Part 58 (1/2)
I had written to Adah more than once, and had made out a programme of what we should do when she came to town.
Quite early in the evening I started out to call upon her, but as I drew near the house I saw that a handsome coupe stood before the door, drawn by two horses, and that the coachman was in livery. My steps were speedily arrested, for the door of the dwelling was opened, and Mr.
Hearn came out, accompanied by Adah. They entered the coupe and were driven rapidly toward Fifth Avenue. I gave a long, low whistle, and took two or three turns around the block, muttering, ”Gilbert Hearn, but you are shrewd. If you can't have the best thing in the world, you'll have the next best. Come to think of it, she is the best for you. If this comes about for Adah, I could throw my hat over yonder steeple.”
I went back to the house, proposing to leave my card, and thus show Adah that I was not inattentive. The interior of the dwelling, like its exterior, was plain, but very substantial and elegant. The servant handed my card to a lady pa.s.sing through the hall.
”Oh, thee is Richard Morton?” she said. ”Cousin Ruth and Adah have told us all about thee. Please come in, for I want to make thy acquaintance.
Adah will be so sorry to miss thee. She has gone out for the evening.”
”If she will permit me,” I said, ”I will call to-morrow, on my way downtown, for I wish to see her very much.”
”Do so, by all means. Come whenever thee can, and informally. Thee'll always find a welcome here.”
Before I was aware I had spent an hour in pleasant chat, for with the Yocombs as mutual friends we had common interests.
Mrs. Winfield, my hostess, had all the elegance of Mrs. Bradford; but there was also a simple, friendly heartiness in her manner that stamped every word she spoke with sincerity. I was greatly pleased, and felt that the wealthy banker and his sister could find no fault with Adah's connections.
She greeted me the next morning like the sister she had become in very truth.
”Oh, Richard!” she exclaimed, ”I'm so glad to see thee. Why! thee's so improved I'd hardly know thee. Seems to me thee's grown taller and larger every way.”
”I fear I looked rather small sometimes in the country.”
”No, Richard, thee never looked small to me; but when I think what I was when thee found me, I don't wonder thee went up to thy room in disgust. I've thought a great deal since that day, and I've read some too.”
”If you knew how proud of you I am now, it would turn your head.”
”Perhaps it isn't very strong. So thee's going to eat thy Thanksgiving dinner at home. I shall be well out of the way.”
”You will never be in my way; but perhaps I might have been in somebody's way had I come earlier last night.”
”I thought thee was blind,” she said, an exquisite color coming into her beautiful face.
”Never to your interests, Adah. Count on me to the last drop.”
”Oh, Richard, thee has been so kind and helpful to me. Thee'll never know all that's in my heart. When I think what I was when I first knew thee, I wonder at it all.”
”Adah,” I said, taking her hand, ”you have become a genuine woman. The expression of your face has changed, and it has become a fine example of the truth, that even beauty follows the law of living growth--from within outward. Higher thoughts, n.o.ble principle, and unselfishness are making their impress. After our long separation I see the change distinctly, and I feel it still more. You have won my honest respect, Adah; I predict for you a happy life, and, what is more, you will make others happy. People will be the better for being with you.”
”Well, Richard, now that we are brother and sister, I don't mind telling thee that it was thee who woke me up. I was a fool before thee came.”
”But the true, sweet woman was in your nature ready to be awakened.
Other causes would soon have produced the same effect.”
”Possibly; but I don't know anything about other causes. I do know thee, and I trust thee with my whole heart, and I'm going to talk frankly with thee because I want to ask thy advice. Thee knows how near to death I came. I've thought a great deal about it. Having come so near losing life, I began to think what life meant--what it was--and I was soon made to see how petty and silly my former life had been. My heart just overflowed with grat.i.tude toward thee. When thee was so ill I would often lie awake whole nights thinking and trembling lest thee should die. I felt so strangely, so weak and helpless, that I stretched out my hands to thee, and thy strong hands caught and sustained me through that time when I was neither woman nor child. Thee never humiliated me by even a glance. Thee treated me with a respect that I did not deserve, but which I want to deserve. I am not strong, like Emily Warren, but I am trying to do right. Thee changed a blind impulse into an abiding trust and sisterly affection. Thee may think I'm giving thee a strange proof of my trust. I am going to tell thee something that I've not told any one yet. Last evening Gilbert Hearn took me to see his sister, Mrs. Bradford, and I spent the evening with them and little Adela. Coming home he asked me to be his wife. I was not so very greatly surprised, for he spent every First Day in October at our house while Adela was with us, and he was very attentive to me. Father and mother don't like it very much, but I think they are a little prejudiced against him on thy account. I believe thee will tell me the truth about him.”
”Adah dear, you _have_ honored me greatly. I will advise you just as I would my own sister. What did you answer him last evening?”