Part 34 (1/2)

”Yes; but the purpose may differ in different cases,” returned the young girl hurriedly. ”I would not like to believe that Mr. Ensign came here with the one you give him credit for--not yet. You trouble me, aunt,”

pursued she, glancing tremulously about. ”It is like opening a great door flooded with suns.h.i.+ne, upon eyes scarcely strong enough to bear the glimmer sifting through its cracks. I feel humiliated and--” She did not finish, perhaps her thought itself was incomplete.

”If a light comes sifting through the cracks, I am satisfied,” said her aunt in a lighter tone than common. And she kissed her niece, and went smiling out of the room, murmuring to herself,

”I have been over-fearful; everything is coming right.”

There are moments when life's great mystery overpowers us; when the riddle of the soul flaunts itself before us unexplained, and we can do no more than stand and take the rush of the tide that comes sweeping down upon us. Paula was not the girl she was before she went to New York. Love was no longer a dreamy possibility, a hazy blending of the unknown and the fancied; its tale had been too often breathed in her ear, its reality made too often apparent to her eye. But love to which she could listen, was as new and fresh and strange, as a world into which her foot had never ventured. That her aunt should point to a certain masculine form, no matter how attractive or interesting, and say, ”Love and home are the lot of women,” made her blood rush back on her heart, like a stream from which a dam has been ruthlessly wrenched away. It was too wild, too sudden; a friend's name was so much easier to speak, or to contemplate. She did not know what to do with her own heart, made to speak thus before its time; its beatings choked her; everything choked her; this was a worse imprisonment than the other.

Looking round, her eye fell upon the flowers. Ah, was not their language expressive enough, without this new suggestion? They seemed to lose something in this very gain. She liked them less she thought, and yet her feet drew near, and near, and nearer, to where they stood, exhaling their very souls out in delicious perfume. ”I am too young!” came from Paula's lips. ”I will not think of it!” quickly followed. Yet the smile with which she bent over the fragrant blossoms, had an ethereal beauty in it, which was not all unmixed with the

”Light that never was on land or sea, The consecration and the poet's dream.”

”He has asked to be my friend,” murmured she, as she slowly turned away.

”It is enough; it must be enough.” But the blossom she had stolen from the midst of the fragrant collection, seemed to whisper a merry nay, as it nodded against her hand, and afterwards gushed out its sweet life on her pure young breast.

XXIX.

MIST IN THE VALLEY.

”The true beginning of our end.”

--MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM.

Mr. Ensign was not slow in developing his ideas of friends.h.i.+p. Though he did not venture upon repeating his visit too soon, scarcely a week pa.s.sed without bringing to Paula a letter or some other testimonial of his increasing devotion. The blindest eye could not fail to remark whither he was tending. Even Paula was forced to acknowledge to herself that she was on the verge of a flowery incline, that sooner or later would bring her up breathless against the dread alternative of a decided yes or no. Friends.h.i.+p is a wide portal, and sometimes admits love; had it served her traitorously in this?

Her aunt who watched her with secret but lynx-eyed scrutiny, saw no reason to alter the first judgment of that mysterious, ”It is all coming right,” with which she viewed the first symptoms of Paula's girlish appreciation of her lover. If eyes and lips could speak, Paula was happy. The mournful shadows which of late had flitted with more or less persistency over her face, had vanished in a living smile, which if not deep, was cloudlessly radiant; and her voice when not used in speech, was rippling away in song, as glad as a finch's on the mountain side.

Miss Belinda was therefore very much astonished when one day Paula burst into her presence, and flinging herself down on her knees, threw her arms about her waist, crying,

”Take me away, dear aunt, I cannot, dare not stay here another day.”

”Paula, what do you mean?” exclaimed Miss Belinda, holding her back and endeavoring to look into her face. But the young girl gently resisted.

”I have just had a letter from Cicely,” she returned in a low and m.u.f.fled voice. ”She has seen Mr. Sylvester, and says he looks both wan and ill. He told her, too, that he was lonely, and I know what that means; he wants his child. The time has come for me to go back. He said it would, and that I would know when it came. Take me, aunt, take me to Mr. Sylvester.”

Miss Belinda, to whom self-control was one of the cardinal virtues, leaned back in her chair and contemplated the eager, tear-stained face that was now raised to hers, with silent scrutiny. ”Paula,” said she at last, ”is that your only reason for desiring to return to New York?”

A flush, delicate as it was fleeting, swept over the dew of Paula's cheek. She rose to her feet and met her aunt's eye, with a look of gentle dignity. ”No,” said she, ”I wish to test myself. Birds that are prisoned will caress any hand that offers them freedom. I wish to see if the lure holds good when my wings are in mid-heaven.”

There was a dreamy cadence to her voice as she uttered that last phrase, that startled her aunt. ”Paula,” exclaimed she, ”Paula, don't you know your own heart?”

”Who does?” returned Paula; then in a sudden rush of emotion threw herself once more at her aunt's side, saying, ”It is in order to know it, that I ask you to take me away.”

And Miss Belinda, as she smoothed back her darling's locks, was obliged to acknowledge to herself, that time has a way of opening, in the stream of life, unforeseen channels to whose current we perforce must yield, or else hopelessly strand upon the shoals.

BOOK IV.