resolutions’:—
‘Resolved, That I will do whatsoever I think to be most to God’s glory,and my own good profit and pleasure _in the whole of my duration_,without any consideration of time, whether now or never so many myriadages hence.
‘Resolved, To do whatever I think to be my duty and most for the goodand advantage of mankind in general.
‘Resolved, To do this, whatsoever difficulties I meet with, and howmany and how great soever.’
Burr read the whole paper through attentively once or twice, andpaused thoughtfully over many parts of it. He sat for some timeafter, lost in reflection; the paper dropped from his hand, and thenfollowed one of those long, deep seasons of fixed reverie, when thesoul thinks by pictures and goes over endless distances in moments.In him, originally, every moral faculty and sensibility was as keenlystrung as in any member of that remarkable family from which he wasdescended, and which has, whether in good or ill, borne no commonstamp. Two possible lives flashed before his mind at that moment,rapidly as when a train sweeps by with flashing lamps in the night. Thelife of worldly expediency, the life of eternal rectitude,—the life ofseventy years, and that life eternal in which the event of death is nodisturbance. Sudde
nly he roused himself up, picked up the paper, filedand dated it carefully, and laid it by; and in that moment was renewedagain that governing purpose which sealed him, with all his beautifulcapabilities, as the slave of the fleeting and the temporary, whichsent him, at last, a shipwrecked man, to a nameless, dishonoured grave.
He took his pen and gave to a friend his own views of the events of theday.
‘MY DEAR ——,
‘We are still in Newport, conjugating the verb _s’ennuyer_, which I, for one, have put through all the moods and tenses. _Pour passer le temps_, however, I have _la belle Française_ and my sweet little Puritan. I visited there this morning. She lives with her mother, a little walk out toward the sea-side in a cottage quite prettily sequestered among blossoming apple-trees, and the great hierarch of modern theology, Dr. H., keeps guard over them. No chance here for any indiscretions, you see.
‘By-the-by, the good Doctor astonished our _monde_ here on Sunday last, by treating us to a solemn onslaught on slavery and the slave-trade. He had all the chief captains and counsellors to hear him, and smote them hip and thigh, and pursued them even unto Shur.
‘He is one of those great, honest fellows, without the smallest notion of the world we live in, who think, in dealing with men, that you must go to work and prove the right and wrong of a matter; just as if anybody cared for that! Supposing he is right,—which appears very probable to me,—what is he going to do about it? No moral argument, since the world began, ever prevailed over twenty-five per cent. profit.
‘However, he is the spiritual director of _la belle Puritaine_, and was a resident in my grandfather’s family, so I did the agreeable with him as well as such an uncircumcised Ishmaelite could. I discoursed theology,—sat with the most docile air possible while he explained to me all the ins and outs in his system of the universe, past, present, and future,—heard him dilate calmly on the Millennium, and expound prophetic symbols, marching out before me his whole apocalyptic menagerie of beasts and dragons with heads and horns innumerable, to all which I gave edifying attention, taking occasion now and then to turn a compliment in favour of the ladies,—never lost, you know.
‘Really, he is a worthy old soul, and actually believes all these things with his whole heart, attaching unheard-of importance to the most abstract ideas, and embarking his whole being in his ideal view of a grand Millennial _finale_ to the human race. I look at him and at myself, and ask, Can human beings be made so unlike?
‘My little Mary to-day was in a mood of “sweet austere composure” quite becoming to her style of beauty; her _naïve nonchalance_ at times is rather stimulating. What a contrast between her and _la belle Française!_—all the difference that there is between a diamond and a flower. I find the little thing has a cultivated mind, enriched by reading, and more by a still, quaint habit of thinking, which is new and charming. But a truce to this.
‘I have seen our friends at last. We have had three or four meetings, and are waiting to hear from Philadelphia,—matters are getting in train. If Messrs. T. and S. dare to repeat what they said again, let me know; they will find in me a man not to be trifled with. I shall be with you in a week or ten days at farthest. Meanwhile, stand to your guns.
‘Ever yours, ‘BURR.’