CHAPTER XXXVII.
DIES IRÆ, DIES ILLA
The November day broke bleak and gloomy. The dismal dawn was laden with thick, sodden fog, and wretched, drizzling rain. The wind, full of the wail of coming winter, was cold and raw; and the sky, seen dimly through the fog-bank, was of sullen lead, the earth black and dreary; and the sea and the fog so mixed that you could hardly tell where one began and the other ended.
In the Farmers' Hotel, a rambling wooden building, standing by itself on a quiet country road, all was still as the grave at this early hour of the miserable November morning. Even in the kitchen and halls there was as yet no step, and the servants slept the sleep of the just in their own dormitories. Perhaps of all in the house the man who stood at his chamber window, blurred and smeared with clammy wet, and stared hopelessly out through the full blank of fog and mist, was the only one astir in the house.
In the murky dawn of this bad November morning, Paul Wyndham, with hollow creases under his eyes, and deep plowshares of silent suffering about his mouth and forehead, stood looking out of the stained window, at the flat waste of desolation without. It was hardly two poor weeks, but it seemed a lifetime; and a horrible numbness was coming over him and blunting all sense of pain. Would it always go on like this – this dull, dead blank in life – would it last forever? All things were beginning to look unreal, and lose their significance, nothing seemed palpable or as it used to be. He was conscious that the crisis had come; that in the long, black, sluggish watches of that wet November night a battle had been fought between life and death, in the cottage whose lighted window he could see from his own; but only conscious in a dull, numb sort of way, to which the sharpness of the torture had given force.
The pale, cold dawn crept shining in while he stood there blankly staring out at the hopeless dreariness, and he roused himself from his torpor by a great effort at last. A loud-voiced clock somewhere in the silent house struck six as he put on his overcoat and hat and went down stairs.
Paul Wyndham waded on through the sea of mud, in the cold morning rain, not meeting a soul, until he stood before Rosebush Cottage. The red light in the window burned still; but had that other light, that light of a beloved life, gone out in the night? It had been the crisis of the fever – that low, miserable, burning, delirious fever, in which for so many weary days and endless nights, the poor, unconscious sufferer had tossed. Ah! that dreary time of probation – when the faithful watchers had seen her sink day by day; when they had to force her clenched teeth apart to admit teaspoonfuls of beef-tea; when they had listened with aching hearts to her meaningless babble, or the songs the weak voice sang. But that sad time of waiting had dragged itself out, and the night came which must end all suspense. Does hope ever entirely leave the human heart, until the blank face actually grows rigid and the death-rattle sounds? Those sad and silent watchers in that darkened room hoped against hope through the slow lingering hours of that night. They were all there – Dr. Leach, Val, Mrs. Marsh, Miss Rose, and Midge, all mutely watching the pale shadow of Nathalie lying so still and white on the bed. You might have thought her dead had you entered, and looked at her lying with closed eyes, and no perceptible respiration. But she was only sleeping, and a faint breath still came from the colorless lips – sleeping a sleep from which the doctor, at least, knew she could only awake to die. He had a strong hope she might awake free from fever, and that reason might return before the last hour. He sat by the bedside, holding her wrist in his fingers, never taking his eyes off her face. Mrs. Marsh had fallen asleep quietly in her chair, and Mr. Blake was dozing; so when, as the pale morning broke, and the blue eyes opened to life once more, there was only the doctor and Miss Rose to bend over her.
"Nathalie, darling!" the governess said, with trembling lips, "don't you know me?"
The blue eyes turned upon the sweet face with the clear light of restored reason, and a faint smile dawned on the wasted face.
"Miss Rose," she said, in a voice so faint that it sounded scarcely above a whisper. "You here?"
"I am here, too, Natty," said the physician. "Don't you know the old doctor?"
Yes, she knew him – she knew them all when they came crowding around her, and looked up at them with faint wonder in her fever-dimmed blue eyes.
