CHAPTER XXV.
NOTHING is more striking in the light and shadow of the human dramathan to compare the inner life and thoughts of an elevated and silentnature, with the thoughts and plans which those by whom they aresurrounded have of and for them. Little thought Mary of any of thespeculations that busied the friendly head of Miss Prissy, or thatlay in the provident forecastings of her prudent mother. When a lifeinto which all our life nerves have run is cut suddenly away, therefollows, after the first long bleeding is healed, an internal paralysisof certain portions of our nature. It was so with Mary: the thousandfibres that bind youth and womanhood to earthly love and life wereall in her still as the grave, and only the spiritual and divine partof her being was active. Her hopes, desires, and aspirations were allsuch as she could have had in greater perfection, as a disembodiedspirit than as a mortal woman. The small stake for self which shehad invested in life was gone,—and henceforward all personal matterswere to her so indifferent that she scarce was conscious of a wish inrelation to her own individual happiness. She was through the suddencrush of a great affliction in that state of self-abnegation to whichthe mystics brought themselves by fastings and self-imposed penances,—astate not purely healthy, nor realizing the divine ideal of a perfecthuman being, made to exist in the relations of human life,—but one ofthose exceptional conditions, which, like the hours that often precededissolution, seem to impart to the subject of them a peculiar aptitudefor delicate and refined spiritual impressions. We could not afford tohave it always night—and we must think that broad, gay morning light,when meadow-lark and robin and bobolink are singing in chorus witha thousand insects and the waving of a thousand breezes, is on thewhole the most in accordance with the average wants of those who havea material life to live and material work to do. But then we reverencethat clear-obscure of midnight, when everything is still and dewy—thensing the nightingales which cannot be heard by day—then shine themysterious stars. So when all earthly voices are hushed in the soul,all earthly lights darkened, music and colour float in from a highersphere.
No veiled nun, with her shrouded forehead and downcast eyes, evermoved about a convent with a spirit more utterly divided from theworld, than Mary moved about her daily employments. Her care aboutthe details of life seemed more than ever minute; she was alwaysanticipating her mother in every direction, and striving by a thousandgentle preveniences, to spare her from fatigue and care; there was evena tenderness about her ministrations, as if the daughter had changedfeelings and places with the mother.
The Doctor, too, felt a change in her manner towards him, which, alwaysconsiderate and kind, was now invested with a tender thoughtfulness,and anxious solicitude to serve, which often brought tears to his eyes.All the neighbours who had been in the habit of visiting at the house,received from her almost daily, in one little form or another, someproof of her thoughtful remembrance.
She seemed in particular to attach herself to Mrs. Marvyn; throwing hercares around that fragile and wounded nature, as a generous vine willsometimes embrace with tender leaves and flowers a dying tree.
But her heart seemed to have yearnings beyond even the circle of homeand friends. She longed for the sorrowful and the afflicted; she wouldgo down to the forgotten and the oppressed, and made herself thecompanion of the Doctor’s secret walks and explorings among the poorvictims of the slave-ships, and entered with zeal as teacher among hisAfrican catechumens.
Nothing but the limits of bodily strength could check her zeal to doand suffer for others,—a river of love had suddenly been checked inher heart, and it needed all these channels to drain off the watersthat otherwise must have drowned her in the suffocating agonies ofrepression.
Sometimes, indeed, there would be a returning thrill of the old wound,one of those overpowering moments when some turn in life brings backanew a great anguish. She would find unexpectedly in a book a mark thathe had placed there, or a turn in conversation would bring back a toneof his voice, or she would see on some thoughtless young head, curlsjust like those which were swaying to and fro down among the waveringseaweeds, and then her heart gave one great throb of pain, and turnedfor relief to some immediate act of love to some living being. They whosaw her in one of these moments, felt a surging of her heart towardsthem, a moisture of the eye, a sense of some inexpressible yearning,and knew not from what pain that love was wrung, and what poor heartwas seeking to still its own throbbings in blessing them.
By what name shall we call this beautiful twilight, this night ofthe soul, so starry with heavenly mysteries, _not_ happiness, butblessedness? They who have it, walk among men as sorrowful, yet alwaysrejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, and yetpossessing all things.