"I have been ill, haven't I?" she said, feebly, glancing at her poor, transparent, wasted hands. "Have I been ill long?"
"Not very long, Natty dear," her mother answered, kissing her, "only two weeks, and you will be better soon now, won't she, doctor?"
But Dr. Leach did not reply. How could he deceive that dying girl? She looked into his grave, sad face, and a solemn shadow fell on her own, a shadow of the dark truth.
"Oh, doctor!" she cried out, "am I dying?"
He bent over her, and stroked away tenderly the full dark hair off her forehead.
"My poor child! my dear child! God knows I would save you if I could; but the power of life and death lies in higher hands. Has this world been such a pleasant place to you that you should wish to stay in it? Think of that better world, my poor little girl, that lies beyond the grave. It would be cruel in me to deceive you now."
She drew the hand he held out of his suddenly, and turned her face away from them. Mrs. Marsh broke out into strong sobbing, but the doctor sternly hushed her. But the dulled, dying ear caught the sound, and she turned to them again.
"How long have I to live?" she asked.
He could not tell an untruth with those earnest eyes fixed on his face, and his voice was husky as he replied:
"Not long! not long, my poor girl! But long enough to prepare for the world to which you are going."
"Will I die to-day?"
Her mother's sobs broke out again; but Nathalie looked only at the doctor.
"Yes, dear child, you will last to-day, I think; but try and be calm, and not disturb yourself at the shortness of the time."
Her hands dropped in a kind of collapse of despair.
"So soon, so soon!" she said, "and so much to do – so much to atone for!"
"Shall we send for a clergyman?" the doctor asked.
"Shall I fetch you Father Lennard?" inquired Val, stooping over her.
Her face brightened a little. The gray old priest had baptized her, an infant, had confirmed her a young girl, rind she had loved and reverenced him more than any one else on earth.
"Yes, yes," she said, eagerly. "Bring Father Lennard. Oh, how short the time is, and so much to be done."
Mr. Blake found Father Lennard at home, and had to go over again the weary story of wrong-doings and falsehood. He was a very old man; his hair had grown gray in his holy calling, and he was long used to tales of sorrow and sin – sorrow and sin, that go so surely hand in hand. He had learned to listen to such recitals – as a pitiful doctor, who knows all the ailments poor human nature is subject to, does to stories of bodily suffering – tenderly, sadly, but with no surprise. He had known Nathalie Marsh from babyhood; he had had a father's affection for the pretty, gentle, blue-eyed little girl, who had knelt at his confessional so often, lisping out her childish faults; he had moaned for her tragic fate; and he had nothing but pity, and prayer, and sorrow for her now.
Mrs. Marsh and Miss Rose were in the room with the dying girl when they returned; Mrs. Marsh sitting at the foot of the bed, weeping incessantly, and the pale governess kneeling beside the pillows, holding the cold thin hands in hers, and reading prayers for the sick out of a missal. Both arose when the Father entered, and the dying face lit up with a sudden light of recognition and hope.
"My poor child! my poor baby!" the old man said, tenderly, bending over her. "Is it thus I find my little Natty again? Thank God that reason has returned to you in your last hours."
The mother and friend of the dying girl quitted the room, leaving the old priest alone to prepare the departing soul for its last great journey. Miss Rose knelt in silent, fervent prayer all the time; but Mrs. Marsh – poor weak soul! – could do nothing but sit and cry. Val had found Mr. Wyndham in the kitchen, leaning against the wooden chimney-piece, with a white, despairing face; and, pitying him in spite of his misdoings, turned comforter as best he could. He walked up and down the hall restlessly between whiles, feeling in the solemn hush of the house as if he were in the tomb. His watch, which he was perpetually jerking out, pointed to ten; and he was thinking he would have to run down to the office presently, when, opening the parlor-door to announce that intention, he saw Father Lennard come out of the sick-room.
"Well, Father?" Val said, anxiously.
"All is well, thank God! She is quite resigned now; and if sincere contrition ever atoned for sin, hers will surely be pardoned. Are you in a hurry, Val?"