The Doctor, as we have seen, had always that reverential spirittowards women which accompanies a healthy and great nature; but in theconstant converse which he now held with a beautiful being, from whomevery particle of selfish feeling or mortal weakness seemed sublimed,he appeared to yield his soul up to her leading, with a wonderinghumility, as to some fair miraculous messenger of heaven. All questionsof internal experience, all delicate shadings of the spiritual history,with which his pastoral communings in his flock made him conversant, hebrought to her to be resolved with the purest simplicity of trust.
‘She is one of the Lord’s rarities,’ he said one day to Mrs.Scudder, ‘and I find it difficult to maintain the bonds of Christianfaithfulness in talking with her. It is a charm of the Lord’s hiddenones that they know not their own beauty; and God forbid that I shouldtempt a creature made so perfect by divine grace, to self-exultation,or lay my hand, unadvisedly, as Uzzah did, upon the ark of God, by myinconsiderate praises.’
‘Well, Doctor,’ said Miss Prissy, who sat in the corner sewing on thedove-coloured silk, ‘I do wish you could come into one of our meetingsand hear those blessed prayers. I don’t think you nor anybody else everheard anything like ’em.’
‘I would, indeed, that I might with propriety enjoy the privilege,’said the Doctor.
‘Well, I’ll tell you what’ said Miss Prissy, ‘next week they’re goingto meet here, and I’ll leave the door just ajar, and you can hear everyword, just by standing in the entry.’
‘Thank you, madam,’ said the Doctor, ‘it would certainly be a blessedprivilege, but I cannot persuade myself that such an act would beconsistent with Christian propriety.’
‘Ah, now do hear that good man,’ said Miss Prissy, after he had leftthe room; ‘if he ha’n’t got the making of a real gentleman in him aswell as a real Christian, though I always did say, for my part, thata real Christian will be a gentleman. But I don’t believe all thetemptations in the world could stir that blessed man one jot or grainto do the least thing that he thinks is wrong or out of the way. Well,I must say, I never saw such a good man; he is the only man I ever sawgood enough for our Mary.’
* * * * *
Another spring came round, and brought its roses, and the apple-treesblossomed for the third time since the commencement of our story; andthe robins had repaired the old nest, and began to lay their blue eggsin it; and Mary still walked her calm course, as a sanctified priestessof the great worship of sorrow. Many were the hearts now dependent onher, the spiritual histories, the thread of which were held in herloving hand,—many the souls burdened with sins, or oppressed withsorrow, who found in her bosom at once confessional and sanctuary.
So many sought her prayers, that her hours of intercession werefull, and needed to be lengthened often to embrace all for whom shewould plead. United to the good Doctor by a constant friendshipand fellowship, she had gradually grown accustomed to the more andmore intimate manner in which he regarded her, which had risenfrom a ‘simple dear child and dear Mary,’ to ‘dear friend,’ and atlast ‘dearest of all friends,’ which he frequently called her, andencouraged by the calm, confiding sweetness of those still, blue eyesand that gentle smile which came without one varying flutter of thepulse or the rising of the slightest fl
ush on the marble cheek.
One day a letter was brought in, post-marked ‘Philadelphia.’ It wasfrom Madame de Frontignac; it was in French, and ran as follows:—
‘MY DEAR LITTLE WHITE ROSE:—
‘I am longing to see you once more, and before long I shall be in Newport. Dear little Mary, I am sad, very sad; the days seem all of them too long; and every morning I look out of my window and wonder why I was born. I am not so happy as I used to be, when I cared for nothing but to sing and smooth my feathers like the birds. That is the best kind of life for us women; if we love anything better than our clothes, it is sure to bring us great sorrow. For all that, I can’t help thinking it is very noble and beautiful to love,—love is very beautiful, but very, very sad. My poor dear little white cat, I should like to hold you a little while to my heart,—it is so cold all the time, and aches so, I wish I were dead; but then I am not good enough to die. The Abbé says, we must offer up our sorrow to God, as a satisfaction for our sins. I have a good deal to offer, because my nature is strong and I can feel a great deal. But I am very selfish, dear little Mary, to think only of myself, when I know how you must suffer. Ah, but you knew he loved you truly, the poor dear boy, that is something. I pray daily for his soul; don’t think it wrong of me, you know it is our religion, we should all do our best for each other.
‘Remember me tenderly to Mrs. Marvyn. Poor mother! the bleeding heart of the Mother of God alone can understand such sorrows.
‘I am coming in a week or two, and then I have many things to say to _ma belle rose blanche_; till then I kiss her little hands.
‘VERGINIE DE FRONTIGNAC.’
One beautiful afternoon, not long after, a carriage stopped at thecottage, and Madame de Frontignac alighted. Mary was spinning inher garret boudoir, and Mrs. Scudder was at that moment at a littledistance from the house, sprinkling some linen, which was laid out tobleach on the green turf of the clothes yard.
Madame de Frontignac sent away the carriage, and ran up the stairway,pursuing the sound of Mary’s spinning wheel, mingled with her song; andin a moment, throwing aside the curtain, she seized Mary in her arms,and kissed her on either cheek, laughing and crying both at once.
‘I knew where I should find you, _ma blanche_; I heard the wheel of mypoor little princess, it’s a good while since we spun together, _mimi_.Ah, Mary darling, little do we know what we spin; life is hard andbitter, isn’t it? Ah, how white your cheeks are, poor child!’
Madame de Frontignac spoke with tears in her own eyes, passing her handcaressingly over the fair cheeks.
‘And you have grown pale, too, dear Madame,’ said Mary, looking up, andstruck with the change in the once brilliant face.
‘Have I, _petite_? I don’t know why not. We women have secret placeswhere our life runs out. At home I wear _rouge_; that makes all right;but I don’t put it on for you, Mary; you see me just as I am.’
Mary could not but notice the want of that brilliant colour androundness in the cheek, that made so glowing a picture; the eyes seemedlarger and tremulous with a pathetic depth, and around them thosebluish circles that speak of languor and pain; yet still, changed asshe was, Madame de Frontignac seemed only more strikingly interestingand fascinating than ever. Still she had those thousand prettymovements, those nameless graces of manner, those wavering shades ofexpression, that irresistibly enchained the eye and the imagination;true Frenchwoman as she was, always in one rainbow shimmer of fancy,and feeling like one of those cloud-spotted April days, which give youflowers and rain, sun and shadow, and snatches of bird-singing all atonce.
_Mary & Eugenie_
_Page 238._
Sampson, Low, Son & Co. Septr. 20th, 1859.]
‘I have sent away my carriage, Mary, and come to stay with you. Youwant me, _n’est-ce pas_?’ she said, coaxingly, with her arms roundMary’s neck; ‘if you don’t, _tant pis_; for I am the bad penny youEnglish speak of, you cannot get me off.’
‘I am sure, dear friend,’ said Mary, earnestly, ‘we don’t want to putyou off.’
‘I know it; you are true, you _mean_ what you say; you are all goodreal gold, down to your hearts; that is why I love you; but you, mypoor Mary, your cheeks are very white; poor little heart, you suffer.’
‘No,’ said Mary; ‘I do not suffer now. Christ has given me the victoryover sorrow.’
There was something sadly sublime in the manner in which this was said,and something so sacred in the expression of Mary’s face, that Madamede Frontignac crossed herself, as she had been wont before a shrine;and then said, ‘Sweet Mary, pray for me; I am not at peace; I cannotget the victory over sorrow.’
‘What sorrow can you have?’ said Mary; ‘you, so beautiful, so rich, soadmired; whom everybody must love.’
‘That is what I came to tell you; I came to confess to you. But youmust sit down _there_,’ she said, placing Mary on a low seat in thegarret window, ‘and Verginie will sit here,’ she said, drawing a bundleof uncarded wool towards her, and sitting down at Mary’s feet.
‘Dear Madame,’ said Mary, ‘let me get you a better seat.’