"I should be very much hurried indeed, Father, if I could not do anything you or she may desire! What is it?"
"Will you go to Redmon, and fetch that unhappy young lady here. The poor child says she cannot die until she has heard her pardon her."
"I'll go," said Val, "but I'm not so sure Mrs. Wyndham will come. You see, she is one of your proud and high-stepping people, and is in such trouble herself that – "
"Let me go with you, Mr. Blake," cried Miss Rose, starting up; "I think she will come with me."
"All right, then! Put your bonnet on while I run round and make Peter get out the buggy."
The buggy came round to the front door, and Val assisted the governess in and drove off.
Father Lennard returned to the sick-room, and sat there holding the hand of the dying, whose sad, sunken blue eyes never left his face, and talking of that merciful Redeemer, who once said to another poor sinful creature, "Neither do I condemn thee!" Nathalie lay, clasping a crucifix to her breast, her pale lips moving in ceaseless inward prayer, while she listened, her face calm and beautiful in its holy hope. The hours that intervened seemed very short, and then the carriage wheels crunched over the gravel, and Nathalie caught her breath with a sort of gasp.
"Oh, Father, do you think she has come?"
"I trust so, dear child! I will go and see."
As he entered the drawing-room, the front door opened. Val stalked in, followed by Miss Rose and – yes, by a figure stately and tall, dressed very plainly, and closely vailed. The priest knew that majestic figure, although the face, seen dimly through the vail, was so changed that he hardly knew it.
"You may go in," he said, in reply to Miss Rose's appealing look; "she is waiting for you."
As the door closed upon the tall vailed form, and the two women, united to the same man, were face to face, Father Lennard took his hat to go.
"I shall return again in the afternoon," he said; "I would stay all day if I could, but it is impossible."
"I will drive you into town," said Val; "Peter can fetch the traps back. Oh, here's the doctor!"
Dr. Leach opened the garden-gate as they came out, and lifted his hat to the clergyman.
"How is she?" he asked.
"Failing fast," said Father Lennard. "I do not think she will wear the night through!"
"You are coming back, I suppose?"
"I shall endeavor to do so. I promised her I would, poor child!"
The doctor went into the drawing-room, where Mrs. Marsh, through her tears, told him who was with her. The old doctor looked dissatisfied.
"They'll agitate her too much – I know they will, with their crying and taking on. If they stay long, I will go and turn them out!"
He waited for a quarter of an hour, watch in hand, frowning impatiently at the dial-plate, and then the chamber-door reopened and the half-sisters came out. The swollen eyes of the governess told how she had been weeping, but the other had dropped her vail once more, and was invisible. Dr. Leach bowed to her, but she passed on without seeming to see him. Miss Rose followed her to the door, and looked wistfully out at the wet, foggy November weather, and the hopeless slough of mud.
"You cannot walk back, Harriet. I will send Peter to Redmon for the carriage. You will get your death of cold to walk there, unused as you are to walking."
"What does it matter?" she said, in a strangely hollow voice, "the sooner I get my death the better. If I could only die like her, I should rejoice however soon it came!"
"But, Harriet – "
But Harriet was gone, even while she spoke, walking rapidly through the drizzling rain and clammy mud – she, who had had a fastidious horror of mud on her dainty boots – and knowing nothing of either. All that was best in her nature had been roused into life by that dying-bed, but still that utter sense of despair and desolation filled her soul. Her life was done – there was no future for her – in all the wide universe there was not such another miserable woman as herself, she thought – desolate, unloved, and alone.
There were not many people abroad that bad November day; but those who were, and who recognized Mrs. Wyndham through her vail, and bowed ceremoniously, felt themselves outraged at receiving the cut direct. She never saw them – she walked straight forward to that stately home that was hers no longer, as people walk in sleep, with eyes wide open and staring straight before her, but seeing nothing.