‘No, no, _mignonne_, this is best. I want to lay my head in your lap;’and she took off her riding-hat with its streaming plume, and tossed itcarelessly from her, and laid her head down on Mary’s lap. ‘Now don’tcall me Madame any more. Do you know,’ she said, raising her head witha sudden brightening of cheek and eye, ‘do you know that there aretwo _me’s_ to this person?—one is Verginie, and the other is Madamede Frontignac. Everybody in Philadelphia knows Madame de Frontignac;she is very gay, very careless, very happy; she never has any serioushours, or any sad thoughts; she wears powder and diamonds, and dancesall night, and never prays—that is Madame. But Verginie is quiteanother thing. She is tired of all this; tired of the balls and thedancing, and the diamonds, and the beaux; and she likes true people,and would like to live very quiet with somebody that she loved. She isvery unhappy, and she prays too, sometimes, in a poor little way, likethe birds in your nest out there, who don’t know much, but chipper andcry because they are hungry—this is your Verginie—Madame never comeshere; never call me Madame.’
‘Dear Verginie,’ said Mary, ‘how I love you!’
‘Do you, Mary—_bien sur_? you are my good angel. I felt a good impulsefrom you when I first saw you, and have always been stronger to doright when I got one of your pretty little letters. Oh, Mary, darling!I have been very foolish and very miserable, and sometimes tempted tobe very, very bad. Oh, sometimes I thought I would not care for God oranything else—it was very bad of me—but I was like a foolish littlefly, caught in a spider’s net before he knows it.’
Mary’s eyes questioned her companion with an expression of eagersympathy, somewhat blended with curiosity.
‘I can’t make you understand me quite,’ said Madame de Frontignac,‘unless I go back a good many years. You see, dear Mary, my dear angelmamma died when I was very little, and I was sent to be educated atthe Sacré Cœur, in Paris. I was very happy and very good in thosedays—the sisters loved me, and I loved them, and I used to be so pious,and loved God dearly. When I took my first communion, Sister Agathaprepared me. She was a true saint, and is in heaven now; and I rememberwhen I came to her, all dressed like a bride, with my white crownand white veil, that she looked at me so sadly, and said she hoped Iwould never love anybody better than God, and then I should be happy.I didn’t think much of those words then, but oh, I have since, manytimes. They used to tell me always that I had a husband who was away inthe army, and who would come to marry me when I was seventeen, and thathe would give me all sorts of beautiful things, and show me everythingI wanted to see in the world, and that I must love and honour him.
‘Well, I was married at last, and Monsieur de Frontignac is a good,brave man, although he seemed to me very old and sober; but he wasalways kind to me, and gave me nobody knows how many sets of jewelry,and
let me do everything I wanted to, and so I liked him very much; butI thought there was no danger I should love him, or anybody else betterthan God. I didn’t _love_ anybody in those days, I only liked people,and some people more than others. All the men I saw professed to belovers, and I liked to lead them about and see what foolish things Icould make them do, because it pleased my vanity; but I laughed at thevery idea of love.
‘Well, Mary, when we came to Philadelphia I heard everybody speaking ofColonel Burr—and what a fascinating man he was, and I thought it wouldbe a pretty thing to have him in my train—and so I did all I could tocharm him. I tried all my little arts—and if it is a sin for us womento do such things, I am sure I have been punished for it. Mary, he wasstronger than I was. These men, they are not satisfied with having thewhole earth under their feet, and having all the strength and all theglory, but they must even take away our poor little reign—it’s too bad.
‘I can’t tell you how it was. I didn’t know myself, but it seemed tome that he took my very life away from me; and it was all done beforeI knew it. He called himself my friend—my brother—he offered to teachme English—he read with me, and by-and-by he controlled my whole life.I that used to be so haughty, so proud—I that used to laugh to thinkhow independent I was of everybody. I was entirely under his control,though I tried not to show it. I didn’t well know where I was, for hetalked friendship, and I talked friendship; he talked about sympatheticnatures that are made for each other, and I thought how beautiful itall was; it was living in a new world. Monsieur de Frontignac was asmuch charmed with him as I was; he often told me that he was his bestfriend; that he was his hero—his model man; and I thought, oh Mary, youwould wonder to hear me say what I thought! I thought he was a Bayard,a Sully, a Montmorenci; everything grand and noble and good. I lovedhim with a religion. I would have died for him; I sometimes thought howI might lay down my life to save his, like women I read of in history.I did not know myself. I was astonished I could feel so; and I didnot dream that this could be wrong. How could I, when it made me feelmore religious than anything in my whole life? Everything in the worldseemed to grow sacred. I thought if men could be so good and admirable,life was a holy thing, and not to be trifled with. But our good Abbé isa faithful shepherd, and when I told him these things in confession, hetold me I was in great danger—danger of falling into mortal sin. Oh,Mary! it was as if the earth opened under me. He told me, too, thatthis noble man, this man so dear, was a heretic, and that if he died hewould go to dreadful pains. Oh, Mary! I dare not tell you half what hetold me; dreadful things that make me shiver when I think of them; andthen he said that I must offer myself a sacrifice for him; that if Iwould put down all this love, and overcome it, that God would perhapsaccept it as a satisfaction, and bring him into the true church at last.
‘Then I began to try. Oh, Mary! we never know how we love till wetry to unlove; it seemed like taking my heart out of my breast, andseparating life from life. How can one do it? I wish any one would tellme. The Abbé said I must do it by prayer; but it seemed to me prayeronly made me think the more of him.
‘But at last I had a great shock; everything broke up like a great,grand, noble dream; and I waked out of it just as weak and wretched asone feels when one has overslept. Oh, Mary! I found I was mistaken inhim—all, all, wholly!’
Madame de Frontignac laid her forehead on Mary’s knee, and her longchestnut hair drooped down over her face.
‘He was going somewhere with my husband, to explore out in the regionsof the Ohio, where he had some splendid schemes of founding a state;and I was all interest; and one day, as they were preparing, Monsieurde Frontignac gave me a quantity of papers to read and arrange, andamong them was a part of a letter; I never could imagine how it gotthere; it was to one of his confidential friends; I read it at first,wondering what it meant, till I came to two or three sentences aboutme.’ Madame de Frontignac paused a moment; and then said, rising withsudden energy, ‘Mary, that man never loved me; he cannot love; he doesnot know what love is; what I felt he cannot know; he cannot evendream of it, because he never felt anything like it; such men neverknow us women; we are as high as heaven above them; it is true enoughthat my heart was wholly in his power, but why? Because I adored himas something divine, incapable of dishonour, incapable of selfishness,incapable of even a thought that was not perfectly noble and heroic. Ifhe had been all that, I would have been proud to have been even a poorlittle flower that should exhale away, to give him an hour’s pleasure;I would have offered my whole life to God as a sacrifice for such aglorious soul; and all this time, what was he thinking of me?
‘He was _using_ my feelings to carry his plans; he was admiring me likea picture; he was considering what he should do with me; and were itnot for his interests with my husband, _he_ would have tried his powerto make me sacrifice this world and the next to his pleasure. But hedoes not know me. My mother was a Montmorenci, and I have the blood ofher house in my veins; we are princesses; we can give all; but he mustbe a god that we give it for.’
Mary’s enchanted eye followed the beautiful narrator, as she enactedbefore her this poetry and tragedy of real life, so much beyond whatdramatic art can ever furnish. Her eyes grew splendid in their depthsand brilliancy; sometimes they were full of tears, and sometimes theyflashed out like lightnings; her whole form seemed to be a plasticvehicle which translated every emotion of her soul; and Mary sat andlooked at her with the intense absorption that one gives to the highestand deepest in art or nature.
‘_Enfin—que faire?_’ she said at last, suddenly stopping, and droopingin every limb. ‘Mary, I have lived on this dream so long—never thoughtof anything else—now all is gone, and what shall I do? I think,’ sheadded, pointing to the nest in the tree, ‘Mary, I see my life in manythings. My heart was once still and quiet, like the round little eggsthat were in your nest,—now it has broken out of its shell, and crieswith cold and hunger: I want my dream again,—I wish it all back,—orthat my heart could go back into its shell. If I only could drop thisyear out of my life, and care for nothing, as I used to,—I have triedto do that—I can’t—I cannot get back where I was before.’
‘_Would_ you do it, dear Verginie,’ said Mary; ‘would you if you could?’
‘It was very noble and sweet, all that,’ said Verginie; ‘it gave mehigher thoughts than ever I had before. I think my feelings werebeautiful,—but now they are like little birds that have no mother—theykill me with their crying.’
‘Dear Verginie, there is a real friend in heaven, who is all you canask or think,—nobler, better, purer, who cannot change, and cannot die,and who loved you and gave himself for you.’