Dr. Leach went into the sick-room as the others left it; but he returned presently, frowning again.
"Where is the fellow to be found?" he asked, impatiently; "she will excite herself in spite of all I can say. She must see him, she says, if only for ten minutes."
"Is it Mr. Wyndham?" asked Miss Rose; and the doctor nodded crossly.
It was the first time that the dying girl had spoken of him; and Miss Rose, who knew he was in the house, left the room without a word.
"Oh, he is here, is he?" said Dr. Leach. "I might have known it! Hem! Here he comes!"
Paul Wyndham followed the governess into the parlor, looking so haggard that even the old doctor pitied him.
"Now, Mr. Wyndham," he said, "my patient is not to be unnecessarily excited, remember! I give you just ten minutes, not a second more!"
Mr. Wyndham bowed his head and passed into the chamber; and Dr. Leach, watch in hand, planted himself at the door, and grimly counted the minutes. When the ten had passed, he opened the door.
"Time's up," he said; "say good-bye, Mr. Wyndham, and come out!"
They were all merciful enough not to look at him as he obeyed. Dr. Leach went in and found poor Nathalie lying with her eyes closed, clasping her crucifix, her lips still moving in voiceless prayer. She looked up at him with her poor, pleading eyes.
The old doctor departed, and the two women were left alone with the dying wife of Paul Wyndham. Miss Rose sat by the bedside, reading, in her sweet, low voice, the consoling prayers for the sick, while poor, weak, useless Mrs. Marsh only rocked backward and forward in the rocking-chair, moaning and crying in feeble helplessness. And Paul Wyndham, in the room on the other side of the hall, walking restlessly up and down, or stopping to gaze out of the window, or running to Midge every five minutes to go and inquire how she was – felt and suffered as men only can feel and suffer once in a lifetime.
The leaden hours of the twilight deepened into night – black, somber, starless. With the night came the wind and fell the rain. The storm had been gathering sullenly all day, and broke with the night fast and furious. The rain lashed the windows, and the melancholy autumn winds shrieked and wailed alternately around the cottage, waking a surging roar in the black cedar woods beyond. The feeble hands still fold themselves over the precious crucifix – that "sign of hope to man" – but the power of speech has gone. She cannot move, either; her eyes and lips are all that seem alive, but her sense of hearing remains. She hears the sound of carriage-wheels outside, and hears when Father Lennard, Dr. Leach, and faithful Val enter the drawing-room. The old priest takes Miss Rose's place, to administer the last solemn rites to the dying, and Nathalie smiles faintly up in his face and kisses the cross he holds to her lips. Val Blake goes into the room where he knows Paul Wyndham must be, and finds him lying as Midge found him a quarter of an hour before. He stoops down and finds he is asleep – Ah! when had he slept night or day before? – and his face looks so haggard and heart-broken in repose that Val says "Poor fellow!" and goes softly out.
And so, with death in their midst, the faithful watchers sit and keep vigil, while the stormy night wore on. Ah! Heaven strengthen us all for that dread death-watch, when we sit beside those we love, and watch and wait for the soul to take its fight. No one spoke, except in hushed whispers, and the roaring of the wild storm sounded awfully loud in the stillness. They can hear the voice of the old priest as he reads, or talks, or prays with that fluttering spirit, already in the shadow of the valley of death. As the watch of Val points to eleven, Miss Rose glides softly out, with a face like snow, and tells them to kneel, while Father Lennard reads the prayers for the dying. So they kneel and bow their heads with awe-struck spirits, while the solemn and beautiful prayers of the old church are read, and thrill as they hear that awful adjuration: "Depart, Christian soul, out of this world!" and then, as it is finishing, there is a pause. What does it mean? The service for the dying is not ended. A moment later and they know – Father Lennard goes on, but it is prayers for the dead he renders now, and they know all is over; and Val Blake leans his head on his arm and feels it grow wet, while the sad and solemn voice of the old priest goes on. Then they all arise, Father Lennard reverentially closes the blue eyes, that have looked their last on this mortal life, and there is a wild outbreak of motherly love from poor Mrs. Marsh; and Miss Rose, with her face buried in the pillow, is crying as she has not cried for many a day; and Val and the old doctor go softly in and look on the beautiful dead face, and think of the bright, happy Nathalie Marsh of last year – for whom all the world might have prophesied a long and happy life – and feel that neither youth, nor health, nor beauty, nor all the glory of the world, can save us one hour from death.