‘You mean Jesus,’ said Verginie. ‘Ah, I know it; and I say the officesto him daily, but my heart is very wild and starts away from my words.I say, “My God, I give myself to you,”—and after all, I don’t givemyself, and I don’t feel comforted. Dear Mary, you must have sufferedtoo—for you loved really—I saw it,—when we feel a thing ourselves wecan see very quick the same in others,—and it was a dreadful blow tocome so all at once.’
‘Yes it was,’ said Mary; ‘I thought I must die; but Christ has given mepeace.’
These words were spoken with that long-breathed sigh with which wealways speak of peace,—a sigh that told of storms and sorrows past,—thesighing of the wave that falls spent and broken on the shores ofeternal rest. There was a little pause in the conversation, and thenVerginie raised her head and spoke in a sprightlier tone.
‘Well, my little fairy cat,—my white doe,—I have come to you. PoorVerginie wants something to hold to her heart; let me have you,’ shesaid, throwing her arms round Mary.
‘Dear, dear Verginie, indeed you shall,’ said Mary; ‘I will love youdearly, and pray for you. I always have prayed for you ever since thefirst day I knew you.’
‘I knew it,—I felt your prayers in my heart. Mary, I have many thoughtsthat I dare not tell to any one, lately,—but I cannot help feeling thatsome are real Christians who are
not in the true Church. You are astrue a saint as Saint Catharine; indeed, I always think of you when Ithink of our dear lady; and yet they say there is no salvation out ofthe Church.’
This was a new view of the subject to Mary, who had grown up with thefamiliar idea that the Romish Church was Babylon and anti-Christ,and who had during the conversation been revolving the same surmiseswith regard to her friend. She turned her grave, blue eyes on Madamede Frontignac, with a somewhat surprised look, which melted into ahalf-smile. But the latter still went on with a puzzled air, as iftrying to talk herself out of some mental perplexity. ‘Now, Burr is aheretic,—and more than that, he is an infidel,—he has no religion inhis heart, I saw that often,—it made me tremble for him. It ought tohave put me on my guard,—but you, dear Mary, you love Jesus as yourlife. I think you love Him just as much as sister Agatha, who was asaint. The Abbé says that there is nothing so dangerous as to begin touse our reason in religion,—that if we once begin we never know whereit may carry us; but I can’t help using mine a very little. I mustthink there are some saints that are not in the true Church.’
‘All are one who love Christ,’ said Mary; ‘we are one in Him.’
‘I should not dare to tell the Abbé,’ said Madame de Frontignac; andMary queried in her heart whether Dr. Hopkins would feel satisfiedthat she could bring this wanderer to the fold of Christ, withoutundertaking to batter down the walls of her creed; and yet, there theywere, the Catholic and the Puritan, each strong in her respectivefaith, yet melting together in that embrace of love and sorrow, joinedin the great communion of suffering. Mary took up her Testament, andread the fourteenth of John:—
‘Let not your heart be troubled; ye believe in God, believe also inme; in my Father’s house are many mansions; if it were not so, I wouldhave told you; I go to prepare a place for you; and if I go to preparea place for you, I will come again and receive you unto myself, thatwhere I am there you may be also.’
Mary read on through the chapter, through the next wonderful prayer;her face grew solemnly transparent, as of an angel; for her soul waslifted from earth by the words, and walked with Christ far above allthings, over that starry pavement where each footstep is on a world.
The greatest moral effects are like those of music, not wrought outby sharp-sided intellectual propositions, but melted in by a divinefusion, by words that have mysterious indefinite fulness of meaning,made living by sweet voices, which seem to be the out-throbbings ofangelic hearts; so one verse in the Bible read by a mother in some hourof tender prayer has a significance deeper and higher than the mostelaborate of sermons, the most acute of arguments.
Verginie Frontignac sat as one divinely enchanted, while that sweetvoice read on; and when the silence fell between them she gave a longsigh as we do when sweet music stops. They heard between them the softstir of summer leaves, the distant songs of birds, the breezy hum whensome afternoon wind shivered through many branches, and the silver seachimed in; Verginie rose at last, and kissed Mary on the forehead.‘That is a beautiful book,’ she said, ‘and to read it all by one’s selfmust be lovely; I cannot understand why it should be dangerous; it hasnot injured you.