CHAPTER XXXVIII.
OUT OF THE CROOKED WAYS
And so all was over; and Speckport found out that the poor, miserable creature, Mr. Wyndham's mother, was dead. It must have been a merciful release for her, poor soul! they said; but the fever was infectious, and they sympathized at a respectful distance. But Mr. Wyndham's wife left Redmon and went to the cottage as soon as she heard it, and staid there through all the weary time that intervened between the death and the burial. There had been a consultation about the funeral and the grave, and it was decided that that other grave, marked with the white cross, and bearing the name of Nathalie Marsh, should not be disturbed. By-and-by, Val said, the name can be erased; to disturb it now would involve the telling of the whole story. Let Mr. Wyndham erect what sort of monument he pleases. So the grave was dug in a sunny inclosure, under a tamarack tree, and the funeral-service was held in the cathedral, and a long file of carriages followed the hearse to the cemetery. Paul Wyndham, in his deep mourning, stood bareheaded in the cold November sunlight while the coffin was being lowered and the sods rattled heavily on the lid; and Speckport, as represented by the funeral cortege, whispered that Mr. Wyndham looked ten years older since his mother's death.
So Rosebush Cottage was left once more to the sole care of Midge, and Mr. Wyndham returned to his late quarters at the "Farmer's Hotel." Mrs. Marsh was driven to Cottage Street, and Mr. Blake, having fumigated himself thoroughly, delighted the home of Miss Laura Blair once more with the light of his presence. Poor Laura had led rather a lonely life of late; for her darling Olly, wrapped up in her own troubles, had no time to attend to her, and Val had deserted them altogether. She was sitting, pale and listless, turning over the leaves of a new and popular novel, with an indifference not very flattering to the author, when the opening of the door made her start up, with a flush on her pretty face and a light in her bright eyes, to whose flattering interest even Mr. Blake could not be insensible.
"Yes, I've come back to poor Laura," Mr. Blake said, shaking hands with more warmth than perhaps there was any real necessity for. "I find I can't stay away from you somehow. How's everybody?"
"Pa and ma are well, if you mean them by 'everybody.' So poor Mr. Wyndham's mother has gone?"
Mr. Blake nodded.
"And what is Mr. Wyndham going to do with that love of a cottage now, I wonder?"
"I," said Mr. Blake, imperiously, "am going to purchase that love of a cottage myself!"
"You! Why, Val! What will you ever do with a house?"
"Live in it, Miss Blair, like any other Christian!"
"Oh, yes; of course; I suppose you will send for Miss Jo to keep house for you again?"
"Why, no," said Mr. Blake, thoughtfully. "I think not. Do you know, Laura, what I have been thinking of lately?"
"No; how should I?"
"Well, then," said Val, in a confidential tone, "I have been thinking of getting married! You need not mention it just yet, until I see more about it. In fact, I have not asked the lady yet, and don't know what she may say."
"And who is the happy lady, pray?"
"A particular friend of mine," nodded Val, sagely, "and of yours, too, Laura. The nicest girl in Speckport."
"It is Miss Rose," thought Laura, with a sudden sinking of the heart. "He always admired her, and they have been so much together lately!"
"I'll buy the cottage from Wyndham as it stands," pursued Val, serenely unconscious of the turn Miss Blair's thoughts had taken, "and fetch my wife there, and live in clover all the rest of my life. So hold yourself in readiness, Miss Laura, to dance at the wedding."
Miss Laura might have replied but for a sudden choking sensation in the throat, and the entrance of her portly mamma. Under cover of that lady's entrance, she made her exit, and going up to her room, flung herself, face downward, on the bed, and cried until her eyes were as red as a ferret's. And all the time Mr. Blake was in a state of serene complacency at the artful way in which he had prepared her for what was to come.
"I couldn't speak much plainer," he thought, blandly. "How pretty she looked, blushing and looking down. Of course I'll get married. I wonder I never thought of it before. Dear little Laura! I'll never forget the first time I heard her sing, 'We won't go home till morning!' I thought her the jolliest girl then I ever met."
Mr. Blake was a gentleman in the habit of striking while the iron was hot. He called round at the office, rapped Master Bill Blair over the head with the tongs for standing on his hands instead of his feet, and then started off for the Farmer's Hotel, without more ado, and was ushered by a waiter into Mr. Wyndham's room.
"Blake, I owe you more than I can ever repay," he said; "you have been my true friend through all this miserable time; and believe me, I feel your goodness as much as a man can feel, even though I cannot express it! Please God, this trouble of my life shall make me a better man, if I can never be a happy one."
"Oh, you'll be happy," said Mr. Blake. "Get into the straight path again, Wyndham, and keep there. I don't set up for a preacher, goodness knows! but you may depend there is nothing like it."
"The straight path!" Paul Wyndham repeated, with a weary, regretful sigh; "yes, I have been straying sadly out of the straight path of truth and honor and rectitude into the crooked ways of falsehood and treachery and deceit. Heaven help me, it never was with a contented heart! No one on this earth could ever despise me half so much as I despised myself all the time!"
"All right," cried Val, cheerily, "it's never too late to mend. Keep straight now, and we can all forgive and forget the past. I suppose you will be for leaving us shortly now?"
"Immediately. This is Tuesday – I shall depart in Thursday's boat."
"Will you," said Val, lighting a cigar; "that soon? What are you going to do with Rosebush Cottage?"
"The cottage! Oh, I shall leave it as it is – that is, shut it up. In time – a year or two, perhaps – I may return and sell it, if any one will purchase."
"Don't wait a year or two. Sell it now."
"Who wants it?"
"I do," said Val, with one of his nods.
"You! What do you want of the place, may I ask."
"Well, now, I don't see any just cause or impediment to my possessing a house any more than the rest of mankind, that everybody should be so surprised. I want the house to live in, of course – what else?"
Paul Wyndham looked at him and smiled. The great trouble of his life had changed him to a grave, sad man; but being only human, he could still smile.
"I wish you joy with all my heart! Laura has said yes, then?"
"Why, no, not exactly – that is to say, I haven't asked her out-and-out yet. I wanted to settle about the house first. But I gave her a pretty broad hint, and I guess it's all right. I think I should like to live there particularly, and now what will you take for it as it stands?"
Mr. Wyndham arose, opened a desk, and took out a bundle of papers, which he laid before Val.
"Here is the deed and all the documents connected with the place. You can see what it cost me yourself. Here is the upholsterer's bill, but you must deduct from that, for it is only second-hand furniture now. I leave the matter entirely to yourself."
With such premises, bargaining was no very difficult matter; and half an hour after, Val had the deed in his pocket, and was the happy owner of Rosebush Cottage.
"You stay here, I suppose, until Thursday," he said, rising to go.
"Yes."
"And how about that poor girl at Redmon? What is to become of her?"
Mr. Wyndham laid his hand on Val's shoulder, and looked very gravely up in his face.
"Val, before she died, in that last brief interview, she spoke of Harriet, and I gave her a promise then which I shall faithfully keep. The devotion of a whole life can scarcely atone to her for the wrong I have done her; but if she will accept that atonement, Heaven knows it will make me happier now than anything else on earth. If she does not utterly loathe and hate me – if she will be my wife in reality, as she has hitherto been in name – we will leave this place together; and whether my life be long or short, it shall be entirely devoted to her alone."