‘Sweet saint,’ she added, ‘let me stay with you; you shall read to meevery day; do you know I came here to get you to take me; I want you toshow me how to find peace where you do; will you let me be your sister?’
‘Yes, indeed,’ said Mary, with a cheek brighter than it had been formany a day; her heart feeling a throb of more real human pleasure thanfor long months.
‘Will you get your mamma to let me stay?’ said Verginie, with thebashfulness of a child; ‘haven’t you a little place like yours, withwhite curtains, and sanded floor, to give to poor little Verginie tolearn to be good in?’
‘Why, do you really want to stay here with us,’ said Mary, ‘in thislittle house?’
‘Do I really?’ said Virginie, mimicking her voice with a start ofher old playfulness; ‘_don’t_ I really? Come now, _mimi_, coax thegood mamma for me, tell her I shall try to be very good. I shall helpyou with the spinning; you know I spin beautifully,—and I shall makebutter, and milk the cow, and set the tables. Oh, I will be so useful,you can’t spare me!’
‘I should love to have you dearly,’ said Mary, warmly; ‘but you wouldsoon be dull for want of society here.’
‘_Quelle idée! ma petite drole_,’ said the lady, who with the mobilityof her nation had already recovered some of the saucy mocking gracethat was habitual to her, as she began teasing Mary with a thousandlittle childish motions. ‘Indeed, _mimi_, you must keep me hid up here,or may be the wolf will find me and eat me up; who knows?’ Mary lookedat her with inquiring eyes.
‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean, Mary,—I mean that when _he_ comes back to Philadelphia hethinks he will find me there; he thought I should stay while my husbandwas gone; and when he finds I am gone he may come to Newport; and Inever want to see him again without you; you must let me stay with you.’
‘Have you told him,’ said Mary, ‘what you think?’
‘I wrote to him, Mary, but oh, I can’t trust my heart! I want so muchto believe him; it kills me so to think evil of him that it will neverdo for me to see him. If he looks at me with those eyes of his I am allgone; I shall believe anything he tells me; he will draw me to him as agreat magnet draws a poor little grain of steel.’
‘But now you know his unworthiness, his baseness,’ said Mary, ‘I shouldthink it would break all his power.’
‘_Should_ you think so? Ah, Mary, we cannot unlove in a minute; loveis a great while dying. I do not worship him now as I did. I know whathe is. I know he is bad, and I am sorry for it. I would like to coverit from all the world, even from you, Mary, since I see it makes youdislike him; it hurts me to hear any one else blame him; but sometimesI do so long to think I am mistaken, that I know if I should see him Ishould catch at anything he might tell me, as a drowning man at straws;I should shut my eyes and think after all that it was all my fault, andask a thousand pardons for all the evil he has done. No. Mary, you mustkeep your blue eyes upon me, or I shall be gone.’
At this moment Mrs. Scudder’s voice was heard, calling Mary below.
‘Go down now, darling, and tell mamma; make a good little talk toher, _ma reine_; ah, you are queen here; all do as you say, even thegood priest there; you have a little hand, but it leads all; so go,_petite_.’
Mrs. Scudder was somewhat flurried and discomposed at the proposition;there were the _pros_ and the _cons_ in her nature, such as we all have.
In the first place, Madame de Frontignac belonged to high society, andthat was _pro_; for Mrs. Scudder prayed daily against worldly vanities,because she felt a little traitor in her heart that was ready to openits door to them if not constantly talked down. In the second place,Madame de Frontignac was French, there was a _con_; for Mrs. Scudderhad enough of her father John Bull in her heart to have a very warylook-out on anything French. But then, in the third place, she was outof health and unhappy, and there was a _pro_ again; for Mrs. Scudderwas as kind and motherly a soul as ever breathed. But then she was aCatholic, _con_. But the Doctor and Mary might convert her, _pro_. Andthen Mary wanted her, _pro_. And she was a pretty, bewitching, loveablecreature, _pro_. The _pros_ had it; and it was agreed that Madame deFrontignac should be installed as proprietress of the spare chamber,and she sat down to the tea-table that evening in the great kitchen.