Val's face turned radiant. He seized Mr. Wyndham's other hand, and shook it with crushing heartiness.
"My dear Wyndham! My dear old boy! I always knew your heart was in the right place, in spite of all your shortcomings. Oh, you'll be all right now! You've got the stuff in you that men are made of!"
With which Mr. Blake strode off, fairly beaming with delight, and whistling all the way home. He sprang up the outer steps at a bound, rang the bell with emphasis, and shooting past the astonished servant, bolted whirlwind-fashion into the dining-room. At first he thought there was no one there, but, disturbed by the noisy entrance, from a sofa before the fire, and from out a heaving sea of pillows, Laura lifted up her head and looked at him. Poor Laura! That feminine luxury, a "real good cry," had brought on a raging headache, and now her face was flushed, her eyes dim and heavy, and her head throbbing and hot. She dropped that poor but aching head again as she saw who it was, with a rebellious choking in the throat, and a sudden filling of the eyes.
"Oh, I say, Laura," cried Mr. Blake, in considerable consternation, "you're not sick, are you? What's the matter?"
"My head aches," Laura got out, through her tears.
"Poor little head!" Mr. Blake piteously remarked, and Laura sobbed outright; "don't cry, Laura, it will be better before you are twice married. Look, here's a plaster I've brought you for it!"
He put the deed of Rosebush Cottage in her feverish hand. Laura stayed her tears, and looked at it, blankly.
"What is it?" she asked.
"Can't you see? It's the deed of Rosebush Cottage. I've bought it, furniture and all – and the furniture is very pretty, Laura – from Paul Wyndham. I'll let you keep that paper, if you'll promise to take good care of it."
"I don't understand you! Oh, Val!" cried Miss Blair, her heart beginning to flutter wildly again, "what is it you mean?"
"Why, didn't I tell you this morning? I'm going to be married – that is, if you will have me, Laura!"
Happy Laura! Such a rosy tide swept over her fair face, and dyed it radiant red to the roots of her hair.
"Oh, Val! I thought it was Miss Rose."
Val stared.
"Miss Rose! What the dickens put that in your head? I never thought of Miss Rose – I meant you all the time. Is it all right, Laura?"
All right! He need hardly have asked that question, seeing the radiant face before him. Laura laughed and cried, and blushed, and forgot all about her headache, and for the next fifteen minutes was completely and perfectly happy. It was one of those little glimpses of Eden that we poor pilgrims of the desert sometimes catch fleetingly as we wander wearily through long dreary wastes of sand, of sluggish marshes, or briery roads. Transient gleams of perfect joy, when we forget the past, and ask nothing of the future – when we hold the overflowing cup of bliss to our lips and drink to our heart's content.
"Dinner on the table!" Somebody made this announcement in a stentorian voice, and Val insisted on Laura's taking his arm, and accompanying him to the dining-room. Papa and Mamma Blair and Master Bill were waiting there; and Mr. Blake, ever prompt and business-like, led the blushing and shrinking fair one to the parental side, and boldly demanded their blessing. To say that Mr. and Mrs. Blair were astonished, would be doing no sort of justice to the subject; to say they were delighted, would be doing still less; and Miss Laura was formally made over to Mr. Blake before grace was said. Dinner was only a matter of form that day with Miss Blair – her appetite was effectually gone; and even Val – matter-of-fact, unromantic, unsentimental Val – ate considerably less underdone roast-beef than usual, and looked a good deal more across the table at the rosy, smiling face of his vis-a-vis than at the contents of his plate. But dinner was over at last, and an extra bottle of crusty old port drank to the happy event; and then Papa Blair buttoned up his overcoat and set off to business again, and Master Bill started full gallop for the office, to retail the news to Mr. Clowrie; and Mamma Blair went about her domestic concerns, and the lovers were alone together. But Mr. Blake was not at all "up" in the rôle of Romeo, and stood beside Laura at the window, looking at the pale moon rising, and using his toothpick.